Fat Nick Wants His ‘Generation Numb’ Album to Take His Career to the Next Level

With millions of YouTube views and a legion of loyal fans, Fat Nick is living his best life. That's a vibe that permeates the bulk of his latest release, Generation Numb, a celebratory effort filled with confident flexes and the South Florida rapper's easygoing sensibilities.

Those vibes get a high-definition broadcast in the new video for his Blackbear-featuring single, "Ice Out." In the visual, Nick takes on the role of a young woman celebrating her 15th birthday with a quinceañera. Covered in luminescent pink lights and tattoos, the visual gives off the sense that Nick was more interested in being celebrated like royalty than being ironic. That's Nick in a nutshell.

Since bursting onto the scene with his Buffet Boys mixtape nearly five years ago, this charismatic, endearingly goofy rhymer has kept his fans entertained with a sense of humor, sincerity and, of course, his own knack infusing for all of those things with his music. All of those elements have brought him to this point, but now, he's setting his aim even higher.

"I was just like, 'Yo Nick, now that you've got a solid foundation, and like everything is bigger and better than ever, I'm going to put everything into it so I can take it to the next level,'" Nick tells XXL of his mind state while recording this LP. "I'm like, 'This is it. This is the project that's gonna take me to the next step that I've been waiting for.' So I just gave it everything."

Speaking with XXL, Nick discusses his hilarious "Ice Out" video, Generation Numb, his methods for dealing with depression, the popularity of South Florida hip-hop and more.

XXL: Your album title hints at numbness and the idea of not feeling anything, but the content itself feels celebratory. How does your title apply to the content on your new LP?

Fat Nick: When you hear it you gon’ be like, “Oh, I feel you.” So lyric-wise, production-wise, everything. You’ll hear it.

What was your favorite song to record for this project?

I really like the first song—it's called "Swipe Swipe," just because of the whole concept of the song. Or the song I did with Blackbear ["Ice Out"]. I was like, "Yo, this shit is fucking awesome." So I had fun recording every goddamn song, but it's just, in particular, those two songs.

The video for "Ice Out" is hilarious. How'd you come up with the idea to give yourself a quinceañera?

We were supposed to do a whole other video, right? Last minute, shit fucked up and we couldn't do it. Like, it went to shit. So it's me and my creative director. We were just thinking like, "You've been doing this princess shit, you feel pretty." I was like, "Quinceañera. Like, no one knows I'm fucking Latino." You feel me? It's more like a culture thing, too. It's like, "Yo, I feel pretty. I'm a princess let's run a quinceañera."

A couple months ago you tweeted about always being down for the "misguided" and the "fuck ups" and the "kid who won't take off his shirt." How do you still you relate to the underdogs of the world even as you've become a full-blown rap star?

No matter what amount of money or jewelry I get, I still [live] that shit every day. That's not something that you just get up and get out of, you feel me? You're stuck with that forever. So that depression, that anxiety, all of that, that's with you forever. So no matter what, I always walk in those shoes with everyone else.

Right. You walk in those shoes now, but it's safe to say you're no longer the kid that's afraid to take your shirt off...

When I was growing up in high school, obviously I was shy, kind of insecure. And you kind of grow with it and take your biggest "flaws" that society thinks are flaws, and you turn them to your biggest and best characteristics.

What were your biggest "flaws" and how were you able to make them positives?

Once again, "society" says, "Oh, he's fat. Ahh, his teeth are fucked up." Hell yeah. So I'ma take off my shirt, and I still look good, my teeth still look fucked up, I put diamonds on them shits and I just look lit. The more you accept yourself and feel better, people are gonna do it to you like, "Damn, why you so happy, why you so lit?" You just gotta accept yourself first and those "flaws" and everyone's gonna be like, "Oh shit, it's fucking lit."

In the past you've spoken on bouts with depression. How are you dealing with it these days?

Honestly like, sometimes you'll wake up [and] you'll feel good [or] you'll feel like shit. It's just like during random times of day you'll just break down. I'll be happy, then all the sudden, I'll break down and cry and be like, "What the fuck is going on," and your anxiety will skyrocket. For depression, what I do—I just cry it out. I'll cry it out, and I'll be good like an hour after. I just talk to friends. If my anxiety is skyrocketing, I will text someone and be like, "Yo, help me out for a little bit. Just talk to me, calm me down." That's how I learned to cope with it.

Between you, Pouya, Ski Mask The Slump God, Wifisfuneral and others, South Florida is really killing it right now. What do you think it is about this movement that makes it so popular?

I just think no one's afraid to do what they want to do, feel me? Everyone from the South Florida movement is gonna do what they want, when they want and it's gonna work how they want. I feel like that hasn't really been done before—especially with the youth. South Florida definitely has the youth on its back; everyone loves it.

You and Pouya came up together, but you're sort of doing your own thing at the moment. Do you guys have anything new in the stash?

Not at the moment, but we always work on some shit. We're definitely working on some shit. We don't have anything now, but we definitely have some shit.

Do you ever find that people ever try to take advantage of your love fun-loving persona?

Everyone has haters and everyone has lovers. If you have more lovers than haters, then you're on the winning side—and I'm on the winning side, so it's lit.

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