@cam.alexiis / Create What's True
Robb Bank$ On 'Falconia' And Why He's Retiring
March 19, 2020 - 4:54 pm by Kiana Fitzgerald TWITTER
The South Florida artist is heading in a new career direction after the release of 'Falconia,' his multilayered farewell album.
"I think I might be happy."
It's one of the first things we hear on Broward County, Florida rapper Robb Bank$'s most recent project, Road to Falconia. If you're a longtime listener, the tagline is familiar, as Bank$ has been using it throughout his music for nearly a decade. The phrase—taken from the U.S. version of the young adult drama series Skins—is built in to be a noncommittal response for how Bank$ could be feeling on any given day, across any given project.
When we meet in late January, at the Kandypens house in the Hollywood Hills, Bank$ is finally straightforward.
"I'm happy," the 25-year-old creative says. He's settled across from me on a gray couch, the two of us sitting opposite a blazing fire. Bank$ is wearing a lime green jacket over a softer, worn-in grass green Weezer T-shirt, and green velvet Off-White Timberlands. "Not with my spot, because I always want more," he continues. "I'm an artist: I'm hungry. I always want more and more and more. But I'm happy with the little genre and niche I've created for myself. I like it because I feel like all my fans is smart. All my supporters are smart."
When I tell Bank$ we, as listeners, have to be willing to put in a certain amount of work to keep up with him, he laughs.
"Yeah, 'cause you got to listen or you're not gonna catch nothing I'm saying and talking about," he says. "You're not going to get the little hidden messages."
To be a fan of Robb Bank$ is to commit yourself to repeat listens, constant Googling, and immersion in as much obscure pop culture as possible. Since I began listening to Bank$, I've made it a point to watch anime series he endlessly references in his songs; One Punch Man, My Hero Academia, and Inuyasha are a few.
Bank$ and his stans exemplify a top-level partnership between artist and listener, one, unlike anything I've ever experienced. That degree of dedication—a choice of endless studying—has become enmeshed with my personal approach to music consumption. It's why nearly every other hip-hop artist can seem bland to me in comparison. To put it simply, Robb Bank$ is my favorite rapper. And, much to my dismay, he's retiring.
"I'm trying to put artists on," he says of his new career direction. "When I look at the artists that I've helped break—and I've never spoken on this, especially publicly, on an interview scale. It's never been with paperwork, 'cause I was young and I just… the way I am, I see talent, and I'm like, 'I just want to help you.' I don't know why, but that's just how I've always been. I just want to help. If I got a platform, I'ma help you."
Bank$ lists in-house producer Cris Dinero, and rappers Ski Mask the Slump God and the late XXXTentacion among the unofficial beneficiaries of his guidance.
"Half of Florida, I took on their first tour," he continues. "I took DaBaby on tour. Road 2 Falconia tour in 2017. Me, DaBaby, and Kid Trunks. That's how I met Baby, and I'm so happy for him. He's doing great. The thing that I love, that I've noticed a pattern of, it's like, 'Yo, everybody that I came in contact with or helped or put on a tour of mine, they always got right.'"
Bank$ says he's chosen to have such an active role in artists' careers because of the lack of a shepherding presence in his own.
"When I was 16, 17, I used to pray a ni**a would just come and I have a big homie in the music business," he says. "[Birdman] was the only one that did that. Only one that ever did that for me. That's Unc."
While Bank$ makes it clear any reports of him previously signing to Cash Money are "fake news," the artist has been working with Rich Gang Management and soaking up game from the No. 1 Stunna himself since at least 2017. All the while, he's been working to position himself as a boss in his own right. Bank$'s current company is called 430 Entertainment, evolved from the nascent Smart Stunna (SS) Records. "Even with Bird, that's my inspiration as far as like, a CEO and just building, accomplishing what he accomplished from nothing," Bank$ says. "From just being a young ni**a in New Orleans, in the slums, and made a billion-dollar company."
Robb Bank$'s self-proclaimed magnum opus, Falconia, will serve as his exit from the recording artist lifestyle and into full-blown mogul status. "You're still going to get content from me, but there will be no more 'Robb Bank$' projects," he explains. "No more full bodies of work."
