He wears a backpack onstage. He keeps a #2 pencil behind his ear. He dropped out of college to become a student of life. It's a funny bit, yeah. But even with schticks aside, Student 1 is mad talented.

Colorful and comedic, his music and persona have scored him attention from people all over the globe -- Spotify listeners from 57 different countries streamed his music last year. Voters ranked him number nine in last year's Picked to Click poll. Our contributor Jeffrey Bissoy-Mattis listed him in "The Come-Up" in December.

After seeing him perform at a recent eating disorder recovery benefit, I definitely wanted to know more about his story. So he and his manager/producer Alec Hoines stopped by our studios to talk about self-awareness, Guitar Hero and that incredible beat from "Paint." Here's a lightly edited transcript.

Cecilia Johnson: Welcome to The Current! I just wanted to get a couple bio things down straight. You grew up in Inver Grove Heights, right?

Student 1: I live there currently. I grew up in South Minneapolis; I moved there when I was three from Maryland. I think that's where I get a lot of my influences from, at least from a local standpoint. When I was living out in Minneapolis, that's when I got introduced to things like Soundset and people at Soundset, Atmosphere, like P.O.S and Doomtree. Now I live in Inver Grove Heights.

You said Slug is -- speaking of Atmosphere, you said Slug is an influence on you. If you wanna talk about how you first listened to Atmosphere, that would be cool too.

S1: I was playing Call of Duty, and at this time I wasn't very good at it -- I'm still not, he can attest to that actually. But I had music playing in the background, and somebody suggested that I listen to "Yesterday" for my first song. When [Slug] got to the end and I figured out he was talking about his dad, I literally dropped the controller and just turned around and stared at my computer. I was like, "Jesus." That got me really interested in him. But I got way more interested in him when I started listening to the things that he made before Atmosphere, like Headshots and all of those tapes. Then I got really into Overcast! and it was just like -- there was just something I really liked about him just going off the way he did back in the day -- the way he wrote his verses, the way he spit 'em. I thought it was really poetic, and really emotional. There was something about it that I thought was really gritty and dope. I just thought it was a great way to go about expressing oneself.

Yeah, do you find yourself trying to be as visceral and gritty as you can, or do you like to mix it up?

S1: I definitely like to mix it up, just 'cause I really have a thing for pretty looking verses. I don't know if that makes sense, but I'll always write my stuff in a notebook-- and all of it's really disorganized, but once you see the pattern, it's all... pretty, I guess.

Pretty in terms of how the lines look on the page, or what letters you're using?

S1: How the lines look on the page, how many words that start with the same letter are together, how often I don't use slant rhyme, because I definitely prefer perfect rhyme over slant rhyme -- Doom taught me that. Literary devices, how I write it down on the paper. Some words will be all caps, some will be nothing but lowercase, some words will be in cursive.

I really dig that. Before working in music journalism, I would write poetry a lot and I would always be like, "Oh, I'll write this one eight syllables this line, and thirteen the next, and eight, and thirteen," and weird stuff like that. That makes a lot of sense.

S1: Yeah. It gives me an idea of how I want to go about executing it when I have to in the studio.

Does it inform how you perform as well? Like, "Hey, I see how these group together really well, and this would connect to a flow"?

S1: That's more trial and error than anything, just because I'll have a good chunk of content for a work-in-progress, and there will just be some sort of mental block that's stopping me from continuing. And then I'll just look through pages, like, "Oh, this other chunk might fit." And if it does -- even if it only kind of does, I'm going to wait until I find something that fits really, really well.

Not going with the "slant rhyme" of fitting.

S1: Yeah. I'll find something eventually, just because I have multiple notebooks, and all of them are a mess. So I'm bound to find something that might fit a little better.

Okay. You're "Student 1." Did you like school when you were in it?

S1: [laughs]

Just wondering.

S1: I did at one point, but that was definitely back at a much younger time -- also back when I wasn't paying money for school. I can safely say, by the time I graduated, I still didn't know what I wanted to do. So I went to community college in Inver Grove Heights, just to get my generals done, and maybe I would have it figured out by then. The second year, I got my second academic suspension. And it wasn't because classes were hard or anything, I just wasn't doing it. I was juggling that and music at the same time, and this was sort of at an early point for music.

I knew that I had to make a decision on whether or not I'm going to put all my focus on school or music. I was still in "I don't know myself" mode. So I didn't want to knock my generals out of the park and just major in something that I didn't really feel some type of way about. And I knew I felt some type of way about music from the start, so I just decided to take a chance and do music. The decision has definitely made me get more in tune with myself, because not being in school right now kind of makes living my school. I feel like that's just as much valuable knowledge, and I can get a degree later.

