With three full-length albums and two EPs under his belt, Mac Ayres has been extremely prolific since he first started releasing music in 2016. For his latest project, the Sea Cliff, NY, native pumped the brakes, rolled up his sleeves and dug into his archive to dust off some of his earliest cuts from his SoundCloud days.
The earliest of the songs date back to 2016, when Mac was contemplating dropping out of his songwriting major at Berkeley College of Music in Boston, Mass. Wracked with anxiety and struck with an instantly recognizable yearning for stability, the songs on Cloudy float. In these early cuts, Ayres prioritizes contouring his sweeping melodies with ethereal arrangements over verbose lyricism.
With all his influences on full display, Cloudy offers a rare peek into the formative years of one of R&B’s most interesting and most underrated singer-songwriters, now 27. He’s not just revisiting his roots; he’s fully entrenching himself and his audience in the throes of those turbulent times.
In celebration of the compilation’s release (Nov. 8), Ayres performed an intimate piano-and-mic set at New York City’s LPR. He played tracks from Cloudy, his most notable hits, and a few covers that allowed him to recapture the freedom of his years as a bar musician.
“[By the time my first EP] Drive Slow came out, I was 20. I had eight years of practicing being in front of people and performing,” he tells Billboard. “It’s a really important part of my artistry. That was the most fun to get back to. This has been a very musically liberating experience.”
In a self-reflective conversation with Billboard, Mac Ayres talks about all things Cloudy, the emotional weight of revisiting your past, and his plans for 2025.
What exactly do we call this project? Is it even important to you to properly demarcate what kind of project this is?
Amongst my team, there has been some discourse. [Laughs.] I’m not too big on, “Is this an album versus an EP” or whatever, but this project feels like a compilation. I made the last five albums with the goal of having an album at the end. These songs are all old and from the SoundCloud time of my life. Not only did I not think I was making an album, I thought nobody would ever hear them. That makes this project separate from the other albums, at least in my head.
What was it like revisiting your SoundCloud era from a 2024 perspective?
It’s been a really healing time for me. I went back to Boston – I wrote a lot of these songs when I was at school there – and to be in the physical space I was in, it was interesting to think about where I was mentally back then.
I had no idea what was next for me. I was ready to find another avenue in music, whether it was teaching or being a bar musician like I was in high school. I was down to keep that going, we make okay money sometimes! It’s a full-circle moment for me to come back to these tunes. I have changed so much as a musician, but mostly as a person.
When was the earliest of these songs written?
In the fall of 2016, then the latest one couldn’t have been later than the top of 2018. There were some mild reworkings I had to do. I had to recreate an instrumental for one of them to get around clearing a sample of Chaka Khan’s “Everywhere” that was on the SoundCloud version. I wound up replaying a lot of it this year on what I had at home – guitars, keyboards, etc. I really didn’t want to get rid of it.
Vocally, it’s all the original takes. We had to do some deep diving for those old sessions. It’s also mostly the original, shitty mixes I did in my college apartment.
Why was it important for you to keep those original vocal takes?
I think there’s a lot of magic in what some people would call the “demo track.” I’m not in the business of making a perfectly polished thing. I’m in the business of catching lightning in a bottle and making sure that when you’re listening to it, you can hear all of my stuff that I put into it emotionally and spiritually. I guess it helps that these songs have been out on SoundCloud, and I [didn’t] want to make a regurgitated version of them. I wanted them to be the songs that people enjoyed.
Did you hear anything in those original tracks that might have made you cringe? Or were you surprised at any choices you made back then?
[Laughs]. I’d say [there were] a couple of cringes here and there. But I think that’s also a beautiful part of coming back to these songs. Maybe the shit that I think is cringey now as a 27-year-old was really cool to a 20-year-old. I find that as you make more and more stuff, you find yourself falling into patterns. I was such a blank canvas back then that there were a couple of decisions I probably wouldn’t make today.
What were some of those specific sonic impulses that were more apparent in your earlier songwriting?
Compared to my last record, this project feels very wordy to me. Some of the songs on this project are literally five words total; it’s just a hook or a musical motif that just feels good. I almost feel like it’s teaching me to go back to my impulses a little bit. Sometimes all you need to do is say one word. Or all you need to do is say three words. The last record was more so me ripping out of my journal, and with Cloudy, you just gotta catch the feeling.
Talk to me a bit more about the emotional space you were in when you wrote these songs.
I was in my junior year at Berkeley College of Music in Boston. I had fallen really out of love with everything about school. It’s not like I was ever a great student, but I was really into it my first couple of years as a songwriting major and then I fell out of love with the classroom [environment].
