“The first time I ever jacked off, I used hair gel. Poor life choice.” Although this confession might sounds like the stuff of intimate friendships, it was the very first thing New York-based rapper London O’Connor told me about himself. Before we could talk about music, he insisted we swap embarrassing stories (mine involved my fifth grade Halloween costume: Regis Philbin.) “We’re about to have a really personal conversation,” he teased, “we’ve gotta be on the same page.”
But for the 24-year-old rapper, everything is personal. His hypnotizingly unique breed of hip-hop — collected in his self-released, debut album O∆— has drawn comparisons ranging from Earl Sweatshirt to Daniel Johnston. But really, it’s about what’s right in front of him. “So much of this album is based on the locations around me,” London explained of the 10-track effort, which drops today via Soundcloud. “Oatmeal [O∆’s lead single] sounds like what my childhood living room looks like. As a producer, I look at my surroundings and make those shapes, those colors, into sounds.”
For the first 18 years of his life, that environment was San Marcos — a sunny but stifling Southern California suburb. Not one for team sports, London started skating at the ripe age of six because it was something creative he could do by himself. His first musical memory is of Thrasher’s Skate and Destroy video game soundtrack, and by ten, he was rapping about “money, striking out with girls, you know, all the classics.” But as hometown claustrophobia mounted, London found strength in staying true to himself with a little help from skaters and Bill Murray.
“Early on, it’s instilled that skateboarding is all about being authentic. Authenticity isn’t being anything in particular, it’s being yourself. But the older we all get, life gets more difficult; a lot of people stop letting themselves be vulnerable. Skating always taught me that I’ve gotta be myself, no matter how weird, uncomfortable, or scary life gets. Honesty is the through line of my music,” he said.
An ardent film fan, London saw skate culture’s credo reified in “the dopest protagonist,” to ever cannonball into a swimming pool with a still-lit cigarette, Bill Murray. “I was so timid as a kid growing up. Before leaving my hometown emboldened my outlook, Bill Murray helped me out a lot,” he explained. “In real life and in films, he’s always himself. He’s always so goofy and fucks with everything around him.”
While finishing O∆, London went on a major binge watch: a week of straight, soundless Bill Murray films. “When I was finishing the album, I was going through and just appreciating the transitions in his films and how they come together. The album plays through like a film, so I just surrounded myself with the shit I was into.”
Since switching coasts to study music at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute, London’s life might not be a movie, but it’s certainly more exciting. The distance has given him mental room to creatively process his hometown’s bad bits. O∆ dissects a single day in his teenage life: Love Song is a frank take on a thwarted sexual encounter, while Oatmeal is an ode to crushing boredom, which London translated into his own video game. Players journey through the trippily reimagined California living room in his lyrics, blasting a rocketship past tentacled televisions.
These days, London’s looking for a room of his own. For someone that makes melodies based on intimate surroundings, this transience might seem like a serious roadblock, but it inspired the concept for his most recent video, Nobody Hangs Out Anymore, a melancholy anthem about lonely life in the Internet age. “I’ve been couch surfing for a minute and have no bedroom, so I tweeted and just asked kids for a picture of theirs. A bunch of fans and friends just sent me shit from inside their rooms, so I edited them together and added emojis.”
Hanging out in a bedroom in real life, London met photographer Ryan McGinley. “I approached a girl I thought was cute while I was wearing a dress, and she really couldn’t tell what gender I was. But she thought I was interesting, so we’d hang out a lot,” London explained of his introduction to the youth oracle. “She sent a photo of me in that dress on her bed to Ryan. Soon after that, we worked together for the first time. He’s such a cool dude. I send him music before I put it out and get his take on it.”
Back to that dress. When we meet in Chinatown, he’s wearing a red and white striped Marimekko tunic. In his Love Song video, it’s a long-sleeve situation with a tulip embroidered bib. But London’s dresses don’t have anything to do with fashion. “I always loved rapping, but I didn’t really like rappers. Growing up, I felt they were so tied to a specific gender role and not even a realistic one. They were so masculine and showed no vulnerability. Growing up, that scared me. I didn’t identify with any of them; I didn’t want to be that,” he said. “Every human is both masculine and feminine. We fuck people’s shit up when we don’t let them be everything that they are.”
Attempting to push past rap’s repressive masculinity, London drew a powerful connection between Jay-Z and Judy Cleaver: “For housewives in the 50s, everything seemed so aesthetically glamorous. The suburbs were packaged as peaceful and preferable places, like everything was taken care of. But many of these women weren’t free, they were trapped by a similarly narrow idea of masculinity that repressed them and kept them at home. When I saw those parallels, I just started dressing more like 50s housewives.”
Although O∆ is less than a day old, London’s already looking to the future. “I want to give people tools to change their environment, and to not be timid or isolated in the way that I was growing up. I’m building a world for people, but it’s even more than that. I’m giving people the ability to explore.”
Credits
Text Emily Manning
Photography Eric Chakeen