Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd. Hope you are doing well. And today we are doing an interview that has been, at least behind the scenes, you wouldn't know, but it has been delayed, pushed back, rescheduled, talked about over and over and over and over and over, considered again and again and again. And now it is finally time for it to happen. We have rapper, lyricist, songwriter extraordinaire, the one and only, Mr. McKinley Dixon, fresh off the release of his latest LP, Magic Alive, which I'm loving, a lot of you are loving.

I'd love to talk about the new record and anything else that comes up in the conversation. It's right there in the background, along with other stand-outs in your catalog; good sir, thank you. And yeah, man, how are you doing? Thanks for coming on.

MD: Thank you. I'm having a good day. It's a really nice sunny day outside of Chicago. It's going to be 81 today, so I might stay inside all day. You know how it is?

AF: Nice sunny day. A great day to stay inside.

MD: Yeah, I love staying inside. I love my apartment.

AF: Are you a homebody? You're an indoorsman?

MD: I am. I definitely feel more comfortable in my space than I do outside of my space. And that has led me to write great music. So let's not get it twisted. I have friends, but shit.

AF: Well, inside your apartment, inside your sacred space, is that where you feel, you've already said comfortable, but is that where you feel the most creative and productive as far as doing music or anything relating to your music, generally?

MD: Not really. Actually, I love being with the homies when I feel... A lot of my music, the writing of it is nonlinear, right? So I'll write I'll write... Let me find something. I'll experience a moment, and I'll sort of be like, 'How does this moment make me feel? How does it make me feel in two bars? How does it make me feel in one bar?' And I'll write that down. I jot down that line, that translation to music and a lyric in my phone. And then I'll do that a bunch of times, and I'll come back, and I'll come back, and I'll come back, and then eventually I'll have a full verse. The cohesion of the verse don't really matter if the overarching theme is you being yourself. You know what I mean? So it's like, here's a note from July 24th, 2024. And if you scroll down, it's the beginning of "Listen Gentle." It just has "two boys dance." I just had that idea. And then a couple of bars later, I had the idea, "like the other end against you," know what I mean? So it's like, I just take these, listen to these vignettes, and I just put them to make one song, one verse, not one song.

AF: You're just piecing it together and going back at these various reference points and just like, just mashing them up?

MD: Yeah. I mean, I do take like, I find the intention in the overall song. I want it to be like... I usually the way I write it is I find a time. I find a time that I want to write from, not like a perspective or not... I find a time, right? So I'm like, okay, well, the time, then it's the age, the kid, the view, everything changes with it. And then once I get the beat and the instrumental, I'll probably have half of my verse done, and then that music will then form the in-between, that connect it all, and the time that I'm writing from. It's a lot of... It sounds complicated, but really, it's just a a lot of little moments. I don't write in the house. If I'm writing the house, then I'm bored. I don't really be writing in the house.

AF: And this process that you describe, has this differed with this new album cycle in any way, or were you able to keep consistent with this process from your projects that you've made up until this point? Has there been a radical shift in terms of how it all came together this time around?

MD: No, not really. Honestly, I just love writing like that. I feel... I feel that that's how I've always experienced... I feel like one of the best feelings is trying to be able to describe a beautiful moment or a harrowing moment. I think that's just one of the coolest things ever, to be able to accurately describe what you see. And I think it's something that a lot of people can't do because they don't really hone in on it and stuff like that. But all of these records are made for me, so they all is really just exercise in me trying to write and process what I'm seeing and things like that. So it's never varied. I think maybe the first record, I was trying probably a little too hard. I was trying a little too hard because that's the record when I found out, Who Taught You to Hate Yourself?, as a record, I found out, I think I was going through the re-education of yourself when you realized that you are Black and you have autonomy and you are growing up, and that was a really young record. So that one might have been laid on a little bit too thick, but every other record is from the perspective. It's been written like that.

AF: It's interesting to hear you describe it this way, because I think there's a lot of people coming into your music that would not necessarily presume almost that fragmented nonlinear fashion of it coming together not being the case, because it does seem like things are so thoroughly conceptual and deeply intentional from the start. Maybe not narrative in the most obvious ways, but I mean, even pointing at the fact that there's all these connections, even between this record and your last record, in terms of the imagery and the lyricism, and the covers, and the halo imagery and so on and so forth. Obviously, you're building off the themes of "Run, Run, Run" with a sequel track and so on and so forth. How much of this was even conceived by you when you were making your last LP? I'm going to have to finalize this in a way with another album or on this next round of verses and things that you were writing where you're like, this needs to be a continuation in some way because there's maybe stuff left unsaid or loose ends that I have to tie up.

MD: Each record is a different record for me, right? So... I don't use my records... I don't really use my records to process, if that makes sense. I don't really use them to... If it's done, it's done. I like it being if it's done, it's done, right? I like having short glimpses of things that are really impactful. Really, with Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?, and I also love– I think the big thing about my music is not really that the rapping and the instrumentation, it's all very impressive in its own right. But I think the real impressive thing is that I keep an eye to the past, present, and future, and I can write about that in a really nice way. I've always talked about Magic, Alive! in Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? near the end of it in ways. I've talked about Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? in For My Mama. Like I was saying before, all of it is cohesive because it's all me. It's all my intention. It's all me trying to be trying to just figure out my own world. You know what I mean? And I think that makes it so I don't have to continue with another. I could have made Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? Two, but it just wouldn't have worked. It just felt like my ideas were done with the record. On Magic, Alive!, like "Run, Run, Run", it's also like this one's a movie in a way, right? So there's a story that is a story more so than a movie. But there's an epilogue and a prologue, and then there's these short glimpses into the overarching story, not the full thing. So "Run, Run, Run 2" is the sequel. It's like the big sequel to the big first film. I just thought that was a cool idea, and that's really the concept of that. But I already knew I was going to do "Run, Run, Run II" because I just thought "Run, Run, Run" was just something I could not ignore. It's all connected in my head and in my notebook. But on the actual paper, they're very separate albums. That's all to say. They're all separate albums.

