"What I feel like I have done in the musical space, I have set my example. I’m good," Lupe Fiasco confidently says. "Nobody can ever take that away. You can argue it as much as you want but it's there." He's right. With nearly 15 years under his belt, Lupe has built a legitimate case as one of the greatest MCs of all time: Food & Liquor and The Cool are both widely considered as classic albums, his Fahrenheit 1/15 mixtape series still holds up, and he's gone bar for bar with legendary wordsmiths like Jay-Z, Rick Ross and Snoop Dogg and held his own. He even has a Grammy Award among a dozen nominations. And he's earned the respect of his peers with a creative, expressionist writing style: his storytelling has the character development of early Ice Cube, the imaginative wiles and world-building of MF DOOM, and the complex wordplay of Pharoahe Monch. Before Genius was a thing, fans were huddling together in message boards to decipher his lyrics. As he says on the 2011 bar-fest “SLR": “I ain’t doing numbers like Anbesol, but I’m here, and I’m revered.” (Case in point for Lupe's deceptively slick wordplay: Anbesol oral gel numbs pain. Get it? Numb-ers.) His first two albums use fantastical authorship to weave the nonlinear tale of Michael Young History a.k.a. The Cool, a fatherless child who becomes mentored by male and female characters named The Game and The Streets before being killed and rising from the dead to roam a world that has transformed in the years after his death. His 2015 masterpiece Tetsuo & Youth marveled stalwarts in Reddit and TheColi with its format to be played forward and backward (two years before Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer-winning DAMN got similar accolades). The first half of Drogas Wave, his most recent album and his second as an independent artist after fulfilling his tumultuous deal with Atlantic Records, tells the story of the Longchains, a group of slaves that live underwater and take down slave ships. On an episode of Joe Budden Podcast, Budden—who had just dismissed another GOAT candidate, Eminem, minutes earlier by saying “I’ve been better than you for a decade”—expressed his admiration for Carrera Lu’s pen game. “I’m appreciative that there are two percent of artists out there willing to (be this complex),” he said, describing Drogas Wave. “You’ve got to fear that mind.”

But for Lupe, it’s about more than impressing fans or his fellow rap luminaries: he wants to use his music to make the world a better place. Along with his dense, thought-provoking rhymes, he’s respected for his entrepreneurial and charitable efforts. Less than two weeks into 2019, he broadcasted his Instagram Live to show his keynote speech in a presentation from Zero Mass Water at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Zero Mass designed SOURCE, a hydro panel that uses only sunlight and air to make five liters of drinking water per day per home. Or, in Lupe’s words: “You never have to worry about where your water is coming from because it is coming from you.” It’s a creation just as futuristic and socially-minded as Lupe’s bars, and he’s actually helped install the panels himself in Jordan and the Philippines. He’s prepping music videos for DROGAS Wave after the album’s recent vinyl release, performing his album Food & Liquor in full at The Novo on Saturday, Feb. 23, and in recent weeks, dropped a since-deleted Instagram post with thoughtful, written out rhymes about Gucci’s controversial blackface sweater. But his investment in Zero Mass Water has him just as excited as other rappers would be about a platinum plaque. “It doesn't matter if I sell a million records. I'm cool selling five records,” Lupe insists. “But I’m going to sell five records to the five most powerful people in the world, and then we are gonna go out and partner, and change things."

In a detailed conversation with VIBE weeks before his 37th birthday, Lupe Fiasco speaks about providing new world water, music’s power to make social change, and his plans to retire from rap.

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VIBE: You said in your CES speech that Yasiin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def, had a big role in how you learned that access to water was a real issue for people.

Lupe Fiasco: I was in high school and I remember just getting Black On Both Sides, and that record was super pivotal for me because I was still practicing Islam, or at least trying to, to a certain degree. Mos is top 10 incredible emcee and he is able to put a really good album together. So that record, I lived with forever. That and Nas’ It Was Written were two albums that were like, this is what a rap album should sound like. It should have all these different kinds of things on it. He had the club record, the love record, the rap record, and then he had kind of the informational records, and that was the "New World Water" and "Mathematics." "New World Water" stood out because it was focused on this one subject, which I did not know too much about at that time. I was 17, 18, and it was so different from anything you hear on another rap album. It's water, but he went through all of it: politically, environmentally, socially, chemically. I think it's one of those things that only a rapper could do, or only a poet could do: take this subject and hit it in all these different areas and components. It just kind of got bookmarked in my mind: water is an issue, water's a problem, water's a right.

