BACKSTORY: First gaining a following as a cerebral, philosophically inclined rap wunderkind, Watson has evolved into one of the game’s most consistently innovative spitters
FROM: Born in St. Louis, raised in Florida
YOU MIGHT KNOW HIM FROM: His appearance on Dua Saleh’s “Pearls,” the rework of Glass Animals’ “Gooey,” or his breakthrough single “Phantom”
NOW: Watson has left Florida for suburban Atlanta where he created his latest opus, Fish Don’t Climb Trees—out this week via POW Recordings
A decade into his career, Chester Watson has found the pocket. That’s not to suggest that when he raps—his flow landing somewhere between MF DOOM’s unpredictability and Earl Sweatshirt’s formal and technical brilliance—he dances around the beat. Rather, he has a stellar ability to manipulate his words around the beats he and his tight-knit crew of collaborators create. The pocket Chester has found, he explains to me, is a flowstate.
Over the course of his career (which began when he was 15), Watson has found a wide audience of passionate rap heads and a brilliant group of co-conspirators like his fellow Florida-born compatriot Kent Loon and Minnesota-based Dua Saleh. But it took Watson removing himself from the world he built and into the suburbs around Atlanta to discover a truly blissful way of working. Out of the city and away from any preconceived notion or habit he had fallen into while creating rap music, Watson finds himself revitalized and with a new vigor as he approaches the next chapter of his career.
On his new album Fish Don’t Climb Trees, Watson’s flow remains as silky as ever. The looped beats are suffocated in dust and more tripped-out than ever before. But his philosophy, his development of a personal aesthetic and approach, is vastly different than it is on any work he put out before. “Vibing out here, creating a pocket and rhythm in which I can feel comfortable, has changed everything for me,” says Watson over Zoom. “Not necessarily comfortable in the sense of, like, I’m settling back, but I became a well oiled machine. I got really efficient with how I manage time and how I manage my responsibilities.”
“Creating a pocket and rhythm in which I can feel comfortable has changed everything for me... I became a well oiled machine.”
It’s easy to forget when listening to his wickedly clever couplets and mature musings, but Watson is still in his mid-twenties. Everything he knows about the music industry was built off the basis of information he began accruing before he could drive a car. His development has been equally indebted to his experience in the game as it is a rare introspection and a steady desire to improve as a person and artist. On “Money Love,” Watson examines his relationship with both in a way that illuminates this constant search for growth. “How can you be conscious without morality,” he asks on the track, before adding, “Money and love, two things I’m battling.” He notes how they hold their own gravity, which leads him to his conclusion: “Rarely do they exist simultaneously.”
It’s simple on its face but, upon further examination, is the sort of idea that lingers long after the album ends. It’s also of a part with the title of the record itself, which is a riff on a famous quote largely attributed to Albert Einstein and a guiding light of sorts for this record. The statement of dubious origins goes like this: “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
photo by Vash Noir
“I’ve always seen myself as a visionary whose vision people can actually believe in, and it’s not made from anything fabricated. It’s a real vision... It’s flawed, but it’s real.”
When I speak with Watson, he focuses on the first part of that phrase, namely, that everyone’s a genius. It speaks to his leadership qualities both among his loose music collective and in his family. “Most visionaries intrinsically or consequently become the leaders of the people around them because they’re the ones with the strongest vision, they’re the ones with the biggest insight, the biggest peripheral on the whole scene,” he explains. Genius isn’t always in the things you say or the way you act—it’s in witnessing the things that others can do that make you better. For Chester, he tells stories that people can relate to, and, hopefully, that can improve peoples’ lives in a spiritual way.
Watson credits his popularity to this relatability and his fans’ willingness to see something they aspire to in his words. “I've always seen myself as a leader because I’ve always seen myself as a visionary whose vision people can actually believe in, and it’s not made from anything fabricated. It’s a real vision,” he says, before adding an addendum: “It’s not perfect. It’s flawed, but it’s real. A lot of people can’t claim that as their own, and that’s why a lot of people tap into what I got to say.”
“I want this album to be something that people grow with, ultimately. I want this to be something that people can relate to now, but throughout their life.”
This is a style that Watson has spent his career developing, and on Fish Don’t Climb Trees he’s reached a new apex. Previous releases like 2021’s 1997 and 2020’s A Japanese Horror Film were both brilliant in their heady conceptual framework and masterful execution, but here, Chester breaks his own rules. He dives deep into his own history, leaning on his own memories and experiences as a young Black man in America to inform this album. “I want this album to be something that people grow with, ultimately. I want this to be something that people can relate to now, but throughout their life.”
It’s an idea in line with the philosophical bent of the record: that music exists in its moment, but the best work spans infinitely, changing as its listeners do. With Fish Don’t Climb Trees, Chester Watson makes an album that sounds different today than it did yesterday, and one that will grow as the sun rises tomorrow. FL
