“…I’m scared, like, this motherfucker be tripping. I don’t know anything about guns, because I never had a gun, but I see the clip in his hand, so I think the gun is empty. My plan is to get the gun and put it in this trash can, so we can finish smoking and shit. I go back to the car, and the door is open, and the gun’s on his leg, and I go to reach for it, and he feels it move and…He didn’t know I was coming. He just felt it moving, and the shit just popped.”

On Rising Above his Conviction:
“You just have to let it flow. But you have to understand: I was facing my life being taken away. I liked doing music, but the confidence came from knowing that this was my last chance. It’s sad that a tragedy had to happen for me to put as much force into it as I am.”

On The Source of iLoveMakonnen:
“Everybody was out to hate me and hang me…It was just Hate Makonnen Fest. A big Makonnen Ain’t Shit Fest. All the negative shit that you could think about the name Makonnen, they threw it at me. If I let the outside hate get inside of me, I would have probably killed myself. That’s what they were trying to push me toward. But I knew the truth about me. I love Makonnen. Just say it in your mind and you’ll start believing it. I used to chant it in my house. I had to love myself and stay strong.”

On Making Music with his Mother:
“She was the first person to show interest in my music,” he says, and that grounded him. She bought Makonnen a keyboard, and he started to produce five-track beats for her to sing over. “We made three albums together…We co-wrote the songs and recorded them in our house. That’s where I got my first experience putting vocals on a track. My mom was the first artist that I ever produced.”