Gray told People that the album was inspired by his "pretty rough" childhood in Texas, explaining When you're young, it's really hard to imagine life not always being hard. I lived in a really unsafe household, and life just wasn't very good for me. And so, as a kid, I was just like, there's no way that I'm gonna make it, there's no way that I'm going to survive or there's no way that there's going to be anything more to my life than just dealing with pain. Gray told Teen Vogue that growing up as a child of mixed race in Texas affected who he is as a person, as he felt that "he didn't really belong anywhere." He told Clash:The record is a study of how I perceive the world. I talk a lot about my friends and people I've met touring over the past year. It's me. I'm not the coolest person, but the album is me accepting the fact I'm weird and I don't need to be anybody else. It's also a chance to encourage others to embrace who they are and be unapologetic about it.
