Killer Mike on Marriage, Small Business, and Guns

I’m a big fan of Killer Mike but sometimes when you interview rappers they’re kids who’ve been famous for an hour and a half and they have all the dick qualities that come with that. Honestly it’s a total bummer, because they’re the best kind of musicians. Next time some butt-weed starts talking about hip hop’s negative influence on their kid they should send Killer Mike into talk to them. Despite having a decade of critical success behind him, and a lot of brag points, he prefers to talk about stuff like his wife and small business models. Also, he and his wife go straight from the strip club to church. You really can have it all.

Noisey: Hey how’s it going Killer Mike?

Killer Mike: I’m good, how you doin’?

So last year you dropped the LP “Run the Jewels”, which is doing super well, you must be pretty happy with the end product.

Thanks dog, I am. I’m happy, satisfied, and very happy.

That’s awesome. What was the motivation behind releasing it for free?

It just uncomplicated things, El-P and I had dropped R.A.P. Music and Cancer 4 Cure the year before. We had toured, the tour went exceptionally well, people came out to the shows, people bought merchandise, they made 2012 a really good year for us. We wanted to tell them thankyou. The easiest way to tell someone thank you is to give them a gift. So it was really easy for us to just say, “we’re going to use this project as a thankyou for our fans”.

It uncomplicated what way we dropped it, how much lead-time it would need. It uncomplicated all that stuff. We did it with Fool’s Gold, they did a solid job, I really appreciate them. They got it physical into the hands of the fans—and it seemed like it worked.

And it brought you to Australia. Have you been here before?

I have not been to Australia. My wife and I are travel junkies, and that’s one of the destinations we wanted to go together. Unfortunately I’m just coming this time, but she told me to take plenty of pictures ‘cause all her girlfriends are gonna flip. I told her it’s absolutely one of the most beautiful spectacles you could see. They say the cities, the land, it’s just absolutely wonderful, so I can’t wait to get there.

I noticed you in the Frisky Dingo credits the other night, are animation voice-overs the next step for you?

It’s funny you say that because I just got a call from the guys over at Adult Swim. If you go to YouTube and type “Killer Mike Adult Swim” you can see these Life Advice videos I did. They called me back a few days ago and said they’re going to have me back in the spring for some voiceover work and potentially more music. I am actively petitioning the guys over at Archer to give me a shot. The guys who developed Archer are the same guys who developed Frisky Dingo. I love Archer, so shit I’m just taking a shot at getting over there too. We’ll see if Adam responds and we can go for it.

You’d be great on Archer; I hope Adam reads this and you get it.

Yeah I do too, I would just like to get more into voiceovers period. It’s a different type of acting, but I enjoy it. I’m trying to get more into television and film. I know like a million models and rappers have said that, but I actually enjoy voiceover and acting in particular. That’s why in the new video I try not to be the typical rapper but to really try my chops at acting and telling a story in the video. It seems that’s been received pretty well.