Sagrado,’ Gov Ball, Karol G

When Feid started making his new LP, FERXXO VOL X: Sagrado, the Colombian star wanted to do two things: One, he wanted to free himself of any expectations around the music and just create for fun. Two, he wanted to produce the entire album himself.

“It was something I wanted to do to connect to a lot of things fans missed about me,” Feid tells Rolling Stone. He’s hanging out in his trailer, getting ready for a show-stopping Gov Ball performance that included several songs from the project. “I wanted to make music with zero risks, with zero pretension. Sometimes, when you get to a certain point, you want everything to be a hit, everything super awesome, super global, a million copies sold. So with this one, I wanted to let go of all of that.”

That process was easier said than done. Feid has a ton of experience producing on his own; he started as a songwriter for major names across Latin music, and has always been involved in architecting his songs. However, as his career has grown bigger and bigger, he’s often worked with other star producers, his close friend Sky Rompiendo among them.

When he dove into FERXXO VOL X: Sagrado, he had to rearrange the way he typically gets his music done. “It’s different because when you’re working with a team, you go to the studio, you record, you lie down to go to sleep, and you look at your cell phone in the morning and it’s like, ‘We mixed this last night and we added this and we did this,’” Feid explains. “This time, I’d lie down. I’d wake up. And the song was exactly the same as I left it the night before. It was like, ‘I have to figure out what arrangements to make and I need to add a second verse.’ It was so, so many things. The work never ended.”

Some songs, he admits, broke his brain a little. “There’s a song called ‘Ferxxo 500’ that uses a sample from [the Nineties Greek composer] Yanni,” he says. “I bought a bunch of vinyls when I started the record and I found an old Yanni one that I loved.” However, once he started working in the sample, he couldn’t get the tones right. “It took so long to get it right,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t even know to this day how I figured it out, but I did.”

But other moments let him fulfill huge dreams he’s had since he was a kid in Medellin. Case in point: the song “Ando XXIL,” which came out in May with a video featuring Tony Hawk. As a teenager, Feid was obsessed with learning how to skateboard, though he never got past the basics. “It was always an unfulfilled dream,” he says. “Skateboards were expensive and mine would break all the time, and my dad would have to fix it. Plus, you’d scratch up your shoes and I’d have to find the cheapest ones I could ruin.” So in a way, getting to hang out with Hawk let him live out those fantasies.

“The whole idea started because I have a line in the song that mentions Tony Hawk, and I was like, ‘What if we actually get him for the video?’” he continues. “He said yes and he showed up to the set by himself, and he was down for everything.” The two actually played several rounds on a PlayStation 2 while filming, and also recreated a famous picture of Hawk skating on his family’s breakfast table.

Feid says he’s proud of the album, and adds that his girlfriend, Karol G, was a big supporter: “She helped me with this, and we support each other.” He has even more surprises coming up: One song, “RU MOR,” works on the album as a kind of fake-out. Several seconds play before Feid comes in and interrupts the track. He plans to release the full thing down the line.

And then there’s always the December EP he cooks up for fans each year. Asked if they can expect it this year, he says, “That’s a tradition at this point. I haven’t started it and it’s not ready, but fans can definitely rest assured something is going to happen around then. That’s my favorite time of the year: I go to Medellin, I listen to a ton of music, so for sure there’s a lot of stuff that I’ll have ready for people.”