Larry June
A conversation about consistency, culture shock, and the good life, originally published in BRICK Edition 11.
Words by Sam Butler
Photographs by Liam Macrae
Fashion by Brezhané Townsend
Location c/o Found Objects
Larry June is sat in the shade, with a smoothie in one hand and his phone in the other. We are meeting in the communal garden of his luxury Los Angeles apartment building, and as he stands to greet me I spot a handful of fellow residents being guided through a morning yoga flow on an immaculately manicured lawn behind him. There’s a nice cool breeze, it smells of fresh cut grass, and I want to live here. This all feels very Larry. Short of there also being a Porsche 911 Carrera parked in the background, it’s about as on-brand of an introduction to the man as you could imagine.
The San Francisco native has spent the past decade developing an innate ability to articulate the simple pleasure of the finer things in life, coupled with consistent reminders of the hard work required to enjoy such luxuries. Projects have been dropped at a prodigious rate (including six releases during the global standstill of 2020), providing an increasing army of fans with the motivation and inspiration to, in the words of his collaborative album with Harry Fraud, Keep Going.
“We just kept it going,” Larry affirms with a smile, as I ask him how he remained so efficient through a year that brought most of this industry to a relative halt. “I had to literally block everything out, create this happy place in my mind and make some music we can ride to
At a time when one of the only experiences not affected by Covid was the long solo drive, Larry provided the perfect soundtrack. “I was actually a little nervous to drop Cruise USA,” he remembers. “I’m like, ‘man, I’m sounding too happy on this motherfucker, in the middle of a pandemic.’ I was stressing.” As it turns out, he had no need to worry—his unique brand of opulent escapism and pragmatic financial literacy was just what the world needed.
Although “Uncle Larry,” as his legion of devotees call him, is synonymous with the Bay Area, he spent a significant portion of his childhood in Atlanta. “I never asked my Mom this, but I’m pretty sure it was because there was a lot of violence,” he explains when I ask about the reason for the move. “That’s why I thank her, because if I would’ve stayed, I probably would’ve gotten into some shit in those years of my life.” He beams with pride when talking about his mother, telling me that after having Larry at 15 years old, she moved herself and her son from California in her late teens. “She was such a strong person for taking me to a whole different state, starting again, figuring it out and making it happen at that young age.” Charmingly, our conversation takes a slight sidetrack as he tells me about her career as a real estate agent in Atlanta. “She’s super successful right now. We came up together. I watched her come from one situation to another and now it’s all beautiful things; seeing her remarry, being happy, buying property and shit. That was dope. I love my mom.”
During his decade in the South, from ages five to fourteen, he would return to stay with his father in San Francisco every summer, and acknowledges that being exposed to two distinct cultures, sounds, and cities not only aided his personal development as an adolescent, but also sharpened the future tools of his trade.
This story was originally published in BRICK Edition 11, released in 2024.
Edition 11 also features Benny the Butcher, Amaarae, BKTheRula, Lord Apex, Mick Jenkins, Paris, Texas and many more.
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“I was heavily inspired by Southern music, that’s all I really heard,” he remembers, namechecking T.I., Ludacris, Outkast and Jeezy (whose hustler-self-help message has led to comparisons with Larry’s own you-can-do-it motivational style). “But I would go back to the Bay Area every summer to see my dad, and it’s a culture shock. Completely different styles—artists like RBL Posse, where I was like ‘Ooh shit, this is hard.’ So over time, my style formed this crazy combination where I can rap in every pattern from ATL, because I grew up freestyling on those beats.” It’s a story that goes some way to explaining his virtuosic versatility—whether rapping over Cardo’s warped, melodic 808s, or a flipped soul sample courtesy of The Alchemist, Larry always sounds like a natural.
