GRAMMY-nominated songwriter, producer, and general badass Ink has had the sort of last few years that most artists dream of. She worked on Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE album (co-writing “ALIEN SUPERSTAR,” “THIQUE,” “SUMMER RENAISSANCE”), and then COWBOY CARTER (co-writing “16 CARRIAGES,” "AMERIICAN REQUIEM”). She also worked on several songs on Kendrick Lamar’s GNX record (“gloria,” “dodger blue”), including 13-week No. 1 hit “luther,” which has already earned Ink Songwriter of the Year buzz at the 2026 GRAMMYs.
At the start of October, Ink released her debut solo EP BIG BUSKIN’, a genre-bending mix of country, indie rock pop and soul. It’s a tour de force of a record, a victory for quality songwriting and a stubborn insistence on caring little for scenes. Ink just concentrates on the song.
Born in Germany and raised in Georgia, Ink started on her musical journey busking in the streets before people started paying attention. Collabs with Trae tha Truth and Nipsey Hussle followed, and she went on to work with artists as prestigious as Childish Gambino, Justin Bieber, Kacey Musgraves, Lil Nas X, and Jennifer Lopez (as well as the aforementioned Bey and Kendrick). It’s been a wild ride, laced with endeavor and, obviously, a ton of talent.
“I’ve always been in a musical crowd,” Ink says. “I grew up singing at church. I used to sing at a church in Columbus, GA, that’s where my home’s at. I was singing over there, yeah.”
Church gave Ink the confidence to keep singing, and her passion for creativity flourished. “I was singing everywhere I went,” she says. “At school, I would do projects. I started singing choir, and then later, taught myself the guitar. From there, it just became a real portal for me. And then I was like, ‘Yo, so I really want to be successful at this. I’ve got to surrender to my gift and see if I can survive on just music.’ So I took to the streets every day, and that’s when I was busking, singing and just putting my art on display, just being in vulnerable situations to present people with music.”
Ink says that her early influences were decidedly old school. “I’ve got enough new school for us all,” she says. “So I’ll be on that James Brown, you know? Pointer Sisters, Andraé Crouch–kind of like that old gospel chic. I love a lot of rap, a lot of downtown rap, like Ghostface. I like classic Bruce Springsteen stuff. I like to go big with emotion.”
It was on the streets of Georgia that Ink was busking, though busking anywhere appears to be a terrifying experience. Performing for a crowd that isn’t there to see them, that has other things to do–it’s not for the light-hearted.
“Man, nerve wrecking the first time I was out there,” Ink says. “I don’t remember the details of the first day, but I just remember the feelings of, like, man it’s tough. And you know, when you put yourself in uncomfortable situations, you’re training yourself to be able to handle any situation comfortably. So it’s just like, I knew what it was doing. And I also wanted my music to elevate my city, and really have an impact on the people and the culture and our way of life, because it’s not necessarily about making a living all the time. It’s about making sure that we all could live.
"So it was really like taking it to the streets, getting better as an artist, putting my craft out, and then surviving. So it was simply scary. But I tell people all the time, if you want to be great and you want to be prepared, you’ve got to go to those places where you feel uncertainty. Like, if you could make a fan out of somebody that didn’t even want to hear your shit that day, and now they’re walking away, and they actually turn around like, you know what? I was being an asshole. This sounds amazing. It’s like, those type of encounters. I feel like it’s just gonna build me to be one of the greatest.”
The rewards are intense. If you can stop a pedestrian in their tracks, make them forget their own thoughts and day’s mission and think, “Hold on, I have to listen to this,” you’ve really achieved something.
“The best feeling,” says Ink. “It’s like, you’re out there fishing, you threw that rod in the water. You don’t know what’s over there, you know, I’m saying you see a couple sharks. But something takes a little bite on that reel. If it ain’t meant for you, you got to be ready for it.”
Busking offered Ink the opportunity to blossom as a musician under harsh conditions, and she gave the Atlanta music scene little choice but to welcome her in and support her.
“I just knew that if I get you to listen, you’re gonna love it,” she says. “Atlanta came together for me, you know? People really kept me going, all the time. I wanted to quit and give up, you know—you’ve got a bad day, it’s hot outside, you’re not getting up any motion. But the people will always just be like, no matter how bad it could be, just keep going. So the city of Atlanta made sure I didn’t quit, you know what I mean? That speaks for the people there, and just our culture.”
Regarding the process of songwriting, Ink describes it in very aquatic terms.
“It’s like when you turn the faucet on, you hear the water running, you walk away and do a whole bunch of stuff, and when you come back that water is still going,” she says. “The water’s still going, still pouring, still overflowing. That’s me. So it’s really about the best way I could try to capture the process, because I don’t like to have the same process every time. I like it to be variable. I mean, based on emotion, my real feelings. It’s not calculated every time, like some people have a different method.
