Nearly a year removed from the mixtape that garnered him attention last August, Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins sat down with Complex at SXSW and opened up about his progress as an artist, where he thinks Hip Hop as a whole stands, and what it was like when Timbaland reached out and complimented his music.
Speaking about the culture as a whole, Jenkins hinted that he wants to position himself counter to the type of “unfulfilling” music he sees running rampant.
“I just feel like there’s so much of an influx of terrible music—I won’t say terrible, just unfulfilling,” he said. “That’s just an honest opinion. Why is it crazy that I did a conceptual album? I think it’s crazier that people are doing albums with no concept. It’s actually amazing that people aren’t doing these things. It’s actually amazing that we’ve allowed just a loop and 16 bars to be diluted to that point, to win a Grammy.”
Still, Jenkins said he finds hope in a string of younger artists’ success.
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“On a wide-scale I think the state of the game is on an uprising,” he said. “With an artist Kendrick and Cole being at the forefront of it and dropping music that has something to say, it’s putting things in peoples’ heads about what is good music. I think it’s really cool to see both of those albums do very well, it kinda gives some hope to the way Hip Hop is moving.”
As for getting a personal line to Timbaland after the producer heard his music, Jenkins admitted that the connection hasn’t yielded any music yet but cherished the praise all the same.
“It was just crazy,” he said. “It just shows the scope of where the music is going. I think that’s the craziest thing, that’s one of the greatest producers of all time hitting my line like, ‘Yo, the tone in your voice. You got something.’ He really took his time to listen and pick out what he likes, rather than like, ‘Yo, this is dope.'”
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