Maxo grew up absorbing his city’s classic hip-hop sounds, including DJ Screw and Geto Boys, but as he developed his own taste he started spending more time jamming out-of-towners like the Game and 50 Cent—“I like lyrical content”—and admiring Jeezy and Kanye West for their concise storytelling. He started writing his first songs in 2005 and was eventually drawn to the out-there production on Kid Cudi and ScHoolboy Q songs. “Nowadays, my playlist can go from Nas and Papoose to Lil B and Lil Pump,” he says before launching into Lil B’s “Like a Martian,” a droning 2010 track full of oddball flexes like, “I’m a pretty bitch.”

In 2007, Maxo started his own crew, Kream Clicc, which instilled in him an intense sense of responsibility and commitment, even deeper than his gang ties. “We got niggas from every gang in there—Bloods, Crips, Vice Lords, Folks, all that shit—and some of the homies from the suburbs,” he says. “I didn’t want all gangbangers in my shit.” But the Clicc has faced its share of turmoil, both from within and without. Maxo’s cousin, Andrew, who rapped as Woodrow Kream and was a member of the Clicc, was accidentally shot and killed by another member while they were high on Xanax. “That really woke me up and switched up everything,” Maxo says. “It made me more aware about Xans and how these lil’ niggas look up to me because of what I did in the past. And it makes me push and go hard for him.”

Maxo Kream: "Work" (via SoundCloud)

In 2016, members of the Clicc, including Maxo, were arrested on charges connected to money laundering and organized crime. Following a sting operation, investigators allege the Clicc shipped marijuana from California to Texas by mail. Maxo immediately bonded out and denied the charges in a Twitter video. He denies involvement in any such operation, but the incident is a prime example of the kind of life he’s led. His music is built on these episodes; they are source material for his flashbacks. In fact, audio from the local news report of his arrest closes the Punken song “Janky.”

The latest setback in a lifetime full of them was last year’s Hurricane Harvey, which Maxo describes as “some World War III type shit.” When it hit, he was at the Mayweather-McGregor fight in Nevada, leaving him helpless to attend to family. “Houston was looking like a third world country,” he says. “My mama worked her whole life to get back to the suburbs just to lose everything to a flood. But she bounced back. I already got her a house. That’s where all my bread going right now: to make sure they good. That’s one thing about me, bro, I look out for mines.”

Being loyal is the highest possible honor in Maxo Kream’s world, whether it be loyalty to family, to crew, or to region, and that system is applied throughout his music. He vows to be loyal to who he is, too, even when that means sharing the darkest and most violent aspects of his past.