Eazy does it
In line with the new confessional mood in hip hop, rapper G-Eazy talks straight to Craig McLean about his vulnerabilities
IN A photographer’s studio in central Los Angeles G-Eazy is readying for his close-up. As assistants set up lights, primp a leather sofa and wrangle lunchtime taco take-outs, in this afternoon’s photoshoot the rapper has to channel Sean Connery’s James Bond, Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty and Mick’n’Keef as well as telegraph a “candid” and “raw” connection via his “piercing eyes”. So go the marketing briefing notes plastered to the wall. Whoever said selling booze was easy?
Still, at least it’s lucrative: G-Eazy’s black Ferrari (“a dream since I was a boy — I enjoy it, shamelessly”) is parked right outside the front door.
The 28-year-old from Oakland, California, is taking time out from the more direct promotion of his breakout third studio album, The Beautiful & Damned, to fulfil the PR obligations that are part of his partnership with Stillhouse Spirits. G-Eazy, known to his mum as Gerald, has teamed up with the company to develop Black Bourbon.
But while he will, after today’s shoot, literally be the poster boy for the whiskey, his engagement runs deeper. The always-slick musician has been appointed a partner and co-creative director at the brand.
As to this distillery-deep involvement, “you get what you give,” shrugs the hip-hop hotshot whose pomaded, leather-jacketed, man-in-black look is more J Dean and J Cash than Jay-Z. “That’s crucial, really, in anything in life. You have to put effort and time and energy and thought into building something. I didn’t want to just put my name on and stand back; I wanted to be part of it.”
Boilerplate platitudes aside, G-Eazy seems genuinely committed to commitment. Last month he and The Weeknd both quickly bailed on deals with H&M in the wake of the appearance of the high-street retailer’s racially insensitive “coolest monkey in the jungle” advertisement.
“Over the past months I was genuinely excited about launching my upcoming line and my collaboration with H&M,” he said, pulling the plug on G-Eazy clothing due to launch next month. “Unfortunately, after seeing the disturbing image, my excitement over our global campaign quickly evaporated, and I’ve decided at this time our partnership needs to end.
“Whether an oblivious oversight or not, it’s truly sad and disturbing that in 2018 something so racially and culturally insensitive could pass by the eyes of so many (stylist, photographer, creative and marketing teams) and be deemed acceptable.”
“A brand is a like a person in that it has an identity,” he notes now. “Who are you and what makes you different from the rest of the world?” ponders the soft-spoken, 6ft 4in charisma bomb, puppy-dog brown eyes boring into me. “What character and traits, what principles, set you apart?
“I’ve always felt like an outsider my entire life. I bounced around a lot when I was a kid,” says this only child whose photographer mum and art professor dad split when he was five. “I never felt like I really fit in.
“And once I learnt to embrace that instead of running from it, my whole life changed.”
Similarly, on the sprawling The Beautiful & Damned — which features stellar guests including Cardi B, ASAP Rocky and Charlie Puth — “G” embraces the spiral of partying that attended his initial success. As flagged by his bloodied and bruised image on the cover, in his lyrics G-Eazy also admits to some emotional challenges. To quote his opening rhymes on the album, on the title track: “When you move as fast as I’m movin’/All the toxic things that I’m usin’/All the substances I’m abusin’/All