Shawn Wasabi has had his fans eagerly waiting five years for a full-length project and earlier this summer, he delivered.
The LA-based multifaceted artist, creator and weird kid forever brought his long-anticipated debut album, Mangotale, to the world on May 29, 2020, and describes it as “a body of work that reflects personal growth, musical maturity and this summer’s biggest pop anthems.”
“I’m so happy that the album is coming to fruition. I’ve been wanting to put this out since forever and I’ve put my heart and soul into making sure that all the songs are my favorite and it’s been fun,” Wasabi tells Celeb Secrets about the record over Zoom. “I had to find different ways for inspiration on my own — most of it was from going on the Internet and watching funny videos and TikToks and going on Twitter and saying hi to people.”
The 12-song project is a versatile collection of polished pop cuts reinforced by an all-female crew of singer-songwriters including kennedi, raychel jay, Tia Scola and more with songs like “Halo Halo,” “Medicine” and “Tokyo Tea” written during quarantine.
“The way that I’ve been working with collaborations on these songs is so different for me because I am used to working in person and being able to catch energy and bounce back in a room,” Wasabi says. “But now I’ve been trying to get used to making songs over DMs, FaceTime and video calls and it’s a lot different.”
Something that really stood out to us with this record is that each track on the album is visually represented by a character from Mango Island, designed by illustrator Ann Alonso. From “princess peach” to “Marble Tea” to “Halo Halo,” Wasabi has created his own idyllic paradise for fans to explore when they listen to Mangotale.
“I have this cartoon on Cartoon Network that I really like called ‘We Bare Bears’ and it’s this cartoon about these three bears that try and fit into human society and explore the city of San Francisco as if they were human. Some of my favorite artists and animators who work on that show helped me put together a bunch of story boards and a bunch of visuals/pieces of art to help me define and describe what I wanted to visual aspect of my album to look like,” Shawn explains. “And that’s why this album art — when you look at it — it’s called ‘Mangotale’ and it’s me riding a giant dog. We spent a few nights at my house back in 2017. He came over and drew an entire cartoon of me with a bunch of animals and fruit and that’s how the story and visual aspects came together. It’s amazing – I love that kind of thing. I appreciate that sort of creativity.”
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Over the years, Wasabi has amassed hundreds of thousands of fans and listens across platforms like Soundcloud, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, with some of them being pretty familiar faces. From Katy Perry and Macklemore to Jason Derulo and Doja Cat, the LA-based creator received the seal of approval from music’s biggest artists, which even resulted into cutting some demos that have yet to be released.
It’s amazing to receive all of this support,” Wasabi shares. “[With Jason,] we’ve done so many songs together. I’ve learned a lot from being at his house and working with him. Before quarantine, I would go to his house every other night for about two weeks and we’d just make songs. It was really cool but also new and interesting for me because he’s a night owl and likes making music at 2am where I’m trying to sleep. I love the songs that we did.”
In regards to working with Doja Cat, Wasabi tells Celeb Secrets that she is one of his “favorite people” to work with.
“I’ve worked with her for a bit two years ago,” he says. “Doja and I did a bunch of songs together but it was just for fun. We were in an Airbnb and weren’t taking it seriously. We were just making random beats and then Doja would rap verses on top of them. We have a bunch of random songs but nothing that feels like a diamond or a smash. They are all just personal bops that we made from scratch and rough ideas.”
Later this evening, Wasabi will mark his virtual TV debut on Twitch TV’s smash hit series Animal Talking with Gary Whitta. The pop artist will join the all-avatar cast of “2020’s hottest talk show” performing “Animal Crossing” and his current single “Lemons (ft. kennedi)” before taking the couch for a chat with Whitta from his virtual basement studio. The stream begins at 7PM PT and more details can be found here.
For more information on Shawn’s new album Mangotale, watch our full interview with him below. You can follow him on Instagram at @shawnwasabi.
LISTEN TO MANGOTALE HERE:
