Features : Leáfy Trav launches a career with hip-hop, fun and an “Overly Complicated” girl

Leáfy Trav thinks that people who would like his song “Overly Complicated” are people who love the bars and punch lines of hip-hop.

And maybe guys who feel like they got ghosted by women.

For them, he said, “This is probably the song you want to listen to.”

Especially if, instead of heartbroken, the ghosting leaves them puzzled and wondering what the hell happened.

“Like,” said Leáfy (pronounced lay-AH-fee), “a woman led them on but it really wasn’t love.”

I know she’s ghostin’ me

Not how it’s supposed to be

Last night she was close to me

Told me she don’t want me to leave

She’s so

Overly complicated kk’d

Overly complicated (oh)

The song has trippy melodies that move like a dance number. It starts out pure pop, then the bass line kicks in and hip-hop takes over, but the pop melodies remain, laid in over the beat, the lyrics switching back and forth from melody to rap.

It is moving for Leáfy. It has more than 3 million views on Instagram, tens of thousands on Spotify and Apple. He wants to push “Overly Complicated” because it exemplifies the variety that marks his brand of music.

He has been making music for a long time, since age 11, he said, but he is just now getting serious about the business.

“My craft has been there. It’s just I didn’t know how to market it, to push it, how to go about the business side. The talent is there. It’s the business part I’m lacking.”

Since getting down to business this year, he has put out three songs, each with its own sound and vibe.

One, “Sam & Cat,” has come out in the few weeks since “Overly Complicated” dropped. It has a hard trap edge.

“Like some of that Atlanta vibe,” said Leáfy. “That’s Southern, because I grew up around those parts, too. When you listen to ‘Overly Complicated’ and then you listen to ‘Sam & Cat,’ you’re like ‘Damn. This the same person?’”

The first track he released, “Panic Attack,” is a meditation in hip-hop, beginning, “The easy path in life is be consistent at nothing / The hardest path in life is be consistent at something.” It is a statement of intent.

“It’s a statement,” he agreed, “and at the same time, it’s telling people that if you want to achieve something, you’re going to have to tell people ‘no.’ Sometimes you can’t let other people direct your path.”

That applies to naysayers and well-meaning but distracting friends, too.

The variety in his output, like the variety within “Overly Complicated,” is a feature. It also reflects his upbringing, born in Milwaukee but growing up, living and working in a variety of places — Tennessee, North Carolina, Minnesota and places inbetween.

In his own bio, he says he is “known for versatility, unpredictable vocal style, and most notable his out-of-this-world punchlines.”

And so the first three offerings of the new, business minded Leáfy Trav are a slow-paced manifesto, “a girl who can’t make up her mind,” and a street rap.

The girl who can’t make up her mind and her lover, abandoned and confused, are who he has picked to launch himself, to promote and take wherever it leads.

“The goal is to spark interest because what I hear from a lot of music now is no punch lines. There’s no bars, there’s no metaphors, really. I feel like that’s what music is missing right now. So that’s going to be where I come in.”

He has put out music before, including an EP called The Peacoat Sorcerer, from a time when he was called Sorcerer because — well, he doesn’t really know why, that’s just what people called him then and, living in Wisconsin, he wore a lot of peacoats.

That EP, reworked, will be coming back, he said. He has more singles and another EP in the works. Videos, too, he says, but he is coy about when, or if, he will put out a video for “Overly Complicated.”

“Stay tuned,” he said.

So. Stay tuned. Connect with Leáfy Trav on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.

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