FSD: How many shows have you done?
Drayco McCoy: Too many. Way too many. I’d say I’ve done like 50 shows.
Which is insane, because I just started rapping, or I just put out my first tape like two and a half years ago.
FSD: What’s a typical show like?
Drayco McCoy: It varies. Sometimes I’ll have a show that really ain’t shit, and it’ll be a bunch of motherfuckers that really don’t know what they’re listening to, or really just ain’t into that style, and then I’ma just perform like two songs and I’m out, cuz the energy just don’t feel right. But a lot of the time, it’s just a bunch of people that know who I am, and know who all of my niggas are, and it’ll turn out to be some fucking insane shit.
I threw my first show this May, and that shit was insane. Because everybody there was a fan, everybody there could come out cause it was all ages, it was just a house show, it was at my niggas crib, and it got so fucking crazy. Niggas broke the floor, I’m pouring Sprite on people, like, it was just insane. That’s the shit I like. I like when everybody gets up and starts jumping on each other and shit, and everybody knows all the words and all that, and it gets crazy. It can get nuts out here, but it can also be kinda lame, for a bunch of people.
FSD: Wait, literally broke the floor?
Drayco McCoy: Yeah. Like, it’s actually on YouTube, where you can see that the floor is disconnected from the wall, and it felt like a trampoline, and you could just see and feel the floor going up and down, and the corner of the wall is just hanging in mid-air. It was fucking weird.
FSD: What’s the name of the clip on YouTube?
Drayco McCoy: You can probably type in Drayco McCoy live, or like Ratchet Ass House Show or some shit, that’s what we called it, Ratchet Ass House Show. I’m tryna throw a part two for it before the summer’s over with.
[He wasn’t joking. Go to like 2:50– right here]
FSD: That’s crazy [laughs]
Drayco McCoy: Yeah, and in the video everybody was dummy turnt, and by the time they started recording, because the floor broke, I could only perform two songs, and that one was the first one that we did. I kept having to tell people to chill out, because niggas kept trying to jump and shit and I was like, “Yo, my nigga lives in this house, yall finna fuck his shit all the way up.”
FSD: Did he get it fixed?
Drayco McCoy: Nah, he had to to move. He just moved.
FSD: That’s insane. Have you done anything in Chicago, too? Or not yet?
Drayco McCoy: I’ve actually only been to Chicago once, I just went last month for the first time.
FSD: For what?
Drayco McCoy: Just with my Momma, I went for the 4th of July, actually. Me and my Momma, and my little brothers wanted to go out there, they been there before, but I’d still never been. So I was like, “Cool.” But I keep telling my mom, I’m trying to start visiting up there a lot hopefully, cause what’s crazy is that most of my fans are from Indianapolis, Chicago and LA. At least according to Soundcloud stats.
FSD: Speaking of your Mom, you’ve mentioned her a few times now, is she a big influence on you making music and getting into music in general?
Drayco McCoy: Nah, I mean, she never wanted me to rap or no shit like that. She just kinda got me into a lot of different music, but my Auntie’s the reason why I started rapping. Cause she used to spit. She was a fucking spitter, and she taught me how to put together bars and shit, all the cadences and shit like that, she taught me how to write, and after that I was just like, “bet.” And then really, Soulja Boy and Chris Brown were the reasons why I started fucking making music in the first place.
FSD: What Soulja Boy material got you into making music?
Drayco McCoy: Shit, everything that nigga ever did! [laughs] Honestly, I mean, he was the first Internet nigga I seen posting hella vlogs on YouTube, hella day in the life shits, seeing this nigga go to Tokyo, playing videos all over the place, having social networks and shit.
I made my first social network in 5th grade, and Soulja Boy had one on his website called Ning.com. I had like two of them bitches, and every time Soulja Boy had a new album, he would drop a new social network, and I’d be like, “This shit is fucking insane.” So ever since then, I was just like, “I’ma be self-made as fuck, and do everything the way he did it.”
Soulja Boy got hits, niggas is sleep. And Soulja Boy is actually finna be rich forever, he be making smart moves, I can’t lie. And he’s not afraid to beef with niggas. I seen this nigga beefing with Gillie the Kid, Ice-T, he was a little jit. And he produces and all that. Self-made shit. I think it’s raw as fuck.
FSD: How did Chris Brown influence you?
Drayco McCoy: My first concert was a Chris Brown concert, it was like a free one, and I’m pretty sure I was in 5th grade. He had a free show downtown at this Final Four festival. It made me wanna dance at first, and then I was like, “Man, fuck this dancing shit,” and then it made me wanna sing, and then I was like, “Fuck this singing shit,” and then it was like, “Alright, but I can do something.” Then I just started doing poetry. And then after that, I started rapping.
FSD: Has anyone else influenced you in, like, the way you make music?
Drayco McCoy: I mean, I’ll say Gangsta Boo. I mean, as far as influence, I don’t think anyone really influences my style or anything — unless we’re talking Flocka, I always wanted to make some shit like Waka Flocka. But I don’t think I make anything that sounds like it would be Waka Flocka influenced at all, you know what I mean? I can sit here and be like, “Alright, there’s hella people that made me wanna do this in the first place,” but I don’t think there’s anybody that you could say I sound like.
FSD: How’d you link up with Mathaius Young? Because he’s unbelievable.