Bank$ released his first full-length solo project in 2012, the underground hit Calendars, which saw Bank$ spitting over well-known, throwback beats like Aaliyah's "One in a Million" and Master P's "Bout It, Bout It," as well as recent, subterranean production from SBTRKT and Clams Casino. The marriage of old and new, hardened and hazy, quickly put Bank$ on the radar of listeners frequenting the Tumblr platform, in its heyday. "I can't even listen to that sh*t no more," Bank$ admits. "Like that type of sh*t is just, the style of rap was older. It was more traditional."
Post-Calendars, Bank$ has announced new drops like clockwork; while numerous EPs, mixtapes, and official albums have come about, not all of the projects have seen the light of day. It's one of several facets that makes the MC an enigma. "It's a lot of music that exists," he says. "People be thinking I just be lying. But when you're an artist, you kinda fried. You kinda crazy. And I know I'm fried. So I'll do sh*t where I jump the gun and be like, 'This project is about to come out!' And I'll have the name and the concept ready. But then I'll start recording for it and it'll turn into something completely different."
One project fans have been hotly anticipating: the sequel to Bank$'s popular 2016 mixtape No Rooftops, modeled after Lil Wayne's No Ceilings. In addition to original songs, No Rooftops featured the rapper jacking beats like 2 Chainz's "Watch Out" and Denzel Curry's "Ultimate." In an interlude on the tape, Robb teases the follow-up, saying it could be released within weeks of the original project's drop. It's still awaiting a release date.
"[My listeners] will be like, 'Well, what happened to this? What happened to that?'" Bank$ says. "They be asking me about No Rooftops. That's like… my ni**a. That's still gon' come out, but I'm in a whole different space, you know what I'm saying? I had to do this first."
Bank$'s current focus, Falconia, is conceptually designed to mirror the Berserk manga, and scheduled to be released in a three-arc rollout in the near future. Despite persistent imploring from his cult fan base, Bank$ won't say when Falconia, and his subsequent departure, is coming.
"I've learned from my mistakes as to don't say no times," he tells me. "The thing people don't understand is, sometimes it is me being a perfectionist, like, 'No, we can't put it out yet.' But a lot of times, it's the music business."
According to Bank$, 2019's Road to Falconia was constructed as a bridge to tide listeners over before Falconia's orchestrated arcs begin to fall into place. "This one was more so—to the people who read Berserk—it would be like the Black Swordsman Arc," he explains. "The intro, almost. Just a, 'Hello, how are you doing? This is me.'"
Considered Arc 0, ahead of three installments to come, Road to Falconia is Robb Bank$ on full display, doling out each of his styles like a money machine. You want to be aurally annihilated by straight bars? "Top Man GOTTI" and "Broward Coward" are for you. You want introspective rhymes that veer toward the vulnerable? "Intro" and "Onme / PrivateShow" are for you.
Bank$ is unsatisfied with simultaneously existing on opposing ends of the standard rap spectrum. Instead, he takes a figurative serrated knife and extends the edges of said spectrum toward territories previously unexplored. To say the result is attention-grabbing would be an understatement. Robb Bank$ knows this.
"That's the goal, to be honest," he says. "My goal was always to get people's attention. Whether you making them upset and making them uncomfortable, making them happy, like anything: any attention for me would be good attention. That's how I used to think. And I'm just trying to stay true to how I was when I first came in."
I've been in rooms where people are legitimately taken aback by Bank$'s delivery ("I know some people be like, 'Turn this sh*t the f**k off!'" he jokes), so I press further and ask why he chooses to go to such extremes. He admits it's his natural inclination.
"I just get bored easily," he says. "When you're in the studio for like, 18 hours straight type sh*t, you gon' do some dumb sh*t. I feel like I have the shortest attention span in the world. So I have to keep doing new stuff. I just want to do something else."
For Robb Bank$, boredom leads to tracks like the near-inexplicable "430 Kuban Doll," a Road to Falconia standout. The "interlewd" borrows production from SpaceGhostPurrp's "730 Goth Blood Gang," and features jarring, irregular snare chops, and squawks and roars from a pitched-up Bank$, who uses the song to rattle off his own women rapper-influenced version of Pokémon. It sounds like necessary chaos. "It was completely unmixed," Bank$ says of the finished song. "It sounded like sh*t. We initially was always going to mix it, but we ended up losing the session. The file got corrupted. So I was like, 'We gotta just put it out how it is.'"
