Most of the world were just introduced to iLoveMakonnen last month when Drake hopped on his “Tuesday” song for the remix, and subsequently signed him to OVO Sound a few weeks later. He has quite the colorful background, though, with a jail stint for his best friend’s death, going to hair school, a little bit of bad blood with a popular producer and more! So, I compiled a list of 7 need-to-know facts about iLoveMakonnen below!
Marisa Mendez
1. Makonnen went to jail for 4 weeks (in isolation at that,) then did 2 years of house arrest, followed by 4 years of probation, which he just got off of this May…all for something he didn’t really do.
The day after graduating high school, Makonnen and his boys got together to smoke and drink one last time before going their separate ways into the world. He recounted the story to BuzzFeed:
My one friend was on the phone and I’m in the backseat like, “Get off the phone! Let’s hang out.” He was like, “You know, you’re really getting on my nerves.” So he pulls his gun out and cocks it and points it at me. Everyone else is like, “Bruh, chill out, we don’t even play with guns.” He takes the clip out of the gun so he has a clip in his hand, and lays the gun on his lap. I get out of the car, use the bathroom, and come back to the car. He had the gun on his lap with the clip. I’m like, this guy’s tripping and we’re about to smoke, so I’m gonna remove the gun and put it over there by the trash can until we’re done smoking. I don’t think it’s loaded or anything cause I don’t know shit about guns.
I go over to reach for the gun and he feels it falling off of his lap. As he reaches for it, it fires off and hits him in the head, cause there was a bullet in the chamber from when he cocked it and pointed it back at me. So he’s bleeding and I run in the house and get his brother. Then I’m running home crying and telling my mom, “Oh my god, my friend’s dead.” She was freaking out. It was a big freak-out fest.
That night, everybody’s stories corresponded and the police ruled it an accident and said I was free to go. But then my friend who passed away, his mom came back in town. She was raising hell and saying everything, so the police wrote up this warrant and came and got me.
2. Drake wasn’t the first big name to like iLoveMakonnen’s music.
Back in July, Miley Cyrus showed Makonnen some love on Instagram, posting a photo of the cover art for his popular underground single “I Don’t Sell Molly No More,” and captioning it with, “@ilovemakonnen da [sh*t emoji].”
3. He went to beauty school.
“I got off house arrest at the very end of 2009 and was put on probation in 2010. They wanted me to do something with my time so I went to cosmetology school,” he told BuzzFeed. “I was the only guy there and there were so many girls. I really started to understand girls a lot better. It was great. I’d be around those cats all day and have to scrap. So my mouth was getting sassy and shit. That’s all you can really do with girls at beauty school is talk shit.”
READ THE REST OVER AT LIFEISTREMENDEZ.COM
