‘American Treasure’ Anderson .Paak: ‘Best Teef’ & Show In The Game

.Paak and his longtime backing band The Free Nationals have gotten here thanks to their incendiary live show, delivering an energetic blend of funk, hip-hop, R&B and soul, with the charming .Paak on drums and vocals. He’s put in time on the road, including as support for Bruno Mars and J. Cole, and has made the rounds on the festival circuit and played plenty of smaller venues. Three years ago, the 33-year-old artist, born Brandon Paak Anderson, was pulling in grosses such as $22,135 at Boston’s 953-capacity Paradise Rock Club. Today, word on this phenomenal fusionist is spreading like wildfire.  

“It’s true musicianship,” says Full Stop Management’s Jeffrey Azoff. “What he’s doing is really refreshing, He’s about to sell out [arenas] without a pop radio hit, just based off the fact that he’s that good of a performer.”   

CAA’s Caroline Yim, who books .Paak with Zach Iser, saw something special in .Paak the first time she caught him live in February 2014, eight months before he’d even released Venice, his debut studio album as Anderson .Paak. (He’d previously put out two mixtapes and an EP in the early ‘10s as Breezy Lovejoy.)  

“Once I saw his live performance it was over – I was blown away,” Yim says. “He performed at The Lyric [Theatre]. There were probably 100 people in the room. He turned that whole crowd up. He sang, he danced, he jumped on the drums and he was still singing, he jumped back in the crowd. The energy was insane; he had the whole room dancing. … I knew right then and there, ‘Oh, he’s outta here.’” 

He also teamed up with Knxwledge for the side project NxWorries. In February he picked up a Grammy for Best Rap Performance for the single “Bubblin.”  

.Paak, in prolific Prince-like funky fashion, now has two new albums to show off – the rap-centric, gritty Oxnard and the soulful, “pretty” Ventura, released within five months of each other on Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment and the new Apple-backed 12 Tone (launched last year by Doug Morris and run by Steve Bartels). 

Executively produced by Dr. Dre, the releases pay tribute to the Southern California beach towns that raised him as he memorized and performed rap songs for his friends at school and learned to play drums at a Baptist church. 

“With Oxnard I wanted it to be one sound – ambitious, hip-hop, rapping – sitting in a new car with the best in the business, excess, having a good-ass time. That’s one side of my personality,” .Paak says of the LP with appearances by Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg and Q-Tip.

“With Ventura I wanted to reflect on the things that are important – mending my relationship, love. I wanted to mix [in] some sweet on Ventura. I wanted to make a song I could play in the White House. … I wanted to challenge myself in different ways with each album.” 

A week before Oxnard’s November 2018 release, .Paak signed with Full Stop Management.

“They brought me in the office. Irving [Azoff, co-founder of Oak View Group, Pollstar’s parent company] was in there, Jeffrey [Azoff], Damien [Smith], and Anna [Savage]. And it was just like, ‘Whatever you wanna do, the sky is the limit. How can we help?’” .Paak says. 

“It wasn’t something where we met and they were trying to have me sign shit right away. … They seemed like they could help me get to another level and I liked that they were thinking big. I wasn’t necessarily thinking about Madison Square Garden or the Forum or anything like that but they were pushing me. … They made me more ambitious.” 

For Full Stop, signing .Paak was a no-brainer. 

“Who wouldn’t want to be involved? Anderson is an American treasure,” Jeffrey Azoff says. “That’s the easiest way to describe him, both as a performer, an artist, a writer – all of it and most importantly, as a human being, I can’t say enough nice things about the man.”

Adds Savage, “I’d seen him at multiple festivals prior to working with him and was impressed by his musicianship and his ability to entertain the crowd. …  I think it’s the best live show you can see right now.” 

In addition to .Paak’s natural charisma as a frontman – complete with that winning smile and raspy vocals that manage to be both smooth and playful – a big part of his appeal is his connection with The Free Nationals, featuring guitarist Jose Rios, keyboardist Ron Tnava Avant, bassist Kelsey Gonzalez and percussionist Callum Connor. 

“Me and the band, that’s family,“ .Paak says. “We’ve got real chemistry, we’ve been playing for 10 years-plus. They say [The Free Nationals] are like bands like Earth, Wind and Fire, Parliament Funkadelic, James Brown. This is the kind of show they would be doing if they could do it in the modern age, that’s what we’re pulling from. It’s like a real soul, funk, acid trip; even a rock show in a sense.” 

.Paak notes that while he didn’t feel like anyone could outplay the band, his shows had lacked a compelling visual aspect. He’s had fun developing the production with his team, including Brian Roettinger, art director and creative director at WP&A. 

“I’m very particular. I wish that sometimes I could walk away but every little detail on the production, on the music side, I just have to be involved,” .Paak says. 

 “We rack our brains, every part of the show we want to be amazing. I’m thinking, ‘Damn, if I was watching the show, what would I want to see?’ I lose sleep over it. The show is everything; it’s my baby.”

To ensure .Paak doesn’t get lost on stage when he’s behind the drum kit, the production team designed a set for “Biggest Teef In The Game” that makes him the center focus, with the drums on an 8-foot hydraulics system that raises, then lowers when he’s not playing. 

“It acts as a big sort of reveal, almost like he’s coming up from the ground,” Roettinger says of the show’s opening, in which fans can hear the drums but can’t see .Paak until the stage rises. He compares it to a simplified version of Parliament Funkadelic’s Mothership. 

“A lot of the [visual] content has to do with the ocean and water and sun and light and dark,” Roettinger says, explaining that the beach-town references on Ventura, Oxnard and Malibu provided an obvious visual theme.  

And as much as the audience is having fun, so is .Paak. 

“It’s a jungle gym on that stage, running up and down the stairs, trying not to get singed by pryo, and crowd surfing and guitar solos, drum solos,” he says. “It’s the show you dream of when you’re a kid.”

Azoff says this is just the beginning: “We think he belongs in arenas and will be in arenas everywhere soon – not just the three markets.”  

Olenik adds, “You can see that his fanbase is growing because there’s so many different types of people attending his show. It’s kind of all over the map, which is exciting because that just shows he’s going to be around for a while and we can keep putting him in bigger rooms.”