No Jumper - The Harry Mack Interview: Becoming Huge on Social Media for Freestyling Rapping & More

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Professional freestyler Harry Mack talks about his craft, how he fell in love with it, making bank on Omegle, rapping for Joey Badass, Kendrick and more! https://www.instagram.com/harrymack/ | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC59Z... ----- NO JUMPER PATREON http://www.patreon.com/nojumper CHECK OUT OUR NEW SPOTIFY PLAYLIST https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5te... FOLLOW US ON SNAPCHAT FOR THE LATEST NEWS & UPDATES https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_... CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE STORE!!! http://www.nojumper.com/ SUBSCRIBE for new interviews (and more) weekly: http://bit.ly/nastymondayz  Follow us on SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ENxb4B... iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/n... Follow us on Social Media: https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_... http://www.twitter.com/nojumper http://www.instagram.com/nojumper https://www.facebook.com/NOJUMPEROFFI... http://www.reddit.com/r/nojumper JOIN THE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Q3XPfBm Follow Adam22: https://www.tiktok.com/@adam22 http://www.twitter.com/adam22 http://www.instagram.com/adam22 adam22hoe on Snapchat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Jumper, coolest podcast in the world. And today I've got a guy I'm very, very fascinated by, very excited to talk to. Harry Mac is in the building. Yes, sir. How you doing, man? I'm doing great, man. I'm honored to be on here. Yeah?

I'm a fan, man. Does it make you feel a little bit more like you're a real rapper now? Yes. This is like a real rapper thing, right? Yeah, I'm finally a real rapper. Today's the day. That's all it took. That's all it took, man.

Fuck, amazing. Okay, so let's start from the beginning. Where are you from? Tell me a little bit about your early days. Yeah, I'm from Portland, Oregon. originally, born and raised there, and then came down to L.A. in 2008 to go to school. Was it a lot like Portlandia? Yeah, less so, because Portland, like, you know, I was born in 1990, so Portland was like,

for my whole childhood, it was like the best kept secret kind of. It wasn't flooded with, like, it is now. Now it's a very popular place for people to move. Really? So it was like a cool-ass place, but it didn't feel like everybody was in on the secret? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Because now it's like a very very, you know like hip place to be or whatever and everybody's moving there the price to to live there has skyrocketed and that happened around the time of that show but in terms of weirdos and stuff like that it is like that for real it's always been like full of extremely eccentric people yeah totally the tall bikes are real uh yeah okay i're calling a little bit of that my day right so but um what what kind of

kid were you and what was your family like uh my family was a normal family i have an older sister She's three years older than me. My parents stayed together. So that was kind of unique. A lot of my friends, their parents split up at some point growing up. But it was dope, man. I've always been into music. I started doing music when I was like five years old. My parents put me in like little classes where you would clap rhythms and stuff like that. Yeah, I started playing the violin when I was seven, which was kind of like my parents. They were like, all right, this kid's obviously into music. Why don't you play an instrument? How's the violin? So I started learning the violin.

Wow. What kind of music were you into? though, like, the violin seems like probably not something that was in a lot of the music. You might have been listening to? No, no, no, no. It was just like, oh, this is an instrument that we sign kids up to play kind of thing. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah.

I was into, the first music that I was really into was, like, traditional blues, like, Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters type of shit. Yeah, like, old school raw blues. Right. My dad was into some of that stuff, and he would make these little cassettes and play them for me, and that was, like, my favorite shit when I was, like, three years old. Right. I think about that a lot.

like how much am I brainwashing my kid to have the same musical taste? Because currently my kid is going to grow up with a real taste for like Detroit, early 2020s era music. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hell yeah. I mean, that'll be cool, though. You kid will know all the dope shit.

It's kind of weird for my kid to be growing up with like an encyclopedic baby face ray and I swear a Vezzo knowledge base, but you know, whatever. Oh, that's amazing. Okay, so the violin. How far did you go with that? I play violin from the age 7 to like 15 or something like that. But I always wanted to be a drummer. So when I hit fifth grade, I was like begging my parents to play the drums.

Let me get a drum set. Okay. Kept begging, kept begging. Eventually they got me like a used, you know, cheap drum set for a couple hundred bucks. Did you want to be like a rock drummer? I don't know. I didn't know what genre I wanted to play. I just wanted to hit shit, you know?

I just wanted to like let out the, I don't know, get that energy out and play drums. And you're just really naturally talented at any instrument that you went for? Kind of. Yeah, I always had the music in me, I guess. I would like beat rhythms on the tray in my high chair when I was a baby, supposedly. I would start shaking when my family played music and stuff like that. So I'm told, I don't remember doing any of that. But now, music was always just the coolest thing to me. Right. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. And so then what's high school like? So high school, I'm playing the drums. I kind of stopped playing the violin so I could focus on the drums. And all through that time, though, starting from like sixth grade when I was 12 years. old I was rapping as well, started writing rhymes and trying to figure out how to freestyle. Do you remember any certain rap music that you heard that really made you fall for it?

Yeah, I mean, for the longest time from when I was like in first grade and first like was exposed to hip hop just through my older sister being like, yo, everybody's listening to this station, Jammin 95.5. That was like the mainstream rap station in Portland. Jammin 94.5 was the station in the Boston area. Oh, for real? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um. Josh knows. There it is. So my sister put me on to that, and I was just hearing the mainstream shit that was out in the late 90s, early 2000s. But I guess when I was 12 years old in sixth grade, we randomly picked up this record by Black Alicious called Blazing Arrow.

Okay. And so Gifted Gab from Black Alicious was like the first rapper that blew my mind. Oh, really? Yeah. So you kind of came from a very lyrical standpoint? Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, because the way he was rapping was so much different than the shit that we were here. hearing on the radio, which was just more mainstream and commercial.

So when I heard GIFTA Gap, it was just like so densely lyrical and creative and crazy. I remember just me and my boys all looked at each other and were like, yo, that's fucking dope. Can you draw a connection between, you know, learning to play violin and drums and then wanting to rap? To you in your brain, does it kind of feel like the same skill set? Definitely, definitely. I mean, I'm sure the violin in a more abstract way influences just like my musicality. you know the drums though it's a very direct connection like especially now that i freestyle it's like a freestyle is like a drum solo with words right you know it's so rhythmic i mean the rhythmic language

is just as important as like the actual vocabulary to me so i kind of see them as the same thing really yeah yeah i read uh travis barker's biography at one point and yes i could sort of see that how there is so much creativity and some drumming that it almost would be like picking words to say Absolutely. Just choosing what fills you're going to use, right? Yeah, and before you have the words, like, you can get kind of far with just the rhythm. You know, I mean, as a drummer, I play jazz, so it's like the whole language is rhythmic improv. Right.

So if you can like, ta-t-t-a-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tta-tta-tta-tta-tta-tta-tit. It's not that much of a mic, I bless it. You know, you start filling it in with words. Right. But being able to improvise rhythmically is like a huge part of what I do now. Interesting. Yeah. Okay.

So you start rapping and then how does this look throughout high school? Did you just keep getting more and more into it? Yeah, yeah. So I had a group. Me and my one of my best friends at the time, Brady B is what he went by. But he was like getting into DJing, turntabalism and stuff, which was crazy. There was like a pamphlet at the middle school for like music lessons. And it was like you could take lessons in turntabalism.

It's kind of late. Was it kind of late for him to be getting into turntabism or how old are you? 12. At that time. How old are you right now? Oh, 32. I just turned 32. Right.