AF: Okay. I mean, still, it's hard to ignore some of these continuations and through lines. I have to ask, even if they are separate albums with separate stories and concepts and ideas going into them, I have to wonder for you, creatively, how does... Because obviously, there's a reference point on this album as well with "Recitatif", if I'm pronouncing that correctly. I have to know, how does the work of someone like Toni Morrison continue to serve as an inspiration point for you, even on a record like this, where maybe it's not as over a nod as it was on your last album? It's still here in some form for sure.

MD: I mean, honestly, that was just because Toni Morrison a real ass G, and I'm trying to be a real ass G, so I'm trying to live my life like her.That record was-

AF: It's just an admiration point for you?

MD: I mean, she just real as fuck with it. You know what I mean? And it is also, I tried to live I my life with the same intentions that my music is. Magic Alive!, it's a cool title, and the concept's cool, but I also try to live my life with the intention of what I view as magic. Reading is a really great way to access the past, present, and future. And if I really want to write about it like I do, I have to read. I think Toni Morrison influenced me so much that it also... Toni Morrison influenced me so much, even to the that "Recitatif" is based off the title of her only short stories, and that story follows two children as they age, and it's broken up. And it's like, that is not only a nod to her, but it's a nod to my real life and how I feel about it. She's just a real ass one. And I think it's all because it does exist in my cinematic universe. I view my music as a legacy. I don't view it as McKinley Dixon. I view it as, okay, at the end of this decade, can I look back and be like, I'm very proud of my decisions I made, not only in my personal life, but through my music, which is my personal life.

So it all fits in my one cinematic universe. That's why it's all so many references. And it's also like, even if it's a new story, everybody is the same character. So it's like, I love media, right? So if I had a collection of films, it's like, I don't want to compare it to Tarantino because whatever, bro. It's like, literally, my collection of films is these albums, these stories, and these characters may be different people, but they still play in the same world, right? I think that is an easy way to build on lore and have so many other people involved. But it's also just a really cool way to make a record be fresh and new, but also stay within the realms of, 'Oh, yeah, you've heard that, Toni Morrison record, you heard "Live! From the Kitchen Table" reference on "Wash My Hands"', even though it's not even the same thing. I think it's just fun. It's a little magic. Magic is an intersection of time and luck and knowing where your proximity to the land is. So I think it's cool to keep that in there. Yeah, I think that's nice.

AF: It seems like a lot of your takeaways come from this admiration for what she's doing, and you build it into your own stuff in terms of world building and just character portraits and that thing, and building your lyricism and your art in that way, as opposed to just all of it coming from just simply your own first-person perspective, which there's– for sure, we know there's a lot of great art made that way, and there's a lot of great ways you can communicate ideas through that. But it seems like in a similar authorship way, finding ways or needing to create ways in order for you to communicate those same ideas, but you need a vessel through which to present them in a way.

MD: Yeah. And it's like, that's why I feel like... So that's an interesting one because I think that there's a few types of artists, but I think there's the artist that makes the music so general, it can fit on anybody, right? And anybody can see themselves in it. And then I feel like there's artists that are speaking so specifically to their life. It is something that you can't identify with, but it is their thing. But then I feel like I try to keep it as 'we'. I try to keep whenever I'm talking about something as it's 'all of us'. I think that then allows me to write a more interesting story, but it also allows people to see themselves in it in specific ways that it's a mixture. It's not just a general thing, though you are involved, but it's also not a specific thing where you can't see yourself in it. I think saying 'we', when I'm writing and when I'm telling these stories, there's a lot of heavy lifting, and that is just an easy way to keep it fresh, keep people interested, and also make it more like a movie or like a story that you're involved with, but you're not really able to say much on.

AF: It presents an interesting question, one that I feel like a lot of music fans these days need to to think about a lot more, because I think after 10 years of the internet bringing rise to... Sometimes all of this left field and very thoughtful and very challenging and artsy music coming out of the hip hop field and just coming out of Black music in general. And that being able to, in a time period in the internet, be able to gain an audience of people, a white audience, but others as well, who don't necessarily have an intimate knowledge and experience of the life experience and the perspective that a lot of these albums are built off of. I think for sure we're seeing that these albums and these artists, be it a J. Cole or a No Name or a Kendrick Lamar, they're finding these listeners who don't necessarily have a personal connection to the walk of life that these albums are coming from, but there's still a connection that even though there is this exposure point, are these listeners actually getting it? Is the message actually translating? You have to ask yourself when you can have somebody who's on Twitter and simultaneously considers themselves like a JPEGMafia fan, but then also a Trump voter. You know what I mean?

MD: Exactly.

AF: There's something like-

MD: That's easy to happen, too.

AF: No, it is easy. It is easy to happen. And that's not laid at the foot of the artist. I'm just saying there are these disconnects. And I want to know from your perspective as an artist who's obviously, whose music is connecting with people who don't necessarily relate directly to the art you're creating. If you're seeing any of that disconnect with people who listen to your stuff, And where do you feel like those potholes are happening? Is it just due to people not really paying attention? Is it due to the easy access? And there's not really any need to think about what you're consuming more deeply because it just comes across your timeline. You don't really need to to consider the things that are being presented to you. Why are some of these messages going over people's heads, even with some artists being as obvious and as clear and as in your face as they are with the things that they're trying to communicate?

MD: I think that it is all of those things and the commodification of Black trauma. I think Black trauma is such a spectacle in a lot of households. We could talk about how the internet age has affected I affected all that because it's so obvious. You know what I mean? But for me, specifically, the album before For My Mama and Anyone Who Look Like Her, which is a big access point for a lot of my internet music fans. You know what I mean? A big point for them of access. Also a lot of white fans, a lot of white fans, a lot of young white fans. That was my 2021 record, and it detailed the trauma of losing my best friend Tyler and what that means and how that affects not only me, but the people back home. How his loss affects this neighborhood that I walk on and the people that live on that street, and how I haven't been home in a long time. A lot of different things. But it was a very overtly and obviously dealing with a lot record. The record before that, The Importance of Self Belief was a very positive record, one that, even in the title, was about the joy of being young and black.

