In 2013, it's possible for a thugged-out, goon-turned-rap artist to coexist with someone like Hoodie Allen. Originally hailing from Long Island, New York, the 24-year-old received excellent elementary and intermediate education, excelled at one of the nation's top universities, and worked at the world-famous Google before he embarked on a full-time rap career. This indie talent, with sing-song hooks, catchy punchlines, and clean-cut image, has garnered a solid fan base that's more real than most artists signed to major imprints. Strictly through touring and social media (Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube), Hoodie Allen's official debut, All American, was able to land at number 10 on Billboard charts, selling nearly 90,000 copies to date. And his numbers continue to grow, as YouTube views pile up, merchandise sells out, and show venues get bigger. Just admit it suburbanite Wu-Tang fan, your sister and girlfriend love Hoodie. You're just hating 'cause he's getting it. —Jaeki Cho (@JaekiCho)

Tell me how you started rapping.

I'd come home after school and I'd stay with my folks when they were working. I would write these songs. I listened to everything that was coming out of Rawkus Records and even like Atmosphere. I started out super underground, backpack shit. I would try to fit as many syllables as possible and use as big of words as possible. I really grew up doing hip-hop pre-YouTube. The rapmusic.com, I was on those boards, getting feedback, all that shit. I was like 13 or 14 making my first songs. I didn't show it to anyone, it was just for me and it was very personal. It sucked. It's hidden online somewhere, but under a different name. That was my background and I loved doing that.

What did your friends think?

They're my friends, right? So, they loved it, and it's the hottest shit ever to them. At the time, being a white rapper wasn't cool. It wasn't saturated, so it wasn't like there were five of us sitting around the lunch table freestyling. No, it was me, and maybe a few other kids on Long Island. We'd go play like stupid shows and open up for Collie Buddz.

Tell me about your childhood.

My whole family is from New York City, and we moved out to Long Island when I was born. I have a weird background. Before high school I went to school with like 10 other kids in my grade. It was like a gifted program sort of thing. It was very diverse. I was the only Jewish kid there, it was every background and just really, really smart kids, really challenging.

How were you like in high school?

Because of that school, I was always in classes with kids who were older than me. So I was like the 15-year old with all the 17-year old kids. Not great for the game. The girls view you as their little brother; all the dudes are bigger than you—not the ideal situation. It was one of those things where I had to work harder to make friends. That's why I played football and soccer in school. School was easy, so I was always trying to be involved doing other stuff, like music and sports and clubs and all that jazz. But, I definitely wasn't a cool kid. I was already an outcast coming in from this other school.

So, you were two years ahead of everybody?

Basically, I was done with high school in three years. This is a weird story. They were like, "Why don't you just graduate?" And I was like, "Why don't I just stay around a year and hang out and not jump into college and shit?" So, I stayed around, and that was one of my big years. That's the year I made my first mixtape. I was hanging out with friends who were the complete opposite of me—the kids who’d skip class, go smoke in the parking lot, go get bagels during the day, and loiter around the lunchroom. I didn't have any class so I could just be with them and kick it, but I was definitely not a badass. I was just following their badass tendencies.

You went to an Ivy League school (University of Pennsylvania), and you were part of the prestigious Wharton School. What kind of aspirations did you have?

Truly, my aspirations were always music. The education was something I was going to do regardless. It was great and I loved being there.

Did you have pushy parents who wanted you to become an investment banker?

Well, that's where most of my friends are now from school, but I had parents who were like, "Whatever you want to do, I'll support you, but you better fucking graduate. You better get that degree." So, that was our agreement from day one. As things went on in school, management companies were coming up to me saying I should drop out, and they're going to be putting me on the road, but at the time I'm like, "That sounds great, let me do that," but my parents were like, "You're not doing that." I wanted to do it, and it was frustrating. If I don't do it now I'm going to be old as fuck and nobody's going to care. But the truth is, once I finished, things started popping off. Everything happens for a reason.

Were you in school with very money-oriented guys?

It was tough, man. Those people, I just didn't fuck with. I stayed away from them, but they do exist. What you realize when you get to a school like that is that the hardest part is getting into it, really. Once you're there, you can become who you want to be and you have time to explore what you want to do. I would take the bus from Philly to New York to go record in some fucking bedroom in Brooklyn. I missed out on a lot of partying and all that shit. I think it's so funny when people just naturally assume and put a tag on it like, "This is frat, this is college," 'cause I was avoiding parties to go work on music. You can't just be drinking and accidentally writing a song. Maybe some people can, but I can't.

