In “Got No Strings,” the charming, Pinocchio-themed new ad for Beats wireless headphones, the most lovable moment comes from the promo’s newest face. There in the midst of a star-studded lineup that includes DJ Khaled, Nicki Minaj, Michael Phelps, Pharrell, and A$AP Rocky is breakout Brooklyn rapper Young M.A, admiring a lovely female passerby with her signature “Ooouuu.” It's the warble that made her track of the same name one of the most irresistible and imitated summertime hits, taking the rapper with the raspy voice and no-fucks-given attitude to new levels of renown.
But her story is hardly an overnight one. Young M.A’s “discovery” dates at least back to 2014 and her gritty “Brooklyn (Chiraq Freestyle).” Her profile grew with last year’s mixtape Sleep Walkin, which combined upbeat tracks such as “HennyNHoes” with deeply personal ones, like the moving “Through The Day,” with a resilient, painful lyric that references the murder of her older brother seven years ago—the seminal event in M.A’s life, and one that comes up frequently in her music and interviews.
That Young M.A remains an unsigned artist after the explosion of “OOOUUU”—whose dozen or so remixes include such major names as Nicki Minaj and M.A’s biggest inspiration, 50 Cent—is a testament to the rapper’s fiercely independent spirit. The labels have come calling multiple times, but so far she hasn’t taken the bait. “Fuck seven digits” she proclaims in “Quiet Storm,” her latest music video, followed a few lines later by telling us she has no interest in wearing a skirt: “I tried to be a girly once, but fortunately it didn’t work.” It's refreshingly real, as is her unabashed thirst for women on “HennyNHoes” and this year’s “Summer Story.” She’s matter-of-factly gay, but less interested in waving the rainbow flag than in not living a lie.
All that and more were topics we delved into when we sat recently with the woman at the center of the happiest breakout stories of 2016, Young M.A.
What a year it’s been for you. Can you walk the streets now without being recognized?
Definitely not in Brooklyn, no. And as far as like, in the city, if I’m dipping in and out of places then it’s cool. But eventually if you see me walking down the street, it’s gonna get crazy.
Do you try to wear a hood or anything?
Yeah, yeah. Like in malls and stuff. But it never works. Like, they recognize me right away. I used to think it was just the hair that they recognized, but now it’s my face, just everything.
So tell me about “Quiet Storm,” because the video just dropped a couple of weeks ago. That’s your freestyle from last year’s Sleep Walkin, over a Mobb Deep and Lil Kim track from 1999.
Yeah, a classic. And the reason I wanted to shoot a visual for it is because a lot of people still didn’t hear it, and it was basically summing up everything that was going on right now, this year. It was basically for my supporters that’s been supporting me from day one, they were always asking me, “Can you put out a video for ‘Quiet Storm’?” So that was partly the reason I put it out, for them, and then just to introduce it to new people that’s just getting to know Young M.A. I don’t want them to think that “OOOUUU” is the only thing that I had to bring to the table. Like I was already spitting and trying to make noise, and people was already trying to know who I was before “OOOUUU.” So it was basically to show people this is nothing new.
The lyrics seem to be a statement of independence, kind of saying “this is who I am.”
Definitely, you’re right on the money. Basically it’s just letting people know that I’m still independent, I’m still an unsigned artist, I have my team, I have my marketing tam, and we just been out here moving and working and basically letting people know that I’ve been in the studio, I’ve been doing shows, I’ve had my own fan base and supporters before “OOOUUU.” And then it’s just showing what happened after “OOOUUU” as well, you know, “I’m the hottest in New York, you believe that, Ma?”
I’ve been in the studio, I’ve been doing shows, I’ve had my own fan base and supporters before “OOOUUU.”
You also say, “Fuck seven figures,” suggesting maybe you’re not interested in the biggest record deal possible. Has that complicated your conversations with labels? Do you not feel pressed to do a deal as quickly as possible?
For the past summer I’ve been sitting with so many of the big labels. I’ve had meetings and conversations with big guys. And don’t get me wrong, it was definitely a great experience to sit with labels, because I’ve never experienced that before. And we never went searching for labels neither, you know what I mean? We was just out here working and doing what we had to do, independently.
So when they came about and they wanted to sit down with me, I really didn’t know what to say to them, because we’ve been doing so much independently that I was like, “Well what do you guys have to offer me?” And it wasn’t really nothing that we weren’t already doing. There wasn’t really nothing. I was like, “Yo, we’ve been working all this time, let’s just continue to do this,” and then maybe down the line if it makes sense then we’ll do it. So we’ve still just been moving independently.
For me, “Through the Day” is one of your most memorable tracks.
Yeah, that’s my favorite one, right there. Yeah.