We were doing a lot of homework assignments like, “Write a song about your favorite childhood pet!” And I’d be like, “I don’t want to.” [Laughs.] So, I would stay in my apartment and work on the songs that I wanted to write. I was learning how to produce for myself at the time; I was in a new relationship; I was in the process of calling my entire family (who are all lawyers) and telling them that I was dropping out of school.
I was a lot of uncertainty. I didn’t know what was next. It was a very leap of faith moment for me; I trust myself. To this day, I trust the work that I put in, and everything worked out for me. Me and that girl are celebrating our eight-year anniversary in March!
What’s the most interesting memory these songs brought back up to you?
I used to ride my bike to school a lot. I lived in an apartment half a mile from campus, but I rode my bike so I could get home as fast as possible. I remember when I was first writing these songs, it was 2016 – the year the first NxWorries album came out. That album did so much for me, not only as a writer but also in the way I treated myself and my dreams. .Paak was really talking hit shit on there; Knxwledge is one of my favorite producers. I used to ride my bike to “Get Bigger / Do U Luv” all the time. I always think about that kid on the bike and how badly he wanted to make art. He’s still an important part of me today.
From an archival standpoint, why was it important for you to make sure that all of these songs can be found in one place for your fans?
I’m paying homage to the people who have stuck around as long as they have. For them, Cloudy is old and nostalgic; they have their own memories attached to it. At the same time, there’s people who may have just heard me for the first time yesterday and Cloudy is what they’ll hear. It’s an important little square on my quilt of artistry. Even though it’s not necessarily “me” right this second, it’s still an important piece of the foundation to get an idea of who I am both musically and personally.
How did you land on this title?
There’s the SoundCloud tie-in, but I was just writing a lot about skies. I have “Blue Skies” on there – that’s a really important one. There was a lot of metaphor there. I think there’s something to be said about the clarity you get when the clouds go away, or how you might feel when the clouds are out. There’s a lot to play with there.
Which of these songs do you think was most indicative of where your sound is today?
I feel like “Love Somebody” is probably in that group of songs. “Blue Skies” too. Even songs like “She Just Wanna See Me Right Now,” pay homage to all of my favorite genres of music. There’s jazz, hip-hop elements, R&B influence, folksy singer-songwriter stuff. And melodically and lyrically, it’s a big mush of all the people that inspire me. But those three songs definitely were pointing to where I was headed.
Would you ever sample yourself and if so, what song on Cloudy would you sample?
Maybe I could try “Somebody New” or something that doesn’t already have drums and it’s just me and the piano. I might have to do that when I get home, just to see if it works. [Laughs.]
What songs hurt you the most to leave off this project? Will they ever come out?
I have a song with an old friend of mine named Raelee [Nikole] called “Just What You Say,” and I wanted that to be on Cloudy, but we just couldn’t make it work. I also have a couple of beats – my vocals aren’t on there – and stuff from the SoundCloud era where I’m sampling stuff like Ne-Yo or [Common’s] “Like Water for Chocolate.” I think they tell a little bit more of the story of my producer side, but, for the most part, we got all my favorites on there.
You’re hitting the road soon. What can you share about that?
At the end of November, I’m going to Europe for a couple of days and opening for Keshi. We’re only doing three or four shows out there, but we’re also going to Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand together next February. I haven’t been to any of those places so I’m excited. Next summer, I’m doing a few North American shows with him too. We’re playing The Garden — and as a lifelong Knicks fan, I’m definitely freaking out.
I always tell people: I sang the National Anthem at one of the Knicks games last season, and it was far and away the most nervous I’ve ever been. Because these are people I watch every single night. Singing at a venue of 1,000 people is whatever; singing in front of Jalen Brunson was the most stressed I’ve ever felt in my life.
When did you decide that you were going to go the compilation route?
I had always wanted to do a compilation at some point. I’m always working on stuff. Nothing really solid yet, but I’ve got some ideas. People on social media have always been like, “We need these on DSPs!” and my fans seriously mean a lot to me. They are entirely why I’m where I’m at today, so I always want them to feel like I’m listening and providing the things that they want and like. A lot of this art is for me, but at the end of the day, I’m not me without all of them.
Where’s your head regarding new music?
I’m always writing and working on new stuff. I’m always listening to new stuff and trying to grow and see where music takes me next. It always has taken me to places I did not expect. When it’s ready, it’ll be ready. But there’s always more music to make.