For his first full-length body of work since 2019’s God Decides, singer-songwriter and producer Tellaman embraces his playful side. “Before I dropped God Decides, I used to really, really care about what the next person has to say about me, what their opinions were,” he tells Apple Music. “Now, I really do don't care for it. I am who I am; I like what I like. I make music the way that I make it. If you like it, it's cool. If you don't like it, it's still cool to me. That's where I am right now. Also, that goes for my personal or my private life also. It’s about keeping it real with the people that I love and ignoring the bulls**t, really. I tried my best to not dwell on the deep stuff on this tape. I just wanted to have fun.” It’s an idea encapsulated in the project’s title: “Good Regardless simply means we're good this side, regardless of what's going on out there,” he explains. “I'm still good, with or without you. I've lost some people, gained some people, but we're still out here, still moving.” The multidisciplinary artist took a mixtape approach to Good Regardless, which gave Tellaman (Thelumusa Samuel Owen) the freedom to experiment with different sounds and lighthearted moods while sharpening his production chops. Here, he breaks down the project, track by track. “Troublesome” “‘Troublesome’ is about a guy who's admitting that he is troublesome to a girl. It’s a situation where he's telling the girl not to panic, not to leave, to relax. All the things that she hears outside through the grapevine, they're not true—even though some of them are true. Obviously a guy's going to lie at the end of the day, and try to sort his thing out.” “LM4M” “I'm part of a production duo called Select Play, which a production duo—it's me and Lastee. We were listening to ‘Love Me For Me’ by Jamali, so we thought it would be cool to sample it and give it a young new-age twist to it. The sample came at the perfect time, because I was going through a period where I was questioning a lot of people that were in my life when we made this song, like what their true intentions really were at the time. Because you can have people around you, and think they’re riding-or-dying. But no, that's not really the case. If I wasn't doing what I'm doing, or in the position that I'm in, would you still ride for me the way you claim? Lastee actually started working on a sample way before I hopped onto the process, and then from there, we finished up the beat and then I started writing. [It was important to be] able to put my fan base on to the people that did it before us.” “Baby Girl” (feat. Dj KillaMo) “It was so random. It was just one of those situations where melodies came to my head and then I started saying words, really. And then it was only when I was listening back to the song that, okay, this song is literally about just uplifting girls in a way. It doesn't matter the colour, the size, beauty, and all of that stuff. Just appreciating girls really for what they are and who they are really. It wasn't serious at all. Even the way the song is written, it's really simple and straightforward.” “Hush” (feat. crownedYung & Lastee) “The beat is done by LD from Ktown. Hush is about basically just keeping your business private or on the low. Whichever person you are in a relationship with or you're doing things with, nobody has to really know. I think it goes both ways, for a serious relationship or [if] you’re trying to build something. Also, if you guys are just having fun, hanging out. I think the point is you don't have to tell everyone all the time what's going on with your private life, especially if it involves somebody else. CrownedYung and Lastee—we’ve been making music [together] for a very long time.” “Like A Drug” (feat. Ricky Tyler) “‘Like A Drug’ is inspired by this little situation that I had with this girl from Kenya. When we were together, it felt like we didn't know that it was going to end so quick. You know you're there for a short period of time, but when you're with someone, it feels like that's the only thing that matters at that point. Even though you know you might not see them again, the whole situation just feels so real, and true and good. I was learning about how people were with drugs in the ’70s or the ’80s, when people took psychedelics. [For them] that’s the only thing that mattered. I used to watch movies from The Doors and seeing how people acted when they were high—it was surreal to me. That's where the reference comes from, but it's about this little situation I had with this girl from Kenya, for a short period of time. Ricky Tyler and I have been trying to lock it in for a very long time now, so it's nice to have him on the mixtape.” “Conversation” (feat. Nasty C) “Nasty actually came up with that idea. I just came in and sort of finished it up. But I think we did this song in 2020. It was just one of those fun songs, man. There's nothing really deep about that song—we’re just talking s**t basically. But fun s**t, like we're talking about money; we're talking about just the life that we would like to live. So some of that, and then some of the things that we've gone through.”