Alpha The Wolf sat down with Alana McLaughlin for Perspectives, her interview segment shot at Fox 17 Nashville and broadcast across the market's Fox, CW, and MY30 affiliates, covering his origin story, his fully self-directed creative process - production, mixing, visuals, everything - and his role in Nashville's music community. The segment aired June 17, 2026, in honor of African American Music Appreciation Month.
FULL SEGMENT ON THE PRESS PAGE | BEHIND-THE-SCENES PHOTOS IN THE GALLERY
The following is a lightly edited transcript of the interview above - filler words and false starts trimmed for readability, content otherwise unchanged. Two brief passages were unclear in the audio and are marked [inaudible] below.
Segment One: Origins
Alana McLaughlin: Wolf, I just want to thank you for coming and sharing your story with me. To get this ball rolling, I want to talk about baby years - as young as you can remember, tell me where you're from, what life looked like, and we'll go from there.
Alpha The Wolf: For sure, for sure. So I'm originally from New Orleans, Louisiana. I was raised by both my parents, and the integral part about my childhood is I spent a lot of it on the move. People assume I have some sort of military background, but the fact of the matter is I just got to see a lot, and I'm super grateful for that. I've been in Alabama, Tennessee, Washington, the whole East Coast, West Coast - lots of states. A lot of people reside where they originate from and don't deviate from that, they've got that hometown feel. Seeing the world broadened my perspective a bit, and music is my way of interacting with that. Both my parents are doctors - they're not really creatives, but they support me by showing me what the world is and how I could find my way through it.
Alana McLaughlin: Tell me about the expectations they had for you as a kid. What career did you think you were going to go into, and what were your childhood hobbies?
Alpha The Wolf: Growing up, the bar was really high. They set it high with the intention for me to come afterward - I'm a professional computer scientist by day, right? Put on my lab coat, clickity-click. But if I didn't want to do that, I'd still have that level of support either way. I'm real big on lineage. It would be disrespectful to know the people before me came and tried so hard to get so far, and it's my turn, and I end up being lazy about it. So I take that real serious. Regardless of what I'm doing, in any capacity, I have to do it at the highest level - not even satisfactory, I have to exceed that and become the new standard. That's just been my directive with anything.
Alana McLaughlin: Take me through adolescence, middle through high school, and then life after high school - where did music begin to come into your story? I know you went into a few different areas of work before coming back to music.
Alpha The Wolf: My fondest memories when it comes to music are hanging out with my dad - that already alienates me from most people, but I spent a plethora of time in the back seat while he ran errands and did dad stuff, and that time was always with music. Back in the day you had these zippered CD wallets, 80 or 90 CDs under the seat with a changer in the trunk, and pops would pull over and swap the discs and that'd be our soundtrack. I spent my childhood with music and I paid very close attention.
Alana McLaughlin: What artists do you remember, if any - songs, groups?
Alpha The Wolf: Being from New Orleans, we got that bounce - and it didn't resonate very much with me, honestly. I struggled to resonate with a lot of cultural music, a lot of Black music, and that gave me more perspective. DMX taught me how to take extremism and make it a brand. Michael Jackson taught me how to be smooth and cool as a lifestyle. Prince makes Purple Rain, fires the whole band, says "I'm going to do all the instruments myself." Guys who keep the bar high - [inaudible] - and then Ye, just breaking all the molds. I admired it when the rules were broken, especially Lil Wayne being from New Orleans, him being the GOAT at the time - specifically him not writing, freestyling. That was something I gravitated to immediately. I was like, I'm going to spit, but I won't take the time to use the pen and pad, because I felt like it was a muscle and I wanted to squeeze that muscle as much as possible. Now I don't process any writing at all - everything is impromptu. I go into the studio, we play the record one time, I record, and we're done.
Alana McLaughlin: You're like a one-take kind of guy.
Alpha The Wolf: One take and it's over. All the music we heard at the 615 Muzik Festival - those are all one-take freestyles. I record strictly at home. I've been doing this for years.
