Conversations with Malcolm Brown

Today we’d like to introduce you to Malcolm Brown. 

Hi Malcolm, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Man where do I begin? Ha! 

I’m a rapper/producer (artist) based out of Raleigh, NC. I was born in Bronx, NY, but moved to Charlotte when I was 5 years old. So, when anyone asks where I’m from and if you listen to my music, you’ll hear that I claim Charlotte as my hometown. 

It’s always been in my cards to do music, but I would have never imagined that I’d be here. Growing up, my mother peppered me with a vast array of music. For hours on end, we’d listen to Erykah Badu, Lenny Kravitz, Fred Hammond, Lauryn Hill, and a plethora of Gospel and Reggae artists. I remember how dedicated she was to record our favorite songs off the radio via cassette (oh yea I was born in 91, so growing up, we didn’t have any of this technology) for our 5-hour long trips to Jacksonville, NC to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousin. The time spent with her listening to rap music really got me interested in rhyming, which led me to write rhymes in church while she wasn’t paying attention. My mom had this little Casio keyboard that I used to play for hours as a kid and whenever I went to my aunt & Uncle’s house, I would spend hours playing around with their full-sized keyboard. Oft times when I would get in trouble as a youth, my mom would take away anything “fun.” but she would leave me with books and instruments; I’ll forever be indebted to her unknowing foresight. 

Also, my time in church really influenced me as a whole and you can hear me mentioning my faith throughout my catalog. 

But we could be here forever talking about my mother’s love of music and how it affected me, so let’s speed things up a bit. I never took rapping or poetry seriously before my senior year of high school, aside from a super failed attempt to rap at a talent show, in middle school, that took YEARS to get over in terms of stage fright. In my senior year of high school (2008-09) I started writing poems, which were secret, raps because I still was scared of public opinion. My poems covered my love interests, my feelings on society, and honestly a lot of emotional turbulence, as a result of my mom passing away days after Christmas during my junior year of high school (2007). 

I ended up going to NC State where funny enough, I studied Communication Media in hopes of being a journalist. I wanted to be a commentator on ESPN and figured it was the way to go. I only went to NC State, because my cousin Terrell (my aunt/Uncle’s son) was supposed to be there and because I knew it was a school my mom would have been excited to see me get into. 

The summer before my freshman year at State, my cousin who was a radio personality at WKNC 88.1 (one of 3 or four hosts for a program called Beneath The Beat) and had always been lauded for his poetry and rapping skills, challenged me to freestyle with him to blow off some steam. Honestly, he had been trying for a whole year to get me to rap and I never would, but this time I did and it was the most cathartic experience ever. This was the first time I had an urge to try out music as a career. I’m a Scorpio, so we’re mad extreme and intuitive, so I’m pretty sure that’s why even after one experience I kind of knew. 

Terrell was my everything as a child in terms of a role model/celebrity, etc. We were four years apart, so he experienced everything before me and helped bring me along through things safely. Lucky for me he and his parents moved to Charlotte a few years before my mother died and so it was an easier transition than one could imagine. My father stopped answering the phone after my 6th birthday (the first birthday spent in Charlotte), and subsequently passed away in 2016 before we ever got in contact again. Back to Terrell, he was big on lyricism, and to keep it short, he’s probably the reason I’ve always been a fan of high-level lyricism, wordplay, and conceptual music. 

Wow, that’s very somber. So, let’s pivot to a lighter note. Something in me was unlocked after that freestyle session with Terrell and it led me to spend my whole freshman year continuing to freestyle with the homies and write poetry. I met Slim, or as you may call him, J, like a month at NC State. I spent that whole year wanting to record music, but my other friends who claimed they wanted to start a rap group, weren’t nearly as committed to it as I was. The summer going into my sophomore year, I started playing with a DAW called Audacity and recorded my first feature verse for a friend at State. The first day of that summer I listened to J. Cole’s mixtape, The Warm Up, which galvanized me to be even more serious about trying music. He was from NC and it made me feel like it could be done. He instantly became my favorite rapper, which sucked, because I had literally walked past a free concert that he had at my school, cuz I didn’t know who he was. I also got challenged by a “fan” to start recording my spoken word pieces and putting them online. I took the challenge with great reluctance but ended up falling in love with being behind the camera and with the more in-depth feedback vs the written poetry I would post on Facebook. 

