Rich or Not, F L A C O Raps Like He'll Die Trying

When I first talk to F L A C O, the Indianapolis-based rising rapper, the sun's beating down on the balcony of my Brooklyn apartment with a blistering vengefulness. I press my ear hard against the phone to hear over the sound of growling street traffic as he tells me how he first started making music. "Right around senior year [music] started grabbing me and I started writing more. I didn't tell anybody. I kept that shit very low-key. High school is when it all started for real and by Freshman year of college it was full blown."

F L A C O, born Ryan Short, was diligently taking classes like your typical college student. That is until he started flunking his coursework as the 9 to 5 reality he had prepared for his entire life started to feel more like impending doom; a thirty-year career in telecommunications looked a lot better on paper than it did in reality. "I thought school was my way out. I had really good grades and the college path mapped out. But as soon as I got to college, I hated my major immediately. I planned all this out, I thought I had everything lined up and it was nothing like I thought it was going to be." He would record heaps of early demos over GarageBand on his roommate's MacBook that eventually led him to polish a sound of his own. He explains that as he learned how to transform written verses into actual compositions, the power of the creative process was overwhelming. "I wasn't going to class, I wasn't eating, I wasn't doing shit. The compulsion to create music was just too strong at that point. I knew from that point on, I gotta die doing this. Or die trying to do it. I know it sounds cliché but I had tears down my face when I wrote my first song. This is what I was meant to do."

This grit and piercing dedication has led F L A C O to gradually cultivate a dedicated following that's equally enthralled with his esoteric sound and influence. While earlier projects, like 2010's The BORED.SOLDIER! mixtape, showcase a young artist working to find direction with appropriated production from Flying Lotus and even Waka Flocka Flame, his latest project WRKFRMHME proves that he's now light years beyond anything that's come before, rapping unabashedly throughout and peppering signature adlibs over anything with a snare. Maybe that's why, "Sadderday," a lead single from his newest project has him spitting over a beat from producer SoloMitch! that flips a sample plucked straight from The Legend of Zelda, his voice gliding over glimmering 8-bit-laden chirps with a total lack of trepidation. The track also showcases songwriting that's equal parts ironic and introspective, "I just wanna be rich and a narcissist," a line that he repeats across a song that will never receive mainstream radio play and doesn't attempt to.

Chatting with F L A C O, it becomes increasingly clear that he prefers to carve his own path even if it takes twice the time and three times the sweat. He tells me that he's getting excited for his upcoming tour with Fat Tony, which was first presented to him by his manager Brenden Hewko. "I'm looking forward to it man, I can't wait. My DMs are crazy right now, people are legitimately threatening me if I can't come to their city. Dudes are really like, 'You couldn't come to Kalamazoo, you're dead to me.'" We talked to him about his new video "Sadderday," the rap scene in Indianapolis, and what's next.

Noisey: I just finished watching the video for "Sadderday" that you made with videographer Tyler Hoyt. What went into that shoot?
FLACO: That video was more of a sporadic shoot than we initially planned. We wanted to stray away to get a little bit more detailed and cinematic. So, we busted our balls trying to get some super crazy, outlandish, Tarantino-esque stuff. We kinda overthunk ourselves into a hole. We said calm down, let's just get together with a camera and figure shit out. I literally went into a dollar store with five dollars to my name and I bought a couple of props and for some reason, that spur of the moment energy hit us and we were able to get into an area to film that was highly illegal, so the stars aligned perfectly for us.

Tell me about the rap scene in Indianapolis.
It's definitely a budding scene here. I feel like the city itself is trying to find its traction and gain that national eye. We got dudes here like Sirius Blvck and Drayco McCoy. I feel like one of the most hidden talents here is the videography work and the graphic design work. I know so many graphic designers and videographers. A lot of talent that's coming up. It's just about gaining that national attention which is coming for sure.

Is your upcoming tour going to help you break out of the Indianapolis pocket?
That's definitely one of our objectives. It's not like something that we're only focused on, but yeah, that's a huge motivation for going across the country. Obviously, we want to spread our connection with people, so yeah, that's the plan.

The first song I heard from you was, "Chyeah" and specifically the lyric, "Had to promise mom I'm Okay." I feel like a lot of what I see from hip-hop is people trying to project where they want to be instead of rapping about who they are what they know. How do you see those two worlds: aspirational rappers vs. rappers that are true to their own direction?
Wow, that was introspective as fuck. That's crazy cause it's so true. There are some rappers who are like OK. I don't have what I want so let me speak it into existence, so I'll talk about the cars and the girls and the money and the jewelry that I don't have in order to attract that energy.