Alana McLaughlin: I want to talk about the mechanics of that - how you're able to record at home, especially with the type of music you produce, because it can get a little loud.
Alpha The Wolf: For sure. I record in complete privacy - I've tried to have people in the studio, ladies, the fellas, but I need that intimacy, I get weird in there. It's about to get weird in here, y'all. It does every time.
Segment Two: Building the Craft
Alana McLaughlin: We're picking back up - early adolescence, riding around with dad, talking musical influences.
Alpha The Wolf: The big thing I want to lay with people is that it took a while to get here. I studied music way before I got involved in it - same as I studied the arts, poetry, dance, painting. All of those had great influence on me, so I wanted to do it well rather than just do it. I had to sit back and be patient. When I'd listen to my peers listening to music, I struggled to resonate with it, because that was our culture, but it wasn't positive - money, girls, cars - and it's like, how do we move forward past that? I struggled for a long time, it cost me some cool points, and I had to get away. I started looking for alternatives and found EDM culture, and I thought this was the craziest thing in the world - I'd done some homework and found out that in Europe, over the pond, they love that stuff, it originated there. Just the idea of a bunch of people in an abandoned warehouse at 2am made my 18-year-old brain go crazy. I remember turning 18, buying tickets, going to my first rave - a 12-hour lock-in, 8 to 8. I'm hearing new sounds, new textures, and I loved it. It inspired me to go beyond what was served to me and find more music, get outside of that hometown bubble. When I finally turned around, my parents were like, "turn that weird stuff off, only playing headphones" - it was a phase, but I definitely came out of it with a greater appreciation for sound, and I kept exploring what else was out there. A little rock, a little rap, a little rage, jazz, pop. I had to ask myself: what makes this resonate with human beings, because music is our universal language. I was less focused on making cool songs and more on figuring out how to communicate with other humans.
Alana McLaughlin: At 18 - who are you at this point? You've recently graduated high school. What does life look like?
Alpha The Wolf: I graduated high school a year early - I'm accelerated. I decided I wasn't going to go straight into college, I was going to hang out for a year and double-check if I really wanted to do this. I knew I was passionate about music, I didn't know how I was going to exert that plan. I watched the industry and thought, this thing is tricky - it's not a normal 9-to-5 where you show up, put your 20 years in, and retire, anything could happen. I wanted to take calculated risk, so I decided to go get my computer science degree - shout out to MTSU, True Blue - and take that time as I went through my career to keep learning music. Eventually I became senior enough in my position that I had a little long leash, I could be trusted with responsibilities, and that gave me the window to say, okay, I want to feel this time out with music and pursue this.
Imagine having a lot more free time than the average person and asking, how do I capitalize on this? I would record every single day - wake up, first thing on my mind without even brushing my teeth, go in the other room, record. Late nights, early mornings, that became the norm, working that muscle every day. It was for my own pleasure, my own art. Then I started to sit with it and think, this stuff can't just sit on a hard drive getting dusty, and I had to make my mind up on whether I was going to share it with the world. I had to fight myself - perfect is the enemy of done, and I was a big advocate for perfect. But I still didn't have all the information, just enough. I knew I was going to have to put myself out there and probably take some licks, and they were going to be stepping stones.
Alana McLaughlin: Tell me about those experiences.
Alpha The Wolf: I'm not afraid to say I've been scammed a time or two - nobody's gotten me terribly, to the point I couldn't bounce back, but that's music, that's any industry, honestly. I anticipated it, but I didn't know what it would look like, so I said, I'm going to dip my toe in the water and react to whatever happens, because there are going to be unknown elements. Very quickly I saw everyone with their hand out, heard the lies, people telling me what I wanted to hear, and I thought, okay, this is the industry I'm actively trying to lean into.
Alana McLaughlin: Beyond the smaller players - talk to me about experiences with CEOs, businesses, execs.
