Maky Lavender

Lavender Fields, un EP de 7 chansons, agence ses talents de producteur/beatmaker avec sa plume nonchalante & straight forward. Ses productions, mostly à progression lente, laissent suffisamment d’espace pour que ses invités vocaux puissent se démarquer. - Saine Scène

Originaire de l’Ouest de l’île, Maky Lavender varie les flows et les ambiances sur cette suite de Blowfoam, volet initial paru il y a deux ans - Voir.ca

Maky Lavender is going James Harder. Peep the ( fire ) Walid Jabri-directed visual above - Montreality

“Leaving now” he said at five-fifty, following a message explaining that he was coming by car and not by bus. I had spent the last few hours at a table near the Classics section of the Chapters I was in, amidst a swarm of papers, organizing my questions for the interview that I was going to conduct at six. His text meant that I had about fifteen minutes to kill, so I put down the book I had picked up, put on my coat, and left to go kill some time at the magazine store that was closer to where we had planned to meet.

The guy I was waiting for was Maky Lavender: a twenty-one-year-old rapper and West Island native whose creative endeavours have begun to gain some more serious traction over the past year or so. Since the age of thirteen, with the exception of a long hiatus from 2013 to mid-2014, he’s been making and releasing music consistently, with a host of singles and features on his Soundcloud, and fourindependent projects: White Girl EP (2013), Maktape (2013), Blowfoam (2015), and his latest, Lavender Fields (2016). Aside from music, he designs his own merch — from hockey jerseys promoting his own “Blowfoam College,” to t-shirts with his face on them—, produces many of his own instrumentals (such as “Montreal West”), and directed a series of dark, gritty videos that accompanied his junior mixtape Blowfoam, which was of the same temperament.

After leafing through a few magazines under the apathetic gaze of the store clerk, I left to go meet Maky at the nearby bar, so that we could grab a drink and loosen up before the formal question-asking. All three of these places are in a sterile shopping complex off of Boulevard St-Jean. I strolled down the walkway which separated the stores from the car-park until I was in front of the bar where we'd conduct the interview. I waited there for five minutes, kicking around cigarette butts, and staring into the empty parking lot through the mist of my breath. Then a grey Hyundai SUV pulled up, and Maky hopped out. “Mr. Lavender,” I said with a nod of my head, as I walked up to him with an outstretched hand. “Wassup man,” he replied with a chuckle, as he offered his hand back..

“I’ve never seen McKibbins like this,” he said as we walked into the warm-lit Irish pub, whose walls made entirely of rich, brown wood, and were decorated with a variety of vintage adverts. There was one that had “Ten to one, it’s Guinness Time” spelled out in red, elegant, cosmopolitan letters under an inquisitive cartoon clock, which caught my eye first. “How do you mean?” I replied, not knowing how else it could be, due to the fact that I had never been before. “Usually it’s dark as hell, full of loud music and teenage girls. Not the case on a Sunday,” he said as he shrugged his shoulders. We sat down and ordered two pints. We drank and shot the shit for about forty-five minutes, talking about past jobs, past romances, music, and drinking. We gradually worked ourselves into a fit of laughter, tossing jokes back and forth, and by the time we had decided to go back to Chapters to conduct the formal interview, we were both feeling high-spirited and lighthearted. The following should be read in that light.

…
abbott mak
Q&A below...

I like that video you posted on Twitter, the one with all the du-rags.

Nobody’s ever asked me that, that’s the funniest part.



I have no doubt; you don’t seem like the type of guy to wear a du-rag out in public.

The thing is, I do. Very often. When I get my braids done and shit, I’ve gotta sleep with my du-rag, so I don’t fuck my braids up. I put it on at night, so my hair looks nice, then I wake up in the morning with it on. Why would I take it off?



Fair enough. So you wanna give me your full name?

