You mostly took a
step back from the
public eye over the last
two years. What has
that been like?
It’s been great. Part of
the process I’ve been
going through is build-
ing myself up to be a
man and my best ver-
sion of myself. I never
had the experience of
anybody in my family
ever doing something
like that, so I didn’t
know how to. It’s been
ups and downs. It’s
been me learning a lot.
It’s been me being able
to be more in tune with
myself. I had becomeso accustomed to
what society was
throwing in front of me
and telling me what
was cool and what
wasn’t cool, and what
was good for me and
what wasn’t good for
me. And I really just
had to be like, look,
I got to cut all that out
and see how I feel
and what I like to do.Was there a tipping
point that made you
realize that?
Yeah. When I turned 30
and I moved into a
dream house in Beverly
Hills. It was Slash’s old
house. And I was the
most unhappy I’ve ever
been in my life, and
that really don’t make
sense, because these
are some of the things
that I always wanted.
That’s when I realized
that all these things
that are conditional
can’t really give me the
unconditional love that
I was in dire need of.
That you come to a
point in life where you
realize that the car,
the house, whatever
it is that you thought
you wanted, was just
a temporary fix.One of the new tracks,
“Wolves,” is a collabo-
ration with Post
Malone. What’s the
story behind that one?
It’s about my family
growing up. Every-
body’s in there: my
grandma, my mom, my
brother. It’s like they
were a pack of wolves
and they were the
sweetest and stron-
gest. It’s one of my
favorites on the album.How did you and Post
connect for it?
I ran into him at arestaurant and we
were kicking it. We
were both working, so
I’m like, “I got this song.
I’m going to send it
to you, see what you
think.” A$AP Rocky is
on there at the very
beginning doing some
ad libs. Rocky had a
verse on it [originally],
but he ended up doing
the verse to another
song that he and I felt
fit a little better with
the album.You also have a new
track called “Lucky
Me,” which has a line
about the difficulties of
being on social media
as a celebrity—some-
thing you also tackle
in the music video for
“Single Again” regard-
ing the [cheating]
allegations you faced
online in 2018. Did you
question returning to
Twitter and Instagram
after that?
No, I never questioned
it. One thing I realized:
People will love you
and hate you, man.
There’s just so many
times I’ve been
counted out. It’s just
people’s opinions,
they’re always chang-
ing—and you always
have the power to
tell your story. That’s
something I didn’t
always have the confi-
dence to do. I just
realized that you
can’t let everybody
make you feel a
certain way. Just be in
control of your own
happiness. Be in con-
trol of your own s---.BEFORE MAKING DON LIFE, THE
DETROIT-BRED MC HAD TO REDIS-
COVER HIMSELF. BY ALEX SUSKIND
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