Yeah, yeah. Because I feel like that's kind of a lost art. Like, do they really teach it anymore? Or is there, I don't know. I mean, it's so different now. Because when he was getting into it, it was like vinyl still, you know? Yeah. But it was kind of like toward the end of that, I guess.

By the time we were in high school, everything was switching over to Cerrado. And now it's just controllers. It's a totally different, totally different world. It's always weird when you talk to people and you realize that they spent, you know, 10, 20 years of their life learning to turntable and that nobody really cares or there isn't really like that much that they could do with that skill set at this point. Yeah. Yeah.

No, it's true. It's true. Yeah, it's interesting. But he was getting into that. And so we had a group all through middle school. And we made our little, like, demos and recordings and shit. It's hilarious, prepubescent. Like, I'm rapping, like, Alvin and the Chipmunks voice, like, high-pitched voice on the record.

And then, yeah, carried it through high school. We, like, expanded the crew a little bit. Added another couple homies who did beats and rapped and stuff like that. And just always had a crew. But back then it was like we were writing records. now I'm really known for freestyling off top, but at that time, pretty much everything was written, and we were just freestyle for fun.

Right. And you just started doing, like, the independent kind of rap hustle thing in Portland as a bunch of, you know, 15, 16-year-olds, whatever, like renting venues and throwing shows and blowing them up at the high school and stuff like that. Nice. Yeah. And did you feel like you had, like, a decent fan base going locally?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. We had a good buzz going locally, especially, like, on the high school circuit, you know? Because, like, back then, if you were... rented a venue, it was just like a space where there weren't going to be any parents and you could go while out, you know? So it was like, that was hugely valuable to everybody at that age. So we would rent the venue and then everybody could go and get fucked up and do whatever and hang out at the show. Oh man, you guys are getting fucked up. I was doing that, but we were having hardcore shows and we were,

you know, a bunch of guys standing in a circle punching each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We never did that part, but not to that level. Yeah, it was kind of weird when I think about it. Yeah. No, but it was dope. It's just like a place that you could, you know, like a house party, but you know, you don't have to mess up somebody's house. It was a place to drink and smoke weed and stuff like that. And we would be doing the music. Nice. Yeah. So, okay, what do you do when you graduate high school? That's when I moved down to L.A. to go to USC. I studied jazz at USC as a jazz drummer. Wow. Yeah. And damn, I'm always curious about that. Like, what is that like? And how much do you feel like you were learning and what were you planning to do with that knowledge? Yeah. What the fuck were you going to do with that degree? I just feel like going to college.

I had a friend who was going to college for guitar back in the day. I'm like, that's the level of complexity that he would talk about it with. Yeah. It just blew my mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It goes deep. You know, I learned about all that stuff, jazz harmony and composition and, you know, all types of crazy stuff that I'm not necessarily using now.

Right. But it was dope. I mean, there was good stuff and bad stuff. You know, I don't know if I would recommend somebody do that at this point in time, having gone through it. You know, I just think. I think it's kind of insane, you know, to take a, like, a loan or whatever to go. I mean, I had a scholarship, which helped, but like, still, just to spend that much money

to learn to be a jazz musician where it's like, how are you going to, you know, pay that back? Did you ever have a plan to monetize that? No, I didn't have a plan. I was just passionate about music, so I was just like, let me do this. And I've been playing jazz gigs since I was, like, 14 or something like that. In Portland, like on the professional scene, just like going out and doing my little restaurant gigs and stuff like that. Do you feel like it really enriched you as a human being, like learning all that shit?

Definitely. Looking back on it, it was an important part of your development as a human? It was definitely an important part of my development as a human. Yeah. Leaving Portland was an important part of my development, you know, just to shake it up. I met a lot of dope people, both in music school and outside of music school. I learned a lot about music, and I played music constantly. And the crazy thing is, like, as much as I was playing drums for my jazz degree, which was a lot,

I was rapping like just as much in the in the dorms like freestyling every night and doing like you know three or four hour ciphers and shit like that were you thinking to yourself like how am I going to make rapping my job at that time not really I was just kind of like I just wasn't even on that tip man I was just like fucking I'm here I'm having fun I'm learning shit I'm hanging with people I hadn't yet crossed my mind that like I would have to make a living yeah you know I mean you're old enough that the the that everything being viewed through the lens of of you have to like everything has to be geared towards you becoming an influencer right which is like kind of the world that we live in now right anyone who has any talent you immediately start thinking like how are they going to monetize this what's their patreon gonna look like you know yes yeah it was before that it was before that like there was you two but to my knowledge there weren't like YouTubers like we know them today you know what I mean and it wasn't it wasn't like that I mean I wasn't even like on social media really like that you know um so I was just doing it because it was the coolest shit to me It was how I enjoyed spending my time.

Definitely. Okay, so then you graduate college at some point? Graduate college, 2012. And then it was interesting because at that time it was kind of like there was a period where I was kind of struggling to figure out, you know, what the fuck I was going to do. Still doing jazz gigs, but that's a super tough grind. It's like restaurant bar gigs.

Sometimes you're making 50 bucks a night, 75 bucks, whatever. just scraping by, teaching drum lessons, trying to make that work, and still loving to freestyle and loving to rap and loving hip hop, but I think I kind of got caught up in the whole thing of like, well, I have a degree that says I'm a jazz drummer.

I guess I gotta figure this out now. You know what I mean? So I wasn't really pushing hard to be Harry Mac the MC or whatever. I was just trying to figure out how to get more gigs and struggling and shit like that. Because like your brain feels like, you spend all this time and all this money on the drumming shit that it's like you have to use this to earn exactly do you have crazy student loans uh not crazy like compared to what it can be

right yeah i had student loans um i recently i just like paid them off a couple years ago so that's cool but um but yeah i had i had loans for sure um but yeah it was just a thing i mean you know i was just like in my in my young 20s i guess um just like with no overhead just like making my rent and spending that money and then starting over at the top of the month, you know? Right. Yeah. Definitely.

Yeah. So OK. So what do you go on to do after college? So I'm in that space for a long time. And then I guess the next kind of significant change was at the end of 2016. My friend who I knew from jazz school, his name is Jacob Mann. He's like a dope piano player and composer.

He had made a jazz album. And he was like, bro, I'm trying to come up with a creative way to promote the record. So I remixed my jazz song and made it into like a beat, you know, like a hip-hop beat. And I was thinking you could freestyle on it. He knew I freestyled like crazy. Everybody knew that in college. I would always like freestyle and cypher parties and shit.

We had a band and would do house parties and stuff. So he was aware of that. And so I said, yeah, sure, you know, just doing a favor to him. Whatever. Our idea was I would drive a car down Sunset Boulevard, his car, because I didn't have the ox cable. So we drove his car, plugged the beat in and just rap about the shit as it's going by. So that there's changing scenery and hopefully people believe it's actual freestyle. Right. And this just always came super naturally to you that you were able to just freestyle your ass off?

No, no, no, I worked on it. My first freestyles were trash, but I was 12. Right. You know, yeah, I practiced. So you think it took a lot of practice? Like, because at this point it just seems so effortless. Like, it's just this thing that's just built into you. Yeah. No, I definitely, I definitely hammered it into myself, man, through practice. I think I had a knack for improv, you know? Meaning like I think that my brain is good at jumping. I know my brain is good at jumping to a bunch of different things quickly, you know, which is a hindrance in a lot of situations, but it helps when you're freestyling. Do you ever think about like what's actually happening in your brain when you're freestyling?

