When OsamaSon sent me a physical copy of his new album Psykotic back in October, he included with it a new Walkman CD player. I loaded the disc in, put the black corded earbuds into my ears, and pressed play. Within seconds, the explosive jolt of “Habits” convinced me that the Walkman was broken. I began tinkering with the headphone cord, twisting it around in the hopes that it would clean up the song’s warped, distorted crunch.
Once Psykotic hit streaming a few weeks later, it became clear that the album’s gnarled, crackling gut punches were completely intentional. To the untrained ear, songs like “Inferno” and “In It” can be a nauseating, all-consuming nightmare. But OsamaSon takes a lot of time crafting his seismic sound. Dialing everything up to 11 is a very serious job, and the 22-year-old rapper knows the difference between what’s just noise and what’s a certified hit.
His fans do too. The album hit No. 81 on the Billboard 200, and that mutual understanding has led to an unbelievably ravenous — and at times incredibly toxic — fanbase that OsamaSon loves, but is often frustrated by. It also explains why early album copies were sent out via Walkman.
The rapper’s previous tape, Jump Out, was almost completely derailed by leakers and hackers before it dropped in January. Hundreds of songs, both old and new, continuously found their way online, and the situation became so dire that Osama’s own team allegedly released a 10-track tape called Leaks Tape to help keep fans engaged. Osama notes that even though Psykotic’s rollout was much cleaner, the leaking issue persist to this day — and that it’s not just his music being posted online anymore.
Below, Billboard chats with OsamaSon before his show at Brooklyn Paramount to talk about his new album and how he’s overcome the leakers, haters, and controversies that surround his art.
Now that Psykotic is out in the world, how are you feeling about this project versus Jump Out?
I feel way better about this project than the Jump Out project. When I dropped Jump Out, there were a lot of mixed opinions. I don’t feel like they understood it. I’m seeing more positive opinions on Psykotic. I feel like they received it a lot better.
Take me through the earliest stages of Psykotic, and how you found your sound. It seems like you really knew what you wanted the album to sound like.
Just experimenting and trying s—t that I like personally, and not trying to be too inspired by other people. It’s just me going to the studio, me recording myself, recording, and recording, and recording. I got so many songs, and people might think the songs I put out are just what I’m making right then and there. How many songs are on Psykotic? 17? Out of those 17, I had to pick from like 1,000 I made this year.
How do you narrow it down?
It depends on the feeling I’m going for. So Psykotic was supposed to be psychotic, obviously. I’m trying to go for the loud noise, super good mix, but still crazy where you’re either gonna be surprised by the lyrics or the beat. I don’t ever go off of, “Yo, this snippet is goin’ viral; I gotta drop it.” That adds into it, but if I don’t personally like it, I’m not gonna drop it.
Your sound is definitely unique to you, but at the same time, I can hear the XXXTENTACION, Lil Uzi Vert influence on your music. Do you intentionally pull from them, or is their impact more through osmosis?
Being humans in general, I feel like we do a lot of s—t unintentionally all the time without even knowing. Sometimes I be makin’ a song, and I’m like, “This is the craziest song; I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like this.” Then I end up going back to some old, old music, and I hear Uzi say a bar that I happened to say in a new song. I didn’t do that on purpose — that happens all the time. I feel like that’s just being an artist.
You seem intent on pushing outside your creative comfort zone. How do you feel about the term “rage rap” to describe your music? Does that term ever make you feel boxed in?
Not really, ’cause they label me something new all the time. First it’s underground rap, then it’s dark plug, and now it’s rage rap. I feel like it’s always gonna change, so I don’t really try to dwell too much on that aspect of it. It’s based on your opinion. Some say I might make music for the ladies, some might say I make music for the mosh pits. I might say I make music for myself.
Tell me about how that fueled your approach to the album’s cover art. That started quite a bit of controversy online.
It’s a fire cover art, man! It’s not even nothin’ to get — like if you want me to keep it 100% with you, bro — it wasn’t nothin’ crazy. Like we wasn’t tryin’ to be on some blasphemous s—t—Man, you know what?—We were. Yeah, we were trying to disrespect all the religions! F—k ’em, f—k everybody. F–k how everybody feels. That’s what the cover is, man: F—k you. I sent this s—t to my mom and everything, and she was like, “This is perfect.”
I saw something on Reddit about how you should have instead leaned into some Osama Bin Laden terrorism vibes because of your name. It left me thinking, “That can’t possibly be a more preferred branding.”
Yeah! Like should I be a terrorist or a devil worshipper? I’d rather be a devil worshipper.
Do you feel in those moments you’re kinda taking the power back from your haters in a way?
Yeah, and at first I didn’t really realize it. I wasn’t using my power how I was supposed to, bro. I cared about what people thought, and I’m at the point where I don’t give a single f—k about what anybody thinks, because it doesn’t matter! The only opinion that matters to me is my mom’s. I don’t give a f—k about anybody else’s opinion.
Regardless, it also seems like this was your first leak-free rollout of an album.
I mean, I feel like my fans just accepted that it comes with the s—t. I feel like they accepted the leaks, the crazy s—t that happens behind my name—I don’t know. I feel like people are more used to what’s going on now. When it first started happening, I’m not gonna say I was the first to go through it, but the rate I was goin’ through it…
It was unbelievable how often your music was getting leaked out.
Yeah! Even for myself, I understand this way more. I just feel like it’s my life.
How did the leaks influence your approach to making this album and the subsequent rollout? I imagine it must have made you pretty paranoid about sharing music.
