Sitting in a recording session with Johnny Boykin, his work ethic and attention to detail show he’s no amateur in a vocal booth. Part of what keeps the artistic grind refreshing for the 30-year-old with each new project, he said, is the renewed challenge of staying in the present.
“There’s a balance between being complacent and being confident to say that a project is finished and ready to go,” he said, adding that his last project is what he feels finally represents him artistically up to this point. “It was the first project I’ve done that I felt was like, I’d hand it to Jay-Z myself and say, ‘You need to hear this.’”
Raised in Rockville, the path to being an artist was easy for Johnny to follow with his mother and grandmother both being performing musicians, in addition to his father also being involved in the industry. With his mother overseeing the church choir, Johnny said he was put “front and center” to grow and showcase his abilities when he joined. He said by the time he got to high school, he was well-prepared to be a performing artist.
From there, Johnny began writing and producing his own music and traced his first few releases back to the days of MySpace. Normally, when he’s writing, a lot of what he puts to tape comes from freestyling and piecing things together, but occasionally he’ll write a few bars to start with and let the vibe of the song take over. Since his first project dropped, however, he said it took him a while to settle on an artist name. After a long time of going by “1,000 different names,” he settled on Epifani, with some knowing him by the shortened name, Piff.
The name, he said, is inspired by his spur-of-the-moment creativity, with the name coming to him in the moment like most of his lyrics. He also said the name is partly inspired by the T-Pain album, “Epiphany.” “I played the hell out of that album for so long, that name never left my mind,” he said. “I didn’t want a dictionary name as my stage name, so I swagged it out.”
Outside of Maryland, Johnny has performed up and down the East Coast in addition to playing a set at SXSW in Austin, Texas. He’s also made multiple trips out to California to record and perform, explaining that these trips helped guide him and inspired him to grow his following back home before tapping into a wider audience. “I feel like it’s important to be a staple from where I’m from first,” he said.
When he’s not performing, Johnny keeps himself occupied with some of his other interests, like fashion. He has designed merchandise for his own projects and his label, 3500 World, and said his passion to couple fashion and music came from growing up and being captivated by artists who had similar interests, like Pharrell Williams and Kanye West.
“It’s very much what I grew up on,” Johnny said, pointing to tattoos on his arms of N.E.R.D. and Billionaire Boys Club logos. “That ’06 to ’09 era was really what soaked me up when it comes to music.”
Not long after becoming enamored with music and fashion, Johnny also discovered something that would become essential to his well-being: Cannabis. After carrying some curiosity about it after being warned not to try it, he decided to smoke with some friends in his sophomore year of high school. Since then, he said it’s become a part of his day-to-day routine, so much so that he got a job as a budtender at the beginning of the year.
“Cannabis goes hand in hand with my lifestyle,” he said, adding that he recently got his medical certification so he can try different dosages and products. “I’m always smoking a joint — whether it’s writing a song, working on a design, it’s part of the experience. I’m a stoner, there’s no way I wouldn’t come to the studio without weed.”
Despite being a dedicated flower smoker, Johnny said he does like to infuse his joints with a concentrate. In terms of a preference, strong indica strains are what he reaches for, adding that even with an indica strain’s relaxing qualities, he never feels himself slowing down.
“My tolerance is high, so I need a strong strain. I know some people can’t handle a strong indica. I smoke through some indica, and I’m ready to go for another session,” he said.
With new music currently being mixed and a new personal clothing line in its sample phase, Johnny’s not afraid to show how confident he is in what he’s been cooking up to drop this year. But he humbly acknowledged that with everything he has going on, the success of those projects will come in their own time.
“Patience is a virtue,” he said while reflecting on what this journey has taught him. “I thought I was going to be in a house on the hills at 25, so what I took from that was nothing will come in your time. But the more you work towards something, the closer you’ll get to it.”