Like how early does the next bar exist in your head before you say it? Because it is so crazy to think about the fact that your brain can be generating lyrics like that, you know? Yeah, yeah. I'm only, no, no, it's, I want to do the thing where they put the, you know, the, like, look inside my brain while I'm doing a freestyle. That would be interesting. Yeah, yeah, that'd be a dope YouTube video, I think. That could probably tell us a lot. But to answer your question, I'm only, like, I'm slightly ahead of where I'm at.

Freestyling is, like, juggling. As you're throwing something, you're simultaneously aligning your hand to catch the ball that's falling, you know? So it becomes this sort of fluid thing. If I'm going to do a rap about the bottle, you know, first I set it up. So what rhymes with bottle? model so yo shining in the spotlight something like a model staying hydrated like and now i know i'm gonna say bottle so while i finish out that sentence of staying hydrated like the water in the bottle i'm looking to your coffee and then i'm thinking stop me will lead to coffee so i'm kind of like

daisy chaining and just overlapping slightly if that makes sense is this something did you actually study it did you get on google and be like how to freeze out or is it just something that you worked on by just sort of trying it over and over yeah yeah at first it was just trying it it over and over and over. Right. And then it was like discovering great freestylers, you know, like discovering supernat and just being like, what the fuck having my mind blown by him and being like, how the fuck is he doing that?

That's impossible. You know, and then just listening again and again and you start to pick up little sort of like techniques that people use and just going from there, you know, studying the grades and just doing it again and again and again. And then it got to a point where it was like, yo, I want to like make it crazier, you know, like what's the next step and I would create little exercises and ways to sort of get better, you know, and I still do that constantly and I think I'll be doing that forever. I think that's kind of the biggest thing I gained from being a drummer and being a musician is like I know how to practice,

sort of like self-guided, you know, like I know how to be like, yo, if I watch what I do and I don't like something about it, I'll work on creating an exercise to fix it, you know, and things of that nature. Describe an exercise, like in terms of like, I don't know. Like, you mean just like coming up with a word and trying to think of, like, have you done that so many times that like there's almost no word that somebody could throw at you? Kind of. That wouldn't, that would throw you for a loop? Basically. Yeah.

Like most words, it seems like I freestyle about most words that people would come up with. Unless it's like a novelty word that they searched like, you know, crazy medical. You know, there's like, there's plenty of words. I don't know what they mean. So you could stump me with that. But just the sheer like experience that you have must be such an advantage in the sense that, you know, you. Like, you must just have, like, metaphors and, like, you know, jokes and shit on deck that you already have said that just you could pull it out of your ass. It seems like it's totally impromptu, but you said this before and it's like, it's going to get a fucking, like, people can't even wrap their head around this because to them, it seems like the first time you ever done it, you know?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Like a big part of freestyling is building a vocabulary, you know? And so, like, a good freestyle to me is like a mix of like truly, truly in the moment inspired improvisation that's really happening kind of. in the moment for the first time. And then also, you know, of course, there's going to be those things that you've thought about before, sort of you've connected those dots already and you can pull them out while your brain is breathing and thinking of the next thing. The weird thing, too, is that you're like having a self-edit.

Like you might think of a bar in your head. And then the other part of your brand is like, no, that's going to sound weird or that's going to sound creepy or that's kind of offensive. Like, no, you've got to say it like this. And like, you're doing all that while you're actually saying a sentence. But like, it's kind of like amazing that the human brain is capable. Yeah, yeah, no, that part, but you know what's funny is like back in the day I would, me and when, like, me and the homies were freestyling like seventh, eighth grade or whatever, you would say a lot more like creepy shit or stupid or weird shit where you're like, oh, I don't fucking, like, I don't fucking, like, I don't mean that. Your white boy humor on point, like the gay jokes and shit, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, that type of thing. That's usually where my brain goes when we're freestiling in here and we're high as fuck and I'll just say the fucking gayest thing possible and just somehow my brain is just tuned that way. Yeah. Well, the funny thing about that was then the afterward, like, explaining it while you're rapping and being like, oh, but I don't mean that. But it's cool if you are, but I also, uh, and it's like this mental overload of like trying to figure out your stance on what you just said while you're rapping. I know, I hate that. Because it's so much harder when you just say something stupid as fuck and then just keep going. Yeah, exactly. Let it go.

Let it go. Like that's just some normal shit. Yeah, but the key to that is you have to build out a lot of headroom, you know, because what I mean is like, I've practiced so much and. added on so many techniques on top of the kind of the baseline level so that I'm always trying to be doing shit that's really at a high level. But if I need to like self-edit or if I think of something, I'm like, that won't work, it just drops down to like the baseline level, if that makes sense. Instead of like back in the day, if I was going to say something weird and I didn't want to say it, I just have to stumble and stutter and stop rapping or whatever. But it's

almost like there's this kind of baseline level of being able to do basic lines about the things I'm seeing that can almost just like run on autopilot because I've been doing it for so many years. Yeah. Like you could always like like think about bottle. I mean, you could just basically say I'm posted up on the block with a bottle. Yeah. And that sounds like a bar even though like what what are you actually saying? Like because you can say I'm posted up on the block with a coffee cup. Right. You know, it just sounds like yeah, I'm driving down the street with a coffee cup. It's the same fucking thing. But like, you know, it sounds like a rap lyric. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We're getting deep here. We are. We're going in. So what, wait, what happened in this video? You're

You filmed one where you're wrapping over your beat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I did the video with my friend Jacob, and I didn't have a YouTube channel or anything of that nature. You know, I just did this as a favor to him. Like, whatever, it was my boy, so I did the freestyle. Didn't think much of it. It took, like, half an hour.

We got lunch afterwards. And then I, like, went home. And then, like, about a week later, I woke up from a nap. And my roommate at the time, I came out, and she was like, yo, you're going viral right now. I was like, what are you talking about? Like, what do you mean? She was like, yo, this video.

of you freestyle and driving the car is like number one on Reddit videos right now and all these people are seeing your video Wow and I was like what the fuck and I took my phone out and it was just a trip you know it was on his channel I didn't have a YouTube or anything like that but I would just remember like this is the first time I had that experience where I was like scrolling down and like chunks of thousands of views were like or hundreds of view whatever it was it was just going up fast you know the view count and it blew my mind and that video got like 100,000 views overnight and and then it totally fell fell to the bottom of the list and stopped getting views at that point but really Really? Yeah, but it got the quick 100K. That's enough to get you motivated. It was enough to get me motivated, man. Absolutely.

And I was like, yo, fuck this. Like, I've been struggling to figure out this jazz thing for long enough. Like, my heart is really with freestyling and rapping. And it was just eye-opening. And to see that, yo, there's this much energy around this thing that I'm doing that I didn't even think anything of it. I just, you know, took 20 minutes and made this thing and it did this. Like, what could happen if I actually, like, dig in and try to make something? Right.

because your brain had never really shifted to I could be a rapper. Yeah. It had? No. Did you reject it? Like, no, I am white. Maybe I don't want to be a rapper. Yeah, like basically, you know, I agree with what you're saying.

Every white guy who even thinks about rapping has got to have a lot of insecurity attached to it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Of course. Of course. And, like, you know, I had already, like, been passionate about being a rapper, like, when we were young and, like, when it didn't really matter. You know what I mean? But you were doing it in such, like, a goofy, fun, like, way that doesn't really carry the way.

of like in our society, if you become a rapper, it's not supposed to just be like a fun thing that you do for enjoyment. It's supposed to be like, no, you do this, you become rich and famous, and then you get on love and hip hop. To be a rapper, that's what would be a rapist. And like that path in my mind was like completely unrealistic.

