Outta Sight
Antonio Eyez
Feature Interview
The mid-morning social media hit. Sound on. College grads with red cups playing Jenga. Scroll. An overweight cat reclining on a pouffe like a Roman emperor. Scroll. A locked-out northern lass clambering through the front window, accidentally exposing her chest. Linger for a second, then scroll. A marketing influencer bullet-pointing tips about successfully bullet-pointing. Scrrroll. American maestro Van Hunt sharing new music by an artist called Antonio Eyez. Wait—back up. What was that? Watch again.
With vocals that sound as though they were birthed at the origin of soul and funk—the big bang of Ray Charles filtered through the angel-dust-altered state of Sly Stone. The clickbait was a succinct, interlude-like cover of Tony Toni Toné’s Al Green homage, Thinking of You. And there was more—a whole lot more to be found on the artist’s profile: dreamy soundscapes disrupted by the thick slop of lead guitar—a musical odyssey awaiting anyone willing to descend the rabbit hole via Bandcamp, Spotify, or wherever you get your sonic fix.
“Antonio Eyez has taken over my page because he’s dope AF,” was the caption Van Hunt added. A marathon listening session later, one could definitely relate.
“I call them the funk snippets,” says Antonio casually via Zoom, referring to the numerous covers that initially caught attention. Rumoured to be residing in Houston, when I asked Antonio where he was from exactly, he only replied, “The Universe.”
Which was manner for the rest of our conversation. Otherworldly yet articulate, speaking to Antonio was like watching one of those candid Prince TV interviews to be found on YouTube, now that His Royal Badness is no longer here to moderate his online exposure. Antonio—a self-confessed “transhuman,” which is also the title of one of his most arresting songs—is androgynous in appearance, like Bowie or Prince, despite the tash, with painted fingernails, beads galore, and Jackie O shades that obscure his mince pies—the feature that inspired his stage name.
“I had an old manager who said, ‘You got some beautiful eyes,’ and so I was like, ‘Okay, cool.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, you shouldn’t just call yourself Antonio, as that sounds like some ol’ mechanic’s name.’”
Growing up in Houston, Texas, Antonio was heavily influenced by the slop forefathers—Prince and Jimi Hendrix—along with neo-come-lately cats like D’Angelo and Antonio’s aforementioned mentor, Van Hunt. He was also deeply into gospel, with quartet groups like Willie Neal Johnson & the Keynotes and Lee Williams & the Spiritual QC’s.
“Antonio Eyez has taken over my page because he’s dope AF.”
“I came from a musical background,” says Antonio. “Both my parents could sing, as do both my grandfathers and my uncles. Mainly in the gospel realm. Every year we have a family reunion and do a church service. It’s cool. I grew up on the northside where the live musicians are homegrown—it’s pretty intense (the competition) but in a good way. If you think I’m lethal, then those cats are lethal too.”
Teaching himself how to play guitar and bass at 14 years old, Antonio can now play 21 instruments in total. “I’m versed in a little bit of everything,” he said modestly. On his Instagram profile, you can find a wealth of musical material and content—videos of original compositions and covers that range from funk soul classics to alt-pop.
“Musically, I just follow my heart,” Antonio explains. “It’s not necessarily one genre or anything. I call it the home base, where I just go back to what I grew up with and the music that is pure, y’know?”
He started out playing in local groups, touring with the band Endurance from Houston and opening for gospel legends like The Canton Spirituals and Bobby Jones. Once he got the gist, he set out on his own, selling copies of his self-titled debut album out of his car and via Sunrise Records in Beaumont, Texas.
Prolific and versatile, Antonio released a myriad of projects, EPs, mixtapes, and singles, including The Second Coming, Black God Child, Tribute 2 Prince, and the mini album/EP FutureRockN’Roll. One of Antonio’s defining moments was the 2019 single Transhuman, a deeply personal and affecting ballad. Imagine if Prince did a video of Sometimes It Snows in April performed behind a waterfall—the song has that vibe, with sublime production and a mellifluous lead vocal.
“I’m transhuman, I’m not normal. I am from the creation time,” he sings.
“I want freedom, and I want change,” says Antonio with conviction, addressing the sentiments of the song. “To write about it was a freeing thing. It came from a place of wanting to express myself, all the way through. And it felt good, really good, to get that out.”
