Anyone who doesn’t notice the blinding grill hiding behind his surgical mask might mistake him for an animator who just got off work at Disney Studios in nearby Burbank. Today, he wears a plain white tee beneath a grunge flannel, blue jeans, and Birkenstocks. On the first song I ever heard from him, a track called “Gusto” that predates his debut mixtape Cilvia Demo, he boasted: “I just ride around in my Bentley, it's a Civic.” He’s ready to die, but not if it hurts. He’s funny without being goofy or whimsical. He has the gift of subverting clichés and expectations without coming off pretentious.

This is part of what makes Rashad compelling.

“I’m kinda okay with it, as long as it don’t hurt.” I used to, but not so much anymore,” he explains. In the next, he’ll be indifferent and debate the merits of retiring to become a stoned Yokai on a few acres in rural Tennessee. In one breath, he’ll assert his ambitions to finally go for it, begrudgingly accept the rap star mantle that his gifts demand. A recluse who under the right substances can be the life of the party. He’s an open book full of cryptic koans and contradictions: shirt-off-his-back generous and coolly skeptical, ruthlessly confident and full of self-doubt, obsessively focused and completely unbound. It seemed like he’d made it.īut things are rarely as they seem with Isaiah Rashad. This was the same kid who dropped out of Middle Tennessee State to flip burgers at Hardee’s and pursue shaky rap dreams, except now he had a couple of kids of his own. Living life like a normal 20-something: smoking weed, getting haircuts, making Popeyes runs. In his sporadic live transmissions, Rashad played out snippets of new music, but mostly he just shared footage of himself doing absolutely mundane shit. It’s not like anyone needed “Have You Seen This Rapper?” milk cartons.

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