Totally. One thing that comes to mind when I think about school is, you're forced to pay so much attention. But in "Paint," you're like, "My focus been on the fritz." I was wondering how you would describe your attention span, and how that affects your day-to-day.

S1: It's very all over the place almost all the time. I think the main culprit of that is just how I live on a regular basis. I don't really get a lot of sleep, which results in all-nighters and just being scatter-brained from the jump of the next day. And eating habits. I bet if I had better breakfasts, my days would go by so much smoother. I'm pretty sure all it takes is eggs. I don't know.

That's the secret. That's what I heard. Alec, are you there for some of the all-nighters?

AH: Yeah. The all-nighters are actually at my house. So I'm definitely present for all of those.

S1: And just as awake.

AH: I might be the reason for a lot of those, but I take no blame.

Okay, I guess I'll let that slide. [laughs] Speaking of "Paint," Psymun's beat is one of the coolest that I've heard for a long time. Obviously I really like the verses and stuff too, but the combination is like, "Zing." Were you working on that beat with him at all, or did he finish it, and then you got it?

S1: He sent it to us in a pack of three beats. Wasn't he going to use it for...?

AH: Psymun posted it on Facebook, actually. He made a private SoundCloud thing and posted it on his Facebook. And then I reached out to him through Facebook and he said that he sold the beat to -- I think it was Nike, maybe? And he sold it to them for a commercial. So I had to buy it from him for more than what Nike paid him, which, it cost us a lot upfront, but I think it was definitely worth it because the song has done pretty well for us.

S1: Shout out Psymun.

For the music video, I saw you at the Nomad at the eating disorder benefit recovery show, and you mentioned that the guy with you onstage had actually worked on the music video. Could you tell that story?

S1: That dude is Erik [Astle], he was the DJ that night. He's part of a group called CMNCLTR that he has with his brother [Jayke Astle]. That day was wild. We got all the footage in one day, and it took about five or six hours, something like that, maybe longer.

AH: It took like 12 hours.

S1: Like 12 hours... I definitely shaved off like seven hours [laughs]. By the end of it I was drenched in paint. I took a two-hour shower after, and I still didn't get all the paint out.

AH: It was pretty fun for all of us, except for him, because we just got to throw paint at him for hours.

S1: All of the anger, and the [annoyance] that I've thrown at him, he was just totally -- like, let it out. It was like therapy.

But it made for a great video. It was all recorded in his driveway. I was just really happy with how it turned out. It was just really fun to make -- even though I was drenched in paint. I still have my shoes that are paint-stained from it, but the bottoms are ripping, so I can't wear them anymore. So rest in peace, those shoes.

But you still want to keep them.

S1: Yeah, they're still a good-luck charm that I can no longer wear anymore.

Did you read the Donald Glover profile that the New Yorker did, or have you heard about it at all?

S1: No.

[Alec nods]

I was just kind of curious, because some people have compared your work to Because the Internet and Childish Gambino. I don't know how much you appreciate that or don't.

S1: It's kind of in the middle. I'm a fan of Childish, but I'm indifferent to the comparison, just because I feel like with that comparison, that's more something that I do without thinking -- not because I subconsciously want to sound exactly like him. I feel like there are a lot of physical and vocal similarities between him and I, and any time I hear it, it motivates me to work more with other sounds. It motivates me to be more open-minded to doing different kinds of things in music. I'll hear that comparison [from people] even when I'm not making music.

AH: Every single show we play, there are at least three people who come up to him and are like, "You're like Childish Gambino plus Tyler the Creator in one!"

S1: I don't mind, just because Childish is such an amazing artist. But if I can find any opportunities to deviate from constantly falling under that category, I would love it.

That totally makes sense. And I really try to be intentional about not making those comparisons all the time. But one thing, because in the New Yorker thing they were talking a lot about comedy: I was like, "Hm, I wonder how Student 1 feels about comedy." So do you guys like it, or what's your school of comedy?

AH: At my house, when we're hanging out, there's honestly always some kind of comedy.

S1: Just clowning.

AH: Well, yeah. I would say in our friend group, there's a lot of comedy, but also there's always some kind of comedy that's on my TV while we're doing anything.

S1: We were watching Chris Rock standup last night.

AH: I would say comedy is definitely a big part of our lives as a whole.

I'm assuming that you're pretty jokey when you're hanging out too?

AH: Yeah.

That totally comes across in the music.

S1: [Jokey] almost to the point where we get mad.

Why?

S1: I don't know. There's this subculture of comedy among friend groups like ours, where we'll just wake up and roast each other. Like, "What's up, ugly?" It's not that straight-forward -- definitely more creative, and definitely more annoying. You can't help but just come back with another roast, instead of being like, "Stop!"

Right! Because then that's a cop out.

S1: Yeah, you can't get up. You've got to get right back up on that horse.

