Domo Genesis Explains Why Getting Lost for Two Years Helped His Career

Domo Genesis finally released his debut album, Genesis, late last month. While he can breathe a sigh of relief it's out for public consumption, the Inglewood, Calif. rapper has had a long, difficult road to get to this point.

Domo, born Dominique Marquis Cole, has been fighting the underdog fight all his life. Since his debut mixtape, Rolling Papers, dropped in 2010, hip-hop heads have been trying to understand what he's all about. That process has become much easier since the talented 25-year-old, who's also a member of Odd Future, delivered his first solo LP.

When OF exploded onto the scene, the California collective took hip-hop by storm. Their unapologetic, in-your-face attitude was coupled with each members' unique personas. Tyler, The Creator was the leader and wild child with cringe-worthy lyrics and colorful visuals. Earl Sweatshirt was the mysterious prodigy who was shipped to Samoa by his mother because he couldn't stay out of trouble. Frank Ocean was the quiet genius who turned hip-hop and R&B upside down with not only the Nostalgia, Ultra project but also coming out as bisexual. Later down the line, The Internet, a band consisting of Syd Tha Kyd and Matt Martians, along with Jameel Bruner, Patrick Paige II, Christopher Smith and Steve Lacy, started to make a name for themselves.

But as each member carved out their own lane, Domo was quietly trying to find his footing in the music industry. It's been two years since his last project dropped, Under the Influence 2 in 2014, and in those two years, Domo lost his way. But veering off course helped him find himself. Listening to the new album, it's clear that he also found his voice, his purpose in music and is even more comfortable with opening the doors to his personal life.

While in New York City, Domo Genesis sits down with XXL to discuss his debut album, his family, why he isn't a conformist, Odd Future and his love for Kobe Bryant.

XXL: The album is great man. It’s been a long time coming for you. How does it feel that’s finally out?

Domo Genesis: Bro, I was so nervous before this album came out. I get nervous before any time I put a project out because it’s really like putting yourself out on main street 'cause people are going to dissect you. You’re going to get crucified, period, whether it is a good way or bad when you put your art out there. I think it’s unfair for people who are not really too involved in the art themselves to completely dissect you and be like “This is not good.” That’s a separate thing.

Me getting ready to put these projects out, I get super nervous every time. When I put out No Idols with Alchemist I threw up. This time my legs were hella shaky. This is my first album and I’m still fresh and learning how to deal with bad things and good things, but just to see that everybody generally loved it, that shit made me feel incredible because it’s the first album I came and talked about what’s inside, all the pain and all the struggle and all that type of stuff. I never really put that out there and people are interested. That helps me because I just really want to inspire people.

When you first came out until now, what has it been like for you?

I’m blessed to be able to see both. I’m blessed to be able to be in the worst situation possible, before I got with OF or anything, my mom was broke. I was broke, my brother is autistic, my mom was working a job to support both of us and my dad was in jail. We were really poor and I was lucky to be able to come from that and to go with Odd Future and see the mountain tops and go to Paris, Tokyo and go to places and perform for hundreds of thousands of kids and do that. I’m so humbled between the highs and the lows because I’m a complete mixture of them. I don’t want to feel like I’m better than anybody but at the same time I don’t want to be a regular person in this society. I think I’m a complete mesh of both of those things.

You’re interesting because in the beginning there wasn’t a pinpoint narrative of who Domo is compared to Tyler, Earl or Frank. But as time went by, you built your own story. Fans got to know who Domo is. What do you credit that to?

I don’t know. I got a favorite rapper and people that I admire and I always see that the people who strive and the people I admire the most they stayed hungry the whole time. There was not a time when they got comfortable. I came from so far down at the bottom; me even getting to where I am at now, I’m not comfortable yet. I feel like, even on the album I say, “My life story got to be worth somebody time,” 'cause I feel like there’s more for me. There’s a reason that I’m here. I’m meant to inspire people.

It’s crazy for me because I look up to Kobe Bryant a lot. This is last season right now; he did a back-to-back [a few weeks] for no reason. He did not need to play in that game, he needs to try to preserve himself for the final game. But he’s like; I’m going to keep giving a 100 percent until I’m put of here. Like I’m not a 100 percent but I’m going to keep giving you whatever I got left. That’s how I feel. Something inside of me is insatiable, an insatiable hunger.

