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0:19

A warning before we begin. This podcast

0:22

is explicit in every way.

0:25

And this episode contains racial and homophobic

0:27

slurs. It's

0:31

the night of the 2016 MTV VMAs. Rihanna

0:35

just walked away with the big video

0:37

vanguard of the year award. She's someone

0:39

I've been in love with since I was 22 years old. Oh

0:42

gosh.

0:44

Wait, wasn't this the same night Drake went

0:46

in for a kiss? Yeah, and Rihanna

0:48

dodged that mug. And after

0:50

the show, all the celebs pulled

0:53

up to her after party. It's like a

0:56

VMA after party

0:58

at Up and Down. And I guess it

1:00

was Rihanna's after party. The party's

1:02

at NYC Club Up and Down

1:04

and one of the attendees happens to be Atlanta

1:07

artist I Love Makonnen. And so everybody

1:09

was in the building, you know what I'm saying? And we

1:12

playing music, everybody's dancing, having a good time. Said what's

1:14

up to everybody in there. All the stars,

1:16

everybody who was a thing, right?

1:18

Fashionistas, models,

1:20

influencers, pop stars. The

1:23

room is heavy with the who's who of the music world. The

1:26

lights are dim, bottles

1:28

and balloons everywhere. And Makonnen,

1:31

he's mingling in the back with some of his fashion designer

1:34

friends. They even took strooms earlier

1:36

in the night. So everybody was feeling,

1:38

you know, nice, having

1:40

a good time. Until...

1:42

Drake and Rihanna walk in and everybody

1:45

moves out the way and they got big security. And

1:47

I ain't seen Drake in a minute, you know what I'm saying? So I'm like, hey

1:49

Drake, Drake,

1:50

Drake, what's up? A couple years earlier,

1:53

Drake and Makonnen had made magic together

1:55

when Drake turned Makonnen's viral song Tuesday

1:58

into a Billboard hit. and signed

2:00

him to his label OVO.

2:02

And so then Drake looked at me, I was like, Drake,

2:04

what's up? And then he looked at me like, look

2:07

at next time I see him, I'm gonna fuck you up for talking shit. Although

2:16

Drake and Maconnen had officially severed ties

2:18

months before, it had been a while since

2:21

they'd seen each other face to face. But

2:23

Maconnen still didn't have any reason to think that

2:25

there was any love loss. Whole

2:27

security everybody looking like. You know what I mean? They

2:29

see Drake is like disgruntled, he's about to... So

2:31

they all looking like, what's the target? And they see

2:33

Maconnen in LA, huh? Everybody

2:36

just kind of look confused like, I

2:38

don't know, you know what I mean? That ain't no muscle to

2:40

go and beat down type shit. Like, you know,

2:43

bread look chill. So they just kind of walked

2:45

on and then, you know,

2:47

I just felt like a lot of, you know, like we were

2:50

in it because Rihanna kind of looked at me and was like, what the fuck? Like,

2:52

nigga, this is my night up in this bitch. What the fuck

2:54

are y'all doing? And I was just like,

2:56

look, I don't know what's... I'm gonna just get up out here. And

2:59

with these type of vibes, Maconnen

3:01

realizes it's about time to go. He

3:04

starts making his way to the exit. I don't know what's

3:06

going on. I'm just gonna go ahead and leave because even everybody

3:08

was, what you do to Drake? What you do? I'm like, I can

3:10

do that. Just say, what's up? I

3:12

don't know what's going on. So I was like, all right, let me get out

3:15

of here. So then as I'm walking out of the club, I see other

3:17

OVO dudes and they're like,

3:18

Maconnen, what's up, bro? What's up? I'm like,

3:20

bro, I don't know what's up. Y'all tell me what's up. Your

3:22

man's just chomping me down, he

3:24

gonna fuck me up next time you see me. So I'm

3:26

out. Because I'm not trying to cause

3:29

no problems up in here at this little nice queer

3:32

friendly establishment. So

3:34

I'm a dip. And so I dip and

3:36

then I tweeted out and like, yo,

3:38

I don't know what this is about. And then one

3:40

of his assistants from one of his little fans, I said,

3:42

you should take that down because this and that. And I'm

3:44

like, what are we saying, y'all? It's

3:48

like, I don't have no communication

3:50

with y'all. Right? And

3:51

then when I see y'all in public, it's like, y'all

3:53

want beef. And I'm like, I don't have

3:55

no beef with you. So what is the beef about?

3:58

What is the beef about?

4:01

This question has followed Maconan for

4:03

years, and just about anybody who

4:05

witnessed Maconan's rise has speculated

4:07

about his fallout with Drake.

4:10

It always fell deeper than just two rappers

4:12

on the outs. I feel like there's

4:15

a strong perception that the

4:18

reason that relationship fizzled, you

4:20

know... Was because I was gay? Yeah. Yeah,

4:23

I don't think that's the case, because me and him wasn't talking

4:25

before that. You know what I mean?

4:27

Now, Maconan wasn't out at the time, but

4:29

the way he anticipates the question, it

4:31

speaks volumes. He's heard it a million

4:34

different times, a million different ways.

4:36

And even though it shouldn't matter, the real

4:39

question is why hip hop cares

4:41

so much in the first place.

4:44

Maybe nothing is more clearly defined

4:46

by rap than the fragility of black masculinity

4:50

and the perceived threat to masculinity that

4:52

queerness poses.

4:55

I'm Rodney Carmark. I'm

4:57

Sydney Madden. And from NPR Music,

4:59

this is Louder Than A Riot. Where

5:01

we confront the double standard that's become

5:04

the standard. On every

5:06

episode this season, we tackle one unwritten

5:08

rule of hip hop that affects the most marginalized

5:11

among us and holds the entire culture

5:13

back.

5:14

And one that a new generation

5:16

of rap refuses to stand for. Just

5:19

as Maconan was making it cool to get emo

5:21

in the trap, the industry turned its back

5:23

on him. So we're lifting the veil on the

5:25

story of I Love Maconan and

5:28

grappling with the ways his presence brought

5:30

out rap's worst behavior. This

5:32

is nervous. This is, I'm

5:34

nervous. You nervous? Yeah. Why

5:37

you nervous? You know, this is a lot of conversations

5:41

and thoughts I've had in my own head that

5:43

I've yet to, I guess, express in

5:46

public. On this

5:48

episode, rule number six, real

5:51

niggas go hard. Pause, no

5:53

homo.

6:07

I never forget how I found out about this

6:09

dude. So I'm at the office one

6:11

day at Creative Loafing, my old paper

6:13

in Atlanta, R.I.P. When

6:15

one of my coworkers, the homie and

6:17

former culture editor Gavin Godfrey, burst

6:20

into the office. He just got

6:22

him to the latest rapper, Bubbling

6:24

Up in Atlanta. I'll never forget there was this kind

6:27

of chubby kid with the little S-curl

6:29

thing going on. And right off the top,

6:32

Gavin saw something in the corner. With

6:34

a very loud, neon greenish hoodie,

6:36

it was peacocking. So

6:38

Gavin starts running down dudes' discography for

6:40

me, pulling up videos, playing

6:43

joints off his mixtape, and everything

6:45

about him

6:46

is just hitting different. You saw him and you

6:49

couldn't take your eyes off of him, and so I was like, everything

6:52

I see, I now need to hear what's going on.

