“My whole life, I’ve related to antiheroes,” Sydney, Australia, rapper Huskii tells Apple Music. “It just made sense as the title. I’ve always been an outlier.” The hip-hop artist has more stories to tell than most, and though his debut album is only seven tracks long, they’re filled with intense, dark, personal reflections. It’s not the happiest story, but it’s Huskii’s story. “For the last three years or four years, I’ve felt disconnected from Huskii as an artist,” he says. “I didn’t really relate to some of the shit I was saying. I had to say it, but I wasn't happy with how I was living, so I couldn’t be happy with what I was rapping about.” No stone is left unturned on Antihero: He opens up about his family, his growth, his time behind bars, his struggles with addiction and mental health, and his hopes for the future. So, it’s no surprise that he took this release more seriously than anything he’s dropped before. “For once, I took an actual musical approach to it,” Huskii says. The rapper enlisted producer Tasker for much of the album, resulting in a sound that’s more East Coast than drill, with hazy samples and the occasional live instrument. “I wanted to make music,” he says. “I just thought, ‘What have I been trying to do this whole time?’ I’ve been making music this whole time, but I’ve just been moving in the direction that people pointed me in.” Read on for more about Huskii’s approach to the songs and stories that went into his debut. “Heroin Rap” “I was going to call the whole project Heroin Rap because I literally just wanted to turn people off it. I wanted people to see it and go, ‘Fuck this guy. He’s on heroin,’ or something. And if they were dumb enough to think that in the first place, then fuck off. Don’t listen to my music. I’m just trying to make people understand that I don’t fucking care. I don’t want to be famous, and I don’t want to be known. “Ruin My Life” “It’s another theme of my life. I’ve woken up with self-sabotage in my brain, and I don’t know where it comes from. No one’s out here trying to suffer for their art; it just happens. For the last week, I haven’t eaten—I’ve been starving myself because of nerves and shit. I’m losing so much weight, I’m starting to look sick. And to me, looking skinny is like when I was on drugs. So, people have been asking me, ‘Are you on drugs? What the fuck’s happening?’ It’s nerves. I put myself through hell for this shit. I’m not just releasing seven tracks—I’m releasing my whole life to the world and there’s a possibility that people are just going to laugh at that and go, ‘You're a dickhead.’ It’s always a possibility. People could find something in a single line and cancel you.” “Pulp Fiction” (feat. Grubbo) “It’s one of the first songs we made. I wanted the whole album to have live instruments, but then we went in a whole different direction. Grubbo, on that track, I sent him the instrumental and I didn’t know if he was going to tell me to get fucked, because it was a bit weird. And you listen to his type of rap, he’s a hard street rapper. So, this is a little to the left for him.” “Melted” “The guitar on this was played by Seamus [Coyle] from Sticky Fingers. I wanted him to do an ad-lib instead of someone going ‘skeet,’ or something, and he just went for the whole song. We didn’t ask for a guitar all through it, but we were in the room, and we thought, ‘Fuck, this is just magic happening in front of us.’ The outro on that song is crazy. I feel like I’m listening to Pink Floyd. I sit down. I shut my eyes. I listen to that, and I go, ‘What the fuck did I just hear?’ It’s good to be able to hear something that’s not my rapping, but it’s still my music.” “Cape Fear Big Wave Contest” (feat. Mic Pompeii, Ides & Shadow) “I was just fucking around on this track. We were just getting in the studio with the boys. That wasn’t really Tasker at all. That was Jay Orient. He’s dope. He works with JK-47 a lot. He’s from up that way, North Coast NSW. He’s like a hippie J Dilla. If it wasn’t for that beat, I don’t think I would’ve ever made that song. Mic Pompeii and Ides, they’re two of my favorite artists, and I look at them both like antiheroes. I feel like we’re all the same. It’s weird. Shadow, too, I had to get him on there. He’s one of the boys.” “Hellevator” “That’s [produced by] Tasker. He’s just crazy. It was originally an outro to one of the songs, and it just didn’t work. But it was too good to not use. We sat there for ages to figure it out. It’s crazy. I had more fun doing that than making the other tracks.” “Toxic” “It’s my favorite track. We made three different beats for it over time. There’s one version with saxophone. I’d never sung before, other than these Nirvana things on SoundCloud, years ago. I’d had a big week—I was partying. I went away, I came back, and I was just in a mood. Tasker was in the studio, we were alone, and I’d never tried singing, but we did this outro. I didn’t have it written down. It just happened.”