19-year old singer/songwriter and producer Steve Lacy found his way into the industry seemingly by chance. A high school friend of Lacy’s introduced him to a band, The Internet, and Lacy quickly started to produce their album Ego Death. The album was awarded the Grammy for Best Urban Contemporary Album; the fact that Lacy’s first album won a Grammy shows his creativity and talent in the industry. Lacy also produced “PRIDE” off Kendrick Lamar’s latest album, creating a dreamy funk atmosphere that permeates much of Lacy’s work.

Lacy released his first solo body of work earlier this year, in the form of Steve Lacy’s Demo. Lacy refuses to call it an album and hates that iTunes has labeled it so; he feels that it’s simply a series of songs put together. The intricacies of Lacy’s production and songwriting are immediately distinguishable, drawing heavily from funk, R&B, and jazz, among other things. The most surprising part of Steve Lacy’s Demo, however, is the fact that it was produced entirely on an iPhone.

While Lacy is now familiar with widely-used industry standard programs, he prefers to use the Garageband app on his iPhone for nearly all of his work as it’s what he grew up doing. Despite the fact that this may be seen as a sort of technological disadvantage, Lacy manages to create extremely diverse and complex content that stands apart from the rest.

Steve Lacy’s Demo, while only six tracks and thirteen minutes long, offers a fantastic soundtrack. From the irresistibly catchy “Dark Red” to the chaotic and energetic “Haterlovin,” Lacy brings a shockingly diverse soundscape to the project.

Lacy brings a fresh fusion of sound to the industry; with ties and connections to multiple big name artists, he appears to be going nowhere but up. Fan’s of Steve Lacy’s Demo should keep their eyes out for The Internet‘s next album, which is set to be chock-full of Lacy’s trademark sound.