It was hard. I had to learn how to not feel some type of way about every leak. I used to just be in my feelings a lot, bro. I feel like the music I was making was super hard. And even if I didn’t put it out at that time, with [leakers] putting it out for me, it was kinda like… like, you see all the reactions to it, the feedback, and you’re just like, “I coulda dropped this on my own.” Like, I just — hm, I just gotta — It’s hard, bro. It’s my life too, so it’s like, I don’t know. I just don’t feel like I’m ever gonna get away from it.
From your perspective, what happened, and why have the leaks been so persistent?
Honestly, the attention the leakers were getting from it — with me being an up-and-coming artist and not a lot of people going through the same thing that I went through — it was kinda like that shock factor. You see [the leakers] are getting so lit, and that’s what it is, bro. These leakers are getting lit behind it. It gives them a name. They don’t have to show their face or post selfies. They just leak my music and get 2,000, 3,000 followers. For me to get 3,000 followers, I had to post like five trailers. I had to really work for it. All they gotta do is post my leak. It’s been kinda weird, man; it’s fried.
I genuinely don’t understand. I don’t think I’ll ever have a firm answer on it because it’s always different. Sometimes the leakers will be like, “Yo, f—k you and your whole family. I’m gonna leak everything.”
They’ve messaged you and said that to you?
Yeah, they leaked the address to my mom’s house! They got my mom’s house raided. Then the week after that, they’ll text me and be like, “Yo, my bad bro. I was tweakin’. I’m sorry, I really love you to death.”
That’s so crazy.
Yeah, it’s pretty weird, and I’ll never fully, genuinely understand it. I just gotta deal with it. But you kinda learn how to avoid it in certain ways—not send your music out to people, put music on hard drives, s—t like that. But you can’t 100% avoid it. Some people be like, “Yo, just don’t send your music to nobody.” You can’t not send your music to nobody! You got engineers, you got creatives that can’t f—kin’ create unless they’re hearing the music.
You want them to create on a blank canvas, somethin’ that doesn’t match the music at all? My manager has to hear the music, my producer has to hear the music. Maybe they wanna switch somethin’ up. It’s kinda impossible not to send s—t out to get worked on. If I don’t send it out, it’s never gonna drop.
It’s true, it’s not like you can wait for all these people to get in a room with you.
You feel me? Then if I do send it out, leakers somehow have been able to get their hands on this, or they hack my phone, or they just happen to hack this phone.
So is that how the idea of sending the album out with a Walkman came about?
What’s the Walkman?
The CD player!
Oh, that was [my team’s] idea. It was a cool idea. It was pretty fire.
How much did that help?
There were some songs that leaked out, but from [the CD copy], zero leaks, for sure. I think it was from me sending songs to my producer some months ago. I wasn’t even mad about it. It’s better than the f—kin’ last project. That whole s—t leaked before it came out.
I’m not gonna lie; I listened to the album on that Walkman, and I thought that my headphones were distorted or blown out. Then I realized that’s just your vibe.
Yeah, a lot of people were sayin’ that. It was probably just the mix, not gonna lie. We were mixing and mastering it till that s—t came out.
Did the leaks hinder your creative approach to making music?
Sometimes. It depends on how I feel about that song specifically. They was leakin’ bulls—t that I knew I was never going to drop, and I was like, f—k it; y’all can have it. But there have been times where we’re like planning on dropping s—t, like we shot videos, trailers, and somehow, as soon as we start working on the actual song, they leak it. Like, are they tapped into my phone? There’s been times where I’ve been having conversations on the phone, saying, “Alright, let’s shoot this video tomorrow.” I’ll wake up, and [my team] is like, “Yo, you’re never gonna believe what just happened.”
Have you met any other rappers at your age who are experiencing this?
No, I try to ask my peers all the time. I mean, I know Che went through it a little bit. There was this app called Untitled, and some leakers run the app. Whenever you log into it, they can go through every single person who’s ever made an account. It’s supposed to be a private place to upload your music, but that’s how a lot of people got hit. And just SoundCloud having horrible protection. Bro, you can hack SoundCloud with a link, and you can literally start typing in random letters to get into people’s accounts. It’s super easy. But yeah, I tried to ask my peers, but I don’t know. Some people’s music is just not wanted that bad, you know what I mean? Or some people just put out a lot of music to where their fans are satisfied. [My fans] just aren’t satisfied. I’m pretty sure they’re just anxious and wanna be the first people to know what we’re doin’ next.
Yeah, it’s not just the leakers, but your fans are unbelievably hungry for OsamaSon music. In a way, it’s flattering.
It’s flattering and frustrating, not gonna lie. It’s a lot more flattering. I used to work a 9-to-5, bro. People used to judge me. I used to check people into hotels.
Has that level of fan engagement this early on in your career been overwhelming at all?
Nah, I’m not gonna say I feel like I deserve it, but I always felt like I was meant for this life. I didn’t have plans on doing anything else. Like, it’s fire, man. This is exactly what I want, even with the leaks and stuff. When I was a kid, seeing [Playboi Carti] get leaked, or Uzi get leaked and s—t — those are the greatest of our generation. Literally the greatest, you feel me?
So that s—t was inspiring! Like, “Yo, everybody wants to hear his s—t. Like, this is crazy! When they gonna start leaking my music? That’s when I know I’m up!” Then it started happening, and I was like… did I really want that? But I kinda did, when I was a kid! The little me is looking at me right now like, “Yo, you wylin’, bro!”
