For many reasons, 2020 has been an awful year filled with insecurity for a lot of people. At times, it has been difficult to remain optimistic, although there have certainly been moments and people that have brought joy and laughter to our collectively quarantined lives. One of those people is Mario Judah.
Judah went viral back in October after the release of his metal-hip-hop crossover track “Die Very Rough.” Many were taken aback by the visuals of the music video, while also noting just how operatic Judah’s voice was. As soon as he went viral, Judah took full advantage and immediately embraced the memes, and shortly thereafter, delivering a polarizing performance at Rolling Loud. From there, he called out Playboi Carti for not dropping Whole Lotta Red and as a result of Carti’s inaction, Judah dropped his own version of the album. Needless to say, Judah has plans to take over the music world and so far, he seems to be on the right track.
As part of HNHH’s 12 Days Of Christmas interview series, we had the pleasure of speaking to Judah where he gave us the full breakdown of how he became an artist, and divulged how his life has changed since the release of “Die Very Rough.”
This interview has been edited for clarity and was conducted a day prior to Judah’s release of Whole Lotta Red Pt. 1.
Day Seven: A Conversation With Mario Judah
HNHH: How are you bro?
Mario Judah: Man, f****** whole lotta red.
I know, we’re gonna get to that, we’re gonna get to that eventually. But, you know, 2020, it’s a weird year for a lot of people.
F*** 2020. I’m going to put that video out bro, it’s over, for F*** 2020, it’s gon’ be crazy.
Is that a song you have coming out?
No, I made literally like a 30-second video of me screaming “F*** 2020.” I feel like everybody would relate to it, you know, f*** 2020.
Definitely looking forward to that. You know, over the last few months you’ve really kind of blown up, gone really viral, you had your Rolling Loud performance, how would you describe these last few months for yourself?
Man, it’s been a blessing really you know, everything just happening the way it’s happening and people resonating with the music and me and accepting me for who I am. It’s really a blessing bro because initially, I was trying to be a producer and that’s all I wanted to do, and then it transitioned into being an artist so I was like f*ck it, might as well make it happen. And for me to have done it, and as quickly as it picked up, it’s just a blessing bro, like you got literally billions of people who grew up wanting to be a rapper, I’m sure you were growing up as a kid you probably wanted to be a rapper too at one point maybe I don’t know but usually, everyone grows up wanting to do something musically, it just so happened to me so it’s really a blessing.
What was that like experiencing “Die Very Rough” blow up in such a huge way?
Well, for one, I knew it would because the song was different, and when I was a producer working with other artists my thing that I stressed was you have to have a different product. You can’t just come in trying to sound like the next big thing, the next big thing that’s already out because it just doesn’t work like that, it’s like you’ve already seen it, you’ve already experienced it you just want something new, people are interested in some new sh*t. HotNewHipHop thats funny [Laughing], and you know, people are driven by new stuff so I figured to just, you know. As soon as it came out, cause I had dropped the audio-only and that was the second song I ever dropped which was “Die Very Rough” and it was audio-only and pick up locally and doing it’s thing, and I already knew why it was doing that. So, a few months later I put out the video, and then how it came out the main culture and started doing their thing with it, and then someone saw it and put it on Twitter, blew up handsomely on Twitter then switched over to TikTok, and we’re here now.
“I always knew I would be here, the only thing that’s surprising is that it’s happening as an artist and not as a producer but like I always knew I was going to make it in music.”
To answer your question about how it’s been bro, psh, man [laughs]. Man, it’s a million things bro. It’s not like, surprising, or like, ‘woah why is this really happening to me’ cause like, essentially being a producer and working all the time and grinding, I expected success like when you expect success, and you get it, you’re not really surprised because you always knew, you know what I’m saying? So I always knew I would be here, the only thing that’s surprising is that it’s happening as an artist and not as a producer but like I always knew I was going to make it in music. I live, wake up and dream music you know I’m still a producer though cause I’m making all my own beats to my songs and I’m playing both parts which is pretty amazing.
So why did you just want to be a producer at first and what made you want to move over to the artist lane?
So I’m going to give you the whole gist of the story. When I was 15-16, around that age, I was getting into like a lot of trouble in school I wasn’t even like doing music-making beats nothing I was just getting into trouble in school getting into fights or whatever so then my pops, he sent me to military school around like 16 did that for like 6 months it was damn near like a jail I hated it but it taught me lots of life skills and maturity and everything like that. And right when I got out, I got accepted into a military college for free, went to college for free, started doing welding. That’s what I went for, Savannah Tech is the school I went to, did that for like 4 months and graduated.
Once I graduated, the universe somehow introduced me to FL studios, which is what I make music on, so when I got out, I just got hooked to it. My first-day making beats I took 18 hours on my beat like my dad went to work and came back and I was still working on this beat like, wow, you could do this on your own, like this can happen, so I just was hooked. Then the next day I did it, and for whole weeks I was doing it and after that it was just an everyday thing, just always making beats then I got hooked and that’s what I wanted to do. I was starting to reach out to other artists to work with them. Leading up to January of this year, even though I was still making beats since then, I got fed up trying to work with artists and help them with their career when they’re not taking it serious or trying to take advice or be different or even pay for beats or expect you to be different or even do all this work for them for free. I’m just trying to make it a career and you’re treating me like “oh, you’re not real, you’re not trying to make it together you’re all about the money,” and it’s like, bro, it’s my product it’s my work but you’re not even willing to pay for it. But whatever that’s another conversation.
“Leading up to January of this year, even though I was still making beats since then, I got fed up trying to work with artists and help them with their career when they’re not taking it serious or trying to take advice or be different or even pay for beats or expect you to be different or even do all this work for them for free.”
So around January, I got fed up with that and that’s how I was feeling so someone came to me and was like look, if you start writing hooks and recording hooks as a songwriter, you can start making more money, you can get more opportunities, you can start meeting new people and build your name as a producer. Cause my beats were always good, it wasn’t the beats before but was the people I was working with. The problem for me was finding serious artists like every time I worked with an artist they would always come out not being serious but my beats were always there. I’ve had industry placements with big artists, they’ve just never got placed. But anyways, they said start songwriting and I was opposed to it cause I wanted to stay in my lane, I wanted to keep being a producer and that’s all I wanted to do like, I wanted to stay in my lane and only make beats cause that’s what I was into, that’s what I enjoyed. And they were like nah bro just do the hook cause you’re the producer you got the outlook and I was like alright, so January-February I started messing around/recording and I didn’t know what I was going to do, if it would be me rapping or singing cause you know I just make beats. COVID had hit and everything was bad, and people were listening to my stuff, people in my circle and they were like yo, these are crazy like I’ve never heard anything like this I think you should put these out. And I was like nah bro, these are just hooks I’m not gonna start making songs. And they were like nah bro you don’t understand these are different I don’t hear nobody else using these and like I said, “Die Very Rough” was actually a hook, I was gonna give that to somebody bro I didn’t know where that song was gonna go.
And then, like I said COVID hit and then June came, the summertime, COVID was still going on and I was in a dark place mentally like damn bro, life is bad like everything just jacked up in the world like f** it, what’s the worst that could happen. I mean the first day before I dropped my first song which was “Crush,” I put a verse on it and it dropped and started gaining buzz so I was like, this is it. So then the second one “Die Very Rough” did the same thing before I even got to put a verse on it and that did what it did, then I dropped a couple more after that and that was it. A few months later, did a music video to “Die Very Rough” like I said, and we here now. But I love it now. I love being an artist now, and to think that I was trying to stay away from it and only be a producer and be successful, and now I’m here. But it’s a blessing though, for real.
Obviously the visual for “Die Very Rough” was very impactful when it came out and now you have “Bih Yah” which just came out recently.
That’s an interesting one, bro, ’cause I didn’t mean to make music like that.
In terms of visuals, how important is it for you to get those music videos out and be able to tell a story that goes with your music because I think the reason “Die Very Rough” popped off so much is because it had a music video.
[Laughing] Yeah, the video bro, I was on some opera s***, whatever it was, Monsters Inc, I don’t know. Music itself is emotion, how you feel and it’s supposed to be taken that way, taken serious that way. And when I’m working with artists and they’re sitting there whispering I’m like bro, I can’t believe what you’re saying. I don’t feel that. I feel like the visuals paint the picture in the listener’s mind, the visuals are super important. In a lot of cases, visuals don’t even need to be all that crazy if the artist themselves is an animated character and has character to them. In that video, I’m like jumping around and I’m doing all this so it may seem like it’s a lot going on, as far as editing and what we used it wasn’t really that much, it wasn’t like a big production where it got a movie type vibe like most videos have all types of props in it. But it’s really just the emotion like the “Die Very Rough” video, I just doing my thing there wasn’t really a lot going on. Really, the person is the one who sets it off. All that extra animation and stuff like that, you gotta be able to match that, if the video itself is overseeing you then it’s not gonna be good, that’s how I feel.
In terms of the memes and everything that came afterward, what were some of your favorites that you saw online because obviously, you were raised on the internet, you understand what comes with it and everything?
That’s what I wanted, that’s what I hope came with it, you know what I’m saying. In a time like this, where it’s quarantine, you should want your song to do something on TikTok or whatever cause everybody’s bored, you know. Nobody’s doing shows, nobody’s doing nothing so when your s*** went on meme culture or whatever, you’re in. And that’s what happened, you know. See I knew that though that’s what I was trying to tell other artists when I was working with them and I was trying to help them grow their career, and s*** you gotta do what it do. And they was “too cool” and they wanted to do the “cool route” and that s*** ain’t work.
