The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With fatherhood, rapper Hitchcock unlocks new strength
Sophomore album is a love letter to his girlfriend and toddler son.
Deante’ Hitchcock gets more animated with each new sentence as he describes the moment he learned he’d become a dad. He recalls the instance with the spirited yet focused tone of someone who’s reading a script for the role of a lifetime. Well, that’s because it was.
He’ll never forget that day.
“She took three pregnancy tests,” he said. “She told me on the third one. She had brought it out. She had a camera in my face. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. She had a camera in my face and this little stick in her hand, and she put it on the table, and it was positive. It was like my eyes started bulging out my head. I was geeked. I was really happy.”
In fact, Hitchcock was so ecstatic that he created an entire album dedicated to the experience. “Once Upon a Time,” the Grammy-nominated rapper’s sophomore effort (released May 10), follows the often unwieldy yet rewarding trajectory of a blossoming romance that leads up to the moment Hitchcock and his girlfriend discovered they’d become parents.
The album is 16 tracks filled with spoken word-esque cadences and R&b-inspired flows of a rapper who understands love’s growing pains but is ready to fight for it. Featuring artists like Compton MC Westside Boogie and budding R&B singer Dende, “Once Upon a Time” is a Southern hip-hop love story that finds strength in vulnerability. The rapper’s softer side hits a spiritual peak on the gospel-tinged “Royal,” which features Dram and a group of Hitchcock’s friends (credited as The Riverdale Love Choir) who contributed background vocals on the track. (“Together forever well that depends cause forever’s forever until it ends, but I don’t want this to end,” he raps in the opening verse.)
“(Love is) not just gonna always feel like roses,” Hitchcock said. “There’s going to be clouds and there’s going to be days where you feel like you’re on cloud nine. It’s ups and downs, but it’s about choosing the person to go through those ups and downs with,
that’s what we have.”
‘Most of the women in my life have been through more than I have, and they still have the same loving personality without letting the world change them at all. And they can give life as well, so that just unlocked a whole different layer for me after I saw my girl giving birth.’ Deante’ Hitchcock Rapper
The couple met roughly nine years ago through a mutual friend. Hitchcock attended Georgia Southern University at the time, and Lenika, his girlfriend, attended the University of Georgia. They welcomed their son Otto Saint Hitchock in January 2022. Hitchcock said their love has grounded him throughout his career. “How I Met Your Mother” was the initial name for the album before it was switched to the current title.
The 30-year-old Riverdale native’s foray into rapping started as a teen under the direction of his uncle Marlon Hitchcock, who co-wrote TLC’S “No Scrubs.” His uncle helped nurture his passion for rapping and he hasn’t stopped since then. Hitchcock first captured the ears of many hip-hop fans with a guest verse on Dreamville’s 2019 compilation album “Revenge of the Dreamers III” (which was nominated for best rap album at the 2020 Grammy awards). The following year, he released his debut album “Better.”
The album introduced a wider audience to Hitchcock’s admirable penchant for praising Black women. He says they’re “the strongest people in the world” and honors their experiences ( just listen to “Growing Up/mother God” in its entirety). Last year, the rapper launched the Mother God Project, which assisted 100 women in Atlanta with the training and resources to start businesses.
After his parents divorced when he was 9, Hitchcock, his mom and younger brother bounced around a lot and often lived with his aunties. He said growing up with his mom and aunties helped him discover his vulnerable side in his music and personal life.
“Most of the women in my life have been through more than I have, and they still have the same loving personality without letting the world change them at all,” he said. “And they can give life as well, so that just unlocked a whole different layer for me after I saw my girl giving birth.”
Becoming a parent taught Hitchcock the power of vulnerability and being gentle with himself and others.
“If my son falls down today, I’m gonna look at him, but it would be expected of me to not go over there and rush over to him and be like, oh I got you. I’d be like, no, get yourself up, dust yourself off. I feel like that’s what the men in our life try to instill in us, but at the same time, I feel like vulnerability is strength too . ... It’s OK to cry. It’s OK to let these things out. It’s OK to talk about how you feel or whatever to express it.”
“May 26th” is the closing song on “Once Upon a Time.” It’s the song that came quickest to Hitchcock because he wrote it immediately after he learned he’d be a father. He needed an outlet to process the life-changing moment.
“It was a lot of pain, happiness, anxiety and wondering what are we gonna do because at the same time like we ain’t super old,” Hitchcock said. “We ain’t got this figured out or nothing like that. So we’re still trying to figure out our own personal stuff and our own lives and everything . ... We have to set the foundation for his life and to not grow up and be a serial killer . ... That’s a crazy responsibility for anybody.”