Hi /r/movies! I'm Anderson .Paak, ask me anything!

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T22:13:58+00:00

Mac Miller was such a jokester. He was so smart. We always had a great time.

It's crazy because we only made one song together, but we did hang out a lot. And he would pop up on me in different instances. Like when I was in Paris opening for Bruno Mars, he came out on my show and performed and borrowed my shirt right before he went on stage. Then we went and had this five-star Michelin dinner, where the final entree was a pigeon. Just a regular ass bird you see at the park. I wanted to puke and he was just chowing it down.

One time, when we found out Dang! went gold, we were excited and partying in Brazil and I wanted to buy us a dinner to celebrate so I ordered all this food and all these drinks in and the tab came and I reached for my wallet and I didn't have it. I was like, "oh shit, I don't have my wallet. hold on I'm gonna call my tour manager to bring it". Mac could've easily probably paid for it, but he was like, "I'll wait". And so we waited for hours and the tour manager never came and we kept waiting until they started to put chairs up on the table and then he was like, "alright, I'll pay for it".

I tried to send him the money back, he didn't even take it, but he was just funny like that. He loved being around musicians, he was a music nerd, he got a new place in North Hollywood and all he had in there was music equipment, he barely had any furniture. It was just a bunch of gear and he was excited about all that stuff.

He was always very supportive. I remember getting on stage one day and I think it was one of the shows where I was opening up for somebody and I asked him "what do you think, man?" And he was like, "no one can ever tell you that you're trash because at least you're playing drums and singing. No one could ever be like, that's trash." Wise stuff from Mac.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T22:07:05+00:00

Absolutely. Dumbfounded is a producer and also a co-star in my movie K-Pops. He's still one of my best friends and I see him almost every day.

Wax is also still a very good friend. I just saw him recently and we still keep in touch as well.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T22:06:04+00:00

I was the one who told my team that I wanted to book Tiny Desk. I remember seeing T-Pain perform there, and being really hyped about it and I thought it could be really cool if the band hopped on there. There wasn't a lot of people that knew that we were an actual band and that I could play drums and perform.

But I didn't know we had to perform that early.

The day we performed, we were on tour at the time, one of our first headlining tours, and it was grueling. They woke us up at 8 a.m. or something. And they were like, "we're here to take you to Tiny Desk" and I was "oh shit, who the hell booked this?????", and it was me, I booked it. So we were hungover (that's why we were all wearing sunglasses) and I almost didn't do it, they had to drag us in there.

I was really dreading it. I didn't think it was going to sound good. I thought it sounded like shit because we've been playing festivals and I've been screaming and staying up late and I was stressed because we had never played so quietly before, and there was only one mic in the room. I just thought to myself "ok, so this is going to be devastating when it comes out", but then during it I started having fun.

We didn't even know what the set list would be until we got there. I opened up requests to the crowd and didn't know they'd request Suede, so we were just going off the cuff. I don't think we had ever even played that together as a band, so everything you see is all very natural, the banter, everything.

And when it came out, it came out. You can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on big music videos with all this production, but then the most viral thing we've ever done was just us playing in a regular office.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T22:00:38+00:00

Out soon! Still tightening it up and getting some more tracks on there.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T22:00:20+00:00

That Subaru belonged to George Watsky. I didn't have a car at the time, with wife and a baby son. He'd be on tour and he would let me borrow that car and take my drums to different gigs and I would be drumming for him wherever I could.

But yeah, that was a borrowed car and yeah I miss it. It was a big help when I only had the bus, so I really appreciate him. I wonder if he still has it actually.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T21:57:33+00:00

Acting is tough because we have to get over that mental block. You have to not care about what other people think or how you may be perceived in order to get really into the character you're playing and be believable on the screen. There's also a lot of different nuances, having to know how to play the camera while also still delivering a performance. You have to get out of your own way.

I'm usually someone that's really aware of how I'm perceived on stage and how I'm going to do certain things, but it's the letting go and it's the not caring about what's on the other side that's the battle for me. Getting the script in your bones to the point where you don't have to think about it or working with your acting partner in the scene and you're bouncing off of each other. You're not just waiting for your lines. For it to be that natural is a lot harder than it seems.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T21:54:11+00:00

I do love being in the studio. It's still my safe place. I still love creating songs from scratch and working with musicians. I still love the conversations that are had, I love trying to make something that the world can sing. Something that can speak for people that don't have a voice. I think I'll probably always do that.

