It’s not easy to make even a single song. From writing lyrics and producing a beat to mixing and mastering the track, it can be a long and exhausting process. But Delly Everyday, a.k.a. Wyndell Burris, makes it look easy. At the beginning of 2018, he decided to take on a 365-day challenge to drop a quality song every day of the year.
The south Phoenix native delivers clever bars full of witty remarks and metaphors in a rapid fire flow, with a tenacity and attitude almost reminiscent of Lil Wayne. His talent ranges from spitting raw raps in “Take Ya Home Freestyle (Day 298)” to providing catchy hooks and slowing the flow down for smoother tracks like “Something to Hold Us (Day 306).” His songs cover the hardships he’s currently enduring, the hardships he’s dealt with, and how far he’s come as an artist. Many of his songs allude to problems anyone can relate to. The production and sound quality of all his songs are surprisingly great given the rapid pace of production, and he features beats from both popular and local producers.
Phoenix New Times caught up with Burris before he had to leave to work on the set of a short film. Aside from making music, Delly Everyday is also an actor. He starred in a local film titled The System, directed by Irin Daniels, and is also planning to release a documentary that captures his journey to 365 songs. It’s currently set to drop early next year.
Burris draws artistic inspiration from rap idols such as Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Kanye West, and West Coast rappers such as Dre and Snoop Dogg — “people who are trying to be innovative and do things that have never been done,” he says. “The people who take those big risks, those are the people that I admire and inspire me. That’s why I’m doing this challenge.”
Burris took on the challenge after seeing a YouTube interview between businessman-turned-motivational speaker Gary Vaynerchuk and L.A. rapper Nipsey Hussle. During the conversation, Vaynerchuk, whom Burris looks upon as a mentor, said “I think there will be a big-time artist in the next decade that puts out a song a day.”
“Once I saw that, I’m like ‘holy shit,’” Burris says. “This is a mentor of mine and he’s predicting something that I’m capable of, so I felt like he was talking to me.”
Burris recently broke the 300-day mark for the challenge and is showing zero signs of slowing down. “I feel good; I feel a second wind coming,” he says. “It’s a lot of pressure relief knowing that I’m almost done and how fast I got to 300, because I can remember uploading that first song on January 1 thinking, ‘I got 364 more of these to do.’”
It wasn’t easy getting to 300, however. Between his day job as a faculty member at Desert Heights Academy and driving for Uber and Lyft in his extra time, Burris also juggles fatherhood and relationships as well as making music.
“The struggle with the day-to-day was working,” Burris says. “Trying to go to work, and be a father, and I have a girlfriend. Time management was the toughest part, and prepping in case I got sick, because in those scenarios you can’t record in top quality. Inspiration and writers block. Also money and paying for studio time.”
Despite these difficulties, Burris has had only one close call in regards to possibly failing the challenge. “I had left the studio, but I forgot my laptop at home and had to go shoot a video,” he recalls. “There was no way that I could get home fast enough so I had to make a phone call to my guy at the studio and he uploaded the song for me.”
The challenge has also been an opportunity for Burris to hone his skills as an artist, since making a quality track every day is no easy feat. “I’ve been writing my own raps for 14 years,” he says, “and I feel like all these years have prepared me for this moment.”
Before the challenge, Burris rapped under the name Delly The Rapper. It wasn’t until he had a humbling experience in a rap battle that he decided to make a change. The experience urged him to reflect on himself and dedicate himself to his craft from then on.
“Ever since that, I’ve been full steam ahead everyday. Doing something to better myself in music, as a person, anything like that. That’s where Delly Everyday came from.”
Delly Everyday's music is available on his SoundCloud page.