How did the opportunity to work with Zero Mass come up?

Me and the CEO, Cody Frieson, a real good friend of mine, met through the Aspen Institute. I'm a Henry Crown Fellow and he is a Henry Crown Fellow but from a different class. The program is filled with CEOs, entrepreneurs, super successful individuals, activists, a few artists. You’re around all these different folks and different people from different walks of life. Cody came from the energy space––battery, solar and stuff like that––and I think he had sold his company and was starting a new company, which was Zero Mass. We were hosting these dinners around the country. Cody happened to be in Chicago and I just happened to be in Chicago, we connected and got to talking and it went into music real fast. His favorite rapper is Tech N9ne. So we’re sitting in this mansion with all these kind of illuminati types, with his phone playing his favorite Tech N9ne records. We just kind of connected and traded.

When he first told me about Zero Mass, it was kind of unbelievable. He created this device that pulls water out of thin air and only uses solar power to do so. It's like a solar panel that doesn't make energy, it makes water. That's fascinating, I'm in. At the time it was very early so he was looking for just friends and family investors. I invested, I wished I would have invested more. But I invested and it went further, he asked me to come on with a few other fellows to his advisory board to the company. I came in really to just articulate communication internally, what's the best way to frame the message, to talk about the product...just advise him on how to talk about it really simply. Our first advisory board meeting, the first thing I did was play "New World Water." I was just sitting there amidst all these luminaries from the water space, from the finance space, from the tech space, from the invention, 3D printing space, and I come in and play Mos Def. (Laughs)

What is it like to bump hip-hop in a board meeting like that?

I've always looked at hip-hop and rap as bigger than just entertainment. Because of the music I make, I might not get invited to your barbeque, but I can get invited to the Aspen Institute, or get invited to a board meeting for a Fortune 500 company. People are super interested in storytelling and narratives, and that was one of the reasons we started SOSA, Society Of Spoken Art—to see where we could take rap beyond the entertainment space. For the past five years, we have been landing, been invited to, or been a part of so many crazy spots and initiatives. Cody Frieson, who is the CEO of Zero Mass, is this super smart material scientist, Ph.D. at MIT professor, tens and tens of patents under his belt, whose favorite rapper is Tech N9ne. He will sit there and bring his phone out in an Illuminati meeting, and we are sitting there bumping Tech N9ne when people are talking about the effects on Plato on the world or whatever. There is a core of respect for the ability to tell a story and take a lot of data and put it in a very cogent way, in a very direct way. Rap, by nature, compresses data at a rate that a long book wouldn't be able to do. Rap gives you the gist of the story, and the emotion, and the feeling, and the directive, and probably the solution, all within three minutes. That is a value to a lot of different people, a lot of different projects, in these cases a lot of different companies. So for me now, it's not really a surprise. If you just look at it entertainment-wise, it's cool I get to play some rap for some white people, but if you looking at it deeper than that from a “let's build a business” or add value to a major social movement, that is more phenomenal.

Does Socially Conscious Music actually work? — “DROGAS WAVE” NOW PLAYING (@LupeFiasco) January 10, 2019



You recently tweeted, "does socially conscious music actually work?" When you speak about social issues in your music, do you create with the intent to spark change, or are you just rapping about things that you’re passionate about?

I think it is a little bit of both, and more. I want to take this subject that nobody is talking about and be recognized for that, so my ego is satisfied. I'm the first one to plant a flag on the moon. But those other two points, there is intentionality in it, whether you want it to be or not. I come into any subject knowing that no matter what I talk about is going to have some effect, in addition to whether I want to have that effect or not, positive or negative. It's just being careful about which issues you talk about. You know they are gonna have some type of reaction. Is it going to lead to a complete redefining or restructuring or retooling of that space that you are pointing at? Probably not. That is going to take a little bit more than music.

There is a whole broader kind of set of things that are going to occur, or need to occur, beyond just talking about something, to the point to where it achieves a certain level of, oh we did it based on this criterion. We got this dude or this woman to change their opinion, or we got this person thrown out of office, or we got this person to pay a fine, or we got this person put in jail. Or in some cases, we got this person assassinated. To be honest, some of those political movements and social movements in certain parts of the world, there is death at the end of it. Trying to get people locked up, go to jail, and get the death penalty type situations. If you take a place like Iraq, like Saddam Hussein, or Libya. For some of these things, was music a part of that process? Probably. It may not have been rap. It might have been the songs that the protectors or that the soldiers or the protestors sang at night. But it was definitely an impact, even if it was the glue to bind people together, to get them singing on the same tune, literally and figuratively. In my relationship to socially conscious music, because of the circles that I walk in, I am able to influence industrialists and social planners, people who plan society. All you need is a couple of people because those are the people who are writing the code for society or writing the narrative for the next 100 years.