6:54

He plays a song called Too Much.

6:59

And Mcconnell, he's singing over trap

7:02

beats. Not mumbling melodies, but

7:04

straight up singing, like a trippy,

7:07

drippy trap-libber-achi. It

7:10

struck for me, this kid sounds like a weird

7:14

pop star from the 80s. He had these

7:16

tears for fear, his vibe's going.

7:19

And when he played the video for I Don't Sell Molly

7:21

No More, I saw the vision.

7:30

Forget low budget, this video, it

7:33

was zero budget. He's

7:35

rolling through the east side, trapping out of

7:37

vintage ice cream truck, with

7:39

all kinds of strange things hanging out the

7:41

window, mannequin heads and whatnot.

7:44

Talking about, I got the gas and the coke,

7:47

I don't sell my lid no

7:49

more. It was a total tragic

7:52

comedy.

7:53

You know, in Atlanta, our history is like, we really

7:56

celebrate and pride our weirdos,

7:58

right? just out there eccentric,

8:02

have done some of the greatest cool things in the city. Think about

8:04

like 900 or 3000. You think of really anybody

8:06

in the Dungeon Family, Joy, Gip, like these folks,

8:10

they have this kind of vibe, this

8:12

really like, you know, I'm me

8:15

and there's no bones about it.

8:17

Yeah, Atlanta might be known for producing some eccentric

8:19

cats, but no class of AT

8:22

aliens was weirder than the class of 2014.

8:25

I'm talking young Thug, Rich Homie

8:27

Quan, OG Mako, but

8:30

Mcconnen, he almost made everything

8:32

else out of Traplana sound normal in comparison.

8:35

You've been cheating on, cheating on me. So

8:39

I've been cheating on, cheating

8:41

on you. You've been cheating

8:44

on me, Brianna. He

8:46

didn't just sound different. He was coming at

8:48

rap from a totally unique point of view. Mcconnen

8:51

felt foreign, from the vulnerability

8:53

in his voice straight down to his swag.

8:56

To see this kid, especially in hip hop, was so

8:58

much like machismo. He was just like bragging

9:01

about how he was into like the cosmetics industry.

9:04

Before Mcconnen touched a mic,

9:06

he was a bonafide hairdresser. He

9:08

grew up with a beautician for a mom and

9:10

would practice his skills on mannequin heads, dyeing

9:13

their hair in rainbow colors for fun.

9:15

And

9:15

it was while he was at beauty school that

9:17

he stumbled into music. So some of the students

9:20

at the school were doing music. And so

9:24

they let me sort of like tag

9:26

along and learn under them. And

9:29

one of the guys, Eddie Hollywood, was like

9:31

a real trap star. You know what I'm saying?

9:34

Bully Biddin the streets, all that. And he had got in

9:37

trouble with the law and all that. So he was in beauty

9:39

school, doing something positive with his time. And

9:41

then he has sort of like, you know, changed his life

9:43

over and got reborn

9:46

again Christian. And so he started doing like crunk

9:48

church music,

9:49

right? And so I was, that was my first introduction

9:52

to the Atlanta music scene, was through

9:54

the crunk church music. And so this was

9:56

like praising God, having gospel

9:59

music message.

9:59

behind it, but in the trap style. McCone

10:02

started producing beats in his bedroom using

10:05

an old BR-1180 and a keyboard.

10:07

Just messing around. A lot of my first

10:10

early songs were just jokes. Just

10:12

jokey, trolling songs. I'm just in there doing

10:15

a whole radio show by myself. My

10:17

mom would be at work from 8 to 4. I'd

10:19

be in there from 11 to 3 and just going silly. And

10:24

just saying all type of stuff and listening back to it and being like,

10:26

oh my God, this is so stupid. Nobody ever gonna hear

10:28

it. And when he first started,

10:29

he was just producing beats. And

10:32

then I was like, oh, these are good. I'm like, why

10:34

don't you let me sing to some of your

10:36

songs? That's

10:38

McCone's mom and first collaborator, Cosmic.

10:41

She'd been a musician back in the day, so she

10:44

helped him out with recording and even hopped on some of his

10:46

early joints. Because my mom started helping

10:48

me really work on my real

10:50

songs to where she started teaching me

10:52

how to song write and all

10:54

that. In a sense, he really learned

10:56

on his own, but I taught him some

10:59

fundamentals. He really

11:02

wanted to

11:04

produce for others. He's very good

11:06

at arranging and coming up with different

11:08

parts. He has a very good ear and he's

11:11

good

11:12

keyboardist. But

11:14

it was McCone's voice that really set him apart.

11:17

Oh, I thought it was awesome. I

11:20

thought it was different because

11:23

when you come from a gospel,

11:26

R&B, and the way that he

11:30

would sing, I was like, mm. And

11:32

McCone is

11:34

genius in the way that he uses

11:36

his voice because he knows how

11:38

to hit all the notes, but

11:41

he will slide off the note.

11:43

It's his own special way of doing

11:45

where it almost sounds

11:47

off key. But then

11:49

it

11:49

works. Basically,

12:03

Mcconnell was queer in the trap,

12:06

bringing the glitz and glam of pop radio,

12:09

folk music, hell, even opera to the

12:11

streets. And

12:12

within a few years, he found some folks

12:14

in Atlanta who were down with what he was doing, Awful

12:17

Records. There's some fringe people

12:19

that would come around every once in a while because they saw it.

12:22

This is like, this is a very welcoming group, clearly.

12:25

That's Father, the founder of Awful Records,

12:27

a whole slew of young cats who took psychedelics

12:30

like Mcconnell through parties and

12:32

made some of the weirdest, hardest ATL

12:34

hip-hop this side of Outkast.

12:36

Like Father's breakout single, Look

12:39

at Ris, featuring Kia Mcconnell.

12:48

Like someone listening to the crew were also very, you know

12:52

what I'm saying, like moon space

12:54

stars. So

12:56

he kind of was into that group

12:58

of like, you know, just extended

13:00

thought, you know? So

13:03

there was members of the crew that he could

13:04

melt with like that. So

13:07

just free thought, free thought,

13:09

no judgment. What was lesser known

13:12

at the time was that he was collaborating with

13:14

some of the biggest and best known producers coming

13:16

out of Atlanta. Producers

13:18

like Mike Wiel made it, Sonny Digital,

13:20

Metro Boomin. Now these were the cats putting

13:23

Atlanta's trap sound on the international map. They

13:25

were passing Mcconnell around from studio to

13:27

studio, almost like a cheat code. It

13:30

was like the quintessential at that time,

13:32

Atlanta producers, like

13:34

that wow, like, you know, you would come back through

13:37

every so often and then just

13:39

tell us like, you know, just crazy ass tales

13:41

and just random

13:43

industry secrets. And

13:45

we're, you know, we're just all in the living room just like, okay,

13:47

man.

