It’s a warm June afternoon in King's Cross, London, and GoldLink is on the phone to The Internet’s Matt Martians. He’s in the middle of taking our regular “the firsts” Q&A, but has decided to wake up his LA-based friend – at what must be an ungodly hour over on the other side of the Atlantic – to talk excitedly, over loudspeaker, about the fact that they both had the same answer to GQ's teenage celebrity crush question. After a detailed discussion about the early years of the American actress, author and singer’s career, Martians congratulates GoldLink (real name: D'Anthony Carlos) on his new record, Diaspora – the reason we’re sat outside a student union-style cafe, amid Tileyard’s tower blocks, with the rapper and his fairly sizeable crew, at all.

If Carlos’ first album, At What Cost, was a love letter to his hometown of Washington DC, then this year’s Diaspora is an ode to the international. With features from Americans Khalid and Pusha T to Nigerians Wizkid and Maleek Berry via underground British artist Ari PenSmith and Hong Kong rapper Jackson Wang, the record celebrates the global influence of black music in a way that’s at once richly diverse and yet impressively cohesive. Released in June, Diaspora has proven to be as much of a commercial hit as it was a critical one, with tracks such as “U Say” featuring Tyler, The Creator and Jay Prince already pushing eight million streams on Spotify.

It’s not the first time GQ has interviewed the 26-year-old protege of production god Rick Rubin and from the moment he arrives, dressed in a black, printed jacket and trouser co-ord, it’s obvious that he’s in a much more relaxed, confident headspace than when we met back in December 2017. It makes sense. The two-time Grammy nominee has plenty to feel confident about now that he’s found a way to balance both being famous and an inclination towards anonymity and has cemented his position as much more than a one album wonder. Here, Carlos explains how he’s found himself since becoming successful and shares his most formative firsts with GQ, from falling in love to fashion faux pas.

The first time you realised you wanted to be a musician...

There wasn’t any one particular moment where I realised, you know what, I’m going to be a musician. The decision more came from a lack of options. I wasn’t going to go to college, I wasn’t going to get a good job, I wasn’t going to continue to sell drugs, so I was like, “Guess I’ll just do this.”

The first time you played in front of a live audience...

It was a really random show at home in DC, just outside of the city, when I was about 19. There were about 500 people there, I was opening for someone who I won’t name, performing as GoldLink. The venue doesn’t even exist anymore.

The first time you blew your paycheque frivolously...

I bought everything that I thought I wanted, which I didn’t actually want after it was done. I bought a Porsche, I bought a curve TV, a bunch of Polo [Ralph Lauren], Nike Jordans, stuff I always wanted. I bought a dog – I don’t even like the dog – and an apartment because I needed a place to stay. I ate out every day. But everything I bought was childish, it was a bunch of stuff like a Comme des Garçons T-shirt with a big ass heart on it, then shoes that didn’t match the outfit. Nothing was thought through. In earlier pictures I look like I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d wear a jean jacket with rips in it with a dad hat. It was just dumb. I didn’t have any sense of identity. I had no sense of life at all. I didn’t know about taxes, I’d never paid those before, I was just all over the place. Then I realised: nothing makes sense. My closet doesn’t make sense, this house doesn’t make sense. There was no colour coordination or anything. I had a mattress on the ground, I didn’t have a real bed linen set. You can tell a lot about someone through their house and you could tell I had no identity. I remember I was dating my baby’s mother when we first moved in and I switched houses, she said, “Your house now is completely different, because you’ve finally figured out who you are.’’’

The first time you got silly drunk...

I never drink. I’ve never got drunk or smoked before.

The first time you fell properly in love...

I was 16 when I met the first girl I ever liked for real. I always tell people, when I was growing up I was really into getting money – I didn’t really care about anything else. I wasn’t hollering at girls when I was out. But this girl, she was super cute. I’d seen her on Facebook in the summer before I had to go to my new school. Her friend lived in my building and had told me about her – she’d lived in the area before, moved to Arizona and then came back – everyone was talking about how she was the hottest girl. We had a rival school called South County and we didn’t know which school she was going to go to, so we were hoping she’d come to ours and she did. First I picked a fight with her boyfriend at the time through my friend’s Facebook – I hadn’t physically seen her at this time. Then one day at school, I got a pink slip (when you get in trouble you get a pink slip) and so was in the hallway about to go to the office and turns out she was the good student who hands the slips to the teachers. So she’s making her run, I’m going to the office and it’s only us in the hall. I looked at her, she actually looked back at me in the same way and that was it: we dated.

