Mike Mictlan Interview Pt. 2
By Kyle Eustice
On New Year's Eve 2014, Mike Mictlan was undoubtedly doing something way more interesting than typing on his laptop. But in the words of Snoop Dogg, "That's the life of a G, I guess." Hopefully he was in good spirits. He should be. After all, the Doomtree emcee just finished the tenth (and final) year of the crew's annual Doomtree Blowout in Minneapolis, dropped his third solo album, Hella Frreal, on October 27, 2014 and is about to drop another record with Doomtree. Not to mention, he pulled himself out of the depths of hell and got back on his feet over the past year. As revealed in Part One of the Mictlan interview (www.rapstation.com/news/mike.mictlan.pt1), it was a rough road. In Part Two, Mictlan addresses his battle with addiction, mental institutions and the intention behind 2012's SNAXXX.
RAPstation (Kyle Eustice): So what happened when you were in the mental ward?
Mike Mictlan: I didn't have to stay the full 72-hours because I went through all of these interviews where I just spilled my guts. I hate being detained. I tried to get out of there as fast as possible. I just said as much as I could and told them to tell me if they thought I should be there or not. I went through three different interviews with six different counselors and therapists, and I was out of there in less than 48 hours. Stef (P.O.S.) came and picked me up. He got me out of there. I remember these doctors, it was hilarious, they were like, 'You're an amazing person. Your life story is so intense that you should be locked up or dead. You shouldn't be in here." You don't think about it then all of a sudden you're in handcuffs with no links in a fucking looney bin like 'how did I get here?'
What is your stance on drugs and alcohol today?
That's part of it, too. At the beginning of this year, I had to pick myself up and I've clean off of hard drugs for over eight months. I was really bad. I had to go cold turkey. I had to pick myself up from the bottom. It wasn't from the extreme bottom, but I was selling drugs just to maintain my habit. I had a pretty big habit. I wasn't doing anything shady, but it was not good.
Was it opiates?
Yeah. I've been telling journalists and shit that I had an addiction problem. At any moment, I could have died. It was really dangerous.
I never could tell. Every time I've met you, you seemed fine.
I have some mental issues and triggers from my past. It's weird. Nowadays, I wanted to be honest when promoting this record. I feel like people in popular culture want to idolize and glorify the people that overdose, but they don't really want to talk about people that got themselves clean, picked themselves up and make better music than they did when they weren't clean.
I've been gathering material for five years and actually Dessa pointed this out to me. I was talking to her about her book, Spiral Bound, and mentioned how I would love to write a book. She asked me if there were any common threads in my interviews and it hit me. Most artists I've interviewed are either in recovery, have struggled with addiction or are completely straightedge. I really want to write about book about their stories.
That's awesome.
Music is also a job.
Yeah, and starting dialogues about the types of people in music is crucial. Everyone is different. They might have done drugs before or they might smoke weed now. It puts it in perspective. Somebody that likes my music might not know anybody like me, but they can say they can if they feel connections to my music.
Maybe they'll realize some of their artists have gone through it. That's why I get so sick of the messages that get put out there by certain artists.
Yeah like let's pretend 'lean' isn't an opiate. It's crazy. In Minnesota, we've had a lot of OD's. We have some of the cheapest and strongest heroin in the country. I mean, Eyedea. At the time he had died, I had started to get into opiates, too. It was so available here. It wasn't like this cool thing. It's not like everyone is drinking lean here, but people were doing oxycontin and other shit; things perpetuated by drug companies. People who get on the methadone treatment and they're just stuck. It's like legal dope.
I really want to influence other kids and let people know you don't have to go down that road.
In terms of what I do, I feel like there's a lot of that. At the same time, I should present an alternative. I feel like the D.A.R.E. program taught me more about drugs than not to do drugs [laughs].
Remember the box with all of the paraphernalia?
Yes [laughs].
I was like, 'Oh I've seen those.' I had no idea what I was saying. I was like 10.
[Laughs] That's awesome. Yeah, with SNAXXX, I was telling people basically that emcees are gross. Don't idolize them. I was like let me tell you why I'm not tight; I do drugs and I'm having sex all these girls. I'm not tight. I'm not glorifying these things. It was like adult SNAXXX for gross kids.
