There’s no doubt you’ve heard of Chicago-based producer Oddcouple, aka Zach Henderson, so you already know he’s been there, done that. Late-night studio sessions and the kind of private parties you only see on celebrity Instagram stories? Yup. Worked with Jamila Woods? They are real-life best friends. Has he worked with Chance the Rapper, you ask? They started collaborating when he was still making demos about high school suspension. Noname? Well, that’s an obvious answer. Signed to a cool record label? Glad you asked because that’s how I met the 6’ 6” gentle giant in the first place, during what’s been described as Chicago’s rap renaissance in 2015.
As a photographer sitting in on said studio sessions, it was my job to take cool photos of him working the controls back when we were both working for Closed Sessions, an independent hip-hop label in Chicago. I remember days spent in the studio and nights out on the town with the whole city whispering his name as we attended event after event. You get the gist. I felt cool just to be in this dude’s presence, especially because his class clown attitude and big smile never faltered despite my naivety at my first big girl job. After all these years of friendship, I still get a little starstruck, if I’m being honest. Name any artist from Chicago, or the whole Midwest for that matter, and Oddcouple hasn’t just worked with them but he can probably explain the reason behind every reference their spitting out or what string instrument samples they like the best.
Oddcouple will be the first one to tell you that everything I just described wasn’t real. The clout, the success, the Pitchfork reviews, the Fader premieres. Just a bunch of noise. When he had that epiphany, it all came crashing down for a while. He hit bottom and became a regular dude, DoorDash driving and all. Hell, I didn’t even hear from him anymore and this was after weekly deli sandwiches shared through late-night studio sessions together with a bunch of rappers. And then in a search for happiness again after depression and burnout, the real reason why he’s making beats all day came into focus. It wasn’t about music for others and getting a check, it was about making music for himself. Purely for his personal expression. And once he did that, the goals changed and so did the vision. He became focused. It wasn’t about the scene anymore, and this is coming from the guy who pumped out the hit “Morning Sex” by Joey Purp in his first-ever legitimate artist session. It was about bigger goals. And by bigger, I obviously mean Oprah.
After a full four years hiatus and a stretch where he held a full-time job in tech, he’s back with a complete studio album, Reflections, like he never left the booth. And forget working with random rappers these days, as this album was essentially therapy for Oddcouple. Everything that runs through it is solely for his own growth and his friends and collaborators, like fellow Closed Sessions alumni Kweku Collins and theMind, who saw him fall down and get back up. It’s vibey with some strong R&B vocalists. It’s about emotions, not the pursuit of sounding cool. Some may call it a comeback, but this ain’t that. This is the real performance for Oddcouple. No clout-chasing hits, just pure focus. Even though I’ve known OddCouple for years, nothing could have prepared me for this conversation. After stepping away from the scene and getting lost, he knows who he is now and he’d like to re-introduce himself.
ALLISON GRETCHKO: What have you been up to? The last thing I really heard from you as an artist was Liberation. What have you been doing since then?
ODDCOUPLE: Liberation came out and it was really dope. After that dropped, I realized I was getting older and growing into my own and I just took time to refocus my head. I was going so fucking fast making that project, working a 40-hour a week job during that, too. Two careers. I realized, wait a minute, “Are you happy? Are you making music you wanna make? Do you want to keep this up?” I felt like the universe is telling you that you need to refocus and make some music. The whole time I was just working on individual records and writing, really getting better at writing songs, really getting better at making music for an idea and finishing with that idea instead of just making something cool. When I started doing that, things started clicking musically, sonically. Found my vision.
Like a real professional creative. Very stable.
I had a full-time career and full-time music. You’re going 100 miles an hour, you’re gonna crash. So I just throttled it back for a second and figured out how to really aim my energy. It starts with you being happy inside. Otherwise, that’s why you do a lot of shit.
As a creative, I think that’s what you really have to do. I think people forget that in the conversation. You have to focus. You have to be balanced. You can’t be running around all the time. You’ll burn out.
It’s like you’re out and you think that you’re networking, and you don’t even realize that you’re just there to get fucked up. It got to a point where I couldn’t focus musically. I was making a song but I couldn’t finish it. It forced me to realize you have to focus your energy. Sometimes you gotta aim.
So you focused on yourself, your aim. Now you’re working with Oprah! What has that been like?
It’s exactly the situation that I manifested. I’d been working with her team on and off musically through my girlfriend. One day, Oprah did a Canada tour and they needed a mix for some walk or something. So I sent them two tapes and they needed just one. Then I was like, “Alright you guys need 60 minutes, here’s 90.” I make beats. I write records. I’ve been focusing. I’ve been aiming. This is professionally what I do and I treat it like that. I have different lights that I turn on when I’m making beats in my house. I only sit in certain places. I don’t watch anything on my laptop. I separate that shit. In my head, this is a lot of shit I’m sending over. I wonder how I’m gonna get paid. I have been broke as hell in the past year or two trying to be a professional creative full-time. I even drove for Doordash last year. So, I’m like this might be two months rent, we about to get it! Soon, I went to her show and I got to take my mom. Oprah is like a row behind me, and we haven’t even met yet, but she’s like “We’re dancing!” After that, I get backstage and I’m introducing myself to Oprah, telling her I did the music, and I get to introduce Oprah to my mom. When you get to that moment, and you get to put the most amazing look on your mom’s face, that was the craziest shit of my life. She got to meet the Mr. Miyagi of being a Black woman.
