Interview ‣ Leeky G Bando
Mr. Bed-Stuy: Leeky G Bando
Meet the new voice of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.
Cece Moll
Writer
Updated
New York Drill is in its prime right now. Over the past 5 years we’ve seen it rise from underground to mainstream. We’ve seen young legends come up, increasingly tougher production levels and more overseas link-ups than ever before. With Brooklyn being the leading borough in the scene right now, we caught up with one of its rising stars, Leeky G Bando, or as he also coined himself: Mr Bedstuy.
We meet with Bando at a studio session on 420. It’s the late-afternoon and everyone’s high but despite this, the energy inside is moving. Bando and his team don’t seem to stop. They keep a close-knit family- which includes the likes of contemporaries Bizzy Banks, Rubi Rosa and Kha Structure to name a few. In under 2 years he has built up a strong music catalogue, he’s released 2 studio albums Bands Up (2020) and Big Structure Vol.1(2021). He consistently creates and sells merchandise, and he started up his own imprint: Structure Records. For an artist in the beginning of his career, his movements are already big.
Read his interview below:
What’s a moment for you where you realized I’m going up right now?
Half Moon
I’ve had a few of those moments, but it was probably on Waka. Me and Bizzy dropped that and started getting 40k views immediately, everybody was bumping it I was like oh aight!
Leeky G Bando
How did you and Bizzy link up?
That’s the home team! Home town! Growing up together, He from East New York but he’d be in the Stuy a lot.
Where are you from exactly?
BedStuy Brooklyn! I’m Mr Bedstuy right now. They really fuck with me.
Laughs* I’m gonna have to trademark that.
How you feeling about the last project you dropped? Big Structure Vol.1
It went crazy! The numbers really be telling me, the streets really be telling me.
I feel like London and New York are closer than ever right now- there’s a lot of UK beats being used for US voices, especially in Drill music. How are you feeling about that?
Yea those beats are very dope. Very dope. I didn’t know about the UK wave when I started using those beats. They’re just hard. Everybody’s on UK beats! They go good with my voice, I have 6-7 beats right now from UK people.
Do you have a process to creating? Do you ever write lyrics?
I won’t even lie to ya’ll I don’t even write no more! And people will look at me crazy like how you don’t write no more? But I like how it comes out better free-style, I get the flow better, take it as it comes. The way it happens with me and Bizzy naturally, as a rapper that’s it. After a while the writing can be too much, once you start transitioning into more free-style, it flows more organic. I feel like everybody on more of that.
How you feeling about labels right now? Could you see yourself signing something or are you enjoying being independent?
I’m having fun with it right now. Dropping whenever I want, having the freedom to do what I want. But shit, if the labels talk right I’ll talk back!
What do you feel is separating you from all the other stuff coming out of BK?
We don’t think about none of that feel me! Bizzy said it perfectly “I made it cool to jack what I jack” now everybody tryna be like us. Say what we say, jack what we jack. We different with our voice our flow, that’s some real shit that’s some organic shit. We pushing forward, staying on top of it, being genuine.
And it was important from the jump for you to build up a brand?
yeah I think it’s very important. Very important. The fans will message me everyday about the merch, someone from Brazil just text me like when’s the merch coming out! That’s love. So it’s definitely been important to get things like the merch going. And we got Structure records. The first step is here already, we in the building.
What’s something you would say to your future self?
Same thing I’ve always been telling myself. Keep motivated keep going.
