Aaron May is a product of an environs that cultivates talent. Nestled miles beyond skyscrapers that feel every bit if they were slingshotted into the Houston atmosphere lies Alief, Texas. Like any piece of middle to lower grade suburbia, there are a million stories and ideas of what Alief represents. Residents call it "The Due west," letting the "West" stretch with an boosted hum.

For Aaron May, it is home, the place where he grew upwardly wanting to hoop but establish his calling rapping. Now, at 17 years old and with millions of plays on his songs and his debut mixtape out, he is building beyond local recognition. Not bad for a teenager who went from making rap videos just to win homecoming king to getting comparisons to J. Cole for his abrupt lyricism and versatile flows.

While we're talking at a Starbucks nigh his childhood dwelling house, a random fan drives by and hollers out of his window, "Yo, Aaron May I fuck with your shit!" It's becoming common for the "Let Go" rapper. "It went from people who used to walk past me in the hallways wanting to accept pictures and get my shorthand now," he says.

Read an interview with the ascent rapper beneath, and listen to Aaron May'southward debut mixtapeChase, out now.


What is the biggest misconception of  your hometown Alief ?
That information technology'due south hood. [Laughs] It's sure parts in Alief that are a little worse than others but there's a diversity of cultures. Y'all know people form different fiscal statuses. You hear from people who live in [nicer suburbs like] The Woodlands or Katy and they'll enquire, "How exercise yous alive in Alief?" But information technology's definitely not similar that.

Maxo Kream's from here. Tobe Nwigwe is from here. What's your Alief experience and then?
Mine? Equally far as musically, I listen to a lot of Maxo. He went to my school [Alief Hastings] for a little flake. But I've always lived in a house. There's a lot of stuff yous get introduced at a immature age, weapons, drugs and that stuff. Just if you got your head on directly, in that location's zippo that pulls yous in like that.

Y'all're about to graduate, correct? When did you lot discover that things were moving?
Once I dropped my first video for "Ride." I did 12K views on my own merely promoting it. I was similar, "Damn, what the hell?" I e'er dreamed of 12K views. My friends who were rappers or whatever, they were like, "Damn, you got that many views bro." They only had like 200 or so. I feel like and so is when I started seeing that I got something different. That information technology'due south not going to go unnoticed.

we all grow up taking some inspiration from somebody, or influence from somebody. My biggest influences were Nas and J. Cole but by the fourth dimension I'm xx? I'll have my ain sound figured out.

Was the reception different at school?
Over fourth dimension information technology's grown. I started putting stuff out my seventh course year, recording little SoundCloud freestyles on my phone and just dropping that. And then people know me from back and so just other people know me from my sophomore year when I started taking it serious. Ever since "Ride" did numbers and then I dropped "Let Go" people been asking to take pictures at school and get autographs. It's weird! I used to walk by these aforementioned people every mean solar day and now they're asking to take pictures with me.

Going viral with "Ride" there were a lot of comparisons to J. Cole. Did that badger y'all?
This is the answer I'll e'er give. When you look at what Cole dropped when he was my age, the first person y'all'll hear is, "Damn, this nigga audio similar Eminem." Then my matter is, J. Cole didn't get-go popping until he was in his 20s, when he was a grown human. He had all this time to establish his sound and grow into who he wanted to be as an artist.  I hateful, nosotros all grow upwards taking some inspiration from somebody, or influence from somebody. My biggest influences were Nas and J. Cole but by the time I'm 20? I'll take my own sound figured out. People will get to see me develop from 16, 17 to 20, 21, 25.

Simply it tin be annoying?
Yes! Simply at the end of the day, I gotta remind myself, I'yard 17 and I'm still growing. I make music every day and in that location are so many things I see in myself that are withal developing. Downwardly the road when it'southward all said and done? J. Cole wouldn't accept been able to exercise that 'cause that's me. That's Aaron May, and I want people to stay for the ride and see that.

No pun intended?
No pun intended. [Laughs]


"The Ride" video and much of Chase has a cohesive community feel. Was that planned?
I like to say "homemade" crusade these are real relationships. These aren't business concern relationships; I've known these people for a infinitesimal. All of us having common interests makes information technology a plus because people tin can run into that you take it serious as much equally they practise. Then linking with DAM and MIA, those 2 collectives was crucial. Everybody there do anything from film, to product, to rap to sing. It's always good to have that home base because me, I know I'm going to work with directors and producers across the world but it's groovy to accept that domicile feeling.

Information technology feels necessary. In your case, why exercise you call up information technology's best for a rapper to write nearly what they truly experience?
Crusade there's nothing improve than the truth. A lie can only take yous so far. Especially with the stuff people be pushing out present, with the street shit. I vibe with a lot of the new music that's coming out, I got nil confronting it but whatever you're challenge, you lot're going to go tested for it. You see it with hella artists and when they go exposed, their whole career is over.  If yous come out proverb what you are from the start and that's what you lot are, there'south no fashion your career can ever fail.

