Nearly a decade into his rap career, LaRussell is finally starting to enjoy the fruits of his labor. The Bay Area native has been hard at work, rewriting the script as an independent trailblazer, which caught the watchful eye of Jay-Z.
LaRussell met Hov last month at the Roc Nation offices in Los Angeles, which resulted in the rapper inking a deal with Roc Nation. The 31-year-old partnered with ROC Nation Distribution, while retaining rights to his masters. In a way, LaRussell took both the $500,000 and the meeting with Jay, which has been a nauseating debate on social media for years.
“I got to a point in my journey where I’m the first in my lineage to do a lot of these things, so I no longer have a guide,” LaRussell tells Billboard. “And Hov is who is now another guide for me that I could look to and say, ‘Hey, man, how did you navigate this?’”
Doors are already starting to open, as the NFL took note of LaRussell’s movement, who will be curating the house band for Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium, and is also slated to perform in Santa Clara on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 8) at the Tailgate alongside headliner Teddy Swims.
Inspired by Nipsey Hussle’s entrepreneurial $100 mixtape approach, which saw the late Los Angeles rapper sell 1,000 copies of his Crenshaw project in 2013 (Jay-Z was a buyer), LaRussell is looking to sell 100,000 copies of his Something’s in the Water album.
Delayed until March after falling short of his six-figure goal, LaRussell’s “pay what you want” model charges fans as little as a dollar for early access to the LP on the EVEN platform. Plenty of celebrities have also stepped up to support LaRussell with four and five-figure purchases. The list notably includes NBA star Kyrie Irving ($11,001), Snoop Dogg ($2,500), E-40 ($1,000) and Raphael Saadiq ($10,000).
“Shout-out [Nipsey Hussle]. He did the $100 album. And this was my way of just giving a nod to Nip, but opening the door for more people to have access,” LaRussell adds. “It’s been really dope to see, especially the artistic community, because you don’t often see artists supporting artists in this fashion.”
Check out our full interview with LaRussell ahead of Super Bowl LX, which finds him detailing his meeting with Jay, getting love from his peers and advice for independent artists.
You’re curating the house band for the Super Bowl. How does something like that even come about?
A lot of long conversations. We’ve been meeting with the NFL for the past few months, speaking our piece and stating why we think we deserve the opportunity and it finally came around. They sent it up to the top, and the Tailgate was something that was last-minute. But the house band curation is something we’ve been working on for a minute.
What’s your vision for that and the Tailgate performance?
It’s just gonna be a nice welcome to the Bay Area. A nod to my region and where I’m from. You’re gonna hear a lot of sounds that, if you’re not from here, you might be unfamiliar with. It’s gonna be a lot of collar popping and a lot of collar holding. It’s gonna be a lot of head-swinging and shaking.
I’m here to represent the region and the turf, and I wanted to show the rest of the world what we got to offer. Historically, we haven’t gotten an opportunity to really be on this level and on these kinds of platforms. So I feel like it’s rightfully due.
You pushed the album back to March; we got more albums to sell.
It’s crazy because the day after we bumped it back, I got a sale from Gary Vee for $18,000 and Raphael Saadiq for $10,000. So I’m really grateful that I stuck with my gut and chose to push it back, and just campaign some more. I wanted to get the people more involved.
Touch on some of those celebrity purchases, like Kyrie Irving paying $11,000.
Kyrie Irving, $11,000 and we donated that back to the hood. E-40, $1,000. Cedric the Entertainer, Snow tha Product ($5,000) and Snoop Dogg ($2500).
I just saw Raphael Saadiq did too.
I was surprised, yeah, I didn’t know. That’s so cool for somebody who shares the same lineage and legacy as me to do that. That’s a special moment.
It’s been cool to see how much love you’re getting on social media from like Busta Rhymes to Charlamagne Tha God.
I feel like it’s been years and years of build-up. Charlamagne gave me one of my first really big opportunities by allowing me to come on The Breakfast Club and rap. That really expanded my career beyond just my region. He watched me turn down Roc Nation and watched me go through all these different phases of my journey. This full-circle moment of like, “Damn, you did it and you stayed indie and you stuck to your guns.”
How cool is it to see J. Cole on the EVEN platform with Birthday Blizzard?
That’s really insane — because, yeah, we was really in the bedroom in my mama’s crib during that first launch. How do we make this efficient? How do we make it effective? How can this benefit everybody? And to go from that all the way to J. Cole, Wale, 21 Savage. We’ve had so many people use the platform and sell more units than they’ve ever sold, and be able to make more money than they’ve made traditionally off streaming. It’s been a beautiful thing. That’s something that came from us. That exists because I’m alive.
How about the new single “I’m From the Bay” with Lil Jon?
Yeah, we fired up. It’s produced by Lil Jon and my homies. That’s the part that makes me feel really good. I put Jon in the studio with people that I’ve been building with, who’ve been here with me from the jump. Hokage Simon, we did our first show out of town together, my very first booking, and to make it to a point where he’s working on records with Lil Jon beside him for this album is a special moment.