You know what I mean? And I think the numbers are there for even how that went. And I think that... We just are drawn to a life that is inherently interesting, and Black people are inherently interesting. And I think you can't help it. You can't help it to be so... Especially if you love hip hop, you can't help to be so involved in Black culture, even if you don't agree with it. And that's because we was even talking about the Tracy Chapman "Fast Car" cover. It's just crazy how that... It's a commodification of Black trauma. I think Black trauma is something that a lot of people don't feel, so they don't identify with, and they only see it in movies and in media, and they love that. They love not being able to be there actually on the street that it is. They love being able to be like, 'Oh, I learned how to crip walk from watching Kendrick Lamar video. You know what I mean?' So I think that's like, it is accessibility. Rap music is becoming accessible. It is also just more people are being pushed to the forefront of what we're seeing.

A lot more, a lot more, specific white demographic is being pushed to the forefront nowadays. And I think that you just want to be involved. And that's the worst part about it, is that if you fall into that. I think it's easy to fall into that. I don't know. But that's all to say. It's definitely folks being like, 'What's the coolest story ever?' And being like, 'oh, in America, it's probably a black person. It's probably from a Black person.' And then being able to just jump into that and be like, 'Well, now I'm done.' You know what I mean? 'Now I completely fell in love with this whole, I think I know everything about this. I know everything about that. And now I just stepped out of it without doing one African-American studies course', I guess. Whatever, man. I don't know.

AF: Yeah. I think what you're describing in a roundabout way is like... Because of the access and people are giving this music a try and they're peering into the world that these artists are presenting out there on the internet for everyone to see. But you as a creator, nobody as a creator really has any control as to whether or not people are approaching it in a way where they're actually appreciating the art that's being created from the standpoint of, whoa, this is a really big creative feat that's happening in front of me. Or if it's just a voyeuristic thing. I'm just peeping into this just because it's this cool, weird thing that seems odd and alien and unfamiliar to me, and I'm just going to peep in on it. Because I'm so sheltered outside of looking in through this window, I don't really need to be confronted with the fact that this is what's being described as reality for some people. Exactly. So it doesn't become real for me. I just get to watch it like it's TV.

MD: Exactly. I think Magic, Alive! is a special record for me because it is my first record where I feel like I separated myself more– the most. Like, Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? was how I view the world through the teaching of Toni Morrison and trying to figure all that out. You know what I mean? For My Mama and Anyone Who Look Like Her was me coming to grips with the past, present, and future of the things that I'm seeing in front of my life. And then even back, The Importance of [Self] Belief. These records are all so personal, right? And I think this one was the first one where I could write it. I could separate myself from the one-on-one comparisons that are coming. And it felt great. I think that was one of the best writing experiences because I was able to be like, oh, the commodification of this will come in more of a joyous effort than For My Mama, the number one song being "Make A Poet Black", where it's like, there's only so many amounts of times somebody can walk up to you and be like, "Make A Poet Black" is such a great song, and you're Bro, that song is a great song, but also, you know what I mean?

This is my life. And it's like, I appreciate it. I love everybody who run up on me and say that. You know what I mean? But it also is a lot of times where it's just like, my music is so vulnerable that others feel that they can just be as vulnerable as... There's that disconnect right there. And I think that comes from the access to... You have access to so many artists and so many things nowadays that you don't really need to do research on. If you want to know more about, you can just listen to them and be like, I think I got everything. And I think specifically with white fans, there's so many things historically that you can't really even... Where do I begin? But yeah, in a roundabout way, I'm pretty much just saying that access is so everywhere, is everywhere in Black culture. And you don't really got to think too much about it now to be like, How do I enter this? How do I enter this with the right intention?

AF: I want to dig further on a point that you gloss over really quickly earlier, because I do think it does define the tone of the album a little bit. And like you say, it does create an interesting separation point, because while obviously there are themes of this album that do deal in death and murder, simultaneously, I feel like it's the reaction to that plot point that defines the record, because in response to that, there's this celebration, there's this embrace of memory and keeping people alive in the magical ways that you can. And there's a lot of positivity and there's a lot of joy on the album. And that's refreshing in a musical landscape that even outside of the racial politics that we could analyze here, does seem to commodify, again, a lot of pain, a lot of trauma, a lot of sorrow, and try to do its best to market to fans based on, 'Here's the saddest, most depressed, most drug addled, most miserable person on a stage that we could present to you. Relate to them because we know that you're feeling awful as well.' And it seems like maybe not in a way where you're trying to consciously go against the grain, but you're choosing to take a different path. And this is going to be a positive experience where I'm trying to bring some light and bring some joy into the situation here in a way.

MD: Yeah. So like I'm saying, because I try to live everything and all my music is me fully, and it's all my attention, what I learned the most from Toni Morrison is that moments are beautiful, and beautiful does not mean they're not harrowing. Moments are harrowing does not mean they're not beautiful. All of this is all encompassing. You need the juxtaposition because that makes a full life. I think with this record, taking what I learned from that and going into this one, it was the only obvious next step for me was to make something that sounded like you're having the time of your life, even though it is a hard day. I think it's a summer record. I'm getting older, and I definitely am contemplating the trajectory of my life and my career and my loved ones and how certain moments in time came before to led to where we are now, to where we're going into the future. And I just felt joy knowing that I'm still here. You know what I mean? And I think joy does not mean beautiful moments. It don't mean bad moments. It don't mean happy moments. It just means I'm feeling right now.