“I also feel like it elevated my wordplay a little bit, my understanding of how to swag it,” he continues. “In the Bay Area, we don’t sugarcoat nothing. It’s like ‘Bitch, pay me or shut the fuck up and keep it moving.’ Maybe it’s because of the weather. Over there [in Atlanta], there was more of a finesse to it. Don’t get me wrong, we got people like E-40 and Messy Marv, a lot of people who got crazy wordplay. But the majority, we kind of were straight to the point.” A good example of the effectiveness of marrying these two disparate styles can be found on The Great Escape’s “Porsches in Spanish,” where Larry delivers the most evocatively luxurious three-word sentence I’ve ever heard: “Bentayga seats recline,” before tagging it with a shrugging “it’s just normal for me.”
The globetrotting braggadocio conveyed in Larry’s lyrics continued through 2023, a year that saw him venture worldwide with shows across Europe, Japan and Australia, while also releasing two of the most accomplished projects of his career; The Great Escape with The Alchemist, and The Night Shift with longtime collaborator Cardo Got Wings. “It was a great year, man. We put a lot of work in,” he reflects with pride. “We did a world tour pretty much, and it just showed me that it’s possible and the plan is working. That was a good feeling.” It’s no surprise to hear him talk of “the plan;” a resolute business acumen showing through both his musical output and numerous other enterprises, including his Midnight Organic clothing brand and several brick-and-mortar businesses in the Bay. “You can accomplish anything with a solid plan,” he raps in the hook of another of The Great Escape’s standout tracks, “Solid Plan.” While a meticulous approach to mapping out his moves and a formidable work ethic have seen successes multiply in recent years, he admits that it’s been “a real grind” over the past year. “I missed Thanksgiving, I missed a lot of time, but we touched a lot of people and shit, that’s what we do it for. It was a beautiful thing.”
Continuing that journey to connect with his growing legion of fans, it’s currently the Friday before Rolling Loud, and Larry is heading directly to rehearsals as soon as our conversation ends. With the experience of performing all across the globe in 2023, how is he feeling about the development of his live performances? “I’m excited, man. I feel like we’re way more organised and the whole team understands what we’re going up against now. And I’ve been practicing a lot, going to rehearsal and I feel I’m a little more comfortable than usual, instead of just thinking ‘oh, what am I going to wear?’ I’m just relaxing, and focussing on getting the job done.”
“If I wasn’t doing all this traveling, I would’ve probably dropped five tapes again last year,” he reflects. “When I’m at home, my whole schedule is get up, work out, make some food for my kid and then I record a little bit. Now, I have to take time off to have that schedule, so my work pattern is a little different.” As someone so dedicated to his craft, and even more so to the discipline of consistency, a year spent out of that routine required a renovation of his process; “What I do now is I just make sure everything is very peaceful and I incorporate work into my day even if it’s a little bit of time here and there. Inspiration comes from everywhere, so if I’m touring or whatever, I make sure I’m getting the best hotel room, so that I can get that 30 minutes of inspiration—let me just set this mic up and get it out of my brain. It’s good for my mental to record, to get away from everything with my headphones on and create some shit. It’s like a hobby for me. I love doing it.”
With new music on the way this Summer, Larry tells me that lately he’s been finding that inspiration in foreign language songs, allowing him to tune the lyrical content out and focus solely on the beats and rhythms of the track. “I’ve got a crazy playlist that Swizz Beats sent me, and a lot of it is just pure instrumentals from Brazilian artists. I don’t even know what a lot of it is, but it’s just peaceful and I’ll take a drive listening to it. Really, all I listen to is that, and my old music—even from 2015, ’17, ’18. I’m more studying myself right now, because that’s how you become better. If I want to be great, to be a master, I need to study that.” In his pursuit of greatness, of course Uncle Larry has a plan. And while those hours of study are sure to pay, there’s no substitute for the lightning strike moment of pure organic inspiration—and when those moments occur, there’s a plan for that too: “I take two hour drives sometimes, take walks, take my son to do things, clean my house—just regular shit. That’s when the idea just comes. You’re just busting moves and waiting for that inspiration to hit, then it’s like, ‘OK, I’m feeling that vibe, I got it.’ And then, boom—I’m straight to the lab. I’m basically just always brewing that idea, and I try to execute it as soon as it comes.”
