Who Is August Alsina?

New Orleans singer August Alsina's music has been going viral since he was in his mid-teens. Now he's signed to Def Jam.

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Started-from-the-bottom stories are common in R&B and hip-hop, and have been a part of music business stories since the modern industry began. Everyone knows a story about the poor bluesman or street rapper transcending his humble beginnings through the power of music.

August Alsina has a story that puts many of those rags-to-riches tales to shame. He's observed death from a young age, dealt with his parents' demons, and lost loved ones. He's gone from YouTube fame to homelessness to hit singles. His song "I Luv This Shit," with Trinidad James, has passed 4.5 million views, and his latest single "Downtown" with Kidd Kidd, looks like its on the way to similar success.

After The Product mixtape helped lead to his deal with Def Jam, and the DJ Drama-hosted The Product II helped launch his latest singles, August Alsina spoke with us about his career and upbringing. The singer's latest release, the Downtown: Life Under the Gun EP, was released today. But Who Is August Alsina?

As told to David Drake (@somanyshrimp)

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Also, make sure to watch Complex TV's August Alsina episode of Complex Individuals, exploring all the questions you wanted to know about your favorite artists. 

Growing Up in New Orleans

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August Alsina: "I'm from downtown New Orleans. Downtown consists of the 7th ward, the 8th ward, the 9th ward. Downtown, and Kenner, L.A. later on. My fam is in the hood, trying to make it out the hood. My mom used to work two jobs to take care of me, my brothers, and my sisters. She worked hard to take care of us. Back in the day my mom was actually a dental assistant. 

"My pops, we didn't have the best relationship because he was struggling with drug addiction, and you know that's just pretty much what it is. That just take over your whole body that you really don't just have no control over. My step-pops actually been around since I was one year old. Since he's been in my life he was battling a drug addiction as well. I got my brother Melvin, who just passed away, my brother Jamal, my brother Travis, and I got a little sister named Nicki too.


 

My brother said this before he died. He was like, "Man, we from New Orleans, we don't make it to live past 24."


 

"Growing up in New Orleans, we the murder capital. You just got to kind of find your way. I remember just a lot of people dying. Whether from the gun or whatever the fuck. Like one of my homies, I remember he died from crashing a go kart into a light pole. I remember being young as hell, like, 'Damn, he ain't even here no more. That's crazy.' So I have to take that in every morning.

"New Orleans is basically a bunch of motherfuckers living fast. At an early age niggas was snorting dope. Niggas was snorting dope so young, niggas was smoking cigarettes. You live fast and you die young. My brother said this before he died. He was like, 'Man, we from New Orleans, we don't make it to live past 24,' you know what I'm saying? And sure enough my brother got killed. He was 24. Two years ago now."

Getting Into Music

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August Alsina: "I know it's something that I've always had. Just some sort of love, a strange connection to music. I'll tell you what's crazy: Nobody in my family is musically inclined, no form, fashion, anything. I always had some type of connection to music though. This was long before I ever knew that I could sing, or I ever even tried to start singing. It was something different, man, it made me feel some type of way.

"Of course, growing up in New Orleans, listening to the Hot Boys and seeing what Baby and Juvie and all of them was doing. They paved the way for us, everybody wanted to be like them, like The Hot Boys.

"It's funny, because down the line I actually was singing and not rapping. I guess when I really knew I just loved music and had some type of connection with it was when I heard Lauryn Hill singing something on Sister Act 2. She was singing this gospel song, ['His Eye Is on the Sparrow']. So I heard her singing that, and I just was, the shit just made me feel something that I never felt before. I was like, 'Wow, I want to do that shit. I really want to do that shit.' Honestly man, out of nowhere I just started singing. [Laughs.]


 

Around the time I first started getting into music, Fantasia, John Legend was out...but Lyfe Jennings did something to me.


 

"I just started singing, it was like, this shit is cool, I like the way it makes me feel. I just started fucking with it. I had to be about 14. Around the time I first started getting into music, Fantasia, John Legend was out...but Lyfe Jennings did something to me. As a young kid, he did something that stuck with me, that's still with me right now. I just know the way that his music made me feel...what it meant to me just to hear somebody else struggling, hear somebody else's story. But for it to be so musical and creative at the same time, man, that shit is dope. I fuck with Lyfe hard, man.