Like that's what I'm gonna do with my jazz drumming degree. Like I'm gonna do that. Like it just didn't make any sense. It didn't add up. So, you know, I was, it was these like self-limiting beliefs. I was like telling myself that that's not real for me. And then all it took was just getting a little taste of like, holy shit, man, like,

Maybe it is. You like me. Fuck. Yeah. At least some people like me. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

That's dope. Yeah. So how do you proceed from there? What did your early uploads look like? So from there, I hit up Jacob who made the beat and I was like, yo, can we get lunch? Like, and I was just picking his brain because I knew nothing. Like I didn't have like a professional Facebook page or even like my IG, like my IG, which is a personal IG, post like a pick every couple months. And so I was like, what should I do?

He's like, dude, you should just make your own YouTube channel and start posting a video. you know so I made my channel and I said I'm gonna do a video every week I just set that as like a way to like hold myself accountable and try to like get some shit moving and I just made little I I said you know no matter what it is even if I just like film myself selfie mode freestyle in my room at least I'll post something so I did some videos like in my room freestyling with like random word generators and stuff and they would do they would get like a thousand views maybe you know because I would link them to the one with 100k and be like oh check out my new one you know whatever And then I realized that the videos weren't doing enough

because they weren't like risky enough. They weren't scary enough for me to make. It was like too easy. And it was actual freestyling? It was actually freestyling. Yeah, always. It was always off top. That was the whole thing.

And then I was like, well, let me get outside the house. I lived right around the corner from this liquor store that I would go to all the time. And I went down there and I was like, bro, can I run through the store and freestyle about all the shit or whatever? I don't think he knew what I was asking him. And he was like, yeah, sure. We came in with the camera.

And, you know, I picked up all this. stuff from the shelves and freestyled about it. And that one was like, oh, this one got 10K views or whatever. Okay, we're going somewhere. And then it was in February 2017. So just a couple months after I had that first video, I was like, you know what, let's like go to Venice Beach because it's so crazy out there. And there's like street performers and people out there doing shit like that already. Let's just go out there and freestyle and see what happens. And so we went out there and I ended up doing this freestyle like on the Venice boardwalk. We were getting rejected. We would go to people, yo, can I freestyle for you?

They'd be like, fuck no. Or like store owners being like, oh, you got to move. Get the fuck away from my store or whatever, whatever. So we were all like disheartened, you know, like fuck, man, what are we going to? And so eventually my friend's like, dude, just start freestyling right now. So play the beat, started freestyling and like I would rap about the people passing by. And then one by one, people stop, you know, and it starts forming this crowd. And it was kind of like unbelievable because the crowd was just like this like diverse

representation of like it looked like we hired extras to try to cover like, a wide range of like people in Venice. Dennis is like that though, for sure. It's a very diverse crowd. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Down by the beach, you got all kinds of fucking creatures. It's like another country out there. It's insane.

It's insane. It's insane. So yeah, we ended up building a crowd of like, I don't know, maybe 40 people or something like that. I'm not sure. But this crowd forms around me organically. And then the hook of the video was my finger slipped on the iPod and then it went to the twist the overnight celebrity beat.

Which is like, you know, it's like a fast, double time. flow on the beat. So it went to that and I paused it because I didn't mean to do that and I was like and then the dude standing in the crowd was like I want to hear you do that one and so I turned to the camera and I go oh shit and then I was like all right and I press play on it. The second half is all like this really fast like double time flow freestyle about people's outfits and shit and so it went crazy in the second half and and that video went went crazy it went crazy we posted it on YouTube it got like 30,000 views on YouTube or something the first day but then there was this Facebook like repeat post of it on some viral Facebook channel, like, it's called Viral Thread that got like, I remember my friend called me, it was like, bro, like the video, like it says M, like it says the M next to it. I was like, what are you talking about? And when it looked at it, that repose got like 14 million views or something over the course of a couple weeks or something like that and got reposted everywhere. And that was kind of like a huge pivot point for me.

That's when, you know, I got hit up by Jay Cruz and them to come on the radio. I got to rap for like Joey Badass and eventually Kendrick Lamar. I got to go on the Ellen show and all this other crazy shit happened from the result of kind of the momentum of that video. Wow. Yeah. Okay. There's so many moments to break down right there. I'm trying to figure out what order we should go in.

Like, what were the first ones? Like, I don't know if we should go Ellen or if we should go like rapping in front of Lil Wayne or whatever. I never got to rap for Lil Wayne. Oh, wasn't Lil Wayne? Who was it? There's a conspiracy video that says that I rap for Lil Wayne. I think that was just buried in my head because I saw that title. Yeah.

Yeah, there's a video that says Harry Back is a fraud and it claims that all my freestyles are written. Okay. But it's a parody video. So he shows me with Kendrick and it says it. You're currently talking to somebody who spent like five minutes of their life watching that video before I scrolled down to the comments and realized it wasn't real. And because for a moment, I'm like, I can't wait to ask him about all this shit. Yes, dude. I can't wait to clear the air.

Please, man. I'm like, you're cheating, dude. You're fucking reading lyrics off the screen. What the fuck? I was saying, I don't think I have enough controversy to come on, no jumper man. but maybe I do. No, so, yeah, the first thing that happened, I got an email. So the video was going viral.

I'm completely new to this whole world. I can't believe it's happening. I have no management or anything. I mean, it's just me with my little pages or whatever. And everything's getting flooded. And then there was this email that was, luckily, it was like all caps in the subject because there were so many random emails coming in. And it was just like freestyle on Power 106, you know.

And so, of course, I knew Power 106 just from living. living in LA and knowing the radio and shit. And so it was from Edgar Preciato, who worked at power at the time. And he was like, yo, do you want to come on and do a freestyle on the show? And so I was like, hell yeah. And so I went down there. And we were just going to do, they were just going to do like a little feature on me or whatever for their YouTube channel. They just asked me a few questions.

And it was a little interview thing. And then we did this like walkthrough. through a cappella like walk through the office got in the elevator I'm freestyling about whatever I can see as we walk by go down to the street and I'm rapping on the way to the cafe we like ordered food it was just this one take kind of walking roaming freestyle right and so we did that and I thought that was gonna be the end of the day and then we went back up to the station and they were like oh we got to introduce you to E-man like he's the you know program coordinator

here so you know going to his office he's like you know Harry Mac you killed man we want to invite you to be you know on the lineup for our powerhouse 2017 festival which like Lil Wayne and Big Sean were headlining the festival right and so I was like holy you know at that point I'm like this is the best day of my life so far got to be on the radio now I'm getting added to this festival I mean you know granted I was like the very for the smallest name of the the very bottom very you know 10 minute slot but like I went from just making these couple YouTube videos to being on that lineup which was crazy and so I thought the day was

going to end there and then as I'm walking out of the the studio they're like oh yeah yeah One other thing. One of the thing. And, like, stop me literally halfway out the door. He's like, I just thought of this, bro. Like, are you a Joey Badass fan? I was like, hell yeah. You know, I fuck with Joey Badass a lot.