It’s obvious in that lyric what your brother mean to you and what his memory continues to mean to you. He was somewhat into music too, right?
Not really, he just did it really because I did it.
He supported you in your music?
Yeah, you know what I mean, it was like, “You want to get on a track, we’ll get on a track together.” But he really more—he did sports and stuff, but he really wanted to be in the streets a lot. Music wasn’t really his lane. My brother and I always had conversations about me being a rapper. I always used to tell him, “I’m gonna be the hottest rapper.” And we always had talks, he encouraged me to do that. He never discouraged me or put me down about it, he’d give me advice like, “You should say this” or whatever the case may be. And we would always have those talks… and I used to have talks with him about being in the streets. I used to tell him, “Yo, you gotta give this up. This ain’t good.” You know what I mean? “You can’t be doing the things you’re doing.”
You’ve said after he passed that there was a chance you could have headed down that other path as well.
Yeah, I started getting in trouble, getting arrested, and stupid things—fighting and having weed on me, just petty stuff that shouldn’t have happened. But it was making my mom look at me different. She was like, “Why are you doing this?” My mom started to look hurt. I was just going through so much after losing my brother that I didn’t know how to express it or handle it. But music always came back to me.
And then there came a point when you decided, “I don’t want to write about fantasy stuff anymore. I would rather be true to myself.” Was that a gradual thing?
It was definitely gradual, because I had to experience the things that I experienced in order to even know or want to do that. I just looked at it like, “I don’t feel like I’m being passionate when I’m making music and speaking about things that are not happening for me, or that’s realistic in my life.” When it’s true I feel like there is more passion behind it. So, once I got to the point where I just felt like I wanted to be honest overall, then it became a little easier for me to express myself. Because I always kept things in as a kid.
Growing up, I never expressed myself to nobody. I never told nobody when something was wrong. My mom even had me going to therapy and stuff like that, to deal with my brother’s death, and I would go here and there, but then I would stop going. And then it just got to a point where I really had to wake up and use music to basically save myself from self-destruction. Because there was times when I thought about suicide, and not even wanting to be here no more. I was hurt. It was a real bad point, but music just kept coming in front of me. It kept coming around, as though it was basically God saying, “You need to get yourself together.”
then it just got to a point where I really had to wake up and use music to basically save myself from self-destruction.
I know you’ve said a bunch of times that you don’t really have any interest in being seen as some sort of LGBT icon.
Yeah, like a label.
And also, it wasn’t so much “coming out” as gay for you as it was just deciding that you didn’t want to live a lie anymore.
Yeah. Just be who I am.
Would you agree that in hip-hop it’s easier for a woman to do that than for a man to do that? Can we agree that that’s true?
I can’t say that, because maybe it just needs to take a little more time. Because at one point it wasn’t easy for me to do it.
So it would be wrong for someone to think, “Oh you could have done that six or seven years ago.”
Nah, that would definitely be wrong.
But it says something about where we’ve come, right? Your music isn't flag-waving, it’s just talking about feelings and females and the desire to have sex in the same way that anyone might talk about sex.
Right, because that’s exactly what I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to wave the flag, and be like, “Look! I’m gay! Da da da.” I just wanted to say, this is my lifestyle. This is what I do. You know what I mean? There’s no need to make it shine and make a show, this is just me. I’m expressing me, that’s all I’m doing. I’m not trying to tell people to go get a dildo or go get a girlfriend, I’m just expressing myself.
I’m not trying to tell people to go get a dildo or go get a girlfriend, I’m just expressing myself.
You’re so refreshingly honest that there must be young people, particularly young women, who hear you and maybe they’re in a similar situation and feel inspired, or they take heart in your honesty. Have you heard from any?
All the time. Every day I get at least ten or more comments from people telling me how much I inspire them. From guys, straight guys, girls, straight girls, it don’t matter. Black, white, Chinese, it don’t matter—I’ve been told by multiple people that I’m very inspiring to them and it makes them want to achieve whatever they can achieve.
Does that make you feel good?
Hell yeah. That’s why I don’t stop. That’s why I keep it going. All the negativity, all the hate, all of that doesn’t phase me. Because I have a purpose. This is my purpose.
This has to be a very different year than any you have experienced. Has the writing changed because of it?
Yeah, I ain’t gonna lie. It’s been a little tricky because so much has been happening so fast. And I been so overwhelmed with everything that’s been going on, and doing shows and not really having time to really sit down and reflect. So like I haven’t even been in the studio as much as I used to be. But I feel like once I get at that point, I get all this out of the way and get in the studio that so much stuff is gonna just come out. It’s gonna be crazy.
Young M.A’s debut album, Herstory, will be out next year.
