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Chris Conde is a queer Mexican-American rapper based in Brooklyn who matches technically flawless lyricism and punk rock bravado all wrapped in a dripping hot sex-positive ethos that challenges conventional norms. Highlighted by Rolling Stone for having a “mesmerizing flow” and “scandalously entertaining bars” Conde blends hypersexuality with poignant commentary on identity and desire, the rapper is committed to advocating for queer visibility and self-acceptance through his powerful music and dynamic stage presence.

Upcoming shows: Sunday, June 28 @ Brass Monkey

Follow him: Instagram | Website | TikTok

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity by Solonje Burnett, Weed Auntie. Watch the teaser.

WA = Solonje Burnett, Weed Auntie
CC = Chris Conde

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WA: Can you tell us your name, preferred pronouns, and what you do for work/passion.

CC: My name is Chris Conde. My pronouns are he/they. But honestly, just don't call me late for lunch, you know? 

I'm at a point in my life where it's like, my journey with gender has been long and not necessarily tumultuous, but it's been a learning experience for myself. I'm kind of just like I check the non-binary box, but listen - she, he, her, they, I - it's, you know!

‍WA: You know who that's giving? The queen of NOLA Bounce (Big Freedia). She literally says that.

Honestly, I code switch. So it's actually Conde. Yeah, but, like, I say Con-dee 'cause, like, it, ugh, trauma. (laughs)
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WA: That's what I'm saying, let's dig into the trauma. Okay. Let's talk about your memories.

CC: My teachers couldn't pronounce Conde. So, it was just like, "Chris Con-dee? Con-dee?" And I'm like, "Yeah." (laughs) You know?

Especially, when you go visit my cousins in the summertime in Texas, it was like, "Hi, Chris Con-dee," and they would give us shit 'cause we,me and my brother were the only, like, half-white  cousins. Everyone else was full-blooded Mexican. I just check Latin. I say I'm Mexican-American 'cause I am Mexican-American. 

Especially the last 10 years really, doing some soul searching 'cause I would say  "I'm, I'm Brown, I'm Mexican." It's like, "No, girl, you're white passing in a lot of spaces." I spent so much time in Texas and so much time in San Antonio where there were so many other Mexican-American people who looked just like me, but when you take me out of that context, it was like, "Well, you are white passing in some of these spaces," but then in all white spaces, it's like, "You're not real white." 

I think it comes back to what we were talking about earlier. I'm subscribing less to the adjectives while also still holding space and understanding my privilege.

‍WA: Can you tell me a little bit about where you grew up and how your upbringing informed your body image, queerness, and your energy around plant healing, especially cannabis?

CC: So  my parents are military, so I grew up moving all over the place. I was born in San Antonio. I'm half Mexican and half white. My mom is white, my dad is Mexican. I spent summers growing up in South Texas on the border of Mexico in a place called Brownsville. I had a very multicultural upbringing, where me and my brother were brown children with a white mom.

I grew up in a lot of different places and spaces and cultures and I'm so grateful for that. I think I told you, I've been sober for like 12 years. I stopped drinking and stopped using hard drugs. I don't use cannabis. I did for a long time, and I'm so pro-medicine in general, you know? I think there's so many healing aspects to cannabis, and I used CBD for a long time. I still use CBD every once in a while but I found for myself that cannabis and THC specifically was not a medicine that I needed for myself anymore.

‍WA: Okay. One thing we didn't really get into is just what you do for work in passion. Like… Who is Chris Conde?

CC: Y'all didn't know?

‍WA: Inform them.

CC: I am a rapper. I'm an artist and my medium is hip hop, and so I've been pursuing a life as a rapper for the last 15 years. I tour, I put out records, I do a bunch of other things, but rapping is the main gig.
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WA: How did you end up in rap? What made you go into this storytelling profession?

CC: Missy Elliot. I mean I'm gonna be 40 this year. I grew up in the '90s watching BET and MTV, seeing Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliott and being like "This shit is wild." You know? And so, and I'd never seen anything like that creativity.