And I think that is what that record is. It's not like– It is very joyous, and it is also very sad. I think those are just what I'm feeling. And it never really occurred to me that... Even when I was writing, even when "We're Outside, Rejoice", Rejoice is the most uplifting one on the record, I would say. That song even is me going back home. You know what I mean? "Till death do a sin, never ran, less against raise hand to my kin. Sitting on the porch of man who could barely use limbs, probably the only vice from niggas I'm finna take in". You know what I mean? And it's like leaving and never coming back. And it's like, but still, I'm happy to be outside. I think you can exist, those juxtapositions are always happening, and I just couldn't. I can't. Writing a sad song is a happy song sometimes. I don't know. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's a joyous record, but it's a real record.

AF: Well, with those emotional intentions in mind, how did that, I guess, direct to get into this part of the process a bit if you'll let us, impact– When you're in the studio and you and everybody else who's involved, start really crafting the music on the album, all the jazz components and all the beats and so on and so forth, because that obviously as well lines up, whether it be through the horn sections and pianos or the group vocal passages and so on and so forth. It all lines up in terms of just this overall positive vibe. How are those emotional intentions guiding the musical process when it came to creating certain melodic motifs and so on and so forth?

MD: Yeah. So this question is a little bit long. They all been a little bit long, and I've been rambling. This question is a little bit long because to get my sound... So everybody... everybody that's on Magic, Alive! was on Who Taught You to Hate Yourself?. You know what I mean? Everybody... And this is a 10-year difference. When I'm making a record, when I'm making... Because there's a lot of instrumentals on it, right? I feel people... I mean, there's so much. Just how I used to do it, right? How I used to make these songs, I would take my microphone and I'd disconnect it from my stand. I put it in my backpack. I put the stand behind my back and into my backpack, and I hop on a bike. I post on Instagram, post on Facebook. I'll be like, 'I need somebody to record this today. I got some free time I'm bike around the city. Come and meet me.' So there'd be a lot of moments where that would happen, and I would just take... In those times, back in decades and some change ago, in those times, I would really figure out and try to learn how to talk to different people.

You know what I mean? I've gotten to this point because I'm trying to work on learning the most ways I can talk to folks. So I found that people record. They were giving for me, like records and recordings and things back that were either when they felt so unburdened, they can focus on this fully with their intention, or they felt so burdened that they needed to expel that energy. A decade of doing that with folks and the people that I've known for so long, it becomes this thing where I now know how everybody on this record works, and they know how I work. And now we have more resources. So it's a lot less of people being burdened, and now a lot more people coming in and being unburdened. And now I know how that is, how that sounds. And I think when I come back home and when I come back into the city, it is this like, it's the summertime. We're about to make a record. We have all these demos. Everybody is ready for it. Let's just do this in a week. These records, we have the demos. We make the demos over the course of several months, but all of it is recorded in a week's time.

We're just in the studio for 12, 15 hours. And people just come in. We stay here all day because sometimes people be at work, sometimes people work different days. Everybody is just people I've known forever. So the joy of it is people coming in and seeing that it's time to get to work again. You know what I mean? And seeing how the last one sounded and being like, 'I'm so excited to be here again' because I'm also excited to be here again. So the joy of the records and the sound is just inherent because it's me calling all of these folks for another heist. Do you know what I mean? It's like, One more time, one more time. And everybody loves it one more time. So that's just how that sounds. You know what I mean? And I think that it's just so obvious. I think that is the biggest part of these records. You could feel the love. You could feel– you don't need to be there to hear "We Outside" and be like, 'oh, everybody was having a great time.' And I think that is just a decade of working with the people you know and making sure everybody is honing their craft and trying to remember everybody's name and pronouns for real and just never distancing yourself from the people that you love, even as time moves on.

Because for real, that's why Magic, Alive! sounds way different than Who Taught You to Hate Yourself? even though all of these were in between and everybody is the same person. You know what I mean? Even with my features, it's like, Teller Banks is on Who Taught You to Hate Yourself? Maybe not, he might be on Importance of Self Belief, but he's on this one. He's on this one, he's on this one, he's on this one. We grow. We're all growing. Let's come back and try to see what we've all learned at this point. And if you learned more, then eventually you'll be back on a record. If you don't learn more, then that's on you. But it's very obvious to tell when time has– I think the joy of it is, like all to say, the joy of it is knowing everybody forever and remembering what everybody's got going on. Going back home to do these records, it just makes it sound like magic because magic is, again, the connection you have with the ground and the past, present, and future to me and luck. So it's like all these people together in this one space, everybody through time and space, right there is like a magical moment to me in my viewpoint of it.

AF: In order to really finalize this album musically, how much evolution are we talking about typically between the demos that you're coming into the studio with and the final product, especially on a record like this that does borrow so much inspiration from jazz, and there's so many moments on the record that are obviously improvised to some degree. How much are we leaving that up to everybody who's just there to just cook up something on the spot? How far in advance did you cook up crazy ideas? Like, the track we were just talking about earlier, "Recitatif", where you had that crazy rock freak out at the very end of the song? Because that was a totally insane unexpected switch-up, obviously.

MD: Yeah. So my music, the way I write is it's supposed to be like a conversation, right? So all of it is supposed to be a conversation with however, whatever perspective it is at the time, whatever the story is, whatever, blah, blah, blah. So the best way to do a conversation is for me to go up and down, to be emotional, to be feeling it. And I think the the easiest way to map that canvas is the jazz. So it is this thing because jazz can go up and down. You don't got to worry about it. It's not weird when shit gets horrible and then shit gets really good. I could just keep it loose like that. And I think the demos we have, because I also write sporadically in the sense of actually just writing it down, it forms more and more as we go. So we'll get a bass line. And a lot of the times I used to play it on key bass, so that's not the cab. I used to... up until For My Mama, "Chain Sooo Heavy", if you heard "Chain Sooo Heavy", "Chain Sooo Heavy" sounds like that because I didn't use clicks.

