An Interview With Talibando
Dario McCarty speaks to the Detroit emcee about the Motor City's hustle culture, his favorite Jeezy album, coming up alongside Babyface Ray and Veeze, and more.
Image via Esdras Thelusma
Dario McCarty knows the deal.
Underneath the red glow of a Citgo petrol station, Detroit rapper Talibando fumbles with his phone. His FaceTime camera flips around, revealing a dimly lit stretch of highway stretching out in front of him before he declares: “Seven Mile and Ryan Road. Real trenches!”
The rapper–a member of the Wavy Navy, a loose collective of Detroit rappers that also includes scene stars Babyface Ray and Veeze–is a true Detroit denizen. Luxuriating in the front seat of his prized burgundy Malibu ‘78 (“Real Motor City shit”), he is halfway through a takeout plate of local chain Sweetwater Tavern’s chicken wings (“Legendary Detroit wings. You got to get out here to try some”) when we connect.
Talibando pairs high-energy and hard-nosed Detroit street beats with a delivery so patient and measured it has earned him the nickname “Anchor of the Wavy Navy.” He first broke out in Detroit’s regional rap scene in 2018 with his “E S 7 M Freestyle,” a track named in honor of the Eastside neighborhood of his city. Though his first song ever–a stripped down, hook-less one at that–it immediately made waves online and more importantly, locally.
A slew of successful projects later, including 2023’s Warlord, a breakout 15-track barnstorm featuring guest verses from Veeze, LUCKI, BabyTron, and Babyface Ray, and 2024 has been a year of ascendancy onto the national stage. After opening on Veeze’s transcontinental Ganger tour, and meeting a slew of new producers from outside of Detroit, Talibando has “started putting in work every day on my craft and learning things about the music game.”
It’s more than business. The rapper is also hammering home the particulars of songcraft. “I used to just go in and freestyle–just freestyle until I was tired of rapping,” says Talibando. He laughs, remembering: “I’ve come a long way since the beginning of my career. Even a long way since Warlord.”
When Talibando laughs, you feel it. He has the type of boisterous laugh that makes you feel like there’s a big inside joke you’re both in on. He’s playful and good-humored, and it makes his hustle-minded music all the more slick. His newest album, Art of War, is full of hand-to-hand, money-making anthems like “Sold It All” and the Payroll Giovanni-assisted “All 100s.” These tracks are as indebted to the trap music of early aughts Jeezy and T.I. as they are to the hustler DNA ingrained in Detroit’s street rap. With the help of woozier production from out of towners like LA’s RonRonTheProducer and Southern producer Yung Icey, Talibando floods that DNA with new ice, and takes his regional sound from “uptempo, ra-ra music,” to something slower but no less artful.
If on Art of War Talibando’s words are his paintbrush (as he raps on “Slurred Words”), then his best analogue is Van Goh – if Van Goh conceived his paintings from the bowels of a bando to the tune of three flip phones doing somersaults. Fleeting stills of dusty trap houses and forks in pots are made to pop with flits of color: po’d up pineapple fantas that look like candied yams, rose gold and white cubans colored like candy canes, presidential blueface rolexes, a handful of technicolor pills that look like skittles. Art of War offers a brighter take on a Detroit brand of hustle rap that is usually encased in the cold, hard sonics of its birthplace.
Below is a lightly edited conversation where Talibando and I discuss growing up in Detroit, the city’s culture of hustle, his trap music influences, and more.
https://open.spotify.com/album/3GWxgNPMXEnthgb8MXb3Ae
What was it like growing up in Seven Mile?
Talibando: Seven mile cool man. It was beautiful growing up on Seven Mile for real, for real. It wasn't too much. We were just having fun. Like I tell everybody else, it was just regular neighborhood stuff going on over here. Stuff I think mostly everybody go through in they neighborhoods if you from some type of poverty – its the same situations. We all still had to be some kids at one time growing up doing the same shit.
Were you into any other hobbies besides music growing up?
Talibando: I played basketball, football. I liked race cars a lot. Yeah, I used to fuck with old hot rods. I got a Malibu ‘78 now. It’s burgundy right now, but I’mma take it to the paint shop because I’m thinking about going bullet silver or something like that. I just love motors – I only ride cars with real motors. Drive all the SRTs, the Trackhawks – probably going to get me a TRX next. Real motor city shit, I love cars. Love going to the street races and all that, seeing them hot rods pull out. I love it.
I know you're part of the Wavy Navy, with Babyface Ray & Veeze – growing up in Detroit, how did y’alls paths cross?
Talibando: We was all in different age groups, but we all kind of had mutual people we knew. That's what I would say about it. We all had mutual people. So some of my people were their people some of their people were my people – if that makes sense.
You all were friends for a while before you first started rapping – your first song being "E S 7 M Freestyle" in 2019. Since you were around rappers for a while before that, I'm curious what was it that day that made you change and say today is the day – I’m going to get behind the mic?
Talibando: Motivation from my friends. Motivation from the streets. Just needed something else to do, really. I loved music, loved listening to songs. I was like, "let me give it a shot." It was the reaction from the fans that had me keep going because if they wouldn't have liked it, I probably wouldn’t have kept going.
Recently you went on tour with Veeze on the Ganger tour, right? I'm curious, what was that experience like and did you learn anything from going on a big national tour like that?