They're like, cool. Well, he's here right now, like, doing promo for his album that's about to come out. Like, we haven't asked him yet, but if he's down, would you want to do a freestyle for him? Right. I was like, yeah, let's do it, you know? And so they, like, put me in this little side room with speakers. I can hear, like, his interview happening and shit. I'm getting, like, super nervous sitting there waiting, like,

You know, for a lot of reasons, because one of it would be, you know, it's kind of like my first big look, uh, rapping for somebody like that. And then also, you, you never know if people are going to want that to happen in the first place or if it's going to be weird or what the situation is. But, um, it ended up being super dope, man. I got called into the room. Uh, Joey threw out words and I did a freestyle in front of him. And, uh, and he was loving it and gave props at the end. And they posted that video to, to, to their YouTube and it went crazy. Um, do you ever get nervous? Like, I was thinking about it on the Venice thing and then thinking about the fucking. Joey badass thing. Yeah. Are these like nerve-wracking experiences? I'm sure now you don't feel nervous, but like that Venice shit, was that initially like very nerve-wracking? Hell yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was scary. It's just scary to go out there and you're so exposed, you know? And you're just going up to strangers, like, you know, asking to do this thing and, you know, everybody thinks you're going to suck like 100%. You know, I would think the same thing, you know. And so, but that's kind of the fun of the game, you know, is overcoming that and then swaying people, you know,

turning skeptics to believers. That's kind of the whole thing. Right. But yeah, and I was definitely scared to go in there and rap for Joey too. Because it just came out of nowhere. Like, I didn't show up that day expecting that to happen. Yeah, because, I mean, is your brain like imagining worst case scenario? Like, worst case scenario, I think would probably be like him laughing at you and just like basically making a joke out of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah. Or just like,

who the fuck is this guy? Like, why is he crashing my interview? That was kind of my biggest concern was that it just wouldn't be welcome. You know, he's on there to do promo. Yeah. So, and then in comes this random dude he's never heard of. It's like, oh, this guy's going to do a performance for you. You know, it could have been weird. But shout out to Joey, man, because he was super cool.

Right. They showed him a bit of the video before I came in there. And he was like, fuck yeah, bring him in. Let's do it. Oh, nice. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Have you ever had any, like, really traumatizing terrible experiences where people react to you in like a really, like, disgusted or notable way? Um. Particularly out on the street. Damn, that's a good question. I mean, usually, not really. Not after I've started rapping.

You never had a dude try to beat your ass? No. Okay. Luckily not, not yet That'll be awkward, right? Or like a girl just like, girls probably think you're trying to hit on them all the time, right? Definitely.

I mean, everybody thinks I'm trying to sell them something, you know? I've had to try to work on the approach to make it less salesy, you know? Really? Yeah, like if you, sometimes if you walk up to people with a certain energy, it's like, hey, how you doing today? You know, they're going to be like, oh, no, no, no. You know? So it has to be kind of like, yo, yo, can I freeze off for you?

As long as they feel like you're not trying to get them to join the Mormon church. Exactly. You should be all right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. It's a general guideline. Okay, so then what about the Ellen shows? That comes soon after?

Yeah, the next thing that came after the Joey thing was the Kendrick Lamar thing. Oh, okay. How did that happen? So the Kendrick thing was crazy. When I was on there that first day, you know, in my interview, I think they asked like, who are you, you know, fucking with right now? And I'd say Kendrick is my favorite of like the, you know. In like 2017? Yeah.

Safe bet. Yeah, yeah. So they remembered that. And what I didn't realize at the time was like they, as much as I appreciated being able to go on the show and have that opportunity to be seen next to Joey, that video was like one of the biggest videos on their channel, like at that time. And so they were really appreciative of kind of like the viral content, you know. So they remembered that I had mentioned Kendrick. And so then when Kendrick eventually came on the show to do promo, they hit me up. And it was crazy.

go on the station for something else. We were going to promote this festival that I was a part of. And then I got a text that that was canceled. And then I immediately got a call from the station and I answered and I was like, what's up? And they were like, yo, you were supposed to come on to do this promo thing. It got canceled because Kendrick's coming on. And I thought they were just like alerting me to like listen in. So I was like, oh, dope. All right. I'll be sure to check it out. They're like, no, man, we want you to come by and do the same thing you did with Joey but for Kendrick. Right. And I was like mad, terrified, you know? Like, I'm not ready to do that. Yeah.

Because I didn't feel like I was ready to meet him. Like, he's like, you know, I'm such a fan. Right. But of course, like, I'm not going to say no. So I said, yeah, let's do it. They were like, be here in an hour and just drove down to the station, went in there, super nervous. You could tell on the video that one, too. I'm like, you know, you could tell him nervous when I walk in.

What was your observation of them? Do you get a chance to talk to him and stuff? Or, like, what was the vibe like? Yeah. I mean, I didn't get a long opportunity to, like, really build with him or anything like that. but he was super cool, man. I mean, he was like doodling on a, on a piece of paper that was there, like most of the time. Yeah.

Yeah. He just seemed to be a very, like, in an art space. You know what I mean? Like a creative kind of like space. That's so interesting. Yeah. Maybe I should doodle more. Yeah.

Yeah, I started doodling ever since I did. Like a pen and pen and like. I was just sitting here just like drawing something while we were talking. Would that be distracting? Kind of. I would just be wondering what you were drawing the whole time. I feel like inevitably. conversation would steer towards what I was drawing.

It's such a strange thing to be doing. Yeah. Wow. Okay. And then what was Ellen like? Ellen, so Ellen came after that. It was crazy. There's all these different steps to get on the show, you know?

So it's like, it was like first an assistant to a producer found my videos and was like, oh, you'd be dope for the show. And they contacted me. And then, you know, you submit like a portfolio of some kind. I can't remember what it was, like links to my videos or something like that and then they pitch you up to the next producer and then they do a Zoom call and all this you keep kind of getting pitched up the ladder. But what was crazy was eventually Ellen actually called me before the show. It was wild. Like I got a text for my contact at the show and she was basically like

your phone's going to ring in 10 minutes and you have to answer it. And I was like actually at the doctor when I got the text, which is real crazy. I was like just for like a regular checkup. But I was like waiting for the doctor to finish his spiel. And my phone started ringing. I was like, yeah, I got to take this. Yeah, sorry, I got to answer this. He was like, yeah, you're basically healthy. You can go. So halfway out the door, answer it. Hi, Harry, this is Ellen DeGeneres. I'm excited

to have you on the show. They have her call you directly? Apparently, not normally. It was like a special thing. Yeah, I feel like her schedule is probably like, I mean, it just seems so unnecessary. Yeah. Why can't her assistant just let you know that she's happy that you're coming through? Yeah, no, I mean, I would have shown up even if she didn't call me. Yeah, just give me the time and date.

I guess that's nice. She has such a reputation. She really got canceled there at some point. Yeah, yeah. That was, yeah, yeah. Did she do anything crazy? She'd call you, call you any names or anything? No, she was, I mean, the, the interaction is so limited to what you see in the show. Right. Like, I don't, you know, you don't talk to her before you go out there. Right. Everything is just through people coming back and forth between her and you. And then they're like, all right, it's go time, three, two, one, head on out. So like, the first time I hug her out on screen is literally the first time I met her. Right. Yeah. That makes sense to me. But she was

cool to me, you know, I mean, in my experience. I mean, very little, you know, the interview was chill or whatever and that was it. As long as she didn't abuse you. I just wanted to make sure. No, no, no, I'm good. Okay. So when, like, over time, have you just kind of like figured out your style on YouTube? Like, what does that process been like in terms of figuring out what works for your audience?

