LeoStayTrill made his way to the Genius office to break down his hit “Pink Lemonade (Str8 Reload).” The freestyle serves as the breakout hit for the South London rapper. On today’s episode of Verified, the 17-year-old artist dives deep into his lyrics, his writing process, the meaning behind the song’s title, and more!
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00:00Leo Stay True is a young 17-year-old from Southeast London that wants to show people
00:04that regardless of his age, he can still conquer the rap game outside of just the UK.
00:08Imagine for you lot in this room, cool, you get to be out in America, for example, and
00:12you're here with your favorite artists and seeing all types of figures and all this,
00:16that, and the third.
00:17All the goals that you always had.
00:18But then the next day, you still need to be in school, still need to meet these deadlines
00:21and still need to 100% attendance, that's stuff that I deal with a lot.
00:25Obviously, I want to stay in school so I can still be normal and still be around people
00:29my age, but I'm going as hard as I can until they kick me out, and once they kick me out,
00:33it's what it is.
00:34But I tried, though.
00:35I put up a fight.
00:36They can't say I didn't put up a fight.
00:43I didn't write it all in one day, like, it was one of those things where I was bored.
00:46I'm playing the beat, I've got the beat, I've had it for a minute.
00:48Writing, writing, writing.
00:49Cool, I stopped writing for a little bit.
00:51Come back to it a couple days later, rap it to my boy, my manager, Addy, cool, he's messing
00:54with it, left it, rap it to my boys in the car, recorded it, put it on TikTok.
00:59People are messing with it, but I didn't think nothing of it, like, it's just another
01:02song to me.
01:03It's a freestyle, I'm rapping freely, I'm talking about whatever, and just making it
01:06sound good.
01:07I'm not thinking too hard about the lyrics.
01:08If we want to talk bars, we can go there, but just not on this song.
01:11This song, I'm just being me, having fun with it.
01:13So I think that's what's connecting with people, because when they hear the song, they can
01:17be themselves.
01:18They can dance how they want to dance.
01:23Good friend of mine, shout out to Jonathan Shalit.
01:25Jonathan Shalit is the CEO of Intertalent Music Group.
01:27He used to manage a group called N-Dubs.
01:30That's just a play on words, firm, no L's.
01:32I'm taking dubs, but I'm taking dubs, come like Jonathan Shalit, because Jonathan Shalit
01:36used to take care of N-Dubs.
01:48Don't lie about it.
01:50Don't come in the shop and act like you're going to cause damage, and then you don't,
01:52or act like, you know what I mean, like you've really got it like that when you haven't.
01:55Just be real, if you ain't got it, you ain't got it.
01:56I like Moncler, and I like Dior.
01:59Sometimes they make it hard to cause damage in there, because they like to overprice stuff.
02:02But regardless, I try my best, man.
02:04I don't think too hard about which shop, and this, that, and the third, nah.
02:07If I like it, I'll cop it, man.
02:08I'm not following the trends.
02:13Addy is him right there.
02:14That's Addy right there in the back.
02:15Addy, that's my manager.
02:16My boy.
02:17For us, it's deeper than rap.
02:18That's my brother.
02:19That's my big brother to me.
02:20That lyric isn't even like a bar.
02:21It's just standard stuff that happens.
02:22He'll hit me, I'll get a text and say, hey, you don't miss, or hey, this is hard.
02:26I've got a large pocket right now, but there's nothing in it.
02:34It's just a card to my room, and some Vaseline, and that's about it right now, yeah.
02:42Rotted is a form of slang that kind of just means like, oh shit, like wow, it's a fit.
02:46I think it's a form of shock.
02:47I don't really like going places by myself, and even people around me advise me, don't
02:51be going places on your own, and don't be coming out the house if you don't need to.
02:55When I do, I'm going with someone, whether I'm five people deep, I'm 10 people deep,
02:58I'm 20 people deep, depending on the occasion.
03:00When the girl's seeing that, she's thinking, oh shit, he's not no average kid, so yeah.
03:06She's shocked, and she's yelling out, rotted.
03:14I've always wanted to have girls, but I was never really in the position to get some,
03:17but I always looked up to it, like yo, this is hard to me.
03:20And I always wanted to know, what did it feel like?
03:22Got my first set of girls in September 2023.
03:25You can see I ain't got no chain, no watches, I'm a girl guy, so yeah, I've got my rose
03:28golds in right now.
03:29I've got some white golds, I've got two white golds at the top, I've got two rose golds,
03:33but the next purchase is the full VVSes, top and bottom.
03:37I need to stop being humble.
03:45I try and sleep as much as I can, but the career that I'm in, and the life that I'm
03:48living, it's like, I find it hard to find rest these days.
03:53Income multiple ways, and my bro said, pink lemonade.
03:56The bad B calling me baby, and calling me my man, said I got multiple names.
03:59I always understood that, yo, you can't put all your eggs in one basket, you need to have
04:03multiple things going on, because it's like, as much as I'm lit now, God forbid, but, you
04:06know what I mean?
04:07We've seen it happen to a lot of people, so shit can change, whether you're investing
04:10in real estate, or starting your own record labels, your own companies, managing artists,
04:14there's so many things you can do.
04:15So it's like, save your money so your money can save you.
04:17What pink lemonade actually means, it's not necessarily the drink, I'll let you do with
04:23that what you will.
04:24Shout out pink lemonade, man.
04:31The Murkies and Mercedes.
04:33The Murkies swerving, multiple lanes, literally just swerving, driving reckless, but we're
04:37safe drivers over here, so we ain't got nothing to worry about, but shout out the Murkies.
04:41I like Mercedes a lot.
04:42I like Mercedes a lot.
04:48That flow was always there, but I didn't know what to say.
04:55I always had that flow, but I didn't know what to put there.
04:57Cool.
04:58Fling my shoulders and dance.
04:59I was just trying to make it make sense, because it's like, shoulder, what else am I going
05:01to say, really, about my shoulder, except for something to do with dancing.
05:05So to do the dance, I made it as easy as possible.
05:07To be honest, let me not say made it, because I didn't make it, I was just listening to
05:10the song, and I just naturally did it, and I was like, yeah, let me do it on camera.
05:13So it's like, this Yardie's telling me to dance.
05:15Shit.
05:17I don't know why people keep missing the beat and all of that.
05:19It's so easy.
05:24Pep Guardiola, manager of Man City, football team.
05:27Obviously, football's big over in the UK, but it's like, everyone's bowling, we're making
05:30sure everyone's bowling the right way.
05:32So Guardiola, literally, I cannot play football to save my life.
05:35Don't put me on no pitch, don't put no football in front of me, none of that.
05:38I cannot play football to save my life.
05:40I'm whack.
05:47It depends on the context, though, because you can see a nigga and he's like, he's moving
05:59bookie, like he's moving kind of weird, kind of off, like, but then moving bookie in this
06:02contest is like, why is she doing the most, like, why is she being all crazy?
06:05Testing my phone, hey, bookie, but it's not kissing.
06:08The internet took it and changed it to kissing, they're arguing over whether it's kissing
06:12or texting, but it's texting.
06:16Obviously, I know about the Boosie fade, cutting off the snakes and these unnecessary females
06:26like a fade.
06:27Boosie, literally.