By all accounts, Awful Records was wild. Founded by Atlanta rapper Father in 2011, the label became home a motley crew of artists, including early cloud rapper Slug Christ, left-field R&B singer ABRA, and a fledgling Playboi Carti – joined by little more than an experimental approach to rap music, and a healthy appetite for psychedelic drugs. Videos from their mid-2010s heyday depict the cohort smoking weed, playing Russian roulette with knives and vomiting on the front lawns of various run-down houses around Atlanta. But a lot has changed since then: Father’s actually a father now.

A far cry from his debaucherous twenties, Father joins our call wearing a strawberries and cream sweater, surrounded by children’s toys and with the faint shrieks of kids playing in the background. At one point his fiancée phones in from work to remind him to take their kids to a dentist appointment – “I’ll make sure to brush their teeth,” Father responds. “I’ve already dealt with friends who are high as shit and drunk as fuck all day, kids really aren’t that different,” the now-35-year-old tells Dazed, laughing.

This new life stage is written all over Father’s latest album, Patricide, released in July of this year. “I titled it that, because, at the time, I wanted it to be my final album,” he explains. “I didn’t want to make the music that everybody knew me for, the drugged out shit. I’m in a different place in life. I was like, ‘What the fuck do I talk about anymore?’ But, while working on the project, I figured out that I can let go. I don’t need to be the person that made ‘Wrist’ or ‘I’m A Piece of Shit’. I can move forward.”

This difference is laid out from the very beginning. Where Father’s biggest hit to date, 2014’s “Look At Wrist”, is a tranqued-out psychedelic trap cut about having an expensive watch, Patricide’s opener, “My chain is cursed” sees him taking off his jewellery for the first time in his career. “I realised in the shower one day that, for years, I’d never taken my chain off,” Father reflects on making the track. “I was like, ‘Man, maybe that means I’m hanging onto something’.”

“My chain is cursed” itself is set to the Billy Cobham sample made famous by Massive Attack’s “Safe From Harm”, a carnal, looping trip-hop bassline that sets the scene for the project that follows. Far from the mosh-ready mayhem of his earlier releases, Patricide’s soundscapes are much more submerged, with lyrics that sit a little closer to home. Later, on “Cannot run when overencumbered”, Father packages reflections on overconsumption and excess in a reference to the video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but it’s still delivered with the off-kilter dynamism that Awful Records fans know and love.

I’ve recently been thinking about bringing some people into the fold, been talking to some people. We’ll see what the future of Awful is...

Indeed, in a 2016 documentary about Awful Records, Slug Christ positioned Awful Records as the experimental art stage in rap history, following equivalents to early cave paintings and still life drawings in eras that preceded it. “We definitely fit towards the abstract end,” Father tells Dazed. “But, over time, things got more complicated, with label deals and shit like that. Releases became slower.”

He continues: “We’re all over the place now and don’t even see each other as often anymore. Archie’s a studio engineer, Abra just had her baby. We’re definitely in that later stage of creativity. But I’ve recently been thinking about bringing some people into the fold, been talking to some people. We’ll see what the future of Awful is…”

In honour of this new era in his career, below, Father breaks down the stories behind five essential releases from Awful Records.

“VODKA ON THE WEEKEND FEAT. COODIE BREEZE, RICH PO SLIM AND ARCHIBALD SLIM” – ILOVEMAKONNEN

Father: This is incredibly important because the video was a pivotal day for us. If you watch the video, it was like we were planning a party the entire day. So, we start off in the grocery store then we all come together for this party at the end. People don't realise it but The Fader were there – they were the random guys that are in the party. That weekend was where a lot of important shit happened, The Fader were like, ‘We love you guys’ and that caused them to do a lot of the articles and bringing us out for shows. A lot of the focus at the time for them was like Makonnen, but then he said, ‘Check out my friends that are also cool as fuck.’ People don’t realise that that weekend was vital to our growth.

Were you drinking vodka on the weekend?

Father: I was drinking hella Svedka at the time, it was cheap and down the street. I was getting them for like ten bucks.

“LMK FEAT. ARCHIBALD SLIM, FATHER, KCSB AND ETHEREAL”

Father: ‘LMK’ is the best representation of our music process because, if you listen to that song, it’s the shittiest sounding audio ever. I’m pretty sure it’s mixed like shit. All our friends were in the living room and we’re just trading off [bars] in there. It was a very dark, melancholic time period, but quintessential in that it represented how we operated. Even in the video, it’s all of us standing around a fire.

“FRUIT” – ABRA

Father: Huge Abra song. That was a big turning point for her, the songs she had dropped prior were also huge but this was the one that did a lot for her. It was also just a strong representation of the crew’s sound and gave us a bit of variation besides the drug rap.

“I’M THE OCEAN” – SLUG CHRIST

Father: I think it happened while I was on tour, but there was a big Miami trip around this time and ‘I’m the Ocean’ was created during that period. That was another growth period for the crew. They were down there for the first Rolling Loud festival – after that, we were never invited down again. I think they were all down there tripping. I think Rich Po Slim kicked a fan in the chest off the stage or some shit. But, yeah, that marked another iconic time period in Awful Records.

“LOOK AT WRIST” – FATHER

Father: Fuck it, that was a jumping point in general for me and the crew. Makonnen was already set, and him fucking with us put a lot of things on course. To this day, ‘Wrist’ is still the biggest recognition I got for myself, and I’m less reluctant about it now that I used to be.

Why were you so reluctant?

Father: At the time I was very much like, ‘God, I’m only on the hook and It’s my biggest song. I have to perform this every fucking night.’ I got tired because I’m the art guy, I was like, ‘I’m more than just this one song.’ Around that time, I went on my first tour with Theophilus London and Doja Cat, and Theophilus loved that song. He would get me back on stage to perform it two or three times with the band. You get tired of that. But, now I’m older, I learnt to respect that. Like my fiance’s big on the emo scene, and she will take me to go see bands like Emery and shit and she will be like, ‘Yeah!’ when they play their hits. But, when they play the new stuff… It made me realise, ‘Stop being a bitch, bro, play the hits’. 

Patricide is out now.