The first famous, like actually famous, person I ever interviewed was David Banner. He’d been one of my favorite rappers all throughout college, and I was so nervous to talk to him that I actually smoked a cigarette while I was on the phone with him to keep myself from freaking out. He was great—notably, he told me that he and T.I. recorded “Rubber Band Man” in the back of a barber shop—and was generally super gracious despite my fanning out all over the place.

What’s interesting about Banner is that a few years back, he developed this insane guilt complex about having made songs like “Play,” which while extremely catchy is pretty brutally misogynistic. In 2010 he released an album called Death of a Pop Star with 9th Wonder, which unlike everything he’d done for the past decade didn’t have anything remotely resembling a hit single on it, but was actually pretty interesting if you gave it a chance. He just put out a new mixtape, titled Before the Box, and it’s really good. It definitely rides the same woke-ass wave as B.o.B.’s new music (which I am pretty sure I am the only person who enjoys), in that it definitely comes off like Banner’s been reading some InfoWars and is pretty sure there’s a secret world government and shit like that.

Anyhoo, these are the things I think about David Banner, and now that you’ve read this far you should listen to “Get Crunk,” which is from Banner’s Crooked Lettaz days and features Pimp C and is like the best song ever.