13:55

Even though he was making a name for himself and moving

13:58

fluidly between the city's mainstream in

14:00

other ground scenes, but

14:01

Conner was still struggling to break big in Atlanta.

14:04

By 2014, he was on the verge

14:06

of giving up. Then one

14:08

night while he was at Mike Wills' studio with

14:10

the duo Ray Schremmurd and some more industry

14:12

cats, a song just flowed

14:15

right out of him. I ended up

14:18

freestyling Tuesday right there because it was

14:20

Monday night and turned into Tuesday

14:22

morning and I was like, we got the little clubhouse, we got the

14:24

little clubhouse, my guys out in the clubhouse, shit. I'm

14:27

like, hey, you know, the little club going up on Tuesday.

14:30

I started going with

14:33

it, and I just made the whole little song right

14:35

there on the spot.

14:36

Got the club going up on

14:39

a Tuesday. Got your girl

14:41

in the car that she choose. Got

14:43

your club going up on a

14:46

Tuesday. Got your girl

14:48

in the car that she choose. When

14:51

he dropped Tuesday on SoundCloud in the

14:53

summer of 2014, the song

14:55

was so addictive it caught fire quick.

14:57

It started, it took off. You know what

14:59

I mean? It was really going crazy to where it's

15:01

like, it's a local legend and

15:04

everybody who on the ends is hearing

15:06

it. And Tuesday was so Atlanta off

15:09

jump because

15:09

here's the thing about the trap capital.

15:11

Everybody's got a side hustle. It

15:14

ain't just the doughboys and the dancers. Even

15:16

the real estate agents got a trap mentality. Everybody's

15:19

fueling the underground economy one way or another.

15:22

One person's work week is somebody else's weekend

15:25

and the party don't

15:26

end. Like

15:29

Atlanta, we don't have a party, right? And I feel like

15:31

we can find

15:33

an excuse to turn any day into

15:36

an event. And I think Tuesday

15:38

really got it that. But I think it was also

15:41

like, you know, weirdly, I remember

15:43

hearing it was a good nod to like service industry people

15:45

in Atlanta who actually their weekend is a Monday or

15:47

a Tuesday. So they felt

15:49

like scene for the first time. And I also think it was

15:52

just like, you know, a maconan

15:54

again, it's such this weird kind of oddball

15:56

guy. So it makes sense that it's like,

15:58

yeah,

15:59

party on Tuesday. why not get caught

16:01

on a school night rather than the weekend

16:03

because that

16:05

just seems like something so

16:07

weird that I should probably embrace that, right?

16:11

So I was becoming local, you

16:13

know what I'm saying? You

16:15

a champ here, you got the song, it's dope,

16:18

it's real, it's authentic. We really coming

16:20

out on a Tuesday now, it's really a movement

16:23

for the community. This shit is really

16:25

hitting us. We really live in

16:27

this one. And so Atlanta

16:30

just started, you know, just going, we just started

16:32

having the best time, you know, like every, every,

16:35

every week on Edgewood and all that, wherever

16:37

at, we just having a great time.

16:41

McCone had been on the bubble in Atlanta for

16:43

a minute, just waiting his turn. But

16:45

now that he had a club banger in his back pocket,

16:47

it felt like he was about to blow.

16:50

And then like Wiz Khalifa and them start playing it. And

16:52

like, you know, like it started to get in the industry and people

16:54

was playing it. And then

16:57

somebody texts me or I

16:59

got a tweet and it was like, Drake and McCone and fire.

17:01

I was like, bruh, Drake and McCone would be for her, huh? And

17:04

then I saw the next tweet and it was like

17:06

from OVO sound, it was like, have a wonderful Tuesday.

17:09

And it was like Drake, I'll McCone

17:11

and bring it Tuesday. And so I was like, oh shit. And

17:13

so I started playing it and my friends pulled out their cameras

17:16

and they reacted and I was like, like,

17:19

no, like what? Like,

17:20

what the fuck? This is

17:23

Drake. This

17:25

is crazy. This

17:29

is crazy. What

17:33

the fuck? There's

17:38

no way this is real right now. There's

17:40

two big cameras. Nobody

17:48

flipping packs now. I

17:50

just did three in a row. Now,

17:53

I understand this was the era of the Drake. feature.

18:01

You knew you were out of here when

18:03

Drake hopped on your joint and Atlanta cats

18:05

were already basking in it. He giving

18:07

Migos their first breakout hit when he jumped

18:09

on Versace a year earlier.

18:16

He done the same for an artist on the come-up

18:18

named Future when he hopped on Tony Montana.

18:21

Now

18:21

it was Maconans time to

18:23

feel the Drake effect. It

18:29

was amazing. I was so happy and I was like

18:31

damn I gotta get in touch with them. You know what I

18:34

mean? I ain't never even talked

18:36

to him about this but he done blessed

18:38

me with the with the version of that song

18:40

going crazy and now like shit my

18:43

stock done went up overnight. With

18:45

Drake on the first verse, Tuesday went from an Atlanta

18:48

thing to a national thing.

18:50

Maconans was popping up everywhere. Power 106

18:53

with J. Crews and Justin Credible. Lift

18:55

off Power 106, Crews and Creddy.

18:58

Maconan is on the lift off.

19:00

The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

19:06

Even Nardwa.

19:07

Who are you? I am. I love Maconan.

19:10

Maconan, welcome. The song was doing numbers.

19:12

It climbed to number 12 on Billboard's Hot 100

19:14

and when Maconan officially

19:17

met Drake for the first time he

19:19

finally felt like he was on the inside

19:21

and Drake saw Maconan is more than just a one-off

19:23

too.

19:24

By September that same year,

19:26

Obio signed Maconan to a single deal and

19:29

they re-released his EP under the label. Now

19:32

this was a different story. This would

19:34

be the part where he launches in the Superstardom

19:37

but this ain't that story because after

19:39

his signing it felt like all the

19:41

hype behind Maconan just came

19:44

to a standstill. There's

19:46

probably a lot of stuff we don't know but I

19:48

remember there wasn't in a

19:50

moment it was more just like where's the music? Again,

19:53

Gavin Godfrey.

19:59

I thought, okay, if Mcconnan,

20:02

if you could actually just sit him down,

20:04

take that hustle, give him the resources

20:06

that an OVO and Warner Brothers or whatever

20:08

it was at the time could provide, you

20:11

could really, really tap in and make him this superstar

20:13

that people were saying that he could have been, and that didn't happen.

20:16

He was just kind of sitting there, and I always

20:18

thought that was really weird. Something had to have been up if

20:20

they weren't trying to come up with

20:23

the next Tuesday. You know what I mean? Just

20:25

like Gavin, I was feeling for another hit

20:28

of Mcconnan too. So

20:29

where was the music?

