Daniel Caesar once dreamt of fame. Now, he longs for the simpler life he once had
The Canadian R&B singer sits down with Tom Power to discuss his new album, Never Enough
Growing up in Oshawa, Ont., it was easy for Daniel Caesar to fall for the siren song of success. He longed to leave the suburbs to pursue his calling as a musician and prove what he was made of — and with his rare talent and hard work, his dream actually came true.
At age 22, he catapulted to international fame with the release of his debut album, Freudian, winning a Juno in 2018 and a Grammy the following year. But on his latest album, Never Enough, he reassesses his life with a nostalgic longing to return to the simpler times before he was famous.
"[Success] is what I wanted, it's just not what I thought it would be," Caesar told Q's Tom Power in an interview. "It's like Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz, you know what I mean? You get to the end, you look behind the curtain, it's just some guy moving levers."
Before he was a public figure, Caesar used the anger and resentment he felt toward the people who didn't believe in him to motivate himself, but he's now realized that those fantasies were misguided.
"I was just waiting on a feeling that turned out to be fleeting," he said. "So many people thought I couldn't do it, they doubted me, and then you prove them wrong. And then it's like all that resentment I had that I use as fuel to propel me to accomplish this thing … I have no use for any more…. I will say, like, anger or hatred or whatever, they are truly sources of fuel. But you have to be careful not to blow yourself up. It was very flammable…. It's very unstable."
WATCH | Daniel Caesar's interview with Tom Power:
One of Caesar's fantasies about fame had to do with returning to a restaurant he once worked at on King Street in Toronto, but he quickly discovered that the reality of visiting his former employer wasn't as satisfying as he had imagined.
"I had this boss — I'm, like, a professional dishwasher, if I wasn't a musician, I'd be a dishwasher — and I had this boss, she's kind of miserable, you know, always yelling at me," he said. "Me and my guys, we go to that restaurant. It's the first time I've gone since I quit. And I think I just had this idea in my head, like, it's just going to be that moment where they're like, 'Oh, I'm so sorry. You were so right!' You know what I mean? Just, like, this ridiculous idea in my head of retribution or something.
"And then I get there, and I see her and I say, 'Hi.' And she says, 'Hi.' And then I'm instantly, like, 'Bro, what am I doing?' I'm really not that person. You know what I mean? You're hit with, like, this wave of empathy. First of all, I'm a bad worker — I was not a good employee. I wouldn't employ me, you know what I mean? You're instantly kind of like, 'Oh, I'm being unreasonable here.'"
One of my favourite quotes from Andy Bernard on The Office, he's like, 'I wish there was a way to know you are in the good old days while you're still in them.'- Daniel Caesar
Caesar said the thing he loves most about making a new album is that the process always reveals something about himself or what he wants to say. While making Never Enough, he said he uncovered his discomfort with growing up. His song Toronto 2014 is about wanting to go back to that time and place when the future was still alluring to him.
"One of my favourite quotes from Andy Bernard on The Office, he's like, 'I wish there was a way to know you are in the good old days while you're still in them,'" the musician told Power. "Toronto 2014 is just kind of like, lamenting those days, like, broke and in love, and you're just focused on the next steps — I didn't have such a bird's-eye view of everything.
"I was more focused on what this is actually all about, which was just making great songs that, like, I would respect if I heard someone else make them. I just miss my innocence…. Being an adult, I don't like it."
The full interview with Daniel Caesar is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. He also talks about his hit song with Justin Bieber, Peaches. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Daniel Caesar produced by Vanessa Nigro.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
