Mister Wallace’s Plan for World Domination
A Conversation with Mister Wallace
Words by Luccas Hallow
In an age where the most important thing is image, the proliferation of said image is just as important. Media is driven by outreach and impressions. If no one sees your stuff, did it really make an impact? You can flood an Instagram comments section with plugs for your brand/fanpage, but if you don’t have an overwhelming presence and posting schedule — will you truly get noticed? That is the reality of trying to make it in the social media age. We’ve all had to unfollow someone we knew from high school or a random party who suddenly decides to become a vlogger or fitness guru and starts posting six times a day. Building a presence is invaluable. When your audience is inundated with new posts and stories every living second, one has to maintain a constant presence.
For someone like Mister Wallace — the Chicago-based rapper and figurehead of the collective FUTUREHOOD — the message is the most important part. Since releasing his EP “Cool Mom” and being the object of fascination for many publications (as well as headlining Chicago’s Red Bull Music Festival in 2018), he has taken a bit of a break.
We get into it in our conversation, but the important thing to take away from this introduction is that Mister Wallace is back. After taking the independent hip-hop and LGBTQ+ music scenes by storm, followed by a brief hiatus, the cool mom of Chicago is ready to bring his unique energy and passion to the scene again. However, the focus this time isn’t squarely on being the biggest artist he can be or flooding the music world with images. Wallace is opting for a much more ambitious focus this time — to make FUTUREHOOD’s ethos and message the star of the show. He said during our conversation that he “knows what people want to hear from him,” to a degree that I had to interject very little to pry for answers. So, with that in mind, it’s time to give the people what they want to hear.
Photographed by Felton Edward Kizer
I'm just excited to be talking to people about what I do again. Because it seems like it's been a while.
Oh, have you been taking a break for a little bit?
I think I took more of a depression break. I put up my last project in 2018 and, at the time, had moved back [to Chicago] from New York in 2017. I met all these cool, young, queer, art fags and party goers and young people, and a lot of them were like, ‘Oh my god, I found your music on Spotify.’ We love you. And so, they affectionately started calling me mom, which a lot of the kids on the label who I've collaborated with have also called me mom. So, then I was kind of calling myself the cool mom. And I was throwing parties and going to parties and reintegrating myself with the Chicago scene.
In the summer of 2018, Redbull reached out to me and was like, ‘We're planning our first official Chicago Red Bull Music Festival and we want to book you.’ They said, ‘Oh, we want you to help us curate the lineup, and we want to put you at the forefront. We're thinking of calling the event “FUTUREHOOD and Friends.”’ And I was like, Oh, that's super exciting. Thank you, you know? Because I've done a lot work to create and foster a community of queer artists and queer events in Chicago. So, for Red Bull to come in and do a festival and not kind of give me any kind of say in what was gonna happen but to book me and all the other people would have been a bit of a slap in the face. I think they really realized that. And I was really grateful, because it allowed me to bring a lot of people from FUTUREHOOD together for the first time. It also allowed us to collaborate with other queer collectives in the city. It was a really, really great moment. And in preparation for that moment, I pushed myself to finish this “Cool Mom” EP and performed it at that festival for the first time in full. It had all this press around it, so I released it officially online a week or two after the event. And then everything kind of got quiet. It was like 2018 ended, 2019 began, and nobody was checking for me. Nobody was really bugging me.
I did actually have a lot of opportunities that I had lined up in Europe, which is where I think my music has been not the most successful, but highly successful. And I was waiting for a check in order to buy my flight so that I could go to all these events that I booked, while blocking off all of these months, because I wasn't there for two months and so I can’t take gigs here in Chicago. The check didn't come on time, so I couldn't fly to Europe. I lost those gigs, plus I have blocked my calendar off. And I have forfeited a bunch of gigs here. And it was just not what I had anticipated after releasing my follow-up project, which had been three years since the original “Faggot” EP. So, I hit a little bit of depression. Then, a comedy troupe here in Chicago called Helltrap Nightmare took me on tour with them as their special musical guest. And we went to like 11 cities in 12 days in 10 states or something like that. I got to create a new show every night — different lineups, different themes, different audiences. It was just really fun to kind of get into my bag like that. And that's where I really want it to be — performing that body of work and touring.