Bank$ also takes a moment in "430 Kuban Doll" to express his frustration over XXXTentacion's death: "Ni**as took Jah[seh] and I wish they would've shot me / 'Ni**as blew your dog head off and you ain't kill 'em?' / Them ni**as killed X and turned themselves in before we got there."
While Bank$ is "happy" today, as with any person, that can change at a moment's notice, especially when dealing with as many losses as Bank$ has experienced. During our conversation, he tells me he started therapy. When I ask specifically why, he exhales deeply. "Bad lifestyle choices," he says. "Sh*t like that. I just needed to go to therapy."
He's had more than one session and says he plans to proceed with the experience. "I like it," he says, convincingly. "I like it."
Like countless others, Bank$ and I have therapy in common. My reasons for therapy tie back to 2016, shortly before I had my very first manic episode; I've since been diagnosed as bipolar. In my bouts with extreme mania—a heightened mental state that feels like euphoria on a supernaturally interconnected, yet unstable level—I gravitate heavily toward Bank$. Very heavily. I become hyper-obsessed with his music, tweeting about it, playing it on repeat at max volumes, and finding patterns and "clues" in the music that somehow relate back to me. By the time I've reached peak elevation, I'm fully convinced it's me and Robb against the destructive forces of the world: he's the voice in the sky and I'm the feet on the ground, getting people ready for a global transformation unlike anything the human race has ever seen. In my mind, Bank$'s discography (and the music of a select few peers) is the audio version of a contemporary Bible, the soundtrack to a new, deeply engaging story of life and creation.
In my most recent episode, last October, I took it a step further and did everything in my power to emulate the rapper: I squawked; I roared; I yelled at the top of my lungs about the opps; I mimicked his outbursts and ad-libs. My family sent me straight to a mental hospital, and told me they no longer wanted me to listen to him.
To keep it a buck, I went into this interview thinking I'd have to "break up" with Bank$. I was prepared to tell him to his face that I couldn't listen to his music anymore, that I couldn't support him on social media or involve myself in anything that pertained to him, in the slightest.
If anything, the complete opposite happened.
When I tell Bank$ about my manic transformation, a diamond-sprinkled smile extends across his face. "That's hard," he says, repeating the phrase several times as I go further into detail. "That's hard." It's a simple response, but it tells me everything I need to know: that I'm a pure fan, and Bank$'s music has done what it was designed to do—stick with me. Neither of us have a real answer for why I react the way I react. There's no exact way to prevent myself from burrowing him into the chemically imbalanced crevices of my brain. Further, there's no way to extract what's already been placed. I might as well enjoy the ride, and enjoy the f**k out of Bank$'s music while I'm riding out, manic or not.
After we wrap up our formal interview, Bank$, his manager, and security guard lead me outside to a black SUV, where Bank$ plays unreleased music, including an updated version of a collaboration with Lil Uzi Vert, tentatively titled "ShootOut." Minutes earlier, I questioned why Bank$ had not yet released it.
"It's just timing," he says. "Everything's about timing. It's going to drop at the right time. It's going to do what it's supposed to do: f**k up the internet. Just f**k everything up."
For the past several years, I've been on the edge of my seat, waiting for Robb Bank$ to shoot into the musical stratosphere a.k.a. the top of the charts. I've always believed he's more than capable of being mainstream. I ask if that's something he wants, after having a cult fan base for most of his career.
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't," he candidly replies. "Yeah, of course, I want to be mainstream. But I want to do it on my terms. I don't want to do it on nobody else's. I don't want to have to go in there and have a writer next to me and like, tell me what to do. That's not what I came here for. I promise—it will be on my terms."
Another thing Bank$ refuses to compromise on is his penchant for fast-tracked evolution. His listeners exist on both the adoring and analytical sides of fandom, and some can be critical of Bank$'s habit of leaving behind old vocal styles and topics as he grows into a more mature artist.
"I get it," he says. "When people be like, 'I don't like this sh*t, go back to your old sh*t,' unfortunately, I'm just not one of those people. I've tried. I've tried everything—everything—to go back to that old Robb like they be saying, but it's impossible at this point."
