George Watsky’s career offers an archetypal story of finding success as a poet in the 21st century.
A San Francisco native, Watsky (who works under his surname solely) got his start doing slam poetry in his early teens, performing and competing locally before he started notching broader recognition, including dazzling during a national competition at New York’s Apollo Theater when he was 19. After an attention-grabbing appearance on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam in 2007, Watsky’s one-man show in Boston (where he was attending college) led to a feature profile in The Boston Globe that dubbed him a “poetry-slam star.”
Then came the launch of his Hip Hop career. Watsky showed off his impressive MC skills on his eponymous 2009 album, seamlessly translating his smart and clever writing about social issues and modern life into the Indie Hip Hop realm. Watsky’s next 21st-century cultural touchstone was perhaps the most important, career-wise — in 2011, a video of him rapping titled “Pale kid raps fast” went viral, racking up four million views in two days and spawning innumerable “challenge” videos where other rappers tried to match his lightning-fast pace.
Building on the attention, Watsky set out to prove his artistry was bigger than a momentary burst of viral infamy. He began touring all over the world with his 2013 album, Cardboard Castles, which topped the iTunes Hip Hop sales chart when it was released. Watsky’s next two albums — 2014’s All You Can Do and 2016’s x Infinity — featured collaborations with everyone from Anderson .Paak and Twenty One Pilots’ Josh Dun to Rock legend Stephen Stills and Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs. Hamilton’s creator Lin-Manuel Miranda is also a friend and fan of Watsky’s. The MC/poet contributed to The Hamilton Mixtape album and Miranda’s praiseful quote about Watsky’s 2016 collection of essays, How to Ruin Everything, was plastered on the book’s cover, giving it a boost on its way to becoming a New York Times bestseller.
In early January, Watsky released his fifth album, Complaint, which is highly melodic and features the rapper showcasing his affable singing voice more than ever. Complaint is also his most inward-looking album to date, showing an endearing vulnerability in its honest personal observations.
“This one is more saying, ‘Why am I afraid to write about certain aspects of myself?’ ” Watsky said in an interview with Alternative Press. “I think for years I’ve been afraid to go negative because I believe kindness is such an important quality to carry through the world. But I went to therapy this past year, and one of the themes of my therapy sessions was that every human has a light and a dark side, and that doesn’t make you a bad person.”
Watsky brings his Complaint tour to Cincinnati’s Bogart’s on Tuesday, Feb. 19. Click here for tickets/more show info.
This article appears in Feb 13-20, 2019.