G Herbo talks 'Humble Beast,' Donald Trump's ignorance, and sacrifice

The “G” in G Herbo could stand for several things, and “grind” is definitely one of them. Proving that hard work pays off, the 22-year old rapper has built a pretty respectable reputation for himself. His track record includes guest appearances on singles from superstars like Nicki Minaj and several well-received mixtapes and EPs. The Chicago native’s work ethic and consistency has led him to one of his proudest accomplishments: his debut album Humble Beast. With the release of his long-awaited debut, he also had a message to deliver. “I just want people to understand that life is not a coincidence, so having faith, working hard, making sacrifice – meaning taking the time out of doing what may please you for the moment and putting it into what you believe in and what you want to do in life will be the difference in you making it to where you want to be or not,” said Herbo.

Always grinding, G Herbo stopped by REVOLT to talk Humble Beast, Donald Trump and growth.

In its opening week, your debut Humble Beast scanned over 20k units. Those are solid numbers for an independent artist. What was your initial response to those impressive numbers?

G-Herbo: Honestly, as far as the numbers, I didn’t really get attached to them. I just like to stay humble. The album could’ve did 5,000 or 50,000, and I probably would’ve kind of had the same response. It just would’ve been a matter of me wanting to work more and please my fans.

Part of why your debut took a minute to complete was you wanting to craft something in vein of classics like Reasonable Doubt and Illmatic. Do you think you delivered a classic with Humble Beast?

G Herbo: Yeah. I definitely did exactly what I wanted to do with the project. It’s a classic album to me, and to a bunch of people. I feel like a lot of my fans will consider it a classic. But I think as an artist, you shouldn’t rush your work. You should always be in a position where your music should be a symbol of you. It should symbolize you. Every artist should want their project to be as perfect and as near to them as possible. It was never really a delay, because we never put out an official date for my project. It just took a minute.

What do you want fans to take away from this, your debut album?

G Herbo: My album is basically a blueprint, an outlining of my life, where I come from, everything that I’ve been through, the situations I had to overcome to get to where I am and me still being prepared to overcome even more situations to get to where I want to be. I want my fans or anybody who listens to my album to just understand that anything is possible, literally. Anything you want in life that you want to strive to do and put your focus into doing is possible.

You’ve said that if the right opportunity presented itself that you’d consider signing with Master P. What about Master P makes you feel like he’d be a good person to navigate the music business with?

G Herbo: I feel like the first thing is that you have to be able to do is help yourself, so nobody could be able to help me as much as I can help myself. It was more of a respect thing. If the situation was right anything could happen. I wouldn’t just sign to anybody, regardless. Nobody period. I’m just saying from a respect level if the situation was right I’d fuck with P. I feel like he would teach me. He would help cultivate me as an artist.

What are your thoughts on President Trump calling for NFL players to be fired for taking a knee during games?

G Herbo: It’s Trump, man. He’s negative. I hate the nigga, honestly. He’s a businessman, I don’t know how the fuck he’s president. He’s not fit to be – he’s fucking Donald Trump. He don’t care. He’s ignorant. Everybody knows we have an ignorant president, yet they act so surprised that he said fire whoever kneels. He don’t give a fuck. He don’t care about human rights. He don’t care about what’s right. We knew this before he was elected president.

At one point in life, you were willing to put it all on the line for the streets, but now music is what you’re willing to sacrifice for. Was there a moment in particular that helped you make that transition?

G Herbo: No. People ask that all of the time. There was never one moment. I had just been going through shit everyday like police encounters, people dying, my friends being killed, but it had never triggered that I need to do this. I always had good people in my corner that always wanted the best for me. But it starts with you. Anything you want to do is going to rely with you.

If you want to do music, you have to do music. You can’t do music and the streets, especially when you’re all the way in the streets. It’s impossible. There’s no way you can be a musician like me on a global standpoint and doing something good to take care of yourself and your family and still be in the streets. It’s common sense. You can’t do both. I made the sacrifice of cutting ties with a lot of the shit I was in.

What’s next for G Herbo?

G Herbo: That’s the thing with being an artist or just being on top of your brand or being a businessman or boss or whatever you call it, you gotta know. I know my project Swervo is coming next. Me and Bibby going to work on a project, No Limitataions. We’re probably going to drop that next year. I just signed my first three artists, so I’m going to put together a compilation album or mixtape. It’s going through the same system. 150 Dream Team. There’s a lot in store. My second album, Swervo is completely done. 100% finished.