"I was up on all the rappers. I was up on Juvie, I was up on Baby, I was up on Wayne, I was up on Soulja Slim, all of that. And of course Pac. Everybody love Pac. I think 'Dear Mama' might be my favorite Pac song. Or 'Changes.' I don't know, then 'Brenda Got A Baby.' You know, Pac got too much shit, I can't choose one song man. [Laughs.

"When I started singing, I was going to school. I remember some of the people in school singing, and they had a choir. I would just watch and listen. Finally I started at least attempting to try to do what they was doing. When I was younger, we started going to church. I can't say that we were always, you know, the most church-going people.

"At some point, when my step-pops—and this is deep too, I never really dig this deep into my life like that with motherfuckers—when my step-pops was battling his addiction, he wanted to move to Texas, because his family is in Texas. He felt like it was a better place for him to be, he wouldn't be in the habit with so much access to drugs or whatever. But even moving from New Orleans, he still was into the same thing; it was hard to shake. So we moved to Texas for a minute when I was younger for him to try to shake his shit, but basically kind of the same things was going on."

Moving To Houston

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August Alsina: "When I moved to Houston I was a young'n. We was always back and forth from New Orleans to Houston. I remember being in middle school some years before Katrina, and starting over, and being real upset with my mom for making us move so drastically.


 

The reality of it is New Orleans is f**ked up. But under it all man, we got some great people. New Orleans creates some great people, some loving people with a lot of heart.


 

"As bad as New Orleans may seem to people—the reality of it is New Orleans is fucked up. But under it all man, we got some great people. New Orleans creates some great people, some loving people with a lot of heart.

"But we so caught up and focused into our ways. We have our own type of people. New Orleans, we like our own country in my mind. From New Orleans to Houston, the people were very different. Just the attitude in New Orleans. You can see somebody that you don't know from Adam and Eve, but they speaking like they know you. You giving hugs and shit like you knew this person all your life.

"You go to another place, and motherfuckers is booting up at you and they looking at you like you got some shit on your face. So it just was real different, man. The learning system in school was different, everything was different."

YouTube Fame

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August Alsina: "I had told my mom I wanted to sing. She got me a webcam for YouTube. At about 14, I made my YouTube page. My momma would sit there and help me record some shit. I still got some videos up from when I was that young, just with a big ass t-shirt on, my brother's too-big hat, and I'm just standing there singing.

"What's so cool about that is that a lot of people—and I never really realized how special it is—see me out in public they talk to me like they know me. I always thought that was so weird, but I had to realize that these people got the chance to watch me grow since I was a young'n, small as a motherfucka. So it's cool for them to grow with me. It was a part of the journey, and they got to see it bloom. It's like planting a flower, you get to see the shit grow. I think YouTube is one of the dopest inventions that they could have ever made.

"My YouTube page started popping. With the music business man you got to go through your phases, it's just like life. In every part of life, you got to grow. You got to take chances, you got to take risks, you got to fuck with a few mothafuckers that you don't know who might be bogus. And a few fuck niggas who really don't know what they're doing but they sell you a dream and tell you that, 'Hey man, if you fuck with me I can make the sky turn purple.' You got to deal with that.


 

When you're a kid, whatever it is my parent is going through, I'm going through as well. That's from my step-pops drug addiction, not having enough money to make ends meet, trying to find a meal to eat to feed the fam, losing your job, trying to pay the mortgage when we really don't have enough money to do that. I don't have no school clothes, my school clothes got sold for drugs.


 

"But the beauty of it is when you go through it and you finally get to where it is that you knew you could go, that you knew God had destined for you to be, it's that much cooler. And it's that much more special when you finally get to your shit. So, yeah I was doing YouTube videos and I saw the response and my shit just started popping. I was getting 300,000 views on one video within weeks, so I just stuck with it. And at a certain point, years later, I'm living and I'm growing, I'm still going to high school, still living a regular-ass life, still dealing with the reality of being a kid.

