Maxo on Drakeo, NBA Youngboy, Alchemist, & Why He Never Fit In with the Industry

Maxo joins Jeff Weiss & Free at Gold Diggers in LA to talk about how he feels like an anomaly in an industry that doesn’t fit his wide-ranging artistic sensibilities. The Pomona-raised rapper opens up about life in the Inland Empire & LA, creative frustrations with industry gatekeepers, ayahuasca, LA’s jazz history, his friendship with Alchemist and more. He drops plenty of unpopular truths about sex in jail, Linkin Park, Bjork, the NWA movie, NBA Youngboy and Kid Cudi.
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00:00 Not Fitting the Industry
02:20 Growing Up in Pomona & Inland Empire
03:45 Why LA Is the Worst City to Party In
05:24 Family, Working-Class Parents & Being the Middle Child
06:58 Parenting, Attention & Raising Kids in the Screen Era
08:18 Finding his voice in music
11:51 Gatekeepers & Algorithms
16:05 Earliest Musical Influences
18:09 Being Different, Moving Between Worlds
19:44 Basketball, Discipline & Staying in Your Lane
22:16 Fitting Everywhere and Nowhere at the Same Time
23:18 Early Influences: Bay, Hyphy, Wayne, DOOM & Mixtapes
26:14 LA’s Jazz History, Central Ave & Cultural Memory
29:07 Why Most Music Biopics Are Bullsh*t
35:13 Complexity, Kendrick, NBA YoungBoy & Expression
40:26 What Actually Inspires the Sound
47:06 Losing the Monoculture (Chappelle, Boondocks, TV)
51:08 Def Jam: Creative Frustration & Industry Reality
54:20 Trend-Chasing Labels & Refusing to Compromise
56:13 No Regrets, Staying Pure & Owning the Work