Rapper Anderson .Paak talks about recording with Dr Dre, absent friends Mac Miller and Nipsey Hussle, and new album Ventura

It’s rare to find Anderson .Paak without a wide smile plastered across his face. He’s the type who barrels into a room with abundant gusto, his entrance typically punctuated with a shriek of his catchphrase – “Yes, Lawd!” – delivered like a preacher shouting from the pulpit.

But today, that toothy grin is hard to come by when he arrives at the two-storey North Hollywood lair housing his studio and office.

No sooner had he returned home from a gig in Austria, where he wrapped his Andy’s Beach Club tour, than he got word that Nipsey Hussle had been killed in front of his South Los Angeles clothing store.

Still raw from his friend Mac Miller’s death seven months ago – a large portrait of the rapper rests in one room – the loss of another peer has left him shaken.

“Los Angeles got me a little vexed right now,” the 33-year-old says as he watches a steady flow of cars zip past the window.

“Nipsey was just a hero,” he continues, his voice cracking.

“A lot of people talk about doing what they can, but he was really out there trying to change the next generation. To be slain like that in front of what you built, it makes you want to lay low.

“It’s depressing, and it made me think about my bro Mac. They both loved life so much, and it’s completely unnecessary that they went out.”

He sits in silence for a moment, before letting out a deep sigh.

Days later, the genre stretching singer-rapper-drummer-producer would release his new album, Ventura, and perform on the main stage at Coachella – where he sweetly paid tribute to his friends by performing his collaboration (2016’s Dang!) with Miller and bathing the stage with bright blue lights, an homage to Hussle’s Crip ties.

Then he’s right back on tour, headlining arenas with his band the Free Nationals after years of playing festivals and opening for Bruno Mars, J. Cole and Beyoncé.

Ventura finds .Paak at a curious point in his career. While he’s touring larger venues and won a Grammy in February, tying with Kendrick Lamar for rap performance, he’s barely six months removed from his last offering, Oxnard, an album that veered sharply from his acclaimed Grammy-nominated 2016 breakout, Malibu.

Instead of the vivacious, lush psychedelic soul that anchored Malibu, Oxnard featured gritty raps heavily influenced by the dense G-funk of mentor Dr Dre, who served as its executive producer.

Critics weren’t feeling it. Some fans were perplexed. Oxnard was his highest charting project yet, but at what cost? “People felt really strongly,” he says. “Some thought it was great, but there were people saying it was the worst I’d done. That I didn’t need Dre. That I can’t rap. It stung.”

“[But] you can’t please everyone. I have to satisfy my needs and broaden my fan base, and I can’t do that by doing the same thing and expecting the same result.”

Ventura will undoubtedly register as a return to form for fans of the funkier side of .Paak, as the album radiates with warm, elegant soul arrangements and breezy vibes.

He wanted an album of “feel-good music … to build people up”, after a year in which, as his star rose, he increasingly began to feel isolated from friends. Years of partying on the road had also taken their toll.

“People tell you, ‘Try to stay grounded, stay with the people that keep you grounded.’ But when you look around and your closest friends are either growing with you or not, what do you do?” he said. “I was being loyal to a fault almost, and I had to do a lot of shedding. That was tough.”

.Paak switched up his management team. Dre took a step back and let him take full charge on Ventura, which also features collaborations with Pharell Williams, Andre 3000, Smokey Robinson, Lalah Hathaway, Jazmine Sullivan and Brandy, and a posthumous vocal from Nate Dogg.

Ventura continues the performer’s series of releases themed after patches of the California coast to which he has a connection, beginning with his 2014 debut, Venice, and concluding with two albums he recorded simultaneously – the gritty Oxnard and the pretty Ventura.

He’s sung about his father going to prison for drug possession and nearly beating his mother to death; watching her and his stepdad get locked up for tax-related issues; and being homeless – .Paak couch-surfed after money from a string of odd jobs ran out.

For years, he was grinding on the LA music scene while trying to find his sound – a 2014 single, a minimalist banger titled Drugs, got him major play at Low End Theory, a flagship club night for LA’s beat scene – before catching the attention of Dr Dre, who then drafted him for his Compton album and later signed him to his Aftermath Entertainment imprint.

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“When Dre produces, his stamp is all over it. It ain’t subtle. It’s a grandiose production … and I had to learn how to work with a producer of his calibre,” .Paak said.

Early into recording, two distinct song types – lush soul-fusions anchored by his silky rasp and bass-rattling raps showcasing a nimble MC with a point to prove – had emerged.

.Paak had to persuade Dre to see the project as a dual offering, a vision made tougher when four albums’ worth of material spilled out of sessions.

“He didn’t get it at first,” .Paak recalled. “He’s scratching his head and looking at me like, ‘I don’t know, man, I think you should do one good album.’ But he came around. I had a lot of anxiety.”

Anderson is feeling less anxious this time. And who can blame him? The music has been well received by critics and fans; he was among the highlights during the first weekend of Coachella; and the first leg of his tour kicks off in a few weeks.

“I want to open the lane for more hip-hop artists to sing and rap and play instruments,” he says.

“I don’t know if people always understood that that’s what I’m trying to do, but I’m confident in what I do. I’ve had to stop giving a damn about what people say about the music.”