I mean Missy Elliott, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Biggie, Lil' Kim. I remember printing out lyrics. I learned Da Brat's verse on Sock It To Me,  'cause she was spitting so fast, and I was like, "I bet I could." And I learned it. I remember sitting in the back of the bus, and this is back in the day when we had our radios and we were just like rapping and singing along. And I was like, "This is my part. This is my part."

And I was like, "This is ... this feels good." Like, I think just being like ADHD, it was hitting something that felt good in my brain, and I was like, "I love rap."

I'd been writing poetry for a long time, and then in the early 2000s, I started writing some raps with a friend of mine. We put it on Myspace, and I kinda did it for shits and giggles, and I was just like, "You know, it's fine," or whatever. I wasn't really taking songwriting very seriously at this moment. 

Our friends were just like, "Dude, you're really good at rap." And I'm like, "What? Okay." And then, kind of one thing led to another and I just kept writing raps, you know? And then, long story short, got sober, turned my life around, and was just like, "What do I do now at 27 years old?" And was like, "I'm gonna pursue rap," and, yeah, you know, here we are.

‍WA: The rest is history.  

CC: And the rest is history.
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WA: I do think that for men in rap and hip hop there is an acceptance of big boys immediately from Biggie Smalls, Big Pun, Fat Joe… so, did you ever feel any kind of way about your body image in relationship to what you were going to do as a creative in the space, in the world?

CC: You know, I haven't been fat my whole life. I've, I've actually gained a lot of weight, when I got sober, and so I just  probably, like, switched addictions. I was just like, "I want a cheeseburger," but to me a cheeseburger wasn't gonna kill me like meth was. (laughs) You know?

‍WA: Period.

CC: I've had to navigate what I think, figuring how I want to express myself and the things I wanna wear on stage. I was kind of on this journey with sobriety and other things, I was doing a lot of soul searching and I really wanted to just put myself out there as an artist, and start taking my clothes off, being like, "This is the body that I'm in." Don't let whatever body you're in keep you from experiencing the pleasure and the joy that you want in your life. 

And honestly, I didn't see a lot of other, like, like, fat rappers or fat artists, like, besides, like, Lizzo. And even Lizzo even is, she's not, like, super duper naked on stage. I think Cupcakke is probably the closest artist I've seen, where she’s just a bigger bodied person who's putting herself out there. I like to say that I'm not necessarily body positive. I'm not body negative. 

“I like to say I'm body neutral. I don't wanna be thinking about my body, when I walk into every single space that I'm going into.  I am an artist. I am all these things, and I happen to be in a bigger body.”

‍WA: Women's bodies are picked apart so much more so it's hard, hard to be neutral. We're trying to push forward an energy of ‘all bodies are welcome’. And, like, yeah. You shouldn't have to think about it. Like, whether you're getting on a plane or you're buying clothes.

CC: For sure. And I definitely am not necessarily neutral on the topic of inclusivity, right? I'm body neutral in the sense of, I don't wanna be thinking about my body in every single space I'm, like, walking into. However, I don't wanna go into a space where I don't feel like bigger bodies are not invited. You know what I mean? 

I wanna be a part of events, and I wanna be a part of spaces, I wanna be a part of communities where there's, like, different bodies, where there's people from all different demographics, where there's trans. If there's not a trans Black woman at the party, like, I don't... If the dolls aren't there, uh, girl, I don't wanna be there. 

I don't necessarily wanna be thinking about it all the time. I don't wanna be thinking about my body all the time, however, it's like, we're in our bodies, so it's just gonna happen, you know?

‍WA: In this one clip I saw you performing at a festival. And you were up there in a harness, naked with your tats showing. Your body is free. Ass out. There were old ladies in the front cheering. I'm like, "Oh my God, who is this person? I must meet them."Free in this culture of America, that suppresses and oppresses our bodies no matter what. So what made you literally be nude, from your lyrics to your physical presence? How did you find this level of freedom?

