There is something fitting about DC calling All Things Can Be True a “project.”
Even before hearing it, the title suggests a refusal to settle on a single interpretation where one truth does not necessarily cancel out another. For DC, that idea became the foundation of the release: a body of work where opposing thoughts, changing perspectives and contradictions can exist alongside one another.
“I always used to be like, okay, all things can be true,” he explains. “Sometimes just one answer doesn’t mean that there’s an absence of another.”
The concept is rooted in everyday contradictions. DC uses his relationship with smoking as one example: wanting to quit while simultaneously still enjoying it. Elsewhere, a mindset he had in January might no longer be the mindset he held months later. Both versions of himself, however, remain true to the person he was at those respective moments.
That sense of movement is central to All Things Can Be True. Rather than presenting a neatly resolved version of himself, DC is interested in documenting the messier process of becoming.
“I just really wanted to talk about, you know, like always, just be honest in the music about real life situations, where my mind’s at,” he says. The project expands that honesty beyond the more serious subjects listeners may already associate with him, touching on ambitions, relationships and his interactions with women. “I just wanted to touch on things like that, but just have a more rounded view of what’s going on with me.”
That desire for a more rounded portrait is also reflected in the way the project was made. DC has deliberately avoided calling it an album, explaining that he does not want the terminology to dictate how the music is received. Calling something an album, he argues, can create an expectation that it represents an artist’s most refined or definitive work. A mixtape, meanwhile, can come with its own assumptions about loose, less cohesive material.
I just don’t want to box myself in. I’d rather let the people that listen decide.
It is a particularly revealing approach for an artist who is clearly thinking about his development. Asked whether All Things Can Be True is his most complete project, DC pauses before offering a surprisingly measured answer. In terms of variety, he thinks it might be: the project moves through a broader range of sounds and approaches. But he does not consider it the pinnacle of his work.
“I don’t think I’ve made my most complete album or project,” he says.
It is less a dismissal of what he has created than an indication of where his ambitions lie. For DC, there is still somewhere else to go.
One of the clearest developments on All Things Can Be True is DC’s approach to songwriting.
While his previous work placed a major emphasis on the bars and the strength of his rapping, this time around he wanted to make songs that felt more rounded. That meant working with a wider range of producers and bringing in artists whose contributions could complement the songs rather than simply function as conventional rap features.
“I was really focused on like the bars,” he says of his previous project. “With this one, I just wanted to make more rounded songs… just to improve song making.”
The distinction is subtle but important. DC isn’t abandoning the lyricism that has defined his earlier work; instead, he is widening the frame around it. The project becomes an opportunity to experiment with hooks, production and collaboration while retaining the directness of his writing.
That process appears to have crystallised with ‘Misunderstood‘, featuring Bawo. DC describes the song as the point where the project began to feel more complete, an upbeat track that could still carry something meaningful beneath the surface.
“I didn’t want to make a song that just sounded like, oh, you’re just trying to make a quote-unquote banger,” he explains. “I still wanted it to say something.”
The track therefore became something of a missing piece: energetic without being empty, accessible without sacrificing substance.
That balance also extends to the project’s collaborations. Ossi Grace, who lives in Nigeria, ended up contributing to ‘Halo’s Fade’ after DC heard a vocal of hers that immediately stood out. She had initially recorded a reference vocal, but DC liked it so much that it became the final version.
“It was just like, no, this is amazing,” he remembers. “So I just asked her if she wanted to be part of it.”
Where Bawo brought a collaboration that DC had wanted to make for some time, other contributors pushed the project further into more left-field, indie and alternative territory. The result is a set of collaborations chosen around the needs of individual songs rather than a checklist of expected names.
“The collaborations were a bit different, a bit left field than what I would normally do,” DC says. “I just want the right features to complement the songs.”
Of course, creative growth rarely happens without friction.
One of the clearest examples came with ‘If I Go.‘ The original version used a sample from SWV, but after Kendrick Lamar released music using the same sample, DC found himself facing a difficult clearance process and the added problem of potentially sounding as though he had followed Kendrick’s lead.
DC had actually made his version months earlier.
Rather than abandon the song, the team rebuilt it around a different sample. The finished version retains some of the original essence, but the process changed the track considerably. DC is still considering releasing the original version separately.
Another battle came with ‘Maze Hill’, which he identifies as perhaps the hardest song on the project to finish. The difficulty wasn’t necessarily finding the song itself, but knowing when to stop writing.
“I think for me that was probably one of the songs where I really tried to say stuff,” he explains. “I took my time with it.”
The ending became particularly difficult. DC kept returning to the final lines, trying to make sure the song concluded with something meaningful rather than simply filling space.
“You don’t want to stop just saying nonsense,” he says.
It is a small insight, but an important one. For an artist whose music is so heavily tied to lyricism, finishing a song isn’t simply a matter of deciding that the track is long enough. The ending has to earn its place.
If ‘Maze Hill’ represents the difficulty of saying exactly what he wants to say, “Halo Is Fade” represents the bigger picture.
DC describes it as one of his favourite songs on the project because it speaks to the journey he has been on and attempts to summarise the experiences of the last few years.
“I think that’s what partly this project represents,” he says. “It’s just the journey of the last few years.”
That idea of looking back without becoming trapped by the past is perhaps the most interesting thread running through All Things Can Be True. DC is conscious of what he has already achieved, but equally conscious that his previous work should not become a blueprint he is obliged to follow forever.
Even the milestone of surpassing 100 million streams, mentioned during the conversation, seems to surprise him. Rather than treating it as a finish line, he frames it as a reason to acknowledge how far he has come particularly because artists can become so focused on what they haven’t achieved that they overlook what they have.
When you judge your progress and stuff, you can tend to be a bit harsh on yourself. You kind of look at the things you haven’t done rather than what you’ve done.
There is a quiet generosity in that perspective, too. DC’s advice is not only to recognise the listeners who have helped make those milestones possible, but to give yourself grace in the process.
“If you’re doing something, somebody’s listening”
For someone whose latest project is explicitly interested in contradiction, DC’s definition of the next era is surprisingly straightforward.
“Growth, consistency. And also refreshing,” he says.
He wants to try new things, become more experimental and push himself creatively. More importantly, he wants the growth to be audible.
“I want that to resonate with people as well,” he explains. “Okay, cool, he might be taking a different approach, but the growth is evident as well.”
That may ultimately be the most useful way to understand All Things Can Be True. It isn’t presented as DC’s definitive statement, nor does he seem interested in declaring it his most complete work.
Instead, it is a snapshot of an artist in motion, one who is comfortable admitting that his thoughts can change, that songs can evolve, that creative plans can go sideways, and that the person he is today does not have to contradict the person he was yesterday.
All things can be true.
And perhaps, for DC, the most important truth is that there is still more to come.