When I asked that question, the response that I got was people's individual anecdotes about how specific songs had changed their point of view or informed their point of view. You got kids in high school listening to "Conflict Diamonds" (from Lupe Fiasco’s Fahrenheit 1/15 Part II: Revenge of the Nerds mixtape) who say they are never going to take part in the diamond industry because of that song. So maybe when they get married or get engaged, they are not going to give a diamond ring, they might give something else of value or even look beyond that. You want to change the world and you want to help in certain aspects, but at the same time too, no matter what you do, it's gonna have an effect on somebody, somewhere.

A lot of rappers who are from places like where you are from, if they’re involved in charitable issues or social issues, it's usually feeding the homeless, sending kids to college, and anti-violence initiatives. You’re providing water, you’re contributing to fledgling tech companies. Do you think that artists need to do more to see other areas that they can contribute?

They are not donations first, it's not charity. I have a charitable piece that we do through MURAL, which is something that my sisters run, Magnifying Urban Realities And Lives is what she calls it, it used to be the Lupe Fiasco Foundation. We try to do it a little bit more of a structural way, an institutional way. We try and see how can we change the circumstances of the nutrition, or the food deserts in the hood so that we can have a solution that will last 100 years as opposed to something that’s just going to last for Thanksgiving.

People just need to do what they are good at. If you are good at giving out turkeys, then do that. If you are good at giving haircuts to the homeless, do that. If you are good at giving out cell phones to people so that they have a contact number if they are going out to a job interview, then do that. If you are good at donating suits for business meetings, do that. If you're good at letting people sleep in your house until they get on their get their opportunity started on their own two feet and have a home base, then do that. If you can invest in tech companies which impact developing economies, then do that. It's what you are good at and everybody's good at something, so it doesn’t create this stigma where “if I am not doing this then this is not valuable, so I’m not gonna do anything until I am able to do that.” That’s not cool, and you’re actually hurting people who can actually benefit from that particular individual.

Challenge yourself if you have opportunities to do it bigger, be in a space where you can leverage more people or more dollars or more odds on a specific project. Challenge yourself to step up or level up. Do something like Chance The Rapper, who is like “yo forget going to try and raise money for these schools, I am just gonna give the schools the money myself.” You would be surprised how active people in the hip-hop space are when it comes to whether it be a charitable thing or an impact investment type kind of portfolio. There are a lot of people doing a lot of stuff, but that does not necessarily mean that they're gonna talk about it. I am actually very quiet about the stuff I do. The reason that I am doing this interview––even though you are a cool guy––soon as you [reached out], I showed this the CEO of Zero Mass, I was like, “you want to do this?” He was like “yeah.” For me, it brings exposure to the things that help the world. Zero Mass is one of those things which could fundamentally change the world, as opposed to, “I gave out seven coats last week on Skid Row last week and took a picture with a bunch of people.” That's not my style, you will see that there is a lot of people in this space that this isn't their style either. But they are doing massive amounts of what they can.

Right.

And then to add on to that, everything is not about charity either. Sometimes it's about giving somebody advice. Sometimes it’s showing out and speaking to a group of kids about your experiences. That may do more than paying people's tuition. You never know how much power is in the minute or two minutes of stopping and talking to somebody about something and changing their trajectory in life, because they respect your music or like your video or like how you dress.

Speaking of advice, I think that people see you as a leader in terms of making the world a better place with your artistry. Do other artists ever hit you up for advice about what they can get involved in?

Not really. I am not like the good guy, I am not here to make friends. (Laughs) I think I said that in a rap: "We ain't start the revolution just to make friends." So I am not the uncle type, that’s “yeah, come and talk to me about whatever you got going.” There is a little bit of a challenge to be one of Lupe Fiasco's homies. (Laughs)

I’m the most blackballed rapper in the history of rap. 🤣 Lotta enemigas... https://t.co/yVCzs6sciT — “DROGAS WAVE” NOW PLAYING (@LupeFiasco) February 11, 2019



It's hard being a Lupe fan.