CC: I mean, you said it. I'm a liberated human being. I started taking my clothes off because specifically one thing happened. (laughs) I happened to be wearing a leather jockstrap at a show that I was performing at. I wasn't taking my clothes off at this time, but somehow I got booked at this, like, alternative drag queen's show, and I was the opener. It was at a sports bar, and there was a birthday, and the game was still on, and then they're like, "You need to start." And I start rapping. No one's paying attention. And I took my clothes off. I happened to be wearing boots and a jockstrap, kind of a version of what I do now. 

And people were like, "Oh my God." And I was like, "Yeah, and I'm good at rap." There's a clip of me grabbing this birthday hat off somebody. And I was like, "It's my birthday now, bitch."

“Sex and my body and all these different things have just been a journey for me. Trying to figure out my sexuality in a bigger body, in a sober body, it's been a long journey. Stuff that I really didn't know how to process and then I started rapping about it and writing about it, and I was like, "Yeah, I'm a slut, I'm fat, and I have a good time, and I'm here for it.”

And the thing is, other people love that you're having a good time too, and other people are into it. I still was under fat phobic informed European beauty standard. Conditioned belief system that fat people weren't beautiful, so how could I be beautiful? 

Part of it was I had a boyfriend who was into bigger dudes, who's a chaser. And then I started meeting other dudes who were just into me, and I was like, "Oh... We're... People..." I may not be for everybody, and not everybody is for me, and that is okay. When you can understand that belief system, and walk in it, you can handle rejection with a little bit of grace, and you can also give rejection with a little bit of grace, and hold space for it. Not everybody is into a boy with a belly. And whatever, that's okay. I'm here to have a good time.
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‍WA: Yes. Period. So, you were talking a little bit about your sober journey. I would love to learn more about how you got to this place where you needed to cut cannabis out. As well as, you also said you're into mushrooms, and at SASS, we love nootropics and adaptogens. We believe that these botanicals can really help to stabilize and bring balance to your life. How are you using botanicals, adaptogens, in your everyday?

CC: I don't know specifically what mushrooms make me feel good. I just know that I want them in my body, (laughs). I would love to say that I'm more informed on it, but I just know that the Earth has so much medicine for you. It provides things for you that just help you sustain, can heal you. 

I got tea high the other day. I don't use anything. I just don't love a head change at this point in my life but this was so clear. I wasn't thrown, but I was like, "Oh, I feel very good." Something was happening to my brain, but it was so clear. Like, I could drive. I could handle heavy machinery. It wasn't a place where I felt impaired.

Long story short, I was an IV drug user. I did meth. I was homeless for years. I did not have an address and couldn't stop drinking and using hard drugs. So it's been a journey and I've been sober for 12 years as of this past Saturday.

‍WA: Yes. Congratulations.

CC: Thank you. Unfortunately, I've tried to just smoke weed, but then I'll overuse it. Then when I'm stoned, I'll think I can probably have a beer. So it's a slippery slope back to a place that I can't go anymore and I don't really wanna be. There's definitely times when I'm just like, "I would just love to have a little gummy and walk around a garden like this," but the truth of the matter is it's at a point for me, where it jeopardizes my health and safety. I feel good, and I'm- I'm okay without it, you know?

‍WA: We want you safe. So you can skip the cannabis. The mushrooms and plants are here for you, baby. I love a tea high.

CC: Listen, I was with a friend and he asked "Do you mind if I smoke weed?" I'm like, "Yeah." And he's blowing out the window. I was like, "Cool, cool, cool, yeah." And so, like, we're like watching these, like, music videos. Um, like, we would, like, hang out, and like, fool around sometimes, and then, like, we're watching videos. He's- he's- he's smoking weed. And I remember, like, watching some video with him, I'm like, "This video is so crazy. I feel so good right now." And I got a tiny, tiny baby high.

‍WA: I love it. I mean, sex will get you high too, honey. The dopamine. The oxytocin. 

CC: I think love is my drug.

‍WA: Yes. Ooh, love is the drug we all need.
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‍WA: Who are the legendary people that you would love to have in your dream sweet sesh. Since you aren’t getting high off cannabis, who would you like to have a little tea party with? Could be a queer icon or family members, living or dead.

