Pink Siifu: Refusing Uniforms, But Always in Style
Following the release of BLACK'!ANTIQUE; ONYX'!, Alabama-born, Ohio-raised rapper Pink Siifu unpacks the frustration behind his fourth studio album, its cinematic world and how he developed his taste.
Pink Siifu in 2025. Image property of Alonzo Hollerbach.
Pink Siifu, born Livingston Matthews, never needed a brief. Growing up between Birmingham, Alabama, and Cincinnati, Ohio, he became accustomed to the vastly different worlds of the Deep South and the Midwest. It only follows that he refuses to remain within a genre, masterfully traversing the sounds of hip-hop, neo-soul, punk-rap and jazz.
Persistently agnostic about his musical style, Siifu is most notable for projects that furiously explore the Black American experience. On his 2020 album, NEGRO, he delivers a full-throated indictment of abusive policing and racial oppression. He channels the anarchy of punk and the sorrow of free jazz, creating a record that simultaneously absorbed, documented and reflected the politics of that tumultuous time.
His LP GUMBO'!, released the following year, sees him write a love letter to Atlanta's legendary hip-hop collective Dungeon Family as well as his Southern origins. The titular reference to the Louisiana stew mirrors the sonic collage of hip-hop, funk and soul, with contributions from acclaimed producers Monte Booker and the Alchemist.
Since our conversation, Siifu has kept moving, supporting Culture Crypt cover stars GENA—the duo of Liv.e and Karriem Riggins—at London's ICA as one half of B. Cool-Aid, and linking with Por Vida and Sango on September's "sangre". We're still finding corners to explore in BLACK'!ANTIQUE, though—a world worth returning to even as its creator tries on his next uniform.
With idiosyncratic bodies of work that span across his catalogue, he prioritises honest accounts of real life that reveal an astonishingly clear-eyed view of life and death. Siifu's inimitable prowess is driven by a consistent questioning of how an artist is to remain entirely loyal to genres that are built on defiance. It is this single-minded intensity that makes each album seem like a world of its own.
With his fourth studio album, BLACK'!ANTIQUE, released in 2025 and later expanded with the deluxe edition, BLACK'!ANTIQUE; ONYX'!, he alchemises frustration into something far more powerful. Though it's the longest in his catalogue so far, it took the shortest time to create. What follows is a potent, futuristic hybrid of punk-influenced rap and R&B that seems to exist in a subgenre of itself.
We video-call from his hotel in London, the dimly lit room made brighter by the ends of a lit spliff. I ask Siifu if BLACK'!ANTIQUE was to be scribed in a real or imagined place, what would it be? "It could be Zion in The Matrix, Gotham City from Batman, or you're suddenly dropped in Blade and Blade saves you from getting bitten." He clarifies, "You need people in leather". Having studied theatre, a sense for drama is evident in the way Siifu approaches world-building.
Unlike the aforementioned releases, BLACK'!ANTIQUE doesn't carry a fully realised message with the usual soapbox statements. Instead, it sees Siifu turning inward and centring honesty and candour about his craft. When I ask Siifu about the inspiration, he replies with fervour, recalling a moment when he resonated with the aforementioned DJ and producer Sango—who has close ties to the Soulection collective—regarding Twitter rants about how his music is driven by frustration at people 'sleeping on him' and at himself. Siifu's response was to create a project in which "the first half of this is me talking my shit being like, 'Y'all, I'm not a PDF. I'm not a moodboard reference. Y'all can't do what I do. I don't copy and paste'".
The project also raises interesting questions about where inspiration ends and appropriation begins, particularly when an artist's work is used as a reference point without any due recognition. In "BLACKWATER!", the second verse circles this sentiment with humility: "What we done created, There was no more / Just original style with original soul / Sculpted by design as a conscious creation… Every trend that we set eventually emulated". He tells me, "I wasn't born with taste. I learned taste from my dad and his friends and uncles and my older homies and girls. You need taste before you can make art. You ain't gotta be born an artist, but nobody can teach you taste".
Whilst sonically, BLACK'!ANTIQUE draws on an illustrious Black history, it is a deep, dreamy project that straddles two stark impulses of abrasion and psychedelia. It reveals an uncomfortable tension in how difficult it can sometimes be to distinguish one from the other. Siifu drew inspiration from the sound design of Brent Faiyaz's Wasteland, as well as the runway scores of Rick Owens, horror instrumentals and electronic punk music.
When I ask Siifu how he approaches the blank canvas when making music, he tells me his approach is akin to that of a painter: "I never start an album with nothing. I be working like a painter with no intent until the middle of the painting. I just be throwing paint. I might just scratch and erase the whole painting and then be like, 'I know what I'm doing,' and paint that bitch full on."
Over the course of our conversation, I learn that his natural state orbits a constant figuring-out of what he really feels and why, then rejecting it altogether. He speaks in streams of consciousness, completely assured in his opinions, yet equally inquisitive about them whilst they emerge fresh from the cranium, and then calling "cap" once he's moved onto the next thought.
This line of thought lends itself to being able to deftly navigate the grief of constructing avatars, deities and worlds as extensions of himself, then leaving them behind once the project is done to reimagine it all over again: "It's why I have so many deluxe projects. If I'm still in the same uniform, then I'm gonna give you a deluxe. I gotta shake this GUMBO'! off. I gotta shake this BLACK'!ANTIQUE off, before I can really get into the new bag".
“I would like to think my music is breathing. It’s alive.”
Ultimately, Pink Siifu's tendency to evolve in unpredictable ways explains why he has continued to draw both crowds and critics, both of whose opinions he rejects, and why people initially sceptical tend eventually to fall in love with the music. He releases beguiling albums on his own schedule, seemingly unconcerned with hitmaking, yet still deeply appreciative of the creative processes that inform his ability to shed identities or what he likes to call "uniforms".
"I would like to think my music is breathing. It's alive," he proclaims gently as our conversation comes to a close.
Stream BLACK'!ANTIQUE; ONYX'! below: