How Lil Tecca Channeled Video Games and Neuroscience for His New Album ‘Dopamine’

“Dark Thoughts,” the opening track from Lil Tecca‘s new album Dopamine, came together in a flash. The 22-year-old rapper says he made the song at nine in the morning, “straight off the wake up as a vibe check.” We’re seated on a lush couch in his publicist’s office in the Lower East Side, a few days after the album dropped. “I got the beat off of YouTube. I just looked up Pharrell type beat, and it was probably the first couple beats I played, and then that was the song that came out of it.” The track would somehow get leaked, and fans’ enthusiasm for the smooth, mid-aughts style track would be the impetus for the entire album.

“When it got leaked, people were really liking it, and we were like, ‘okay, we got to drop this,’” he says. “We were obviously working on the album the whole time, but that sped up the timeline in terms of the first single.” From there, Tecca says he started working in the studio even harder, making sure he was generating as many ideas as he could. “Honestly, when the world reacted the way they did to that song, it just opened up a whole sound we can tap into.”

Where some artists might choose to drown out the noise from their fans, Tecca’s approach is rooted in appreciation. People wanting to hear his music was motivation to make more music. “No one owes me a listen. So if there’s people out there that are trying to listen to my music, I’m working as hard as I can to get that music to them,” he says. “It’s like you don’t go to a restaurant and order your favorite dish, and the chef is like, I’ll bring it out when I want. So I kind of see it the same way.” It’s like, okay, you order what you want and I’m going to work as hard as I can to bring it to you.”

Dopamine flows almost like a DJ mix, with transitions themed around a fictional radio station that bring the eclectic moods of the record together. For Tecca, who started releasing music when he was 16, this was an intentional way to engage with his listeners in a new way. “I really value that full listen. For the ones that listen to it full way through, I have a different level of respect for that,” he says. “And adding transition and adding radio segments is my way of showing appreciation for you taking this in as one piece.”

With listener attention spans dwindling, the project achieves a level of cohesion both sonically and thematically that feels like a Gen Z update to the classic albums of the CD era, where entire narratives unfurled over the course of a dozen or so tracks. “My songs aren’t that long, so it makes it easier to, I would say, get that sweet spot in the modern day attention span,” he explains. “The transitions are sort of like a medium to set the vibe. So it’s not too sporadic. Of course, you might be down for the ride, but you’re not down for the bumps. So we just try to smooth the bumps, especially for the young crowd.” 

Tecca says he was inspired by the radio stations in Grand Theft Auto, which makes sense when you pay attention to some of the absurdist lines that segue between tracks. Lines like “You’re tuned into Dopamine FM, because therapy is expensive and regret is free,” which arrives at the tail end of the breezy disco-tinged cut “Favorite Lie.” For Tecca, those moments of levity helped create the broader world of the album. “When you’re listening to [the GTA station] Fever Flash FM within the songs, there’s someone saying some crazy outlandish shit that I wouldn’t even repeat, and that inspired the one world aspect — multiple vibes in one world, one umbrella.”

So, what exactly is the universe of Dopamine? Tecca says he’s been fascinated by the neurotransmitter responsible for things like pleasure and motivation since he was a kid, and wanted to construct an album centered around the idea of upbeat, feel-good music. On the project, Tecca explores a range of sounds that he’s cultivated over the years, from the rage-rap sensibility of “Boys Don’t Cry” to the afrobeat-infused “Don’t Rush” or the Y2k-tinged “Irish Goodbye.”  

“I’ve always been into neurotransmitters and overall how the brain and why we are even conscious of having one,” he explains. “Dopamine was like, as a kid, one of my favorite neurotransmitters to explore, and it felt authentic. It’s something that I wanted to convey in my music.”

Now that the album is out in the world, he’s looking to bring that sensation to his fans in real life at his shows. “The live aspect of the album is essential. It’s just one of those mediums that you want to create a world that needs to exist at the same level as the music,” he says. “So when I think about performing it is nothing that’s separate than rapping. It’s nothing separate than making the song.”

At 22, Lil Tecca is already something of a veteran in the game. Dopamine is his fifth album, though he sees this new era as the actual start of his career. “Basically, everything before this album, I was kind of learning the game,” he says. “I’m learning the controls, I’m learning the characters, I’m learning the final bosses. This album is the end of the prologue in the sense of now I have enough tools to apply to my craft, to where, not that I know what I’m doing, but I know more than ever that I don’t know anything so I can learn the most and therefore I have the most to apply.”