The first record you ever bought...

Kanye's Late Registration.

The first time you met a fan...

I was at a Chet Faker show in DC with my homies. I was mad young and had just started to get into alternative music. Anyway, I’m in the club and this guy keeps looking at me, so I tap my friend like, “Yo, who the hell is this guy?” And he said, “Yeah, I see him, what the hell is he looking at?” I said, “Listen, I’m going to go and punch him in the face, you follow up.” I swear, I said that. I go over with my fist clenched behind my back and as soon as launched back he said, “Yo, GoldLink, I’m a big fan.” It was so crazy. I just didn’t expect anyone to recognise me at that point, especially because I was trying to be low-key. Turns out he knew me because he'd been to that first DC show I mentioned earlier.

The first time you read a piece of fake news about yourself...

The thing is, I’m not online and haven’t been for two or three years now. I don’t use social media, but I have people who manage my accounts and it’s always on point. If I need to know something or respond to someone I’m there. I’m absolutely not logged into those accounts on my own phone. I would more say that I’ve heard things, rather than seen them, because I don’t look at those things. I heard that I was gay, that me and my best friend are secret lovers, and then that I have multiple babies – I have one – and that I’ve smoked with someone in high school. As I said earlier, I don’t smoke or drink.

The first time you realised you were actually any good...

The moment I was like, “I’m tight, I’m vicious at this” was probably two years ago. Actually, let me stop, I always knew I was tight, but when it started hitting me, “I’m probably one of the best ever in the world,” was definitely two years ago. It was the reception to the last record. It isn’t even really an album, because I didn’t have a budget for it – they don’t consider it an album. It was a mixtape that got so successful that everyone just calls it an album, so Diaspora is technically my debut rather than my sophomore, not that I mind either way what people call it. I was selling out every show off the back of that record and then there was the Grammy nomination [for my single “Crew”]. When I looked at the category of people that I was with – Kendrick and Rihanna, Jay-Z and Beyoncé, J Cole – I realised well, OK, I must be one of the best just because the song was that impactful and I wrote it, on a couch, by myself and didn’t finish the verse. So clearly people liked it so much and liked that all these kids that actually came from nowhere came together to be considered with the likes of Jay-Z , it must mean that I’m important.”

The first time you were given any really great advice...

It was Rick Rubin telling me about the timelessness of art just after my first tape [The God Complex] came out, when he found me on Facebook. He said, “If you focus on art everything else will fall into place.” I think he told me that because he knew that I was going to get into an industry where it’s very jaded and people change. So he was just like, “You focus on what got you here. All that other stuff is just noise.” I notice that everybody who does just that – Tyler, The Creator is a great example, he never veered off the path of what he wanted to do – does well. There are only a handful of people who actually stay true to themselves from the beginning to the end. Rick’s seen this over three, four generations, from LL Cool J to me. That was the best advice, because I think that’s why I’m still here.

The first thing you’d do if you became president...

I would make everyone wear better clothes or you’d go to jail. Kitten heels and rolled up cropped pants would be big offences. Do you know what kills me? The cropped hats. The beanies that are rolled up past your ears, in the summer as well! There’s no function to it.

The first time you ever won at anything...

I won an ASCAP award two years in a row – that was sick. Actually, those awards are the only thing I’ve ever won. That sucks! I’ve been nominated for a whole gang of stuff, but haven’t won anything.

Your first teenage pin up was...

I didn’t really have any of that, but the one girl I was like “woah” was Amerie. I saw her in the “Why Don’t We Fall In Love” video and thought she was so hot. She’s actually from where I’m from, DC, but I didn’t know that at the time. I thought she was an angel.

The first time you went viral...

I feel like it must have been my first Colors session in November 2016. That Youtube video went viral and just kept going viral [now on more than 14m views]. I was the first ever rapper to do two Colors videos – the 2019 one is called “Justine’s Interlude”. I just did it for a friend.

The first time you got given a rider...

I wanted underwear, socks and a fruit plate. I didn’t get any of that. It was like, beers and Hennessy instead. So now I ask for those, plus water bottles for me.

Head to the GQ Vero channel for more content from GoldLink, including his favourite places, music, TV and films, plus an exclusive-to-Vero video where he talks us through a very special accessory. Follow us on Vero for exclusive music content and commentary, all the latest music lifestyle news and insider access into the GQ world, from behind-the-scenes insight to recommendations from our Editors and high-profile talent.

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