![]() I’ve always been very private about things like that: works in progress. I never advertised, not even a single hint was given. Meanwhile, I’m mortified because nobody ever knew that I wrote. “Oh, you holdin’ out little nigga?! Let me find out! This little nigga right here! YOU!?! You gon’ have to show me! You definitely got a smart-ass mouth though! You probably got some ol’ scientific ass bars! You gon’ quote your degrees?!?!!” My one homeboy from down the hill started looking at me like I stole something out the collection plate. Now I got these two older niggas on my case, like on me, on me. He says that and then he goes inside the house. Mach, why don’t you show this guy how it’s really done?” Ohhhhhhhhhhhh! It was crazy. That was ok, but your lyrics have no substance. Then he looked him dead in his eyes, dapped him up and said, “Mach has better lyrics than that. He gave buddy mad rope and let him finish rapping smiled, and then stuck out his hand. My uncle didn’t even interrupt us, he stood there, and listened for three or four minutes straight, bopping his head real calm, just like a nigga from Port-au-Prince, though. My neighbor’s homeboy from across the street, a hopeless extrovert, didn’t even think to stop, and, perhaps, wait for an older head to pass through. That’s when my mom’s younger brother pulls up, parks his Honda Accord 6 speed, and hops out Polo down. His homeboy freestyling to some beats that my man had looped up in his basement the night before. It's Wednesday and I’m on my front porch with my next-door neighbor and his homeboy from across the street. I was the designated unicorn, and so much so that I was literally taking girls from niggas twice my age - basically grown men, and not no Chanel Number 5s neither - dime pieces. It put me in a space where I was able to operate more competitively with other boys. She could never imagine that I was the main one causing all the commotion whenever I was let out the house - not the other way around. She couldn’t understand why they would want me on a song and kept constantly telling me to watch out for older boys that like to take advantage of younger ones. My man, the next-door neighbor, was in high school, and his homeboy from across the street was home from college. ![]() It was me and two other guys on the song. By the following Sunday, I was recording my verse on some ninja smokescreen-type movements. My man looped that shit in his basement and put it on a blank cassette. First time I ever recorded anything was on the “Verbal Intercourse” instrumental. Still to this day, I’m not even sure how I got over the first hump as an MC, but I want to tell you a story about the first time I ever recorded a verse. So, in advance of his new album with Tha God Fahim, a sequel to 2018’s Notorious Dump Legends, he and I got to work on a story structure that would fill in some of the gaps in his life story - with guardrails. This serves to funnel focus back onto the work itself and to afford Mach a more uninterrupted personal life. Despite the acclaim he’s received for albums like 2016’s HBO (Haitian Body Odor) and 2021’s Pray For Haiti, and despite the ubiquity of his influence over rappers who have followed his unconventional commercial model or borrowed his stop-start flows and handmade production aesthetics, he places a high value on privacy. While he’s an expansive speaker whose stories are dotted with allusions to both ‘90s rap songs and critical theory, Mach and I have agreed to keep the vast majority of our conversations off the record. Despite cutting an imposing silhouette, Mach is not clockable by the average person the slightly uncanny ride is the only sign that all might not be so ordinary. Beginning with the reporting of that story, and resuming when he reached back out to me several months ago, I got used to spotting the distinctive vehicle - a luxury sedan in an icy metallic color - in unusual locations: parked alone on a deserted block in Leimert Park, tucked into the foliage outside a Malibu estate, idling in front of a hotel in Beverly Hills. A little over a year ago, I wrote what I believe to be the first in-person magazine profile of the Haitian-American rapper, who covers his face in public and has never acknowledged any government name. If you’d seen Mach-Hommy’s car once, you’d recognize it again.
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