In that location'southward this "unpopular stance" game…
I heard of it. [Laughs]

Do you believe in the "unpopular opinion" that Alief has more than talent than whatsoever other spot in Houston?
Definitely!  It's crazy. Not even in music, sports too. There are kids who I grew up with when I was notwithstanding hooping that got D-1 scholarships. Even I thought I was going to get a D-1 scholarship. I feel like Alief is really, and I mean Really slept-on and Houston is too, for the most part. I want to get to that position where I can put people on and they can get what they deserve.  I done grew upwardly with and then many people who could do so many things and they'd stray abroad into the wrong shit. Overall, there's too much talent that goes overlooked in Alief and Houston in full general.

You feel similar there'due south a loyalty to sure people in that respect?
I feel like whatever you get, information technology should ever exist because of y'all. But if you had the talent, I feel I'd be hating if I didn't say nothing, or if I didn't offer yous any advice. But that's all I can practice. Give yous my cognition and whatever y'all're willing to accept from me. The rest is up to them. I didn't take a lot of people. My family unit wasn't in the industry and I grew upwardly mostly with my mom. And so I did what I had to do and I learned it for myself.

Speaking of mom, did she e'er know yous'd rap?
No! She always knew I was going to do something with music though. I used to play the piano and I couldn't read but I would play whatever I heard off of YouTube…

Play past ear?
Correct. Play by sound. For a while, ever since I hitting middle school until sophomore twelvemonth, I was hooping. I was on varsity my sophomore year and that was my affair.  Wake upwardly, go to the gym early, in the afternoon, at night. Merely hoop. When I finally told her I was going to rap, she'd see I'd do it only she thought it was simply a hobby. When she found out, she said, "Oh no, why?" Crusade she saw all the work I put in with basketball. At first, she wasn't really accepting of it like that. Just down the route, she and my pops realized, "Y'all can't alter somebody from doing what they want to practise." In one case I started dropping stuff and people started telling her I was nice, she bought on. She really listened to my album, she don't ever listen to my music.

What?
She's super religious. Like real, heavy Christian, correct? She takes Jesus real serious. But she knows its something positive; she knows I'm non out here talking no bullshit. She liked a couple songs… she wishes I didn't cuss or anything but it is what it is. My mom's Salvadorian and my pops is black.

On Hunt, what stands out the nigh across your lyricism is the ending poem on "Hunt".
The whole album, I felt if I had more time information technology would come up out dissimilar. I was trying to have more than fun on the album. Something that'south not then witting and deep only notwithstanding maintains that feeling and it'south on the stop of the anthology. Even if people don't go dorsum and listen to it, leaving them with that thought leaves them with the feeling of the whole tape. It was either that poem or something with no drums. Either fashion, it was something to leave people thinking at the stop, their actual decisions. Similar, how would this utilize to real life?aaron-may

So why didn't "Ride" make the last cut?
Because I don't really like "Ride." It didn't fit for one. The whole tape was a whole different thing. It was a thought I had when I was in my junior year, I wanted a fresh starting time to move on from that. It dropped like two years ago and I wrote it when I was sixteen. The video came out another 6 months after the song, so the song is old. Even though it's gaining traction, I wanted to come up out with a new feel and bear witness different things. I don't desire to waste songs on things that accept already been out, I wanted to come up with something fresh.

I already knew that wasn't my best. I really feel like the whole record is ameliorate than "Ride." I felt similar I didn't need to have it on there because I knew I had stuff that would do way better. It's a song that people bask, that people will yet jam but it doesn't have to exist on the album. Chase is its own thing.

It exists in its ain time menstruation.
And that's how it's going to be. I'k already working on new stuff right now.

You just dropped the album!
I know merely I don't just sit with stuff. Every 24-hour interval I'm experimenting, producing, and listening to beats. I have to practise something with music and if non, I'll feel like I didn't do something that day. Cause this is my life. But present I see artists drop stuff a lot. I put a lot of thought into my work and I'g always working but I don't actually dwell on what I already got.

Were you thinking college directly later high schoolhouse?
Nah, college is off. When I was thinking near college when I was younger it was audio engineering science and studio engineering. And back when information technology was all about hooping? Knuckles. Around my sophomore yr when I put it down that I was going to make music full-time, people said "What's your plan B if this doesn't piece of work?" I told them, "Information technology's going to work." And even if I'm not a big artist, I always desire to be around music, producing, writing, behind the scenes.

I experience similar that has to practise with my generation. With technology advancing, we become introduced to things far quicker than the ones that have come up before us. Back then, you had to be in the know. At present? We get to decide. Fifty-fifty though people get through hella phases where they want to be rappers merely now they're photographers, you're going through life figuring out what direction is for you. The passion's been there since I was a kid. I was probably the just fourth, fifth grader listening to Nas' Illmatic or It Was Written all day. Nobody else was listening to that.

That was effectually 2009 or 2010?
Yeah, around that aforementioned time I was listening to former Eminem. Every rapper, every bodily rapper is a fan of Eminem.  He'll always be a great lyricist. Everybody will have a misconception about me that I listen to Cole and Kendrick all the fourth dimension but really I'thousand listening to Fundamental Glock and Principal Keef, having whole donkey shows to "Faneto." To me as a human, music is music. Music when information technology was first discovered? It was nearly vibrations, it made you feel something.

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