After Helltrap, things got quiet again. And I went to Europe. I'd actually had a really, really good 2019, as far as like traveling and doing gigs and stuff, but it just didn't — I don't know. I wasn't convinced that the album was good or maybe I was convinced that people didn't think the album was good. But nothing seemed to connect. And I never really did visuals for the project. So, at that time, there was really nothing for any kind of press to talk about. So after all this press and this big major event, it got super quiet for me. And that felt kind of like a failure. So, I think I was in a bit of a depression. And then coming into 2020, after kind of fighting my way out of that, I realized how great 2019 was and how I probably needed to pull away. So for 2020, and because of COVID, I've taken this opportunity to not necessarily try and keep my name in people's mouths by releasing music or doing a bunch of events online or trying to talk to the press. I did do some stuff in 2020 — like release the ”Birds and Bees” music video, which is the first track from the “Cool Mom” EP, as well as a visual for “Hateraid”, which was the bonus track on that EP. I was also the host and co-curator of the Brave Futures award show on OTV, as well as an interviewee on Black in Bed, which was a BIPOC interview series of artists on sexuality and pleasure. I did an interview with a finance magazine, which was interesting. And then, right after that happened, you emailed me. So I was like, ‘Oh, something's going on.’ And I did kind of have a moment. By the spring, I'll have three new tracks out and press and all this stuff. It [sort of] feels like things are starting over again, which is good — in a way. It almost feels like a second chance. I’m not sure why I [convinced] myself that I failed or that I didn't do “the thing,” because I've clearly done “the thing.” Y'all just waiting for me to do something. So that's exciting that people are still anticipating something. And I also feel like I'm anticipating a new body of work. So, yeah...I guess I’m back [from that break]. Don’t call it a comeback.
Well, I feel like the way that music and media, in general, is marketed nowadays doesn’t allow you to take a break. Everything is so in your face and relentless because people don’t want to be forgotten when there’s so much other stuff to pay attention to. So, you have to post every single day and always have a new song in people’s minds or everyone thinks you’ve fallen off.
Yeah. People are fickle. Attention spans [are] getting smaller and smaller. And the labels and the big artists are aware of this, right? So they are just pumping content out. So if you're like Joe Schmoe, or Mister Wallace,
you're like, Okay, so how am I gonna get 18 photographers to do 20 photo shoots, so I have enough content to keep up with them? They’ve got pictures on pictures on pictures. That being said— I don't know that I want to [necessarily] have that kind of omnipresent, ubiquitous, awareness where everybody knows about Mister Wallace posting Instagram things every day and there's hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of likes. I'm working towards having a song worthy of that. And I'm not talking about the number one song that came out today. I'm talking about something that will stand the test of time. I mean, I want [to write a] song that people will sing 10 years to 20 years after I'm dead. That’s the kind of song I want to create. It's not for me to continue the “it girl” and “faggot” personas. [That] was definitely about showing up as a celebrity and being larger than life, taking pictures, getting looks, doing the thing, because that's what the category was. It's something that can make a lot of money. It's something that can inspire a lot of people. And I think it's really important that people have artists like that. But it's also important that people have artists like Tracy Chapman. So moving away from one end of the spectrum and going towards the other [is what I’m trying to do].
So, because you're saying you want the song that's remembered 20-30 years past your lifetime, do you think of a legacy as something like the folk hero legacy or the outsider legacy of someone like...Daniel Johnston, who people appreciated at the time locally but only saw a lot of acclaim and recognition 10 or 20 years down the line?
I definitely see myself as one day having a song on the charts, but definitely moving into like, Oh, we know her because she's smart, or we know her because of her ideas. We know her because she built that coalition that changed the world. For me, it's not to be known for being popular. [I want to] be known for helping people and for giving voice to an experience. [I want to] create a song that embodies an experience and emotion that is human, a song that we can all relate to, [a song that] will last long after I'm gone. And it's not even [hoping] that people are saying, ‘Oh yeah. Mister Wallace wrote that song.’ It might be an artist that rerecords [my] song that becomes really big. Like, I think about Dolly Parton and Whitney Houston. Dolly wrote the song, but [Whitney’s version of the] song years later is one of the biggest songs of all time. Music is important to me, so I want to continue to write music and to give a voice to people's experiences.