CC: I really wanna have some tea with Azealia Banks, and be like, "What's actually tea, girl?" Cause she's been such an inspiration to me. I mean, I rap over, like, dance music right now.

‍WA: She had a moment. I liked her, now she's like lightly MAGA. I'm confused.

CC: I think being like a Black woman in America, I will never fully grasp. But then just being in the industry, being in the music industry as a Black woman, all the pressure that she's faced, being famous, all of that, I think that's a lot. And that doesn't excuse the behavior, but I think there's like, there's some layers I really wanna understand because I've been so inspired.

‍WA: You wanna have a therapy session.

CC: I mean, yeah. (laughs) 'Cause she's one of the most talented, human beings alive still.

‍WA: One person I saw you mention, who I'm obsessed with... Saul Williams.

CC: Oh my gosh. Absolutely. Saul Williams. Mr. Williams. Did I tell you I met him? Oh my gosh. Um, Saul, I don't know if you remember me. I ran into you in Houston at a music festival.

He was performing at some music festival in Houston with Pussy Riot, Cardi B, Justice, and Nine Inch Nails, and Princess Nokia.Oh, oh, and, and En Vogue played.

But yeah, definitely Saul Williams. I got into him in high school, and Coded Language is a masterpiece.

‍WA: Ugh. All right. So Saul and Azalea.

CC: Saul, Azalea, and then, definitely Missy Elliott. I think like she's, she's my hero. Supa Dupa Fly is a masterpiece. It's a work of art. There will never be, from start to finish, a no skips record. It's just phenomenal. Um, I think she inspired me so much, um, just, just such a weirdo. Like, that was something that I really noticed. It was like, especially like hip hop in the 1997 era. It was just like Timbaland, Magoo, Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, that sort of East Coast, like, "We're gonna be crazy and cuckoo, and like rap our asses off, and like wear like things that like ch-" I mean, 'cause it also challenged people. Especially with OutKast too, in that same era. Like people were like, "Oh, they're gay." blah, blah, blah. And it's just like, actually like, we're not, and we wouldn't have a problem with that either.

The last one is Zack de la Rocha from Rage Against the Machine. He also is half-Mexican, half-white. He was into hip-hop and rock. He had such an influence on me.Cause the access is way different now, and like the music industry has changed so much. To be able to be that recognized, like that level of fame back then, it doesn't really happen.

I'd say I like to walk in abundance. I live in abundance, and I'm ready to receive whatever God and the universe has for me as far as blessings. And I'm willing to work for them too. So I never wanna be like, "I don't ever wanna be famous." Because I actually don't care about that.I wanna be known enough to be able to get bookings that sustain me and have a good life, you know? I don't need a ton, but like, listen, like I'm wearing a Prada hat, so she likes a little something sometimes. (laughs)
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WA: (laughs) I'm here for it. All right. One last question.  Anything coming up for you? How can we support the man, the mystery, the music that is Chris Conde?

CC: I have an EP with Yvie Oddly coming out. We have a project called Freaky Deaky. Um, if you're not familiar, Yvie Oddly won RuPaul's Drag Race a couple years ago, and she is a phenomenal artist, and just really beautiful. Lives in Bushwick and we just connected. She makes me feel like a kid. When we get together, we ki. We are silly and stupid, and then write these ferocious raps. 

We put a song out last year, and then we're like, "This came out crazy. Let's do some more stuff." So we have a hard techno rap project that we're putting out. We're going into the studio tomorrow to actually record the first single. then we're gonna be putting out music videos, singles, touring, that whole bet. That's what's on deck.

‍WA: Amazing. Do you have a date for the release so people can start streaming, supporting?

CC: No. We do not yet. We're still, we're wrapping up a little bit of the writing. We wanted to knock out this first single, and then start pushing the EP. There isn't a hard date yet, but follow me on Instagram, @conde_nyc. I'm sure there's gonna be a tag in there somewhere, so just click on that link, listen for updates and hang out with me, boo. I'm local.

‍WA: That was perfect. Thank you so much.

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