If you haven’t heard of Barely Legal yet, buckle up! This independent four-piece Hip Hop/R&B group has had a meteoric rise, with an impressive 4.6 million streams and amassing over 787K monthly listeners. The group’s origins trace back to their teenage years in Tampa, Florida, where these four young artists came together and started making rap, beats, trap, and R&B songs. Since 2019, they have released two full albums and an EP, and a third full album – Barely Legal Tapes Volume Two – coming out this month.

Barely Legal’s live shows consistently draw crowds of 200 to 700+ audience members. They have secured coveted performance spots at the Rolling Loud Hip Hop Festival in three different cities. Notably, they are set to take the stage at the upcoming Rolling Loud event in Miami on July 22nd.

Recently, Vents Magazine had the opportunity to sit down with Kid Dre, one of the members of Barely Legal, to discuss the band’s history and their creative process in producing their highly anticipated third full album, Barely Legal Tapes Volume Two. Read the interview and check out their latest music video, “ChaChaSlide,” below.

Congratulations on your success so far! You’ve been together as a band since 2019. How has the journey been so far as an independent hip hop/R&B group trying to stand out? What have been your biggest challenges and biggest successes?

I’d say the journey has been tough but not in the way you would think. We’re all pretty much having fun and it’s not hard for us to stand out. I truly believe we’re the most unique diverse group ever seen, but the issues are really being accepted as being diverse and unique. There’s no real unity within the communities for up and coming artists so it’s us against the world. But our biggest success was cracking the code and realizing how to have fun doing this shit.

Who were your biggest music influences that drove you pursue music as a career?

My biggest influence was for sure Tyler, The Creator, Sir Baudelaire Bunny Hop himself. I’ve listened to him and idolized him since I was 9 and I feel like I’ve grown up watching him grow up so it makes me feel like we’re the same nigga.

You’ve released 2 albums and 1 EP prior. How is your upcoming album, Barely Legal Tapes Vol 2, different from your previous releases?

I would say the difference between this upcoming album versus the ones in the past is that this is a more evolved sound than the ones prior to this album. It’s called BARELY LEGAL Tapes Volume Two, meaning that it’s a follow up to a volume one but what we are going to try to emphasize is that in this album is the growth from when we dropped it when we were kids to dropping it now that we’re grown. The lyrics, the production, the skits, the mixing – everything is just going to sound and feel better.

With all four of you coming with different backgrounds and skill sets, what is the creative process like when writing and recording music?

The creative process is just like chilling with your friends. There isn’t some sort of quadratic formula into making songs together. We’re just sitting back letting a beat play on loop. We all write different things and whoever finishes first says I have this idea then we all just start adding on from there and 10 times out of 10, the shit we come up with is dope as hell.

With this year being the 50th Anniversary of Hip Hop music, what does it mean to you as young hip hop artists picking up the torch for the new generation?

I wanna pick up that torch and run a fucking triathlon with that shit. I feel honored knowing that I am part of a legacy that’s been running for years and I hope that we don’t fuck this up. It’s a lot of pressure but knowing that we’re trying to do something different. Also makes me hopeful for hip-hop as well, especially seeing people like us branch Hip-hop into different areas never seen before.

What’s next for Barely Legal?

World Domination

Watch Barely Legal’s music video for “ChaChaSlide”, featuring Jay Browne.