Foggieraw dropped “The Foggy Pound 3” in June after meeting with Alicia Keys.

Tosin Gbadamosi

Maryland native rapper Foggieraw just dropped what’s likely to be his most popular single to date, an interpolation of Alicia Keys’ Grammy Award winning song “You Don’t Know My Name,” thanks to the impossible — or at least improbable — happening: Keys herself signing off on the track.

“Psalms 62,” released on streaming services June 16 as part of a two-song EP, could have stalled out on Instagram. After Foggieraw released the video there, in which he raps the poem of the same name over the instrumental of Keys’ song, his team spent months trying to get permission to sample her music so the song could go wide.

It seemed as if it was going nowhere, until Foggieraw dropped a bomb on Twitter June 15, writing “Na y’all really kindly asked @aliciakeys.” A video clip shows him beginning to play the piano and rap the first verse of “Psalms 62” — when the camera pans to Keys herself accompanying him on the keys.

The two dissolve into giggles, which probably sums up the rapper’s feelings right now as he prepares to capitalize on this “lightning in a bottle moment” created by his latest single. He’s set to appear this weekend at the Broccoli City Festival 2023 at the RFK Stadium Festival Grounds.

Foggieraw was born in the U.S., but lived in Ghana before moving at age 5 to Prince George’s County, where he caught the music bug. Like many musicians, he played several instruments growing up, starting with the piano and then moving on to the saxophone. When he began college at 18 at Bowie State University, that’s when Foggieraw decided to take up rapping.

He first recorded under the name Jayo, later changing his stage name to Foggieraw, after a 2009 Foot Locker commercial starring former NBA player Mo Williams. In those days he was considered to be a part of “mumble rap” genre, a style of hip-hop characterized by lyrics listeners can’t quite decipher on the first listen. Like most of his contemporaries from that time (Playboi Carti, Lil Yachty, etc.), he has shaken that once-pejorative label, now opting for a more soulful sound utilizing samples from the 2000s.

With a core audience of friends and classmates, he slowly built a fanbase through consistent single releases on SoundCloud. With songs like “30 and 10,” “U Can’t Be My Baby,” and more, Foggieraw steadily grew from thousands of plays on the app to tens of thousands and eventually to 100,000-plus plays. He appeared on platforms like AMPD, Sundae Sauce, and others to continue his introduction to audiences that may not yet know about his music. Over the years, local audiences may have caught one of his shows at The Fillmore Silver Spring, the defunct U Street Music Hall and Milkboy Arthouse in College Park, or at the original Songbyrd Music House in Adams Morgan.

The rapper also made sure to pair his songs with a compelling video to match, something his peers pay less and less attention as the years pass.

“I think visuals are so important to me,” he tells DCist. “When you have visuals, especially like a really intentional, really thought out video, it really makes [the song come] alive — like something that could never die.”

Which is why when Foggieraw was coming up with the idea for a new song, remixing “You Don’t Know My Name” was a no-brainer, something he wanted to do since he was a kid.

“I started listening to that beat and then like, you know, obviously that video was always like iconic to me, especially because of Alicia [Keys] and Mos Def, and you know, that crazy order they made,” he says in reference to rapper Mos Def’s order of both the fish special and hot chocolate in the video.

He then pitched the idea to director Nehemiah Wilson, a frequent collaborator and friend of Foggieraw.

The video, which runs a little over a minute, almost didn’t happen. The rapper and his team set out to film at a diner, similar to Keys in her music video 20 years earlier. On a rainy day in Atlanta, Foggieraw, the director, and the two actors who appear in the video twice tried and failed to secure the ideal location. The staff at the crew’s first stop refused to allow them to film. At the second one, there were too many people inside. By this point, morale was low, Foggieraw admits.

Wilson told the group, “I don’t even know if it’s worth it to try to get this video done today, I’m not sure if it’s gonna work out,” the director tells DCist.