I don't use click tracks, but I didn't use click tracks when I was demoing all this shit just in my living room. I didn't use click tracks, so it sounds improvised because I was making these songs for five minutes, and I was telling people, just play five minutes, right? So I tightened up. I found I got some more producers to help me out and really hone that in. And now, the demos... so we will have a full loop of... Well, since we're on "Recitatif", "Recitatif" is an interesting one because I had a slew of ideas that I wanted to talk to Sam Yamaha about, and I was like, this, this, this, this. And he came back and just put them all into one big idea, which we didn't really do too much with that one except replace the drums and the guitar and bass at the end. So that's not the best example. But "Crooked Stick". "Crooked Stick", it was a loop. It was a really crazy loop. And I did my verse. The chorus was already there. Alfred put the chorus on there. Guys got the verse. And then once we got to the studio, we added live drums, changed the bass.

We had Teeny from Tango Bangers play horns on that, saxophone on that. It just becomes this thing where if I trust you and you trust me, we know how we work with each other, it's not going to sound bad. But it's also like, I have a bunch of other gospel musicians sitting in there, and if you sound like trash, they're going to tell you, you sound like trash. And it's also like the city that we all... we're all from the same city. So it's like, if you sound like trash, you were never going to be in there in the first place. It was never going to make it past. So I leave a lot of trust in there with how the instrumentation comes out. And it also varies. Like, Cav, my bassist is on every record, and he's my live musical director for my shit. So I really trust him when he's like, 'this sounds not good. We should change the bass, we should change the guitar.' But then Gina, who plays the flute on all my records, she also is one that I trust her when she changes stuff around. But a lot of the times, and because I've known everyone for so long, I don't really have to worry about it.

The demos, they're pretty early phase, and then we go in and then everybody just lays a bunch of stuff, a bunch of stuff down, and we all see how it sounds.

AF: So there's some good internal community policing going on there in terms of musical quality?

MD: Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man, especially because my rhythm section is all gospel kids. So it's like, oh, bro, if it sounds bad, they'll be like, This sounds horrible. This sounds like absolute trash. They will literally say, Especially, Cav. Cav will tell me, he'll be like, 'This is out of tune.' And I'll be like, 'I don't hear it.' He's like, 'I can hear it.' And it's like, okay, well done. Shit, I ain't going... You can play the bass. You know what I mean? So I definitely... It's not strict, but it is like, how did you get here? If you wasn't on these records, how are you here right now? So it's a lot of that.

AF: I wanted to ask you about some of the people you brought in to this record, maybe starting with Quelle Chris, who I know you hold in very high regard. Not only does he have the coolest opening guest verse on the record, but also I know his catalog is something that you hold in high regard. I think– I've reviewed him a lot of times on the channel. I've covered him very consistently. I have some highlights in his catalog that I think are amazing. Look, I've spent tons of time proselytizing to these people. You should listen to Quelle Chris.He's-

MD:You should listen to Quelle Chris. You should listen to Quelle Chris.

AF: They've already heard why I think they should listen to him. What is it about that draws you to him as an artist to this point, where you've made so many records, albums that people hold in really high regard. You've seen the reception that you get on platforms like Rate Your Music, for example.

MD: Thank you!

AF: That's the reception that alludes someone like Chris. I sit there and I look at his album sometimes. I was like, 'Why aren't these people on these platforms going crazy for him?' And not that I need you to explain that or whatever, but I'm saying, at least to hear it straight from you, you as a fan and you as an artist who also has a deep passion for the music that you create, what is so interesting about Chris to you? What are some highlights in his catalog and what makes him special as an artist to you?

MD: Man, Quelle Chris is special to me because he's just like, he's the everyday guy. You know what I mean? He is... Anyone... You can just take his music and it's not so general that anyone can fit on it, but it's not so specific that it is only to him. It just feels like a conversation you have. It feels like a conversation you have with a wizard, honestly, especially if you are reaching... Because I just was going through his catalog. Actually, I might have it pulled up here. But if you are going through... Oh, yes, literally the first time I had it pulled up on here. I've been listening to him since the beginning, but Being You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often. From just that start it just sounds like you're having a conversation with an old friend who is speaking in rhymes. And then every record sounds like, 'Oh, it's good to see you again,' you know what I mean? The familiarity of it is like, 'I'm happy to see you again, man.' I think that is just what I feel with every single one of his records whenever I hear it.

And I thought that would be the perfect character to be on the first song as the guy who was resurrecting, as the person you sort of go to that has this magical feeling to resurrect the dead. Was Quelle Chris, even in the name. I think that you should listen to Quelle Chris. Truly, truly, you should listen to Quelle Chris. Yeah.

AF: Yeah. I mean, one thing that's always struck me about him is that even on some of his darkest records, and some of his records lately have gotten pretty dark emotionally, is he's always got a bit of an absurd sense of humor streak to his work. There's always a bit of absurdism to it. Sometimes I feel like that is so in your face that it almost gets in the way of the accessibility of the music itself. But I always appreciate his wit and sense of humor, especially on records like Ghost at the Finish Line. There's always something-

MD:Definitely.

AF: A record like that, some of the best songs on that record, to me, read almost like a rap Peewees Playhouse or something.

MD: No, exactly.

AF: You feel like you're entering into a really weird-

MD: Exactly.

AF: Like the weird, absurdest world that Marvin the Martian used to inhabit, something like that. I feel like I'm entering into a very odd trippy cartoon or something.

MD: Yeah. It never is too much. It's just too real sometimes. It's never like, yeah, Quelle Chris.

AF: It's real and surreal at the same time.

MD: Exactly. And it's also just stuff that I feel like you live in a city, you just experience it here. Quelle Chris is just so easily magical when he writes and makes these concept albums that... Guns? Like, Niggas Is Men? Where are you going to begin? The Jean Grae album? Every record. And it's very inspirational also to see the longitivity and the quality. That's another thing about Quelle Chris is that the quality and the longitivity has never been lacking. It's never fallen off even through the time. I could put on any Quelle Chris record and be like, 'This could be his best one. This could be his best one.'