Yeah, it’s hard being a Lupe fan. I don't say that gesturally; that’s integral, that’s a real thing. I have an inner circle of people who are super influential, super focused and super keen on trying to change the world. As much as I can speak to them and rock with them, I never had that (in music). It seemed like some of the relationships in the music business can be superficial sometimes. Me being the black sheep and getting blackballed, and all this other stuff. When me and Obama had our situation, people stopped picking up the phone and kind of stepped back, which is cool––do that, because I don't know where this is going to go either. (Editor’s note: in an interview on CBS’ What’s Trending with Shira Lazar in 2011, Lupe called Obama “the biggest terrorist,” elaborating, “the foreign policies that we have in place in different countries inspire people to become terrorists.”) But you level up because that opens up a door. That door closes, but the door that opens up is something like the Aspen Institute or the CEO of Heineken, and now these are my friends. It's gonna affect change on a much much higher level in a much much more direct way with the folks who actually have their hands on the levers of social change, social direction, and social power.

But with that said, anybody can still walk up to me on the street at any given time and if they are brave enough to come up and approach me, I’ll have discourse with a stranger. I always preface it with, “I don’t know what I'm talking about, but at the end of the day, it's you. You have to get out there and do it, but here is my two cents and my point of view.” I've given out many books on the low to folks, I've given many conversations to people you wouldn't expect me to be cool with, who we are sitting down and having jam sessions about the nature of the world and the future of black folks, or the future of humanity.

Right after your speech at CES, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver spoke. Did you get to speak to her much personally? Did you learn anything about the Flint water crisis that you didn’t know before you spoke to her?

Yeah, we had a private thing later that night that Cody moderated and really got into some deep topics and some other thoughts and ideas. But my bass player Bubby was from Flint, and my old assistant was from Flint, so I've always had a relationship with Flint. I had already been to places like Africa with my homie Kenna, and was in Tanzania, and seen issues with water that looked like chocolate milk. Going there and working with Proctor and Gamble at the time, they had like this tablet that would kill all the stuff that was in the water, and you had to strain out all of the parasites and the worms. I've already seen the water crisis in a place where there was no infrastructure, so when the thing with Flint happened I already had a ton of information about what that means. Even as a kid living in Chicago, we sometimes had to boil our water for whatever reason. I didn't know why but I knew my mom would be boiling water on the stove. My father is a survivalist and a special forces green beret with survival training and all that stuff, so we already had this relationship with water. Coming out of Africa and having the Flint crisis happen, you can just see and be like, “okay I know what that is.” But the extent of it is so crazy. You have this city-wide crisis, this state of emergency. [Weaver] wanted to declare a national disaster, but she couldn't because in order to claim a disaster it has to be natural. I think she just called it an emergency; they can't say a disaster because it was man-made.

She went through a history of what happened and what they were doing. What I didn't know was where they were, and that's why she came and cleared it up in her talk at CES. People are still saying, “Flint doesn’t have water,” but that is because they are replacing all the pipes. You still can't really drink the stuff yet because we are still putting the [pipes] in. The EPA is still making them drink bottled water, simply because the whole thing isn’t set up and in place, but they will be done with that soon. She wanted to dispel some of the myths and misunderstanding about what the state of affairs is now. So I got a deeper insight into that, and just a deeper insight into her as a leader and the type of person that she is and her style of leadership and what her real goal is, and an understanding of through crisis, there is an opportunity for benefit. Flint’s been down for a while, even prior to the crisis, for various reasons.

People focus on Flint, but Flint is part of a small piece of a wider problem. There are cities all across this country that potentially can have the same issues, and are suffering from the same issues. These antiquated water systems and lead in the pipes and the privatization of the water supply. They used to get their water from Lake Huron because Michigan sits on the five Great Lakes. It's one of the largest bodies of freshwater in the world, and you have Flint right there and they have to get their water from the Flint River for various reasons of politrickery and privatization. Flint actually used to sell water, and it turned around because they got their rights taken away, and they have to get their water from the Flint River. They wound up buying water from people they used to sell water to, for eight times the price. So it's kind of like all these interesting stats, these local stats that only a mayor of a town would be intimately aware of, that we as the laymen folk wouldn't really know. What came out of all of this was a partnership between Flint, Michigan and Zero Mass. Which is the core of the relationship and why we’re all there, was to make sure it never happens again. Zero Mass is the technology that can put that into effect and make that come true.