Nevertheless, they decided to try one last stop: the Atlanta-staple Waffle House restaurant on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Logan Chelise, the female lead in “Psalms 62,” secured the wary staff’s blessing to film by convincing them that the video was for a school project.

It starts with a close-up of the rapper in a Waffle House apron and tracks backward to reveal him taking the order of a couple at the restaurant in a single shot. The combination of Wilson’s intimate, one-shot style — borne out of necessity to keep costs low and used in his other videos with artists like local singer Mannywellz and budding R&B star Justine Skye — Foggieraw’s on-screen swagger, and the song’s lyrics stood out as a fitting homage to Keys. For Foggieraw, the rest was history.

When Foggieraw released the “Psalms 62” video on Instagram in 2022, fans immediately gravitated to it. (It has received over 8.1 million views.) The buzz generated from the video prompted him to push for an official release on streaming services, and his team worked behind the scenes to get sample and publishing clearance, and ultimately the blessing, of Keys.

“We would send it to sample people…people that were close to Alicia…people that were close to [her husband] Swizz Beatz, everybody can get it,” Foggieraw says.

But their attempts were futile; consensus was that Keys has never and will never clear samples of her music, especially one so closely resembling her own songs. Out of desperation, Foggieraw decided to put public pressure on her, tweeting, “okay guys I’ve tried everything in my power to get this out… maybe y’all could kindly ask miss alicia on my behalf lol.”

About a month later, she responded, “Hmmmmmmmm 🧐🧐🧐 I do like this vibe….. what do y’all think??” Foggieraw then received word from the sample clearance team at his label that the multi-platinum artist would clear the song under one condition: Alicia Keys wanted to meet him in person.

“We were just talking about life and she was real cool,” he says about finally meeting Keys. “She said, ‘You know what, you’re a cool cat and I’m going to go ahead and clear this for you. I feel like this is special. So I’m going to go ahead and do it.’”

Keys also let Foggieraw know that Swizz Beatz helped advocate for him. In total, it was a six to seven month process. The entire ordeal was a dream come true, he says

“It was such an honor and it was just so validating of the work I’m doing because you don’t want to have to receive validation from people. But I know that the type of music I make, it’s not what is quote-unquote supposed to work in music today,” Foggieraw says. “So, I felt like it was just affirming for this type of music, you know, a more soulful, different kind of approach to music to be honored on a bigger stage like this. I was really appreciative of that.”

The day after they met, he released The Foggie Pound 3 — a two-song EP featuring the recently approved remix and “Ms. Johnson,” a remake of Musiq Soulchild’s “teachme,” another classic R&B song. Foggieraw and Keys have since been in touch about opportunities for further collaboration; the two reunited backstage at Capital One Arena this past Friday for the Keys to the Summer Tour, and he hopes to join her on stage at some point before the tour ends.

“She’s like the president, so I don’t know what she’s thinking,” he jokes. “But there’s always a possibility. I think our managers are going to chat a little bit and kind of iron it out.

He’s also in the early stages of recording a joint mixtape and movie, the details of which he wants to keep under wraps until he finds the right partnerships for its release.

If Foggieraw’s career continues on this upward trajectory, he and others in the music industry will certainly look back at this moment as the catalyst. This weekend, catch him performing both new songs (and many more) in his hometown as a special guest appearing alongside mainstream artists like Lil Uzi Vert, Jazmine Sullivan, the City Girls, fellow Maryland native Brent Faiyaz, and more. His set on the smaller City Stage on the first day is sandwiched between Keke Palmer — we wonder what she’ll be wearing? — and Ice Spice on the main stage.

This story has been updated to correct Foggieraw’s place of birth. He was born in the U.S. and spent some time in Ghana as a child before moving to Prince George’s County. It has also been updated to remove an incorrect reference to Foggieraw’s label.

Filed Under: Arts and Culture, broccoli city festival, d.c., live music, Maryland, music,