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Did you have projects out when you were in school?

The first thing I put out while I was in school was called The Bagels and Beats EP. That was when I was doing albums as a group. If you're in a group with someone, you better feel like that other person is bumping our music and loving it. I loved it, but it wasn't really his style. Eventually he stopped producing, and I was like, "I want to take this, so is it cool if I just rebrand this and make it my own?” At the time, we had a little bit of love on MySpace, had like 4,000 fans on Facebook. We put out two projects together, Bagels and Beats and Making Waves. But, I went back and did it all myself. I started to reach out to my friends at school. That's kind of how I met this kid, RJ Ferguson, who used to be my DJ. RJ's my dude that I go to. We're flying out, doing shows together, but I knew how difficult it was to be in a group. We were never going to be like a group, but he's like the co-captain. The first song we made was a song called "You Are Not A Robot," which was like the first time I had a song cross over into the Internet world, fucking every blog posting it, popping off on YouTube and getting like 1 million views.

What do you think, personally, makes your music stand out compared to other indie acts? What makes you think your music or formula makes it more reachable to a bigger audience?

At the core of it, I'm a songwriter. I put hooks, a real emphasis on that. I'm not just trying to write raps and sloppily put them together. I think that itself lends to an audience that is a casting a wider net. I put a lot of my own personality into the raps, and it might not be for everybody, but I found that there is a big segment of audience. I'm very intertwined with what's current, what's popular, trying to be funny, light, witty, wordplay. It was something really positive and upbeat but catchy, clever, slick. It had depth to it. If you listen and listen and listen, you're like, "Oh, I didn't catch that reference before and now I get it." I always wanted to make things that are easy to listen to, but once you really sunk into it, there’s a lot there.

After you graduated, you started working for Google. How did that happen?

They came on campus. It was my senior year. I wasn’t going to skip an interview with Google. I was like, "This is a cool-ass company, and I would love to work here." I was lucky, and I literally think I got the job because of the music stuff, which is the craziest thing. I place a real big emphasis on social media and outside of the music I kept the fans because I've talked to like one out of two fans on a personal level. Tweet, Facebook, in-person, you know I'm all over it. I let them know about that. I explained that this is what I do and this is how I think about it.

When you made that decision, did you think you were going to continue on with your music career?

Nah, I kind of knew I was a goner, man. I moved in August. The week that I got there, I got a call from Universal Republic and Sony ATV and they were like, "Yo, we love ‘Robot’ and we love what you're putting out. Come see us." I was on the next flight out to New York. I called my dad and told him these were record labels and they liked what I was doing, so it wasn't just on the Internet, it was real. He was like, "Oh, shit." It didn't go anywhere, but at the time you're like gassed up. The whole time I was at Google, all I needed was a record deal to leave.

Why did you think the deal didn't come?

I'm lucky I didn't get signed in 2011. I did couple showcases and I think I was just too nervous, man. Now, I play shows all across the country, and the rooms keep getting bigger and I know how to work an audience. At the time, there were people sitting around a desk and I didn't know what to do. Was I supposed to be crazy and jump up on this desk, or am I supposed to just focus on the performance? I didn't want to blow it, so, I blew it. Not everyone in the room was a believer, and still to this day, some people just aren't going to get into certain types of rap music.

If anything, I think that it has the biggest mass appeal.

The fact that I'm able to do what I do and it's really a career, I'm good. I don't care right about signing a deal. That's like the furthest thing from my mind. For me, it's how do I get more fans? That's really what keeps you going at the end of the day. That's what keeps you allowed to do it as your life. I don't need to be on the radio right now, it's cool.

So, what made you decide to leave Google?

Well, I was passing up a lot of money and shows because I was in San Francisco. I was acting like it was okay to be late to work and shit, and the fact were, my head wasn't in it. My head was on Twitter, and on the blogs, and growing and networking. I remember it was a December break and I played four sold-out shows in New York, Boston, Rochester, and Philly. So, I went to [Google] and I explained to them what's going on. They were like, "Cool, take six months, and if it doesn't work out, come back. If it does work out, see you when you play in San Francisco," and that's what we did. When I come to San Francisco, they're there. There will be like 60 people deep from Google.

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So, since you left, what did you embark on? I'm sure you have a team now.

Actually, I'm my own manager. The biggest part of my team is Cara Lewis at CAA. She's my agent and she has been basically for two years. She took me on when nobody really cared. She liked me, and she saw potential. She put me on shows with B.o.B and Cee-Lo. I was like, "This is nice, and this is good." My booking rate just doubled 'cause I was with Cara Lewis. Now, I'm actually paying her back, selling out shows and shit.