"When you're a kid, your parents reality is your reality. You don't have a choice. So whatever it is my parent is going through, I'm going through as well. So the struggle, it's everybody's struggle. That's from my step-pops drug addiction, not having enough money to make ends meet, trying to find a fucking meal to eat to feed the fam, losing your job, trying to pay the mortgage when we really don't have enough money to do that. I don't have no school clothes, my school clothes got sold for drugs, all that type of shit.

"So I was being molded into who I am right now. I don't regret a bit of it because nobody's perfect. Nobody lives like that, nobody has a perfect world. I don't regret it because everything that I went through, I can share with the rest of the world. Because it's so many people out here, it's so many young talented niggas that's dealing with the same situation, who daddy was a crackhead, who's daddy dead, a young nigga out the hood trying to make it."

Street Life

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August Alsina: "At some point you branch off, you want to do your own shit, you want to go your way. You're just not really tolerant to a lot of bullshit that you feel like you don't have to accept. That's what I felt like with my situation.

"I felt like I'd been dealing with my parents' bullshit since I was one year old, and it just been a struggle ever since. That's a lot to deal with as a young nigga. So I'm like, fuck it. I'ma just go ahead and do my own thing, it can't get no worse than this. I'm just gonna be fucking homeless and not have anywhere to go. I just got to figure it out, it's all a part of becoming a man.


 

So I'd just fall asleep at a chair in that mothaf**ker, and the woman who was working at the little food spot in there, she would bring me some food.


 

"I was about 16 or so. I was staying with one of my partners for a minute. I tried to continue to go to school, but at my school we didn't wear uniforms. I didn't have no clothes, all of my shit was gone. So I stopped going. And of course, I think what every young nigga do, you start getting into selling dope. So at that point I went back to New Orleans. 

"Shit only last so long, shit goes sour after a while. Shit went sour. I see all these niggas around me selling dope and niggas is bird feeding me, and I'm like, 'Man, fuck that. I'm about to get out here and get on my feet. All you niggas out here I see, I'm riding around with y'all and y'all getting all this money and you bird feeding me. Fuck that.' Everybody was like, 'No you go to school, you stay in school.' I'm like, 'Man fuck what y'all talking about, I'm about to get me.'

"So I got in the streets, ended up homeless for a while, sleeping at the corner store in Kenner, LA. It's still called Quik & Easy. I grew up in New Orleans, so of course the people who worked in the store knew me. I'd just fall asleep at a chair in that mothafucker, and the woman who was working at the little food spot in there, she would bring me some food. Because I would be on my feet. Selling a couple rocks, just to maybe go grab a little hotel where the crack heads at and trap from over there. Be able to take a shower and have a shirt. I buy a shirt from the corner store and I got the same clothes on. I'm just trying to get it everyday, bruh."

Returning To Music

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August Alsina: "My brother got killed. So at that point, I was like, man I'm out here, we all living the same way. This is what happened to him, so it's what's going to happen to me the same way. I was just was like, it's either this or that.

"I had already connected with my manager, the one I'm with now. We just never made it happen because I was in some other shit. When my brother got killed, it was like, you look at it like an opportunity. 'Give me six months, stop doing what you doing and come fuck with me and let me show you what I can do.' And at that point I was like, 'I ain't got shit to lose but my life out here in these streets so why not give it a chance?'


 

But when my brother got killed, it was like, you look at it like an opportunity. "Give me six months, stop doing what you doing and come f**k with me and let me show you what I can do."


 

"So I gave it a shot, started picking up after shit being down for me for a long time. I'm so different of a guy, and I don't even know if different is the word, I'm my motherfucking self. It took awhile for him to actually get me and understand who I am, and work out the kinks in what we were doing. I was connected with him for awhile, it just took a while to actually kick shit off and get the ball rolling.

"When we first linked up, it took awhile to actually get in the studio. I remember pressing, pressing, pressing him about being in the studio, because at that point I was out here, but I was staying with the dude who introduced me to him and I ain't never been that type of guy to be up in nobody's shit. I didn't have my own privacy, and everything was just out in the open and I never really liked that. So it was a struggle just to get to this point.