When I get this stuff, my head doesn’t get so big to the point of “Alright, I’m killing it.” It gets to the point of “Alright, I’m doing good, there’s more stuff to do now. I’m at this level there’s another level to be climbing up to.” That inside of me, that insatiable hunger is what I want to keep. I seen a lot of people that I admire get comfortable. That’s what inspires me. The fact that I seen the great people get comfortable and I feel like in order to surpass those people that I admire, I got to stay hungry.

You said you talk about things on the album that you never did before. What are those things? What were those tough things?

Really talking about my mom and her struggle with raising two kids. I never spoke about it before. My brother has autism. My mother took care of two kids, one is autistic and my dad was in jail. I was pretty much raised by my uncle who just got in jail last year after having a 1-year-old kid, which left me in an awkward spot because now I’m like the man in the house. I have an older cousin, he’s in college away and I have all younger cousins.

They love what I do so I try to lead by example. So me being thrust into being the man of the family that was big to me. If you listen to my old projects, I’m just rappin’. This one is really heartfelt. I talk about my family, I talk about being lost. I have openly admitted that I didn’t know what I was doing. There was a point of time for two years where I was just out of the studio because I was dealing with other stuff.

Shit, I had my uncle pass, my aunt just pass, I had a lot going on at one time and it just shut me out from the studio, where I was just really just sipping lean, smoking weed and just being counterproductive. My uncle getting ready to go to jail, he’s telling me “Yo, dude you’re about to become the man of the family. All your little nephews and cousins, they all lookin’ up.” Instead of me running away from that I embraced it all and wanted to talk about it.

This is always a hard question, but what are some of your favorite tracks on Genesis?

“One Below” is like my favorite song on there. 'Cause I felt like a mother bird giving a chick away to fly away. That's how my mom was in the beginning of that. She set it up so crazy for me. That’s like the first song I really open up on the whole album. She set it off to the races and I took that and ran with it. That song means a lot to me. When I first heard my mom talk back, 'cause I wasn’t in the room 'cause I wanted to hear it fresh. So when I heard her talk back on it, I almost cried. It was too good for me. That’s one of the ones that were really deep. Another one is my uncle actually being on “Questions” from jail. It was really heavy for me. I played it back for him and he cried. Those are really heavy when I listen to them. Like when I spin the album in rotation sometimes I don’t even listen to those.

Technically, your rapping skills are so much improved. How do you actually get better with your rapping. Is it repetition?

It's more than just keep on rappin’ because there’s people out there that keep on rappin’ and they never say shit. I just think, I studied, my favorite rapper is Nas. I think he’s the greatest lyricist of all-time. I studied people, I studied what made people great, I studied what the fans like, the technicalities and assess it with what I already did and how I performed and I was like if I can set a different standard and work towards getting my pockets better. It was really a bunch of studying and sitting back and learning the game. I took the time just to do that for sure.

What do you think helped you make your transition after Odd Future parted ways?

First of all with the whole disbandment thing, everybody wrote Odd Future off after that like “They’re not a thing anymore. The only thing that came out of there is Tyler, Earl and The Internet.” That makes me feel uncomfortable because I felt like I had a valuable voice. I felt like I had a valuable viewpoint, and a valuable thing to say and for people to write me off when I’m striving to be better at this, that made me really uncomfortable. A lot of that has to do with the reason why there’s so much passion behind the raps and the ability to rap.

That’s where that comes from because getting wrote off, in a sense some people give up. But getting wrote off to me or people looking away from you and just saying you’re just one of them. That drives me. It irritates me for people to not realize that I have a gift and I know I do have a gift. I know to a certain extent that I’m out here doing my shit and again if you don’t like it you got to respect the work that I’m putting into it.

The album title is Genesis; this is your proper introduction into the world. What was something you want a general music consumer to learn from this album?

I just want people to get a little more familiar with me and the message I’m trying to get across, which is I got so lost in the process in getting ready to make this album that I end up finding out what I wanted to be and who I wanted to be and what my viewpoint was. People always get to the point where it’s "I’m lost," but bro that’s the most perfect time. You’re going to find yourself in being lost. I got so lost and so away from the studio for two years that I realized what I’m supposed to be doing.

Just don’t go get lost but if you’re all lost, wander around until you find that. That’s why the song “Wander” is on that; it all means something. I wanted to make a cohesive album that comes together and got points across. Even on the album, you “Wander” into “Questions.” It all means something. It was strategically placed there.

What did you do when you were lost? What did you discover about yourself?