Is that your main bread and butter right now? Shows?

Well, it was, until All American. All American was the first time I ever put anything on sale. Everything had been free mixtapes, singles, and when I put All American on sale, it did way better than we thought.

It was number 10 on the Billboard charts, right?

It was number 10, and we did 30,000 units first week.

How do you think that came about?

What I do, and my connection with [my fans], it's real. You can't really fake the amount of time I've put in with them, in terms of their desire to spend money on my EP even though it's the only shit they've ever spent money on. It's sort of the same thing as I'm sure Macklemore experienced, you know? People really appreciate that this artist exists and they're part of their life and they want to make them get acknowledged and recognized. In my opinion, the reason why that whole thing took off was that fans immediately bought it and it hit number one and iTunes was like, "What is this? Let's feature this.” Enough people liked it and became new fans from there. It just grows. I'm up to 80,000 albums now, which is a lot, considering I have roughly 250,000 real fans.

Tell me about Crew Cuts.

It's my giving back project. It's the first project I've done that has a lot of features. Most of my mixtapes are completely myself for 12 songs. This has my homies I've always wanted to work with and new producers. The reason I call it Crew Cuts is because it wouldn't have been possible without the whole crew coming together. Same thing goes for the fans. Without them it wouldn't be possible. It's a project to say thank you for buying my last shit. Here's a free album. That's like the hip-hop model, man. If you abandon that, then you're a pop artist. And if you're only doing that, then you're a mixtape artist. It's good to be able to do both. I'm glad that people will buy my shit and I'm glad that people will download my shit for free, too.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's been a huge spawn of YouTube rap stars. You guys have utilized social media more so than mainstream industry artists and were able to succeed without the support of major labels. Where do you see this going?

I think that major labels think that there's a ceiling on what we do. If you come from this, you can do pretty well and make a career for yourself, but there's like a glass ceiling. Truly, Macklemore just broke through it, he just kind of said, "Nah, that's not true and I'm going to have the number one song in the country right now." Seeing that helped me refocus and know that what I'm doing is right. There isn't a ceiling. You can take it as far as you want and that's why I'm so committed to being the next person that will have that number one album independently in the country. It's there for the taking, it exists and it's possible. It seems like every time it happens, people are still surprised, which is funny. It's grassroots meets social media where there's really these rabid people out there who love you and if they're loud enough, if the music's good, they’ll catch on. I think it's only going to continue. They're sort of two different worlds. They coexist now.

Your music has mass appeal. I could hear your music on the radio, targeting the "golden audience," also known as the 12 though 16-year-old Caucasian girls from the suburbs.

I hope so. They show up to the concerts. It's there. It exists, but at the same time, there are some barriers.

What would you say those barriers are?

If you're working with an independent radio team, radio's in line with major label staff. That's whom they do business with and that's whom they know. It's always an uphill battle, but there are so many people who have done it. When Drake was starting out, those songs that broke through, he kind of did that independently. Everyone was talking about it so much that off the strength of that, he was able to make it happen. So, it exists. That's my motivation.

I guess your song content, like you said, is very relatable because it's shit that probably, most of the real rap audience actually lives through.

I know for a lot of people that rap is supposed to be very fantastical and it's supposed to be about something that you're not living, which is cool, but for me, I've just decided to do something that's more true for me. It's the only way I know how to do it. There's an audience for it. There's definitely people who fuck with it and relate to it and get it. I think both coexist.

Your videos are very well put together without any major label funding. Where does the money come from?

At first, I was just reinvesting the show money I made. Now, what I'm doing is like a business. I'm doing shows, I have merchandise, and iTunes. When I made my first big video, "The Chase is On," I put all the money that I had, like $10,000 to make the mixtape. I was like, if it doesn't work, I'll have to figure something out, but if it does work, and it did, it will pay itself off in time. That's always been my mentality. If you believe in something, you just kind of have to invest in it yourself and go for it. Instead of making a shitty $1,000 video or whatever, just go for it. People notice. Perception is reality.

How important is it for an indie artist to have a great visual?

That's how indie artists become major artists. That's how A$AP Rocky became A$AP Rocky. Those videos show culture, they show who he is. Macklemore's videos are great, Mac Miller too. Nowadays, I think videos are really the most important content you could put out. It's so easily shareable. People like watching videos and it gives the song another life. If your videos are shit, you need to reevaluate what you're putting an emphasis on.

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