King Lil G on Building His Career Independently, in Los Angeles and Beyond
The Latino rapper on going from Compton swap meets to signing with an indie major
Alex Gonzalez AKA King Lil G has arrived at success through slow growth, eschewing major label offers in favor of grassroots promotion, personal relatibility and an honest perspective that has maintained a rabid fanbase in his hometown of Los Angeles and beyond. Recently, the Latino rapper – who still pays visits to the Compton swap meet where he first got his start hawking CDs – graduated from releases on his own MIH Entertainment LLC. to sign with DEL Records, a Spanish language label based in LA, and has teased a new mixtape, Blessed By God. In this excerpt from Bizarre Ride, RBMA Radio’s spotlight on Los Angeles, Gonzalez spoke with host Jeff Weiss about following his own promotional path and avoiding negative energy.
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When did you start making music officially?
\n\nI started making music at the age of 16, I would say. Growing up we’d always write little raps on our notebook, but I got to really record when I was 16, in a studio in Long Beach with a man named LA Hitman. I’m not sure if he makes music anymore. He was out in Long Beach and a random person gave me his contact. I went to give him a visit and from there I started making music, and I never stopped.
\n\nI always try to focus on my craft, how to express myself in a better way so the masses can understand what I’m saying. I never really focus on making commercial music, but I just wanted to make hip-hop that told a story about a certain struggle that people don’t know. Kind of like how VICE does their interviews, you know? They do very interesting interviews where they tell a certain story that other news don’t really capture. That’s what I was trying to do at the same time.
\n\nI think you did a VICE thing where they went to a swap meet in Compton?
\n\nYeah. That’s like a very iconic place to start your career, to drop off CDs and see if people feel it. That’s where I started dropping off my CDs and it just started booming for me, so I had to go and pay that respect. Eazy-E started there as well, a lot of famous artists started there, so it was really good for me.
\n\nAre people still buying CDs, in your experience?
\n\nYeah, people still buying CDs. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but I think that’s where your core fanbase comes in. I think they’re the ones that are buying the CD, the core fanbase, because they want that memorabilia of you. They want to have that little piece of you.
You pretty much built your whole business independently.
\n\nNo one was really giving me a chance, and I had to just move forward and do what I had to do. I had my back against the wall and I just had to move. I wasn’t really expecting no one to help me, either. I just looked at it like, “You know what? We’re artists, and if my life was the life of a painter or the life of that type of artist, I wouldn’t be calling another artist.” Or, let’s say these were the ancient days or whatever, a long time ago. I wouldn’t be calling Picasso to help me do a painting. I would do it myself, you know?
\n\nThat’s how I looked at it, that’s how I felt. I told myself, “I need to learn. I need to do everything I need to do.” I taught myself how to write verses, I designed my own album covers, I picked my own beats out, I help out the producers, put the beats together in the form of the way that I want to be. I’m definitely fully involved with everything. I guess I just got like that because I didn’t really have no help from no one. Now, of course, a lot of people try to offer their help, but I’m extremely comfortable where I am. I have a record deal now with an indie major and I’m extremely happy there.
\n\nIt’s been a crazy time with politics, and Donald Trump came in with a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric and a lot of xenophobia. I wanted to ask, from your perspective, growing up in LA and being a member of the Mexican-American community here and having a lot of deep roots, what have your thoughts been about that, and how did it make you feel to see all this stuff go around?
\n\nI think his speech on how he feels about immigrants was heartbreaking for us, because for many, many years, as far back as we can remember, for more than 30, 40, 50 years, this whole immigrant thing has really became a big maneuvering way for politics to have advantages in certain ways when it comes to presidential elections. I just feel like in this day and age, there should be a way for us to come to some type of agreement where people who are from Mexico that want to work over here in the United States and pay taxes should be able to do that. I don’t understand what’s so bad about that.
\n\nI’m not talking about the criminals and the bad people and all of that. We all have an understanding. We’re all human beings, we all understand that those type of people shouldn’t be our neighbors. If we have daughters, we don’t want rapists living next to us. If we live with our wife and our innocent children, we don’t want killers living next to us. We have that understanding. But if we’re just talking about hardworking people who are not from this country, who just automatically need to go back, that’s heartbreaking, because we’re talking about separating families. We’re talking about destroying homes.
Do whatever it is that you want to do that makes you happy.
As it is, being a Mexican-American or a Mexican in the United States – not only in Los Angeles, but in the United States – it’s already hard enough as it is coming from a dysfunctional family, or coming from a family where you don’t really have money, for politics to also be attacking you at the same time, telling you that you’re going to have to go back. I’ve been seeing on the internet, through the news, that there’s a lot of bullying going on at schools, where kids are telling other kids that they’re going to have to go back, they’re going to be separated from their families. That doesn’t sound very good to me, and I think that’s traumatizing for kids. So I know Donald Trump is now the president and I hope somehow, someway, he’s compassionate enough to see things the way that I’m trying to tell them, and he gives people an opportunity to have a better future in this country.
\n\nA lot of Mexican people in America seem to be used by politicians as a political football.
\n\nIf you go back to history, you’d be able to do some research and see that most of the craziest things in history always happened with a wall, you know? The wall in Berlin, the Great Wall of China. Like, these walls always tend to separate people and do weird things, so now with him coming into power and him talking about a big old wall, it comes down to the same thing. Separating people, and not only separating people with the wall, but separating people from their families. I really don’t understand what’s the point of separating people from their families like that.
\n\nMaybe I need to have a little bit more knowledge, you know? I’m not saying I’m a perfect man and I know everything, but that thing with separating families just doesn’t sit well with me. It shouldn’t sit well with any human being.
\n\nWhat are the things that you’re hoping to convey as an artist and as a man, and to your fanbase and to people at large?
\n\nI would want to just tell people that we came to this world to live our lives happy. Do whatever it is that you want to do that makes you happy. Avoid having hate or negative energy or focusing on the wrong things. Life is extremely short, so while we’re here we got to make sure that we do amazing, beautiful things to impact the youth and help people move forward.
\n\nI know sometimes we grow up hard because we don’t have no guidance, but if you could fix yourself just like me, if you could fix yourself down the line and focus and just grow up and mature – because it’s about maturing – you’ll be good in life and you’ll definitely impact people in a positive way. That’s what it’s about.