AF: And the record ends off with another key feature, and that's with West Coast rapper, Blu, who plays almost even more conceptual of a role on the album that I would love to hear you go over and dissect a little bit, because it does seem like such a pivotal moment on the album, because you're literally having a moment where you're almost like mulling over all of these existential questions about yourself and your work and just life itself. And then Blu tops the album off, communicating to you as this poster on the wall. I wanted to... Because, again, as you say, a lot of these stories you're telling on the album aren't exactly linear in the most obvious fashion. Where did that narrative idea come out for you and what made you feel this needs to be the final moment on the album, where the poster that you're looking up to is telling you, at least from my interpretation, 'Oh, it's all been in you. It's been in your work, and you need to search for it in there, the answers you're seeking.'

MD: Yeah. So I view these stories as having prologues and epilogues, like a storybook do. So, "Watch My Hands" at the beginning. That's 'Here's what you're about to experience.' Here's every... The kids come around, Magic, Alive! is within their hands, the firefly, whatever it is. The magic is like, we're all getting together about to read through experience this. So then it ends with "Magic, Alive!", the title track, and then it goes into the afterwards, which could have been different, which it is... And this one's a little hard concept because you would never really... Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? is the same way, it's broken up into three-story book parts, every couple of songs, the intro and the forward and every song is like a book, like a Toni Morrison book. This one, and usually also with my stage presence, too, and how I explain that, is all of these big moments will happen in your life. Then you still go back to a place of reprieve, which is the home, the house, your bedroom. So that song is the afterwards of the story, the processing, what is going, what is happening, what we all just went through in a moment of reprieve in a way, specifically for me or the character, whatever.

And it then becomes this thing where it's like, well, what could have been different? What's next? The past, and how should we do? How should we have the past upon the future? I'm overwhelmed. You know what I mean? Just because the day has ended does not mean it's the end of the day. You know what I mean? I think that that song was meant as a epilogue and prologue thing. And then that specific verse was for me. It was because it's all about, I make these records for me, with you in mind. It was– Blu has known me and has seen me grow in a way that he just felt close to. Then referencing all of my records it's like, I didn't expect him to do that. It just became this moment that transcended the story. I think that's also the thing that got it because it transcended the story and now it became like McKinley. I think people think that the story is just a story, but it's all my life. So, yeah, that moment was supposed to be the moment of rest after the record. That whole song was, process it. What did you just hear? Do you feel the love? And then Blu came and he just gave a verse that perfectly encapsulated that.

AF: That's interesting that you didn't expect him to necessarily spin it that way when he did give you the final verse. But when going into it, he did have a sense of the perspective he'd be writing from, obviously, with the lead up to the intro. That's interesting.

MD: Yeah. And it's also just something because with a lot of these cats, I'm younger than folks. But you know how it is when you want to talk to your legends and you got the internet. You're like, 'one day, I'm a big fan.' I mean, 'Imma one day.' And then years go by, one day, especially with rappers. The way I used to do it is I would just find your information, and I would just write you an email if I wanted. I didn't expect nobody to respond. I didn't expect nobody to hear it. But that's how I got Guilty Simpson and Sean Price on the first record, Guilty Simpson connecting with Sean Price. And I think that then created moments and friendships that were just so different for who I am now. But with Blu, he just seen my growth, and then in this short amount of time because people can see your growth, but then they become aware of it. There's a moment when it's like, oh, I cannot deny that this kid is different than everything else that I'm feeling. And I think, yeah, I was like, you're the poster on my wall.

I love your music, but I don't expect him to be like, keep at it yourself. That really was just... Even with that alley oop, I was like, I don't know, he's just going to wrap about some inspiration or something. You know what I mean? He's going to be like, Yeah, you know. Keep hustling, keep hustling. Keep pedaling.

AF: Wait a second. If we know anything about Blu, he loves a concept.

MD:He do love a concept, but I don't tell people! I don't tell anybody!

AF: He was going to take it. You give him a concept, he's going to take it and run.

MD: I'm like, 'You're the poster on my wall.' I didn't expect him to be like, 'You are the poster on MY wall.' I was like, 'Oh, damn. Well, thank you, man.' But it was definitely this thing where he had only heard that song, and he fell in love with it. Then I met him also because he performed in Chicago, so I met him, and it was just a great timing of it all, the timing of it all worked out, that he was then now like, 'Okay, I think this is real.' I think hip hop is something that you have to authenticate yourself in a lot of ways to get to where you got to be. So it was nice to feel that authentication unexpectedly, too.

AF: I'm not sure how exactly to frame this, because I do have to ask, because, again, from the features, from Blu to Quelle Chris, as you say, like Guilty Simpson and Sean Price. I'm not asking you outright, 'How did you get into hip hop?' Obviously, that's obvious. But with these artists and reference points, it's clear you've been in the internet alt rap trenches for years. Obviously, while you're a hip hop fan and you're enjoying it like a lot of people, like everybody is, you've obviously arrived to and have explored it along avenues that often a lot of people don't. I guess if I do have a question here, it's that, how did you come to this appreciation to where you're on the frayes with it? And it's like you've become... Obviously, you know your big names and you appreciate the big records and the classics, the same ones that everybody else does. But simultaneously, there's this burning passion and focus within you that's clearly there. When you say something on the internet, like 'Billy Woods makes me want to rap again. It's the first time. Every single time I hear him rap.' You know what I mean?

You're hearing something in that that not a lot of people are hearing. I guess I'm wondering, how did you arrive to that where you're like, 'Oh, this is great. These big records and artists that everybody seems to appreciate or find, but there's something special and specific about this that's allowing me away' that for whatever reason, not a lot of people tune into or even curious about, even if it comes across their path.

