Born For More

How it started

Born For More started without a plan. The first songs, like “Glory” and “Go Away”, were instrumentals I made for fun while I was still working on Spacewalk. I wasn’t trying to make a rap album or a concept album. But the tracks piled up, and a story started to take shape.

My first idea was an egomaniac who learns some humility and ends up grounded. It felt forced, so I flipped it: he rises, and then he collapses. I tried to stick to my old rule of seven songs per album, but seven wasn’t nearly enough for that story, so I doubled it. Some tracks existed before the concept (“Project 1”, “Glory”, “Go Away”). Others I made for a specific job: “Famous” as the intro, “Bye Bye” as the breakout, “Orbit” as the pause.

The character and me

The first part is probably the closest to me. “Famous”, “Little Leak” and “Glory” come from my own doubts and from wanting more, like wondering whether a white guy from Germany has any business in rap. Then it drifts into fiction. The character gets bigger than life, and by the end he’s someone you wouldn’t recognise, lost in ego and self-destruction.

The best song on the album is probably “Silver Lining”. It’s the peak, one perfect day where everything clicks. But even there the bridge hints that it won’t last, and the collapse follows.

Sound

I wasn’t chasing influences on purpose, but they’re there. At the end of 2024 I listened to a lot of Kanye, and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy really got me. It shaped how big I wanted this to be, and the cover is an obvious homage. Beyond that, every song got to have its own world: “Little Leak” with 90s east-coast production, “Temptation” with The Prodigy’s abrasive energy, “Project 1” with Yeezus-like synths.

I mostly did beats first and lyrics after. The hardest one to finish was “October”: the drum loop has a really loud cymbal that drove me insane. Once the mix came together, it became one of my favourites. Then again, every song on the album is my favourite song, to be honest.

Looking back

It’s the first time I built something this ambitious and actually pulled it off. Every track has a reason to be there, and the production is way ahead of my earlier stuff. There are things I’d fix if I opened the sessions again, but as a whole it’s the best thing I’ve made. Hopefully it doesn’t mirror my own future too closely. Though I wouldn’t mind the penthouse.