Deniro Farrar raps like his life and that of his immediate family depends on it. As a full-time MC with two kids, that’s likely the case. Though he made a splash his early adoption of next-level cloud rap production Deniro’s lyrical content has always remained closer to Earth. His path has not been easy, dogged by violence, drugs, and incarceration. Now, though, things are looking up—we’ve signed the Charlotte, North Carolina spitter to VICE Records, where he’s primed to slay what’s left of the game in 2013. I spoke to Deniro over the phone about militant cults, America’s coming crisis, and his first kiss. Don’t miss Deniro on tour this fall—dates below.
Noisey: When did you start using the internet to look for music?
Deniro Farrar: 2011. I was reaching out to people like Keyboard kid, nem270, Silky johnson, Clams Casino, thats when the whole A$AP wave hit, the era of the internet producer, that really eerie cloud-rap type beat. Now I got my own era—Cult Rap.
Videos by VICE
How do you define Cult Rap?
Cult rap has social commentary in it. Cult rap touches on the struggle, Cult rap touches on politics. To sum it up it’s reality rap, rap with a lot of reality, a lot of characteristics of poverty-stricken living. Music that isn’t forced upon the masses. Freddie Gibbs isn’t on the radio, if you’re a fan of Freddie Gibbs you have to keep up with him. Thats what Cult rap is, you have to keep up with it. Artists, producers, whatever. I’m gonna have the strongest wave, though. Once my wave hits its gonna be like Tupac.
If you imagine Cult rap as a real life cult, what would happen at a meeting?
There would definitely be a lot of sex, free love, multiple orgies with beautiful women, a lot of exercise, working out. That’s important to me. I get out of bed, do like 250 pushups, I workout every day. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t do none of that shit. I’m really militant when it comes to this, I feel like thats part of being the elite. The cult is this elite group of militant-minded people. We would read, we would actually get into politics, everything.
What would you read?
Napoleon Hill’s The Law of Success, The Art of War, Secret Societies of America, shit people need to know.
Say this happens—you get really physically fit, enter polities and take over America. What changes?
We would take over America and run this motherfucker right. Free health care. We’d raise the taxes on major corporations and lower the tax on mom and pop. You know, pretty soon, the economy is gonna be fucked up. The crime rate is gonna go through the roof. What do you expect people to do when they can’t feed their kids on $7.25 an hour and the majority of the money is going to their bills and drug habits? What’s going to happen when that shit is cut off? They’re gonna run America like a Monopoly board.
What do you think is your most radical political belief?
Religion, that religion isn’t real. I feel like religion is another form of racism. You have people killing off a whole population of Jews, people lynching blacks over religion. Religion is to divide and conquer. If there was one religion, would everybody be fighting over religion? If you divide them, thats how you conquer shit. Everything we’ve read, someone else wrote it. Everything they wrote in the book, they either read or heard from somebody else. We don’t know nothing. I only learn through life experience. All of my music is life experience, I feel like that’s the realest way to learn shit. That’s authentic, you live and you learn.
What life experiences stand out for you the most as learning opportunities?
When I was young the preacher at my church went to jail for tax evasion. That really made me feel like churches were built upon greed. The preacher is a man just like me, he sins just like me, he puts on his pants one leg at a time just like me. If you allow someone to pick on you they will continue to do so until you stand up for yourself. I was picked on a lot, I was really short in middle school, but I stood up for myself, beat this guy’s ass, and he never picked on me no way. At that point in my life I stopped being controlled by fear. Fear controls everything, fear controls America. Terrorism ain’t nothing but another form of fear. It’s not even real. They mass produced fear through the media. If they keep us in fear, we’re gonna still be reliant on our government to protect us. The only thing you can never stop is death, so you might as well live your fuckin’ life, man. Once you stop fearing, people don’t fuck with you anymore.
I understand that your brother is incarcerated?
Yeah, my little brother, he’s fighting a murder charge. All the evidence is circumstantial, the system is designed against minorities. But you know, it is what is, you can’t fight fate. People don’t even know how much money is in the fuckin’ system. Every court case is worth money. Every single goddamn case has a dollar amount. Murder cases are fuckin’ high. And if the state wins, they get the money.
What else do you listen to besides rap?
Adele, Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, D’angelo. I like Javelin, they’re dope. Purity Ring, Kings of Leon.
If you could design any kind of merchandise what would it be?
Bulletproof vest.
When was your first kiss?
I was six, she was my older sister’s friend. She just pulled me down and threw me on the bed and started kissing the fuck out of me. I could tell she really meant it, but I was like, “What the fuck is going on?”
What does a typical weekend look like for you?
I got two kids, so I mostly hang with them. Two months and six months old. Different baby mamas. I see them as much as I can. I want to set an example for them with my success.
Since you’ve started making an impact with your music have you seen significant changes in your life?
Yeah man, I get a lot of women throwing themselves at me via Twitter. A lot of people treat me different now, but I’m the same nigga. I was having a conversation with my cousin last night, and he was like, “Man, I know you’re gonna be famous and I just want to be there to carry your luggage.” I was like, don’t ever say that shit. All I want when I’m famous is for you to treat me right, because fame isn’t real. A lot of people get so caught up in the limelight, but celebrity isn’t real.
Do you think internet hype has made these situations particularly problematic?
Hell yeah, Worldstar…now you got all these little kids running around with a camera, trying to fight rappers and all this gangster stupid shit. Women trying to sleep with rappers and trying to fuck up celebrity figures. This girl Deion Sanders was fucking, she was in the hotel with him and she caught him sleeping and took pictures of him and his car keys and that broke up his marriage. It’s crazy. I won’t be getting caught up in no shit. You gotta have on a dress, and that motherfucker better be so tight I can see your pubic hair. Drake is making bitches sign consent forms to fuck him, did you know that? You got to sign a consent form.
Would you ever make somebody sign a consent form?
Swear, I’m about go to Kinkos the second I get off the phone.
October 12 –Vibe Lounge -Rockville Centre, NY
October 13 – Barbary -Philadelphia, PA
October 15 – SOBs -New York, NY
October 16 – Santos -New York, NY
October 20 – Kings Barcade- Raleigh, NC
October 23 – The One Stop- Asheville, NC
November 16 – Nocturne -Toronto, Canada
