Young M.A on getting sober and her new album Kween

Young M.A thinks the Knicks were being gracious when they lost Game 4 of the NBA Finals. “I was saying Knicks in four, but I think they wanted to be nice – ‘We gonna let y’all have this one,’” she tells me at the end of June. The admiration certainly seems mutual: following Game 5, the Knicks were seen hitting the club. Shortly after, a clip of OG Anunoby and Jordan Clarkson rapping along to M.A’s breakout smash “OOOUUU” made the rounds online. M.A, who’s seen the clip, grins when I bring it up. ““When you put on for your city so much, to have a staple hit that represents where you come from? It feels good. This is what we do it for: to be recognized forever.”

Kween is Young M.A’s first full-length release since 2021’s Off The Yak. In the five years since, M.A has gotten sober from alcohol and weed after an alcohol overdose sent her to rehab. She describes the experience as God sitting her down, and raps about that night in vivid detail on album standout “Hennessy Medusa.” “Really out here tweaking, get a bottle, now we back purging,” M.A raps. “Moving like a demon, barely eating, now my stomach turning.” Reflecting on the experience now, she says, “That opened my eyes to a lot and I was able to really see things. Being sober and coming out the hospital, it’s like two different worlds.”

Kween has its share of uptempo club songs, but the album is preoccupied with Young M.A’s inner world, from the lingering trauma of her older brother’s death to the weight of her musical ambitions. Ahead, read a career-spanning conversation with Young M.A about her start making music to “OOOUUU” to her newfound sobriety.

The FADER: You were writing your first songs in your notebook. How did you go from that to recording songs?

Young M.A: So my mom, she seen what I was doing. She had this little tape recorder. What I would do is, with my little speaker, I would play a beat just in the background and rap something over it. I had some setup in my closet where I would make the thing hang off a string and feel like I'm talking to a mic.She used to see that and basically was like, “You think you ready for a studio?” And she spoke to a few people and made it happen.

Before I went to that type of studio, I had went to a studio in my neighborhood. This guy used to have a studio in his house. And the first time I ever recorded on an actual CD, I had did a little freestyle. Me and my homeboy did a freestyle to The Lox – well, they was called D-Block at the time. Me and my homeboy – I wrote his verse too, I was a kid writing for the bros and all that – we went in there and recorded. And that was the first time I heard myself on a CD. Nowadays that don't mean nothing to these kids. But a CD that has my voice on it? I felt like I was a rapper already.

I know your journey to music as a career took a bit longer to come together. What you were doing after high school and what got you back into recording music?

After high school I got a job immediately – my mom stopped working. My mom is crazy because the first day my mom started her new job, once she left work that night, we found out my brother got killed. So that was it. My mom never worked since that day.

And I seen that and I knew she wasn't going be able to take care of me. And I already had that mindset of being independent. That was already my style, my forte, my aura in general. So as soon as I graduated high school, I went right on Craigslist and found a job and I worked at TJ Maxx. And then I was working, I had my own little check so I didn't have to worry about my mom; she wound up eventually getting her own checks because she wasn't working. And I just built from there, you know what I mean?

But I knew the 9 to 5, that wasn’t me man. I had bigger dreams. I was too animated. I was too creative. I was too bouncy. So I started to pull away from the job stuff and got more in the streets. And came across a few people and started to just lead that stuff along. I don’t really want to get too detailed, but it's life.

Music kind of came back into play because my mom was still trying to get me connected with people, too – even my aunt. And I had a feminine way of rapping too, not on some girly girl shit, but just a little less aggressive than I am now. I wasn't fully open with myself and I didn't come out, you know, with my sexuality until I was 18. So that was something I was holding in for a long, long, long, long, really very long time. But once I opened up about that, that's when the music became effortless. I was able to be myself, speak out, and go from there. And that's when it was no looking back from there. I had a lot of stuff I was going through not having my brother. The stages of grief. I was angry a lot, I started drinking young.

The way you’re talking about “coming out” now is a little more serious than in your past interviews. What shifted for you around that time?

Before I really became an artist with music, I had to open up to my mom about it. I was scared because I didn't know what the fuck this was. I tried to ignore it for some time, but it was hard. It was impossible. Cause I was a tomboy, my mom kind of felt like I was, but I wasn't like, “Mom, guess what?” Back then that was weird, compared to now. When I finally did to my mom? That was all I needed.

I was caring about other people because I didn't want my mom to find out some type of way, feel me? Because at the time, I was already having a girlfriend and all that before my mom even knew. It was something that was said on my Facebook and it got back to my uncles. And my uncle went and told my mom. So she kind of had a hint that something was going on. And then when I was asked something, I just came clean and I said, “yeah, like, that's what I am.”

When “OOOUUU” went viral, you said you and your team couldn’t quite handle the attention or expectations that came with that level of success. What was it like finding your legs at that level of the industry?

Yeah, because I was independent. A lot of people don't understand that. Yes, it's fast, but you don't have so many hands being able to handle or occupy other situations that's coming your way. It’s like you’re in the office and somebody come throw a whole stack of papers at you all at once.

But it was a lot of excitement and in the midst of that was a lot of learning. I had to learn. I had to eliminate some people in my entourage. It was just a lot of stuff I wasn't able to see because I'm here, I'm there. I was already in the streets hustling music and doing freestyles and getting attention and going viral. That wasn’t new; it was new for us being commercial, and then attention was of course much more massive.

It did put me in a corner a little bit. And it was like, I'm just doing whatever they saying I have to do. I wasn't in a creative zone; I just wanted to hurry up and do whatever I had to do off this record. But everything happens for a reason and being independent, this is what it is sometimes and you just got to know how to battle through it.

Your new album Kween is about your journey to sobriety and the professional pressure you’re coping with. Did the success accelerate your drinking problem at the time?

My personal life played the majority of the part but success definitely had its placement in there as well. Even though I still try to find myself having a balance with the two, but it be some stuff you probably don't even realize is affecting you when it comes to being famous and handling stuff. See me, I don't really like the fame too much. So it did affect me because it was a little too much sometimes for me. I like my personal time, I like my downtime and then you having personal problems – now it’s like where the fuck do I go? But I found my way out of it and that's why we talking about it now and putting it in the music as well.

What was the hardest song to make on the record?

I don't think none of them was hard. It was venting. “Therapy” was probably one of my most emotional songs, just speaking on that little part about my brother. That one would be the most [difficult], where I feel a little way when I rap it.

How do you balance your desire for privacy in your personal life with being so candid in your music?

That's deep. Because man, people can relate to a lot of this stuff. And me just talking about it, it's a waste, because then what am I going to do in the music? What am I going to say in the music if you heard me say it out my mouth? I always save things for music because music is something that can stick with you. People feel music more because you can repeat it and you can play it over and over again. You're not going to watch an interview or watch me speak about my life over and over again. With music, it gives you a different feeling.