I discovered myself running from shit instead of confronting shit, like I‘ve been my whole life. Sippin’ lean was not something that I did, it’s not something that I thought was cool back in the day, it was a way to get my mind off of what’s really going on around me. To see myself submitting to something like that or becoming something I wasn’t really believing, I hurt my own feelings like that.

Like what am I becoming? I’m becoming soft, I’m conforming. I’m not a dude that conforms to anything. Even if look at the old OF days when they was saying "666," you won’t catch me saying that, you won’t find me saying that because that’s not what I believed in. At the same time, they are my family and my bros but I’m not a conformist. I’m not going to conform just because it’s poppin’. That’s what y’all doing, that’s what y’all doing. I got love for y’all but I got a different viewpoint. I’m in a group of different people but I’m also the only one really from the hood. I got a different story to tell from everyone else, that’s why I got to tell me story.

What’s your favorite moment while making the album?

It’s a couple of good ones. Meeting Anderson [.Paak] while making “Dapper” was cool cause it happened day of. He tweeted me and I tweeted him back and he came to the studio. That was a really tight one. There was a lot of great moments. Rocking with a live band, at my grandma house we listened to oldies, me playing with a band and my pops hearing it. He was like “You on some old Jimi Hendrix shit.” I’m like “Yeah pops that’s what I’m on” [laughs].

So what’s next for you?

I just want it to live a little bit and whatever comes along with this right now so that I can be able to bounce back and write off of experience. I want to go on this tour first, get my first headlining tour out the way and just grow a little but more so I can be able to write about things. So I can show you what happened and the progress for everything. I just don’t want to just aimlessly rap anymore. And I know all my projects from now on will have that soul vibe. I love it. That’s what I grew up on. I grew up in a house where I couldn’t listen to rap. I just want all my projects to feel good now and to give people inspiration. I feel like I’m setting that standard for the kids.

So I have to ask the mandatory how is Odd Future doing these days question?

[Laughs] We just did a show for my release party and it was dope. Everybody came out; it was all love, still family. They got the Babylon store on Hollywood Blvd., we still hang out, it’s all love. It hasn’t changed. It might’ve changed in the public perception but I’m sitting here but Tyler and them still my bros at home. When I go home I still hit them like “What you on? Everything good?” I still care about what they doing like any other friends.

What’s the toughest thing about being in the collective?

I think the toughest thing is people not want you to change. People wanting you to stay the same forever, stay the same image of us saying, "Fuck everything," jumping around and destroying shit. The toughest thing about that is that people want to push you in that box and if you not that anymore you’re contradicting yourself and they not fucking with you. Reality, when you look at yourself, the people making those judgments, you’re not the same person after five years and if you are you’re not getting anywhere. In order to become something, in order to change to get to the next level, you got to grow. The hardest thing about that are people putting you in a box and you not wanting to live in that box.

You said you're a huge Kobe fan. Have you met him?

No, kinda, not really though. It wasn't on some, I'm Doms, I'm Kobe. But I met Derek Fisher and Kobe was standing next to him but I was too nervous to be like, "Yo, what's up Kobe? I'm a big can" 'cause I heard Kobe is an asshole. 'Cause if he dissed me I'm not going to fuck with him no more. But I love him so much I'm not going to be put in a position to get dissed [laughs]. I just want to think of Kobe on a good note.

What's your favorite Kobe moment?

That game against Portland, I cannot remember the year but he hit two wild threes to win the joint. He hit one, gave the dude the shoulder and went around him, splashed it. And then he did an inbound shot in between two people, they slapped his hand and it went in all net. That's probably one of the illest moments ever. Then that alley-oop to Shaq for the win. It's a bunch though. I got a bunch. I remember he was over by the Suns bench and he hit the three and patted Alvin Gentry on the butt. I was like, oh he's hard for that.

Where do you see Kobe ranked in all-time?

It makes me sad because people put like 16. How do you honestly believe there was 15 people better than Kobe Bryant? What world were there 15 people better than Kobe? I'm biased 'cause I'm from L.A. and I grew up and saw him and since I was watching the Lakers he was on there. That's why this is so sad for me. To me, I'ma say two. [Michael] Jordan's the greatest. You can't even argue that. Kobe is a strong two to me.

Kobe with the afro wearing number 8 or Kobe with the short cut wearing number 24? Who do you prefer?

They going to have to retire both. He got to get the first player with two jerseys. Have you seen his stats? They are identical. The difference is off by like one point or something like that. [I prefer Kobe] with the 'fro because he was jumping out the gym [laughs].

See 40 Hip-Hop Albums Turning 20 in 2016