View this post on Instagram 🏴‍☠️ A post shared by Lupe Fiasco (@lupefiasco) on Dec 27, 2018 at 2:33pm PST

I worked in Flint from 2012-2016 and I am from Saginaw, Mich., which is about 45 minutes away, and the craziest thing to me was that when they made the switch to the Flint River, everyone saw the difference instantly and they were still told that the water was fine.

I don't want to be prejudicial about it, but even putting myself on as an example, I mean we really don't understand water. In terms of what the grid, the city, the municipal factors, the private forces that are behind us getting the water that comes out of our taps, what they are willing to subject us to. Like parts per billion and this additive versus that additive, and what the tolerances are, and what they are willing to accept as pullable water for the short term. You can see why people would retreat to bottled water and things like that because it is the safer alternative, but then that has its own set of hidden costs and consequences, that are an existential threat that with polluting the ocean. Our relationship to water is so fragile and so misunderstood, and we just let it be that. “Okay it's cool.” So people will say “yeah, the water is good to drink because the water won't kill you in a few years. It will take a couple decades, but as of right now you're good.”

Pipes are being replaced now, so what is the nature between the relationship between Flint and Zero Mass?

They are going to announce in a couple weeks what the actual details of the partnership are, but it is definitely bringing Zero Mass technology to a place like Flint, similar to projects we do in Africa, projects we do in Mexico, projects we do now starting all over the world. We are in 15 countries and five continents, various climates and conditions. But bringing that as the solution to drinking water, specifically. So you never have to worry about where your water is coming from because it is coming from you. It’s something that a source panel is making on your roof every day so you don't have to worry about pipes and being connected to infrastructure and the fragility of the infrastructure and the quality of the water and privatization and this, that and all of the other conflicting parts that go along with it.



The concept behind your new album Drogas Wave is the story of the Longchains, former slaves who live under the ocean while sinking slave ships. Is the album connected with your work in the water space at all?

Not directly. (Laughs) I think that because I am an Aquarius, water is a part of my whole deal, but no, not really. If you saw the talk I did at CES, I did this presentation of the manilla, which is on the cover of Drogas Wave. The manilla became for me this talisman for how I kind of view my life and how I approach things, and I always keep it with me and tell a story to people as much as I can. I've done it at MIT, and I've done it now at CES, and I've done it on stage. We need to be careful about the things that we invest in, and the cost and consequences of the things that we do. The manilla is kind of an example of that: the complicity, and endurance, and commandeering something negative and pulling it into something positive, etc. I want to be a part of things that make the world a better place, and here is physical motivation and a physical reminder of what the world's expectations were of my ancestors. And then how that reverberates through time because we don’t understand our place in the world.

We constantly let people tell us where our place in the world is. Whether it be this mythical history of Africa that informs us or this very racist segregational third class citizen mentality that exists in the U.S. We as the diaspora, when do we decide to map out our own futures and write our own destinations? That is what the manilla represents to me, this past, and then when you see the talk you see that I have a new one, a flashy new one that’s remolded off of the old one. You take this old one and we buy back our past, and with this new one, we buy back our future. We buy our future, we define who we are. Zero Mass is a part of that. Yeah, I am a rapper and I'll entertain and I'll come and play with you, but I also want to be a force in the industry and the space to change the world. I also want to be working with samurai swords, and I also want to play video games. I want to be a nerd, I don't want to be everybody's friend. I want to define what I am. It doesn’t matter if I sell a million records, I'm cool selling five records. But I am going to sell five records to the five most powerful people in the world and then we are gonna go out and partner and change things, and not wait for the Grammys to tell me that it was cool, or wait for VIBE to tell me it was nice. I am not interested in linearity anymore. As many points as I can hit, as many times, with as many different possibilities for success so be it. If people don't get it cool, on to the next.

At what point did you stop being concerned with linearity?

