Isaiah Rashad opens his new album, It's Been Awful, with a prayer request and a promise.
"Somebody pray for me / I'm going crazy" he intones on "The New Sublime," extending the appeal to cover his entire family, over a beat that drips like melted candlewax. Then, a couple of bars later, come the promises. "I promise you the truest art / I promise not to lose myself / I promise not to shame my God," he proclaims to any and everyone lending an ear: Us. Himself. Even his God. (Heavy emphasis on his, because Lord knows we all need one in our own image.) But it's the double promise of a wedding band and debit card, presumably to a significant other, that finds him measuring his own self-worth against the cost of crashing out.
"It's profit over love again / Seem like that's what we sick about."
It's been five years since we last heard a good word from Chattanooga's highly-favored son and four years since two leaked sex tapes, featuring Rashad with other men, threatened to snatch his blessings away. But who wouldn't pay good money to hear a rapper wrestle publicly with his private self? Instead of holding steadfast to his past persona, he gives it up something lovely on It's Been Awful. Having survived hypervisibility, his new album encapsulates what it means to truly be seen.
Rashad has always been a riddle. A southern rapper with abstract flows and a mouth full of gold. A vulnerable soul who's not inclined to battle rap, but raps endlessly about his battles with addiction. On It's Been Awful, his delivery reaches new levels of clarity and intimacy. It's like we're eavesdropping on his murmured confessions. Instead of a high priest, he presumes his audience to be an empathetic friend. And he fearlessly walks us down a path of self-discovery where love can't be trusted and trauma is a holy bond. In Rashad's reconstructed worldview, love is everything. And whatever he's chosen in place of it has only furthered the distance between him and loving himself.
It's one thing to know thyself intuitively and something altogether different, and quite left-brained, to own it during the press run. After previewing his album in the week leading up its release, I assumed he'd still be hesitant to unmask. And rightfully so, after being violated against his will. But Rashad answered questions faster than I could ask them, in a manner as revealing and insightful as his open-hearted opus.
His work ethic belies a track record averaging five years between releases. In about 18 months, Rashad recorded 100 demos for this album. He cried after recording some of them. He watched the Oscar-winning film Moonlight for the first time. And he tapped back into his superpowers. But the real show of strength comes in how willing he is to interrogate his own indoctrination. He even drags the misogynist pockets on his last album for filth, calling The House Is Burning "gross."
"That's the main thing for this album that I'm most proud of," he tells me. "I don't have one bar talking bad about a woman." Instead, he set out to do something much more radical. By stripping himself naked, he's committed to unmasking hip-hop and the patriarchy at large.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Rodney Carmichael: I want to say right out the gate, man, this album is incredible. It's honest. It's brave. It's bumping. It feels like it's your best work yet.
Isaiah Rashad: Man, thank you.
And it's really evident how much work you put into it too. Like a lot of emotional lifting and labor, so to speak. So I am curious, how literal should we take the album title? How awful has it really been?
I mean, without necessarily overlooking my blessings in life and opportunities I've had, I think on a human level it's been pretty f***ed up. But at the same time, the whole attitude towards it was recognizing the different kind of spaces that I could particularly be in. But moving past it, trying to move towards clarity. I've been through a lot of adjustments, I guess you could say, the past couple years and just to an extent, re-understanding my identity to myself. So that was really the biggest part of this project was making sure I stayed true to making something healthy.
To put a fine point on it, you really experienced such a huge violation of your privacy from the leaking of a sex tape four years ago that outed you without your consent. But this album is so liberating in a sense that I wonder if it's possible that an incident that was meant to cause you so much hurt and pain may have liberated you, too, in a creative sense?
I'm a full believer in destiny. And a full believer in like… I feel like I'm an instrument, a vessel for God, or whoever you believe in individually. I feel like I'm being led by that spirit to be a hug for people and to be a mirror for certain people. And my music isn't for everybody. I don't think anything is for everybody, but for the audience that it does reach out, it does reach, it's important that I'm as transparent as possible. And I never felt like somebody took an opportunity for me to take a step in my life and present myself how I wanted to. And to express what I've been going through or even all of it about myself in a way that — I could have done it, I guess, neater — but I feel like it was purposeful because it allowed me to say f*** it: I have nothing else to do but to lay it all out there. I was going through a lot of pain that I needed to identify. I needed to find new ways to make sense of everything. And just without going into too much depth, there's not a lot of room for any of that in the typical Black community. Exactly. So, you know, it was like I really felt like I was trying to avoid being ostracized by my own people. And then, I guess up until this point, I've felt more acceptance for people who've just shared similar experiences. They don't necessarily … they tell me — I don't know who else knows — but people find no reason to tell me about stuff in their lives now. So I felt there was an obligation to not be a poster child for depression or the poster child for addiction or sexuality at all, but definitely being like, I'm not afraid to stand on what happens in my life. And again, like everything happens for a reason.