You got to be at Rolling Loud this year doing the virtual performance and you got to perform “Rockstar” which was your DaBaby cover, why that song in particular?
I did a cover of that song way before I blew up, I did that song in like July and at the time, I made the song cause it was called “Rockstar” and I was like, let me make a cover of it, still #1 on the charts you know I like the song lemme do it, you know what I mean. But the reason why I performed it was cause Rolling Loud had a situation where like you had to be on stage for a certain amount of minutes right, I think it was like 15 minutes, maybe 20 and at that time, I had “Crush,” “Die Very Rough,” another joint called “The Rockstar,” and another joint called “Can’t Stop Me” and “Rockstar” the remix so I only had five songs in all. So they were like yeah you gotta be on for a certain amount of minutes and you know my songs were relatively short you know they were about like a minute and a half. I only had four songs out with a remix, five in all, I gotta make this work so in the midst of the breaks between songs there was probably like a minute and thirty or whatever like that, and that song was already out and people had already loved it so I was like f*** it I’ll go ahead and perform it. Plus I think this is a good opportunity to show my versatility and my singing abilities so I went ahead and performed it.
The reaction and reception on social media people were very confused by. What did you think of the reception at first? [Laughing]
[Laughing]I loved it, I didn’t know, I mean it’s weird cause there’s so much viral s*** that happened from that show. I did that song, me just being an energetic character on there, and Trippie Redd’s situation later that night, it was so many viral moments that day alone– and the interview, that freaking interview that day. There were so many things that happened that day all in the same day. Now that I really think about it, that was really a crazy day.
Immediately afterward, DaBaby even went on social media and was like ‘who the hell is this performing my song.’ He thought it was pretty funny too. What was that like being recognized by the guy who actually made the original?
I was bugging, bro. Cause at first it was who the f*ck is this kid, like laughing but still who the f*ck is he though. Everybody was tagging him or whatever, so I guess he found out, and then later on in his story, he showed love in his story and was like, ‘I f*ck with you.’ Then I was like, aiight bet DaBaby f*ck with me, you know what I’m saying? I like DaBaby, DaBaby’s fire, everybody likes DaBaby, so for him to, his #1 joint, f*cking with what I did with it, like that’s lit that’s why I’m a rockstar, I wanted to do that, and he seen the vision and he f*ck with it so that’s lit.
“Everybody was tagging him or whatever, so I guess he found out, and then later on in his story, he showed love in his story and was like, ‘I f*ck with you.’ Then I was like, aiight bet DaBaby f**** with me, you know what I’m saying? I like DaBaby, DaBaby’s fire, everybody likes DaBaby, so for him to, his #1 joint, f*cking with what I did with it, like that’s lit that’s why I’m a rockstar, I wanted to do that, and he seen the vision and he f*ck with it”
We were both talking about Whole Lotta Red earlier and your latest song “Bih Yah.” One thing that I think a lot of fans are super excited about is your Playboi Carti impersonation is so spot-on, how were you able to develop that impression in the first place?
[Laughing] Honestly, it’s because I’m such a great producer and I have a good ear, that’s really why. I know I can listen to things and replicate it pretty well. For example, DaBaby “Rockstar,” the song, the day I was trying to remix it I had no internet but I was trying to find the instrumental online. I was like damn, how am I going to get it, and then I was like, lemme just remake it. So, I made the beat; that’s me, I did what I had to do, remade the entire beat just listening to it over and over again. So I can pretty much replicate anything.
How serious are you about dropping your own “Whole Lotta Red?”
So serious, I should probably be doing it like today, today’s the 11th and the sh*t didn’t drop so today it’s happening.
How many songs did you make in that style that you would wanna drop?
It’s funny bro like I haven’t announced how I wanna do it. I’m still playing it by ear I might do a part 1, 2, or 3 type thing, whatever can provoke this man to get him to drop. I don’t know if I’m going to give it all to ’em at once cause I’m trying to figure out the best way possible to get him to drop, to alert him. I don’t know, I’m still figuring it out. I’m just trying to get this man to drop this album.
“Before I blew up, way before I blew up, I was one of those fans in the comment section like “bro, drop Whole Lotta Red bro,” and we’ve been doing that for two years. So I figured, of sh*t, I got a platform, this n*gga gon hear it cause there’s no way [Playboi Carti]’s not going to know, everyone’s going tag him and let him go.”
Why did you decide to call him out so publicly in the first place?
Cause like, before I blew up, way before I blew up, I was one of those fans in the comment section like “bro, drop a Whole Lotta Red bro,” and we’ve been doing that for two years. So I figured, of sh*t, I got a platform, this n*gga gon hear it&n
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