Makendal St-Felix. Haitian as fuck. Makendal actually has a meaning, it comes from this Haitian soldier who was around when everyone in Haiti was slaves to the French. That dude was a crazy motherfucker. He was an escaped slave who like, lead the revolution for some time and killed a bunch of motherfuckers. He had one arm--nobody knows how he had one arm and did all this shit--but he had one arm, and he killed a bunch of people. It was crazy. Then this chick snitched on him, like she was tortured until she snitched about where he was, and then they burned him.



Oh, uh, wow...

Oh no, you thought it ended nice? We both started laughing. That’s where it ends.



So do you aspire to him then? Like do you reflect any of his behaviours, like killing Frenchman and such?

Well yeah, in a way, because I say women is poison all the time; maybe that’s where it’s from.



Alright, women are poison.

Women is poison. You can’t say it the right way.



Women is poison, okay...and what about your stage name?

Maky Lavender. Maky, because my parents have been calling me this forever. I don’t think my mom’s ever called me Makendal to this day. Lavender, because, for real, me and my friends just give each other names. Like one of my friends is named Patrice, but we call him Patrice Gibson. Don’t know why, it just sounds good. My name--I used to be obsessed with the name Francis, and one day I found this mannikin head and called it Francis Lavender, but I said it luhvinder. I was corrected later by my friends. Then when I made a Soundcloud account, I was like, Imma keep the Maky of course, and then I just threw in Lavender and kept it like that. People used to grill me all when I started with the name though. They were like “yo I found your Soundcloud. Maky Lavender, that sounds like a gay pornstar’s name.” They bashed on me.



Damn.

Yeah, but then I was like, dope, Imma use that name then. Just because they made fun of me. If it caught your attention like that, it’s a good name.



That’s a very wholesome way to take that.

Thank you.


james harder
You seem to have a couple of alter-egos; James Harder, for one. Can you explain them to me?

I don’t think they’re alter egos; I think they’re just me. They’re not different from me, they’re just select parts of me that are amplified. Like Maky Lavender is just me, James Harder is when I get on my hard shit. I make soft songs, and I also make hard-ass songs, and James Harder’s when I get on my rap shit.



I think it’s good to move between extremes in making music though. It keeps people on their toes, anticipating something really different. On the topic of ego and alter-egos though, how important are personas in rap, and how big of a role does ego play in the industry? Could it or should it play a lesser role?

Back in the day it used to be cool, now it’s horrible. Like Drake doesn’t have one; Drake’s just Drake, and this is why it works. He’s always himself and that’s timeless. He used to be super sensitive, and that was him before the fame. Now that he’s like “I got all this money, I can do what I want; nobody steps to me,” he’s developed a sort of “fuck you” attitude, and it works because that’s where he’s at. It’s still him. So like, it’s stupid to have a persona. Be yourself. You’ll talk about different shit.



On the topic of you then: how would you describe the formative moments that have lead you to where you are now, both as an artist as an individual?

The spark of all this, was when this chick broke my heart when I was eighteen years old. It started in high school, and I was a bit of a shit-head then. Long story short, after lots of complications, we ended up being together, then not being together, and then by the time I was eighteen things between her and I were totally done with, and that fucked me up so bad. I don’t know why it fucked me up so bad; I don’t get it. It fucked me up so crazy that all I did was music, videos and all that Blowfoam shit. I’d cope with my shit with drinking, and a result of that is puking. That’s what blowfoam is: it’s a synonym for puke, and the title speaks for the darkness and grittiness of the project. After her though, I dated this girl named Gaby, and she’s just sunshine. Her heart is pure, and she’s a great person, and that’s why Lavender Fields is so bright. We broke up before the project was done, but she shaped the writing of the tape for sure; she shaped the brighter me. All of it. And that’s what got me past the sadness and the drinking, and got me here. I don’t wanna make it seem like it was just them though, all that being said. The experiences that came from the relationships, beginning, middle, and end, made me develop parts of myself that brought me into new situations with a different mindset, and that’s really what changed me. They were just a part of it, a big one.



Aside from love and experience, are there artists that inspire you?