I've kind of retooled [myself with the help of] therapy, life coaching, practicing piano, voice lessons, and honing in on what skills I already have and which skills I want to develop — and also building and extending the platform with FUTUREHOOD. The Mister Wallace project originally started as a way to prove that I could be a record executive and that I could pinpoint talent or that I could create an event. I [wanted to prove that I] could find the talent, plan the event, do photography, form a song — all that. FUTUREHOOD is like a spaceship and it's like, at this point, I can't turn it off. If I was to turn off the spaceship, then all these people in the spaceship would die. So I kind of like retooling myself as an artist, while also establishing a better infrastructure and foundation for FUTUREHOOD, so that the vehicle can continue to flourish as I continue to flourish. And that has been the learning lesson of my 20s. I'm now 32, almost 33. So, I'm ready for the next test.
So, there’s two dominant themes in your work that I wanted to ask you about: community/the communal spirit of music and afrofuturism. Tell me about where those come from. Was it seeing a Terence Nance film that sparked the interest or playing in a band in school? One of my friends, when I showed them your stuff, said they got Blade Runner vibes from you and your work. I just want to hear the origins of those concepts because they are so integral to what you do with your music and with FUTUREHOOD.
[It comes from] two places. And one of them — I probably should talk to therapists about this. But I feel like [it started] when I was a really young, queer person trying to fit into the ideology of being gay. That is so rooted in patriarchy, misogyny, capitalism, and white supremacy. I can think back on times when I have been neglectful or harmful or abusive or taking people like me — queer people — for granted. I've been thinking about this girl that I went to high school with who was on the cheerleading team and I didn't make her my friend growing up, which stood out to me. So for me to look at the world and be like, Oh, well, as a Black man, I could present myself like this. And I could assume all of the power and the privilege that a white man will bestow upon me, as long as I'm upholding the status quo. And I could rise to the top, you know, and I would get to the end of my life, and I would hate myself. I would want to kill myself. That's not what life is about for me. It is not about being number one. It's not about having any more money than anybody else. It's not about having everyone worship you or idolize you. I think it is important to inspire people. But none of this, none of the technology, none of the ideologies, none of the culture or the politics — none of this was created by one single person. So, we're at an age in society where people are using systems and institutions and ideas and cultures for their own personal gain that does not make sense. If these are communal and social constructions, then they should be used to socially elevate everyone. And, for me, it was very much [a point of view of] I don't want to have the spotlight on me if that means these other people that I know are walking up and down the street in Boystown because they want to come up and they want to rap, you know. That would make me feel really bad. That would make me feel weird. I grew up not rich, but I grew up privileged. So it's like, things have been given to me and I've had a lot of opportunities and I'm definitely ready to seize my moment. But first, before I could do any seizing of my moment, I had to make sure that I was opening doors for other people. And also, the best and biggest songs in the world are not written by one person. Sometimes they are, but a lot of them are written by groups of people and the biggest and best collectives and labels. They may have been started by one person, but it's usually a duo or a group. And then you bring all these other people in and now you have a family. And now you have a whole ethos and community that you can then sell and market to the world and say, ‘Hey, don't you want to be like us? Don't you want to live like us? Don't you want to love like us?’ And that's been the whole point: to create that kind of movement. Because again, at the end of the day, it's not about me becoming super famous or super popular or making a bunch of money or having a hit song. It's about changing the world. It's funny because I always think about Pinky and the Brain: “‘What are we going to do today?/The same thing we do every day — try and take over the world.’”
And it's funny that your friend said Blade Runner because in Blade Runner 2049, the villain is Mr. Wallace.
Oh, shit. Okay. I feel stupid that I didn’t make that connection earlier.
It's a full on juggling [of things] here because I don't want to be alone. I want to cultivate life. And so yeah, that's where the afrofuturism comes from. I do have my references like Sun Ra or Erykah Badu. I mean, it's an ethos. And it's an idea that I'm still evolving. I think that the timeline or the answer is always kind of shifting. So, I just know that I want to exist, right? I don't want to not — I don't want to perish, and I don't want to be a victim. I don't want to be a statistic. I want to be in the future. So, FUTUREHOOD: where we can live in the future. That's the whole concept.