Vision
Destroy Lonely’s boundary-pushing approach to music and fashion has earned him a legion of devoted fans. As he shapes a new world for his next album, he continues to innovate.
Words: Georgette Cline
Stepping into Destroy Lonely’s world feels like slipping into a modern-day scene from the classic 1994 goth film Interview With the Vampire—candelabras flicker in the studio, curtains are blacked out, and the atmosphere hums with dark, cinematic allure. It’s an apropos setting for what looks like his lair inside a midtown Manhattan recording studio in New York City, where he’s been spending much of his time over the last few months creating his next album, Drop Dead Gorgeous.
Young Vamp Life—the term and aesthetic that Lonely and the rest of the Opium artists, led by Playboi Carti, live by—is palpable in this moment. Lone’s fit is accented by a black leather jacket, matching pants, a sparkling YVL chain layered among other ice that matches his facial piercings, and a black skully perched atop his dreads, dyed a mix of silver, blond, grey, purple and black. “Just tryna make the evilest sh*t possible,” he says, standing in front of the mixing console in the studio on a mid-afternoon last November as he previews songs set to appear on the forthcoming LP.
“Evilest” is open to interpretation. There’s nothing truly nefarious about what he’s getting into; instead, it’s the kind of bad-means-good material that’s on track to outperform his last album, Love Lasts Forever, released in 2024, in both sound and elevation.
Last year, Destroy Lonely, born Bobby Wardell Sandimanie III, spent much of his 365 days leveling up. The 24-year-old Atlanta rapper was outside, touring for the majority of the year on the European leg of his Forever Tour that spring and on the Antagonist 2.0 Tour alongside Playboi Carti, Ken Carson, Homixide Gang and Apollo Red last fall. Forty-five days on the road across both tours. Lone describes the Opium trek as a “big party.”
“It’s just the first time that me and all my brothers really get to navigate this space,” he shares of touring with his labelmates. “We’ve opened up for Carti when he did this before a couple years ago, but now, like, us all being our own entities and having our own little worlds and getting to be able to present that together, it just feels fun. It’s like a festival. It’s like opening Six Flags or some sh*t. It’s cool.”
He also got to bring fans into his world with new music. Lone dropped the ᐸ/3³ (Broken Hearts 3) mixtape this past September, following a career of projects that includes two albums (2023’s If Looks Could Kill; 2024’s Love Lasts Forever), and a stack of 15 EPs and tapes (2019’s Forever, ILY; 2020’s Underworld; ᐸ/3; 2022’s No Stylist, among others).
The latest 19-track mixtape, which Lonely describes as “a lot of change, progression and growth within my skill of making music,” features production from Clayco and Cxdy, some of the usual suspects on the rapper’s past releases, in addition to producers like CADE and Icemn. ᐸ/3³ is steeped in the genre-blurring sounds and moody, futuristic take on experimental trap that has become synonymous with Destroy Lonely’s brand. Vibe, cadence and tone take precedence over traditional lyricism paired with distorted, spacey production and melodic flows. “Bane,” “No Stylist” and “If Looks Could Kill” are shining examples of that approach.
Ellantre “Tré5” Williams has been assisting Lone in perfecting his sound as his go-to engineer. They met at a studio session in Atlanta in 2020, and have worked together ever since, kicking off with No Stylist. The 30-year-old engineer from Detroit, who’s in charge of all the music, recording, mixing and mastering, and the live show aspect of Lone’s performances with playback and Auto-Tune, breaks down Lone’s appeal.
“Everything always boils down to music for me,” Tré5 says. “And as you can see, he has influenced a lot of artists after him, but it’s just like he created his own sound, bro. Him and the producers, Clayco and Cxdy in them early stages, they just created their own sound. From the beats, his vocal cadences, his raps, his flows, but really just the whole sound entirely is just something new. And just took fans by storm. Plus, he just got like a cooler look. He’s just a cool dude. You never know what to expect from him. It’s a journey you take the fans on.”
The tattooed rhymer does just that with the intoxicating, guitar-licked “Ain’t Hard,” his latest tape’s opening track. He proclaims, “I’m the god of flows, I’m the god of drip, I’m the god of swag.” As a student of the game with rap in his blood—his father is I-20, most notable for his guest appearance on Ludacris’ 2002 hit “Move Bitch”— and raised on the catalogs of Tyler, The Creator, Earl Sweatshirt and Carti, Lonely has a deep appreciation for the art of flow, even if his own may be unconventional.
“I feel like flow is to hip-hop that style is with fashion,” the Top Floor Boss shares. “If you don’t have your own distinct handbag of flows or your own way that you come on the track, then you don’t really have an identity. I don’t really think it simmers down to how your voice sounds or your inflection or anything. I think it’s just the way that you get up in there, and if you ain’t got that, you ain’t got nothing.”