I want to get into that a little more, especially when you talk about the Black community and the hip-hop community. But, I'm curious, what would you say it gave you the freedom to talk about that you hadn't before?
I feel like, up until this point, in comparison I probably was being 88% honest at face with everything. It was what I was being comfortable about. And then now it's more like a hundred. And it doesn't hurt to. I don't feel the risk factor in talking about stuff. I feel like the only people who listen to it want to hear about it or can identify with it at this point anyway.
You've always been such a feelings-based artist. But on this album, everything feels less opaque. It's like you're filling in the details, your thoughts, your experiences, a lot of context in your life. These are not those classic Isaiah Rashad "puzzle raps."
That was something that particularly I didn't want to do with this album. If it was anything holding me back, it was my own understanding of how to say what I wanted to say. So you say "puzzle rap" and I say hieroglyphics. To me, I was rapping in hieroglyphics and if you understood, you understood. But even if you understood, you couldn't necessarily explain it to somebody else.
Did it require you to be a different kind of rapper when you got in the booth?
I think just trying to be intentionally descriptive. Because I don't really use punchlines, and I don't really use a lot of metaphors or similes. So, it was harnessing the flow and the style that I already used, and it was really just being challenging myself to do that. At the first level of it all, it has to be entertaining to me.
I feel like I already just say s***. I have a certain cadence that is more of a flow to itself than anything else I'm saying. So I feel like I just had the opportunity after everything to just say it. Everything, as long as I keep a little flow to it, keep a little style to it, make sure I don't finish a song without throwing some little pizzazz. It's like a diary this time, for sure. That's how it was supposed to be. Especially after all of that and everything the past couple years, it was like I am either going to fall off or not. Like it's not in my hands with this album.
And so my only obligation was to the essence of the art. Be as honest as you can be. Don't try to make a hit. Or not necessarily hit, but don't try to go in here and try to reinforce your masculinity. F***ing rah-rah. It's like, all right, be soft, man. And not even like saying that's a representation of any sides of sexuality, but you now have an opportunity to be thoughtful and not be so callous.
I feel like we wear masculinity almost like a straitjacket in hip-hop. You're from Tennessee. I'm from Georgia. Even though I'm a tad older, I think a lot of the Southern rap that you grew up on shaped me, too. In a sense, we both come from this era where your identity, your gender, your sexuality all had to line up in a very specific way for you to call yourself a man. Our understanding of that has expanded as a society but I'm not sure that it has in hip-hop. So how do you think about what it means for you to be challenging those norms and expectations — not just in your private life but in your music, too?
How do I feel about challenging it?
Do you feel like that's even what you're doing? Do you feel like you're challenging any of the norms around masculinity and hip-hop with your music right now?
Yeah, I'd agree with that. I am. It wasn't my intent to, but I think it's more so that I guess, even after my recorded history, some people assumed that I would just turn into a different person.
You mean in the last five years?
Yeah, I guess like in the way I present myself. I notice people are upset that I don't come off more feminine now.
Really?
Yeah, so I guess that's a thing. My best friend who really helped me put myself together right when I was in between college and actually meeting the people that would get me to TDE [Top Dawg Entertainment], was super in touch with himself. A gay guy who's super masculine [and] was more of a man than anybody I've ever met took care of me and my friends and was a shooter in the Army and all of this other s***.
I don't even understand. I think within the Black community, the idea of what being masculine is is just kind of f***ed up in itself. Especially because we kind of live in a matriarchy compared to the rest of the communities that we share space with. I don't know how other races and cultures deal with stuff, but to me at the basis, Black people are centered on matriarchy. Like, being a man is kind of second to being…. I don't know. I don't like the tough guy s***. I feel like being a father, being a brother, takes a lot of sensitivity. Our ideas of just even the word "masculine" just have us like … you know?
