No one could’ve predicated how different Labrinth’s world would become when he and I first spoke on a Zoom call a few months ago. The musician was about to release his latest album Cosmic Opera Act I and was a couple months away from the season three premiere of Euphoria, the Sam Levinson-created HBO show that propelled him into mainstream success as his moody score became synonymous with the show.
Before the interview could publish, he would share that infamous, incendiary Instagram post calling out the show, his record label and the entertainment business as a whole. “I’m done with this industry. Fuck Columbia [Records]. Double fuck Euphoria,” Labrinth wrote in his since-deleted post, garnering some words of support from other musicians. “I’m out. Thank you and good night x.”
At the time of our original conversation, Labrinth was set to collaborate with Hans Zimmer for the third and final season of the show, which concluded this week. It was later revealed that he wouldn’t be involved in the season, and Zimmer was left to work on the score by himself. Before he’d thrown down the gauntlet, Labrinth already seemed to be of the mindset that composing wasn’t necessarily his long game.
“Do you know what? I didn’t ask to be a composer, I love making music,” he told The Hollywood Reporter at the time. “Euphoria‘s been fun for me, and I’ve had offers to do other things for composition and stuff, and I found that I’m not Hans Zimmer, in that I can’t just work on any project. … With this season… I think they need Hans Zimmer’s structure and Hans Zimmer’s sensibility, and then wherever they need me, I can add. That’s how I see it.”
Regarding the subsequent fallout, Labrinth recently followed up in a brief email conversation through his label representative, where he wrote that “I said everything I have to say about that situation,” adding, “Now, I’m focused on my album and upcoming tour.”
Last week, he released his latest album, Cosmic Opera Act II, a follow-up to Cosmic Opera Act I. Throughout the creation process, he’d found himself learning more about what he wanted both out of life and his career.
“In the music industry, you can get on this monotonous mission of, ‘I must achieve all of these things. I must become this thing,’” the 37-year-old told THR on that initial Zoom. The producer and musician had, at the time, been promoting his first album of the series, working on the second and preparing for Coachella.
Labrinth believes one has to go to the source of the things that create insecurity, pride or imposter syndrome. “Sometimes that’s not even your own mission, it’s not even your own goal, it’s given to you by your environment,” he said. “[These albums were] for me to just create something that reminds me of what it takes to heal.”
Admittedly, the business part of the artist equation is what gets complicated. “Maybe the album makes sense from that point of view,” Labrinth said. “[We] were all kids in a bedroom playing with toys, and then that kid gets taken out of the house and told, ‘Go and make money out of that playtime you just had.”
“We’re in a world of streaming now and we’re in a landscape where there isn’t really a funnel anymore. Literally, everyone’s on the same playing field,” he continues. “A guy in his bedroom could become number one all over the world just by working with his friends and chilling right beside me or someone who spent 20 years working on their career. Beyonce is competing with a kid in their bedroom right now.”
On both Cosmic Opera Act I and Act II, Labrinth used the tracks to comment on what he’s feeling in the moment — “Prostitution” from Act II among them.
“Prostitute is what it can feel like to be an artist in an industry sometimes,” Labrinth said in his recent email.
For Labrinth, Cosmic Opera was a particularly difficult process. His laptop broke, which forced him to remake records. He also found the room he was working out of to be “really weird” and gave him the “wrong perspective” on it, so he remixed.
“Perfectionism was a demon that I needed to sit with,” he said. “The idea of having to sit with that imperfection was challenging for me, and that’s why I feel like this album’s been important for me creatively.”
Labrinth has found that despite having a sonic style, it wasn’t always enough. “I’ve always found that I’ve never really had a home,” he said. “I have a style, but I’ve never really had a home. It’s been a gift and a curse.”
Keeping that in mind, Labrinth worked to create cohesiveness on Cosmic Opera, while remaining layered. The musician finds himself drawn to artists that, even if things don’t hit, were willing to stretch or try. He’s found that’s his personal purpose as an artist is to explore. While the technical elements of the album were something to overcome, Labrinth’s never been worried about the creative.
As he said: “Music’s actually really easy for me to make.”
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