PHOTOGRAPHY PROVIDED BY : 5LB MEDIA
WORDS BY: JORDAN BAYLOR
‘I’m also learning to produce as well!’ were words spoken through the receiver by the always humble, and multifaceted Mick Jenkins, a young man out of the Windy City, and member of rap collective Free Nation. His unorthodox lyrical delivery is reminiscent of a man who’s trying to get a plethora of thoughts out at once. Mick wants to make you understand all of it, but is sometimes limited by time. It’s that constant movement that makes you learn from each verse, he’s not the emcee that wastes time on the mic each line; it all means something and can be read into.
In our interview we talked about his Christian beliefs, and how that fits into the music that he’s creating. We also talked Chicago’s burgeoning rap scene, and the elephant in the room, the high murder rate coming out of the city, which has been deemed ‘Chi Raq’. Mick’s deeper understanding of the city and how it’s set up explains it thoroughly for anyone who is curious and wants to understand what’s behind it.
That’s how his music is set up though; take a listen to his 2013 effort ‘Trees & Truths’ (a 17 track project) that has a cohesive thought focusing on the events that occurred at the ‘Garden of Good & Evil.’ Adam & Eve bit into the forbidden fruit, and the rest was history.
Mick is just a young artist coming into his own, working his hardest to push the medium, raising the bar of lyricism and wordplay as a whole. That, plus his ability to craft truly heart piercing tracks, is one of the many reasons we’ve deemed him ‘Next To Blow.’
FS: Who is Mick Jenkins?
MJ: Mick Jenkins is a young black man, who just graduated from college. I like to think of myself as a renaissance man, I started rapping by writing poetry, I used to draw, I make music, and I like to express myself in a lot of different ways. That’s Mick Jenkins.
FS: Chicago seems to be such a bubbling town for hip hop right now, seems like everyone hot is coming out of the city (Chance The Rapper, Chief Keef, Rockie Fresh, etc.) has unique sounds. What is it about Chicago that’s influencing the sounds?
MJ: For one, Chicago is a big city, Southside could be a city all by itself. The Eastside could be a city all by itself. The parts are racially segregated. Everybody is everywhere let’s get that out the way, but majority by numbers (blacks are on the Southside, and Mexicans are on the Southwest side.) You can ride the train and see the progression, get on redline and as you get further and further north you’ll see it go from black to white. It’s no mystery, Chicago is racially segregated.
You’ve got Chief Keef in the trill scene, and you have people that dig the ‘trap style’ that gravitates toward that. Then Chief Keef, after the Kanye shit (Re: I Don’t Like Remix) it just went another level. That caused people to turn their heads towards Chicago, and everyone who had been grinding (Chance The Rapper, Kids These Days, Etc.). It put a light on the artistry that is coming from the mix of these places. At the end of the day we’re all from Chicago, we’ve all experienced the violence, and we all have different takes on it. It’s a melting pot, and so many stories to tell about this city.
FS: You touched on it during your explanation of Chicago, but at the heart of everyone’s music IS the violence. Is it that influential?
MJ: What people don’t understand is it’s been like this for a long time, it was here when I first got to Chicago, it’s always been this way. Now it’s getting publicized because it’s in your face, but if you live here, and make music here. You’re going to talk about it. If you’re going to talk about your experiences in Chicago and you’ve been living here for more than 5 years. You’re going to speak about the violence at some point.
FS: We absolutely loved the visual for ‘Lack’ which matched the tone perfectly. With songs like ‘Lack’ for example, are you talking about one person, or one experience or is it more so an open letter to the world?
MJ: It’s an open letter, and I go back and forth, but it’s a statement like ‘Don’t let Chicago catch you lacking. Don’t be out here lacking.’
There’s a part:
‘and I’mma sneak up this bitch like we in this bitch’
And I was specifically referring to people getting comfortable in the music game, cause I’ve already encountered what I feel like is blatant arrogance. It’s an open letter to people about what can happen if you are not on your sh*t in life. Whether that be in life, in music, or just walking down the block. Anything can happen to you.
FS: Your mixtape ‘Trees & Truths’ took on these themes of the biblical origins of women, and evil. The power that comes with beauty, do you feel that beauty is a weapon?
MJ: Anything can be formed into a weapon, and beauty is definitely one of those. One thing you gotta understand about me, I was raised in Christian beliefs, and I still retain those beliefs. I believe in heaven and hell, I believe in Jesus and that Satan is rounding up people to come to hell with him.
So when I say like a weapon, I mean the over-sexualization of beauty. It’s used to make people vain, there are people that actually worship beautiful people, they have all the Us Weekly, and People Magazines and they just wish their face was like ‘this’ or ‘that’ and they don’t realize they’re blindly following because it’s on TV, and sex does that to people. Even if you don’t believe what I believe, you can’t look at the world, and not acknowledge that truth.
Beauty is definitely used as a weapon.
Be on the lookout as Mick stated he has two projects coming through the pipeline that maybe released before the years end.