20:41

This

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22:07

It wasn't super clear why the music started slowing

22:09

up at the time. But looking back,

22:12

there was one interview that feeds into the

22:14

most persistent rumor. A

22:17

few months after OVO re-released Macon and

22:19

ZP, he made an appearance on

22:21

Hot 97 with Ebro. He's

22:24

professing to not selling drugs anymore. And

22:27

he's turning up on Tuesdays. Macon's

22:30

his name, give it up for him.

22:34

Even though it was supposed to be a coming out party

22:36

for one of rap's hot new emerging artists, it

22:39

turned into something weird. Ebro,

22:43

who's known for testing first timers, he

22:46

starts off fairly friendly. You

22:48

gave Drake a pass, keep it real. I mean, it

22:50

was Drake. It was, I mean, he took

22:52

it to a, he

22:55

took it to another level, you know what I'm saying? And it was

22:57

great. Then Ebro

22:59

gets in his bag a little bit and brings up

23:02

the fact that Macon didn't work as a cosmetologist.

23:05

So cosmetology school was your way

23:07

to be around women. Cause you know, a lot of times

23:09

we here do go into cosmetology school, we

23:11

think, you know, he's

23:14

a part of his game. Let's just say that's

23:16

how we see it. Now I know some straight dudes that do hair,

23:18

but that's not common. Yeah, well,

23:20

I mean, I like to say it's a new day

23:23

in age. I hear people from my ancestors

23:25

need to open up. I think the cosmetology thing

23:27

threw me for a loop. I'm in the beauty.

23:29

Listen, I am in the beauty. I'm in the beauty industry.

23:31

Listen, I'm gonna be real. I thought

23:34

maybe you was a gay artist. Now understand, Macon

23:37

wasn't even out.

23:38

So Ebro's getting all worked up by even just

23:40

the idea that Macon might

23:42

be gay. And dude just won't know.

23:46

Yeah, but that's so cliche. It's too

23:48

simple, right? Yeah, it's too simple. It's too simple. It's

23:50

like, I mean, come on. So

23:52

then if somebody start up wearing pink, oh, they're good. It's

23:55

like, we passed all that, y'all. Like, that's what I'm

23:57

saying. We gotta grow the fuck up and be grown.

23:59

Yeah, but skirts and fingers. It was almost like

24:02

Ebro was trying to yank Mcconnell out the closet.

24:04

No, I'm not saying, but there are individuals. I think that I didn't

24:06

know they'd have a skirt on with some fingernails.

24:08

There's some fingernails in the museum. Just to fuck the guy. But

24:11

he said he wasn't gay, so what I'm... Exactly, he ain't gay.

24:13

What does it matter if he was gay, or if anybody

24:16

was gay? Like, what are they talking about?

24:18

Mcconnell saw right through what Ebro was trying

24:20

to do at the time. And he still does,

24:22

nearly a decade later. When we

24:24

sat down to talk to him in studio, that

24:26

interview was one of the things that came

24:29

up. He still sees it as a prime

24:31

example of hip-hop's masculinity

24:34

being threatened. Just stop, because

24:36

you the one that's holding on to this ignorant masculinity

24:38

bullshit that's fucking up the community right here.

24:41

You the voice on radio right here, Mr.

24:43

Ebro been up here all this time, and you trying

24:45

to push a stupid ass narrative on these young

24:47

kids out here like, oh, you gay. Was hip-hop

24:49

obsessed with whether or not you were gay from

24:51

the start?

24:52

I think so, but hip-hop's been obsessed

24:55

with that. Mcconnell should know. He

24:58

was a 90s baby coming up in LA just

25:00

as rap was starting to traffic in those gangster

25:03

tropes.

25:04

The same tropes that he was surrounded

25:06

by on his block. And so I'm

25:08

just like a child, and I'm

25:10

just seeing, you know, just the 90s. So, you

25:12

know, gang activity starting to take

25:15

off. And so my cousins will be coming bloods

25:17

over here on my dad's side, and then my brother's

25:19

a crib, and he over there with my grandma. I

25:22

would see my gangbang cousins getting to a lot

25:24

with my uncles and stuff like that, and they'd

25:26

be fighting over this masculinity on who ain't a man

25:28

type shit. And it's like, we over here gangbanging,

25:31

and we doing pushups, and we fighting to shoot motherfuckers.

25:34

We men, but then my uncles,

25:36

and then it's like, motherfucker, I'm taking care of seven

25:38

of my kids, my nephews, my aunts,

25:41

my uncle, my mom, my pa, his uncle.

25:44

I'm taking care of the whole family, and we come

25:46

from real gangbanging damn near. And

25:48

you know what I'm saying? So it's like, we men.

25:50

So I'm just watching this sort of clash

25:53

of masculinity happen in my house, you

25:56

in the streets, gangbanging, hip hop, all this

25:58

shit, we men, you know, young.

27:53

in

28:00

the world and express himself as a man.

28:03

You know, I was burning with curiosity

28:05

about why you would want to speak to me. That's Cosmic,

28:08

McConan's mom again. I know that McConan

28:10

has done interviews, you know, and

28:13

I can understand why, but nobody has ever

28:16

asked to interview me, so I'm just wondering,

28:18

yeah, why would you want to speak to me? What

28:21

is this about? We're

28:22

talking to Cosmic because she's the first

28:24

person who introduced McConan to the beauty

28:27

industry. So I would take him to work with me,

28:29

you know, even when I was teaching

28:31

at the school, at the salon,

28:34

you know, so he's been around,

28:37

you know,

28:38

cosmetology for

28:40

most of his life. Cosmetology,

28:43

the same industry Ibro would call him out for

28:45

being a part of, but this was

28:47

also the place where he learned how to counterbalance

28:50

all the mess he was picking up from the men

28:52

in his life. Oh man, I learned

28:54

everything from beauty for a mom. You

28:57

know, I found that beauty is in the

28:59

eye of the beholder and beauty is now where everybody

29:01

sees. I just saw a lot of caring, nurturing,

29:05

loving, you know what I'm

29:07

saying, and support. Again

29:09

that gave him an audience too to perform, I guess,

29:13

you know, because of people, you know,

29:15

loved him. Like

29:17

I said, he's very friendly and expressive

29:20

and so, you know, these are the type of characters

29:23

that you find in a beauty business. I mean, very

29:25

expressive character.

29:27

Everybody is a star in the beauty business. Even

29:29

though we are creating, you

29:31

know, stars, we're grooming them,

29:33

we're helping people with their self-esteem.

29:35

So he grew up in that culture,

29:38

I guess you can say, where, you know, we

29:40

help one another to feel better, you

29:42

know, we tell stories, you

29:44

know, we do dance,

29:47

we sing, you know, you go to the salon

29:49

and barbershop, you know what it's like. So, yeah,

29:52

from a very young age, he was there.

29:54

And even then, that was when I started to see

29:56

trans and gays and, you know what I'm saying, lesbians

29:59

and all these things.

