Atlanta Trio MIGOS Have The Rap Game In The Palm of Their Hands

The Parlé Mag Interview with Migos

After dropping their critically acclaimed Yung Rich Nation LP, Atlanta bred rap trio Migos, who is comprised of Quavo, née Quavious Marshall, Kirshnik ‘Takeoff’ Ball and Kiari Cephus, professionally known as Offset, quickly reemerged with a 15-track mixtape outing, Back to the Bando, with production courtesy of Zaytoven, OG Parker, Drumma Boy, Black Akademy, Murda Beatz and Dun Deal.

Lots of music is the groups mode of operation. And since the trio burst into the national limelight with their 2013 hit single “Versace” they have released more than a handful of catchy tracks that represent their Atlanta swag. They’ve also released at least 13 mixtapes since 2011.

The group has been co-signed by Gucci Mane and have worked with a number of big names in the music industry, including Young Thug, Yo Gotti, Travis Scott and many others. They recently announced a partnership with Kanye West and his G.O.O.D. Music imprint and they are still one of the acts distributed by Lyor Cohen’s 300 Label.

Clearly this rap trio has a bright future ahead of them. Migos has the rap game in the palm of their hands.

We caught up with Migos for an interview to talk about the music, their impact on the music game & much more…

Parlé: Tell me how the three of you initially came together in order to form the group?

Migos: We are all family; then Takeoff is my nephew, Offset is my cousin, and goes vice versa. And, we’ve been family members all of our lives and we just decided to put this shit together, change our lives, change our families lives, and started rapping. And it worked fortunately, thank God! And, we just had to get out of our situation that we had going on in the North-side, and the North-side is Gwinnett and that’s the North-side of Atlanta.

Parlé: Who were/are some of your biggest musical influences?

Migos: Our musical influences basically (are) based on the South music; such as, Hot Boys, Master P… such as T.I., Gucci, Young Jeezy…such as; who else? Tupac, even though we wasn’t growing up listening to Tupac. By that time he passed away, so we were probably five or six but we grew up off his music, listening to it ’cause our mom played it. Yeah, pretty much that’s it… and Outkast.

Parlé: How do you all describe and/or define the style of music that you all create and perform?

Migos: Our music if you listen to it, it’s got all that in it. We try to repeat history. We tried to make it our own way, and try to convert it and make our own. We came together putting our own styles in one pot ’cause it all sounds like when you hear (it), it’s unique but it’s still got some flavor to it. Like, you know, we from the South because we got all our ways from the south, so that’s why I think we put it in – put it together – and we just call it Trap Funk. That’s what we call our way of speaking ourselves; we trap funkin’… that’s our genre of music.

Parlé: Your highly anticipated debut, Yung Rich Nation [YRN/Quality Control/Atlantic] – Conceptually, what does that title represent both to and for you all?

Migos: We graduated and celebrated, opening up doors to handle business. So that’s what we had to do.

Parlé: What do you all think will be the ultimate key to Migos’ success?

Migos: It all relies on one thing, baby, great music. Great music keeps you alive. You can be dead in the ground, but your music will still live. So just keep that great music going.

Parlé: Do any of you all have any other future aspirations, maybe even completely away from music?

Migos: We see things like clothing lines. We got our clothing line, Yung Rich Nation, the brand. It’s a brand now, but it all started off of music. But, it’s expanded to being a clothing line and now our clothing line, Yung Rich Nation, is in Tillys, UPLR, just got locked into Finish Line, so it’s doing well right now. So, that’s what we’re doing.

Parlé: The Yung Rich Nation LP dropped and then two months later you returned with a new project Back to the Bando – Why so soon?

Migos: ‘Cause you don’t want to leave the fans – we had these fans waiting on our album for so long – that it’s only right we hit ’em back to back and get back to what we were doing, because this album really set back a lot of things.

Parlé: How does Back to the Bando either differ and/or compare to the Yung Rich Nation album?

Migos: We going back to the way you first seen us and not going back to. I mean, like it’s just taking over the streets. Keeping our street team behind us, ’cause we don’t want ’em to feel like we went all the way left and then going industry. You don’t wanna go industry with it. You wanna go industry with your relationships, but you don’t wanna go industry with your music, you get what I’m saying? I’d love to hold my relationships with all the artists I got that’s in the industry or all the artists we have that’s in the industry, but we gotta go back to our ways when we came up – we didn’t come – that’s not the industry – so we’re going Back to the Bando. We’re just going back to the basics, going back to where we started from, messing with producers, just going back to our regular lifestyle. Not letting the fame and fortune be big headed, get us the big heads.

Parlé: Is that basically then the significance behind you all titling the project this?

Migos: That’s what I’m saying; this Back to the Bando is going back to the old material. So, if you like the old Migos; just very trap, just trap. We’re going all the way back to the trap, going all the way back to the streets. If y’all like the old, we’re going right back to that.

Parlé: With that being said, where exactly did the name Migos originally derive from?

Migos: I mean, we family, we brothers. Amigo means friend, but we’re more than friends, we’re family, so we just needed something to stand for and we been standing for that name for a long time; even when we were in high school. So, it just stuck with us.

Parlé: On a more serious note, are you all happy with the current state of Hip Hop?

Migos: Yeah, most definitely, because we running it.

Parlé: To date, what has been your biggest career highlight?

Migos: Uh, it’s plenty highlights, man… I’d say when we met Jay-Z, that’s a highlight meeting Jay-Z.

Parlé: What does the future hold for you all?

Migos: Just being an elite artist, being in that world. (To) be noted as one of the best groups in the world.

YRN album in stores now.

Migos Back to the Bando also available now.

Up next Migos is set to release their sophomore album CULTURE, featuring the lead single “Bad and Boujee”. Check out the video for the single and the follow-up tracks, “Casting Call” and “T-Shirt” below…