"We never really recorded, because we needed to figure out what it is that we would still going to be doing musically. I don't believe in going with a million producers and a million writers, that ain't what it's about. I believe you find your equal with this shit, just like Drake got a 40, just like Aaliyah had Timbaland, Kendrick and Dre.

"I believe everyboy got a equal, so you find your equal and you run with it. My equal to this shit go by the name of The Exclusives. They some of the most talented cats I've ever met. A guy by the name of Sean 'Pen' and Ralph, we been in this shit since I first first started. 

"It's funny because I remember I was younger and I had did a cover on YouTube of this song by Lloyd and J. Holiday, 'I Can Be More.' It just so happened to turn out that they the ones that wrote that song. [Laughs.] After I did that cover, I met the guy that manages me now. He also managed Lloyd, so I met him. It's just crazy how the shit all came full circle after I did a cover of Lloyd's shit, and then I met the dude who wrote it and then Lloyd's manager. 

"So it was just about figuring it out. We don't need another Chris Brown, we don't need another Trey Songz, we don't need another Beyonce. It's about doing your shit and bringing your shit to life. It's just like a kid being born. First you fuck [Laughs.], you nut in the bitch, then she go through about nine months of pregnancy, and then the motherfucker is born. That's what it was like, making a kid and figuring it out.

"I remember my very first cover was 'How To Love' by Wayne. We put it on WorldStar, got a awesome response and we just stuck at it. The next one I did was 'Trust Issues.' I was doing acoustic covers, too, so I just stuck with the covers. Then we had somehow got to a point, we started grabbing niggas' attention."

The Product Mixtape and Signing to Def Jam

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August Alsina: "The Product was my first mixtape. That name came from because I look at this music shit just like it's some street shit. Just the same way it was for me in the streets selling dope and how my niggas moved, this shit go the same way. So I felt like I'm the product, I got to show you niggas that my shit is more potent than the next nigga. That's why you come fuck with me, because my crack is straight drop and you ain't got no choice but to come fuck with me because my shit straight off the boat.

"That's what it was for me and my squad. We came up with what we wanted to do and we just stuck with it. We started grabbing a lot of people attention. Later down the line Def Jam came into play. The Product was really a bunch of flips over somebody else's beat. I was really just jacking for beats. I was taking the hottest song at that time and doing my shit over it. People just so happened to like it. 


 

When we went to meet with Def Jam, [Def Jam Head of A&R Karen Kwak] told me she'd been watching me since I was 14 on YouTube.


 

"When I was doing the first Product I remember really wanting to fuck with Young Money. I was like, 'Man, I'm from New Orleans, it just makes sense.' It was a layup to me. I waited around. My manager's squad, Noon Time, they've been around for a long time, and he got a real good relationship with Baby, so we went to go meet him, play some music. I met with Baby three or four times. Baby was really fucking with my shit. He said he wanted to do it. But I've never been the type of person to wait on nobody, I don't wait on no nigga.  I felt like I was sitting around waiting on something that I don't know is going to come for sure. I'm not really big on letting people drag they feet with me, so I just kept hustling, and later on Def Jam came into the picture, and we started fucking with Def Jam.

"When we went to meet with Def Jam, [Def Jam Head of A&R Karen Kwak] told me she'd been watching me since I was 14 on YouTube. She got a chance to watch me grow and watch me become who I am, and understand who I am not only as an artist, but as a man, and what I come from. I thought that was cool. Later on, when I dropped my first single with Trinidad James ['I Love This Shit'], Baby hopped on the remix to it. So everything come together. It's just crazy how it started. For some reason, man, God love me. He love me. [Laughs.] I can say that."

The Product II Mixtape

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August Alsina: "I'm deeply involved in all my shit when it comes to writing. There's a certain way that I say shit and my shit come from the heart so I have no choice but to be deeply involved. When I was doing 'Downtown,' I struggled. I struggle a lot with how much of myself do I give to the people. Because, as artists, we put ourselves out there to be judged. People are so judgemental. You got a lot to judge me by.