AH: I feel like it's also part of his persona, is just being silly and goofy. Shout our new website, Student1.lol.

That's cool, I didn't know that you guys actually had a website. It's so new.

S1: I didn't know you could change the dot com to dot lol, that's what got me in.

I've never heard of that before. Way to forge your own path. Yeah, I've totally been in friend groups like that before, with some people more than others. But then I've found it hard to be like, "No, for real one second, I seriously love you. Or, I really am doing this creative thing with you and it means a lot to me." Have you guys experienced that?

S1: We'll get into it every now and then, but it'll never be because of stuff like that. It'll be stuff regarding when would be the best time to drop such-and-such, or should we do this, this, and that at a show. We reserve the arguments and stuff like that for more important stuff. I feel like just joking around with each other and making fun of each other helps because it puts us in a mode where we have to look past how annoyed we are...

And get something done?

S1: Yeah, exactly. So deep down, all that roasting and stuff happens, because that's how our friend group operates, but it definitely plays a big role in how we continue to grow.

I wanted to ask about your more upcoming work. I've been listening to "Yin / Yang" for a while and I was wondering -- you don't have to have a date and time or a definite plan -- but do you have plans for a larger release?

S1: Mmhmm.

AH: We're sitting on a lot of music.

S1: Just an inappropriate amount of music. That makes me really happy just considering the amount of all-nighters that we've been pulling recently. I want to get this out within the next month or two.

That's soon.

S1: Yeah, just before the summer for sure. I was going to call it School. It's still kind of a rough idea, in terms of the concept front-to-back. It's going to be a project that details how unfocused I was in school and how my experience in school has led me to where I am now, due to all the lack of focus and lack of drive, and stuff like that.

What is one of the things that you've been learning as a student of life?

S1: Knowing yourself is so crucial. Not only knowing yourself, but acting [on it] is also crucial. You can know what to do at any given moment, and it can make the most sense in your head; it could probably even be the perfect answer. But if you're not going to apply it to your life and try and make that next step that you think is the next step, then it's just going to stay in your head as a thought.

I still get caught up in that mode, where I think I know what to do, when it comes to solving a problem in my life: just not applying it to my life. I feel like that's for a bunch of different reasons, like indulgences and thinking in the back of my head that this answer that I think is the answer might not be the answer. So I could go about trying to make this answer work and potentially just waste my time. There's just a lot of push and pull going on with a lot of things in my head that leave me feeling stagnant.

That's interesting, because yin/yang is a push and pull. [pause] I see you. [all laugh] This is kind of a side-note question, but in "Whatever," you talk about "Wicked Games" and the Weeknd, and I'm like ... "Is the Weeknd important to you?" Or what are you doing there?

S1: When I heard Trilogy for the first time, I didn't know he made all of that, or at least dropped it when he was 19. Just hearing that I was just like, "Okay, I'm going to look into him more, because that's wild."

Later on I learned that he was Ethiopian, and then I told my mom that, and any time she hears about somebody being Ethiopian, she's just like, "Oh, really?" And then we just get into this conversation like, "Where did he grow up?".

My mom is awesome. We can walk by somebody on the sidewalk, and she will just know every time whether or not they're Ethiopian. We'll just walk by them, and as soon as they get close enough to look at us, she'll nod her head and say something under her breath, and they'll say it right back. I'm like, "How do you get it every time?" So after I told her he was Ethiopian, she was like, "You should play some more of his music now." And I was like, "Oh, okay."

My mom loves the Weeknd just as much as I do. "Wicked Games" was a really good song, to me, and he mentions something about confidence with regards to relationships, at least that's how I interpret it. I put that in the second half of "Whatever," because I was kind of in a mode, at that time, where I felt like I didn't have the confidence that was appropriate for what I was trying to do. But [getting] it to where I want it to be is still attainable -- I can still do it and it won't take me forever. That confidence was also very linked to how I went about relationships and stuff like that, just because I'm a pretty awkward fella [laughs] and that can result in a lot of hiccups and speed bumps on the road. But also confidence in other areas, like not taking charge of my life as a whole and not getting my focus together. So just confidence all around.

How has stage presence been for you? I guess I'd describe it as a little bit awkward, but it works. How has that progressed? How comfortable do you feel, relatively?

S1: Definitely more comfortable now. Comfortable enough to critique myself and actually think of things to adjust, as opposed to being like, "Oh, I should be louder, I should stare at the crowd more." I know those things. Those are the things that I could be working on. Like, set list -- I've been doing the same songs almost at every show for a while now, and now I'm starting to think more about, maybe I should do a couple more new release songs, or maybe I should do an a capella here or there.

That's really cool.

S1: At the FREEWIFI show that happened the other day, shout out FREEWIFI by the way, I used the Auto-Tune pedal that we had for the first time. That was...