The inspiration his music offers others isn’t lost on Lone. And it’s not just limited to his impact on the fans. He hears himself in other rappers, though he declines to mention names. “I definitely hear my flow in a lot of other artists,” he maintains. “I feel like what I brought to culture and hip-hop music, and my swag and my flow in the state of hip-hop right now, is for the kids that come after me.”
“I can’t say that I’ve done too much right now,” Lone continues. “I know what I’ve done, and it’s very inspirational and influential, but I feel like we’ll see more of my stain on the world in the years to come. But with new artists that come out now, like a lot of the younger kids that I like and I listen to, I could literally see my influence painted all over them. That’s not bad. I love it.”
He’s also trying to be a better influence when it comes to how he moves out here. “Been working on my problems, I’m not tryna be too toxic,” he raps on “Show You How,” off ᐸ/3³. Last year, he did a reset on his interactions with those around him. “[2025] for me has just been really about grounding myself and just making sure that I’m just treating people the way I wanna be treated,” he reveals. “And just going through situations with a lighter heart or not being too hard on myself or being too hard on other people. It does take a lot of hard work.” The studio has become his form of therapy.
Watch Destroy Lonely’s Interview With XXL
The safe space is why Destroy Lonely is currently in the process of making his best work yet. Drop Dead Gorgeous is replete with the kind of music designed for stadium settings; pulsing, soaring sounds and booming bass. During the beginning stages of making this album, he was dissecting Ye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, listening to Lauryn Hill, 1990’s rap, DJ Screw tapes and EDM duo Snow Strippers. Lone has over 500 albums on his phone and can go from Lil Wayne and Marilyn Manson to Ken Carson and Lil Durk to Black Sabbath in one sitting. The new album has a few songs with Snow Strippers while producers Cxdy and Clayco are crafting the bulk of the beats.
“We tryna build this new sonic, you see that sh*t is deep,” the trendsetting rapper says after playing a few unreleased tracks. “That sh*t is heavy, too… That sh*t sound tough, though. It’s coming together pretty well.” The fuel feeding him while he’s holed him in the studio lately is french fries—no ketchup, no sauce. “I have a really bad addiction to french fries.”
The title of his third album, Drop Dead Gorgeous, is based on what Destroy Lonely deems as the “ultimate compliment.” He’s creating a whole new world, no Little Mermaid, with innovation as the goal. Lone admits this is the most difficult music he’s made so far and enjoys the challenge because he accomplishes more that way. After all, he’s been playing video games on hard mode ever since he started filming himself as a kid gaming on YouTube. When he does complete a song, a sense of accomplishment washes over him. He never thought he’d be able to make music like this. “I feel like this will be the most Destroy Lonely album that I’ve made,” Lone expresses. “It’s not gonna be like anything that I feel like anybody has ever heard from me before.” Getting down to the construction process starts with the sonic textures Lonely comes across, like a designer piecing together fabric for a runway piece.
“With Cxdy, I could just send him a reference, like some of the albums I’ve been listening to, the textures,” Lone explains. “It’s not really like pure influence. I’m not ripping sounds. How the audio sounds. I could send Cxdy like a rip of a Savage song or like a Ye song or something and be like, ‘Bro, you hear these parts of it?’ And he could come back with a whole new world for me based on our inspirations and references and sh*t.”
“I gotta start from somewhere,” he adds. “I usually just sit and digest a lot of sh*t. I probably listen to all my albums 10 times and just go out and look for new sh*t. It’s like as if you making clothes or you tryna paint your house. You go pick all these fabrics and colors and everything, and then you make your own sh*t from it. I get all these blends and textures I wanna use and I throw it in a pot and make my own sh*t.”
Fashion is also his forte. Depending on the day, Lone is dripped out in dark, avant-garde aesthetics, often times tailored to his slim frame. Rick Owens is one of his favorite clothing brands, which he’s labeled as an essential. He’s collaborated with 1017 ALYX 9SM during his No Stylist era for a capsule collection featuring exclusive graphics stamped on T-shirts, sweatshirts and more. Lone even walked the runway during the Vetements Paris Womenswear Spring-Summer 2025 show as part of Paris Fashion Week in 2024. He’s continued to make his presence known during Paris Fashion Week a yearly occurrence, going viral for stepping out in boundary-pushing designs alongside his girlfriend Shannade Clermont of the Clermont Twins. This year, he attended the Rick Owens fashion show in all-white attire, including a striking longline coat.
“Fashion is really important to me because I’m just the person that’s really big on self-expression,” he shares. “I love expressing myself, and I have like this version of myself in my head that I think I look like, so whatever I can do to make me look like that, I would love to do that. And that’s why I love fashion. I feel like it allows people to be like a little elevated person, version of theirselves… Fashion is ruleless. You could dress like this, you could dress like a clown and not, like, in a metaphorical sense, but literally, like a clown, like the Joker, or you could dress like a f**king ninja, or you could do whatever.” He’s not kidding.