Bank$ continues, sounding resolved, but compassionate toward his day-one fans.
"I can still do that same sh*t, but the subject matter won't always be the same," he says. "I'm not going through the same things I was going through then. A lot of that sh*t back then was kid sh*t. You know what I'm saying? I was 17, like, kid depression. Not the sh*t I'm going through now, the real-life sh*t. This is life or death. No matter what, the only thing that will not change, I will always leave everything on the song. Everything that I'm going through, always."
P Diddy promotes his new Diddy Dirty Money single 'Coming Home' and his headphones DiddyBeats at HMV, Oxford Street on January 20, 2011 in London, England.
Photo by Matt Kent/WireImage
'The Last Train To Paris' Turns 10: Revisit Diddy's Aug./Sept. 2010 VIBE Cover Story
YOU EVER WATCH a control freak mellow out? It's fascinating. When said micromanager is Sean "Puffy" Combs, it's an enlightening ordeal altogether. Sitting at trendy Asian eatery Philippe Chow in New York City, two days before LeBron James announces that he's taking his show to South Beach, Combs has talking points: impact and legacy. "This ain't a regular run," says Combs of his two-decade laundry list of accomplishments. "I'm saying that in the most humble way possible. I'm me and I'm seeing it. Most times the impact of what you do you don't even live to see it."
He's the only patron seated for the evening, lounging at a table that comfortably seats eight. This is clearly a Sean John zone. His voice remains even, but the arrogance skyrockets. "It trickles over into sports. It goes into the way the free agent negotiations are going. [Athletes] have that belief. But that level of confidence as Black businessmen wasn't really there. Unforgivable swagger. That shit wasn't there."
Translation: Sean believes that his ambition has been infectious. In his "humble" opinion, his drive has taught the have-nots that not only can they have, but they can be gluttonous and acquire wealth rather than riches. Will it ruin his day if people don't agree? Not really. But he'd still like the legacy to be accurately documented. His reactionary reflexes have given way to him thinking long term, which could be why he's unfazed by trivial shots like 50 Cent's claims of having nude pictures of his artist Cassie. He's more interested in guiding careers—Rick Ross, Red Cafe and Dirty Money, among them. And really, he'd like to do square biz and have your kids' kids respect him like his contemporaries admire Warren Buffet. That would truly be money in the bank. In the meantime, he wants to mellow with a plate of chicken satay and talk Diddy legacy.
VIBE: You have said that rap's heavyweight class consisted of Jay-Z, Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Drake. Do you still believe that?
Diddy: Definitely. I feel like Drake is somebody that entered professionally in the heavyweight division. He didn't come in as a middleweight, he didn't come in as a light heavyweight, he came in as a heavyweight. He's gonna be a force to be reckoned with for a while. He is the definition of a new age musical rapper . . . going forward a lot of rap artists are going to have [singing and rapping] in their repertoire.
What's the ranking in that heavyweight division?
Jay, Kanye, Wayne, and Drake.
Jay still No. 1?
Hands down as far as worldwide impact and due to this last album [The Blueprint 3]. He's moved up in the rankings.
People don't realize that you two are friends and not just industry acquaintances.
Over the years as we've grown, Jay and I have needed each other. We've needed to be able to pick up the phone and call somebody that can understand what each other was going through. We needed each other to motivate each other; we needed each other to push each other. We needed each other to support each other and also to challenge each other. He's definitely been a great friend to me. There's never been anything that I've asked him to do or he's asked me to do that we really haven't done for each other.
Give an example of when you had to pick up the phone and call Jay for assistance.
I wanted to do something game-changing with Sean John. And I just picked his brain. I did [a fashion line] before him but I think that business-wise he did a lot of things better than me. He picked the right time to get out and get his check, to sell his company. We sat on the phone and talked about itŃput our egos in our pockets. I didn't see Sean John versus Roc-A-Wear. I just saw that my man over here is doing it [and I had] a couple of offers for Sean John. It was a beautiful conversation, 'cause we're sitting down at this restaurant and we're talking about apparel. We're not talking about music. It was a beautiful moment. Two quarter-of-a-billion dollar companies—just getting advice from your competitor. It was something that you heard rich White boys do.