Yeah, I do. I got a six- year- old son. I know you're a dad too. You've got three kids, right?
Yeah, teaching them to be sensitive and to be OK with being sensitive is such a … depending on what kind of beliefs you deal with. You could be teaching your kid not to cry, and it's like what does that mean? I'm a huge basketball fan and it was a quote that Wemby had the other day about refusing to conceal his emotions. He was crying on court. I'm paraphrasing but he was like, 'why do I have to hold myself back for other people?' That's how I feel about the whole masculine thing within our community. Why can't I be sensitive and still change a tire? I'ma cry while I do it. Maybe you know. If I am going through it, you know, type of s***.
Have you always felt this way or is this kind of newfound?
I've always been a pretty big hug-all-my-people, kiss-all-my-people kind of guy. I was raised by women. I don't know any other way but to show somebody I love them. Never been a tough guy.
What were your main models of manhood growing up?
I summed up being a man to providing. And, like, I'll get in trouble for you if need be. Self-sacrifice was masculine to me. Putting other people ahead of yourself, which is weird. That's the only thing I saw [about] the men in my community and in my life who were spoken negatively about compared to the ones that were [talked about] positively. The common thread was just that they were willing to sacrifice their whole selves for everybody else. So I think our idea of masculinity comes with a bit of putting yourself after the people you care about. That's not healthy. That's not self-love.
Do you see yourself as a sacrifice on any level? Because even though it wasn't your intent or your agency was robbed in the way that it happened, you sparked a conversation that is long overdue, especially in hip-hop. Does that feel sacrificial to you in any way?
Nah, man. I thank God for everybody who came before me who dealt with any of this. I don't even know what to call this. But anybody Black — male, female, period — who's had to deal with their sexuality — or the questioning of it — in front of people, I thank them for making this easier for me. Even somebody like Frank Ocean kind of softballed this for me. It'd be different if I was out here, like Young Nudy.
Super hard, yeah.
But when I'm onstage, my biggest songs are about crying, man.
You've always been vulnerable.
Yeah, so it's cool. I feel like I'm just, at this moment, able to be who I probably was supposed to be. Even if I'm a person learning myself still. I'm just supposed to be the homie when you turn it on in the most authentic way, and I feel like this is God and the universe's way of allowing me to continue to be useful.
You talk about family a lot on this album. On "Act Normal," you're talking, in a sense, about the sins of the father passing down to the child. Even in terms of things like sex addiction in your family. Were those things that you've always understood or were they revelations that you only started to reckon with in recent years?
I've dealt with them since I was about 21. I've recognized it. It's why I had such a strenuous relationship with my uncles and my biological dad and even my brother at times. Without asking, they kind of gave me the blueprint of terrible things to do: infidelity, how minimally they looked at sex outside of just a pleasure thing [or] something you really share with somebody. And the s*** they left around on the computer or sitting on the counter when we were like 8 or 9. You know, just irresponsible things.
The porn mags.
Yeah, all that. The porn magazines, the VCRs back then. You see a swath of it and you're like, 'What the f*** is this?' You never forget that kind of s***. Especially if these are the people who you kind of shape yourself [after]. You don't immediately see, like, Oh, I'm becoming these muthaf***ers.
As you grow into that understanding, are those conversations that you ended up having with any of those family members or are just putting it into the music?
I'm trying to figure out a way between empathizing and confronting somebody when I'm in those situations. I'm like, I can't really get at you for what you did to me or you inadvertently did. But then I'm like, somebody did that to you. I don't even know where to go with that outside of just trying to end the cycle. Those people need hugs, man. They have terrible opinions of themselves and [low] self-worth, and we just express it in different ways.
In listening to this album, you talk about addiction and relapse and rehab, and I started to wonder if the cycles of addiction that you've battled openly through the years were tied in any way to the parts of yourself that you felt like you had to hide from the general public.
I guess it all feeds into each other. I try not to give one particular thing too much power and say this is why. It's all of it. They don't write stories about the bisexual Black boy — to the point that I was afraid to watch Moonlight. I finally watched [it] a year ago and I cried so much.
That is such a good movie.
I was like, this is crazy.
You knew about it already? How did you end up watching it?
