DNA Picasso and Forty $even Team Up for New Collaborative EP

Denver rapper DNA Picasso, born Devin Nyshawn Arnold, is the king of collaboration. He’s had guest verses on songs by practically every Colorado hip-hop artist, frequently includes other artists on his tracks, and even created his own record label, Picasso Gvng Records, so he could expand his network of collaborators.

One of the first artists signed to the label, Forty $even, born Christian Angelo, impressed Arnold right off the bat; the two have been making music together ever since. Arnold added a verse to Angelo’s debut EP, Summer 20/20, and continued the partnership with multiple features from Angelo on his back-to-back projects, Midsummer and Summer’s Over. The dynamic duo has just released a collaborative EP, Until Next Time, and is celebrating with a performance at Meow Wolf on Friday, October 28.

Angelo is a Colorado native whose father raised him in Aurora while his mother was in and out of prison. He grew up an avid reader and writer, eventually taking his stage name from Walter Mosley’s novel 47. The now 21-year-old first discovered his undeniable talent for music while attending William Smith High School, where he took a two-week “rap intensive” course as an elective. “For two weeks we were in class the whole day writing raps, learning about rap, going to the studio. The studio we went to was run by Flobots, and my teacher went to middle school with them, so one day they came to visit. I had just finished recording the first two songs I’ve ever recorded, and they were like, ‘Yo, this is crazy,'” Angelo recalls. “So I took it more seriously because someone of stature said I was good.”

Encouraged by the enthusiastic feedback, Angelo began to pursue music with a new resolve. He started recording freestyles (using a coin-operated machine at a local arcade) to post on Soundcloud, studied trailblazing artists such as Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, the Creator, filmed videos with his friends, honed his performance skills at open mics, then started to reach out to booking agents at venues around town. In 2019, before Angelo was even of age, he booked himself a gig opening up for DaBaby at Cervantes’. A few months later, he met Arnold, who at the time was recruiting artists for the label he was then hoping to build.

“It was summer 2020, and I put up a post like, ‘I’m trying to work with other artists and build a team. If you have talent and you work hard, send me some music, hit me up,'” Arnold remembers.

For Angelo, it was exactly the opportunity he was looking for. “I was fiending for recognition at that point. Because I was like, the music I make is really better than a lot of people out here, but no one is seeing it,” he says.

After an initial meeting, Arnold invited Angelo to a group studio session, where he was an obvious standout. “For me, personally, it was clear,” Arnold says of his first encounter with Angelo. “This one right here? He was a light, for real. I felt embarrassed for some of the other people in the room, to be honest. He was really comfortable, and it was clear to me that he was better than most artists that I’ve heard, period. He sounds like somebody who needs to be famous, like, right now.”

Arnold says he was drawn to Angelo “for multiple reasons. The pen is what I look at, the sound and the content. What are you talking about; what do you have to say? And the emotion behind it. He had all of that, and it was genuine. It wasn’t forced, like a lot of people in this rap shit. His pitch matching is crazy, too. You would think he knew a lot about music theory based on his voice and how he approaches certain things.”

Despite the age difference (seven years) and Arnold’s tenure in the hip-hop scene, the relationship between him and Angelo is rooted in mutual respect and equal recognition of each other’s talent, rather than an unbalanced power dynamic. “When I was a little kid, I always had a problem with adults because I knew I was smart and I had shit to say, but no one wanted to listen because I was young. So I told myself that I would never treat anybody younger than me like that, because I know that every young generation that comes in knows more than I did when I was that age,” Arnold explains.

“I really appreciate that too, that he’s never treated me like that,” Angelo says. “But at the same time, I do view DNA as a mentor, or a big-brother role. But it is a mutual respect because of what I’m capable of.”

When it’s time to work, both Angelo and Arnold are laser-focused, determined to take advantage of every second of studio time.  “A lot of artists will record two hundred songs for a project with fifteen songs. I don’t like missing like that. I don’t want to go to the studio and make a song and never drop it. If I go to record a song, I’m really intentional about it,” Arnold says. “It’s self-awareness too, to be able to be like, ‘I don’t think this is a song that we’re going to move forward with.’ When we drop, we’re dropping with purpose.”

The pair have recorded more than twenty songs together, and have released (or have plans to release) all but one or two. They credit their productivity to their shared work ethic, and a firm belief that the studio is not the club. When multiple artists get in the studio together, it can quickly dissolve into a party atmosphere, but with Arnold and Angelo, it’s all business. “I’ve never had a session with Forty $even where we’ve been in the studio drunk. I’ve been in the studio with other artists and I’ve seen them waste twelve hours of studio time [by] drinking lean, smoking, having girls in the section and talking to them. And the engineers are just in there falling asleep,” Arnold says.

Angelo agrees: “The way we are, we have to invest at this point in our careers. We don’t have people fronting studio time. We don’t have that connect to where we can be in the studio all day. So our time in there is valuable. When we go to record, we’re serious about choosing the shit that is worth putting out.”

After they had built up a repertoire of several songs that met their sky-high expectations, they decided it was time for a Forty $even and DNA Picasso joint EP. “The way it was formulated, it wasn’t like, ‘Let’s get these songs ready for this project and go in and record it.’ It was like, after going to the studio a few times, we had these songs that are super hard, and we kind of just structured them into a cohesive project that makes sense,” says Angelo.

The six rapid-fire tracks on Until Next Time confirm what listeners first discovered on the Picasso Gvng University album: This duo is a force to be reckoned with. While they can stand perfectly fine on their own, in combination they are even more powerful.

Currently, Picasso Gvng is made up of four artists: Arnold, Angelo, Biz and Jus-CJ. But, Angelo and Arnold are also hoping to add Holiday, who is the only other artist showcased on Until Next Time with the track “Splurge.”

“That’s a young boy that’s really tough. He reminds me of myself, his self-assuredness at that age. He’s seventeen, and he produces really well. The way he goes in the studio to record, he knows what he wants, every time,” Angelo says of Holiday.

Arnold has big plans for the future of his label, but he also wants all the artists on the Picasso Gvng roster to thrive in their solo careers, as well. “That’s the thing about DNA,” says Angelo. “If he rocks with you, and he sees something in your music, it doesn’t feel like the exchange is purely transactional. There’s something beyond whatever stake he holds in it.”

“I’m not trying to tie nobody down, or force nobody to be a part of something,” Arnold affirms. “I’m not Suge Knight. I want to be able to elevate myself and everyone else. My dream is that we all have crazy deals going on in the future, and we’re touring artists doing our thing, making the music we want to make, collaborating with who we want to collaborate with, feeding our families, and changing our lives. That’s my focus.”

Until Next Time is out on all streaming platforms. DNA Picasso and Forty $even play Meow Wolf, 1338 First Street, Friday, October 28. Tickets are $20.