Pharell, of course. DMX inspires me crazy. James Harder wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for DM. People always compare me to Tyler [the Creator], but nah, I don’t draw from him much.



In Lavender Fields, I heard a lot of Isaiah Rashad influence both lyrically, and in the general ambiance of the project. Did I hear that right?

Yo, it’s crazy that you caught that. Nobody caught that. Isaiah Rashad saved my fucking life. When this man came out with Cylvia Demo, it was right around the time shit was going crazy in my head. He stopped me from going too wild. People always say Tyler, but it’s really him. The emphasis on female vocals on Lavender Fields was all him.

Okay, good to know that I hit the nail on the head. With artistry in mind here: what’s your definition of an artist, and what’s the artist’s responsibility? Do they have one?

Art is coherent. If you can be coherent, then you can make art. I think it would be difficult for me to be like “this isn’t art.” Even people who are gonna hate on Lil’ Yachty, for example: he sounds a certain way, but you can understand what he’s trying to do; that he’s doing something.



Okay, I was actually going to use him as an example in this next question. We’ve come to see this huge ideological division in rap music. You have these sort of reactionary people on one end, who argue that rap is deviating from it’s original purpose of being socially conscious and informative, and that it’s downgraded to an almost excremental form, while you have much more progressive people on the other side, who argue that what we’re seeing now in rap is a positive evolution of the genre. Back when he was writing, Oscar Wilde advocated a philosophy of celebrating uselessness in art; that the best thing art could be is decorative. One of his famous quotes is “I’m finding it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china,” referring to the blue china he used to collect--china being something almost entirely decorative, of course. Then you get people like Yachty, who sort of indirectly subscribe to this philosophy when they say things like he did on The Breakfast Club, when he told Charlemagne that if he “wanted to say ‘yuh’ over a beat for three minutes, and get everyone turnt as fuck,” that he could damn well do so. What do you think of all this? Do you think that rap is currently celebrating this sort of uselessness? and if it is, is it a good thing?

Popular rap is popular because people like it at face value. It’s super decorative. You see most people our age liking shit that doesn’t have too much meaning, because they like having fun and stuff, and that’s okay. That’s a good thing. Some people are like seventeen, and going through crazy anxiety. If the only thing that gets them turnt is to fuckin’ mosh at a Travi$ Scott concert, then do that. Also, popular doesn’t mean anything; it’s just what’s being listened to the most, and sometimes the songs can have messages in them. Like right now Bad and Boujee is huge. I remember back when Hotline Bling was the big thing, and on that track Drake says some stuff. “…started wearing less and going out more…” That’s a true statement about some girls in our age group [18-24].



Then would you consider the current state of rap music, both in the mainstream and the underground, to be an evolution or a regression?

Oh hell yeah, an evolution. Now we accept different shit. Migos, man: they can rap. They don’t just sound good, the way the rap is just crazy. They do these flows, man, like even Bad and Boujee: “my bitch/ is bad/ and boujee/ cookin up dope with the uzi…” The flow is super strategic. They’re good rappers man, because you have this diversity [of flows]. Back then, the only people you had rapping’ differently were Bone Thugs [‘N Harmony]. Now, guys rap like this everywhere.



That’s consistent with the strain of optimism that’s been running through this interview; I like it. Last question, simple and off-topic: what makes life worth living?

Nice things; things I enjoy. My mom, food I like, music I like listening to, my friends. The simple things. Life’s worth living because I like stuff. If I hated everything, living wouldn’t be worth it. Because I love so much with all my heart, it’s all worth it.



So love is really the most important thing for you?

Yeah. Not just love of a person, but love in all its forms. Love is the most important shit ever. The bad times are horrible, and they suck, but the good times are even more worth it, and love is a part of that. Loving your friends, loving your girlfriend. I think love is running everywhere. - Loclasse

// Model : @makylavender // Photographer: @whitesamuraii // Stylist: @amirzargara - BabenGents