I knew about it. They've defined the Black bisexual community for us before we even get to open that book. You're either this or you're that. There is no in between where we're at. I got kids and those relationships [with their mothers] weren't fake. Those tears that we shared together. The experiences we went through, they weren't fake. So for people to tell me I'm a liar when I'm like, no, bro. I've been in love, bro. I know what that is.
I only have so much room to be Black and a rapper — that's two double masculines on top of each other. I only have so much of my soul to actively [give]. If there was a measuring cup of how much you can handle, with your stress; I kind of just put sexuality in the back of that. I'm like, This is enough. Just not trying to be broke was enough. And I didn't feel like, at the time, it was a particularly important part of my story — especially [because] it felt like the most private part. My love life is pretty private.
That was the one thing I have no problem being like, That's none of your business — as far as my idea of how the audience would take some stuff. But at the same time, I guess being a rapper is being naked. So they expect that. When they find out that you're not that naked, they're like, Oh, you got clothes on?
Being a rapper, especially in this day and age, is also a performance. I don't think we encounter many that are as willing to be as naked and vulnerable as you've always been and how you're being — especially right now.
I feel like people just play dumb.
You're talking about the rappers or the audience?
Both. Both as f***. But rappers, particularly. The foundations of our stuff is art. And if you want to go to the purest idea of what f***ing hip-hop is, it's every form of Black art. If it's Black art and community, that's hip-hop. Rap comes from serving. MCing is different, but rapping is [being] a journalist. Either you're an autobiographer or you've agreed to tell what your best friend's doing. That's how I always looked at it.
The most surprising thing to me, in the immediate aftermath of everything, was all the support you said you got from hip-hop after the tape leaked. What did that support look like and how did it make you feel at the time?
The best ones were, 'I love you.' 'Keep going.' The OK ones were n****s would act like I got sick. It would be the random [moments when] I see you somewhere and then you grab my shoulder and you say, 'Bro, don't worry about what them people saying.' And I'm like, I was worried about getting some food before you said that s***. But at the same time, I appreciate. N****s was just trying to hold me in the way they can hold me. These are just unsaid things in our community. They're not things that don't exist. They're just things that we act like don't exist. We might act like it's a sickness, but I don't believe that.
But the support, I was kind of surprised by it. But again, I give credit to people like Tyler [The Creator] and Frank [Ocean] and even Da Brat. Even like some of the trans rappers and even [Bounce] rappers in the queer community from New Orleans or Louisiana. I got a lot of people from that community that reached out to me. I make pretty sensitive music, so I feel like that was the main thing. What's the difference? It was people whose favorite song from me was me belittling a woman. It was like they felt betrayed. And I'm like, we both have a problem, bro.
That was the main thing for this album, really, that I was most proud of. I don't have one bar talking bad about a woman. Compared to my last project, [The House Is Burning] was at the height of me indulging in escapism, to the point that I listen to that album and I'm like, Ew, this is gross. That's nasty. Why were you talking like that?
So that's funny, because you did a breakdown [of a song from that album] with NPR Music, you and Kal [producer Kal Banx].
It's one of my favorite interviews.
I love that interview too. But that song comes to mind when I think lyrically about what you're talking about. It was obviously very tongue in cheek and playful. But there was a lot going on in the song. Are those the kind of songs you're talking about?
You talking about that "9-3 Freestyle"? When all that s*** happened to me, I felt like that's karma for writing this song.
Really?
Deadass. It particularly stuck out to me. I was like, You are terrible. You deserve this.I was like, watch what you say. I've watched what I've said since then.
This song [you broke down for us] was "Hey Mista."
Oh yeah, all that. That whole album.
Do you feel the need to distance yourself from previous art that you've had out in the world?
Nah, it's who I am. It's who I was. I've had different phases of myself. I'm not particularly proud of it, but I signed up for this. A certain part of it is me appreciating the growth. And if it's a good song, I'm gonna play it if they want to hear it. As long as it ain't too crazy. There's certain s*** that I'm just not playing no more. For the most part, everything's a go.
What will your set list look like now?
It's gonna be a lot of the new stuff and then a handful of [old stuff]. I never really did "9-3 Freestyle" [live], anyway. I don't really like doing "Hey Mista." It takes a lot of energy to make it entertaining to me. The universe never allowed me to even indulge in that s*** onstage, anyway.
