I have interacted with RXK Nephew—the Rochester, NY rapper, philosopher, sometimes Hennessy demon, and Most Interesting Man Alive contender—several times in my life. One time, at a show I threw last year with my blog, he glugged a bottle of Henny backstage and convincingly demonstrated the martial arts skills that he administers on his opps. A couple weeks ago, before a Halloween-themed show at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn, he was considerably more sober. But he spent the initial time we’d set aside for this interview berating my costume (I went as his alter ego, Slitherman) and proceeded to grab my interview mic to dunk on the costumes of onlooking fans. Later that night, Neph took the stage after sets by They Are Gutting a Body of Water, OLTH, and western Mass pop singer LUCY, and did what he does best: rap and dance and compel an audience to chant “RXK!” like their lives depended on it. It was great. 

Given all the debauchery at hand, we never did end up doing our interview that night. So instead, Neph hit me on Zoom a few days later from a new “content house” he’d recently purchased in Atlanta. An old Gucci Mane beat played out of his laptop as he answered my questions. Behind him, spray-painted slogans covered the walls like graffiti. His mind, as almost always, was racing. He had just gotten out of a long recording session for a T-Pain-inspired, heavily Auto-Tuned album, produced entirely by his close collaborator Brainstorm. Besides that, he said he’s got at least four projects in the cut, including full-lengths with Harry Fraud and Working On Dying’s F1LTHY. But individual albums aren’t the point of RXK Nephew. His eight-minute YouTube loosies, demonic alter egos, puzzling Twitter presence, and unfiltered vlogs comprise an artistic endeavor far greater than the sum of its parts. He never stops going in, even when his inner demons are calling, even if he needs to drive across the country for a one-off show. This interview, in which he talks about giving water to trick-or-treaters, explains the rationale behind his ceaseless output, and named his new album on the spot, is part of his art as well.

The following interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

How did you spend your Halloween?

I was in the house working. Me and Brainstorm finished up another album yesterday. I had a lot of shit going on.

What was that video you posted with the bowl of candy and the laser on that gun?

This is what was happening: I forgot it was Halloween because I’m working so hard and I got PTSD and be paranoid so the doorbell keep ringing, people keep knocking on the door, I don’t know who it is! I’m thinking it’s police, I think it’s karma. I thought karma was at my door. I thought karma tried to come get me. And then it’s the little kids! So I run into the cabinet and grab whatever I can, but make sure I got clothes and shit. Got ’em some Reese’s, Fruit Roll-Ups, some chips, some noodles, some tuna, real life shit though. Whatever you want. Water, soda, I give ’em everything in my cabinet. I love the kids.

 

You were giving the kids water for Halloween?

Man, I’ll give ’em anything out my cabinet. That’s the point. I didn’t prepare for this. I’m not gonna ignore ’em. If somebody knock on my door, I’m not ignoring you, but I got massive candy though bruh. I got massive candy and I gave it to ’em. I still got candy all on the floor in the bucket, bruh. I wasn’t playing with ’em but I was giving them options. If you like what you like, take what you like.

You were telling me about the Auto-Tune tape with Brainstorm. Do you have a name for it yet?

I’m about to think of it right now while we in this interview. Give me two seconds… [Neph pauses for a moment] Nephew Pendergrass.

I see what you mean by the T-Pain influence.

I ain’t gonna front, when I first heard T-Pain, he changed my whole life.

What was the first song you heard?

That “Oh, I can’t believe it!” Oh no, matter of fact, the first thing I heard was “Sprung.” “I’m sprung, how she got meeee.” I’m like, damnnn. I know he was adding shit to his shit, he couldn’t really sing like that. But he was wavin’ it though. It was some wavy shit for the bitches, for the hood n****s. Shit was wavy.

 

And he produced his own beats, too. People forget about that. He made a lot of his own beats.

And he let Future hold his Bugatti. He let Future hold his Bugatti for the video. They didn’t give him no credit.

Wait, what? [laughs] I don’t know what you’re talking about. 

Bruh, I’m puttin’ on for T-Pain, bruh. T-Pain said that in that video where Future had his Bugatti, that wasn’t his Bugatti that was T-Pain Bugatti. T-Pain know where Auto-Tune came from, he said it came from the ground in the oil rigs in Dubai, and they send signals to the ground and they come back as a different voice. And that’s how Auto-Tune was created.

At the show a few days ago, at Baby’s—first of all, that was a crazy lineup. I feel like they just plucked random people from different scenes. TAGABOW makes shoegaze. LUCY makes, like, Beach Boys-inspired outsider pop. OLTH is a screamo band. And then they had you.

I was loving all that, I was supporting all that, showing all them n****s love. And I was showing the crowd love, the artists love, it was a great experience and everybody went crazy.

 

Are you surprised by how your music kind of resonates with that type of crowd? Like people who fuck with like screamo music and pop music and shit like that.

I’m not surprised. I’m from New York. City gentrified! My grandma’s husband was white. She had like three white husbands. We have white cousins and shit, because they married into the family.

Do you stay close with them?

I’m super busy. I talk to my immediate family. I got kids and shit, and my mom. I’m a busy person right now.

What do your kids think of your music?

They don’t probably really understand the lyrics, but they love the beat selection. So they just get to dancin’ and they love it. They love it! But you know, they hip! They be on TikTok and lookin’ at videos and doing stuff, so they know. They having fun just like everybody else. So the kids is proud. My daughter always ask me to play my new song. She pick her favorite song and tell me to shoot a video. I shot a video called “In They Face” because my daughter forced me to do it, and she forced me to listen to this song like 1700 times in a row. She don’t process that I’m talking about crack and robbin’ people and shit. She loves rhythm.

Are you worried about them listening to some of the songs and getting information that might not be true?

Nah because they know that what Daddy talk about is from the past. And all I promote is positivity and promote family and loving things and I love doing all family type of activities and shit. I love cooking. I love going on walks, riding bikes. I love going to Walmart. I make sure we travel good and we all comfortable and we all have a good time, and I never show my stress. Everybody go through something but I force a smile on my face every day.

I love the video, I think it’s I think it’s “C.A.N.D.Y. Pt. 3”— 

 

The one where I had my daughter in there?

Yeah, it was cool, because I feel like it was the first time I could just see that you’re a father on top of everything.

Still at work, and I love for my daughter, for my babies to see me at work cuz like this Daddy job. Go to work. I just bought clothes, this is work. My daughter tell me all the time, stop spending money. That’s that’s the only person only human being that it really means something, but I’m trying to let her understand that this is investment and teachin’ her about investments. 

How old is she?

She’s five.

She’s five, telling you to stop spending money. She’s wise!

It’s just where everybody comes from, you know I’m saying? We raised in poverty, and everybody always argue about little money, and don’t eat this, don’t eat that. Or, we have to stretch this food to save this. It’s different now, we don’t gotta do none of that. We’re not struggling. So it’s different. She just stuck in that mindset from being around poverty.

Yeah. I know you’ve talked about trying to become more sober and getting your shit together a little bit, but was there a moment that kind of triggered that like? Or was it just generally trying to be there for your family more and stuff?

Just trying to be there for my family. I just wanna stay alive and stay healthy for my family. At this point, I feel like I got to take care of myself, because if something happened to me, I gotta make sure that everybody is on point and everybody could survive without me. I’m having fun and I’m living life and I want to be here for it. I’m not depressed and I’m the boss, I can’t keep doing it. I can keep saying the ‘I’m doing it’ face, but there’s a lot of pressure on the boss shoulders and boss can’t be fuckin’ intoxicated as I used to be or booted as I used to be, but I’m definitely doing better. I can say that for a fact. I’m doing very good. And I’m very responsible and everything is taken care of. And I moved my mom out the hood. I know I can say that ’til I’m blue in the face too, but that shit mean a lot to somebody like me, man, and to my whole hood and my city where I came from because they don’t give a fuck about their family, they people, they just care about they self. I put everybody first. I’m just now starting to take care of myself and get clothes or try to get some jewelry and get houses. I was trying to make sure everybody else is good.

Do you see yourself being a rapper forever?

Why wouldn’t I? That’s my calling, I’m talking that shit, I’m having fun. Why would I stop rapping?

We were talking about Jay Z earlier. He’s somebody who, I don’t know, he got old—

Because he not coming with no new, he not coming with nothing interesting, you know what I’m saying? Imma always give people something interesting, something fun, and Imma always be a big-ass kid. I never had a childhood, so I’m really living my childhood now. That’s why I write on the walls. I write on the walls cuz you know you get your ass beat for doing shit like that as a kid. You write on the walls, your ass is GRASS. Now I get to write on the walls, now I’m buying arcade [cabinets], I’m doing the shit that I always wanted to do as a kid. But shit, I’ll rap till I’m old as Suga Free! 

He’s still going crazy! And he’s doing other shit, he spends all day hanging out with ducks and fishing for catfish. He’s the most interesting man.

Age ain’t nuthin but a number, they been said that. It’s in your heart and your spirit. At this point, I’ve been locked up in jail so long that mentally right now, I’m probably still—I always had an old soul, but really, I feel like I’m still 24, 25. But that’s when I got out of prison. And that shit near five years ago.