AH: It worked! It sounded good.

On which song?

S1: For the song "Pockets." It was the first time I had ever performed "Pockets," so just off that it was going to be interesting, but we also had Auto-Tune there. We played the beat and I started singing with the Auto-Tune. Apparently it sounded fine, because after the show I watched all of the footage from it and it sounded fine. But from where I was standing, I wasn't hearing the notes that I was thinking I was going to hear, so I was just getting really worried at that point. In my head I was like, "Okay, I hear weird notes and they hear weird notes." I was like, "Ahhh."

AH: And it sounded great. He was just tweaking.

S1: Yeah. I still carried out the whole song, but I was tweaking so hard from the jump that I kind of forgot the chorus by the end of the verse. But that was the only song that I messed up on in the set. Some adjustments I'll make to live settings, they might not work off the bat. But now I know I just need to practice with the Auto-Tune pedal. It's definitely developing, and so is my comfort on stage. But regardless of the rate at which that happens, that'll never stop me from trying to take a risk, or doing something on the fly. Even if it is a mistake, that's something that I can learn from later.

Yeah, that's so true. Is there a line, or a few lines or something like that, where you're like, "This feels so good to say every time," just rolls right off or something like that.

S1: When I made "I Need," "Drake soundin' like X though," definitely made me happy to say. Not because I have any personal vendetta against Drake -- I love Drake. I just feel like it's always important to call it how you see it. If anybody wants me to elaborate further, I'd be happy to, because I wouldn't be just talking s-- for the sake of talking s--.

There's a lot of that.

S1: Yeah, especially in hip-hop. I guess there are a lot of lines that are aesthetically pleasing-- not because they roll of the tongue really nicely, but just the message behind it. Sometimes I feel like those same lines ride the line between really liberating to say and borderline offensive. So I sort of have to --

Compromise?

S1: Yeah. I have to watch myself. I'm trying to think of some others.

A fun song for me is "Influence," because you're kind of impersonating so many of these different -- at least Cardi.

S1: Yeah, that's definitely one of my favorite songs.

AH: I feel like the chorus of that, you always -- I feel like every time you do that in a live setting, you have a really good time with that.

S1: I'll really just let the f-bomb fly on that one. People can really just hear it. Once the drums come in, I'll really just yell it. I feel like I shouldn't feel that way all the time, just because two cents, from an external standpoint, [are] helpful, every now and then. But it's also very important to not let anyone's two cents affect a vision that you have -- a big vision. It's important to know when to turn it on and off.

Can you talk more about your big vision?

S1: I think I just want to meet all of the very big names in the industry so I can beat them in Guitar Hero. People need to know I'm amazing at Guitar Hero.

Just get that out there?

S1: No, I'm just kidding.

[to Alec] Is this true, can you testify?

AH: I think he's top-ten on Xbox 360 or something -- in the world. He used to record himself and put it on Youtube.

Oh, I've watched those! Not yours, but in general, yes.

AH: I think he's one hundred percented every song on expert.

S1: Almost.

AH: It's crazy.

S1: Sixteen and 17 were some dark years. I just played Guitar Hero a lot, a lot of Rock Band. I'm pretty sure that plays a strong role in why any of this music stuff is possible today.

Why?

S1: Rhythmically, it got me in tune with pockets that exist in a certain tempo, or a certain cadence that exists in a tempo, that I wasn't fully aware of until I moved the strum bar a certain way at some point, and I would be like, "Oh, I guess I could do it that way." It also got me more in tune with the genre of music that I wasn't used to hearing on a regular basis.

Rock music?

S1: Yeah. And I eventually fell in love with a lot of those songs. I used the interest I got from Guitar Hero and those songs to delve further into those bands and further into those artists. Low-key, some of those artists could potentially be influencing the music I'm making now, just because I love those songs so much.

My actual vision is just to see how strong ideas and words really are. I don't think I'm at the point where my ideas could be super impactful, but I can feel when certain ideas of mine are bigger than others, and more well thought-out than others, and I'm noticing some sort of growth in how I go about putting those ideas on paper, putting them into the production I want to hop in. I just want to see how far I the impact can go with words, and music, and ideas, and stuff like that.

Also I just want to learn more, to be honest. When I called myself Student 1, that's when I started to think about music as my school, or just life as my school. The only way I can go about doing well in this school, just like any other school, is to study and pay attention. Considering that in community college, and even in junior and senior year of high school before that, my focus was elsewhere -- it made me feel like I had to step out of the building and let my focus take me wherever it feels like taking me. I've been learning a lot, but I've definitely been lacking. I still definitely have stuff to work on, but just knowing that motivates me to continue doing what it is I'm doing.

Student 1 will be opening for Kristoff Krane on March 23 at Icehouse.