How was linking with Jay-Z? You didn’t take the $500,000.
I took both; it was really incredible. It was dope to see somebody climb so high up the ladder and still have their feet on the ground. You don’t experience it often. You get to a point where you can have money, where you don’t have to deal with anyone and still take your time out to deal with people that you don’t have to and share how it makes you feel and your experiences.
Take us into those conversations with Jay. What game did he give you or what were those questions you were looking for guidance on?
We talked about what the future looks like and what the past looks like, and how we can’t replicate the past, and how necessary it is for us to move forward, and how all the infrastructure needs to shift to look different and just how many blows Hov has to take by being innovative. We allow everyone else to do anything that he does, but Hov does it and it’s an issue. We allow everybody else to make streaming platforms, but Hov does and it’s an issue. And that’s something that’s deeply rooted, far beyond him. But he’s really in a fight for what we’re after, the same fight that I’m fighting. That’s why it meant so much to me, because he understood what it took for me to get to where I am.
Were you starstruck talking to Hov?
Oh yeah! After he walked in the room, my whole crew was starstruck. We just started fiddling. We just started hitting buttons on our computer with nothing on the screen. And I felt really grateful for that experience, because I don’t get that anymore. I often give that to people, but I don’t get that experience. So that was the first time for me in a long time where I met someone who made me feel like, ‘Damn, larger than life.’ Hov is tall, but he’s a giant outside of his height.
How was putting together that $1,000 Backyard Experience for your fans?
Legendary. That was my first time asking my community to support me that deeply. Yeah. And it was another thing, like the $100,000 album sold campaign. We’re just on a walk, popping our s–t. And I decided to launch the next day, and it sold out immediately. The first show went just like that. Within hours, we announced the second show. We sold 250 tickets total, quarter of a million dollars off a low-capacity show. I feel like I got the Guinness World Record for the lowest amount of tickets sold for the highest amount of revenue.
Does it feel awkward charging fans that much, like I gotta deliver on this experience?
It don’t feel weird because I meet people for a dollar. They paid because they believed in what we were doing and cultivating an experience. But like, whether you pay $1000 or you pay a dollar, if you come to my show, you’re gonna meet me, you gonna get a hug. But this one was just more intimate, because we’re gonna go to dinner and come to the crib early. This was really the community rallying around somebody they believed in. You’ve never seen your favorite artists in their backyard. Only my fans get to say that for the rest of every artist’s career.
What’s the plan for when you run it back?
I am going to run it back, but I’m gonna scale it up each time. We’re gonna make new history every time. And I want to add more amenities. We’ll do pop-up shows, and then I’ll go play pickleball with the fans. We’ve been really finding ways to cultivate and build that relationship deeper than just come watch me rap.
What makes a star in this era? Mainstream stardom is very different from when we grew up. It’s very niche, like you got a Rod Wave, an NBA YoungBoy and now a Don Toliver. How do you view that?
I think they’re very popular, but they’re not stars. Stars are hard to come by, like a star shines everywhere, not just in the niche, not just like in random places, but no matter where you at. I think that only God could cultivate that. You know, everyone’s not chosen for that role. I don’t even think there’s an amount of work you could do to get that. Like Michael Jackson was chosen. He earned it, and he worked his a— off, but he was chosen. There was a certain light about him that just existed. I don’t think we really have too much say in that; it’s just a life that’s unfolding. Like, I’m really a n—a from Vallejo who had no star quality at one point.
Looking at the music landscape now, what are your tips for independent artists?
Be hyper authentic. I think that’s like a very cliche one, but it’s the most important, like I’ve gotten this far, because when people see me outside, it’s the same person that they seen online. They never encounter a different version of me, and they can relate to that. They feel the human. They feel like they can bring their kids to me, they can bring their grandmother to me. And that’s all due to authenticity, like they connect at a real, genuine level. It’s not like I’m some star and I’m up here and they’re down here and you just got to witness me be that. People come up to me like I’m their cousin. Like there’s certain people you’re scared to meet, but then people treat me like I’m literally a relic, like they grew up knowing me their whole life. I think being really consistent, honing your craft to the point where you become undeniable.
2021 was my first viral moment on the scene, and I lasted five years independently, spending my own money and building my own ecosystem. There’s artists who have been on majors who disappeared completely. It’s a really hard feat, but you can only do that by making yourself undeniable. You stay consistent, and you do so much work that it’s even if you don’t want to see me, you have to see me.
How was linking with Wiz Khalifa?
Legendary, I got to hit a joint. It was really beautiful, especially the moment we had after, when the world took to it, and it was like the narrative of, “Man, I haven’t heard Wiz like this in a long time. This is Kush & Orange Juice Wiz.” It really lifted the tide. Him dropping the album after that, I felt like I added a pillar moment to that journey leading into that album. I was just grateful to contribute to his journey in that way, and vice versa. It was a special moment. I do my vlogs because I used to watch DayTodays.