29:59

different orientations and then

30:02

I got to really be around them and like

30:04

you know spend every day with them and learn them

30:06

and like love them and be able to accept them.

30:09

So it really resonated with me

30:11

through a lot of different things in my life of

30:14

the world of being able to dial in into

30:16

the beauty business and see that. I

30:19

learned how to treat

30:21

women. I learned how women act

30:24

and how women are and why women

30:26

you know are the way they are and

30:28

it was like it was really a full

30:29

women study you know for

30:32

me.

30:32

Whatever internal tug of war McConough was feeling

30:35

between these different ways of being only

30:37

intensified as he fell in love with hip-hop.

30:40

That's

30:40

when he started to realize keeping it real was

30:43

mostly just an empty slogan.

30:45

Once hip-hop entered the picture for you

30:47

how did that start to shape your

30:50

your views around what it

30:52

meant to be a man or you

30:54

know what have you.

30:56

Yeah that's when it really got confusing

30:59

you know because it's like I'm seeing

31:01

I'm

31:04

thinking my gangbanging cousins them as men you

31:06

know I mean so they go to jail and they

31:08

came out and they still buffer you

31:10

know I mean and I'm like damn like them

31:13

men

31:13

you know and then when I'm seeing hip-hop I'm seeing

31:16

a lot of people emulate

31:18

the life and like where the

31:20

thing and start having a look but it's like

31:22

I can tell like

31:23

a lot of them ain't really

31:25

from it because I I've seen

31:27

my family from it to like you know I've seen

31:29

I've seen

31:30

the tragedy of it and

31:33

it's not all that glistly to

31:35

play everybody on there making the scene you know

31:37

like it ain't fun to be running around

31:39

red flagged up

31:41

the way the videos be showing because it's like I'm

31:44

seeing drive-bys in my neighborhood and stuff

31:46

like that and so as hip-hop was coming

31:48

in and like yo these the men these the dudes

31:51

and I'm just like

31:53

I mean I guess I

31:55

don't know I'm still a kid

31:57

who am I to say what a man is you know I mean and

31:59

so

31:59

I'm seeing my older brothers and them rock

32:02

to the Jay-Z and all this stuff and

32:04

be out here flossing and doing the whole, you

32:06

know, I got the car, I'm a man.

32:09

I got the car, I got the girls, all this. But

32:12

then I would

32:15

know these people, right? And so I would see my brothers

32:17

and them and the way it was like

32:19

a facade. I'm not seeing no man stuff,

32:21

you know what I mean? But I'm do seeing that

32:23

you quick to jump up and go out with your boys again

32:25

to go hang out with the so-called man.

32:28

So when you around the house, I'm not getting no

32:30

man quiet. You over here calling me a faggot, you

32:32

know what I'm saying? You dissing me because I'm, I

32:34

guess, not as

32:36

masculine or buff. Black

32:38

masculinity has always been challenged because

32:41

of white supremacy, right? And this

32:43

sense that white supremacy feminizes

32:47

black men,

32:47

right? There's been this idea that,

32:50

you know, the performance of black men has to

32:52

be uncut so that folks that

32:54

have not any questions about what black

32:56

masculinity is, right?

32:58

That's Mark Anthony Neal, a renowned academic

33:01

and cultural critic who's writing on black music

33:03

and pop culture deconstructs the ways

33:05

we define manhood.

33:07

But when we talk about masculinity or femininity,

33:10

right, this is a social construct of

33:12

what that is, right? So that's the clothes

33:14

that we think men should wear, how

33:16

men should talk, what kinds

33:18

of language they use, how

33:21

they walk. I mean, this is all stuff

33:23

that's not coming directly from a biological

33:27

effect, but specifically from

33:29

young folks, babies, you know, growing up to

33:31

a adulthood, reading the

33:33

signs of gender and how they're

33:36

supposed to act as a man, you

33:38

know, and playing out gender in that kind of context.

33:41

This facade that Mcconnell and Mark are talking

33:43

about is one of the scales we use

33:45

to measure ourselves

33:46

within the culture. You know, when you

33:48

think about, you know, legible, something that

33:50

you can read, you can recognize it, and

33:53

there's certain images that when we see them, we

33:55

don't even have to process them because they're

33:57

so legible to us.

33:59

The way Mark explains his concept

34:01

of legibility, it's as simple as the

34:03

difference between seeing a black man with a basketball

34:06

versus seeing a black man with a violin.

34:09

One image is so familiar you wouldn't even question

34:12

it. Whereas the other, you might give

34:14

you pause for a second, just because it isn't

34:16

the stereotypical image you might expect.

34:19

And if you think about hip-hop circa 2000, right? Jay's

34:24

look is what Diddy's look. We

34:27

could go on and on, right? Jaru's

34:30

look, right? Nas's look, right? They

34:33

all look like they're hip-hop, right? Even as

34:35

they're doing very different things, they're different skill

34:37

sets. It is the look of hip-hop

34:39

which allows it to be easy to be able

34:41

to market them, right? And they take that basic

34:44

image, right? That's so

34:45

accessible to folks, that's so legible to folks. And

34:48

then they build out different kinds of personas

34:50

and sensibilities out of that. Part of keeping

34:52

up the front of legibility was distancing

34:55

yourself from anything that was seen as

34:57

other. And the easiest way to prove

34:59

you weren't gay was by being homophobic.

35:02

I think when we talk about queerness broadly

35:04

in the black community, but also in this case in hip-hop,

35:07

it really has to do with optics. If

35:11

black queer men or black trans men

35:14

are too prominent and visible, it

35:17

is a comment on the failure of black

35:21

men, quote unquote, real strong

35:24

heterosexual black men, and by extension,

35:26

the black family.

35:28

To produce men in that way.

35:31

Hip-hop took that kind of notion to a different

35:33

kind of level by presenting

35:35

to us these readily available images

35:37

of not just masculinity, but hyper-masculinity.

35:40

Yeah, if you're from a certain area of hip-hop like me,

35:43

you might remember how ingrained homophobia

35:45

was in the music. I mean,

35:47

it's almost hard to know where to begin. You

35:50

could damn near play a game of pen to tell on

35:52

the rapper Blindfolded, and still

35:54

be guaranteed to land on flagrant offenders

35:56

spread throughout the last several decades.

36:00

The irony of the prevalence

36:03

of homophobia in hip-hop is

36:05

that rappers, how do I say it?

36:19

Gay as hell? I mean rappers

36:21

were okay with hanging with the homies,

36:24

making music in cramped studios overnight

36:26

with the homies.

36:28

The shirtless and sweaty on stage

36:30

with the homies, basically spending every

36:32

week an hour being intimate with

36:34

the homies. They just didn't want

36:36

the homie to be gay. It's

36:39

a fear that says way more about the fragility

36:41

of hypermasculinity than it says

36:43

about the object of their fear.