Destroy Lonely hopes to bring more of his innovative ideas to life this year. He’s leaning into his business ventures and wants to show the world his hand creatively. Everything that he’s released, including merch, video shoots, album covers, and the word-building that comes with them, have been his vision. “I just kinda wanna paint on a different canvas, just outside of music, do a little bit more stuff in fashion, a little bit more stuff in film,” Destroy Lonely conveys. “Not to say my focus isn’t music, but I just wanna expand more creatively.”
His plans in film are motivated by the likes of a West Coast rapper who made iconic classics like Friday for the culture. “I eventually want to write and create my own movies, kinda like in the sense of like a Ice Cube, but not in a comedy way. Just like how Ice Cube has great successful movies that he’s written, but he also acts in. That’s literally what I wanna do.” The silver screen awaits.
While there isn’t a confirmed date for Drop Dead Gorgeous yet, it’s likely to arrive this year. Another project that could come along after his album release is the highly anticipated, long-awaited joint project with longtime friend and collaborator Ken Carson. Lone confirms there are about 20 holy grails fans expect from the release. The two artists dropped the song “The Acronym” this past December, a possible teaser of what’s to come with their collab.
“We started our careers at the same time,” Lone recalls. “Me and Ken kinda like both got signed at the same time, both got thrown into this sh*t. That’s my brother. We shared all these experiences together. So, we’ve had this idea of making this project forever, but I’m still me, he’s still him. We’re still growing separately as well, and with life, it kinda takes time away, but he’s always right next to me. Like, he’s in the other room, in the studio right now, so we’re always actively working on [the project]. And now it just feels like the time where we’ve done our own personal laps around enough that we could probably come together and make something amazing.” YVL is in the lab.
“The fans are just so excited for me and Ken to make a project because, outside of my big brother, Carti, I feel like me and him are two of, if not the two most innovative artists of our generation,” Lonely insists. “And I don’t see our generation as the same generation as Carti’s or the people that came before us. I feel like we’re leading for everybody after us, and I just feel like people are ready to see what we could do together because we’ve shown y’all so many times what we can do together, and now I think people are just ready for that bubble to burst.”
The Opium connection goes beyond working relationships. Ken and Lonely came up in the Atlanta rap scene, looking to the careers of artists like Playboi Carti as inspo. Eventually, they both got signed to the label. Lone, who joined Opium and Interscope Records in 2021, has developed a meaningful friendship with Carti along the way.
“Carti to me is a lot more than a label owner or a music partner or a peer,” Lone explains. “He’s genuinely my big brother, like, as if we shared the same blood. So, I could always call him and ask him about anything. More so I talk to him about life more than music. I don’t really call him for nothing but life advice. Like, to be honest, I definitely let him hear all my projects. I definitely like to see what he’s thinking. But honestly, I’m just a student, so I aspire to be where my big brother is at, if not, maybe even better than him one day. No offense. It’s just like, that’s how I should feel. So, I just always learn from him, I learn from Ken. I learn from everybody around me because I admire all of my friends, Homixide Gang, Apollo Red.” Family first.
The Top Floor Boss is in a good place currently. He’s got his sights set on making an impact with his new work while creating with the utmost optimism he’s had in years. The road to happiness isn’t always paved in gold, but Destroy Lonely has found solace at this point in his life. He’s replaced being too hard himself with more grace. The change in mood also makes for better art.
“I feel the best I ever felt, and that’s what’s keeping me motivated,” he says. “There’s something deep in my spirit right now that’s giving me all these ideas, from my album to everything that I’m doing right now, and I’m just holding onto that because it’s something telling me this is what I’m supposed to be doing right now.” New level unlocked.
In the dim glow of the candlelit studio and the sounds of his new album filling the air, Destroy Lonely stands at a pivotal moment. Fresh off a year of relentless touring, viral fashion statements and the steady expansion of Opium’s cultural stronghold, he’s channeling growth, influence and self-reflection into what he calls his most Destroy Lonely project yet. Tré5, who refers to Lone as “dynamic,” believes the forward-thinking artist will not only continue to grow but become the face of rap. Drop Dead Gorgeous is the sound of an artist sharpening his edge, embracing experimentation, and designing a world that stretches beyond music into fashion and film. His goals are lofty and he’s ready to achieve them.
“I wanna be the biggest, I wanna be a f**king legend, but not even in just music,” he declares. “I wanna be something that people ain’t never even seen before. I just wanna be one of the best versions of me that I could be, and I just wanna be actually the biggest at whatever it is I do. One thing I was raised, like, just always be the best at what you do. I didn’t come into the rap world, like, ‘Alright, I’ll be cool if I like sell a couple albums and I can buy some clothes and a chain.’ Nah, I wanna be the best at what I do. And same with fashion, same with film, same with anything, and I’m willing to do whatever to get there.”
Crown or nothing.