Yeah. It's been sort of, basically just through trial and error of trying out different things that seemed interesting to me. And then, uh, and then leaning into the things that work for me and also work for the audience. So like that first video in Venice kind of. to set the tone of like the, you know, man on the street freestyle concept, going up to strangers and trying to blow people's minds. So I started a series called Gorilla Bars, which is basically based on that. It's just going, you know, going all over L.A. to, like, popular spots and

bringing the Bluetooth speaker and freestyling for strangers. Right. And what is that like compared to doing it on fucking Omichel or whatever the software uses? Yeah, it's more nerve-wracking to do it in person because there's more distractions, you know? Right. And you're out there in public and there's so much going on. But it's exciting, man. It's fun, you know? It's dope. Right. When did the, or Omigal? I call it Omigal, but I think it is Omegal. I think I've been calling it the wrong way the whole time. I haven't been on there a long time. But that's good. Yeah. Do you feel like you always need an audience for your content? Like, does that just make it way more appealing to your audience? Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Like, the biggest thing we do is Omigal bars now. Right. And Gorilla bars is the

second biggest thing we do. And then I do stuff that's just like freestyling, like creating EPs and projects like, you know, using my process, freestyling to basically create songs, which is like the core audience fucks with it, but it's less popular than the reaction-based stuff. Interesting. So I think really like my niche on YouTube anyway is reaction-based content with a freestyle angle, you know? It's seeing people get their mind blown, like seeing people thinking it's going to be whack and then realizing like, oh shit, this is actually fire. That's kind of a big part of the appeal to that content. So there's still a lot of people on Omegal. Yeah. Because I remember going on it with my friends back in the day and it would be

mostly dudes jerking off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's still some dudes jerking off on that. You can't do it on Twitter or anything because you're going to find too many people jerking off. Yeah, you can't do it? It's like immediately against the terms of service. Do you see that like all the time when you're like when you're trying to film? Like when you try to find people to wrap in front of them? Surprisingly little because they added these topic filters. So you can type what you're interested in. So you could type like, you know, hip hop or music or whatever the fuck. And it matches you with people who have entered the similar topics.

And it does actually an amazingly good job of filtering the dicks. Like we have like 60 episodes of Amigo bars. I've probably seen like, you know, in all the time shooting all that content, I've seen like maybe like 15 dicks or something like that. Wow. That's amazing. It's amazing that this technology has been invented so that you don't have to see dicks. Yeah, it's great, man. It's nice. I appreciate it. Thank God. Yeah. It's funny because, like, such a huge percentage of the people that you end up wrapping in front of think it's fake are like mind-blown because you're probably the most high-profile person who's using this service on a regular basis, I would think.

Like, yeah, are those the two main things that always happen? Or like, what do people always say when you click on their shit? They always say, damn, you have a nice camera. That's always the first thing. because they recognize it's like I'm like in a studio. Every time I get on Zoom with somebody, they say that. Yeah, yeah. Do you use like a DSLR or you just use them? Just because in my backhouse, like I stream on Twitch and stuff. So yeah, I have a DSLR and like people are always like blown away.

I know. It's so extra for Zoom. It's kind of annoying. I wanted to just have a webcam for Zoom specifically. So I'm not always like, you know, freaking people out. Right. Definitely. What have been some of the most notable moments that have happened while you've been entertaining,

random people? Let me think Let me think On Amigal There's been like a puppet show There was a guy that was just like doing puppet Puppetry on there That was kind of crazy

There were freaky looking puppets That looked like Chuckie in them Wow Yeah What else? Do you ever start freestyle For somebody and then they start jerking off? That luckily has not happened

But people have done other sketchy things Like while I'm freestyling Like yo Like doing like crazy drugs and shit Like on the They start shooting heroin while you're rapping? Never that, but like definitely like what appears to be like crackpies

or pipes that not like, they're not smoking weed they're not smoking weed. Wow. That's crazy. Yeah, it's why. And then I just stopped the free zone. I'm like dog, like what, you know? I can't put this on what are you doing? But actually that sounds like great clickbait right there. I'm sure it would go he smoked crack mid freestyle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He can blur it, you know?

See, my brain goes to like let's make the best out of any situation. Yeah, no, that's smart. That's smart. Really like that to me the person's smoking crack seems like a fucking jackpot. It probably would have gone viral, you know, but I just, it just doesn't work for my brand. Be more open-minded. To track smoking. What, do you go out of your way to keep your brand somewhat safe? I just try to keep it like, I don't know. I guess I don't go out of my way to keep it safe. I just

try to keep it like really authentic to, you know, who I am and, and try to keep it cool for everybody, you know? Do you get brand deals and stuff? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we do. Yeah, yeah. What are like the most notable ones, anything? Well, in terms of, I can't even think. What is it? Like, we do a lot of corporate. I do like virtual performances for companies. Really?

Yeah, like on Zoom. So you show up on the Zoom call and you'll rap about all the people from the office? Exactly. Wow. Yeah. Have you had to do a lot of, I feel like my brain would just say, I would say so many offensive things. If I was just to be like observing people because you have so little to go on. It's like, you know, like their hair.

Yeah, yeah. You have glasses. We've got a nose ring. We pull up the chat. and then people type words in and shit like that. So that makes it easier. That makes it easier. But I do wrap about what I can see and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. God, I would be so scared of it. Because I just feel like freestyling, I would just say the wrong thing. I'd say something offensive so easily. Have you ever had a moment where you said something so fucking bad?

And then you just had to try to get past it so that people wouldn't notice or focus on it. No. Not, not. Because the thing is, luckily I didn't start doing it until I was very proficient at freestyling. So that whole filter thing was in effect, you know? I can like dial it back.

If I like worst case scenario, if it's like going in that direction at all, I'll just like nip it in the bud and like just say some filler shit, you know, kill time. I can always like keep a continuous flow going so no one will notice. Yeah. But yeah, no, I haven't had to do that. But does that like, does that feel like a compromise or like bad freestyling to you if you do too much filler? Yeah, hell yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I never really want to be doing any filler at all if I can avoid it. Right. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. How often you hear like rap songs that. impress you with like their flows or like different types of flows. Do you feel like you pick up new flows?

Or is there any like attempt to stay current with the way you rap? Um, yeah. I mean, I get inspired by all kinds of flows that I hear, uh, whether it's like on some boom bap shit or, or like more modern like trap type of rhythms and stuff, you know, like I, uh, I guess my style has modernized kind of like organically. Like I used to only really rap on like boom bap type beats, you know, for the longest time. Like when I was learning how to freestyle when I was young and stuff, like we weren't ever rapping on like, you know,

on anything that would resemble a trap beat or anything of that nature. But now I do rap on both. And I like rapping on both. And I get inspired by like the different like triplet rhythms and double time rhythms and shit that I hear. Yeah. Like, okay, if we put on like a trap bead and I said rap like the Migos. Yeah, yeah. Would you be able to like basically do that flow off the top of your head?

Yeah. Really? I think so. That's interesting. People ever hit you with requests like that? That happened. I was on, yeah, I was on, uh, uh, bootleg Kev and DJ head. Oh, okay. And, uh, they were just throwing out words and they threw out the Migos and I went into the Migos flowed. It was like the hype as part of the, of the freestyle. Everyone in the comments were like, oh, the megos flow.

That's epic. Yeah, yeah. I like that idea. Like, what if it, like, put on like a drill beat, like, like, would you be able to like, to sort of like seamlessly hop into that pocket? Definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I enjoy that. That's what I enjoy the most about freestyling is like any different type of beat, I can kind of like find a flow that's going to match it. Right. Yeah. Nice. So how are you monetizing outside of just YouTube? Like what's the business of Harry Mac look like for? Yeah. So it's a bunch of different income streams. You know, obviously there's YouTube, as you mentioned, where the videos are monetized. Facebook, videos monetized. And then we do live streams. Your Facebook goes crazy. Yeah. More than YouTube?

