{"id":532647,"date":"2026-07-09T08:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T08:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/532647\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T08:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T08:22:08","slug":"rb-star-syd-on-the-return-of-the-internet-and-falling-out-with-odd-future-we-only-had-three-meetings-as-a-group-and-i-called-two-of-them-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/532647\/","title":{"rendered":"R&B star Syd on the return of the Internet and falling out with Odd Future: \u2018We only had three meetings as a group and I called two of them\u2019 | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a time when Sydney Bennett really wanted \u201csomething to show for all of my hard work\u201d. The 34-year-old singer-rapper-producer-engineer was a member of Odd Future<\/a>, the anarchic Los Angeles rap collective that also included Tyler, the Creator, Frank Ocean and Earl Sweatshirt. In 2011, that group birthed the Internet, the indie-R&B band Bennett formed with her best friend, Matt Martians. Since then, Bennett has released two acclaimed solo records, collaborated with Beyonc\u00e9 and Kehlani, and been nominated for a Grammy, alongside the Internet.<\/p>\n

Still, around the time of her last album, 2022\u2019s Broken Hearts Club, she started hoping for an award or public recognition. But then she bought a house \u2013 a nice spot on the same street she grew up on in Mid-City, LA \u2013 \u201cand now I\u2019m happy\u201d. I look at her quizzically, sitting across from me in a private room in a hotel in east London, as she takes a sip of pineapple juice. It was as simple as that, I ask? She lets out a guffaw, flashing a set of perfect teeth. \u201cI\u2019m afraid it was,\u201d she says, grinning conspiratorially.<\/p>\n

Bennett cuts a low profile. She is small, with a shaved head, and prefers neutral tones; today, she is clad in grey shoes, huge grey jeans and a grey sweatshirt with frayed edges. On her new album, Beard, her voice is quietly commanding \u2013 a cheeky R&B purr that\u2019s rough on one side, smooth as glass on the other. But in person she laughs loudly, cracks wacky jokes and comes across like a true music nerd, excited to show me photos of the studio she\u2019s built in her parents\u2019 house. We\u2019re here to talk about Beard, named in celebration of the peach fuzz on her top lip, but sometimes it seems as if she\u2019s more thrilled to talk about the amazing stuff her bandmates are preparing to put out.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason Bennett no longer feels like she needs the accolades is that she\u2019s now making music that truly feels like her. She describes Beard as her \u201cfirst really me album\u201d. Her solo debut, Fin, released in 2017, was motivated by her desire to prove her songwriting chops and make a career writing for other people. She figured that releasing one of the year\u2019s best R&B albums would be a good way to show off her work. (She doesn\u2019t phrase it quite as self-confidently as that.) Fin\u2019s follow-up, Broken Hearts Club, was a breakup album, filled with songs she had to get out, almost as a form of therapy. Beard, then, \u201cfeels like the first album where I get to really focus on myself, lean into myself\u201d \u2013 evidenced by songs such as 2 Many Days, on which she celebrates her success in music, and the fact that much of the production on the album was handled by Bennett herself.<\/p>\n

She was born and raised in LA. Her mother worked as a clerk, her father worked as president of sales for Small World Toys, and she and her brother Travis (an Odd Future member better known as Taco) sometimes modelled for the toy company. When she was a teenager, Bennett started to take an interest in music production, and turned her parents\u2019 guesthouse into a makeshift studio. She would post about the studio on MySpace and invite people over. When she and Taco became part of Odd Future in 2007, the crew would record in the Bennett family studio, defacing the walls and smashing the windows.<\/p>\n

For the most part, Bennett was seen as the DJ and engineer of Odd Future. The group celebrate their 20th anniversary next year, and she\u2019s still friends with many of the crew. She spoke to Tyler, the Creator yesterday; he was wondering why she and Steve Lacy, another Internet member, were releasing their albums on the same day (Bennett thinks it\u2019s cute, and they\u2019ll probably have a joint party; Tyler thinks the albums need their own moments), but she seems uneasy when she considers her time in the group.<\/p>\n