It was probably Tetsuo & Youth, because we were right back to a point where Atlantic was not gonna put the album out unless you had these types of singles. “You got to have a ‘Show Goes On.' You gotta have an ‘Old School Love.’" I'm like all right, it's gonna ruin the album because it doesn’t fit. But then it became, oh wow they’re not gonna promote this album anyway. That was one of the guarantees Lyor Cohen gave me when I didn’t sign my 360 deal. “You know if you don't sign a 360 deal, we can't guarantee we are gonna promote your album.” Those were the meetings I was having at Atlantic. I was like holy sh*t, what world are we living in? So I just kind of knew, all right f**k it. You're not gonna promote it anyway, so I am just gonna make the album that I want to make, that people can't understand, because linearity is not gonna work. If I do all these records I'm going to sacrifice my creative intentions. I’m 34 [at the time], I don't know how many years more I can do this, being the guinea pig for your pop-crossover rap whatever and get no publishing from it. So nah, I'm just going to make this record. Then it became abandon that linearity, they are not going to put the album out, in walks Anonymous and threatens to hack the label. And it gets lauded as one of the best albums of that year. Didn't sell a bunch of records, didn't press up any vinyls, didn't promote it as promised, but it still established like “holy sh*t, this is one of the best albums that came out that year.” “Mural” is still looked at as one of the epitomes of just blacking out with bars. But it's completely nonlinear. And then it was like it's okay, I'm comfortable doing that. Now I am completely comfortable as an artist putting out whatever the f**k I want to put out. Whoever gets it, they get it. Whoever don't, don't. But in the meantime, here is Zero Mass.

A while ago you said that you were planning to leave rap soon, after your next album Skulls. Are you looking forward to dedicating a lot more time to these sort of issues after you are done?

I will always be fighting to make the world a better place so that will never stop, even if I decide to continue to make music and stuff like that. I’ll still make music, I just don't feel like I have a career in the way in the way that I did before. Me and my friend were having a conversation about it and we went through this whole plan of how to rebuild, where I needed to be and all this other stuff. Play nice with the press, and blah, blah, blah. When we got to the end of it, it was like, do I have genuine interest to do that? Now that we got everything on the table, the whole plan, and then the sub-plan and then Plan C, and all of that, do I want to do that? Because what's at the end of that? Is it another Ferrari? Is it another house? Do I need another Playstation? Do I need more shoes? Like what is at the end of it? Specifically with music, what is the promise of music at the end of it, exposing yourself to all of that madness? All that madness is what it takes to have a career. I just felt like my time is up, in terms of music in a commercial sense. But I still got whole albums, that are just kind of sitting, for me, that I sit and play or they’re half-recorded and I sit and have to rap it to myself that will probably never come out.

What I feel like I have done in the musical space, I have set my example. I’m good. Nobody can ever take that away, you can argue it as much as you want but it's there. I will never have the impact of this person or that person, but that’s for technical reasons. My manager has been in prison since my first album came out, I’ve never switched managers. So Chill's been in prison since '03, came out for a couple years to fight the case, and he got sentenced a couple days after The Cool came out. (Editor's note: Lupe shouts out his manager/mentor, Charles "Chilly" Patton, on "Free Chilly" from The Cool.) So since '08 to now, my management is in prison doing everything over the phone. So just imagine those limitations when you are trying to negotiate a deal from jail and they lock the prisons down for three weeks, versus having somebody that is free and can run around 24/7 and make all the calls and go here and go there. Chill has probably seen two or three of my concerts, ever. So those are the limitations that are happening in the Lupe space, and we still succeed. There is a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes, a lot of battles that I fight because of the views that I take. And you see it now, being a supporter of Palestine is a career death sentence, and I have been about that my whole career. Speaking truth to power and all that stuff that comes with consequence, it’s something that is not taken lightly. But with that said we still have great success. Great opportunities in music, still putting out great music at least from my point of view, still putting out impactful music. And as long as I feel like doing something, I can always do it. I own my own studio there are no limitations, I’m completely independent, so if I want to put out an album tomorrow I could. But am I rushing toward that lifestyle again? Not necessarily.

I had no idea Chill was still managing you man, that is crazy.

I’m a loyal dude, man. Chill has done a lot for me so we are family from the streets to the music business, to the corporate business, everything planned. If it wasn't for him I would not have this entrepreneurial [spirit]. He made me become vice president when I was 19. I wanted to just be the artist rapping in the studio. He was like nah, you need to come to this meeting and sit down with Lyor, you need to come to this meeting and sit down with L.A Reid. L.A. Reid is like, “is this an audition?” Chill is like no, this is my business partner. “But he's 19,” and he's like “yeah, I know.” Without him, you probably wouldn't see me on stage at Zero Mass because I wouldn't know how to navigate that space, I wouldn’t feel comfortable around men in power, women in power, CEOs, or executives and stuff like that because I had never been one, I had always been the artist. There is no way to pay that back, so my loyalty to him is kind of unquestioned, and whatever that means for monetary success is negligible.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.