36:46

So despite rap's homoerotic tendencies,

36:49

this was the no homo era when

36:52

rappers like Cam'ron took distance in

36:54

themselves from all things seemingly

36:56

suspect to a whole new level

36:59

of absurdity. Let me just say something. Are

37:01

you gay? Not at all. Far

37:03

from it. So like, why do people feel

37:05

like they need to keep reinforcing

37:07

that over and over? I mean, it isn't

37:09

about being gay, it's about saying something

37:12

gay. For instance, my man Jim Jones said

37:14

I'ma beat you with that till all the white stuff come out

37:16

of it. That's why a homo told somebody else that.

37:19

No homo, he ain't tell me that. You understand what I mean? That's

37:21

a perfect example. Oh my god.

37:23

This is crazy. I'm

37:26

never gonna understand it. My thing

37:28

is like. But this isn't even about being

37:30

gay. This is about saying something gay. This

37:32

is about letting someone know that you're not gay. Who

37:35

cares, right? No, this is about saying

37:37

gay things by accident. No homo.

37:40

This isn't about a person really being gay. We

37:42

know that they're not really gay.

37:43

We are going to rock the mic next hour.

37:46

Cam thinks rock the mic. That's

37:48

a good rock the mic. No homo. You

37:51

see? Now rock the mic is homo if you

37:53

know what I'm saying. No it's not. In

37:56

a world where no homo is the default, association

37:58

with anything seen is

37:59

or become suspect too. So

38:02

when Ebro started questioning Mcconnell's sexuality

38:05

in that interview,

38:06

it could put anyone affiliated with him in

38:08

the line of fire, especially

38:10

Drake. Drake is an artist

38:13

who's always been challenged by these questions

38:15

of authenticity. Again, Marc

38:18

Anthony Neal. Because his

38:20

style of rapping, his

38:23

affect... You know,

38:25

obviously he got some bangers that

38:27

folks say that's a hip-hop record, right? But, you know, most of

38:30

the time, he's doing this kind

38:32

of weird sing-singy, I'm

38:34

not quite a singer, but I sing better than most

38:36

rappers who try to sing. And

38:39

there's an emotiveness.

38:41

This is a key point, right? You know... Audiences

38:45

don't know what to do with black

38:47

men who are too emotive. Part

38:49

of the polarizing response to Drake has

38:51

been all about that sad boy emo-ness that

38:54

he injected in the rap.

38:56

I still remember when the late DMX voice, his

38:58

opinion on Drake on the Breakfast Club. What

39:00

about Drake? You like Drake? No. My

39:03

man. He even said he... That's

39:06

my guy right there. That's

39:08

why X is necessary in the game right there. Now,

39:10

why don't you like Drake? I don't like anything about

39:12

Drake. I don't like his voice. I don't

39:15

like... He talks about... I don't... I

39:18

don't like his face. I don't like it. He

39:20

walks like nothing. I don't care if I... I

39:22

might just... Let me shut

39:24

up. I'm gonna stop right there. The same way

39:27

DMX can't quite put his finger on it. There's

39:29

something about Drake that just punctured

39:31

rap's hard exterior. Because we

39:33

think about women being expressly

39:36

emotive. And in hip-hop, where

39:39

emotiveness other than anger... and

39:43

rage... right, and

39:45

in some extent reflection, there

39:47

weren't a whole lot of range of emotions that

39:49

you could express in hip-hop. And so Drake comes

39:51

along,

39:53

and he's so emotive, right? You can't

39:55

think of another rapper ever...

39:58

who begs. to leave

40:00

it off that way. Nah.

40:06

Each do I get an invitation or something,

40:08

a statement or something. Ask

40:11

a boy that you would say it was nothing.

40:13

Through all the missed calls from exes

40:16

and broken hearted ballads,

40:18

Drake presented a type of masculinity that

40:20

went against the grain at the time. He

40:22

was illegible to rap's hardcore sensibilities.

40:25

Too sensitive, too soft. And

40:27

it was risky for him to break

40:30

the mold of how much emotion that he could

40:32

bring into his music and to his credit. He

40:35

became Drake because of that, because he

40:37

was an outlier. I think because

40:40

there is this kind

40:42

of anxiety

40:44

about Drake's performance of hip hop

40:47

and masculinity. There's still cats who still

40:49

won't admit that he's a hip hop artist. There

40:51

are cats who say that he was the death of hip hop.

40:54

Because he brought this whole other kind, so

40:57

you get the weekend, you get all this. You get a

40:59

sound, this emo sound in hip hop

41:01

that had never existed before.

41:03

Which is exactly what made Drake and Mcconnen

41:06

seem like a collaboration made in emo heaven.

41:09

Together, they were making softer aesthetics

41:12

a little more legible than rap. But

41:14

if your authenticity is already under attack,

41:16

like Drake's was, you could also make

41:18

a collaboration like this a liability.

41:21

I think because he's already kind

41:23

of a question to some folks, Mcconnen

41:27

becomes an interesting challenge for that. Because

41:30

had he been a more kind of traditional

41:33

hardcore hip hop artist, I

41:36

think you can withstand Mcconnen being in your

41:39

universe. When you're Drake,

41:41

that's a different kind of challenge. Now all this was

41:44

going down at the same time that Cracks and

41:46

Mcconnen and Drake's relationship were starting

41:48

the show.

41:49

The EP was sort of like just automatically

41:52

even happening. You know what I mean? But then I think it

41:54

was like a second one afterward. And so

41:56

the first one went good and I got to go do the loudest

41:58

of loud tour. I went around.

41:59

Europe and the US play festivals,

42:02

everything was going good. I came out

42:04

on Drake's set at

42:06

Wireless,

42:08

but that's when I knew something was weird. Because

42:10

when I came out on set,

42:12

everybody

42:14

was kind of like, eh. And I started losing

42:16

weight too, right?

42:17

And

42:19

Drake had made a little joke, like, oh, you little Eric

42:21

Bonet looking at me, you know what I'm saying?

42:23

And then like, haha. And

42:25

then I just started to feel this vibe, like

42:28

a

42:29

little, you know what I mean? Something was said about

42:31

me, but we not, I don't know. So

42:33

I'm like, okay. And so then when we go out to do the song,

42:37

I'm just doing the hook. And as I was supposed to go into

42:39

my verse, they just cut it. And I was like, oh,

42:42

okay, thanks. And

42:44

I just got off stage. But I was like, this

42:47

is crazy. Like the crowd is going crazy right now. They fucking

42:49

with me. Like, they ready to hear, you know what I'm saying? I

42:51

was working on it. And they just shut it off. And I was like,

42:53

all right. So then I left that.

42:55

And then it just started, you know, it was just

42:58

like, this is getting weird. When we talked to

43:00

McCone and he made it clear that the whispers he was hearing

43:02

weren't about his sexuality.

43:04

It was mostly stupid stuff, like years old

43:06

tweets, dissing Drake and calling them names.

43:09

People under your dad's comments saying, y'all need to drop

43:11

him. Cause he said that Yo

43:14

Song practice was lame back

43:16

in 2011. And then he called you a red Elmo back

43:19

in 2010. So you need to stop fucking with him now

43:21

in 2015. Was that one of the tweets? And

43:26

I even told you when that happened, I was like, it

43:29

could have been any popular name. Like, that's

43:31

what motherfuckers do. Like we fucked up in the game,

43:33

bro. Our little outlet.