Drayco McCoy: Oh yeah, he’s crazy. Nah, that’s like my brother. You know what’s funny as fuck, I actually linked up with him, or he linked up with me because I was like, “I want some beats,” and this nigga just sent me a beat pack. And like, as soon as he sent it to me… ‘Cuz I had tweeted it, and he sent it to me on some random shit, and I called this– I was like, “Nigga, what’s your number,” like, all caps, ‘cuz that’s what I normally do. When I meet somebody, if I can’t meet them in person, I’ma call them ASAP, just because I hate not knowing somebody’s vibes, I gotta feel their energy. So I call this nigga, and I’m freaking out at this nigga and he’s like, “What’s wrong with you,” and I’m like, “Nigga where do you live,” and he’s like, “Down the street,” and I’m like, “Bet.” Then we started kicking it. That nigga’s gonna be a legend.
FSD: Yeah, have you ever been in the studio with him as he’s making shit? I feel like watching him work would probably be crazy.
Drayco McCoy: Hell yeah, all the time. We don’t go to no studio, he do shit the way I do shit. We just be in his room, we don’t have any equipment, he makes all his beats on his laptop, just like me. He just records right by his bed, same thing I do.
FSD: That man is an actual animal on the boards.
Drayco McCoy: [laughs] I’m glad that you fuck with him.
FSD: Well, speaking of making shit, what are you guys’ creative processes like?
Drayco McCoy: Well, both of us, we actually work the same. Me, I need a beat, like I can’t think of any ideas, I never have concepts for shit, I never have, “Okay, this is what I wanna talk about, this is the plot, or the story, or some shit,” and it’s the same thing with him. He kinda put me onto producing, so I kinda do things the way he does. Well, he showed me a lot about producing, and he really wasn’t trying to teach me much, so I really had to just sit there at his crib and watch him do it, and just ask questions off of it. But, he’ll make the whole beat, or he’ll make like 50% of it, and then he’ll do a hook, drop that shit, and then come back to it later on. But me, I don’t record and keep trying to record, I just get the beat, I like that shit, give me like 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and then I go straight to recording.
FSD: When did you start producing?
Drayco McCoy: Well if you look in my Fruity Loops, it’s gonna say I started in February or some shit. But that’s when my nigga, his name is Black Youth, he showed me how to make my first beat, but he really just made it and was like, “Just go back and look at everything I just did.” But then I ain’t touch it, ‘cuz I ain’t really wanna fuck with it. So then like two months ago is when I really started taking it seriously. I made one beat three months ago, and then I never went back, and then I made the whole tape, probably in the last month and a half.
FSD: So then, was it like, you off rip were like, “I wanna produce my own tape,” or was it like you realized you were getting kinda nice with the shits and were like, “Yeah I can actually do this.”
Drayco McCoy: Well, I didn’t know, honestly, I always need people to tell me. ‘Cuz I’m always really hard on myself, so I thought all the beats that I was making were trash. And I was really pissed off, because I’m not tryna work a job anymore, I’ve had like 15 jobs, and I never wanna do that shit again in my life, ever, so I was like, “Alright, I’m about to make music and use that as my primary source of getting cash.” And that shit wasn’t working out, ‘cuz I wasn’t getting no shows and shit, and niggas ain’t want no features. So I was like alright, I’m ‘bout to start selling beats, I’ma be a producer, fuck this shit, niggas make money off that, I can do whatever the fuck I want to. Then I put up a Traktrain, put like 5 beats on it, and nobody wanted to buy the shit, and I was pissed off, cuz I’m like, “Nigga, I need to make some money, I’m a fucking producer now, I said it, so I’m ‘bout to be that,” and like, I was like, “Alright bet, I’ma just produce my own tape, and then niggas are gonna wanna buy em.” But now every beat I make, I just keep it for myself. [laughs]
FSD: So actually, if you don’t wanna answer this you don’t have to, but I’ve always wondered how this shit works. How do you support yourself and shit if you’re not working a job?
Drayco McCoy: I mean, just rap money. I’m about to start working again soon though, ‘because this shit dead. Honestly, I was really trying to get signed for a minute, then I was like, “Alright, I wanna be underground, fuck that signing shit,” then I’m like, “Alright, I need to start getting paid for rap in order to live off of this,” but, realistically, I got bills, I got rent, I got a car, all this shit I gotta pay for, so I’ll probably just have to start working full-time again and cut back with the music. But I need enough people to believe in me to help me out, you know?
FSD: Is there shit you want to do outside of rap? Like, I’m kinda thinking about someone like Tyler, in how he started with rapping, and after that he was like, “Bet, I can do whatever the fuck I want now,” and now he has a TV show, makes his own line of clothes…
Drayco McCoy: Yeah definitely, like my biggest influences were like Soulja Boy and Pharrell, you know? Pharrell was my first, “I wanna be like him,” so it’s a lot of things that I’m gonna try to do, ‘cuz there’s a lot of shit that I did as a kid just jokingly, but very seriously, but ion know, I gotta focus on one thing at a time. I feel like if I can’t get this down, then there’s no reason for me to even try to… I like rap, because with rap, you can start off with this, and end up somewhere totally different and nobody will really care. Like, A$AP Rocky, he became famous as a rapper, but now he’s this huge fashion dude, or like Tyler the Creator, of course he started off with rap. But he can do anything in the world he wants to right now. So I don’t know, if I can do this, and make it with this, then I can make anything happen.
FSD: Yeah, that shit is dope. I can’t really think of another profession where that’s a thing, to where people get in it, and then venture off into things that are, in theory, not related whatsoever, and no one thinks twice about it.
Drayco McCoy: I mean, probably like being a Nickelodeon TV star or some shit, they end up singing and getting clothing lines and shit, but other than that, ion see nothing either.