Maino Interview

Maino Photo: Ruvan

Brooklyn rapper Maino (Flash, Aug/Sep ‘08) served a decade behind bars and, upon his release, caused a stir with his mixtape cut “Rumors.” If you haven’t yet heard Maino’s summer hit “Hi Haters,” you probably live under a rock. But that’s just the preview. The main act is an autobiographical full-length, If Tomorrow Comes… (Hustle Hard/Atlantic). Here, Maino talks about his sordid past and what it feels like when someone starts a rumor about you.

GIANT: How did you discover hip-hop as a creative outlet?

I was in prison. I spent a very long time in prison. It was under those circumstances that I started writing out of boredom. I was getting into trouble in prison. They got regular jail, and when you get in trouble, they got “the box,” “the hole,” whatever you want to call it. And they put you in there for twenty-three hours a day. You come out for like an hour every day to go to a cage outside. It was under those circumstances that I started writing just to pass the time. You couldn’t do too much. This was around the time that [The Notorious] B.I.G. was out and his whole movement was flourishing. Him coming from the same area of Brooklyn that I came from, I kinda identified with that. When I saw that happen, I was like, “Wow, maybe I could do that.”

While you were locked up, how in tune were you to what was going on outside in the hip-hop world?

While I was still in there, I studied the game as best as possible. I used to read every article I could possibly read-not just on rappers but on the business. I started to understand that it’s a business. I had to prepare myself for something that I wasn’t previously versed in.

What were you doing before you went in?

Crime. Plenty.

How was that a part of your life?

I grew up definitely on the wrong side of the tracks. It is what it is. I don’t really make excuses for it because my past has helped me become who I am today. Had I not lived the way I lived, I more than likely wouldn’t be here. You know how they say that you go through hell to get to heaven sometimes? Had I not been through the things I’ve been through and experienced certain things I experienced, I would have probably never even thought about rapping.

Your album’s called If Tomorrow Comes… What’s the title’s significance?

Tomorrow isn’t promised to me or you. But if tomorrow comes, you want to make it better, don’t you? You want to make it better than your yesterday, right?

My initial reaction is that the title is pretty bleak, but then I sense a bit of hope, as well.

It is hope. That actually was a book by Sidney Sheldon: If Tomorrow Comes. And that was what the story was about. It was about a female named Tracy. She got framed and put in jail. She made a promise to herself that if tomorrow came, she’d pay everybody back. If tomorrow came, she’d be in a better position. I read that book when I was locked up. And I applied that to me. If tomorrow comes, I’m gonna get out of here. And if tomorrow comes, I’m gonna win.

What’s the vibe of the record?

It’s autobiographical. It tells the story of me coming out of prison after doing so many years and trying to make the transition into being a rapper. It’s a true story because I came home after doing ten years in prison and had this dream. That transition was one of the hardest things for me to do, to go from being a street dude to now trying to incorporate that into music and to get people to look at me as a serious artist and to really garner enough attention. A lot of times, I wanted to give up. A lot of times I was like, “Fuck this shit. I’ll go back to the street.” During that time I had a son. I went through a lot of stuff. Parole. Trials and tribulations. On my album, I detail that whole portion of my life.

What’s your favorite song on the record?

One of my favorites is a song called “Floatin’.” It’s not even so much about me, but about people that I’ve lost and certain situations in the street, losing friends, the violence in the street, seeing a lil’ homey whose mother is paralyzed, me coming to the hospital, knowing this lady, and she can’t walk no more. It just bugs me out. I can’t even understand. So I just put all that into a song. It means something to me because it’s so true.

Sounds deep. Is that the tone for the whole record?

I lighten it up a little bit.

The single’s a bit lighter, yeah.

Hi Hater! You gotta understand there’s all different kinds of sides to us as people. Sometimes we sad. Sometimes we happy. Sometimes we don’t feel like being bothered. I try to convey those emotions into my music. You can’t make an album full of depressing things. You can’t make an album full of happy things. You can’t make an album full of the club tracks. That’s not realistic.

Your jump-off point was the song “Rumors,” on which you said rumors about nearly everyone in hip-hop. Why call people out?

At the time I made “Rumors,” I was under a whole different… That was a totally different time. You gotta understand that I just came home. I was thirsty to be seen and heard, not to say I wouldn’t do a song like that again.

Isn’t “Hi Hater” in a similar vein?

I can’t really say they’re the same because I was so direct [with "Rumors"]. I was on mixtapes, and I would go to the mixtape store and read my name on the mixtape and be like, “Damn, what about a person that don’t know Maino? What is gonna make him want to play number seventeen? He’s gonna skip over me.” So I needed to separate myself from all these people, from all these dudes on the mixtapes rapping about the same things: shoot this, sell that. I said, “I’m gonna talk about all the rumors in the industry.” It’s not that I said it. That’s just what I heard. You heard the same things I heard. It was clever.

Did it start any beef?

Not any beef that I know about. If somebody’s beefin’ to my back, then I guess it’s really not beef.

What’s the craziest rumor you’ve heard about yourself?

Wow. The craziest rumor I heard about myself was… Ah, man that’s hard. I heard I got beat up by Dipset a couple years ago.

What happens when you hear that? What if someone puts it in a song?

Nah, that never was in a song. If somebody puts that in a song, I’m gonna have to deal with that in a whole ‘nother way. That’s just something I had heard a couple years ago. I was just like, “Wow. Is that so?”

Does hearing something like that make you regret doing a song like “Rumors”?

I don’t regret anything. I try not to. If it was time to do that over again, I would do that over again. Maybe I would have put a little more rumors in there. No, I don’t regret that. I have tough skin, so it takes a lot to get me bothered.

What do you know now that you wish you had known before you were locked up?

That there’s no easy way to anything, no matter what it is. We grow up thinking we can get the shortcuts to everything, thinking that if I just do this then maybe I’ll be prosperous. It’s really not that simple. Nothing is. The streets is not that simple. The music is not that simple. Nothing is that simple.