Sometimes. Like the highest highs on Facebook go way higher than YouTube. But they And it'll drop into lulls and it's more volatile for me. Interesting. Whereas YouTube is just a bit more consistent. Yeah. But, um, so there's that we, we, I stream a lot. So for that, there's like donations during the stream. A lot of times it's like people are donating to have their word incorporated into the freestyle and things like that.

And, uh... On Twitch? On YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, everywhere. Oh, you stream on all the platforms at once? Not at once, but like we cycle through the, through the month. So if I do like one stream a week, first it'll be on YouTube. then it'll be on Facebook, then it'll be on Twitch. Well, that's interesting.

I feel like I don't know anybody who splits their streaming between three. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. Like, I'm really lucky. The type of stream that I do, it just, it kind of works. Like, wherever we show up to do it, it works. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

Do you notice a difference in your fan bases between the three crowds? Yeah, they have a different feel, kind of, which is weird to me. Like, I wouldn't expect it to be that way. Yeah. For sure, when I look at our comments, Facebook is the most normy fucking place. on the planet. It's just mind-blowing. Yeah, Facebook is wild.

Usually Facebook, they have no idea who is in the clip. Right. Like on YouTube, usually they like know and they're interested in the person that's somewhat nuanced. Usually Facebook is like the person is just finding out about rap music for the first time in this clip. Like, oh, this is a rapper? Holy shit.

Yeah, yeah. Facebook is the craziest one for sure. And Facebook is where they have the most like fake Harry Mac accounts that are like replying to people and spamming. people in trying to get people's bank information and things like that oh wow you deal with that a lot yeah we kind of randomly yeah it comes in waves wow that sucks yeah that's whack holy shit you don't have that you must have that oh yeah yeah okay all kinds of people emailing all the time yeah yeah it's i've got i've gotten so sick of responding to people asking about it i know i just don't even

say anything and then they get scammed and then they email me and i mean i took me to court because he got scammed. Wow. I had to show up. Wow. But nothing happened. Yeah, the judge threw it out. The judge basically, like, ridiculed him in front of me, and it was kind of pleasing,

but also, like, sad. I mean, don't give your bank info to anyone on the internet. Like, yeah. No, this guy just, like, sent five grand to somebody who was pretending. He was, it was a guy who was pretending to be my employee, scamming him for a blueface verse. So, wait, what? It was a guy who didn't work for me. Yeah.

Getting money for a blueface verse. and because the guy was pretending to work for me, the guy who spent the $5,000 on the Blueface Verus thought that I should pay for this. So the guy assumed that your employee was brokering Blueface versus? Yes, this person who does not work for me. Wow. It was a very strange experience. That's bizarre, bro.

And I had to go to court in Compton for this. Wow. Damn. It was an experience. It goes crazy out there. It was very weird, yeah. Wow. Especially me just being someone who knows Blueface.

It was even weirder. Right. In my head, I'm kind of like blaming him. That's hilarious. What do you feel like gets your audience? Like what is your audience want? Do you ever feel like they're kind of getting sick of the freestinely thing? What do you have to do to switch it up, etc?

I think there's kind of different layers to my audience, but I think for sure the biggest thing is people love the Amigal content, like the most. Really? Yeah. And then so my challenge is less like having to switch it up to, keep it interesting for the fans. It's more so carving out the space to switch it up when I want to when they're so used to me doing this Amigo thing and that's what everyone loves the most.

Right. So like we used to do like through quarantine, we did the Amigo Bar's videos every Friday. Because I was just stuck at home and, you know, like I didn't have anything else to do. So easy, it's profitable. Yeah. What the fuck else are you doing? Yeah. People loved it.

I liked making it, you know. So it was just a win-win. But then as things started opening back up or just as I kind of, I started getting interested in switching it up for myself, because I have to keep it, you know, fun for me. That part was a challenge. So like a few months back, we were like, all right, we're not going to do amygal bars every Friday. We're going to cycle through different types of content on Fridays. And that was kind of like the biggest pushback we got from the audience.

It's like, no, keep doing the Omigo thing. But, you know, just like anything else, there's a period of rub. And then it normalizes and it kind of settles back down. People get on board with the new schedule and it's all good. Right, yeah. How do you manage that? Like, where do you feel like you're getting your creative output put in? Like, you know, as opposed to like doing the amygal stuff, which I feel like, I'm getting the vibe that it feels like you're kind of just clocking in on the job because it's so automatic for you.

No, the thing is I do truly enjoy making the amegal shit. Like, the fact of the matter is I love freestyling, period. Like, and freestyling is best when there's an audience and when there's some kind of live interaction and some kind of randomization of people throwing your words. So, yeah, I don't want it to sound like I just. clock in and do Amigo because I have to. I do love making that content. It's dope for me too. I think for me it's just about keeping everything in balance. So the Amigo content is dope, but if that's all I'm doing, then I'm going to get sick of it. So it's like balancing that with doing the guerrilla stuff out in public. We're on tour right now, actually. So getting out

and doing live shows. We're back in L.A. for a little bit, but we just did our first leg of a tour and are going back out soon. So what's your tour like? It's dope. It's dope. We just finished the first leg, went down through, started in LA, went down through San Diego, through Texas, up to Nashville,

through Florida, hit Phoenix, Arizona on the way back, and now we're chilling for a minute before we go back out. Wow. But it's crazy. It's been fun, man. So I'm doing a fully improvised show.

Really? So it's an hour. There's no structure to it. You're just making it up as you go? There's structure. Okay. But all the lyrics are made up. Like,

there's no, there's no pre-written lyrics. It's all improvised. So it's dope. So there's like a QR code. people digitally submit words we collect a bank of like words and topics we're able to show those on like a big screen behind me and i'm freestyling and creating songs but it's it's uh it's not just like an hour long of continuous like free flow it's like uh we create hooks and shit like that and like the crowd's like

yelling out the hooks and shit like that we just make it up all on stage wow what's like your average venue size that you're doing this uh they're like three to 500 cap rooms a couple 700 cap rooms mixed in Sick. Yeah. And what's what's the vibe like for the audience? Like like I don't know. What's what's a Harry Mac crowd like? It's dope, man. It's amazing. It's like I have a super positive audience and community. It's just super like, yeah, I mean, for lack of a better word, it's just a very positive supportive community. Everybody's there for a good time. It's like it's wild though. It's like a wide range of ages, you know, young to old. It's a mix. man, it's a mix. You feel like, do you have a lot of fans who will, like, go to see you repeatedly? Like, you see the same faces out there? Oh, yeah, yeah.

There's a couple guys that have been to, like, nine shows already. Oh, wow. And are coming to, like, you know, nine more. That's sick. Yeah, it's dope. Yeah, so there's some, and the thing is the show's different every time, you know, so you can do that, and it's not like you're just seeing the exact same set every time. It's like, you know, completely different songs and lyrics every night.

Did you ever think about getting in a battle rap? Yeah, I, uh, everybody asked me that, you know, because it's like, obviously the skill set would transfer. Right. But although nowadays, like the battles are written. So it's not a freestyle thing. There was an era though where it probably could have done that. But the thing is I'm not really down with like that.

You're not trying to be a vicious asshole on camera. Yeah. They have to be so mean to each other. That's what I'm saying. That's part of the job. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. And like it's dope.

I have a huge level of respect for it. You know, those cats are phenomenal. And I think like that is one of the spaces where like top tier lyricism lives right now, you know, in the battle. Like some of the shit they're doing is mind-blowing from a lyrical standpoint. But yeah, for me, it's like I just can't dedicate that much time to, like, coming up with how to diss another person. Right. Like another individual. It just seems like a pretty good-natured guy.

