The Break Presents: Lil Pump

It has been a crazy year for Lil Pump. Since dropping his song “Lil Pump” last year in March with frequent collaborator Smokepurpp, the South Florida native has been one of the fastest-rising rappers in hip-hop. He has records like “Movin,” “Broke My Wrist,” “Flex Like Ouu” and “D Rose” to thank for that. All of those tracks, which are light on lyrical complexity and heavy on repetition, have million of plays on SoundCloud and YouTube. With numbers like those, it’s crazy to believe that the colorful dread-head rapper had no ambition to rap before 2016.

With major labels trying to sign him and a shout out by former XXL Freshman Lil Uzi Vert on Twitter, Lil Pump is everywhere on the web plus he has momentum on his side—he’s been consistently feeding his fans new music. As an independent artist, Pump has accomplished much on his own—and he hasn’t even released a mixtape yet. That should change later this year.

“I’m going to put out a tape before the end of this year,” he tells XXL while in New York City. “A couple of features, not much, but I’m going to have a people on there.”

Pump is also working on a collaborative project with Smokepurpp.

Just days after previewing a diss record aimed at J.Cole—presumably for Cole’s mumble rap shot on “Neighbors”—find out more about who Lil Pump is here in XXL‘s The Break.

Age: 16

Hometown: Miami

I grew up listening to: “I grew up listening to a lot of Chief Keef, Lil B, all that. When I first started making music was almost about a year ago. ‘Pump’ was my first song. I started making music because of Smokepurpp. He was freestyling and he was like, ‘Record some shit,’ but I said no. But he made me go into the studio one day to do it and I just freestyled. I never wanted to be a rapper before, it just happened. It’s fire though. I knew Purpp for about three years now.

“When I made ‘Pump,’ Purpp threw a beat on and was like, ‘Yo, I got this beat.’ I said, ‘Play that shit’ and then he played it and I was like, ‘Lil Pump, ouu, Lil Pump yeah’ and he told me to go record it. I just did that shit. It was a whole freestyle. After I released it, it had like 10,000 views. I couldn’t believe it. That shit is nothing now. Then it started to go up and now it’s at 6 million. Just seeing everybody fucking with me, I was like, Shit, why not? I feel like I learned a lot. A lot has changed from last year because November I had like 60,000 followers on Instagram and it started going up. I’m on like 400,000 now. This is happening quickly. I fuck with all my fans and fuck everybody who’s hating [laughs].”

My style’s been compared to: “People don’t really compare me to anybody. They just say I’m a mumble rapper. I’m fine with that. I don’t really care. It’s not negative; I guess it’s just that ignorant shit. [My music] is just saying reckless shit on a song but going with the flow so they’re still going to fuck with it, even though you’re saying some off the wall shit.”

Most people don’t know: “I be sober in the mornings, sometimes.”

My standout records to date: “I think it was ‘Movin’ until it got deleted off SoundCloud. It was at 5 million and they took it down. They took down three songs. They took down ‘Broke My Wrist’ like three weeks ago. I don’t know why but I don’t care. SoundCloud has been doing that with a lot of artists, they just be taking down music.

“My favorite song that I’ve done is ‘Broke My Wrist’ but the biggest numbers is probably ‘D Rose.’ Recording ‘Broke My Wrist’ was awesome.”

My goal in hip-hop is: “I want to be the biggest thing that’s out because I’m different from everybody. I don’t sound like nobody. The route that I’m going through it’s going to be crazy. And this is only the beginning; I didn’t fully blow up yet.”

I’m going to be the next: “Lil Pump is a God. I just run shit.”

Follow Lil Pump on Twitter and SoundCloud.

Standouts: “D Rose”