Whenever we speak about plugg, Dro is visibly disinterested and slightly annoyed. “I don’t miss nothing about that time,” he admits. “From 16 to about 25, that was the worst years of my life. The music was successful enough, but I just kept getting locked up and getting in my own way. I remember I was trying to be a kid. Trying my damn hardest to be a kid. Life was real good ’til it hit me in my head.” In that time, he started tinkering with a form of intimate motivation rap that shaped his hardships into optimism and pulled from the grounded Southern rap on which he grew up: Project Pat, Ghetto Mafia, Bankroll Fresh. Getting those influences out of him was a challenge, though, and when I first ask, he responds sarcastically: “I’m influenced by an artist named MexikoDro. I think he’s real good. Ever heard of him?”
Now 29, Dro pretty much keeps to himself. He says on most days you’ll find him hanging out with his dogs, making beats, and working on his cars. “Right now, I’m working on my kickdown linkage on my ’85 Monte Carlo,” he says. “I can’t be driving some shit that look good on the outside, but fucked-up on the inside.” Infused into his mundane, bluesy trap music is a lone wolf spirit that comes from being an only child whose father was incarcerated for most of his childhood and whose mother worked into the night. “I was in the dayroom, chillin’, playin’ cards/Now I’m outside, out the way, I’m drivin’ cars,” he raps in his husky voice and strong Atlanta wobble on “Cars.” On that same song, he strolls alone through Lenox Mall and treats himself to a solo dinner out.
If you haven’t noticed, it’s a wistful time in Atlanta rap right now. Back are the futuristic vibes, the snap beats, and instrumentals that sound like they could have been on Thug Motivation 101, both in the city and throughout the South. Yeah, nostalgia is everywhere, but this Atlanta run feels more sincere, an effect of a city that once had these thick regional lines become obscured by gentrification, the internet, and its own musical success. “We grew up here, but this ain’t our land anymore,” says an elegiac MexikoDro. Whatever is left of that feeling is being held onto in songs like “No Date,” pure trap music with an emphasis on the small moments that mean a little more when you’ve been through some shit.
What I’m listening to:
