Above the Clouds
Curren$y has spent over a decade skillfully managing his JetLife empire, while becoming one of hip-hop’s most prolific MCs. He’s achieved this while remaining connected to his hometown of New Orleans, the people and the hobbies he cherishes most.
Interview: C. Vernon Coleman II
Editor’s Note: This story appears in the Fall 2025 issue of XXL Magazine, on newsstands now and available for sale on the XXL website.
Despite being one of the most laid-back lyricists in rap, Curren$y has the need for speed. It’s how he’s been able to amass a body of work that includes around 100 projects, and the reason he recently carved an RC racing track into the yard of his gated-community mansion and keeps his driveway littered with everything from Ferraris to throwback Benzes. In the past 20 years, the New Orleans rapper’s drive has done nothing but pay off.
With the distinction of having been signed to two of hip-hop’s most storied indie imprints at different points early on in his career, Curren$y has a unique perspective on music and its business. He spent the early 2000s under the No Limit Records umbrella as a late addition to the 504 Boyz. He was later recruited to Lil Wayne’s Young Money Entertainment, where he spent three years before parting ways in 2007. In 2009, Curren$y took his flight path into his own hands and launched the label JetLife Recordings.
A staggering output of music has ensued, including critically acclaimed releases like How Fly with Wiz Khalifa (2009), Pilot Talk (2010), Covert Coup (2011), New Jet City (2013), Fetti with Freddie Gibbs (2018), Continuance (2022) and more. Behind the music, he’s an avid car collector and RC and Hot Wheels racer, who, despite his celebrity status, can often be seen cruising Canal Street in New Orleans in a low-low, pounding the pavement just for kicks.
Though the 44-year-old MC is a kid at heart, he’s a boss, expanding the JetLife brand in 2011, with JetLife Apparel and opening the thriving flagship store in the heart of downtown N’awlins. While juggling music, business and expensive hobbies, as well as being a father to his 6-year-old son, Cruz, Spitta has never taken his foot off the gas, musically. He releases at least a handful of projects annually to his cult fan base, including March’s Never Catch Us, July’s 7/30, a revival of the long-running Andretti series, and his most recent, 10/15.
He’s typically a rapper removed from drama, but this past summer, Curren$y found himself in headlines after being dissed by Freddie Gibbs on The Alchemist-produced song “Gas Station Sushi.” Curren$y is treating the diss and subsequent shots like smoke in the wind, but the situation seems to have ramifications concerning Spitta’s relationship with Al and the status of a highly anticipated collab project with Larry June that Al produced.
In August, XXL caught up with Spitta on a smokey tour bus in Portland, Ore. via Zoom before his final show on Wiz Khalifa’s Good Vibes Only Tour, where he talked about studio rules, consistency, getting his flowers, the Freddie Gibbs drama and more.
XXL: You’ve been touring a lot this year. What’s it been like getting on the road?
Curren$y: It’s been good because, honestly, I had chilled out for a minute. I kind of got used to being able to pick up money from the couch after COVID happened. I was like, Well, sh*t, if we still could make it without moving, we might as well just sit tight. But after we did that sh*t for a few years, I was like, Damn, we probably are missing a few bags by not physically showing up.
You and producer Harry Fraud have had a run of dropping lots of music together, including 7/30 this year. Why do you think you and Harry work so well together?
I think with him, the fact that I’m done so fast. By the time he played the beat two or three times, I’m already ready to go in there. I feel like if I got to look to the sky, think of a concept and all of that, I don’t even need to do it. With the beats he play, I see the movie already. It’s like the beat writing the raps for me.
Maryland rapper Premo Rice said in an interview that you intentionally keep the studio uncomfortable to maximize getting work done.
Hell yeah. There’s two chairs in the whole studio. One chair for the engineer. The other chair if some legs come through. Other than that, whatever ni**a came through that bi**h with the most goods for the studio. Because rap ni**as who pull up on me ain’t got time to sit down. There’s a pool outside. It’s all kinds of sh*t out there. They got pumps and a bump right outside. If that’s what you came to do, do that. But it’s out there. It ain’t right here because we working.
Curren$y photo
With such a strict regimen, is it still fun for you or is it more like work?
Well, what’s fun for me is creating the movie when I hear the music, writing fast. If legs is there, impressing said legs with how fast I’ve composed this verse. And I probably One Take Jake’d it in front of these legs. That’s also good and fun for me, too.
Two, three hours, we might have did an EP. Now, comfort. Now, Rolls-Royce backseat. Let’s just drink tea, smoke weed, go get donuts. We can do whatever the f**k we want now because we already put that work down. Now, I’m pumps and the bump. Now, I’m on the floaty outside.
Do you still write your lyrics?
Yeah, I write like a muthaf**ka. Man, when I was with Young Money, Wayne was f**king making the sh*t right in his head and was like, “Don’t write it, brother.” And I’m like, “Nah, ni**a, I want the sh*t to be legit, you know, you rapping, you rapping, rapping. I need to write this down so I can do it.” He like, “Nah.” I’m like, “Yeah, that worked for Hov. I saw the movie too, bro. I don’t know. But on the strength of you, let me see.”
So, everything that happened while I was with Young Money, I didn’t write it down. So, once I phased that out, I left that at that camp. And when I f**king built my own sh*t, I’m like, Do what the f**k you know how to do. And I just continued to write. So, yeah, that’s my way.
As someone who thrived in the blog era, the mixtape era and the streaming era, how have you been able to adapt to all the changes over the years?