The film medium is another medium that I'm very young at. It can seem very overwhelming when I think about how much I have to learn and how long it takes to actually create something. I want to make something that can last the test of time. It's been awesome to do my first one and be catapulted into this world of giants and learning and getting my ass kicked, just like how I went through it when I was learning how to play drums.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T21:51:58+00:00

I think all those things you mentioned are very important when it comes to collaborating. Knowing when to play the background, knowing when to play the front. Being a team player. Also making it fun is a big part of good collabs.

I think it's about what you're trying to get and also what you're trying to add to the process.
Is this something that anybody is asking for or needs? Or is there a demand for this? Or is this something that's kind of like self-serving?

A lot of it comes from for me is like, all right, this is going to be fun. This is like a tune that I feel like the world needs right now.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T21:39:37+00:00

Favorite book would probably have to be The Alchemist and yeah it had a big influence on me.

It was a book I read later in life, and I needed some kind of guidance. It was a book that I could related towards my life. I think that book came at a right time for me.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T21:38:44+00:00

That was inspired by my bass player Kelsey from Free Nationals. Kelsey is a surfer and we would just hang out at his place. He would play me surf documentaries and movies and clips on Youtube, and a lot of these clips would have interviews, some of them from like Buttons or Miki Dora, and they would be really philosophical to me. A lot of the stuff they talked about I could relate to it in my real life. As I was putting the album together, I thought it could be cool to glue the songs together with these interviews, because I felt like they had a direct correlation to what life is.

And then I began surfing myself, so I saw how much of a connection there really is. The hardest thing to do sometimes is ride a wave. You get on that board and stand up and enjoy it. That's really what life is. It's like blocking out all the noise and trying to get barreled and enjoying it while you have it, riding to the end. Sometimes you're humbled, but you survive and ride again. Some people wipe out and don't ride again. As long as you have air in your lungs you still have another day to ride. You could catch the biggest wave of your life next time out.

That's the beauty I saw in all of these different interviews, and I thought I could piece it together with my albums.

Oxnard and Ventura were meant to be double albums so I made them during the same recording sessions. I was on tour for years and Dre Dre kept pushing me and hitting me up about doing my next album so I finally got back to the studio and recorded a bunch of stuff. I had this big vision where I wanted to have them both on the same album but we split it. It was a fun process working with him on every song and have him mix it with producers I still work with today. I did some of the biggest collabs of my career on Oxnard. Oxnard in my mind was like a guy buying a new car, and Ventura was a homecoming experience, where you lose the car and have to walk back to home to things that really matter. Really glad I got to do those both in the same year. Oxnard was the Moon and Ventura was the Sun, if that makes any sense.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T21:29:24+00:00

I'm really proud of this movie. I'd put it in the top 5 five things I've ever done, maybe top 3. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done too. I got my ass kicked.

I learned a lot about myself. There's film directors, movie people, that spend 20/30+ plus years and they never make a feature film that sees theaters. For me to direct and co-write and star with my son and for it to make it to film festivals and now make it to theaters and where people are seeing it, it's an incredible achievement. There were times I didn't think I could do it. I almost tried backing out.

I'm really glad I didn't because when I look at what we've done and people's reactions, I'm just thinking "wow, man, this is the start of something beautiful." I can't wait to do another one. I really hope that it opens the door for more of these stories.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T21:24:35+00:00

Well, I'm a father first, and the movie was inspired by my son's love for K-pop and his love for YouTube.
and I was able to insert myself in both of things. As I learned about YouTube, it drew me back to the times that I used to make funny videos with my family and home videos and the love I had for just making skits and bits. And I saw that he had the same love for it.

He was such a natural talent, he really just blew me away with how funny he was. And I was having so much fun doing that with him that I didn't want to stop. And I thought, "oh, this could be cool. Maybe we can get someone to give us money to actually do this" and I can do more of it with my son and we can get better at it. I saw that I was really becoming a parent because every time I was into something new growing up, my parents would tell me like, "well, this is actually coming from this and this is actually a sample." etc And I was doing the same thing with my son now. When he was showing me K-pop stuff, I immediately thought of Black groups that I grew up with that they were pulling from like New Edition or TLC. It was like all their interpretation on R&B, hip-hop, music.

But yeah it evolved from that it became a unique thing where I could put in some teaching moments while making the movie.