"They go in and do the same thing. For me, I just see how it comes to me. And I mean, whether I write it on the guitar or I get inspired by melody first, I will always hear melody, you know? Sometimes I might be like, ‘This is a message that I want to say,’ or, ‘This is something that I would like to do,’ so I kind of put the things that I want to do and experience, I make a song about that so that it manifests in real time. Or I’m working with my co-writers or producers, and we’re kind of just pow-wowing.”
We asked Ink to drill down on a specific example, namely her recent “Sweet Tea” single. “That one came about because I had all the music,” she says. “And I was like, ‘Man, I want people to know about my family and my life, because I always think the music should just be so personal that it is personal to everyone else, because everyone’s got their version of sweet tea, you know? So I was just like, let’s go into the family dynamic. Let’s go into the environment growing up. I’ve got an amazing family, and I just want people to get to know who I am through the music.”
It’s one thing to write and record your own music, another thing entirely to collab with others, especially those as enormous as the artists we previously mentioned. Ink is clearly in demand; Beyonce doesn’t work with just anyone once, never mind twice.
“It always was a thing,” Ink says. “I was sending demos, and they would be like, ‘this is fire. Stay on it.’ And they would just keep me on it, because they would start putting other people on there. It didn’t sound as fire. Their friends must have been like, ‘Yo, I don’t know, you should have kept the other girl on that because it was more real, was more authentic.’ So they just like keeping me on the songs. So I’ve always been blessed with crazy features and everything. I just love working with real artists.”
Early days, Ink collabed with late hip-hop star Nipsey Hussle, while Yo Gotti of CMG was the first person to buy her beats. But working with Beyonce took things up to a whole new level.
“It’s always an experience working with Beyonce,” Ink says. You know what I mean? Like, I learned so much. It’s crazy, because when I was working with her, she was like, ‘Yeah, you. Thank you for being the most consistent creative.’ And I was blown away. I mean, to hear that. I’m thinking, ‘I’m not doing enough.’ So I learned so much from working with her. This lady is absolutely a producer and she just makes everything better. She thinks with a different type of mind. It is inspiring. Just makes me go harder, you know?”
Similarly, Kendrick Lamar is no slouch. “We had a mutual friend,” Ink says. “He put it together, and we just had a mutual vibe, you know? It was just a cool first time encounter. And I was like, okay, yeah, this is my trial. Like, awesome. I love to work with all great artists on the planet, and if I don’t get to I’m still content, because the artists that I’ve worked with are just so incredible, and I’ve left such a mark on my artistry and my story and my journey.
"So I think I’ve already worked with all my dream artists, but I’m definitely open to working with the rest of the greats of the world. Just making music every day is a dream.”
It’s all built up to the debut EP, BIG BUSKIN’. Ink says that it was recorded all over the place.
“I think it was recorded in Nashville, L.A., Atlanta, and Miami,” she says. “We really have been all over just capturing this. Me and the homies, we all got together. We called up a buddy of mine. He’s like, ‘You gotta do it. You gotta do it.’ Dave Tama. So we finally got it done, and the team came together. And, you know, we just locked in. So it’s just like all my friends, my guys, from my band to producers that I met.”
If there’s a theme, a concept, to BIG BUSKIN’, it’s that music is all she has, and what she had to surrender to get her gift out there.
“You’re big busking too,” she told MC. “What you’re doing, your interviews, really change the landscape of music and journalism. And you know, the narrative is your big buskin’. No matter if you’re selling CDs, no matter if you print a t-shirt or you make a snow cone on the street, you do it with the passion that surpasses other people’s understanding.
"And I mean, you’re big buskin’, no matter if it’s uncomfortable or what, you got a big blessing and big results, you know what I mean? And it’s just the journey of how you started. So first I was busking. I was walking miles and miles a day. I was really busting, and then I started the next level of my life through songwriting with artists that inspire me. So now it’s like, I look up and I’m still doing the same thing. It’s just the scenery and the people that allow me to bring my creativity to these faces that changes, but you still be busking. You’re just doing it in a bigger way.”
Much like the fact that the EP was recorded in a variety of cities, a lot of gear was used as well. “We went for classic vibes,” Ink says. “We had a whole garage full of amps and archival reverbs, and all types of gear. The engineers and producers were wigging out over that. We record a lot of stuff on tape, the drums we recorded on tape as well. So on each song, you kind of hear a different vibe.
BIG BUSKIN’ came out on Big Loud/Electric Feel Records. “Big Loud identify with what I like,” Ink says. “So it just made sense. We came together, and put paint where it ain’t.”
With the EP out, Ink has plenty planned for the remainder of 2025, going into 2026. “We’ll just keep dropping singles,” she says. “I’m looking forward to performing the music, for sure. That’s what I’m most excited about, bringing the music to people and to the stages. Bringing all the different avenues of my expressions together. A clothing line, acting–we’ve got a lot of different brand things coming up. Filming, and a lot of different cool things we’re working on outside of music. I think it’s all going to come together beautifully.”
Photos by Matty Vogel
