Photos by Brandon Henry
āThis shit is from yesterday,ā Lil Gnar says, lifting his shirt up at the restaurant weāre having lunch at to show me his enormous chest tattoo featuring a black panther with wings sprouting from its head. It still has clear wrapping on it to help the tattoo heal.Gnar, a 21-year-old skater turned clothing designer with a burgeoning rap career, has been getting new tattoos at a rapid clip over the past several months.āI gotta get āem all before I blow up,ā he explained on the patio of Beacon, a slightly upscale (two Yelp dollar signs) cafe on the edge of Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles. He and I are the only people of color at Beacon that Friday afternoon. He is the only person there with neck tattoos, colored dreadlocks, a gold chain, and grills.āIn a few months Iām gonna be a lot bigger you know and so then Iām going to be doing shows. Iām not trying to be on the road and doing shows with fresh tattoos,ā he says, with an air of inevitability.Though itās early in his career, the aplomb isnāt misplaced. His music has racked up millions of plays and earned him over 100,000 social media followers. Heās caught the attention of up-and-coming rap gatekeepers like music video director Cole Bennett and legends like Travis Barkerāboth of whom Gnar says heās recently spoken with.In his words, āgetting good tattoos is money,ā and Gnar has money now. His streetwear brand, Gnarcotic, is doing well enough for him to afford new ink, a Porsche and a Mercedes Benz, an upcoming trip to Europe, and whatever else he wants. His signature tri-color camo pants have been worn by Lil Yachty and cult favorite skater Stephen Lawyer, and heās collaborated with the skate brand DGK on clothes and skate decks. His music is giving him the kind of attention that could attract a record deal, which would pump even more money into his bank account. And though heās not making direct money off it, his persona is becoming more valuable as he gains attention by posting videos of himself driving around in Lamborghinis, smoking blunts, and shooting various guns into the air, sometimes while on a skateboard.Though heās yet to play a full show or release a mixtape, his first official single āRide Wit Da Fyeā has over two million plays on streaming websites like Spotify and Soundcloud, and his new joint EP, Big Bad Gnar Shit, is getting attention from internet tastemakers. He says his four-year-old clothing business nets him āwell over six figuresā a year, but ānot a million yet.āBefore he started making music, his initial business ventures were fueled by slightly under-the-table means. Starting a company requires capital, something that the son of a single mother in a lower-income East Atlanta neighborhood didnāt have.āWithout illegal shit, my brand wouldnāt be where it is,ā he tells me between bites of a Japanese beef burger on a brioche bun.Today, his ascent is fueled in part by an uncanny ability to get attention on the internet with absurd and aggressive posts on Instagram and Twitter. When I noticed him on Instagram in late 2017, he had around 30,000 followers. As of mid March he is at 125,000.āHeās viral minded. Heās gone viral a lot of lot times in the past year even before he had the following he does now,ā says Adam Grandmaison who hosts the rap podcast No Jumper, which has been described as an authority of whatās next in rap music (Grandmaison also has his own collaboration in the works with Gnarcotic).Heās been skating, mostly sans firearms, since he was 13, when his older half-brother stole a skateboard from a kid living down the street. He loved it and quickly saved up to buy his own board. āSkating ā it just feels good. Itās freedom,ā Gnar says, grinning, when I asked why he was drawn to it. Even though he started late, Gnar still excelled, and has skated with Lil Wayne and gotten invitations to skate legend Stevie Williamsās private skatepark in Atlanta.āHe actually rips, which is tight, because most rappers just be flexing that shit, but they aināt really about it. Heās really about it,ā says Travis Glover, an Atlanta-based skater who grew up riding with Gnar. Glover describes Gnarās skating style as similar to his music and persona: āfast-paced, kind of powerful but makes it happen type shit.āGnarās now busy with his clothing business and music, but still skates whenever he has free time, occasionally Instagramming himself when he does. His non-skate videos prominently feature his collection of guns, women, stacks of money, and pounds of weed. In this way, he says his Instagram feed is a constantly updating homage to his hero Pharrell, whose brand Ice Cream blended hip-hop braggadocio with skateboarding.āIce Cream Skate Team Vol. 1. That was actually my first skate video I watched ever,ā he said.āIt was the first time you see kind of what I do now, which is like black skating, but like stunting. Kind of a mixture of rap culture and skating. There are parts of the video where Pharrell has a Ferrari burning out and shit and then it cuts to somebody at a skatepark. Thatās what really inspired everything I do, low-key.āItās too early in Gnarās career to know if his trajectory will reach the Pharrell-like heights he wants, but heās certainly got promise. āHeās got that effortless cool. He doesnāt come off like a thirsty fucking kid. Thereās tons of good talented rappers. Most of them wonāt make a dollar,ā says Grandmaison. āWhen Iām picking out who I think is going to be successful, itās just got way more to do with personality than anything else.āTo Grandmaison, Gnar has that personality. For starters, heās brazen about his passions.āFor me, it was like Iām trying to get out here. Just being brazyā¦ putting Xanax in girlsā butts and just wyling out and living life,ā he says as weāre driving down the 101 in his 2009 midnight blue Porsche Cayman with āLil Gnarā vanity plates. Weāre headed to his childhood friend and fellow Atlanta skater turned rapper Germās apartment in Studio City. Gnar is carefully smoking a cigarette out the window, trying to make sure that the smell doesnāt linger on the tan leather interior.Like most 21-year-olds, Gnarās attention span can be short. He flips between apps on his phone and answering questions as he drives. He has an edge to him, but heās still gracious and forthcoming. Heās also very confident that his ascent to the upper echelon of hip-hop is impending.āGnarcotic, itās gonna grow into a whole movement, the clothes, the music,ā Gnar says, before he starts reading the number of plays he and Germās new joint EP, Big Bad Gnar Shit, is getting. ā'Ride Wit Da Fye' is over a million. I think the lowest one is going to have 100 [thousand plays] by the end of the week.āWhen I ask him about his goals for the next year, his answer comes quick, in a way that suggests heās thought about it before. āI want to buy a Ferrari. I want to put a down payment on a house for my mom. And I want to meet Kanye. Not just meet Kanye on some fan shit, but actually talk to him as an artist.āGnar is hesitant to give exact details on his future plans, but says that heās sitting on an unreleased mixtape and he's slated to perform at SXSW as well as the Rolling Loud festival in May.I ask him if heās nervous for the Rolling Loud show.āFuck no. Iām so ready. I just want to get big by then. I just want to be huge so everyone knows my words and I can go crazy. I want to fucking rage.āSign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.Follow Ali Breland on Twitter.
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Even in a saturated market of internet flexing, Gnarās social media presence is enthralling. In one video, he speeds around a corner in his Porsche and brakes before hopping onto a skateboard, popping a nollie varial kickflip and then firing a handgun into the air while flipping the camera off. In another, he does the same thing, but in a different car (his Mercedes), doing a different trick (a 180 no comply) with a different gun (an assault rifle).
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āI just want to blow up and tell everyone to suck my dick,ā Gnar says just after we get to Germās apartment. He flips an axe that was sitting on a table and shares a blunt with Germ and producer Don Krez. They blow the smoke into an air purifier to mask the smell from their neighbors who keep complaining. Don Krez explains that he and Germ, two artists who seem to smoke prolific amounts of weed, live in a smoke-free apartment complex. Thereās also a shopping cart in the middle of an otherwise normal living room. When I ask why itās there, Germ shrugs and says āI needed it.ā
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