Hailing from Grand Rapid’s Michigan Waldo combines his smooth flow with eccentric up-tempo beats to create some of the most promising music we’ve heard in awhile.   Michigan has produced a fair amount of talented artists over the years. From Big Sean to Eminem Michigan artist’s are some of the most skilled around. And for good reason, it takes relentless determination and unprecedented talent to emerge as an artist from the Midwest. Many have tried and most have failed, but trust me when I say Waldo’s got next.   Waldo’s music is hard to describe: it’s introspective yet still meaningful, it’s up-tempo but still laid back, it’s simple yet the more I listen to it the more I hear. As paradoxical as that seems it equates to some dope music. Listen to any of his work and you’ll immediately understand what I mean.   Waldo is a founding member of the all-Detroit Hip-hop collective known as AGO. A group of musicians who are poised to push the limits of the traditional rap culture. AGO artists include: Sango, Amos Rose, Joose, Savon, The SEVENth, and of course Waldo.   We were fortunate enough to have a conversation with Waldo, read it below:   Exclusive Dat New Cudi Interview with Waldo DNC: Who is Waldo?   Waldo: I am Waldo of course, I make hip-hop/rap music. Waldo, I’m just a young man growing up in Grand Rapids Michigan. Just trying to find a way through music.   DNC: So you’re a part of a music Collective called AGO.   Waldo: Ah yeah, definitely. You see them [music collectives] more in bigger cities like Odd Future but you know you don’t get too much of that in Michigan and it’s awesome to be a part of such a big collective.   DNC: How long have you guys been making music?   Waldo: Man it’s been… I don’t want to say a decade but it’s been like the last few years of my life. I’ve been recording music since I was in 8th grade that’s how long Sángo and I’ve been knowing each other so it’s been some time.   DNC: Who has inspired you artistically in the last decade?   Waldo: Well artists who inspire me, well first I know it’s not probably 10 years ago, well maybe around 10 years ago but definitely Kid Cudi played a big influence on our music that’s why I thought it was awesome you guys wanted to interview me. But other than that Kanye West, Pharrell, Clipse that guy was a big influence on my music and I always like the electronic sounds and just different stuff like that.   DNC: What do you think of the current state of the music industry?   Waldo: Man I’d like to see more artists you know I’m so used to like just the heavy hitters running and you know we had T.I, Lil’ Wayne, Kanye, etc, running the rap game for the past 10 years. Jay-Z those guys and now that I’m starting to see more new artists come up such as myself and like you said the A.G.O crew. It’s dope to be the new upcomers man so I like where hip-hop is going and the direction it’s taking.   DNC: Yeah I agree, I feel like your crew’s music music is much more deep and meaningful than a lot of people are used to.   Waldo: The Tongue is powerful man, you know people don’t really understand how much music effects people’s ears you know what I’m saying? The tongue is a sword so what you say affects people. So if I’m putting out negative vibrations then I’m going to receive negative vibrations, you know what I’m saying? You get what you put in. You receive what you put into it. So I’d just like to say positive things especially with how the world is today man. You know they trying to scare us with Diseases and war and it’s just like you need sunshine every once in awhile. You need to hear something that just makes you feel good as a human being man. So I took that as a personal responsibility to make sure that I’m Influencing the listeners in a positive way.   DNC: Great answers man, that’s why I feel like people are going to appreciate you so much. Maybe you can tell me about this upcoming project your working on?   Waldo: Oh yeah, I feel really good man its coming along nicely. For this album I’m stepping more outside of my comfort zone so it will just be different material from me. Stuff that you might not have heard me doing on NSDE/OUTSDE also just Sango isn’t producing the majority, I got a bunch of producers this time around. Yeah man this project is coming along nicely.   DNC: So when that drops where can people find that?   Waldo: You’ll be able to find that on the Soulection Bandcamp. It’s dropping through Soulection so you’ll be able to download it from there and I’ll be tweeting the links, I’m pretty sure, all year next year. On twitter, Facebook, etc.   DNC: Thanks so much for taking the time Waldo, where can the world find out more about you?   Waldo: SoundCloud is my main thing right now but I’ll definitely be putting out more visuals and different stuff like that. I’ll be all over Youtube, I’ll probably be putting my projects on mixtapes just everywhere you can find up and coming artists. Where’s Waldo?