Look up the hashtag "Trans" on social media, particularly on Elon Musk's X, and you'll encounter a loud and often contentious discourse surrounding the cross-section of trans rights and women's rights.
“I think you have to protect women’s rights,” says Antonio when asked about the nuance-free debate online. “It’s about really understanding one another. Ultimately, it’s about putting yourself in the position to listen and not be so judging, but to try and understand both worlds.”
A Prince influence is deeply ingrained in Antonio’s DNA. Though it’s somewhat surprising that, despite recording a live tribute album with Funkship, Eyez’s most purple moment is on the minimalist yet killer cover of Faith Evans’s Love Like This. The interpretation is steeped in the Prince sound aesthetic of 1986—his genius period that begot Sign O’ the Times, Camille, and the Dream Factory sessions.
“My manager at the time, Monyae Crawford, said to me, ‘You know, you should really try something different,’ and so I was like, ‘OK, check this out.’ So I did it that day and put my stamp on it.” Van Hunt was at the studio when Monyae received it and jumped on it, supplying some backing vocals and guitar parts.
Says Antonio: “In the words of George Clinton, I pee’d on it a little bit, and then Monyae and Van pee’d on it, and we got this little thang going on.”
The cosmic slop of Funkadelic and George Clinton’s Parliament is another clear influence. Thick slop and beautiful funk are laced throughout Antonio’s portfolio of material, from the covers of Flashlight/Aqua Boogie and I Got A Thing, U Got A Thing/Testify to the titles of his own songs: Funk Friday, Nasty Grind, Alien Invasion, and FunkNSoul. The heavy slop of Last Days (Shithole), recorded during the first lockdown following George Floyd’s death, is a striking example.
“Me and my homies used to record at a mom’s house, and we’d just be like, ‘Man, can’t stand the hood, can’t go another day in this shithole,’” Antonio laughs. “So we just kind of slept on it, and then years later, when all of this stuff started to take place...”
He pauses, then continues, “I think, if we’re really being honest with ourselves, we all put on masks and blinders and just try to escape this whole life of destruction. When I stopped to put the pen to the pad and say what I wanted to say, I felt George Floyd was like Jesus. If anybody had a perfect description of Christ, that would be it because the whole world went crazy. And I thought, if this is what this is, then we have to talk about it.”
“I felt George Floyd was like Jesus.”
Since the Covid years, Antonio has honed his craft as an auteur. Each piece of content has a look, a vibe—a brand, if you will. Low-down funk meets afternoon delight: sunlight through the blinds, clouds of smoke billowing through his nose hoop, and sepia-toned skylines.
“I have my own studio. A lot of the snippets are just ‘off the kick’—there’s no formula. It could start with the drums, bass, guitars, or the energy of the vocals. I try not to force it.”
At first, while his earlier material displays his gift for lyrical craft and writing memorable songs, production-wise, it sounds more conventional. However, the funk snippets, as he calls them, have allowed a looser, funkier sound to emerge. Now, his new material—like the brilliant, space-bass-dreamt California Summer, the defiant Fight On, or the recent single Voodou, an homage to P-Funk (that includes the lyric “Ain’t nun’ like the eye-funk”)—feels fully cooked: a perfected recipe, all in a gumbo of his own.
“Voodou, for me, was a spiritual awakening—embracing the fact that I am all these elements, you know, of funk, of R&B, and I’m joyful. I want to bring all of those elements, explore, and keep the good things going. Voodou is like that for me. It’s an expansion of myself. So I continue to allow that flow because that’s what’s important.
No genre is beyond experimentation, mind, as he proves on his interpretation of Billie Eilish’s Wish U Were Gay. No subject is taboo. When I bring up the song title, Antonio smiles, totally unfazed.
“To me, it’s more about expression. Art is fluid. When you can speak about art, you can talk about it with no judgement, so you can relate to anything. I consider myself fluid—musically and as a person. I’m fluid. As to who I love… musically, because it’s about art.”
Prolific as ever, Antonio recently collaborated as part of the duo Aquajemi with former D’Angelo & The Vanguard member and underground soul hero Jermaine Holmes on the album Gods & Devils. He has also promised to release a cover of the NPG’s Count The Days.
“Stay tuned,” says Antonio when asked about the future. “I want to give a shoutout to all the fans out there—all the beautiful women and all the beautiful men. The support means everything. Because when there’s that, I just go harder.”