"When I was doing 'Downtown' I was like, 'Do I tell people all of this?' But at a certain point I was like, 'Man, if I don't say what I want to say, how I want to say it, I'll be doing a disservice to myself, a disservice to my people, and I'll be cheating God for sending me through everything that he's sent me through.' So I went in and told my story. Exactly how it went. Word for word, that's how it went down, that's really how it go down in my hood.


 

When I was doing 'Downtown' I was like, 'Do I tell people all of this?' But at a certain point I was like, 'Man, if I don't say what I want to say, how I want to say it, I'll be doing a disservice to myself, a disservice to my people, and I'll be cheating God for sending me through everything that he's sent me through.


 

The Product 2, that shit is cool. Because I never thought that I would have a tape with DJ Drama. I fuck with Drama, I got a lot of respect for him and got a lot of respect for his grind. The Product 2 basically is a continuation of The Product, it's original music and like you hear my sound. So just giving people a taste of that sound. I'm slowly trying to get everybody prepared for this album. I reached out to Drama, Drama fucked with it. I never been an ostentatious type of guy, but you got to kind of be like, 'Damn I got Drama on this mothafucker.' [Laughs.

"'I Luv This Shit,' I had that song for about six months before I even gave it to Trinidad. When I recorded I knew that that was one of the first songs I want people to hear from me because it's real. It's what we live everyday, the good, the bad, the ugly, whatever, I love that shit, I live for that shit. My life, I love that shit. The struggle. I love that shit because it make me a stronger nigga, make me the man that I'm growing into.

"Shit, the partying, the bitches, whatever it is you can think of, I love that shit. I don't have no regrets about nothing that I do and the way I live. I love it because whether it's good or bad you learning something. I knew when I heard Trinidad 'All Gold Everything,' I knew. That shit was so ratchet, I knew I needed to go ahead and have him hop on there, because of the ratchetness that 'I Luv This Shit' embodies."

Downtown: Life Under the Gun EP

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Standing Out in R&B

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August Alsina: "I don't even like the R&B title because a lot of motherfuckers got it twisted and they think that R&B is... You got to have a jheri curl dripping from your head, you got to do 30,000 spin moves, flips across the stage, and you got to wear some tight ass pants that cut the circulation from your balls, and you got to be a bitch nigga. That ain't what it's about, man.


 

They think that R&B is...you got to have a jheri curl dripping from your head, you got to do 30,000 spin moves, and you got to wear some tight ass pants that cut the circulation from your balls. And you got to be a b***h n***a.


 

"I remember back in the day we had Al Green, we had fucking Sam Cooke, we had R. Kelly; just a bunch of real niggas. I think that the stereotype of R&B is fucked up in a lot of people's eyes. It's not even what makes me different, it's just me being me.

"It's like a whole bunch of kids reading in the classroom, what makes me, what makes everybody different from each other is, I'm me and you're you. I'ma do me and you do you. Me and you are not the same. We don't live the same life, we don't fuck the same hoes, we don't wear the same clothes, shoutout to Meek Mill, it's levels to this shit.

"My momma didn't raise him and they momma didn't raise me. Everybody live a different life and everybody got something different to talk about and, shit, I'm just myself and them niggas is them. All I can do is speak for myself."

The Future

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August Alsina: "With the album, I can tell you this: It's a classic. The album was done the day before I even walked into the Def Jam building. I walked in and had my album ready. They played the songs and they was like, 'Wow, this shit is nuts.' [Laughs.]


 

The album was done the day before I even walked into the Def Jam building.


 

"The album is ready and it's sitting there and just waiting. But what's important to me is making sure people are prepared for the album, because a lot of times I see people force some shit on people and it's not accepted well. I'm all about timing. I'm just putting in my groundwork, and building and making sure the timing is right.

"What's next, I'ma drop my new shit with Rich Homie Quan. I'm going on 106 & Park on August 20 to premier the video. I got some shit with B.o.B and Yo Gotti about to drop too. I listen to whatever I stumble upon. Because I be kind of everywhere with it.

"I'm into John Mayer, I'm into Jeezy, then I'm back on some other shit, then I'm on Lauryn Hill, then I'm on Rich Homie. I try to keep my shit open and never block no creativity, so I'm a little everywhere with it. I'm giving everybody a listen to see what niggas is doing out here."

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