Which maybe works one out of a hundred thousand times…
You can easily fall into the trap of talking about where you aspire to be and not where you are. For me, I can only write from that place because I do feel like a nobody. I do feel like this shit-bag dude who's just making music in his girlfriend's basement. I feel like I have to tell my mom and my parents that I'm okay even though they know that I'm not. I'm not doing that just to connect with fans, but it's just something that's so subconsciously deep into me. I can't write any other way. The material of who I am is much more engaging and interesting to write about.

Who's putting out music right now that you think is furthering the genre or making you raise the bar?
The usual suspects, dudes like Tyler [the Creator] and even dudes like Frank. Their compositions and the way they present their art. I really step back and think, "I really gotta step my shit up." Dudes like Kendrick, even though that's almost a cliché at this point, it's still true. Tyler and Kendrick and Frank, the A$AP camp and all that stuff. I feel like they're pushing a vision as well as an aesthetic. The aesthetic is almost bleeding into other genres and it's becoming this giant thing that's not even pinned down into just hip hop.

What do you think Kendrick has done for the genre?
I honestly think that he's opened up the progressive part of the brain of hip hop. When you listen to Kendrick you have to approach it like you're walking through an art gallery. You can't have expectations or any type of predispositions. You have to accept the art. The way he presents his stuff and the little quirky things in his compositions like the pitch deviations and the skits and the samples used. He's really brought a progressive way of approaching hip hop. It's no longer just this rudimentary, expected thing. It can have jazz influences where it changes and lives and dies; there's all this organized chaos.

I think Kendrick is also a testament to what happens when we stop putting out content that we haven't put sweat and blood into. With SoundCloud rappers, content is more saturated than ever. 100,000 rappers? Are there 100,000 rappers?
There are 100,000 rappers…probably in my city alone! The accessibility has just literally saturated music. It's not helping that hip-hop is the biggest genre of music, period. So yeah, a kid can just save up a couple of paychecks and get a studio and slap together a tracklist and make hits. It's a beautiful and terrifying thing, because as quickly as these guys are coming, there's no longevity in that approach.

But who am I? It's a double-edged sword. It's dope that people can have access but at the same time, you get lost in the ether of all these rappers and singers and dancers and everyone raising their hands up and saying, "Hey look at me, look at me!" It's pretty fucking crazy.

It takes time. With any art the question is, are you willing to go unnoticed, until you're not?
I ask people, "Are you prepared to be absolutely invisible?" Are you prepared for that? We all need validity. Once you stop getting that first few months of support, are you willing to feel invisible? I've felt invisible for most of my career.

Honest art speaks louder.
Sometimes you look at the rapper who's talking about the cars he doesn't have, the girls he doesn't have, the drugs he never sold. He's somehow obtaining that by speaking it out into the world. There's part of you feel that feels like it's possible but not plausible. I write what I am right now and I always try to stay present in the writing. I'm just trying to build my own voice and legitimately gain fans. Not through some fucking gimmick or because I look cool or because my hair is cool. I just want my art to stand out and really be honest.

F L A C O heads out on the Tour From Nowhere with Fat Tony this Fall. Check out the dates below and catch him in your city:

Nashville, TN - 9/24 @ High Watt
Atlanta, GA - 9/26 @ Drunken Unicorn
Indianapolis, IN - 9/28 @ Pioneer
Lawrence, KS - 9/29 @ Tap Room
Wichita, KS - 10/1 @ Barleycorn's
Oklahoma City, OK - 10/2 @ 89th St. Collective
Houston, TX - 10/3 @ Walter's Downtown
Austin, TX - 10/5 @ Sidewinder
Denton, TX - 10/6 @ Andy's Bar
Marlin, TX - 10/7 @ Bucksnort Saloon
Tucson, AZ - 10/8 @ 191 Toole
Phoenix, AZ - 10/9 @ Valley Bar
San Diego, CA - 10/10 @ Casbah
Los Angeles, CA - 10/11 @ Resident LA
San Francisco, CA - 10/12 @ Cafe Du Nord
Santa Ana, CA - 10/13 @ Constellation Room

Adam Isaac Itkoff is a writer living in New York City. Follow him on Twitter.