Mick Jenkins Wants to Expand His Sound With His New EP

Last August, Mick Jenkins released his latest mixtape The Water[s], a cohesive, electronic-tinged conceptual project that opened the eyes of many new fans outside of his home base of Chicago. (Born in Alabama, Jenkins moved to Chi-Town in 2000.) In the eight months since, he's gone from a locally-buzzing rapper to an MC signed to Cinematic Music Group who has opened for the likes of Method Man and Redman on November's Smoker's Club Tour, completed his first co-headlining tour with Pro Era's Kirk Knight and emerged from SXSW as an artist to watch in the coming year. Jenkins' intense lyricism and fearless penchant for tackling tough issues in his songs made him stand out from a crowd of MCs that too often can run in the same lane.

Last week, Jenkins announced that his next project would be a 10-track EP called Wave[s], due out in early May, and unleashed a new Lee Bannon-produced track called "Alchemy." The cut is a departure from the reverb-soaked grooves of The Water[s] and instead ventures more into a carefree vibe, something he said during a recent visit to the XXL was a conscious move that will extend throughout the EP. It's a departure from the intellectually stimulating lyricism that defined recent loose cuts like "11," a direct reference to the number of times Eric Garner gasped "I can't breathe" to police officers before he was choked to death by an NYPD officer last July. It's a calculated decision; as Jenkins begins work on his debut album for Cinematic, which he's titled The Healing Component, he's looking to expand his fan base and broaden his sound, trying different things to avoid being packaged as a concept or conscious rapper.

Wave[s] is almost entirely produced by four-piece Chicago collective THEMpeople, who have been making noise with their work with Chance The Rapper, Vic Mensa and SaveMoney in recent years, with assists from Bannon and Montreal-born electronic producer Kaytranada. Mick Jenkins stopped through the XXL offices this month to play his new EP and talk about his new direction, his creative process and why he puts an extra emphasis on the word "album" than most. —Dan Rys

XXL: How do you feel about this new project? You said you were getting into a bit of an intense headspace and wanted to take a step back from the type of songwriting like on a track like "11," right?
Mick Jenkins: Definitely. In general I feel really good about it. I think it definitely displays a range of abilities that people probably didn't even have the consciousness that I could do. I'm interested to see how people are gonna react to it, for sure. I don't know; there's a lot of things that I feel about it, you know what I'm saying? I feel like it's gonna open up my exposure to a different audience, I feel like we'll get some different press. I feel like niggas are gonna hate, I feel like niggas are gonna say I changed my style.

Ain't that always the way, no matter what you do.
[Laughs] For a lot of shit. I don't know, I feel really good about it, though. I wanted another song to put on there, but it's just an EP. It's just supposed to hold people over for the album. So I'm not trying to exhaust too much effort at the same time.

On the first track from the new EP, you mentioned that people tell you you went too hard on the water theme on The Water[s]. Did you want to consciously step away from that?
I think I still talk about it a lot in my songs; it ties into the album—the album will be called The Human Component—it ties into the overall message of the album. It's definitely marketable outside of just the music. So I don't think it's gonna be something that I stop doing, because it is water and it is such a wide range of metaphors that can come from that, I don't feel like I could really run out of material for these two projects. I'm not worried about that as much. But I just felt the need to address it just because I talk about it a lot. [Laughs] I feel like people always got shit to say. Niggas always got some shit to say, you know.

Your recent tour with Kirk Knight was your first national tour outside of The Smoker's Club Tour, right? What did you take away from that?
It was kinda crazy to me. We sold out like 70 percent of the shows and I didn't expect that at all. At all. It was actually really humbling and crazy to see that many people showing up for the meet and greets and selling out [venues] and just generally fucking with me. I didn't expect that; I felt like my reach, my exposure is not only not where it should be, but outside of Chicago it's not as big as we would like to believe. But that just showed me the opposite. I was surprised, for sure.

Do you feel like people finally just got The Water[s]?
I think people were just finally getting the tape. Very shortly after the tape dropped I saw the tape spread in a very organic way. People putting their friends on in whatever social channels or in person, just a real sharing of the music. I thought that was really cool, and I felt like, I don't know, maybe it took all this time for the shit to hit and really start to share again. I'm starting to see the same types of conversations of people putting their friends on again; an influx as opposed to the last couple months. I don't really know what that is or why, I think that just might've been what it was and there's just no other way to know but to tour on my own.

It's interesting to watch how a tape gets out; it could have an instant impact or it can just grow steadily and organically over a period of time.
Yeah. I was actually talking about that; I mean, this is a whole other conversation, but I think as far as how it grows, I think it's just interesting how a J. Cole or a Kendrick or myself or a Big K.R.I.T. will have five projects before anybody knows. And we're talking about some of the best rappers, we didn't find out about them until they were three, four projects in.