Everybody’s on their own timelines, I feel. Especially because of the pandemic.

The pandemic, I was turnt up. I thought the world ’bout to end. I had to pull over and had an emotional moment and had to cry to myself and thought, “DAMN, I ain’t get rich before the world ended!” I thought I was gon’ drive Lambos, G-Wagons and shit, hell no. Boy I’m about to die in a fucking Honda [laughs].

Damn, you really thought the world was gonna end during the pandemic? 

Hell yeah. But I had to get over it though. I just said, “Yo, I’m not gonna be one of those stupid people that loot. Imma have faith, I’m a survivor.” Because everybody else started crashing out. They started selling they shit, they started selling everything out they crib, breaking into stores. I’m like, “I ain’t gonna go that far.” But they thought the world was gonna end. I didn’t loot anything. I hustled for everything. I sold as much drugs as I could.

Maybe off the record, but I feel like—

Selling drugs is better than breaking into people’s houses and breaking into people’s stores. If you ask me, selling drugs is an honest living.

Oh god, I can’t believe we’re talking about this.

It’s a fair exchange. No robbery. 

I mean, yeah.

Drug dealers always get less time, they get halfway houses and all type of shit. Free every drug dealer man, because the real drug dealers work at the hospital. The real drug dealers work at the hospital and that’s who we wait on the drugs to come from. We sit outside the hospital waiting for them to write that prescription up so we can put it on the streets. But we got to get it from the big dog, the real kind, the real percs, the REAL xans, the REAL methamphetamines, the real oxycodones. You know what I’m saying?

How did hustling influence the way you put out music?

I got that crack. I put that crack out on the streets and I keep flooding them with new batches, with different batches. I can’t give them the same batch. I gotta give them something different and I gotta stay consistent, I gotta be up early. I got to be up six in the morning, at five in the morning, six at night, 12PM. You gotta be up! It’s somebody’s always up and they lookin’ to shop, they’re lookin’ to hear, they’re looking to smell it, they lookin’ to buy it. And that’s the same thing with the crack game, you know what I’m saying? You can’t sleep past one o’clock and expect to sell something. You missed all the licks, the early morning licks. They used to tell me, “Stop dropping songs at any time.” That it’s a certain time that you gotta drop a song that it’s gonna go up. I drop a song anytime I feel like it. Soon as we get off right now, I’ll drop a song. I drop a song at three in the morning. I bet you somebody up, and they gonna be excited to hear that shit. N***a has 40 comments at seven o’clock in the morning, six o’clock in the morning.

Your demonic alter ego Slitherman appears on lots of your songs, but I think the craziest example of late is “Slitherman Vs. Nephew.” You remember when you recorded and dropped?

Yeah, I recorded that September 7. I was in Ohio, sitting on the couch. I was out there for my peoples. And then they went to work. And then I pulled out my laptop, I went to Guitar Center, bought a microphone. And then...yeah, I got STUPID. And we was in an apartment, I know the neighbors heard me too cuz I was screaming.

Did you have the concept for that song in your head before you even recorded it?

Hell nah. I was going through something.

What does it mean when you say, “Slitherman is controlling my thoughts?” Like what does that actually feel like?

If somebody spit on you right now, spit on your face, a big ass loogie on your forehand, spit dripping down your nose. Or they spit out their mouth, they just spit on you, and you got the pole on you, you have the option to shoot him or walk away. You have the option to beat they ass, if you know UFC. So that’s Slitherman telling you to just snap their neck, break their arms, put ’em in a wheelchair and kill them, but you’re trying to fight them demons and just walk away cuz you live a better life than them. They probably miserable, ’bout to die, sick, diseases, family all dead. We got it better than them. But that’s Slitherman telling you to boom ’em. Slitherman is basically your pride, right?

I used to wake up every day, think about killing people, stabbing people, and stabbing people while they sleep. Probably every kid that went through what I went through probably thought the same thing. Every orphan like me. But my grandma always told me I was defiant. I just never listened. I just do the opposite, I know what’s right but I choose to do wrong, but that’s that demon that really forced me to do wrong, but I don’t know why I always been so defiant. Slitherman is that person that be defiant, but I broke out of that. It’s not easy but I do it. I listen, I learned how to listen, I learned how to be a team player and shit.

You sound a lot calmer on a lot of your songs this year. You sound a lot more poised, like you’re just talking almost? It’s super conversational.

Nah, of course, though, cuz I’m not so turnt as I used to be. I’m not that same person, man. I done changed big time. They thought I was so, just evil, grimy and selfish, and just think for myself, and come to turn around and find out I love everybody. Make sure everybody eating, take care of everybody, and I’m just such a big heart.