With my newfound love for the act of rapping and not just my previous consumer-based love, I spent my whole sophomore year pressuring the homies to really get serious about recording. They weren’t serious at all, but we spent the whole year smoking and freestyling. Me and Slim tried to make beats during that year, but I got frustrated early and he went way further with it than I did. I did a couple of feature verses that never came out, but nothing really materialized in terms of music. I was cool with that though, because I still thought I was going to do journalism. Oh yea, I forgot to mention, the summer before my sophomore year I got offered an internship at a company called Sporting News by one of the most important men in my life, Kirk Shaw. Mr. Shaw and his wife used to come to my job, McDonald’s, every night and get four diet cokes and we would talk. They were super nice and they seemed to gravitate towards me and actually care about my well-being. I told his wife I went to State for journalism and she told me that her husband was a CFO of American City Business Journals and that she would talk to him for me (I had no clue what ACBJ was at all!). On the last day of work before I went back to school, she came back with Mr. Shaw, ordered their usual, and set me up with an internship. During that summer I was paired with the great Garry Howard, who had divinely ended up leaving Milwaukee to join Sporting News as the editor-in-chief at the same time I was starting my internship. Garry was integral to my development because he was a black man in a field that wasn’t necessarily diverse at the time. I learned a lot about accountability/writing and even had a few articles published. The biggest thing that job did, allowed me to afford my new car and my first MacBook, which I used all summer to record. My brother Shon and producer SR9DIME, spent that whole summer with me rapping but realized he was more into production and became my producer. I also met Autumn Rainwater (a Charlotte-based singer), who was an actual artist and guided me so much. I’ll forever be grateful to her and Shon for instilling the confidence in me to keep going. 

Okay, this is turning into a novel, but I’m basically a rapper now at this point in the story so we should be able to speed things up a bit. 

Going into my Senior year of college, I decided that I was going to be a rapper for real. I had interned at Sporting News for two years, but I realized that wasn’t the right avenue to use my voice. I had no desire to write about the inspiring stories in sports and I didn’t want to write about LeBron scoring 40 points. I wanted to use my pen to directly speak my voice to the people that I believed God called me to help. I was dedicated to creating my first mixtape with my partners in crime. Slim aka SlimDaze would be the Big Boi to my Andre and Shon and YouTube would be our producers. Me and Slim made a lot of music that year, we even traveled back and forth to Greensboro to record at Shon’s home studio. Slim had a lot on his plate trying to graduate and be the president of CherryDotDork (a clothing line that I helped him run as the Vice President), so our paths ended up deviating. I ended up staying an extra semester at State and that’s when I got super serious and recorded my first mixtape “13 Feet Deep.” Shon produced 10 out of the 14 tracks (I helped him with one of them and made me want to get into production fr). I worked 3 jobs at once that semester, finished up my degree, and drove back and forth to Greensboro to record the project. Oh, and of course I found time to party. A chaotic year for sure. 

Upon graduation, Garry let me know that they wouldn’t be able to give me the job at Sporting News because it had been sold off and he would be transitioning to work more closely with Kirk at ACBJ. God knew what he was doing because even though my heart wasn’t in it, I was willing to take the job for security. 

We could really be here forever, to be honest, so I’m gonna try and be even briefer haha. 

Once I knew I wasn’t working at Sporting News, I knew that I was going to do music. I just didn’t know-how. I worked a variety of jobs from 2013 when I graduated until December 16, 2020, which was my last day employed at Credit Suisse and my start as a full-time artist. In my first year post-college one of my other closest friends, James Suggs gave me his Maschine, which is used to make beats. Shon had been using Maschine and its DAW, so we were both familiar with it. It wasn’t until the last day of 2014, that I decided to actually use it (he had given it to me at least 4 months prior). I had started to do shows in 2014 and was working on my next project, but I really wanted to get into production so as my New Year’s resolution for 2015, I actually went for it. 

Along the way of doing shows in Raleigh, Durham, and New York (a show where I and Shon took a trip to Harlem to meet my sister, who I had never met but found online, which is another long story. Oh yea and Shon missed work and got fired from his job when he came back, but we’d do anything for music lol), I’ve met plenty of people that helped me get to where I was as an artist. I’d be remiss to not thank Ace Henderson, P.A.T. Junior, Aston Martin, Marc Anthony Figueras, Shon, and Brian Kidd for helping me to get better as a producer. 

On the heels of my first project “13 Feet Deep,” I was scheduled to open for Migos/Pusha T at NC State’s homecoming, but Migos got into some trouble with the law, so NC State canceled at the last minute. I did get a chance to open up for Big K.R.I.T. in 2014 at State’s homecoming, he was even kind enough to ALMOST take my CD, but his security rushed him off after he said okay. I’ve performed at the Beats N Bars Festival, Packapalooza, Art of Cool and Hopscotch, and various other shows around Raleigh/Durham before the Pandemic pulled up on us. I had my first show in Charlotte around Thanksgiving 2019, which was super special to me because Terrell saw me perform for the first time ever. 

I would encourage you to check out my music videos. My videographer and brother Ryan Pham is one of the most talented individuals to grace this earth. I met him after he saw me perform at a Kooley High show. He emailed me and asked could he shoot a video for me, which would be his first video ever. The video (War, Zone (2017)) turned out crazy good and ended up being the start of a long fruitful brotherhood. 

In November 2017 dropped Think Good Thoughts, my “long-awaited” follow-up to 13 Feet Deep. TGT was my first fully self-produced project and focused heavily on my mental health. 

In 2018, I executively produced, as well as made all the beats for “Arcadia,” which is the debut album for an artist named Yahweh. Yahweh (Alex Pillow) ended up becoming one of my go-to graphic designers and did the cover art for Calm (2018), promotional art for clt’95, and some other songs floating around SoundCloud. 