Mike Mictlan from Doomtree: The RAPstation Interview Part 2
Mike Mictlan Interview Pt. 2
By Kyle Eustice
On New Year's Eve 2014, Mike Mictlan was undoubtedly doing something way more interesting than typing on his laptop. But in the words of Snoop Dogg, "That's the life of a G, I guess." Hopefully he was in good spirits. He should be. After all, the Doomtree emcee just finished the tenth (and final) year of the crew's annual Doomtree Blowout in Minneapolis, dropped his third solo album, Hella Frreal, on October 27, 2014 and is about to drop another record with Doomtree. Not to mention, he pulled himself out of the depths of hell and got back on his feet over the past year. As revealed in Part One of the Mictlan interview (www.rapstation.com/news/mike.mictlan.pt1), it was a rough road. In Part Two, Mictlan addresses his battle with addiction, mental institutions and the intention behind 2012's SNAXXX.
RAPstation (Kyle Eustice): So what happened when you were in the mental ward?
Mike Mictlan: I didn't have to stay the full 72-hours because I went through all of these interviews where I just spilled my guts. I hate being detained. I tried to get out of there as fast as possible. I just said as much as I could and told them to tell me if they thought I should be there or not. I went through three different interviews with six different counselors and therapists, and I was out of there in less than 48 hours. Stef (P.O.S.) came and picked me up. He got me out of there. I remember these doctors, it was hilarious, they were like, 'You're an amazing person. Your life story is so intense that you should be locked up or dead. You shouldn't be in here." You don't think about it then all of a sudden you're in handcuffs with no links in a fucking looney bin like 'how did I get here?'
What is your stance on drugs and alcohol today?
That's part of it, too. At the beginning of this year, I had to pick myself up and I've clean off of hard drugs for over eight months. I was really bad. I had to go cold turkey. I had to pick myself up from the bottom. It wasn't from the extreme bottom, but I was selling drugs just to maintain my habit. I had a pretty big habit. I wasn't doing anything shady, but it was not good.
Was it opiates?
Yeah. I've been telling journalists and shit that I had an addiction problem. At any moment, I could have died. It was really dangerous.
I never could tell. Every time I've met you, you seemed fine.
I have some mental issues and triggers from my past. It's weird. Nowadays, I wanted to be honest when promoting this record. I feel like people in popular culture want to idolize and glorify the people that overdose, but they don't really want to talk about people that got themselves clean, picked themselves up and make better music than they did when they weren't clean.
I've been gathering material for five years and actually Dessa pointed this out to me. I was talking to her about her book, Spiral Bound, and mentioned how I would love to write a book. She asked me if there were any common threads in my interviews and it hit me. Most artists I've interviewed are either in recovery, have struggled with addiction or are completely straightedge. I really want to write about book about their stories.
That's awesome.
Music is also a job.
Yeah, and starting dialogues about the types of people in music is crucial. Everyone is different. They might have done drugs before or they might smoke weed now. It puts it in perspective. Somebody that likes my music might not know anybody like me, but they can say they can if they feel connections to my music.
Maybe they'll realize some of their artists have gone through it. That's why I get so sick of the messages that get put out there by certain artists.
Yeah like let's pretend 'lean' isn't an opiate. It's crazy. In Minnesota, we've had a lot of OD's. We have some of the cheapest and strongest heroin in the country. I mean, Eyedea. At the time he had died, I had started to get into opiates, too. It was so available here. It wasn't like this cool thing. It's not like everyone is drinking lean here, but people were doing oxycontin and other shit; things perpetuated by drug companies. People who get on the methadone treatment and they're just stuck. It's like legal dope.
I really want to influence other kids and let people know you don't have to go down that road.
In terms of what I do, I feel like there's a lot of that. At the same time, I should present an alternative. I feel like the D.A.R.E. program taught me more about drugs than not to do drugs [laughs].
Remember the box with all of the paraphernalia?
Yes [laughs].
I was like, 'Oh I've seen those.' I had no idea what I was saying. I was like 10.
[Laughs] That's awesome. Yeah, with SNAXXX, I was telling people basically that emcees are gross. Don't idolize them. I was like let me tell you why I'm not tight; I do drugs and I'm having sex all these girls. I'm not tight. I'm not glorifying these things. It was like adult SNAXXX for gross kids.