Dr. Dre said that the last beat that floored him was "All About the Benjamins." How does that make you feel?
It's humbling. I was in the studio with Dre the other day. He started working on a record for me. Watching him as a producer is watching greatness. We had a lot of similar traits. It was like looking in the mirror. He would ask questions like, "How you feel about this?" People don't really understand true producers want to know how you feel about things. We are some of the most observant people on the planet.
You're a lot more into the music now than the last time we spoke.
I was waiting to get a lot of inspiration from the outside and it just wasn't coming. And I'm not knocking anyone's hustle that's out there. I just come from musical history that musically people gave more of themselves . . . I was able to go back and listen to all the great records that I made. I ain't do it on purpose. Like sometimes I'd be in a club and the DJ was just throwing tributes and would go deep in the crates. I would be like, "Damn, I forgot that I made that one." It just gave me a deep connection and another level of confidence for me to do me.
Are you feeling more comfortable writing on your own?
Yeah. I learned a lot more. I feel a lot more confident and free. On this album, I wrote like maybe two or three records by myself. But I still like writing with somebody. It helps me. Not using it as a crutch, but I get better results from co-writing; having my own feelings and thoughts, and, you know, getting some help with it. I love the feeling of collaboration, community in the studio. I don't like being the mad scientist and being in the room by myself.
Desus & Mero Bless A Bronx Bodega With A Year's Worth of Rent
You know them as the hosts of the hit Showtime series Desus & Mero, aka "the greatest show in late-night history, featuring only illustrious guests." These days you might catch them chatting with President Obama, but Bronx natives Desus Nice and The Kid Mero have never lost touch with their roots as the Bodega Boys.
"On our first podcast me and Mero used to have to ride the train back afterward," recalls Desus. "And basically our conversation on the train sounded exactly like the podcast. And somebody was like, 'Yo, they sound like two guys you hear in the bodega.' Which was true, because when you hear guys in the bodega, they talk very passionately about things. They may not have all the facts, but they're talking with their hearts."
"Their confidence is strong!" adds Mero with a laugh.
"That's just us," says Desus. "We're raised in bodegas. Probably 90 percent of the food we grew up eating was either our mother's cooking or chopped cheese sandwiches."
"Facts," Mero confirms.
Ever since the pandemic hit, New York City's community bodegas have served as a lifeline by providing New Yorkers with daily necessities, especially in neighborhoods where door-to-door gourmet food delivery is not an option. But staying open hasn't been easy—the daily risks of doing business under threat from a deadly virus—not to mention a spike in robberies and violence—has made running a bodega very challenging, to say the least. But day in day out, in good times and bad, they find a way to keep their doors open.
"If your block is the solar system, the bodega is the sun," says Mero. "The hood orbits the bodega."
So when the makers of Pepsi cola decided to give back on the bodega owners who provide life-giving sustenance and ice-cold soda to NYC's five boroughs, they reached out to the Bodega Boys as their official goodwill ambassadors. Today Desus & Mero appear in a short film called The Bodega Giveback, which highlights the way one Bronx bodega overcame extreme hardship—and the way Pepsi is helping them keep going after 2020 comes to an end.
For Juan Valerio and his son Jefferson, the proprietors of JJN Corp Deli & Grocery in the Bronx, 2020 has been a horrible year. Juan still remembers when he came to America with his father in 1990. "To buy a bodega at that time was well over $100,000," Juan recalls in the short film, which you can watch above. "It was a dream that seemed unreachable. I never thought I would achieve it. And now this is what I do. My whole life is here."
Then in April 2020, tragedy struck when Juan's father lost his life to COVID 19. For the first time in three decades, the bodega had to close its doors down briefly. "It's something very powerful to lose what you love the most in a split second," Juan recalls with emotion as his son comforts him with a hug. "Life goes on. And I decided to come back because he always taught me to work. To stay closed was disrespectful to him."
"He had to shut down for a little bit," says Desus. "But then he reopened cause the community needed him. Cause the lockdown a lot of stores closed down. And in the Bronx, you can't really get stuff delivered. And he's the hub. We heard stories of what he did, so we were like, how can we give back to him? Shout out to Pepsi with the Bodega Giveback. And just giving him a year's rent—that's the most amazing thing you can give a bodega owner. Shout out to Juan and his son. The look on their face when they really get it—you see the appreciation."