Alpha The Wolf: I've been reached out to by some Sony A&Rs, some UMG A&Rs. I don't take A&R seriously anymore, I don't take anybody in this seriously anymore - this industry is so fictitious that everything has to be scrutinized, and the fans aren't the ones doing that scrutinizing, which is exactly why the behavior is allowed to go on. I have to scrutinize everybody and everything. I talk to people all the time who say "I'm doing a show, I'm going on tour," and it's like - but you have 11 monthly listeners, so what are we doing right now? Who's telling you this is a wise business decision? I looked at my peers and realized they aren't my peers, and that makes it kind of interesting being in spaces with people, doing shows with people - we're not on the same wave, we don't have the same mental frequency.
Deep down, as a gregarious person, I would like to work with other artists. At this point, at this pace, I probably never will - I'm so anal about the art, it can't be anything less than the best. A lot of people are cosplaying as artists - pretending, without actually having any idea, any reference, any history. I could play some music and tell you this is a remix of this from that, and to them it's just noise, because we don't have the same appreciation for it. Now, I'm big on giving people their flowers and kudos when I like something, but I'm critical - and that criticality is what allows me to make my best art. I might make five songs in a day and keep one or two of them. Where most people put out five in a year, I've dropped four or five mixtapes and five singles on top of that in a year. Drowning in music. And it's, "oh, your kids, oh, your wife, your job" - I can't relate, bro.
Segment Three: The Work and the Impact
Alana McLaughlin: Current Alpha The Wolf - tell me about developing the stage name, and developing into the man sitting in front of me today.
Alpha The Wolf: I held on to this identity of the wolf for a long time - the idea of a pack, a structure, people watching each other's back, an apex predator within a group. It just sounded powerful to me. There's this myth in music that you need to find your group, find your people. I've never found my people - I've spent my entire life looking for them. If y'all out there, holler at me. But it's been a very solo journey, and I'm always looking for those like-minded people, always pushing myself into those spaces. More often than not I'm disappointed, but I try.
I think back to college, I met some friends doing music minors while I was a computer science major, and I asked to hang out in the studio, just vibe. A day or two later we formed a group and started dropping music, and I thought, I could really do this. But the problem is music has many parts, and I needed other people, and other people just didn't have the same tenacity I had. I was stuck for a while. I was recording constantly, made my mind up - I'm going to be eclectic, try new sounds, make new genres, be in my own lane. I stopped listening to music casually, couldn't tell you what's popular on the radio, stopped buying music, just resided in this bubble, and every single day I recorded. I wanted to know that at the end, it wasn't me holding it back.
That led to other problems - who's going to mix this, who's going to master this, who's going to shoot the video. It always came back to that same problem: I need other people, and we'd already established that other people helping wasn't working out. So I had to go deeper internal and figure it out myself. Now I'm this one-stop shop - I'm doing the photography, shooting the music videos, editing them, coding the website, running the ads, setting up interviews like this one, emailing shows, mixing, mastering, producing the beats, and making the music. I'm literally doing everything. So when someone comes and says - and I get this a lot - "can I help, yo, you need any help on this?" Does it sound like I need help at this point? The amount of DMs I get saying "I heard your new song, let me know if you want me to mix it" - it's already out, it's already mixed, bro. I don't need anything. That comes off standoffish, but I'm speaking from a place of truth. I've evolved to the point where it's no longer necessary to deal with other people. If I were to come across the right people, I'd love to work with them, but it's not a necessity. Now I'm comfortable, I can do whatever I want. For me it's about becoming immortal through the sound - the same way you become immortal through history, through politics, through great things. People live forever through sound.
There's so much - the word "genre" is even starting to disappear, it's just sounds, and everyone gets it, everyone understands it. You could be in a Latin club, not know a bit of Spanish or Portuguese, and get that rhythm. When people have no idea who I am and they hear the music and it resonates - that was just a moment of thought, a puff of consciousness for me, and I still left them with something that goes beyond that thought coming and going in my head. That's the goal. I'm always trying new things - in 2024 I did an R&B album just to see if I could. I can't sing - I did my best Drake impression, cranked the autotune to 11, and in two days I had an album. I'd pick another genre - Ye was doing some crazy stuff with the Yeezys, so I said let me try that, get experimental, turn some knobs, use new things. The rock stuff, the alternative stuff - none of it's off limits. Except country. Except country is hilarious in Music City especially.
