It’s 12:54am on a Wednesday, and I’m sitting down with IAMSU and his cameraman in the front room of their hotel suite. Su was in town for a headlining show in Santa Ana, followed by another one the next night in Los Angeles. I had planned to interview the Bay Area rapper at the LA show, but while I was out and about that evening, I’d received a FaceTime call from him, telling me to come and hang. He was an hour out from my house in the Valley, but I still made the trek. We smoked, we hung out with his mom, walked down a highway to get some gas station snacks and then eventually decided, “What better time than now to do an interview?”
I first met IAMSU in 2014, while he was promoting his first studio album, Sincerely Yours. That year, he’d go on a national tour with Wiz Khalifa, following up three insane years that included back to back to back smash singles: a feature on LoveRance’s “Up” in 2011, a feature on E-40’s “Function” in 2012, and a feature on Sage The Gemini’s “Gas Pedal” in 2013. He’s continued to grow his profile in music every year since, while remaining so independent, that I still get a text and an email directly from him for every new song, video or even a vlog.
His grassroots approach is something you see during the start of a lot of artists’ careers, but now seven years deep in the game, it’s refreshing to see that it’s still not above him. A shift in management following the release of Sincerely Yours likely helped to shape his approach, as he notes that he had to entirely rebuild relationships and almost start over, after not having a representative to speak for him any longer. The setback nearly caused him to leave the game completely, and his hefty publishing checks had him confident that it wasn’t the worst plan in the world. His mother had a different plan, though.
It’s now three years since that album’s release, and Su has definitely rebuilt his career tenfold. He doesn’t need to send those texts out anymore or do his own email blasts, but yet he does, all while likely hanging out with his mom and the crew he’s had since high school; who all are now successful in their own right. He’s really one of the good guys.
On that Wednesday night in Santa Ana, I talked to Su about getting his start in the game, how his mom kept him going when he wanted to quit and much more. The Bay is in good hands.
Read the interview over at UGHH.