"It really hit home," said Mero. "Cause it's like, we're children of immigrants. So that could have been us—if we didn't get seen by the right people and put in the right positions, we coulda been workin' alongside our dad at a bodega. And then watchin' your grandfather pass away and then comin' back because you know how important you are to the community. Like, that's really selfless. It's just a dope story. And those stories occur all over the place, it's just people don't see them. Cause they don't get exposed on a national level. But a brand like Pepsi can put that on a national stage and be like, "Yo, look—this is a mom and pop establishment for real. And these are the small businesses that you supposed to be supporting."
The release of The Bodega Giveback kicks off a larger holiday giveback from Pepsi this season that includes cash gifts to bodega owners and consumers across NYC's five boroughs. "Pepsi has so many longstanding bodega partners in New York City," said Umi Patel, CMO of North Division, PepsiCo Beverages North America. "They are not only pillars of the community, but they have gone above and beyond to take care of their loyal customers during the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have worked around the clock to stay open, filling shelves to ensure their customers, friends, and family have the essentials they need to stay home and stay safe. They have even shifted their businesses to meet the needs of the community, offering new delivery options, adding crucial items like masks and gloves, and more, all while dealing with their own personal challenges of the pandemic. We are proud to do our part in giving back to these unsung heroes."
From now until December 20, Pepsi will also be surprising customers at local bodegas across the five boroughs by gifting pre-paid credit cards of up to $100.00 per customer.
As Juan says in the film, "one hand washes the other, and with both, we wash our face."
Check out our full convo with Desus & Mero above and the short film, The Bodega Giveback.
Courtesy of Level.com
Level Announces Their 'Best Man 2020 Awards' Featuring Entertainment Elite to Everyday Kings
It is a hard feat for media brands to survive the content landscape these days. To pull off the incredible undertaking of informing an audience as a new publication in the digital space is damn near impossible, yet the team at Medium's Level has done just that. To celebrate making their mark as a one-stop information shop for black men with their one-year anniversary this week, the team of bright and witty editors has launched their first annual Best Man Awards 2020.
The plan to honor the brand that started in December of 2019, focused on the interests of African-American males, has expanded into encompassing the efforts of a few good men during this mess of a year that is 2020. In doing so, those that broke through barriers of personal pain, new business frontiers, and support of others are highlighted and given the rightful pedestals to gain well-deserved props.
Of the 12 awards, esteemed gents like Swizz Beatz, Timbaland, and D-Nice are saluted as Quarantine Kings for their Verzuz and Club Quarantine (respectively) social media music creations that entertained the masses during the dogged days of our universal shut-down. There is also a heroic soul of a man who protected a black woman and her family from the surrounding presence of racist neighbors on his own time and dime. They have an award for Father of the Year, where former NBA all-star and champion, Dwyane Wade shines as a glowing example of understanding and ushering in new ways of parenting in today's society.
With the awards being a noble move towards giving Black men some much-needed praise in 2020, Level made sure to round up the last 365 days with themes on "The State of Black and Brown Men" as well. Essays that cover the realms of political ideology, coping with covid among Blacks health care workers, how Black men fell short of protecting Black women, and exploring what Black men see when they look in the mirror (a piece that is a user-generated content driver/audience-led convo). All hard topics that need to be detailed, yet are rarely in a space for deep-dive convo.
Helmed by former VIBE editor-in-chief, Jermaine Hall, Level's editors explain their thoughts on the special coverage and celebration of their one year old brand:
"With the Best Man Awards, we wanted to lean into people who are doing incredible things to support society and publicly thank them. Anthony Herron, Jr is a hero. He stepped up to protect someone he didn't know because, as he saw it, harassment is unacceptable. LEVEL wanted to make sure he received a nod for his heroics. But there are also several celebrities who are doing things outside of their jobs. D-Nice, Swizz, and Timbaland helped us cope through music. And it wasn't a paid gig for any of them. They responded because people needed help healing so they provided care. That's a strong attribute of the LEVEL man. It's certainly is the definition of men being their best selves."
Click here to read about these individuals and learn more about the Best Man Awards 2020. Excelsior to Level.