One of my most listened-to artists of the past couple months is also an occasional visitor of my living room. Domino is an up-and-coming Philly rapper who loves making music. He’s been doing it since high school, when he, my roommate, Dylan, and another one of their classmates started a rap collective, Lobby 404. Since then, he’s gone independent, and released an album, a deluxe, and a handful of great singles. He also performs at local venues sometimes, and one afternoon he was hanging out at our place before a show. I was fortunately able to use this opportunity to get to know Domino a little better – his musical history, why he started making music, and where he plans on going from here. This is an interview I conducted with Domino “Boat Boy” Gilley.
How long have you been making music?
Um, since I was 16. So, five years now.
How many projects have you put out?
Just three, I think. Like three albums. We got EP, with Dylan and my other friend, that’s called Lobby 404, then we got WIP and WIP deluxe, which I doubled the set list. So it went from nine to eighteen songs.
What was the first song you made?
My friend does this music festival, and I had written a rap, and he had forced me to perform it because he was like, “this is good”. And I was like, “no, it’s not”. That was the first song I recorded, back in summer 2017. Yeah, that was my first song. I don’t have a name for it, but there’s a video of it somewhere out there.
Why did you start making music?
The realistic answer is because my mom took my brother to get a new phone but didn’t take me to get a new phone and I was upset about it. So I was like, I’m gonna write some raps. And then I was like, wait, this is actually kind of fun.
That’s awesome.
Right. Where would I have been if I had gotten a new phone?
Who would you credit as your biggest musical inspirations?
Okay. Childish Gambino. Every rapper I listened to, I was like, “I don’t sound like that. I don’t sound like I’m from the hood. I sound like I talk white”. And then Childish Gambino came around. I was like, “oh shit, wait. He’s tough”. So, Childish Gambino, Tyler, the Creator, Chance the Rapper, and Lil Yachty.
Where would you like to see yourself in five years? Do you think that’s a realistic achievement for you?
In five years, I wanna be promoting other artists. I wanna have a platform big enough that I could put on other artists and help them out. I wanna be going on tour in five years. If I can be on tour in 5 years, that would be happy for me. And I feel like that’s realistic. I think I can get it done.
And then final question. Among the smaller artists you’ve met. Who would you list as your biggest inspirations?
Dylan and Ant are definitely my biggest influences. Anthony is a better rapper than me, or at least, better at wordplay than me.
Who’s Anthony?
Anthony. He’s a part of the rap group that I was in in high school. Lobby 404. Every time I would hear a verse that he had, I was like, “Shit, I gotta be like, ‘backspace, backspace, backspace’. I gotta rewrite my shit”. And then making beats. I would listen to Dylan’s beats as my reference track. But those two are definitely my biggest influences.
Thank you very much!
If you get the chance, check out some of Domino’s music, on any streaming platform. His latest single, “Boat Boy”, is an incredible display of Domino’s strengths: great rapping, awesome wordplay, and a killer beat Domino personally mixed, mastered and recorded. It’s the first single released for his upcoming album, and he’s got a lot more music on the way, so make sure to follow him to see what he does next. You’ll want to stay tuned – Domino only plans to go up from here.