An Ivy League degree, courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania. A job in sunny California at Google, arguably the world's biggest brand. It's a dream life for so many Millennials.
Not Hoodie Allen.
Born Steven Markowitz--a name that has essentially melted away from his persona-the now 26-year-old, Long Island-native rapper stripped himself of his "AdWords associate" title in 2011 and returned to New York. Five months later he released his fourth mixtape "Leap Year," earning 250,000 plays on SoundCloud in its first week. Soon anything he uploaded to SoundCloud and YouTube exploded with clicks and comments. But being confined to a record label's rules and branding expectations? Nope. It didn't feel like something "Hoodie Allen" would do, having built a booming fan base by himself, in front of a laptop. Three years later the hype hasn't dwindled whatsoever, with Allen's debut studio album "People Keep Talking" arriving at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 upon its release last month. How did he do it?
"I focused on performing in places that big artists wouldn't try," Allen told RedEye by phone. "There are a lot of markets artists ignore, a secondary or tertiary place, but the middle of the country is where I have my biggest shows. The first city to sell out in my last two tours was in Nebraska."
Again: This is a Top 10 artist who still chooses to remain unsigned.
Part of that is refusing to put himself above his supporters (currently 438,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel). The rapper is constantly responding to @mentions on Twitter, replying to fan emails, hosting Google Hangouts and doing ask-me-anything-style forums simply using Facebook commenting. This is no small task, harnessing millions of followers across the social media spectrum. He does it in person, too.
"I will take a photo and do meet-and-greets with every fan before every show," he said. "I never want to feel unreachable to the people who listen to my music."
What are three things your fans, known as the "Hoodie Mob," can expect to see on your current tour?
A full live band with punk rock energy brought to a rap show, great lighting with a unique stage set-up designed specifically for fans to have fun, and of course, cake. Lots of cake.
Yeah, you always throw cake (based off the song "Cake Boy" from his "Crew Cuts" tape). Safe to assume you won't be heaving rotary phones-like the one on the cover of "People Keep Talking"-off the stage?
[Laughing] You think I want that lawsuit? Those are heavy, man. Cake. Always cake.
You're traveling to Europe and Australia on this tour. How different are fans overseas compared to American fans?
Teenagers are the same everywhere in the world. The patterns are very much the same. I can't carry out as much of a conversation with some fans, like when I'm in Germany, but they seem to still love it. The amusing part for me is how they pronounce my name with different accents.
Your last tour maxed out at 500 tickets per venue. Now shows are three to four times larger.
Yeah, I've never experienced scalpers finding a way to get tickets or people selling them on StubHub [until the last tour]. Parents were mad they got into the system and I got mad, so I changed everything so it won't happen as often. It was a huge learning experience.
Fans rave about your willingness to meet them before shows. What's the wildest thing you've seen prior to a show?
I just get tons of letters from fans handed to me attributing my music to helping them with tough things they're going through. I can't take credit for that, but I'm so glad I'm part of their story. I get a lot of "sign my butt" too.
Your pop culture references are through the roof in your lyrics. Do you ever have a line you want to work into a song but it just doesn't fit?
[Laughing] Crazily enough, no. It's the way my brain works. I'm weird.
(Singing "Dumb for You") "Every night a Friday night, me and Lyla Garrity "
[Laughing] Lyla Garrity is cool. That's a good one.
You've been called "rap Zac Efron" a lot. What other celebrities are you compared to? And are they way off?
They are pretty spot-on. I get Eli Roth, Schmidt from "New Girl" and Zachary Quinto from "Star Trek."
You are great friends with Ed Sheeran, who's featured on your hit song "All About It" on your new album. The music video shows you guys as superheroes. How did all that come about?
I continue to say the song was his idea, and he says it's mine. Who am I to argue with him? Yeah, sure, totally Ed, I thought of it. We've been friends for a long time and we don't do a lot of music collaboration, but naturally as two people who do music, write and record as a livelihood, it was nice to just do that together. We recorded that song in an evening. One day. But we continued to work on it over the course of 14 months. It served as a benchmark for what the rest of the album should sound like. It was the turning point for the album. But the drums changed, we put in live horns and a brass section. We rerecorded a verse and added harmonies. It's so different from the demo.
So is Ed Sheeran your favorite artist to work with?
Yeah, absolutely. It was just such an awesome process. I came in having not worked with other writers before. I write my own hooks and so does he, so I wanted to be respectful. I was being cautious, contributing my ideas to not step on his, but our ideas actually complimented each other, which was crazy. And he wanted to rap so I was obviously like, "Cool, let's do it."
Did you take him to Chipotle after?
[Laughing] I've never brought anyone to Chipotle. We went to McDonald's. Ed is such a regular dude, I have to remind him. I get worried for him. People recognize him, and he's OK eating McDonald's at 1 a.m. in the middle of Manhattan.
That's funny, just you guys sitting there together. But seriously, where did your love of Chipotle come from? You talk about it a lot, in songs and on social media.
I love it, and apparently it's a cultural phenomenon with teenage girls. Someone gave me a $50 Chipotle gift card at a show recently and I was like, "Oh my God, that's the price of two tickets to a show! Are you sure?" But, seriously, it's delicious.
You recently did a video with Grace Helbig (of the "It's Grace" YouTube channel). What was that experience like? I know you are a fan of hers.
It was so fun. She's really nice, super funny. She hazed me in an original video of hers, made fun of me, and I thought it was amazing. She's obviously not scary in real life, but we had fun with it.
Who makes you more nervous: Grace Helbig or Jake Hurwitz when he's trying to rap battle Amir Blumenfeld in College Humor's "Jake and Amir" comedy series that you've guest starred in?
[Laughing] Oh man. I think Grace. Jake and Amir are the homies, and I'm known them for a long, long time. Grace is a newer friendship, but she still intimidates me.
Can we expect a "Rap Teacher Part 4" episode on "Jake and Amir"?
We're going to try and make it happen. I get so much love from that world. You think people would hate you by now, but no. Fans want another episode. It's so fun.
Plus:
On his inspiration for interacting with fans: "I was a freshman in college and I remember hitting up D.A. Wallach, front man of Chester French on Pharrell's label. He was a genius on social media. I asked him for advice, and he actually wrote me back. Not something I anticipated at all. Him being accessible meant a lot. It inspired me to take the same approach. It's a real way to build something for the future."
Hoodie Allen, 7 p.m. Nov. 26 at Riviera Theatre. $30.