43:34

That's our only way of attention. You

43:36

know what I mean? So it ain't nothing personal.

43:38

But maybe the clearest evidence that things were falling

43:40

apart was McCone and Tim Westwood

43:43

freestyle,

43:44

where he spent almost 20 minutes freestyling

43:46

and dropping hints about his shaky label situation

43:49

over nothing but Drake beats. It's

43:52

like, okay, Tim Westwood playing all these Drake beats and

43:54

I'm over here freestyling, you know, I'm rapping,

43:56

I'm eating shit up. And so now people are like, oh,

43:58

you talking about Drake?

44:00

He going after Drake. The motherfucker said, I

44:02

got dropped. Haha, that's a

44:04

motherfucking hip hop shit. You

44:07

know this motherfucking lie. Only place

44:09

I drop that is in my goddamn pants size.

44:11

Ugh, big stunning shit. And it's like,

44:13

okay, so I can't, you know what I mean? It's like, and then he turned the comments

44:16

off on it, because then they start saying, this a trash

44:18

freestyle. They been freaks, because I done freaked out for like 20,

44:21

30 minutes over all these different type beats. So

44:23

everybody, you know, it's like, you going out the drain,

44:25

you bit the hand that fed

44:27

you and all this shit. And so I'm

44:29

just like, okay,

44:30

who do I talk, where's

44:32

my outlet to say, this

44:35

isn't what it is. And I was like, all right.

44:37

And then I posted, I did my next EP, right? And

44:40

nobody promoted it.

44:42

Drake didn't put it on the thing and it

44:44

just felt like it was dead. So I was like, you know what, I don't want

44:46

to be over here. I know he

44:48

said that he wanted to leave. And

44:51

I was like, you want to leave? Why? It

44:54

seemed like he wanted to leave. So I'm like, well, if

44:56

that's what you want to do.

44:58

You can do it. You know,

45:00

but I know if look, if you're in a situation

45:02

where you're wanted and you're valued,

45:05

you know, and you're respected, you

45:07

probably won't want to leave that situation.

45:09

That's when I left and went to Portland

45:12

and started doing all my internal stuff

45:14

like that. I was like, you know what, maybe

45:16

it's me, maybe I need to come out and be

45:18

honest with myself and all this other stuff.

45:21

I'm expecting other people to be honest with me out here.

45:23

And so maybe people looking at me like, you fraud,

45:25

you fake nigga, we know you're gay and you ain't out.

45:28

So like, all right, well, whatever. I'm going

45:30

to go ahead and come out and let's see what

45:32

that do.

45:34

What did it do? It

45:36

blew up.

45:38

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46:29

In early 2017, a few

46:31

months after his move to Portland, Mcconnell

46:34

took the tour to say what was on his mind. We asked him

46:37

to read those tweets.

47:00

Word about Mcconnell's announcement spread

47:02

fast. When

47:29

I came out of the gate, everybody who I

47:32

was working with, my whole community, from Atlanta, not

47:34

even just from Atlanta, because at the time, my

47:36

Atlanta relationship got strained because they

47:38

felt like, oh, you ran off with Drake and now

47:40

you love the home team. So it's like, okay.

47:43

But y'all know Atlanta, y'all know I'm being the realest Atlanta

47:45

motherfucker in this game right now. I'm just coming doing

47:47

this, coming out of this gate. And so it's like,

47:50

we all gonna be silent on that. Ain't nobody gonna

47:52

really say shit. You know, we gonna

47:54

try to work with you because maybe that gay shit

47:56

might work. But we ain't

47:58

really trying to, you know.

47:59

and work with you. One group

48:02

that had something to say was his one-time collaborators,

48:04

the Migos.

48:09

In an interview with Rolling Stone, the group

48:11

questioned McConan's credibility, calling

48:13

it a contradiction that he could somehow rap about

48:15

trapping and selling molly while

48:18

simultaneously being a gay man.

48:20

According to McConan, no one from the label

48:23

ever reached out privately either. When

48:26

we reached out for this story, an

48:28

OVO rep hit us with a no comment.

48:30

They've never spoke to me or spoke

48:33

on any of this stuff with me, so I

48:35

just feel like OVO has been down

48:37

with me since Tuesday. You know what

48:40

I mean? We ain't never really had no,

48:42

let's do some shit with you, because I'm just me from Atlanta.

48:47

I

48:49

represent that, and I guess they're only

48:51

looking for a certain type of representation

48:54

to be around. And so I guess it's the

48:56

more harder thug, I go to jail

48:58

type shit, I'm a thug motherfucker from

49:00

Atlanta. I feel like they feel like that's what they can associate

49:03

with, and then when they was trying to associate with

49:05

me, it was like, I guess I am

49:07

the thug motherfucker from Atlanta and all that, but

49:09

I also am gay, and if you really know

49:11

thug motherfuckers in Atlanta, you really know they're good.

49:13

I knew that this was gonna piss

49:16

everybody off more to make everybody happy.

49:18

I knew that more people were gonna leave me than run

49:21

towards me, you know what I mean? And that's why I did it. You

49:23

know what I mean? I was like, I can't handle this fake shit no more.

49:26

The way Mcconough sees it,

49:27

it's like rap's growth is stunnin'

49:29

around some real archaic ideas

49:32

of masculinity. And hip hop,

49:34

as a result,

49:35

has been slow to evolve. It's

49:37

like hip hop's about to turn 50 or so, and

49:39

so I was like, let's imagine if hip hop

49:41

was a person, and let's look at

49:43

all the transitions that person went through, and all

49:46

that stuff is like, were we considered that

49:48

a real motherfucker, or

49:49

were we considered that the fakes motherfucker round? Now

49:54

we got babies out here, we got Lil Nas X and

49:56

all these other Lil's again,

49:58

we got new group of Lil's again. and ain't and those

50:00

that done grown into fathers and grandfather

50:03

y'all still ain't saying nothing what's going

50:05

on with hip-hop in the years since

50:07

splitting from ovio mcconnell's

50:09

often written off as a one-hit wonder but

50:12

that's furthest from the truth in

50:14

a lot of ways his influence is more

50:17

present now than ever the

50:20

truth is he's become something of a cult hero

50:22

for a lot of artists on the rise his

50:24

emotive sound cut a path for one of the biggest

50:27

generational shifts in music the

50:29

rise of the sound cloud era from

50:31

lil yachty to

50:36

trippy red

50:40

and six dogs to

50:43

juice world

50:47

the sound cloud era gave us more of the

50:49

fields than almost any in the genre's

50:52

history it was time for tears

50:54

and turning up

50:55

these were artists who didn't abide by rap static

50:57

rules of masculinity they

50:59

brought nail polish with their face tats

51:02

it was likely to shop at hot topic as

51:04

they were at footlocker one of

51:06

the torchbearers was the late emo rapper

51:09

lil peep

51:14

before it's untimely passing peep

51:16

and mcconnell dated briefly i had

51:19

a you know relationship with him and then he ended up

51:21

coming out as bisexual to his fans and that

51:24

gathered him a whole new support and was able

51:26

to give healing to his fan

51:28

base before he ended up passing on but

51:30

it still has helped them heal

51:33

you know because it's like somebody else is able

51:35

to show that it's okay to be us they even worked

51:37

on a whole album together that peep once described

51:40

as one of the most legendary albums of all

51:42

time

51:43

it still hadn't been officially released but the single

51:46

sunlight on your skin it gave a peek

51:48

into their relationship

51:49

where i want to be again

51:52

and again Whether

52:02

the industry wants to acknowledge it or not, McConan

52:05

queered the trap. His sound,

52:07

his style, his voice.

