It’s a very good track, not solely due to the sturdy message, but in addition as a result of HOODLUM’s mumbly, leaned-out rap-sing sounds naturally chopped and screwed and provides his reminiscences the texture of a melancholic dream sequence. On his standout tapes, comparable to 2023’s Southside Story and final 12 months’s Brown in America, with the simmering, sample-heavy Texas funk of his go-to producer, bigtexjohnny, because the spine, HOODLUM makes use of his move—which, from time to time, is sort of inaudible—to dig into nostalgic, hardened scenes of hustling, getting excessive, and hanging with family and friends amid fears of dying and going broke.
And “Higher Dayz (Freestyle),” isn’t the primary or final time HOODLUM has tackled political turmoil head on. A number of years in the past, after the tip of the the primary Trump administration, he wrote “B.I.A (Brown in Amerikka),” the place, in a groove that remembers the heyday of G-funk, he sang, “And it was all good ’til ICE began rolling via the hood,” alongside tales of drug offers and crooked cops. The track’s video apparently acquired him his first YouTube strike. Then, this week, following the protests in opposition to ICE in Los Angeles that led to President Trump sending within the Nationwide Guard, and ICE’s ongoing sweeps at courtroom hearings and on faculty campuses in San Antonio, he dropped a snippet of recent track “Burn It Down” on his Instagram account. “Say they coming for us, they will’t take us all,” he says, fired up, over a dismal piano riff. It’s not a protest anthem, only a second of rage and confusion that comes from watching your hometown get torn aside.
One night, earlier this week, I had a FaceTime dialog with HOODLUM. He smoked and spoke candidly whereas youngsters performed within the background. We chatted about Texas rap, the impact ICE has had on San Antonio, and his function as a marquee rapper from a metropolis that doesn’t have too many, particularly in a social media local weather the place data is buried by algorithms trying to push and normalize the ultra-conservative political agendas of Silicon Valley and the Trump administration.
Pitchfork: What’s the principle distinction you’ve seen between dwelling in Houston and dwelling in San Antonio?
HOODLUM: Houston is extra combined. In my neighborhood, there’s solely, like, one different Mexican household. Everybody else is white, Black, Arab, or Asian. The place I’m from on the southwest aspect of San Antonio, it was both Black or Mexican. It’s small and massive on the identical time, and everybody is de facto collectively.
I do know a big portion of the Black inhabitants got here to San Antonio after Hurricane Katrina, so did you may have an enormous native scene rising up?
Not likely, however there was some. There was this man named J.Randle. There was King Kyle Lee and Liveola. Generally Chamillionaire would come down from Houston and go to the flea markets on the southside, signal folks, and throw them on CDs. However it was by no means an enormous scene; it was all the time on the backs of Houston.
Did you develop up listening to quite a lot of Houston rap?
Some, however my first CDs have been most likely OutKast’s Southernplayalistic and that one AZ album [Doe or Die]. I all the time wished to go to New York. I favored 2Pac. Wayne. Bankroll Recent. Lots of Latin music, too. I favored stuff with quite a lot of samples. I all the time wished to pattern stuff like Curtis Mayfield, the Isley Brothers, and Sunny Ozuna.
What’s the final track you heard that you just thought would make a cool pattern?
In all probability Frank Sinatra, “Jesus Is a Rock.” There’s this one half that I really feel like me and John [aka producer bigtexjohnny] may make actually darkish, flip it into some “I Really feel Like Dying” kind shit.
Who’re your favourite Texas rappers of all time?
Z-Ro, due to the melodies and beat decisions. He would rap on fuckin’ Sade or no matter. Devin the Dude, I’d all the time take heed to his Biggest Hits (Screwed). He’s the one individual I really need on my subsequent album.
The place does your move come from? The gradual, croakiness of it’s so excessive. Was that straight impressed by anybody?
At first, it form of simply occurred and I began simply pushing it even additional. However I used to be actually into Wayne and I simply began making an attempt to tug my voice out so long as attainable over all these Curtis Mayfield samples or no matter.
I can see that, particularly the Wayne of Tha Carter III periods or perhaps a tape like Dedication 3 when he simply sounds so gone.
Considered one of my favourite Waynes is when he rapped on “Expensive Summer time,” or the period when he was actually into New York. That’s a part of why I favored New York a lot.
You point out New York so much, however one factor I’ve all the time favored about your writing is that I really feel like I’ve some kind of picture of San Antonio with out ever having been there. Is that intentional?
It’s simply all I knew. I didn’t know something outdoors of San Antonio till my music began blowing up and, impulsively, I used to be in, like, Europe and shit, Norwegian youngsters rapping my lyrics, tripping me the fuck out. I’m simply documenting my life, and other people don’t all the time choose every thing up as a result of I’m rapping so gradual, however, for those who catch it, I’ll be saying some shit. Like “Brown in Amerikka,” I wrote that years in the past simply because they [ICE] would simply be within the neighborhood on a regular basis from the morning ’til 4 o’clock. We might know to not reply the door.
Does writing about what’s happening politically in your neighborhood come naturally to you?
At first, probably not, as a result of it was by no means one thing I did deliberately. I might simply be writing what’s happening in my head. Like, I keep in mind we couldn’t even have holidays—Thanksgiving, Christmas, July 4th—as a result of these are the times they might come collect up your entire household. It was simply fucked up.
How’d you get higher at writing about it?
I favored how Wayne did it when Katrina hit. Like “Georgia… Bush” isn’t simply rapping your ear off about it the entire time. It’s nonetheless a Wayne track. So now each time I do get into politics, I guarantee that it nonetheless feels like my songs.