What advice do you have for somebody in your shoes who’s maybe going through something similar like an addiction or needs to turn their life around in a similar way?

For anybody that has gone through my situation, they probably feel the same way I feel. But my best advice is just follow your gut. It’s not easy being the boss and if you want to be a boss—people think it’s cool to say “I’m the boss,” but a lot come with that shit and you just gotta be prepared for that shit. We all know what we gotta do.

We gotta be on point. We gotta make sure everything’s good, make sure our finances together, make sure the whole team is good. We gotta make sure we don’t fall asleep drunk, fall asleep not knowing we was incoherent and shit like that. We can’t have that. Because then we wake up sober mad wondering where this money went or what we did or what went wrong. We can’t have that.

I feel like you’re the embodiment of somebody who’s created a career out of just staying consistent despite all the things you’ve been going through. And that’s something that people can learn from.

Yeah, a lot of people don’t do it and that’s why they give up. I don’t know, I see a lot of people tear they self down from the fame or the clout. The fame and the clout get to they head and it just fuck their whole life up. Like when people start being insecure and people start saying things or judging them, they start taking it to heart and then it fuck they whole mindset up and process of working. Me? I don’t give a fuck what nobody said or what nobody do, I’m just gonna keep going crazy. Every day Imma do my thing, Imma do what I want to. I think that’s why people love me though.

I can see all these slogans spray-painted on the walls of your new home. Can you explain what you’ve written for the readers?

[Walks around his new house] This right here say CRACK ROCK RECORDS. This shit say WE KILL PEOPLE AND SELL ’EM.

Right here it say ALL MY BITCHES LOVE ME AND I LOVE ALL MY BITCHES. I’ll show you my writings, bruh. You asked about my writings bruh.

You bought this house recently? 

It’s a content house, I snatched this up. We got multiple houses. This my third house. This not like a family house where I’m like living out of. This is a content house where Imma do streaming, Twitch. I got the shit for the game, the PS5, Imma put cameras everywhere. So you know, get content and have fun while recording and my producers making beats, shooting videos.

What do you play on the PS5?

‘UFC.’ But I play any game, bro. I’m a competitive person. I ain’t get a chance to play games in a minute, but I’m really nice cuz I used to be nice when I was little. Nintendo 64, ‘Killer Instinct’ I was NICE. ‘007’ I was nice. ‘Mario Kart’ I was nice. So it’s not one game that you can bring up that I’m not competitive in. I play ‘Madden,’ I’ll play ‘2K’ with you. I don’t know how to play that like that, but I used to play ‘NBA Baller’ and shit back in the day on Gamecube.

That game looks so hard to play. I just tried playing it recently, I don’t know how y’all did that.

What games do YOU play?

I play ‘2K’. That’s my main game, and I used to play ‘Call of Duty’ a lot.

Alright Imma bet you 1500 push-ups I’ll spank you in ‘2K.’

What’s your team?

I don’t have a team but I’m gonna pick the Atlanta Hawks because I’m in Atlanta.

Oh man, that’s easy work. Y’all have Trae Young but besides that, I’m gonna beat you with the Celtics every time.

It ain’t what you play, it’s how you play it. I’m a strategic player, I know how to keep it going. But ‘UFC’ is my top game.

Ok you got me in that one. Wait so what you got coming, you mentioned the Brainstorm tape. I think your manager mentioned the Harry Fraud tape?

Harry Fraud tape going stupid, they never thought that would’ve happened. That shit going hard. That shit dumb. That shit crazy. I just shot a video to that shit today. I got a feature from Pap and Ted Budz on there.

I saw you got one with Certified Trapper?

We got some shit together.

I really fuck with Milwaukee rap, that’s been like all I’ve listening to of late.

They got a different sound over there. I fuck with it, I fuck with all the sounds. I’m about to start signing n****s next year.

You said you’re gonna start signing artists from Rochester next year. Have y’all had a label like that before there? Has there been any type of infrastructure there for music?

Hell nah. They over there running around with 30s and shooting people and shit man. They make good music though. Imma get some of my folks out the streets cuz they very talented. I just had to solidify, get everything together, but there’s something coming big next year. That’s gonna be under Crack Rock Records. Crack Rock Records is the label.

Did they fuck with you out there in Rochester?

I get love out there. They’ve been loving me before I even started rapping. I’m a legend out there.

I remember seeing some of your old videos that you shot in Rochester when—

When I was Brisko?

Yeah!

Imma legend, bruh! I’m a legend from three years old, to the foster care, to the group homes, to the juvenile, to the juvenile top secure facilities, AND to the prisons. AND in the streets. I’m a living legend, I ain’t got shot, I ain’t dead. I’m still alive.