Rapper Mavi on his new album "Laughing So Hard It Hurts"

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

NPR

Society & Culture

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hailing from Charlotte, NC, young rapper Mavi is one to watch. He created his first album, "Let the Sun Talk", during his freshman year at Howard University. After garnering great reviews, his career started to take off. He recorded a second album, "End of the Earth," and got invited to collaborate with artists he admired and opened for Jack Harlow on tour. And last year, he recorded a stirring third album, "Laughing So Hard It Hurts." Mavi crams 16 songs into 32 minutes on "Laughing So Hard It Hurts." It's an album about pain and relationships. It's dense, intimate and even a little lonely-sounding at times. We talked with Mavi about why he made that choice.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn. I want to recommend a record to you. It's called Laughing So Hard It
0:05.2	Hirts. It's by my next guest, Mavi. He's a rapper from Charlotte, North Carolina. The album came out
0:12.0	late last year. Laughing So Hard It Hirts is an album about pain, the pain of losing a friend
0:19.2	and loved ones, the pain of generational trauma, of relationships ending. None of this is
0:25.2	necessarily new territory in hip hop. But what makes Mavi's latest record so special is its
0:31.6	vulnerability. Through his rhymes, the beautiful subdued production, he doesn't tell you about pain.
0:38.6	You feel it with him. Mavi crams 16 songs into 32 minutes,
1:07.6	on Laughing So Hard It Hirts. He's still early in his career, but he has a lot to say. I'm
1:12.4	grateful to get to talk to him. And a quick note before we get into this interview, we did have
1:17.2	some technical issues during the recording. So we had to use Mavi's backup recording from Zoom.
1:22.8	So if it sounds a little different from your usual Bullseye interview, well, that's the reason why
1:29.4	it's a really great conversation. Amazing, dude. Let's kick things off with another song off
1:34.0	Laughing So Hard It Hirts. Dugs.
1:56.5	Mavi, welcome to Bullseye. It's nice to have you on the show.
1:58.9	Thank you so much for having me. I like so much stuff.
2:02.4	I'm glad that you like your record. I can see you there. The high point in the history of this show
2:09.0	of people enjoying listening to their record is I had one of the pointer sisters in studio with
2:15.2	me one time and she just started singing along to herself. And I was like, yeah, that's what's up.
2:21.8	Both of those happening is both a super-hew to come. Having the pointer sisters and people
2:28.8	in this life and sort of live performance just playing the song. I mean, it's just nice when people
2:34.8	like their records. I understand the feeling of wanting to hide from your own thing that you
2:40.7	poured 20,000 hours into. But I also just like it when somebody likes their song and you were
	...

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