Crank Lucas On Mixing Rap and Comedy: “I Just Figured Out a Creative Way To Put It Together.”

Crank Lucas, dope producer, funny as hell and can rap his ass off.

Crank Lucas became a YouTube sensation overnight. Looking for a way to promote his beats, the DMV native took his talents to YouTube and his skits, parody’s, beats and rhymes took off. With a hefty following over a million strong, the talented Lucas provides entertainment through music. Crank has also dropped 3-albums, 2017’s “Rapgoals,” 2018’s, “Generational Wealth,” and last year’s, “It Ain’t Fair.” He has uploaded over 500 videos to his YouTube channel and has generated millions of views. The topics range from rap impersonations to funny relationship skits

I caught up with, Crank who reveals his formula for success, how he balances music and comedy and future projects in the works.

Life seems to be good for, Crank Lucas right now.

Crank Lucas: Life is good. I’m blessed, I’m working good and living my purpose. Doing what I was put on earth here to do. The Hype Magazine reached out, so that’s definitely a good indication of how much we grindin,’ so yeah, just elevation.

You said you are living your purpose; everyone doesn’t find their purpose. How did you get here?

Crank Lucas: It’s what I was born to do. I’ve been around music. My father was a musician. Both sides of my family are full of musicians. In the era that I’m in, I just naturally fell into rap. But I grew up around music. I listen to all types of shit. On the comedy side, I used to study that real heavy too. I just figured out a creative way to put it together. I have always been real good at figuring out creative ways of doing things. I figured out the formula years ago. Getting a song heard is easier if you put it in a video; a funny video, it will pop off. That’s really how I started making skits in the first place, to promote my beats and it worked. It worked well (laughing).

You wear a lot of hats, producer, rapper, comic. Are you enjoying either professional more than the other right now?

Crank Lucas: Right now, I’m focusing on the music. We just shot two videos that we’re about to drop and I’m actually getting ready to work on the third one. I’ve been doing a lot of singles. One of the videos that I just did is the Cam’Ron and Prodigy joint, “Pushing Weight,” but I called it, “Gaining Weight.” I’m just spitting bars on that joint and providing visuals for that. I’m doing my mixtape shit, but also original stuff. I’m just putting more songs out there because people keep saying they don’t hear the songs that I’m promoting, so I’m like, “Alright, let me actually put visuals out for ya’ll.”

Because your skits are so funny, I think it may get lost that you are a dope rapper and you spit some hot stuff.

Crank Lucas: It all works in unison. One helps the other one, for real-for real. That’s the beauty of it. It’s just one of them things that… the more you put it in their face, the more they will actually start to get it. Even though people know this, packaging it up and putting it out there, it just takes a second for them to really catch on the way their supposed to. It’s working.

You bring a lot of things that rappers do to light; especially certain guys flows. Anyone that you know took offense to you using them in a parody?

Crank Lucas: Not that I know of. The only people I really make fun of, are people that put themselves in that position. When Yung Joc had that dress on, I was like, “Alright bruh. I gotta fry you up.” For the most part, I try not to pick too much. If I make a video about somebody, I’m usually a fan of theirs. So, I’m paying homage in a way. The homies sit around and freestyle. I might start freestyling like a certain rapper. That’s kind of how that developed, and I just took it a step further. I was like, “I can do impersonations.” I did a skit about rappers before and after dating, Erykah Badu where I’m gangsta and then I get with her and I’m all neo-soul. She shared it. Her and her sister shared the skit the same day. I did one about how Mannie Fresh used to have long ass intros and he shared that. When people see it, if it’s funny, they gonna fuck with it.

Collectively, one thing we can’t do enough of is laugh, and you have perfected a brilliant way making people laugh. You said in an interview, unemployment made you creative. Could you elaborate?

Crank Lucas: This was my go-to. What happened was, after I loss my last job, by that time, I was in the mind frame of, “Okay, now I have the freedom to live my purpose.” It wasn’t even feeding me consistently, but I figured out a way to put it together. That’s what it’s all about and that’s why I said I’m living my purpose. Some people don’t find theirs, but if you really tuned in to what’s going on around you, your purpose will fall in your lap.

Anyone with a phone and can create a YouTube account can technically do what you do, but you have created something that has garnered millions of followers and that’s not easy. How did you make your purpose your reality?

Crank Lucas: It was just a formula of good beats, good rhymes, comedy and truth. It doesn’t hurt that I can act a little bit. It was that formula and putting those things together… like its gotta work. I have a certain standard and my standard is, it’s gotta be undeniable. Everybody’s not going to like everything, but for the people that like this particular joint, they gonna fuck with it. Putting that together, I knew it would work, but I didn’t know it was going to take off the way that it did, but I knew the potential of it.

You put something into the cyber world and then you go to bed. You wake up and it’s blown up. Do you remember that moment?

Crank Lucas: Yeah! The first skit that I did where I was actually rapping, I posted that on a Sunday night. The next morning when I woke up, it had got up to 300,000 views. I was like, “Whoa, this is crazy.” That following week, I did another skit, and it did a million views overnight. I never did anything a million times. I actually like researched the number one million and it showed a picture of one million boxes. That was just a visual representation of, this is how many people my shit touched. It’s crazy, it’s overwhelming… it’s very fucking overwhelming, but it’s a blessing. Like I said, when you put those right ingredients together everything just meshes so perfectly.

With the internet, you gotta take the good with the bad. Do you view the comments on your videos, or do you try to avoid them?

Crank Lucas: Like I said, I started doing the skits to promote my beats, so I would go through the comments and read them because people would be like, “Okay, where can I get this beat from?” I’m engaging with people that are trying to click and go to the next link. Also, engagement is one of the things that they teach us when making YouTube videos. It’s important to comment because it gives people a connection with you. It makes them feel closer to you. That’s what this whole social media shit is about. That’s why going live on IG is so important because it’s a way for people to talk directly to you. There’s negative comments but I laugh them off because it’s mostly positive and mostly love. The negative is always going to stand out, but it’s never going to overshadow the love.

Is there any artists or song or scenario that you would consider off limits for your skits?

Crank Lucas: Not really off limits… the thing is, I do the parody’s here and there and that’s fun, but it’s not necessarily like, “I’m going to parody this person, I’m going to parody that person.” I don’t really dig too deep into it. The people that I do, I know I’m good at and can pull off, and it’s fun. I put it together. But as far as off limits, nah not really. I done a joint rapping like Jay-Z. I did the east coast rappers, the west coast rappers, the down south rappers. I try to touch everybody. It’s whoever. The bigger they are, the more likely I’ll probably do something with them.

I’m sure you would love to collab with some of the people who you do skits on in terms of the musical side.

Crank Lucas: Oh yeah! I want to collaborate with any and everybody. I’ll rap any style; I like all different types of artists. I would definitely love to do something with them, Griselda Records niggaz right now. That’s my shit. It’s second nature for me to be able to switch up my style and sound different on every track because like I said, I grew up listening to all types of music. For me, it’s important to be able to do it, but when it’s something that you’re naturally able to focus on, you’re naturally able to pull it off. And it’s about a balance too because some people want to feel a certain vibe. You gotta give that to them too. “It Ain’t Fair” had a certain vibe to it overall, but everything was different and unique in its own way. So, that allows me to be able to collab with anybody because I have the ability to not sound the same or have the same flow on every joint.

I appreciate the time, keep doing your thing, give me some closing thoughts, my man.

Crank Lucas: Everybody go to my website, www.cranklucas.com and download my music and my beats.

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