Image via Esdras Thelusma
Dario McCarty knows the deal.
Underneath the red glow of a Citgo petrol station, Detroit rapper Talibando fumbles with his phone. His FaceTime camera flips around, revealing a dimly lit stretch of highway stretching out in front of him before he declares: “Seven Mile and Ryan Road. Real trenches!”
The rapper–a member of the Wavy Navy, a loose collective of Detroit rappers that also includes scene stars Babyface Ray and Veeze–is a true Detroit denizen. Luxuriating in the front seat of his prized burgundy Malibu ‘78 (“Real Motor City shit”), he is halfway through a takeout plate of local chain Sweetwater Tavern’s chicken wings (“Legendary Detroit wings. You got to get out here to try some”) when we connect.
Talibando pairs high-energy and hard-nosed Detroit street beats with a delivery so patient and measured it has earned him the nickname “Anchor of the Wavy Navy.” He first broke out in Detroit’s regional rap scene in 2018 with his “E S 7 M Freestyle,” a track named in honor of the Eastside neighborhood of his city. Though his first song ever–a stripped down, hook-less one at that–it immediately made waves online and more importantly, locally.
A slew of successful projects later, including 2023’s Warlord, a breakout 15-track barnstorm featuring guest verses from Veeze, LUCKI, BabyTron, and Babyface Ray, and 2024 has been a year of ascendancy onto the national stage. After opening on Veeze’s transcontinental Ganger tour, and meeting a slew of new producers from outside of Detroit, Talibando has “started putting in work every day on my craft and learning things about the music game.”
It’s more than business. The rapper is also hammering home the particulars of songcraft. “I used to just go in and freestyle–just freestyle until I was tired of rapping,” says Talibando. He laughs, remembering: “I’ve come a long way since the beginning of my career. Even a long way since Warlord.”
When Talibando laughs, you feel it. He has the type of boisterous laugh that makes you feel like there’s a big inside joke you’re both in on. He’s playful and good-humored, and it makes his hustle-minded music all the more slick. His newest album, Art of War, is full of hand-to-hand, money-making anthems like “Sold It All” and the Payroll Giovanni-assisted “All 100s.” These tracks are as indebted to the trap music of early aughts Jeezy and T.I. as they are to the hustler DNA ingrained in Detroit’s street rap. With the help of woozier production from out of towners like LA’s RonRonTheProducer and Southern producer Yung Icey, Talibando floods that DNA with new ice, and takes his regional sound from “uptempo, ra-ra music,” to something slower but no less artful.
If on Art of War Talibando’s words are his paintbrush (as he raps on “Slurred Words”), then his best analogue is Van Goh – if Van Goh conceived his paintings from the bowels of a bando to the tune of three flip phones doing somersaults. Fleeting stills of dusty trap houses and forks in pots are made to pop with flits of color: po’d up pineapple fantas that look like candied yams, rose gold and white cubans colored like candy canes, presidential blueface rolexes, a handful of technicolor pills that look like skittles. Art of War offers a brighter take on a Detroit brand of hustle rap that is usually encased in the cold, hard sonics of its birthplace.
Below is a lightly edited conversation where Talibando and I discuss growing up in Detroit, the city’s culture of hustle, his trap music influences, and more.