Photo Credit: Lawrence Agyei

I feel like in your work you pay a lot of attention to atmosphere in your songs. It almost feels like when you're listening to The Water[s] or this new project, that the listener is stepping into a room where the music is all around you.
And that's what I use to argue against... I just feel like, in the music business, people's opinions are so, like... I don't really care what people think. But all of this is just based off opinion. Fanhood is based off an opinion. So I feel like you just have to address it. That's the number one thing I use to address what I feel like is gonna be, "Oh, you changed your style," is just like, I can't give you my style in one project. Trees & Truths was all over the place, I had all types of instrumentation, there was no real focus and the only thing that kept it cohesive was the fact that there was a concept. But musically... So that was the number one thing I went into with The Water[s], that we gotta make this sound cohesive. And that's just something that I'm gonna continue to do. Every project, whether the sounds are close or complete opposite ends of the spectrum from each other, it'll be a sound, it'll be like a room to step in. Well, that's the attempt; I think it could have been done better with Wave[s], but like I said I didn't wanna exhaust too much effort into that.

But that's definitely something I'm conscious of and that's definitely something I try to do. I just feel like it's necessary to give people a project. I've been working on this project, this sound as well as the concept should try to be the thesis for what you're doing. And there was no concept for this, so it just gave us more room to fine-tune the sound. That's why a lot of these are rough [versions of the songs], because we got Lon [Renzel, aka L Boogie, 1/4 of Chicago production crew THEMpeople] at home right now just going through live instrumentation that he can add to each song and make it more of a production. Like, "The Giver," that shit went into three different places, whereas the piano is a two-minute loop. It's just trying to build piano into what "The Giver" is, that's where we're at right now. It's definitely something I pay a lot of attention to.

How hands-on are you with THEMpeople?
I mean, they do the production, but I'm in there with them, "Let's do this, let's do this, nah, that doesn't work, let's try this," all the time. That's how I work with whoever. I like to be a part of the creation process.

You're very particular with who you're working with. How do you pick who you work with?
Unless I'm a fan of you, it really comes down to if I know you. So for right now it'd usually be Chicago people because these are the people that I know, and they're ill. There's no reason Lon from THEMpeople, he did work on Acid Rap, he did work on Innanetape, Saba's project, Martin $ky—Chicago. He's producing a bunch of shit and he's ill as hell. So where is the need to go out and find other artists and producers when I have theMIND, part of THEMpeople, right there, when I have Lon right there, I have the other guy Sean [Deaux] who sings on the project as a part of THEMpeople; all this talent is readily accessible. So that has a lot to do with the people I choose, and then it's no coincidence that these people are my friends. They are in inner circles, one degree of separation from all of Chicago. So that really makes for a more communal vibe when we're creating.

How did you link with Kaytranada?
[Points to his manager, Jon] He's from Montreal. I was out there; I actually met him randomly in a poutine shop.

That's the most Canadian story I've ever heard.
[Laughs] He was in there sitting down by himself and [Jon] goes, "That's Kaytranada right there," and I was like, "Word?" Literally, in the cut eating poutine. I wanted to go over and we ended up setting up a meeting later in the weekend and we just kept working since then.

So what are you seeing for the next couple months for yourself?
Gonna put this out, got some very crazy videos coming. The "Your Love" joint is gonna be a very big single. Touring. I started working on the album in January. I finished this up, I wanted to get this done so I could start working on the album. But yeah, that's the focus; spot dates, tours, I'm for sure going on tour with Joey Bada$$, supposed to be going out with Mac [Miller], might hop on some Earl [Sweatshirt] shows. I don't know; there's still a lot of year left, people make offers all the time. But I got some collabs in the works. It's really just focusing on the album, for sure. It's gonna be just as conceptual and meticulous as The Water[s]. And it's my debut, you know what I'm sayin'? So I feel like that should be enough to let you know the sort of effort I'm putting into it.

The debut, years in the making after the first four projects. [Laughs] But the debut album is important because there's a lot more weight on it.
I mean, the word album; [Cinematic boss Jonny] Shipes was like, "Why don't you just put a couple more songs on this and call it an album?" And I was like, nah. 'Cause for me, personally, the word album just says a lot about your intent when creating. I couldn't dare call this EP an album just because my intention behind it when I was in the studio and when I was creating was not to make an album, it was to do this EP real quick so that I can have time to make an album. So I feel like it'll just be, for me, the difference is the effort and the energy and the thought and everything I put into it is just expressly different and on a higher level, just because of the word "album."

Filed Under: Editor's Picks, Feature, Mick Jenkins, The Water[s], thempeople, waves

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