MD: Yeah. A lot of my time... These records is all from Richmond, Virginia, right? And Richmond, Virginia is a very punk city. It's like a very... Gwar from Richmond. A lot of very famous punk acts are from Richmond, Virginia because it was just that's the time, right? So around when I was coming up, it was just starting to switch over to other genres now doing– Now we are at the height of house shows, and D.I.Y. is starting to include rap music. Like, Fly Anakin is now in Richmond making waves with his collective. You hear something about this kid McKinley with a band in this house show. And house shows were happening every week. So I was very involved in D.I.Y. across multiple a bunch of genres because I also love hardcore music. So it was this thing where if I wanted to keep up and if I wanted to make the music that I make, I had to put my money where my mouth is. And you just got to listen to everything. You know what I mean? And now, also, as I've grown, a lot of the people that stayed in my house when we was back in 2013, I stayed in their house in 2014.

Now, we are all coming into our own. And there's so many genres there that... I don't know. I love studying, and I think it's good to study other genres and other mediums and pull from that because otherwise, your record is going to sound a little stale. And I think that it's just because I love hardcore music. I love punk music. A lot of my homies that I came up with are punk musicians that showed me what this means to be an outlier in a way. Same as hip hop. I mean, it showed that. And I think finding the similarities and connecting them is just a matter of past, present, and future.

AF: Shit. I agree. I feel like I felt a similar way when I was not getting into music, but first got into punk music. And to me, that was a realization that, okay, this is a weird, obscure D.I.Y. underground version of something that's on the surface that everybody has access to. And that made me wonder, I was like, 'is there that for every genre? Is there that for everything else?' And then I started looking and I was like, 'oh, there actually is that for everything else.' There's a version for everything.

MD: And it's existed for a long time, too. You know what I mean? In different forms. My favorite, Blackie, incredible. I used to see them all the time in Richmond. You know what I mean? Like, Divide and Dissolve, really great Indigenous noise band. And it's like, a lot of these artists were also coming to Richmond at a time when Richmond was finding its wings and being like, 'Well, what do we fill house shows with? What does a mixed bill even mean for a community that is so heavy punk?' It's like, oh, if you want to transition, it's easy to put like, Rapper with a DJ, with Kinley Dixon, Punk Band. And that's how all of my shows– The first year we was out making music, I did... I think it was 42 shows because we was playing every weekend just because Richmond is warm all the time. So every house show, you have a house all the time. So I just found out that every genre has so much more to dive into, and it's going to take a lot of time, a lot of energy and effort, but you're going to find things that inspire you so much, like the end of "Recitatif", or "Fistful of Light".

You know what I mean? Like, Palehound plays on that one. So that's even its own thing. Illuminati Hotties plays on "Sugar Water". These are all people that... This is just over time. Yeah.

AF: And there were some people asking earlier, but this also obviously explains connections and collabs you've done with people like Cheekface, Soul Glow.

MD: Oh, yeah. I love Cheekface. Oh, man, I love Cheekface.

AF: I mean, obviously, very different collabs that came at different times. But if you want to get a little bit into that, because I do mess with both of of both bands heavily.

MD: Yeah. I mean, Soul Glo and I, we go back, me and the boys. We go back. I've seen them in 2015. You know what I mean? Pierce is featured on The Importance of Self Belief, "Circle the Block". He does the vocals on the end of it. When I was really trying to experiment with glitch and screamo and stuff, and that was 2016. Soul Glo is just a band that I have always been so intertwined with as we are also Black folk in the D.I.Y. community, because there is something to be said about being in 2013, being a Black person making a rap with a band and a Black person making punk music and figuring out how to maneuver those communities together and separately. I love Backwash. Backxwash is one of the best. Backwash is completely different than me. Backxwash still makes one of the best albums of the year.

AF: I'm I'm sure when that album came out, you were like, damn, I don't know if I could drop my album this year. Backxwash just dropped.

MD: I was like, oh, man, we both is doing this whole little thing. You know what I mean? So I was like, it's just like these genres always intersect. And I just came up with a lot of people. Soul Glo is just one of those groups. Cheekface is different. Cheekface is funny because I just like Cheekface, man. We just followed each other and it was like, hop on this song. And I was like, Yeah, of course, I'm going to hop on a what am I going to do? Of course, I'm going to hop on a cheekface song. Yeah, it's Cheekface, you all. Yeah, that's the homies. Everybody's the homies. I'm not going to do it if we're not cool. But yeah, Cheekface. That was fun. It's like a 20-second verse. A 20-second verse on there?

AF: It was fast, but it was a crazy track to begin with. Just a unhinged song for them. So I mean, why not? Why the hell not? Why not have a McKinley Dixon rap verse on it?

MD:And it was just cool, man. Sometimes, that's the homies. Cheekface is the homies. They're cool. They're cool in my hood. So yeah, I like that.

AF: I don't know. You probably have to head out soon I don't want to open another-

MD: I'm chilling. I mean, what you got another question? I'm chilling.

AF: I mean, maybe open another can of worms, really.

MD: Yeah.

AF: I saw another interview clip where you had described... And this came back to the reason I was asking you about Quelle Chris earlier, too. But you were talking about it, all the comparisons that people are drawing with your music and so on and so forth, and people's perceptions of it due to the fact that we live in what you described as a 'post-To Pimp A Butterfly' era.

MD: Oh, man.

AF: I don't disagree with the fact that that album has... For a lot of people... Well, I mean, look, here's the thing. For a lot of people, whether you want for it to be or not, that's a lot of people's first jazz rap album.

MD: Yes, 100 %.

AF: Because of the time it came out, the amount of visibility it had, that was just a lot of people's first jazz rap album. For all demographics. For all demographics. In the same way that for a lot of people who were maybe four to five years younger than me and first getting into music. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was their first rap album.

MD: Yes. There's moments you could feel that. Yeah.

AF: Yeah. There's moments where a record blows up to a certain perception because it just ends up being a first for a lot of people. And also on top of it ends up being a watermark, too, because it's just a creative record, undeniably. But with that being said, I don't know, do you feel like it's difficult to exist in this era as an artist that wants to make music that does make so many overt references to jazz, that when people come into the genre, they're thinking more TPAB than thinking like, oh, the Roots, or Tribe Called Quest, or something like that, because it seems like you have a wider array of reference points than some people are giving you credit for, sometimes.