Alana McLaughlin: What's the impact of this music - what do you seek to leave through it? A lot of it isn't necessarily benefiting you, it's not paying your bills.
Alpha The Wolf: I get checks - once a month, once a quarter - but I'm saying it is for y'all, it's my gift. The world has not been kind to me, and I made a decision - I don't need it, I'm self-sufficient. But that doesn't mean I don't give the world back what it gave me. So I'm going to turn the other cheek and give you something you can enjoy forever, and that's the gift of music. People down the line will appreciate it the same way we appreciate oldies now, and that person may not even be here yet, they may be a child, and it may inspire musical love for them in the future. You don't put on Purple Rain without getting lost in the sauce, you don't play Thriller without getting lost in the sauce. My job is to leave you a couple of those before I get up out of here, so you can jam when I'm gone. If you mess with it, that's all I want. It's oozing out of me anyway - it was going to happen regardless.
Alana McLaughlin: I was able to see you perform at Exit/In, and I really enjoyed it - I said to you off camera, it took me back to Warp Tour, before it ended around 2014. People understand that reference - go home and Google Warp Tour, because you definitely would have been on that lineup. It took me back to a happy place. I grew up with classic rock, alternative rock, punk rock, but we didn't have so much representation for people of color in those scenes. Seeing you perform, seeing that there were other kids who were like me, like men, really made me smile - and I know I have peers who feel that way. I wanted you to know that's an impact you're having whether you realize it or not. You're kind of waking something up that was pushed down - a lot of us were made to wipe off the black eyeliner, take off the band bracelets. The culture can be a little suppressive.
Alpha The Wolf: It can. And that's something I've always pushed against - despite being African-American, there are no boundaries on what I can embrace. If I want to be a skydiver, a big-game hunter, a scuba diver - when I'm not making music, I hang out underwater for a couple hours. There are no rules. It's like, oh, you're doing that? You can do it too, you're not barred from anything. I even have to remind myself: let's get out of the comfort zone, sit with some new sounds, and what comes out is amazing. I really appreciate the love. Exit/In has been on my list - I did the [inaudible] last year, we did Skydeck on Broadway the year before that, had the residency for the summer. I'm just going to keep scratching off the list, knock them all down. We're going to keep doing this grassroots fan-base thing - I think we're at four or five thousand local fans, and we're just going to keep pushing the rooms. I hope everyone gets on board and finds something that resonates with them. I make music for the 1% - the people who want to be the greatest, who won't make an excuse, who won't tolerate an excuse. They're going to say "I want this," and there's nothing to stop me from getting it. That's who my audience is.
Alana McLaughlin: Wolf, I want you to plug in your socials - everywhere people can stream you, find you, and keep up with you.
Alpha The Wolf: Go to alphathewolf.com - I took about two weeks to painstakingly code it by hand. There are tons of hidden Easter eggs, hidden links, and secret information all through the site, and I designed it that way so people who take the time to sit with it would have something to spend time with. If you're looking for me on socials, it's London in Tokyo - shout out Japan. If you're looking for the music on the DSPs and streamers, it's Alpha The Wolf. We've got a new project dropping next month called Nobody Likes When A Wolf Shows Up - it's got some heavy hard-hitters on there, kind of a grungy trap sound, and later we're going to migrate to some other stuff down the line too.
Alana McLaughlin: I'm looking forward to it. Thank you, Wolf, for sharing your story.
Alpha The Wolf: Thank you for having me.
Alana McLaughlin: And to my viewers - thank you for the opportunity to share one more perspective. I wish you a good morning.
SEE ALL 46 PHOTOS FROM THE SHOOT HERE
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