52:10

Hip-hop might not have been ready for it. It

52:12

might have popped out his chest and said no homo.

52:15

But that couldn't erase his impact. Like

52:18

so many queer artists before him, McConan

52:20

laid the groundwork that others are dancing

52:22

on now. What's your

52:24

hope for queer

52:28

artists in hip-hop in the future?

52:31

And whether or not the

52:33

culture and the industry has space

52:36

for them?

52:39

It's always has space. We've just been in the back. It's

52:42

just the background space. But the

52:44

queer, they definitely always been here. But hopefully

52:46

now they can get more accepted and move into the forefront.

52:49

You know what I'm saying? We're

52:51

appreciative and thankful for your achievements

52:53

and your

52:56

efforts that you provided to the

52:58

hip-hop culture, which

53:00

allowed us

53:03

to keep being diverse and keep thriving

53:05

and accepting these new acts

53:08

and new artists and these new groundbreaking things

53:10

that we've been able to enjoy since

53:12

then. It's OK to be yourself.

53:14

It's OK to be an individual. And

53:16

it's OK to go and support those individuals.

53:19

You know what I'm saying?

53:32

The biggest

53:32

thing I walked away with after spending

53:34

a couple of days with McConan

53:36

is this. Dude's good.

53:39

And I mean that in every sense of the word. The

53:42

music he's making now, the life he's

53:44

living in Portland, even the freedom

53:46

that he clearly feels in his own skin.

53:49

It's easy to write his story off as an OVO

53:51

tragedy. But that's just a footnote

53:54

in a career that didn't start with Drake

53:56

and definitely didn't end after.

53:59

I live out here now. I've lived here

54:02

five years. I love Portland. I love

54:03

the scene. I love all y'all creators out here. I

54:06

love you, man. I

54:08

love my side to dance. Every

54:10

time I know somebody,

54:13

no more.

54:14

Since I've came out as gay everywhere, I've walked

54:16

through. Everybody has bowed down to

54:18

this gay shit, so it's like, it

54:20

don't feel like it's just Portland. It's the whole world now.

54:23

You know what I mean? I haven't had an issue being gay.

54:26

Now it's like, oh shit, we listening

54:28

and stuff. It's making stuff. Good, thank you. Because

54:31

last time everybody just wasn't here. It's a

54:33

gay. It's a gay. It's a gay. It's not a dude. It's like, dude,

54:35

get off of that. Move on. And I feel like the people

54:37

here have been moved off from that, and they don't

54:40

care. They're into the music and

54:42

stuff like that, and the arts and the expression

54:45

of the person. You know what I mean? And

54:48

so, yeah, it's been very good, and I want that to

54:50

go worldwide. And I feel like it is.

54:59

I'm in. I'm in it again. So

55:01

I'm spinning. I'm spinning, spinning. I'm

55:04

spinning, spinning, spinning. I'm spinning.

55:07

I'm spinning again. I'm spinning. I'm spinning, spinning.

55:10

I'm spinning, spinning, spinning.

55:13

Next week, queer aesthetics

55:16

take over the mainstream. I had

55:18

a level, and I was like, no. I

55:20

got my own career, my own entity. I'm talented,

55:23

and I'm going to make this work. Saucy

55:26

Santana takes us through rule number

55:28

seven. It's on the next

55:30

episode of Louder Than The Riot.

55:36

Louder Than

55:36

The Riot is hosted by me, Rodney

55:39

Carmichael and Sydney Mad. This

55:41

episode was written by Rodney Carmichael

55:43

and Mano Sunderesin. And it was produced

55:46

by Mano Sunderesin. Our senior

55:48

producer is Gabby Bogarelli, and

55:50

our producers are Sam Jay Leeds and

55:53

Mano Sunderesin. Our

55:55

editor is Sareya Shockley with

55:58

additional editing by Sam Jay Leeds.

55:59

Our engineer is Gilly Moon. Our

56:02

senior supervising producer is Chera Vincent.

56:05

Our interns are Jose Sandoval, Teresa

56:07

Shia, and Pilar Galvan. And

56:09

the NPR execs are Keith Jenkins,

56:12

Yolanda Sanguini, and Anya Gremen.

56:13

Original theme by Casa Overall.

56:16

Remix by Susie Analogue. And

56:19

scoring for this episode was provided by Susie

56:21

Analogue, Rontine Ariblui, and

56:23

Casa Overall. Our digital editor

56:26

is Jacob Gans. Our fact checker

56:28

is Candace Court Camp.

56:30

Like and subscribe to us, y'all. And

56:33

if you have thoughts about this episode and you want to talk back, hit

56:35

us up on Twitter. We're at Louder Than a

56:37

Riot. And if you want to email

56:40

us, it's louder at NPR.org.

56:43

From NPR Music, I'm

56:45

Rodney Carmichael. And I'm Sydney Madden. And

56:48

this is Louder Than a Riot. I

56:52

made Tuesday at Mike's producer's

56:54

house, Mars and the other eardrummers. And

56:57

Ray Shrimmer was there. And they wasn't even fully

56:59

formed yet. They

57:03

were still, you know, getting their foot in stuff. And

57:06

I remember when they first met me too at that house, they

57:08

came downstairs like I was Kanye West or somebody. And I was like, I don't know

57:10

what Mike is telling motherfuckers out here. But

57:13

y'all are goddamn acting a little too crazy. I'm like,

57:15

bro, I barely got a quarter tank of gas

57:17

outside. Y'all looking at me like I'm,

57:20

you know, somebody.

57:21

How did they come downstairs? They was like, oh, shit,

57:23

McCall, brah. Oh, man,

57:26

like, yo, big fans, brah. And I'm like, big fans,

57:28

like, I don't even have nothing out. Like, what's some

57:30

people talking about? He was

57:32

like, no, Mike, show the tits, Mike, show the tits. And

57:35

they just spirit and their eyes was just so

57:37

like, yeah. And then they was like, all right, McCall and the boys

57:39

are working. They was like, all right, man, we finna sit back

57:41

here. And they just sat in the back and was just like, look

57:43

at it. Like, oh,

57:45

shit, he about to do it.