I know you said that you're not intentionally setting out to challenge or subvert masculinity or the way it's been represented. But it definitely feels like you're modeling a new version of Black masculinity within hip-hop, specifically. Is that something that you take pride in or you can acknowledge or appreciate? How does that feel?
Anything positive, I have no issue towards it. I don't have a particular thing that I think about on a day to day basis when it comes to this. My being authentic to myself is the key. I have this rare opportunity to not care about what people think of me. And my idea of it is that doesn't give me the excuse to go pop pills and be a wild boy. I'm like, I could be myself and be at peace. I don't have to be myself and go party — or even if people party, it's cool — but I ain't got to go look for a way to express myself. I'm like, d***. I'm naked now to me. I'm completely naked in the world. Take me as I am, type s***.
So how did the peace come? I know right after everything happened you talked about some of the tragedies that came immediately following that. You had a couple of car accidents.
I was wilding, bro. It was wild. My granddad died. My uncle died. I guess the peace came from — I gotta give a lot of it to my family for making sure we talked about all this stuff. It wasn't just stuff for the ones that already knew me a hundred, thousand percent. It was more reinforcing and game-planning therapy. And for the people who didn't have all the info, they embraced it. [Like,] how do we get you OK with yourself? Because you think you're okay with yourself, and then you feel exposed. Then you have to deconstruct what is exposed. It's been a four [or] five-year break. Time gave me peace and time to consider what kind of album [I wanted to make]. The music really helped, man. Being able to channel and center myself. And if I could figure out the way, if I could figure out words to put in a song that, again, aren't hieroglyphics and puzzles, then it kind of just makes everything easier. I cried so many times after so many of these songs I made. Especially "Act Normal" and especially "The New Sublime." And in a couple of joints that are on the deluxe [version] that you haven't heard yet. They were pretty key for me. If I can express it, I don't even deal with it no more. It's kind of like a blessing. As soon as I wrap it, it's OK. That made it easier.
Where in the process did those two songs in particular come in — "The New Sublime" and "Act Normal."
"The New Sublime" was probably the first track I made for that album. Then "Act Normal" was around last October. I was making this album since the end of 2023. And I got done last November, so it's roughly a year and a half, almost two years to record it. We recorded about one hundred songs.
"New Sublime" is like your thesis statement right out the gate.
Yeah, I thought it was really powerful. I liked that first line, and I thought it was, as soon as I wrote it. I was like, OK, this is gonna be interesting. Because I'd never [heard] nobody say nothing like that. "I'm cut from a sinful nature and I feel afflicted / falling over."
The hook on "Act Normal" is so layered. What are you processing through the hook of that song?
The people making me choose. Like, who are you? And I'm like, I don't trust anybody. "I don't trust a boy or girl / Act normal." Who am I supposed to like? How can I? What if, at the end of it, I don't like anybody?
I hear you doing that too throughout the album. In a sense, you're almost like questioning love, or if love is enough.
Yeah. I was at a particular point where I was like maybe it's me that I love. My greatest fear isn't being bisexual or anything. It's, what if I'm asexual? What if I don't like anybody and I've been going through all this just to realize I kind of want to be with community and not necessarily be with somebody. Maybe not even have a sexual relationship. I question my fulfillment on that type of stuff.
At the end of the album, on "Superpwrs," one of my favorite parts is when you sing the hook. It's almost like you're discovering and reveling in the fact that you have real superpowers. But it's also a callback to the beginning of the album, on "New Sublime," where you say you've "been the Clarkest Kent at your lowest."
Yeah, there's a Superman motif throughout the album. And it wasn't intentional until I realized I was doing it. The psychology [behind it is] that's him at his purest. You know, that's who he really is.
To draw that metaphor out a little bit further, how did you overcome your kryptonite and tap back into your superpowers?
It felt like the world was trying to take something away from me, and I had to question what it was. But it was really taking my connection with my listeners away. Even without knowing them, these are some of my best friends. Like, when you get to talk to a stranger somewhere and you get to tell them some s***. I feel like that was an opportunity that I was at an impasse of not being able to have anymore. It felt like a do or die thing. I feel like God and this timing in the world was letting me know it's time's up for facades. Time's up for being afraid of yourself. Time's up for being afraid of not having acceptance from the people you want it from. And maybe if you can't get acceptance from those people, you don't need them in your life. And it's time-up for self abuse. It really felt like if I didn't do it, I'm gonna die.
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