Chris DeLine

Singled Out is a feature focusing on the stories behind a song, as told by the artists who made it. In this edition, Wxlley discusses the origins of the track “Bussin” and the purpose behind its creation, noting that he used it as a way to check in with himself to see if he could remain creative without the inclusion of substances in his process.

The song was written at the tail end of October 2022 and I was in a really bad state of mind. I feel like I had just been binging on my drug habits, you know? Like it had gotten to a point where it was becoming a coping mechanism for me, and it was doing more bad than good. And it was to the point that I couldn’t even write music anymore. I had depended on weed, or whatever, to help me write and I did that so much to the point where it made me stupid and I didn’t have the ability to write anymore. It got to the point where I felt like I couldn’t write a song, I couldn’t do anything musically or artistically if drugs weren’t involved. And I had reached a point where I had to stop doing drugs, essentially. This song was, kind of, me testing myself to see if I could still do it.

I originally had no intention on releasing the song. Like, again, it was me testing myself to see if I still have the ability to write something good without the influence of weed or alcohol. So that was the first song I had written sober in months, honestly, maybe a year. So I had it for a while, obviously, and I was just working on mixing it, things like that. And I showed it to a couple of friends of mine and they were all like, “Bro, this is hard! This is crazy. Like, you need to release this.” I just never had the intention of releasing it, but after some convincing and then we shot a video for it, and I was like, “Okay, well, there’s no way we can’t release this. We have to do it now.” And especially ’cause I was starting to perform it, and I was performing it to get people’s reaction to it, to let me know if I wanted to release it or not, or if it would get good reception if I did release it. So that definitely helped sway me a little bit.

Overall I’m just proud of the song and I’m proud of it because of what it represents. And I’m proud that I was able to prove that to myself. All the likes, all the comments, all the nice things people are saying about it and about the video is really just kind of validation in a way that like, “Yes, I can still make good music and I don’t need drugs and I never needed drugs.” You know? So all the good comments and everything, it’s just saying that even more for me. 

For more from Wxlley, follow him via Instagram and Facebook, and stream “Bussin” via Apple Music and Spotify.

[This article was originally published by villin.]