Unknowingly. Trying to adapt is where people mess up. I seen that meme of the fan opening a Curren$y album and it’s the same shirt for the last 12 years. It’s f**king funny, but it’s true. There’s a testament to just staying true to your sound and being yourself no matter how sh*t change. You adapt to the ways that you sell your dope, but the dope still the same. I’m still gonna cook it the same way because the fiends like it the same way.
You still live locally. Why do you choose to stay in New Orleans?
For the exact reason that muthaf**kas leave because it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous anywhere, but I know the dangers and I know the dangerees, the dangerers. And unspokenly, I’m just on the list. It’s like, you just don’t f**k with bro sh*t. You can’t earn that everywhere. Plus, I’m the representation of showing that a lot of that [is] tangible. So, I gotta stay there because the sh*t that appear out of reach, I’m right there with it.
With your son Cruz getting older, what’s it like balancing being a father, a rapper and a business owner?
This the time I was hoping for because when I had him, I was like, Man, I might not even be doing this sh*t when he know that it’s what I’m doing. But, lo and behold, he old enough to where if he’s up, he’s like, “Yo, I’m gonna stay awake. I wanna come to this. I wanna come out on stage.” One time in D.C., [he was] like, “No, I want the mic. I want to rap.” I’m like, “Go for it.”
He can do whatever the f**k he want. If he want to be an astronaut, go right ahead. I’m not telling him to rap, but he’s already frustrated that he’s only 6 because he’s like, “I want to be a rapper already. I want my own chains.” That’s what’s stressing him. The world is weighing in on him. At 6 years old, he want to carry his own weight in the game. He want to get paid from his own raps. I can’t be mad.
In an industry where everybody seems to have a persona, you made success from just being yourself. Do you think that’s played to your advantage?
Yeah, that’s the persona. If you gotta have something to stand behind, why not stand behind being yourself? I would never step away from it because it’s right. And anybody who took that page out of my book, they can see the benefit in their life.
Recently, you had this Freddie Gibbs situation. He was calling you out for not promoting Fetti, the joint mixtape you two released in 2018, which was produced by Alchemist.
What it’s rooted in, I can’t do nothing about because it’s old. I thought it was a good project. F**king people thought it was a classic. [I promoted] it on Instagram. I had just had a kid, so I’m like, F**k. What can I do? I told [Alchemist], “I’m not gonna play ‘The Boy is Mine’ with you with this dude. Y’all got it.”
Does something like that ever make you think twice about doing collab projects?
Nah, because rap is that. It’s not many settings that I’ve been in where I don’t think that we’re actually doing this [presses fists together]. Except, it’s just through rap, so it ain’t sh*t. [But] I probably gotta let the [project] me and Larry June got go. I told [the project producer Alchemist] I wasn’t tripping… For the good of music, and the sounds that me and Larry put down already, I probably gotta let the people have this good sh*t.
Al solid. He neutral. He make the beats. So, it ain’t no G-code with bro. I ain’t tripping off that. But with that being said, I can’t get in the car with you because I know for sure what I can’t expect.
Have you and Alchemist talked out the situation?
Yeah, like a day or two right after it. And I told him it’s good. But I told him, if it was me, and the muthaf**ka said something about you, the song wouldn’t exist. I wasn’t tripping. I’m not tripping. But the same way I know, clearly, I’m guessing me and this man [Freddie Gibbs] won’t do no music, y’all in the same car.
What’s the rest of the year shaping up like, music-wise?
8/30 [came out] on August 30th. [I dropped] 9/28 [in September] because that’s the Porsche that Scarface left the Babylon Club in when they shot him up. For October, that’s when I want me and Harry Fraud to come back with another installment of our joint. Me and MadeinTYO got a whole project that he did all the production on. I can’t wait till people hear that. People never even really known he got this bag that he could get in.
Christmas, I’m gonna try and do something with the whole crew, like another JetLife Presents. So, you’re gonna get music from us for the rest of the year, count on that.
You’ve often been called one of the most prolific rappers ever. What do you think when you hear that?
I’m honored that a muthaf**ka would staple that. Calling a muthaf**ka a G.O.A.T.? They got porno G.O.A.T.s, they got all kinds. I’m good. Don’t call me that. Prolific, that’s legitimate.
How do you define success at this point in your career?
Getting anything that I want for the people that I want to have. C-Murder was success to me because anytime I got in a jam that money could fix it, he like, “How much is it to fix it?” Bam. I want to be that to the people that I care about. That’s why I don’t never trip off helping muthaf**kas if it’s legit.
Do you think you get your flowers?
From the people that I value, they think highly of me. The people who I don’t hear that from is probably people I don’t care about. So, I really only be around the people I’m around, and they all think fairly high of me. I can’t see what flowers I don’t have for all the flowers I got. I’m straight. That sh*t be fake anyhow. The flowers be for everybody. Flowers for the streets.
Listen to Curren$y’s 10/30 Album
Curren$y photo
The fall 2025 issue of XXL magazine featuring Curren$y’s interview is available to purchase here. The issue also includes Joey Bada$$ and J.I.D’s cover story interviews, conversations with Hit-Boy, Chance The Rapper, Rob49, KenTheMan, Bay Swag, Curren$y, Wallo267, Hurricane Wisdom, Hanumankind, Babyfxce E, Ghostface Killah, Conway The Machine, Pluto, TiaCorine, singer Isaiah Falls, comedian Josh Joshson, Vice President of Music at SiriusXM and Pandora Joshua “J1” Raiford, a look at the change in album rollouts over the years highlighted by Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out album and more.