I try to be, man. I'm all about lifting people up, man, and creating, like, a positive energy, you know, through the music and engaging people through the rhymes and shit like that. So it's just not a good fit for me. I've been in a couple battles when I was a kid, but. I kind of saw behind the veil a little bit when I was at the Drake birthday battle bash. because I'm realizing that these people are saying the worst shit ever. They're rapping about shooting each other's kids and shit. And then afterwards, I see them smoking a blood and getting a drink together.

And I'm like, ah. So you don't fucking hate each other. This makes so much more sense to me now. Because before I was kind of wondering why y'all all had so much animosity. Right. It's like professional wrestling or something. Right. It's kind of an act.

You know, they're putting on a good show for the audience. I think there's a fair amount of people who actually hate each other. But they're battling so much that there's not. no way that they all have this long-standing feud with each other and shit. Yeah, they can't all hate that many people. Yeah, definitely. That's funny. Okay, and so, yeah, I don't know.

Where do you see this going? Do you have any plans for how you could take shit to the next level? Yeah, good question. I mean, this tour, because this is my first time going out like this and doing shows. It's just been super inspiring. I'm really excited about it. I want to scale that. Like, already on this tour, we're only like a third of the way through it.

And I'm like, yo, let's blow this up. bigger, bigger venues. And keep doing that. And yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think a big, a big space that I want to explore, like, in the second half of the year when we're off tour, excuse me, is continuing to, like, create music projects just using my process of freestyling. You know, I think, like, historically, if you look at the great freestylers, a lot of time, like, the conversation around it is like, oh, okay, like, they're a dope freestyler, but they don't make songs. I think now we have plenty of examples of people who have kind of like blurred that line or successfully like cross, you know, brought the two worlds together like Juice World.

Yeah. What do you think of somebody like Juice World who realistically like he's, yeah, he's such a one of a kind artist in that way. Yeah. Because even almost all the rappers who get on the radio shows and shit and freestyle, it's like they're usually spit in a written. And when you really think about it, yeah, the Juice World was like fucking superhuman in that regard. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm a huge fan. I'm a huge fan.

It's crazy because I wasn't like super up on his music when it was coming out, to be completely honest with you. Like I, I, uh, but, um, I have become a huge fan as I learned about his process. And it was interesting because people would like mention him in, in my comment section, you know, because everything I do is off top. And so people would be like, yo, Juice World is like, you know, the goat of doing shit off top. And so, um, no, man, I'm, I'm a huge fan. I think he's definitely an anomaly in that way. And yeah, I mean, the term freestyle doesn't really mean off top anymore, you know. Yeah, do you find that to be a negative thing?

Do you think it's unfortunate that freestyling almost doesn't exist with the current crop of popular rappers? Not really. Like, I don't see it as unfortunate because I'm like still a huge fan of those, a lot of those freestyles. Like, you know, Funkflex freestyles and shit. I mean, I listen to them and I love them just as a fan of lyricism. I think it's confusing from a terminology standpoint. And then you end up in this place where like people are comparing my off top freestyle to like, you know, somebody's written freestyle.

And they're like, oh, this dude, Harry Mac, he's not doing shit compared to this, you know. That's a very Facebook comment. Like, this isn't a freestyle. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or I'll forever have, like, some girl saying, like, oh, check out this freestyle that this dude I know did. And I'm watching it. It's just so obviously not freestyle.

And I'm like, you seriously fucking believe that this is not written. Right. Yeah. I know. It's kind of baffling the lack of sort of, like, knowledge that people have or understanding of how rap works. And not even know, it's just common sense. Because it's like, can't you listen to him rap and tell that this is written?

versus not ridden, like I could always tell. Right, right, right, me too, me too. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm trying to blur the line. Like, that's my whole goal is to, like, when people hear me, I don't want it to be like, oh, it was dope for a freestyle. You know what I mean? My whole mission is to have people hear it and be like, it was dope.

So, period. So what is the process of, like, sort of combining freestyling and really making records? Like, what does that look like for you? The biggest thing was just, like, introducing song form into it, because I used to just freestyle, you know, a thousand bars at a time continually. And so it was just, you know, realizing how to strike. out a song with verses and choruses and kind of bringing that into what I do.

Which is kind of a newer thing that I feel like is unique to the way that I freestyle is that like I'll have hooks, you know, in the freestyle that come back around and things like that. So I think that's a big part of it. And just going in the booth more and just freestyling and with a topic in mind, you know. That's dope. Yeah. Definitely.

Yeah. Yeah. I always think about this one time I was in the studio with Y&W. Melly and he just like freestyled off the top of his. head for like 15 minutes. And then his manager goes over to the engineer and basically like tells him what parts to use. Yeah.

And that became the verse in some song that was like a big song. And it was just so fucking crazy to me to see the way that it was a freestyle. Right. But then they basically like ripped it apart and made it into something that was nothing like the original freestyle. It was fucking mine more. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, and that's a process that I want to explore more too is just freestyling kind of open endedly and then and then picking the moments. The thing is I'm so obsessed with the raw creative. I love freestyling. I love the part of rapping endlessly, but I'm not as into the part of like chopping shit up. Like it's nice to have that other part, that third party. You know, like in the example you just gave of the manager coming up and be like,

yo, this, then this, then this. Because for me, I'm just like, all right, throw the next beat on and let's keep freestyle. Yeah, right. You know. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, man. I don't know.

Is there anything else coming up on the horizon that we should. know about anything that the fans need to look out for um man just right now it's the energy exchange tour man uh there's still a few cities that still have tickets available um most of the shows are selling out though so um definitely looking forward to see more fans out on the road um yeah and we're just going to keep going hard with the content on on youtube for sure yeah yeah you go hard on tic-tok yeah yep yeah we post every day on tic-tok hmm i bet tic-tok loves your shit huh yeah yeah yeah still TikTok's been cool. Are you the one making the decisions about what parts of your freestyles are actually the best parts that should go on TikTok?

Or is there somebody else making these guys? No, no, no. My team member is the one that's chopping up this stuff and putting it out on socials. That's a lot of faith that you're putting in them though. Yeah. But everything goes through a process of like first it hits long form and then it gets chopped into the shorter clips. So everything's kind of like I know what's out there that could be clipped. Nice.

You know what I mean? And then after that, I kind of like to have somebody else choose what goes out so that I can just. keep freestyle in and focusing on the craft. Nice. Yeah. Does she freestyle? No, but she hears more freestyles than she ever thought she'd hear in her life. Really?

Oh, yeah, especially during quarantine. She's not a rap fan? She's a fan of Harry Mac, you know? My girl has a very bare bones rap knowledge, to be honest. Oh, really? Yeah. Really? Yeah.

But it doesn't matter, right? Everyone thinks that you're going to have the same music taste as your partner or something like that. But it doesn't matter. Yeah. Was she listening to Death Metal or something? No, she listens to like, you know, like indie rock. Taylor Swift? Not so much Taylor Swift, I don't think.

Really? That's unfortunate. Yeah. What are there fans called? Swifties? Is that a thing? Are I making that up? I can't remember.

Yeah. It's more like Florence in the machine. Oh. I think my girl likes them. Yeah. I have no idea. It sounds like something that probably heard in like 2009. There you go.

Yeah. Yeah. Harry Mac, appreciate you coming on. man. Big love to you, bro. Thank you so much for having me on here, man. For sure. Appreciate you, man. Yes, sir. No Jumber. Coolest podcast in the world. Check us on YouTube, TikTok, Patreon, etc. Like, comment, and subscribe. Nojumber.com if you want to support. Appreciate you, man. Appreciate you, man. Appreciate you.