MD: To Pimp a Butterfly, dog. It's funny because to pimp a... I have a song that's called "We Loving That Jazz". It came out like 2013. It's like To Pimp a Butterfly... It was a time where it was either people would say, Chance the Rapper, Anderson Paak. And then that To Pimp a Butterfly came out, man. And it was, you never heard, I never got compared to either of them after that. It was just To Pimp a Butterfly, To Pimp a Butterfly, To Pimp a Butterfly, To Pimp a Butterfly, To Pimp a Butterfly.

AF: You Chance the Rapper, Chance the Rapper, You?

MD: It was like... It was just... Because he had the low, he would just... Yeah, man, To Pimp a Butterfly, that record. And you go out in Europe, the first thing it's going to say on an interview with me is: To Pimp a Butterfly? Any European blog, man? I don't even know. That record... I don't even remember what the question was, man. To Pimp a Butterfly. That record, I can never... I mean, that record is incredible. It's phenomenal. It transcends time. It's a certain cultural history moment. But I don't that record was so much more funk-inspired than jazz to me. I don't know. It influenced me. It influenced me in the fact that there's ways to make vulnerability happen in rap music that are alternatives, that are not just a straight shot. You can make the concept. But the thing is, that was never just To Pimp a Butterfly. That was also a Good Kid, Section 80, I don't know, man. To Pimp a Butterfly. That record is just... Yeah, man. They don't sound nothing like my records, too. That's the crazy thing. My records, If There's a Hell Below by Black Milk, If There's a Hell Below by Black Milk, Rock Creek Park by Oddisee, and probably, Below the Heavens by Blu, rapping wise, and The Ecstatic by Mos Def.

Those are the actual records that I draw. You know what I mean? That world from to make the music I sound, the music I make. To Pimp a Butterfly...

AF: I actually didn't think of The Ecstatic.

MD: That's a big one because that one is like, the way he's talking, it's just so smooth. He's whispering spells. You know what I mean? And it's just the magic he has is so casual within it. So that one's a big one, too. But To Pimp a Butterfly, yeah, man, I love that record. I love that record. But if If you all listening want to one, do actual homework. If There's a Hell Below by Black Milk, Rock Creek Park by Oddisee, The Ecstatic by Mos Def, it ain't on streaming, and you probably heard Blu's, an undeniable classic. Yeah.

AF: Yeah. No, I mean, it's obviously, I think, the world of the record, and it's got nothing to do with the album. It's just funny to me how... I feel like we're in a weird place as far as music consumption goes. It'll be one of the last things that I say, where it seems like for certain things, people only seem have room in their heads for one. And I don't know what the through line is or what the pattern is or why it is the way that it is, because it seems to shift in time in terms of how much room people seem to have for certain things, and when there can be more of one thing, and when there can't. There used to be a time where there could be only fucking one relevant female rapper at a time. Yeah, exactly. And that seems like there can be as many as you want. And simultaneously, it seems like in a lot of people's heads these days, we can only have room for one in our mind, one conscious rapper in the mainstream. In the mainstream, in the mainstream that is. And as long as we have the one in our head, we can't think about any others or if there are any others, we have to immediately compare them to the one that is the most popular.

If they're not as good in our minds, then why even bother considering their music? It's just very odd, especially considering, I come from a time when backpack rap was a thing, and there was room for a lot of different rappers of that stripe. I mean, obviously, all of them and many of them had a difficult time breaking into the mainstream, but there wasn't really this consideration among that fan base that like, 'Oh, we already know the one that we like. We don't need any others'. Everybody involved in that scene is like, 'No, we fuck with all these guys. We think they're all great. We want to hear all of them.' Whereas it seems to be this willingness to just limit your self for whatever reason to just the one or two that are the most easily accessible and just not dig any further and not consider anything else that might come across your path.

MD: Exactly. Back when I was a rapper, also, you got to take into account the demographic of that time, too. You know what I mean? It was a lot of folks coming up and being like, 'This is accessible differently.' You know what I mean? This is something that I can also do in a way that is not... It just everyone has something to say, and it was a completely different time back then. But now it is like, 'oh, yeah, there's one that you can be'... And I think it is because people put things to the forefront so fast, and they want to tell you that they put it to the forefront so fast, more so. Everybody loves to be like, 'I got here first,' but they don't love to be like, 'Well, maybe I should explain how I got here first.' You know what I mean? I think that I will literally never, ever escape To Pimp a Butterfly comparisons, even if I start making music that is not like To Pimp a Butterfly. Even if I just start screaming to a microphone, I think people are going to be like, 'remember when he did it on "i"? He probably is doing that based on this sound like To Pimp a Butterfly.' You know what I mean?

AF: Even if you have punk guitars on the whole thing, the second-

MD: The whole thing!

AF: The whole thing. The moment that a horn comes in, they'll be like, oh.

AF/MD: To Pimp a Butterfly.

MD: 'Have you ever heard of this record called King Kunta?' And it's like, bro, that sounds like punk music. Also, that was made... Whenever that comparison happens is honestly more so embarrassing because it's like, bro, My record don't sound like that. That record is crazy, man. You're telling somebody that you don't know, this sound like To Pimp a Butterfly?... That was Flying Lotus and Kamasi Washington. And we all going to look dumb. And they're going to be like, 'It don't sound like To Pimp a Butterfly.' So yeah, no, it doesn't sound like To Pimp a Butterfly. It sounds like Chance the Rapper. It sounds like whatever that last word means.

AF: All right. Thank you, man, for your time and being an open book. Telling us everything about the record and your process and everything, man.

MD: Yeah, no problem, man. Thank you.

AF: Enjoy your alone time.

MD: Thank you.

AF: All right. Have a good one man.

MD: Peace.