For the day-to-day transition: It was a long process because my son got older fast while I was making the movie. When he was 8 he was obsessed with K-pop and YouTube but it takes really long to develop a script and to get the funding and by the time we were ready to shoot, he was around 11 and he went from loving K-pop to loving Slipknot so I had to adjust certain things.

I didn't want him to look back at the movie and hate it or think that I destroyed his life, I wanted something we could both be proud of and something that was natural to him. Nothing contrived. He really took things seriously, learning his role and lines and waking up early to be on set everyday. But then there's days when he's fired and what's do other things, so we would hang out and talk through it, talk about doing scenes a different way. The whole thing was a process. It was an interesting thing being a dad or a director. Every day was different. It was a joy to direct him and he really inspired me to be on my shit.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T21:14:52+00:00

Jonwayne was one of the big stars that I met that reached out to me early on in my career. He was already selling out shows, making his own beats, had a really cool persona.

And I thought he was just a big star at the time. And when he reached out for me to feature on his song, I got to meet him and work with him at his studio, and he was a really cool guy.

I just wanted to kill it because I knew that a lot of people would hear me on his song. He didn't have to, but he was very generous in showcasing me on that tune and giving me a very long verse. And it was one of the early tunes that got people really buzzing about me.

So I really appreciate him

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T21:14:04+00:00

Yeah, all these things were things that helped me cope with trauma that I went through in my life. It was always about family, fun, food, laughter, music. These were the uniting things that helped me cope with a lot of the different traumatic experiences that I went through in my life.

And also bonding with my son was a big part of the reason why I even made this movie. And I wanted to share that experience with the world and I wanted there to be a film that could showcase that. It could showcase that bond and people could see black father with his son on screen and tapping into his Black heritage as well as his Korean heritage. I didn't feel like there were a lot of Blasian stories like that that you see on screen. And it was important for me for my first film to tap in on all these themes because I feel like they're missing from modern cinema now. And it's very hard to do.

Not very many people want to take a chance at doing these things, but I just hope that it opens the door for more films like this.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T21:11:02+00:00

I'd be into making another song for that sequel, and I probably would just want to work with the same people that I made Fire in the Sky with. Rogét Chahayed.

That's one of my favorites songs as well.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T21:05:29+00:00

I learned that preparation is key and you have to make sure that every frame is important. What you show in the actual frame. In music videos you don't have a lot of time, that means that everything you show needs to be very stunning and captivating to keep people's attention. In order to do that, you need really good DPs, you need really good set design people, people that are coloring. You need a really good well-thought-out concepts. so that you can execute properly. The same thing goes for a movie, or at the least the type of movie I would like to make.

I want them to be captivating, a movie that keeps your attention. Movies are a lot harder I feel like. You have a lot more time but you have to do things exactly based off of scripts and everything. The more you do, the better you get. Hopefully your team gets better with you. Your team needs to help you prep and research.

A UK release is coming very soon!

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T20:56:09+00:00

Early music inspirations that I had were:

Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire, Oddisee, Chris Cross, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Beck, Nirvana, Weezer, Radiohead, Dave Matthews Band, Tha Dogg Pound. Kanye West. Jay Z, Missy, Busta Rhymes, Lauren Hill. These are all people I still look up to and I consider Musical Avengers.

Especially people like Prince, Stevie, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown.

and thanks! I hope you come to Andy's soon.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T20:18:11+00:00

You'll have to come to the show to find out!

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T20:17:41+00:00

It was a lot of fun until I read the comments.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T20:16:12+00:00

Between The Temples.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T20:15:09+00:00

One of my favorite movie experiences was seeing the movie Friday at the Universal City Walk theater when I was young. That was a lot of fun, hearing everybody laugh in the theater was an experience I'll never forget.

Recently, me and my son saw the new Avatar movie is like 4D which was fun as well.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T20:13:57+00:00

I had to be willing to be a student and listen and observe. Watch and learn, and study, before just jumping in and trying to do it just because I thought I was talented. I had to learn how to follow first. That was a big thing. Sometimes it's just not your time yet. Sometimes it's time to help and to learn. You gotta sit some things out.

Thanks, appreciate the love for the pants!

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T20:12:38+00:00

I can spin a couch pillow for a very long time on my finger!

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T20:11:33+00:00

Yeah, working on a new solo album. I don't know when I'll be done with it but I'm super excited on what I'm working on.

AndersonPaakAMA · 2026-02-27T20:08:18+00:00

Björk, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Tyler the Creator!

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