Talibando: Learned a lot. It was a beautiful experience. Everything about it was a learning experience – from learning how to control the crowd and performing to learning how you should put your songs in order for your set list.
Obviously you and Veeze have been close for a long time, but going on tour you might spend a lot of time on the road with another in a way you haven’t before. Did you learn anything new about each other?
Talibando: [Laughs] We came up traveling on the road together. That's all you got to know – this was nothing new for us.
You got me there. [Laughs] You’re right. Okay – going back to coming up in Detroit, who were some of the artists that you listened to coming up? Any favorite artists who have influenced your sound?
Talibando: Motivational music wise – my trap gods like Jeezy, Gotti, and T.I. T.I is a great artist to me – I grew up listening to a lot of Tip. Kanye – College Dropout, I remember being on the school bus on a field trip listening to that bitch. I love Dipset too.
Word. It's cool you bring up Jeezy and T.I. because I do feel that kind of early 2000s proto trap sound – just like that hustle music – I do really feel like that comes through in your own sound.
Talibando: I appreciate that too because that's what I be aiming for. [Laughs].
What's your favorite Jeezy album?
Talibando: Now you're getting into the good interview questions. They don't ever ask stuff like that. I’mma say Trap or Die. I gotta go there because the rest of my favorites I think are considered mixtapes. I really loved everything up until maybe the ‘10s. That's when I felt like, all right Jeezy – he not giving me the same exact vibe no more. But I mean I was expecting that – he was old, you know what I mean? He’d been doing it consistent for so many years, but … [laughs] he wasn’t trapping no more, you know what I'm saying – so it was hard to keep making that good quality street music like he was.
It’s interesting – Jeezy and Detroit have a long history. He once told the Michigan Chronicle: “the one thing I love about Detroit the most is it’s a city full of hustlers.There’s not one time I came to Detroit where somebody hasn’t come up to me and said ‘Yo, I got a restaurant, try some of my food. I got a clothing line, try some of my clothes. Everybody is trying to make something better out of themselves and that’s why I love Detroit.” Do you think this characterization of Detroit is true?
Talibando: I think that's 100% true. I think we all got that same quality of a hustler for sure. Detroit people, like he said, they going to have a restaurant, a hair salon, a barber shop, a club – you know what I mean? They going to have something going on to make some money. That's what Detroit is – home of the hustlers.
Why do you think that is?
Talibando: I think it's like – that’s just kind of who we are. That's just our culture. That's all we grew up knowing. That's all everybody ever want to talk about. If you ain't trying to hustle, then it's probably like, "What you doing out here?" Seriously.
You can definitely hear that in the city’s music. Going through the city’s rap cannon – artists like East Side Chedda Boyz, StreetLordz, DoughBoyz Cashout. It's up-tempo, it's fast paced – it’s got that feeling of like, ok – what’s the next play?
Talibando: Exactly. Most of Detroit is just like reality rap. You know what I mean? They just telling their stories and the way they came up out they eyes.
Speaking of which, you’ve got a song on your new album Art of War with Payroll Giovanni, someone who’s really kind of like a forefather of that type of Detroit hustle / get money music and who was also actually signed to Jeezy. What was it like working with him?
Talibando: That is a hands down statement – he definitely is [a forefather of Detroit hustle rap]. I been wanted a song with him. That's my guy – I grew up listening to Pay and Dough Boys. To see that I got enough progress in my life and in my rap career to get a verse from someone like Payroll – that gives me the motivation to keep going. Especially when it was just off the love – you know what I mean? To me that shows progression.
That’s real. Okay – to return to Jeezy for a second, someone who I know you’ve mentioned also wanting to one day work with, he’s got a song called “Last of a Dying Breed.” You also got a song on Art of War with that same title. And – this stuck out to me while reading your interview with 1202 Magazine – you said, "I want to be the last of a dying breed of artists we are losing who only rap about street hustle." Do you feel this type of ‘hustle’ rap is dying out?
Talibando: Yeah, I think it's kind of a lost art in the game. It's like the big man in basketball. Or however you want to compare it to – but it's like a lost art. Most people are focused on drill music or scam music or dance music. You know what I mean? There's a lot of other music going on, but I feel the hustler wave – I feel like they fading away from it. I’m saying people should fade more into it.
That reminds me of another quote of yours from an interview you gave to Dirty Glove Bastard: when asked if you had a message for the youth, you said, "I would tell them you do not need to be on that shoot ‘em up bang bang that the world is teaching you. It’s about getting the money – switch it back to when that was the coolest thing.” I feel this is a good place to ask you: how do you want your music to make people feel?
Talibando: Just like exactly what you said. I don't want nobody to feel like they got to be a tough guy, shoot ‘em up bang bang guy. I just want them to know that they do have to get some money though. No matter how they do it or what's going on, you going to have to get some money. So, I just be telling them how I got mines and what I was doing before rapping and stuff like that, know what I mean? And that’s why I have a story to rap about.
Some people might say that’s ironic since a lot of your branding and album aesthetic is war-centered. You know – Warlord and Art of War and so on. What would you say to that?
Talibando: I mean, war is still a thing that's going to happen in America regardless – no matter what we want to happen or not. So you have to have war. I'm just teaching them about it and the wars that I went through and overcame. You know what I mean? You can't take away the war – but what I can tell them is that we don't have to go to war for no reason.
And besides, it could just be a war of life that I'm speaking on at the time; when you're battling something, it's always a war.