I released “Verano” in September 2019, which was a more fun project that was geared toward the idea of releasing music. Any artist in any art form hordes copious amounts of art that never sees the light of day. I got tired of trying to be perfect and decided to go back to having fun with music and just release it. 

I released my first beat “Northern Lights,” literally a week before the quarantine started (March 2020). I will tell you that was probably the worst rollout strategy ever haha! 

Actually no, the worst strategy ever was rolling out a compilation of songs from the Verano sessions a month later in April 2020 (Calm 2018). All jokes aside, I love that EP and it has some of my most honest and vulnerable music on it to date. If you check out Reaper from that project, you’ll hear me speak about my relationship with Terrell. 

I released “In My Head” in December 2020. A special project detailing my experiences throughout the pandemic, the countries antics, and of course, mental health. 

I’ve released two beat tapes this year. clt’95 (inspired by lo-fi) in April 2021 and Wonderland (inspired by video games and soulection) in July 2021. 

Alright so if you made it this far, I really appreciate you reading all of this. I tried to be chronological and include the roots of my artistry. God, family, love, a desire to help others via empathy, and a lot of life experience is what’s gotten me here so far. 

Here’s to me not writing a novel for any of the other questions. 

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I think I answered a lot of that in the last question. 

No road is ever smooth though, even when you think things are perfect there’s an obstacle waiting for you. I think a lot of the struggles that I’ve dealt with have been with maturity and perfectionism. A lot of times we want things immediately and we don’t know how to delay gratification and stay patient. There’s a lot of preparation that goes on behind closed doors that we don’t get to see when we compare our journeys to others. The biggest thing for me has been releasing the need to be in control of every aspect of my life. I’ve learned to put my hands on what I can directly affect, but aside from that, I have to stay present and continue to take baby steps. 

Of course, being a black man in America has been a struggle, but that’s been more of an overarching struggle that I cover in lyrics throughout my music and also more of one that’s affected me in corporate America and school. 

I think another struggle that I’ve overcome is the need for more. Gratitude has been a Godsend for me. You always have more than you think you have. I used to worry about how many streams I had and how many people were listening to my music. When I released In My Head exclusively on BandCamp a week before going full-time during a pandemic, I saw how much a blessing core fans are. I never had huge streaming numbers, though I believe they’ll come, the people bought the album in droves and I was able to use that money to reinvest in my craft and pay two months’ rent. I’m just grateful, to be honest. I feel like I’m in a great place and I’ve cleared out a lot of space to allow God to bless me. For example, I never in a million years would have imagined you would be hitting me up to write about me. This is such a huge blessing and I owe it all to switching my overall vibe to gratitude and abundance. 

We all have trials and tribulations. We all have a story, but after reading Extreme Accountability, I realized that my biggest obstacle was always me. ” As a man thinketh, so is he” – James Allen. 

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a rapper/producer. I feel like what separates me from others is my style of lyricism and my dynamism. I don’t think anyone delivers music the way I do and I’m not sure how many artists are committed to being as authentic as I am. People always ask about me and I literally tell them to just listen to my music. I put my heart, soul, pain, joy, lessons, mistakes, views, and trials and tribulations into my music. My production style is very much unique and I can confidently say that I am not a carbon copy of any other producer. I love almost every genre of music and I try my best to blend them into my production. You will never hear me making the same songs or sounds over and over again. I’m also known for being a terrific performer. I value performing so much because it is a privilege to have the people come out and share their time and energy with you. No matter how small or large the crowd is. 

I’m not the best ever at rapping or production and if it’s not in God’s plan I never will be, but I will certainly push myself to consistently grow and be the best artist that I can be for myself and those that believe in me. Music is a tool to heal and that’s how I wield my superpower. I don’t take any of this for granted. I’m most proud of my persistence. I’ve been able to help others via music as well as myself, see places, meet people, and experience things that I would have never thought of, just because I kept going. 

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years? 

It’s hard to predict with this pandemic, but the love of music and the ease at which one can get into creating music is rising every day. We’ve been using music as a form of fellowship and storytelling since way before English was even created. I think that music is here to stay. Rap has basically become Pop in terms of Pop Culture. The kids are looking up to Quavo and Kendrick and Lil Baby, etc. All of the pop artists are getting features from all the huge rap artists. In terms of the business side of things, we still have a long way to go in terms of artist empowerment, but with all the knowledge out there, I think if artists want to succeed, they can. 

I think a shift will occur where there’s more of a balance between the popular style of music that’s radio-friendly and the conscious side, as more artists start to blend both experiences together as opposed to pitting the styles against each other. 

Contact Info:

• Email: theDeeepEnd@gmail.com
• Website: theDeeepEnd.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedeeepend/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theDeeepEnd/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedeeepend?lang=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCarlMzwHbPxN8WkKKZFygkQ
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/thedeeependog
• Other: https://thedeeepend.bandcamp.com

Image Credits:
J “Slim” Robertson
Ryan Pham