He’s been making his own beats since moving out here, buckling down on what was once just a hobby. Mac chain smokes menthol American Spirits and sits diligently at the flat-screen monitor in his bare feet. The room overlooks Mac’s pool, which overlooks magnificence, but shut the door and the sunlight is completely devoured by the dim glow of red lights. He’s already holed back up in the same place he’s spent the better part of the past year-his home studio. Most are lounging appropriately hard, as if doing so were the only option on earth. All parties are dressed in a manner that falls somewhere between streetwear chic and laundry day desperation. Odd Future rap enigma and Mac collaborator Earl Sweatshirt is also present. Some are in town specifically to celebrate Watching Movies’ release, and others are permanent residents. His clique is comprised mostly of childhood friends, many of whom hail from his pre-fame rap crew, East End Empire. With tattoos crawling out of his T-shirt and a dark shadow of a beard, Mac could pass for any young skate rat in America. Once you clear it, the poolside kiddie basketball hoop and scattered sprawl of bikes reveals the Blank Check fantasy of the situation. It’s one of those mansionesque mansions, complete with an infinity pool and a breakneck wind of road that Mac calls “the worst driveway in hip-hop,” listing off the many rap star pals of his who have struggled backing out of it.

It’s early in the afternoon, but Mac and a half dozen of his closest homies are chilling in the mansion he now calls home as if it were still morning. Even in the face of this under-shipment catastrophe, the young rapper whose birth certificate says Malcolm McCormick has very little to be unhappy about. All this hard work just for a fucking algorithm!” Fortunately for the Target employees of the world, this is roughly the peak salt content of Mac’s attitude. “I was like, Word…uh…just take my album and put it in an algorithm. “They told me that they do algorithms,” he laments. Conversations with Target staff proved less than enlightening. Mac is mystified at that number, considering that his previous effort, 2011’s Blue Slide Park, sold 145,000 copies in its first week and was the first independent album to debut at the top of the Billboard charts in 16 years. Mac dutifully gave it to a fan before confirming that this Target, and presumably all Targets nationwide, had only ordered somewhere between six and 10 copies each. The day before, the closest Target to his Studio City, Los Angeles home had just one left when he arrived. It’s the day after the release of his sophomore album, Watching Movies with the Sound Off, and yet the 21-year-old rapper has been unable to find his own copy to purchase. From the magazine: ISSUE 87, June/July 2013

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