Get URL freak on \u2026 Syd (second left) as a member of the Internet. Photograph: Roger Kisby\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Once Odd Future became a real thing \u2013 with record deals and tours and a fanbase \u2013 Bennett started struggling. The days just hanging out in the house \u201cwere good, because I felt like we were friends. Ultimately, the truth was just that we were all working toward the same goal. Once we got on the road, that became more evident, and I was like: OK, we\u2019re not friends.\u201d Once, she remembers, she called a band meeting \u2013 \u201cWe probably had three meetings as a group ever, and I called two of them\u201d \u2013 to talk about where they would record. \u201cI remember saying: \u2018You guys can still record here,\u2019 and one of them said, \u2018We\u2019re not even friends like that,\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She became increasingly depressed, \u201cwhich no one else in the group could understand\u201d. Thankfully, Matt Martians, her bandmate from the Internet, was somebody who would grab me and be like: \u2018Come on, you\u2019re OK, you\u2019re OK\u2019 \u2026 Nobody in Odd Future would do that, and I don\u2019t blame any of them for that. But that\u2019s what made it really hard for me once we started touring,\u201d she says. \u201cI was unmedicated, dealing with a depressive disorder on the road around people who ignored it, probably out of their own discomfort. We were teenagers, but even to this day, a lot of the guys in Odd Future are pretty non-confrontational.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says that she doesn\u2019t take her time in Odd Future for granted though, not least because it set her and her brother up for success, and made their parents proud. Plus, the Internet came out of Odd Future. \u201cAnd, you know, Tyler still spends every Christmas and Thanksgiving at my house,\u201d she says. \u201cUltimately, it\u2019s a beautiful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Internet performing in London in 2016. Photograph: Marc Broussely\/Redferns<\/p>\n

When Bennett started making music, she wanted to be a producer, but lacked the confidence. When she was a teenager and first taking interest in production, she explains, she \u201cwas intimidated by all the men I was around\u201d \u2013 Bennett was the only woman in Odd Future \u2013 \u201cand they didn\u2019t show interest in any of my production, so I just assumed I wasn\u2019t there yet\u201d. Later, she realised that it wasn\u2019t that the guys didn\u2019t want to hear her production, they were all focused on their own work.<\/p>\n

After those Odd Future days \u2013 the group have been largely inactive for more than a decade, with individual members such as Tyler, the Creator and Frank Ocean becoming superstars in their own right \u2013 Bennett mostly put production to the side. But eventually, after Broken Hearts Club, she started making music for fun. \u201cOne day, I looked up and I had a lot of beats, and then the next day I looked up and I didn\u2019t like anybody else\u2019s beats,\u201d she says. Martians \u201cwas the first person that ever told me: \u2018Yo, that\u2019s tight, you made that.\u2019 I was like, really? No one\u2019s ever said that to me.\u201d She produced the majority of Beard herself \u2013 the first showcase of her talent \u2013 and for that reason she feels it\u2019s a kind of coming-of-age record. Her production tends to be rhythmic and warm \u2013 traditionalist R&B delivered with a touch of sleek modernism. \u201cI produced three songs on the first album, five songs on my second album, and on this one there\u2019s 10.\u201d<\/p>\n

She worked on some of the album at the North Hollywood studio of R&B great Raphael Saadiq, a producer and writer who\u2019s worked on many of the most important pop and R&B records of all time, including D\u2019Angelo\u2019s Voodoo and Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s Renaissance. Bennett describes him as \u201cthe idol you want to meet \u2026 You can talk to him about anything; he tells a lot of stories. Most of the time I was over there, we weren\u2019t working, we were just hanging out, talking, watching TV,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel like I can call him a mentor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alongside Beard, Bennett has been working on the feverishly anticipated fifth Internet record, their first since 2018\u2019s Hive Mind. Martians lives in rural Georgia, and Bennett recently went to record at his lake house; he\u2019s in the driver\u2019s seat for this project, in part because Bennett was busy writing songs for Beard. \u201cIt sounds nothing like my album, which is also intentional,\u201d she says. \u201cSomething I\u2019ve been thinking about is how to really separate me from the group sonically, because I hate when people conflate us.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this point, Bennett is totally content \u2013 creatively, spiritually, personally. \u201cI\u2019m really proud of myself, and I feel really accomplished. I\u2019m at a point now, I think, where I\u2019m not really chasing anything. I feel really blessed,\u201d she says. It feels as if she\u2019s being neither boastful nor bashful \u2013 just factual. The only reward she seems to care about is the ability to do things her own way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bought my house, and my royalties cover my mortgage and more,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m like, great! This is the first time I\u2019ve released an album and not wanted for anything. I have everything I want.\u201d Beard\u2019s inevitable success? That\u2019ll just be gravy.<\/p>\n

Syd\u2019s album Beard is out now via Free Lunch\/Warners. She plays Manchester, 31 August, and London, 1 September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a time when Sydney Bennett really wanted \u201csomething to show for all of my hard work\u201d.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-532647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}