In the Field With Wavy Wildboy
Wavy Wildboy, real name Luke Wilhelm Lutterodt, is American rapper, singer, songwriter, ghostwriter and USMC Veteran. He currently resides in Highland, New York.
Wavy Wildboy started making music in middle school when he would watch my brother and his friends' freestyle battle. He eventually wanted to get into battle rap but later figured out that his passion lay with writing complete songs. When his best friend died by suicide, I took on the name he gave me from the group that we had in school called the "Wavy Boyz." The group was made up of friends that would make everything "Wavy" or fun.
Since those humble beginnings, he's been focusing on one goal: to make music for the rest of his life. He has opened up for several prominent artists such as DMX, Coi Leray, and Aaron Knight. Wavy Wildboy has been featured on Finally TV, 2 Humble Productions, Live with ShabazztheOG, and 98.5 radio.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. This interview aired in its entirety on February 8, 2021, on 91.3 FM WVKR. Tune in every Monday at 10 PM EST. Outside the area? Listen via the TuneIn or Simple Radio app by searching WVKR.
Â
Erin Boogie: Where are you from?
Wavy Wildboy: Originally, I'm from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY. I moved up here when I was younger. Like, 12, 13.
Erin Boogie: What was a young Wavy like growing up?
Wavy Wildboy: Young Wavy Wildboy, I was wild. I was extremely wild. That's where the nickname came from. I used to hang out with a group of dudes; we used to hang out and party all the time. Just go to parties and make stuff like super lit, we were the Wavy Boys, and out of the Wavy Boys, like whenever stuff hit the fan, I would go nuts on everybody, so they be like, "damn that boy is wild."
Erin Boogie: So that's where the name came from?
Wavy Wildboy: Originally, yes.
Erin Boogie: Originally? So then what?
Wavy Wildboy: And then what ended up happening was, my best friend died. Out of the Wavy Boys, I was Wild Boy. It wasn't Wavy Wildboy, but my best friend that started the whole thing died in 2014, and I used to go by Luda.
Lady D: So wait, okay, so let's talk about you doing music. When did you start doing music, and who inspires you?
Wavy Wildboy: Alright, well, so it's crazy. I like to sing and stuff like that. I loved to sing. I was in the church choir, school choir, chorus or whatever you call it, and band class. So, I was always musically inclined. But then, like my brother, that's who it was, my brother and his friends used to freestyle rap battle each other, and they were good like they just off the top of their head spat at each other. I used to get tight that I couldn't do it, but then one day they actually came at me, and I'm like I have to do it, and I had nothing to say.
I kinda went in the room; I wrote for like three days straight, and when I came back ready to go. I was like yeah, it's a rap battle y'all. Then they were like nah, we don't want to do that right now, and I'm like you mean to tell me I sat here and wrote all this for nothing!? I was tight, but then I started showing everybody like nah this is what I was going to hit 'em with, and everybody was like, "yo, that's kinda fire bro, like you wrote that!?" I was like yeah, I wrote that! They was like, "alright, you should keep going with that," and I'm like, eventually, every now and then, I'd write a little something-something, get back to it, and then I just started to get good at it. Then it just became like something I was doing every day. Instead of going out and playing with my friends or getting in trouble, I was sitting there writing music, coming up with new stuff all the time. Then I got to do my first show. The video is still out on YouTube; I just saw it the other day. I performed at BOCES, I went to career tech School, and they had a talent show, so all the schools were there. This was like my chance; they were like, "bro, you be rapping, and you be singing like, this is your chance to like get your name out there to let people know you be doing that!" I'm like, you know what, alright, so I signed up and tried to play it off like I wasn't nervous, but in the video, you can clearly see I was nervous. But, they said I had the best performance that day.
Erin Boogie: Did you have as much energy back then performing as you do now? You are kinda known in the area for your energetic performances.
Wavy Wildboy: That's a great question, yo that's, that is where I took my hat off to myself. I patted myself on the back and everything. Watching the energy back then 'til now is willlllddd. It's so day and night. Y'all know how my energy on stage you can't keep me still! I ain't gonna lie, I took a lot of my energy on stage from working closely with Spartacus, shout out Spartakizz.
Lady D: I hope people take notes about that; it's funny that you mention your growth and that you can see it because I'm not the best at following every single thing people are doing all the time, but I go and refresh myself on what you're doing and look at your social media and even just there from the time "Zooted" came out, or probably right before that, from then on, social media was just different. Your pictures look different; there is only high-quality stuff on there. Like what you do, like you just, a switch went off and it stepped up and the marketing, then I see the Wavy Media page whatever step up with the marketing is, the Linktree and everything. I was like, oh okay, what's going on here?
Wavy Wildboy: Def. I'm glad you said that, though. Wavy Media came before Wavy Wildboy's page came back on Instagram, so I was still making music lowkey. I had lost my Instagram; nobody knew. Well, people knew because people hit me up saying I blocked them. I ain't block nobody or if I deleted them. Like nah, I lost my Instagram. So I had to create Wavy Media because I was just building the studio up. I was just trying to get the studio and get my money up and everything like that. So, then I started doing everything with the photography and the videography and the editing, the label making. It was my business partners that got me doing all that craziness. Got me on go like, and then eventually, we once again had to structure everything. I literally had to get a calendar book and everything. They were like, look, you are going to do this on these dates. There is deff a team behind me right now, I'm not doing everything alone; that has def been motivating me and keeping me going. I recently came under new management, shout out to management, shout out to ER Management that I am now a client under. They def pushed me to do a lot more different stuff, like you said. "Zooted 2," by the way, "Zooted" was the first song I had engineered by myself.
