As a teenager, Anderson .Paak, born Brandon Paak Anderson in Oxnard, California, played drums in his church band and got into bedroom music production. After he taught at a music school, he helped manage a marijuana farm up the coast in Santa Barbara, but an unexpected termination left him and his family homeless. Rebounding with help from Sa-Ra's Shafiq Husayn, who hired him as an assistant, Paak filled roles ranging from videographer to producer, and studio access enabled him to record his own material. From 2010 through 2012, under the name Breezy Lovejoy, he released the three-song Violets Are Blue and the concise full-lengths O.B.E., Vol. 1 and Lovejoy. During this period, he toured as the drummer for American Idol contestant Haley Reinhart and contributed to a handful of recordings, a small portion of which credited him as Anderson .Paak.
