"I never had anxiety or anything like that until I got famous. Never had it," Denzel Curry tells Exclaim! over the phone on the day he's releasing King of the Mischievous South, the expanded album-length version of his recent mixtape.
He adds, "I don't want to sign to no label. They chew you up, spit you out, then they drop you eventually. That's why people take time away. I definitely take time away from what's heavy on me mentally — dealing with industry stuff. I'll probably go to therapy again, though I haven't been back as much."
His outlook explains the Last Supper reference on the Mischievous South cut "SKED." Curry says, "Your closest people would do you in, so I don't really trust nobody. And I go through that daily."
But he doesn't delve into those issues for emotional catharsis, saying that when "music's your job, you need other outlets. I just rap about what I experienced. Like when I see people show me their true colours. And then, I just have to stick with the people that never showed me no malice."
Though he still has struggles to sort out, Curry is quick to admit he has come a long way since dropping his King of the Mischievous South Vol. 1 Underground Tape 1996 (which came out in 2012, despite the title). "Now I got a budget to help me out with flying places. I couldn't fly anybody anywhere to do videos then. At the time, all I had was a microphone in the house to record the album," he recalls.
And he has plenty of illustrious guests to connect with. The new album includes A$AP Rocky and A$AP Ferg (listen carefully for his machine-gun-quick bar about having a bulletproof vest made of a hilariously surprising material), California hitmaker Ty Dolla $ign, along with a who's who of Dirty South MCs: Juicy J of Three 6 Mafia along with his brother Project Pat, Bay City Texas up-and-comer That Mexican OT, Atlanta's own Kenny Mason, Georgia hitmaker 2 Chainz, and many more.
"I wanted this project to feel like I'm sailing you through the South," Florida-born Curry says. When those features came together, he remembers thinking, "'Damn. I got big enough to get the people that influenced this kind of music on my actual stuff.' … I'm a huge Three 6 Mafia fan, and Lord Infamous is my favourite rapper. So it just brings everything full circle."
In the same vein, he invited members of his former collective RVIDXR KLVN, like Slim Guerilla and Key Nyata, to guest on the album, while also ensuring space for emerging artists he loves like TiaCorine, Mike Dimes, Bktherula and Lazer Dim 700, because "they were influenced by that era."
Now that he's both paid homage and paid it forward to the next generation, Curry is looking to reach the next echelon in his career. In recent years, he was invited to open for chart-topping pop star Billie Eilish on an arena tour, and groundbreaking alt-rapper Kid Cudi on his stadium tour.
"Imagine you open up three times, and kill it three times in front of all these people. But you haven't done a stadium yet yourself?" Curry says of how those experiences have opened a new level of frustrated motivation in him. "I'm like: 'Dude, I gotta do something bigger than what I'm doing now.' And that's the goal for me."