Ten Questions With Fresh Daily
An interview with The Brooklyn Good Guy.
We’re back with another interview, I hope all is well, I hope we’re talking nice to ourselves and believing in ourselves. I’ve been a fan of Brooklyn’s Fresh Daily since about 2011 when the title track from his sophomore album ‘The Quiet Life’ graced my ears for the first time. Daily’s slick, soothing and sharp delivery has seen his creations permeate over the entire globe. Just a few months ago in May 2025, Fresh Daily dropped his new album ‘These Things Take Time’ with soundscapes provided by French producer Parental. A match made in heaven, the project is easily in my favorite albums of 2025 so far. I had a chance to chat with Fresh Daily to talk about ‘TTTT’, his other creative endeavors, how he linked up with Parental and more. He even takes a second to drop some advice and game for independent artists. I appreciate every single one of you for reading and tuning in, we’ve got more on the way!
Sto: For those who somehow have been sleeping under a rock for the last forever. Who is Fresh Daily?
Fresh Daily: Fresh Daily is an MC and graphic illustrator originally from Brooklyn, New York now residing in Oakland, California. He’s a dad, he’s a husband and a friend to the culture.
Sto: You’ve been in the game for a minute now, can you talk to me about your start in all this?
Fresh Daily: I got my start as a teenager hitting open mics and hip-hop showcases around New York City, building a buzz by rapping anywhere I could. I’d hop on the Megabus to perform in other cities, sharpening my craft, developing my style, and getting comfortable on stage. Things really took off during the blog era, when I made a name for myself as an indie emcee, dropping standout mixtapes and a debut independent album produced by some of the dopest names in hip-hop—DJ Spinna, Illmind, 88-Keys, Ski Beatz, and more. That momentum led to spot dates, tours, and showcases at CMJ, A3C, and SXSW—and eventually, two tours in Europe.
Sto: Before we get into the nitty gritty of why you’re here I want to ask about your pace of releasing. Nowadays there’s so many people telling artists that you must every single month if not week, you have to drop an album every year if not every other year. However you’ve taken your time with each of your albums, ‘The Quiet Life 2’ came out A DECADE after your last album. Can you talk to me about why that’s ok and maybe why artists shouldn’t pressure themselves to release so much?
Fresh Daily: Yeah, so I wish I had some deep, introspective reason for why there was such a long gap between my 2012 album The Brooklyn Good Guy and 2021’s The Quiet Life 2 . But honestly? The simple answer is that, as a polymath, I shifted my focus from one creative endeavor to another. I have severe ADD, and splitting my attention has always been a challenge.
In 2013, I launched an event series for producers and beatmakers called Beat Haus. It started out super DIY, but then Converse came on as a sponsor, and the whole thing grew into a full-on platform that demanded a lot of my time and energy. And if I’m being real, while Fresh Daily was gaining traction on blogs and getting featured in places like XXL, Mike Richardson—the person—was struggling. Bills were piling up, and I was just trying to survive. I found myself rapping about rapping, caught in a scarcity mindset, stuck in the grind.
So when the opportunity came to move to California for a better job and an overall higher quality of life, I dropped everything. I embraced the change, fully aware that change is the only constant. To quote Drake: “Nothing was the same.” California brought a level of personal growth I probably couldn’t have achieved in New York—or at least not in the same amount of time, and definitely not in the same environment. I’m a big believer in doing things right, not just doing them right now. There’s a lot of pressure to be constantly dropping music—you see artists with “dump series” and monthly mixtapes—but real, worthwhile work takes time. Nothing happens in a vacuum; context matters.
Living life, letting it unfold, and weaving that experience into your art makes for something honest. Think about it: in high school and college—those eight formative years—you discover so much music, and your tastes evolve drastically. I took nine years away from releasing music consistently to focus on my event series, my art, and just living. For all intents and purposes, when I returned, I was a new artist.
Sometimes I wonder if that creative hiatus hurt me as a musician. But then I remember—I am the wellspring. It all flows from me, whether that’s now or four years from now.
Sto: ‘These Things Take Time’ is out now, the combination of yourself and Parental is perfection, your soothing and sharp flow mixed with Parental’s jazzy yet still hard-hitting production has had this on repeat since release. How did yourself and Parental link up?
Fresh Daily: The hip-hop I gravitate toward—both as a listener and an artist—tends to fall into three main categories. First, there's my foundation: classic East Coast boom-bap—lyrical, often driven by breakbeats and ominous basslines. Second, I love conscious, feel-good hip-hop rooted in jazz, neo-soul, and lo-fi textures. And third, I’m drawn to the Dilla and post-Dilla-influenced sound of the L.A. beat scene—electronic-leaning, with glitchy, unquantized drums, slinky basslines, and the occasional house tempo. In short, the soundscape of the old Okayplayer forums. So, because my taste in hip-hop completely sidesteps the typical American rap radio zeitgeist, my music tends to resonate most with balding backpack rap fans, indie music nerds, and listeners in the UK and Europe. European producers hit me up often, but sometimes their beats sound a little too dated for my taste. When Parental sent me some music for a potential collab, it immediately reminded me of Pete Rock’s Petestrumentals Vol. 1—and it took me straight back to 2001, when I first started taking rap seriously. I played that CD to death—freestyling, writing, and just looping it nonstop. That wave of nostalgia created a doorway for collaboration. I hadn’t known Parental before, but the music he sent was so dope and evocative that I got excited.
The songs started pouring out of me. And when I’d hit a block, I’d dig into my Gmail drafts—unfinished verses, stray bars, song ideas with no home—and suddenly, an entire album started forming.
Here’s a little-known secret about working with me for free: I don’t record at home—I only record in a professional studio with an engineer. If I like someone’s work and want to collaborate, I won’t charge them for a verse—I just ask them to cover the studio session. That’s how I gauge who’s serious. If they’re really invested in the collab, they’ll make it happen.
I asked Parental to cover the cost of a session to record a single verse for a track he was working on with another emcee—maybe one other song. I left that session with five songs. He wasn’t expecting that, but he loved the results. So we decided: let’s do a full project together.
We worked on it from the end of 2022 to 2024, sending files back and forth over email and locking in across six studio sessions.
Sto: What was the idea behind this album, because I’m going to be honest I was afraid I’d have to wait another 5+ years for a track let alone a few length album. What motivated this release?
Fresh Daily: Well, I did release SOME music—The Quiet Life 2 came out in 2021, followed by a three-song EP called Vintage Thrift Score in 2022. Parental sent me these beats in 2023, and I wrapped up the full project in 2024—guest features, DJ scratches, mixing, mastering, all of it.
I’m fully aware of my slow, deliberate process and the gaps between releases—I even mention it a few times on this album. But honestly, these things take time. It’s something I find myself saying more and more in life, not just about music. It’s a message to anyone waiting on new art from me: it’s coming, but I’m crafting it carefully.
The phrase “these things” is intentional—it implies quality. The idea is: See? I’m really cooking here. This isn’t fast food.
Sto: What’s your favorite track on ‘TTTT’?
Fresh Daily: Man, that’s a tough one—but I’d say I have three favorites. The title track, of course. I really love “Back At It,” and I have a special place in my heart for “Glowed Up.” I actually started writing parts of “Glowed Up” back in 2018 and updated it in 2023—and wow, life really came full circle. That song was originally meant to be a bonus track because I wrote it for myself and to myself. I didn’t think it would resonate with anyone else. But surprisingly, a lot of people have told me it’s their favorite.
Honorable mention: On every album, I try to include one longform, really “rappity rap” verse over a hard but minimal beat. “Gone Off” is that track for this project—and it’s honestly too good not to mention.
Sto: You’re not just a rapper, you have your hand in a number of different creative fields. Can you talk to me about that?
Fresh Daily: I’m an illustrator and graphic designer, and almost every flyer, album cover, and mixtape cover you’ve seen from me—I designed myself. Art has been my first love since childhood, but music became the creative outlet that felt more immediately satisfying. It allowed me to reach a wider audience with less manual labor than visual art often requires.
One of the best parts of being both a visual artist and a musician is that I don’t have to rely on anyone else to visually represent my sound—I can fully control how my music looks and feels. I also run a clothing brand called Very Relaxed, which focuses on high-quality, small-batch garments and promotes small luxuries as a form of self-care.
Sto: I try to ask every artist this but can you give artists that are just starting out a few tips on how to find their lane and be successful as an independent artist?
Fresh Daily: I think the internet—and especially the rise of social media—has pushed a lot of people to chase viral moments instead of focusing on the craft and putting in the hours it takes to create something timeless, something with real replay value. Technology has made it incredibly easy to make things, but that doesn’t automatically make someone a creator. You’ve got to be honest with yourself and ask: Why do I create? What’s my legacy? What am I offering the world?
Once you have those answers, the next step is to refine your work—however long that takes. When you finally land on something that feels right, looks right, and sounds right, the real challenge becomes doing it again—at that same level of quality or better. And that takes time.
I’m also a big advocate for finding a producer whose sound you love and who believes in your vision. Lock in and build something together.
My rap name is Fresh Daily, and that name reflects what I believe is the cornerstone of any successful brand: quality control and consistency. “Fresh” represents the quality, and “Daily” represents the consistency.
Now, I wouldn’t recommend taking nine years between projects like I did—lol—but I do believe that whatever rhythm you find, your consistency should always reflect quality.
Sto: Anything I missed? Where can the people find you?
Fresh Daily: I’m online on most social platforms as Fresh DOT Daily (@freshdotdaily), however, my name is not “FreshdotDaily” lol. And the link is in my bio.
https://freshdaily.godaddysites.com