"I grew up quite poor - very poor actually - but it's what shaped me, as well. The first house that we had, had an outhouse. Like, that's the level of poor that I'm talking about," Vladimir reveals, with complete humility, and zero hesitation.

"It's really funny. So I grew up on a farm in Tennessee- on a beef cattle and tobacco farm. The town that I first came  from started out at about 800 people, so already that put me in a very different emotional context. 

"Of course now I'm living in the metropolitan cities, but at the end of the day, growing up, it was always, 'You need to iron your clothes, and you need to take pride in everything that you do.' I also had a grandmother who, when I would finish my homework, and then she would look at it, would be like, 'Okay, this is all correct, but it's not written properly,' and then she'd tear it all up. It was at that level," the singer states.

Vladimir goes on to credit his family for his values and views on life, as well as views on himself.

"I came from a very poor background, but I have been very fortunate, through self worth, to be able to believe in myself enough to go into the spaces that I go into now. That confidence came from my parents.

"So what I'm saying is, never let somebody else define you. Growing up, I was in the fields, every summer, from six in the morning to eight or nine at night. It was real work; I hated summer because I knew that was free time for me to be working all the time. There was no vacation time, but we also had our little joy and stuff as well."

Vladimir also admits that, although his soil plowing days are over, that he still admires the world of agriculture, and may consider returning to the farm in the future.

"It's funny because Black farmers are seen as this entity that happened so long ago, but it still exists. We still exist. So I'm grateful for that past, even though I'm not still carrying on the legacy, sadly. But maybe when I get older, I'll go back to getting a quiet farm one of these days, who knows?"

During a conversation on his career aspirations, Vladimir reveals that he was asked to be "more like Usher."

"I remember when I was first starting out in music, I was playing open mics and stuff like that, and there was an independent label that came up to me and was like, 'Hey, yeah, we like your stuff. Like, it's really nice and your voice is great. But uh, do you think you want to do something maybe more like Usher?'" 

Although the request was shocking in itself, the singer admits that wouldn't be the last time he'd be asked to package himself as a preexisting form of talent.

"So many times I was confronted like that. I would walk in with my keyboard or something, and before I even hit the first note, [labels] already have an idea of who I'm supposed to be. So for me, my career it's always been about charting my own path and fulfilling my own goals, while at the same time being the most honest to my audience, while connecting with them as well."

"If there's ever been a person who has experienced feeling like a minority growing up, it was me. I  grew up - and this is sad to say but it's true - but I grew up essentially with the backdrop of the KKK literally in my backyard.  I grew up in the same area where the KKK originated, and I knew kids whose parents were involved in all of these things," Vladimir states.

He continues, "The sad part about these kind of ideologies, like white supremacy for example, is that when people get to know people, it goes away because [the hate] can't sustain. 

"So for example, growing up, I was class president every year, and while I was student council president of my class, there were so many times when people would be like, 'Yeah, Norman, you're great but you're different,' and I'd say, 'No, not! Nope! I'm just that Black person that you know. You're not gonna separate me and say that I'm some other type of version of the things that you've heard about as far as Black people go.'

"[Before] Amsterdam, I lived in Berlin. Berlin was a very difficult and confronting space for me because I experienced direct racism. There were people who blatantly told me, 'You are Black; you don't belong here." So for me that was also kind of like, 'Oh, are we back into that space now?' Luckily in Amsterdam I see a bit more color. It's not unlike New York or London; it's a lot more integrated, and people really do interact with each other. In Amsterdam, you have a lot of different people. I think somebody said there's 180 countries represented in Amsterdam, meanwhile there's only 800,000 people here. 

"So here I feel already so much more at home and at ease with regards to race just because I do see faces like mine way more often here. So that helps a lot."

While Vladimir is undoubteduly strongwilled, and very much "mind over matter," in his approach to life, he admits that he didn't get here alone, and credits his parents for their contributions to his overall being.

"Luckily I get my resilience from my parents because, from day one when I came into this world, they were like, 'There are going to be people and situations around you that judge you based on nothing that you have done, but just on the fact of who you are. Don't ever let anybody take your self worth away from you.'

"So yeah, the idea of self worth and self appreciation was always embedded in everything that we did. Growing up, I was very fortunate because, even when I was in preschool, I had already tested that I had had a high IQ- whatever that means (laughs). So I was a gifted kid and actually my parents petitioned to start the gifted program at my school. They were like, 'We're not gonna let him slack.'"

Vladimir then goes on to detail an experience during his childhood, where both he and his cousin both encountered negative, and potentially harmful, stereotyping, at school. 

"The school that I was in, as you could imagine, always made these assumptions like, 'Oh no, they're not smart enough to take these classes. They're not smart enough to do these things.' One of the best stories from my school years that I have, is about my cousin. She's one year older than me, and they were like, 'She's not going to be smart enough to keep up with the kids in the math classes.' So they wanted to test her for the remedial math classes. Do you know what her job is now? Do you know what her job is now? She's an aerospace engineer!"

While talking about his artistic influences, it's no surprise that the musician's taste in music is eclectic.

"My parents listened to mostly gospel and blues, with some easy listening mixed in as well. I was also surrounded by the sounds of folk music and singer-songwriters like James Taylor, Dolly Parton, and Bill Withers. He's incredible."

Vladimir also dished on his creative process and end goal when making music. 

"I always feel like, when you write a song, whether it has these amazing laser sounds, or beats that drop and everything like that, at the end of the day, the thing that I feel is going to sustain a song is, 'How did it make you feel? And what did you say in that song?' A song that's going to stick with you is a song that makes you connect to your feelings to what that person was singing about, and that's my goal.

"So while I do have singer songwriter elements in my songs, I do believe that like songs should really say something. So I might not be the top 40 sound or whatever, but I'm going to do something that's gonna make you think and make you feel. That's my overall goal."