If you’d seen Mach-Hommy’s car once, you’d recognize it again. 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. 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. 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.
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 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. This serves to funnel focus back onto the work itself and to afford Mach a more uninterrupted personal life. 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.
What follows — what will be published in three parts, over the next three days — is a series of recollections that Mach has written about songs recorded at pivotal moments in his life and career. Though our in-person conversations continued, Mach sent these vignettes to me via email, which is also how our interviews about them were conducted. In his prose you’ll find the same pointed humor, hyperfocus on detail, and authoritative voice that defines his raps. His self-insertion of “[laughs]” notations is a sly acknowledgment of the medium. Any added emphasis, fittingly, is his.
Only one of the three songs Mach chose to write about has ever been officially released. The first will surely never surface: a freestyle the adolescent Mach recorded, with two older boys, over one of the most iconic beats in the genre’s history.
The FADER: First of all, I want to situate things: This is in Newark, correct?
Mach-Hommy: Yes, it’s Newark. Vailsburg Section. West District.
What do you remember about your physical life at the time: Your home, the building, the blocks around you?
It was me, my mom, my sister, and my father in this attic that was converted into an apartment. We kept that little, tiny space pretty clean. It was a third-floor unit with one bedroom, a common area, a kitchen, and a bathroom. I slept in the common area. The entire house itself was a single family, but my cousins never made me feel weird about anything, so you gotta know that I was downstairs a good amount. Looking back on those days, I guess that was the literal textbook definition of “cramped apartment.” I had the shield of my cousins living in the house below; so, it looked a lot like that was my house, from the outside looking in. There was a big university five minutes up the road. We used to go run indoor fives there whenever it rained, especially during summer break. There was this big Roman Catholic cathedral a few blocks down the street where we used to go to church on Sunday. Everything was in walking distance. There was a Haitian restaurant, a Haitian bakery; Wyclef’s father literally had a church around the corner from my house. Nothing too crazy. You could fuck around and see Rah Digga, Pras, Tame One, all the usual suspects: Redman, Slang Ton, Treach, etc.
You write about how private you were when you were working on something — how private you were about creative pursuits in general. But your uncle knew enough to put you in that position with two older boys from the neighborhood. Two questions here: First, you describe him as an archetypal Port-au-Prince cat. What do you mean by that — the calm-and-collected thing?
When I say typical Port-au-Prince cat, I definitely mean calm and collected; but it’s a little more exponential than that. It’s more like unfazed or unperturbed. He was open to hearing whatever anyone had to say to him, just so long as it was free of charge. Like a real laissez-faire type of attitude, the shit is completely devoid of pretension. If it’s your first time coming in contact with it, you might mistake it for aloofness, maybe? It is, in fact, quite the opposite. It’s almost like a veneer of stability. It’s just a smokescreen. There’s some wild shit swimming around in that head behind that cool exterior. Because trust me, whatever you do, DO NOT DISCUSS POLITICS WITH THIS SAME SUAVE DEBONAIR TYPE, BECAUSE HE MIGHT BREAK AWAY FROM DECORUM.
And second, do you think he was knowingly putting you in a show-and-prove situation, understanding they’d press you as soon as he went inside?
That was his favorite shit on earth. Crisis situations. Arnold Schwarzenegger had a film with Danny DeVito called Twins. His character had this line, “first rule in a crisis situation…second rule in a crisis situation” and that’s pretty much how he taught me. It was always about instability and how to concentrate in the face of it: that if you concentrate enough, you can find the eye of any storm. It was all intentional… mostly. He knew exactly what he was doing, because that’s the kind of shit he reveled in. “You’ve only got seconds to act!” he used to scream that shit at me on a daily basis. [chuckles]
On a lighter note, though, he didn’t know anything about the raps, like fucking zero. That was the most alarming part of the whole “porch ordeal.”
“I became informed because of the way that I listen and the way that I see, but not because I was intentionally molded that way.”
Those early raps you wrote and showed very few people: Who were you writing like?
I found my voice listening to Mobb Deep. Prodigy was my favorite. You have to understand, the public school system tried to put me in ESL classes because of my accent. For some reason, P really helped me embrace myself and find my voice. He was the first one… those Havoc landscapes… just, wow!
And were you writing to beats, a capella, full verses at a time, a couplet here and there?
In the beginning, I didn’t have the courage to write to a beat. That would have been sacrilegious. I was more sneaking around writing little lines here and there which quickly progressed into whole verses. Never a beat, I tarried without a sound.
You mention your English lit teacher publishing some of your written work. You’ve also told me in the past that your family placed a high value on education. What was the intellectual culture in your home? Would you and your family discuss books, films, the news?