Lady D: I know we joke about how beats save a lot of records, but I will say I was listening to it, but I'm like I want to hear him louder, but it was great, cause you said was good, I was just like I wish he was louder than this beat right now.
Wavy Wildboy: And that was the first song I ever engineered. I literally locked myself in here, and I was like, I'm going to learn this sh*t. I went on YouTube University, and I locked in for about a month working on that song, and that was the first song I would say I perfected, I guess. But you know clearly, it still needs more work, so there is a remix coming out to "Zooted." The remix has an artist from my favorite record label on it, which is Billion Dollar Baby Entertainment. So it def got a feature from one of them, and we are waiting for that. The marketing behind that is going to be crazy; it's crazy.
Erin Boogie: I want to know are we getting a video!?
Wavy Wildboy: Yes, we're def getting a video. The video that we getting is for the remix, but the video won't come out until after the album.
Erin Boogie: What kind of vibe can we expect from the album?
Wavy Wildboy: I like to say my artistry is never one direct vibe. I never like to go in one direction because music, I feel like, shouldn't have direction. I feel like it should come from within, whatever you are feeling, so I got records on there about heartbreak. I got records on there about stuff that really happens, like you know me getting robbed. My whole studio getting robbed. My whole studio equipment got robbed.
Erin Boogie: I remember seeing you post about that! That is wild to me! You started out with battle rap, but then you realized that you prefer to write songs. What led to that realization that you were a songwriter and not just a battle rapper?
Wavy Wildboy: There was a song I wrote back in the day, Myspace days; it was on a lot of people's Myspace. We had a Rock Band mic with a sock over it, and we recorded like that on Audacity. We made this song called "I Gave My Heart." It was me and two other dudes; I sang the hook cause I didn't really know much about song structure. They told me I need the chorus, and I was I know songs with choruses, I could do something like that. So I wrote a chorus for it, and then we all had our own little verses on it, and that just became, because of how well that song did, that song got us our first group performance in a club. "I don't know how, but it did. I just figured that's how music should go, and structure really gets to me now. I do run the studio, so when artists come in here without the structure of actually knowing how to break down a song, it bothers me. And me being somebody that was never given the guidance, I had to watch and figure it out; I don't want nobody to figure out the wrong thing because they're in the studio now. They're already paying the money. It's like you figured it out after you paid the money? Nah, you should figure out something at that point, so I try and help out a lot of the younger artists as well, too, with song structure and finding melodies, doing stuff like that.
Erin Boogie: If you could collaborate with anyone, what your dream collab be?
Wavy Wildboy: DaBaby. It would be either DaBaby or Rod Wave.
Erin Boogie: Who are you listening to now? What are your go-to artists?
Wavy Wildboy: Me, DaBaby, Rod Wave. Honestly, I like to listen to a lot of local music.
Erin Boogie: Like who?
Wavy Wildboy: Spartakizz just dropped that song "Fake Love." That was pretty fire. That Boy Tone is fire. He dropped a tape too. Remy Hendrix dropped a tape too, that's fire; I'm still bumping that. Nyasia Chanel, that's always fire, always ear music, that's always good stuff. Yeezy Baby, he low-key right now, but he coming out there. And Drone, Drone 420, he got a voice on him. I got a couple records with him.
Lady D: You did show a whole lot of local love on what you dropped in 2019.
Wavy Wildboy: Yeah, facts.
Lady D: I heard "Zooted" and was like, alright now, like everybody can not come with him.
Wavy Wildboy: Now, the features I'm that I'm stepping out with now are out of this area. I got records with people, a couple of artists in North Carolina, and my boy King Eagle, shout out him in Tennessee. Me and him working heavy and then I got — oh! Shout out my guy Pizzy Piz. He's an artist from the U.K. I'm working with right now.
Erin Boogie: What are some goals you have for yourself at this stage in your career?"
Wavy Wildboy: I deff want to grab more of my crowd this year. I deff want to grab more of a crowd than just the 845. I deff want to branch out a lot more global, as we were just speaking. That's like the main goal is to go global. I need to be in everybody's face; that's why this isn't my first interview. It's like my sixteenth this month because I need to be in everybody's face; everybody needs to know what's up. Wavy Wildboy is doing something.
Erin Boogie: What can we expect next?
Wavy Wildboy: I might drop like one or two more singles before the tape. And my management said that he wants the video for "Angels" by the end of this month so we trying to get on that right now with the storyline behind that is gonna touch in the feels.
Erin Boogie: Anything else you want our listeners to know?
Wavy Wildboy: "Shake Something" on the way. "Zooted," "Angels" out on all platforms, and "Message to Baby Mama" is also out on YouTube and coming to all platforms. Make sure y'all tune in to "Message to Baby Mama." That's the message that I need to get across the world right now with my situation that I am going through.