You’re checking all this stuff off of your bucket list. What are you going to add to your bucket list now?
Before I was aiming sporadically, but really low. Seeking validation from others, which always has you aiming low. It always has you aiming to do something that somebody else did. You’re supposed to live by consistently pushing yourself and really getting the most out of yourself when other people are around you. That’s what I’m trying to do. I got my song in a movie, dope. I’m trying to score a movie now. That’s one thing that working on this Oprah tour taught me. I set my goal and then I let it go and started focusing on myself and lo and behold, I got what I wanted. All this other stuff that came with it was just because I was aiming.
Go bigger.
Ya. That’s my thing. I’m trying to go big, but keep it intimate.
You’re not trying to get lost in it and you’ve already worked with everyone in Chicago, been in the scene. So tell me about Reflections, your first project in four years.
It’s pretty much summarizing my life and things that I’ve realized over the past four years. I spent a lot of that time alone, depressed and in the crib for a solid six months. I did not hang out with anybody. I was in a terrible space. Nothing made me happy. I started to think about what made me happy? I had all these questions and I would write the question down and then write the answer. A lot of these questions turned into song titles. It turned into this full album which I wrote line by line with each artist. It’s taken three years. About $1,500 in therapy. A lot more money and weed. A lot of prayers. This is gonna be the first project that I own where I have my business set up right, where I can move it the way I want, and in an age where I don’t care who premiers it. I got songs with Jamila Woods, theMind, Kweku Collins, Elijah Blake, a lot of really dope singers. It’s really vibey and R&B-based, but still hard. Just trying to emote all the things I’ve learned and developed and experienced in the past couple of years in this body of work. You can tell the people I’ve been working with, I’m friends with them. They know what my life has been like over the past couple of years. They know in Chicago, it’s no secret, I thought I was out of here. Everybody thought I was out of here. The universe had different things in store for me. So it’s amazing that I can put this second wind into words.
Evolving.
This is literally the evolution of me into what I want to be. Coming into my own. I think you take a lot of shit for granted when it just happens in front of your face, but when it passes and you’re looking at it through the rearview, you’re like damn I should have had more fun with that. Now, I’m in a space I’m having a blast with every single little thing. Trying to be focused and also bring as much energy to the situation as I can. I think it’s paying off.
Seems like it, you’ve been doing a ton.
You’d think doing a tour for Weightwatchers doesn’t sound like the coolest thing in the fucking world, but then you think about it. It’s huge arenas, it’s a company that is about wellness and health. I go to these shows, I’m learning shit, I’m feeling better, this is cool. Had to look in the mirror and be like, “You define cool to you.” Why am I worried about somebody who I don’t hang out with and care what they think? I know what cool is and that’s what I’m trying to do.
Push past the hype. Do what really matters to you.
Exactly. What are your fucking values? What is worth what? You start to realize, I was valuing some shit that did not matter. I said I wanted to play this festival, do this show, and have a video premiere on this site, blah blah blah. What does that do? That’s just exposure. I’m trying to raise the floor for me and the people around me instead of like, “Sky’s the limit.” Why don’t we worry about raising that floor and make sure that all the things that we’re doing are stable and in a good place? Reflections has really helped me realize and focus on that shit. Three years ago, would I be here? Hell, no. Because I wasn’t reliable. By dropping a lot of shit, you pick up a lot of shit.
Making space for it.
Make space to grow. Drop the clout. Who gives a shit. What am I focused on here really? Having had years going completely broke, being completely depressed, having been what I thought was on top, being in a situation now where it’s actually like you’re not on top but I’m around and doing stuff I can’t even see the scope of until later. I just fucking did this, like 18,000 people cheering on a drop that I made exactly when I wanted these people to cheer and they did! Cool to look at the rest of your life and be like, “I know how to aim.”
I can’t wait for the rest of the world to hear Reflections.
It’s swaggy. It’s out of the box, but there’s control. I’m really focusing on the strings, doing some creepy sounds in the back, and cutting rifts of vocals early. It’s called Reflections because it’s all based on the things that I’ve thought about in dark moments and great moments. Just thinking about the emotions that got me here and what I can take with me going forward. There are negative things you have to take with you going forward. There’s loss and mourning you have to take with you because that shit pushes you. There’s a record called “How Many Angels” featuring Jack Red and it’s like how many angels do I have to meet to get home? The idea that these people or things that die are actually angels watching over you because everything happens for a reason. They are pushing you to where you have to go. It’s a bittersweet thing. It’s a record that’s really trying to dive deep into the concept of loss and moving forward. There’s a part with these heavy synths that sound like someone crying, it’s surreal. I want anybody who listens to it to feel these emotions.
You’ve talked a lot about aim and focus, is that the same advice you would give to young people making music today?
Yes, for a young musician, set your goals, but set it and forget it. Do what makes you happy and you will end up at your goals as long as you’re really focusing on what makes you happy. Focus on making music and doing dope shit to propel forward. That’s what that shit’s about, the music is just the story of evolution. This music is life. Just keep growing, keep aiming, keep focusing, and then you will get exactly where you wanted to get when you were 15-years-old.
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