Not really. If you understand anything about colonial systems of governance and the type of mindsets they can foster on average, you’ll notice that very little choice is given in the matter. Education was compulsory. For instance, I was never praised for making straight A’s. Positive feedback was kept at arm’s length. My job was to be smart. If I’m smart and I do well in school, then I will be allowed to live rent-free and eat free food. Books were discussed but not directly. Films were discussed but not directly. I became informed because of the way that I listen and the way that I see, but not because I was intentionally molded that way.
I took advantage of a lot of grown-ups back then. You know the whole seen-and-not-heard routine? I would either feign ignorance or pretend to be shy. Then they would open up and say all kinds of inappropriate shit in my presence, just as if I wasn’t even there. Men and women were both the same in that respect. I knew everything. By the time I was 7, I had heard it all. I knew what women thought about men and vice versa. I exploited those conditions like no one’s business.
What writers were formative influences on you?
I was a big fan of the KJV Holy Bible, The Holy Koran, The Torah, Thomas Aquinas, Lorraine Hansberry, Malcolm X, CLR James, Felix Morriseau-Leroy, Chinua Achebe, Shakespeare, George Orwell, Dostoevsky, Nietszche, Dante, etc.
Homing in on “Verbal Intercourse” itself: How did that song make its way to your friend group?
Because niggas always loved Wu-Tang and they loved Nas too. It was a no-brainer. Track number 4, side 2. Everybody knew that.
Was it simply that the purple tape was so beloved? Was it buzz around Nas? Or — having gone back and listened to as many mix shows as I can from that era — was it more about the fact that it had become a popular instrumental to freestyle to?
Some people prefer home cooking. Others prefer restaurant. That record was Ital with a dash of salt — healthy and tasty. Far as why we picked the beat, it was the only beat we had at our disposal. That and Janet Jackson, “Got ‘til it’s Gone.” You tell me. [laughs]
On that note: Do you think Nas or Ghost is better on it?
That’s just like saying: Do you think water or lemons is the best part of a lemonade? What about sugar’s performance? Which is the better of the three? What about ice?
I don’t choose to see certain stuff that way, and this is what you might consider certain stuff.
“It was like molten lava was coming out of my throat whenever I recorded. I’d be hoarse for several days after one four-hour studio session.”
Church looms large in this story, both as a literal pillar of the community and in the piousness you note on the face of your friend. Did the church — any church — play a role in your life at that point? Related to this: In your work, you seem to value certain codes of conduct, honor, morality. What forces shaped that?
By the time I entered public school, stuff like going to church had all but come to a grinding halt. It didn’t matter, though. I was already indoctrinated. The Roman Catholic Church had it’s own rules comprised of 613 mitzvot, all nicely tucked behind the first 10 of which they marketed as their Ten Commandments. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” or is it “thy neighbor’s ox?” Hmm. So, it’s safe to say that I’ve had to do a lot of unpacking over the years. By now, I’ve distilled the bulk of my childhood experiences with religious dogma, and I have found some tremendous good among the rubble. My only problem is that there’s too much rubble for me to give all the glory away to the church. I learned a lot from being outside on the block, as well. There you’re expected to be Zarathustra… the Godless. You see? Superman! If these same kinds of expectations were placed on battle tested war dogs, let alone adolescent boys, they would be dismissed as out of touch with reality. You’re supposed to keep it real and crash out in the name of what again? The code? Let me know when you finish cracking that jawn. [chuckles]
I’m very interested by you saying that this marathon session locked you into a particular mode of rapping. Is that because you liked how the verse came out and wanted to continue evoking that feeling? Or was it unconscious, even against your will?
I say that because people really, really liked it. I would literally turn into a demon or something. I’d be perfectly fine. The beat would come on, and it was like some of the lowest vibrations known to man, like gun sulfur cologne. Vailsburg for Men!! [laughs]
It was like molten lava was coming out of my throat whenever I recorded. I’d be hoarse for several days after one four-hour studio session. What a worthless endeavor. It wasn’t entirely without purpose though. I ended up learning a lot about human nature and how most people want nothing but heaviness for others. Oppression. Pain. Bondage. Wrath. I think they call that type of shit schadenfreude, when one takes great pleasure in the misfortune of another.
It was unconscious at first being that I was an unwitting participant… essentially blind to the situation. Then after a while, I started to notice the toll it had taken on me. Reminds me of how niggas describe the downfall of Asun Unique once he adopted the persona of ODB. I had to self-correct and catch myself.
One thing you don’t include in this story is anything about the other two guys’ verses. Am I, the reader, to assume you won on all scorecards?
I became Mach-Hommy, my man next-door became a public servant, and I’m not sure what his homeboy became in life. No one else from that day on the front porch is still doing music. I can assure you of that much [laughs].