You mentioned interacting with the Nation of Islam. They’re a complicated group with a waning influence in a lot of cities, but I feel like they had a purpose in helping to pass along Black history and a politically engaged spirit across generations. Do you think Detroit is one of the cities that has held onto that?
Hell yeah, bro, it’s ingrained. I had to really leave Detroit to realize how Black it is. In hindsight, I probably went to school with two white people, all the way up to college. Sometimes there’d be a new white student, but that nigga would be gone in a year. My pops moved to Massachusetts so I would go there sometimes, and I really had to learn how to be in a diverse friend group.
There’s been a lot of discourse about rap losing its political bite, but I’ve always felt it’s something you can still feel in a lot of Detroit rap, even from the rappers that nobody would ever consider “political.”
I think it’s just off how people look at Black art, bro. I know you feel me. There are these fucking acclaimed white movies where the whole point is just a day-in-the-life in suburbs. Don’t get me wrong: If it’s great cinema, it’s great cinema. But when rappers be talking about their day, suddenly they not talking about shit. They don’t know how much shit had to happen, how much culture took place, how much music you had to listen to, that allowed a nigga to talk the way they talk. It’s deep.
What music did you grow up on?
It’s Detroit, you can’t escape Motown stuff. Especially from my grandfather. He’d come home from the shop around eight, take the longest bath imaginable, and just play the loudest music for hours. He was a huge jazz fan, too. I fucked with Michael Franks a lot. If you knew my granddad, for him to be playing a white artist, you knew he had to be fly. The Police, too. Damn, I used to have a huge note thread of all the artists he would tell me to listen to, I wish I could find it.
I did the same thing with my grandfather and his westerns.
I know for sure you talking about some Clint Eastwood shit.
Yeah, old Black folks love Clint.
I used to go over to the spot of my other granddad—he not really a blood granddad—he’d be watching westerns all day. I’d be so mad, but I know if I went back I probably was missing out.
Did your dad introduce you to music, too?
Yeah, he was a music head. Anything from the J Dilla lineage, Slum Village, was him. He loved T.I. And he looooved Big K.R.I.T., and made me love Big K.R.I.T.
You loving K.R.I.T makes sense now that I think about it.
Maaannn. There’s a song on New Detroit called “Forever In a Day” that’s a K.R.I.T. reference. I used to drive around listening to him with my dad all day. I loved his way with words, and the way he carried himself. Everything sounds like funk music. The Blackest shit ever (laughs).
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