Maxo Kream is back with a fourth — or perhaps, eighth, if you count by his reckoning — album, Personification. A showcase of the Houston native’s storytelling prowess, Personification sees the Brandon Banks rapper following up 2021’s Weight Of The World with a synthesis of his three “big personas”: Emekwanem, Maxo’s real name; Punken, the more reflective version of the rapper, and Trigga Maxo, the version of Maxo that once recklessly ran the streets of Southwest Houston.
Finally free of “all his cases,” as he put it via Zoom, Maxo’s latest album gives him an opportunity to unpack the hard-fought lessons he’s learned over the past several years of conflicting lifestyles. Yes, he was once a young, wild gang member terrorizing the community, but he was also an athlete, a member of a team. Now, he’s a father, an entertainer, a teacher. Personification is Maxo’s attempt to reconcile these roles and the choices he’s made within them to offer contrasting views of each.
So, while there are plenty of “shoot-’em-up” tracks like “Mo Murda” and “Triggaman,” there are also joints that look back on those times with the furrowed brow of experience. “Big Hoe Me” and “Cracc Era” see Maxo examining the consequences of those youthful mistakes and the insecurities that led to them, while songs like “Walk By Faith,” which features his younger brother Josh under a new rap name, take a more meta view, laying out the game and letting listeners decide where they fall on the board.
Personification is a rapper’s story, injecting difficult truths into the rap tropes. Maxo deconstructed the album with Uproxx, expanding on the insights he expresses in its 14 tracks with his signature blunt honesty, and uncompromising wit.
Personification was a tough listen for me because some of the content on it reminded me very much of how I grew up and where I grew up. First and foremost, “Big Hoe Me.” It’s got such a harsh outlook toward negative mentorship. I wanted to ask, what made it so important to you to compare and contrast positive mentorship, versus that kind of negative mentorship?
Yeah, bro, a lot of these n****s be hoes. A lot of these n****s don’t really be that. They be living through their 2nd childhood to little n****s all on the side. Not everybody like that. I didn’t have no big homie that was a hoe. But I know some hoe ass big homies.
I’ve been doing this shit since 2003. We in 2025. I played sports, everything, rap, all that. So, it just shit in the hood. It’s not only with gang shit. It’s mentorship. It’s parents like that. It’s fathers like that. It’s coaches like that.
We actually been on corners back in the day. That’s how I knew my homie. A lot of these n****s know each other from Instagram and motherf*cking GTA. That’s how they know each other. They don’t even stay on the same side of town. They gotta come and drive to the block. They’re commuting to the hood.
I do rap about the turned up side and sliding, the drilling, the riding for your n****s. But I also talk about, okay, as soon you go home, this comes to your door. The opps might come slide on you and slaughter your people by mistake. Looking for you. I show the pros and cons. There’s a lot of rappers that don’t do that.
So, that leads me into why I had such a big laugh on “Smokey.” “Out of town, banger, go to Cali and get laughed at.” Can you elaborate on that principle? Can you elaborate on what gets gotten laughed at from out here?
Hell yeah. I feel like in Houston, they’re riding Cali n****s dick, and the Cali n****s don’t give a f*ck about them for real. They respect n****s that come from Houston and rep their own sh*t. I’m from Forum Park [Crips]. We got our own history. They respect that. I never came to Cali, came to Hoover Street, came to the Hoovers [a Los Angeles Crip set], like, ‘Yo, I’m looking to be down.’ I’m coming over here like, ‘I do this. Y’all do this’. It’s respect. I was at the studio with Hit-Boy and Big Hit. When I’m saying the sh*t, they felt that. And they respect everything I do.
It does feel like there is, on this one, a little bit more sense of disapproval or maybe remorse of Cripping lifestyle. Did your outlook on the lifestyle begin to change recently and if so, what caused the shift for you?
I ain’t going to say it changed. With me being older and having kids and seeing these young n****s that look up to me… I never crashed out a young n****. I had never told my n**** to go slide or drill or nothing like that. I’m like, “Come to my concert. Come to my show, come on tour, and come to the studio.” I did it because when I was a young n****, I did it on my own. Or did with my niggas, but we past that, bro. I ain’t going to send no young n**** to do nothing. Then he go to jail or send the young n**** to do something, and they die because then that’s on me.
Because I did that. I’m responsible for that. I just speak on the Crip sh*t because I’m a retired gang member. I’m not a gangbanger. I used to actually bang. So, I’m really respected. So, it’s different when you hear something from, like, a teacher. But when you hear something from a n****a that you idolize, and it be the same shit that you been through, it hit different. You don’t understand, being a rapper… We really got more focus on the household than the parents, bro. That’s why people be so mad at the music. So I’m like, bro, so if I’m going to talk about it, I gotta cover something about what happened after this. Or put out a jail song. Because that’s going to happen to your ass. If you’re doing all the sh*t I rap about, avoiding jail is not real.
They’ll put you on probation for 15 years.
Come on, man. Freed Young Thug, but he ain’t all the way free.
What’s the best part about working with your brother?
The best part about working with Josh, that motherfucker cold. That n**** never wrote a rap in his life. I told him to write a rap. And he didn’t rap for 3 months. When I took him to the studio, I think one of the first songs he did was “Brothers.” I can’t wait for him to lock me into his full fledge shit, so then I can sit back and just, “Alright. Josh hot as hell. Let me do a song with Josh.” I came from writing. But if I got to write at this point, I’m going to say “f*ck rap.” A lot of shit was written up to Punken. That’s when I start writing for real. I’ll look at the difference between Brandon Banks versus Punken. And that was my two biggest albums. Now today, look at Weight Of The World. You feel me?
We have this conversation again in a year. Where do you wanna say that Personification ended up and what has happened in that year since?
I want to say that sh*t, add another package to my catalog. I’m touring amphitheaters. And KCG Josh or Josh Kream, Joshua Biosa — whoever that n**** is — my brother is big as hell, and I can piggyback off this n*** and I’m a coast. And we in the motherf*cker doing big sh*t on PJs. Getting property for my mama. Just living, bro. I wanna be living. A lot of these n****s die. I want to be old. Out living. That’s where I want to be.
Personification is out 11/15 via RCA. Get more information here.
