Carnage Doesn't Want to Make You Cum Yet

The DJ/producer getting his glam on, behind the scenes of his new video.

Carnage is sitting in VICE's Williamsburg office wearing dark sunglasses and a tie-dye hoodie emblazoned with the words "Chipotle Gang." He's a big dude who sits like a rock, exuding cool confidence and relaxation. We've just finished watching the music video for a new single, "Bricks," which he produced with Atlanta Rap trio Migos, known for the 2013 radio bangers "Hannah Montana" and "Versace."

The video is mostly Migos laced up in gold pieces mean mugging into a wide-angle lens, interspersed with shots of Kim Kardashian look-alikes sipping champagne on a rented yacht. Carnage is in there too, lamping casually like some kind of festival trap Totoro.

In one shot he's feeding a baby brown bear with a milk bottle. In another he's just swagged out sitting on a boat deck flanked by video girls. The single drops on June 17, and it's the first cut off of his debut album, which he tells me is "gonna be random as shit."

"I have an all-Russian song that I'm really excited about. It's a twerk song," he says, listing off all of the twists and turns he's planning for the LP. "I might make a song with Rick Ross and Tiësto, featuring Dash Berlin—featuring Jake Bud. Or imagine an Erick Morillo record with Carnage and Future, like some ill shit. I'm doing it."

Carnage, being the godfather of the nascent EDM genre known as festival trap and a No. 1 artist on the Beatport house chart, is in an interesting position in 2014's music landscape. He's produced beats for rappers like Bodega Bamz, Theophilus London, A$AP Rocky, and Riff Raff. These cross-genre credentials have allowed him to unite a laundry list of superstars who might otherwise never appear in the same room, let alone the same record.

"I might wake up one day and want to make a really pretty pop record," he says of his musical ADD. "If I want to make some crazy hard shit or some trap shit—whatever. I'm not from dance music so I have a different eye—I look at everything differently. I have a 'win' attitude: if you're not gonna be the best then why do it? People in this world aren't used to that."

His untainted approach to dance music is complemented by an equally impressive branding savvy. The Chipotle Gang he's repping during our interview is an international clique of DJs, producers, friends, and fans who all love Chipotle burritos, but more importantly, are cool enough to hang with Carnage. He's a master of memes, too, and #ChipotleGang is a movement that everyone with an Instagram account wants to be a part of—so much so that it landed him a lifetime supply of free Chipotle.

Barely two years ago, he tells me, selling out a 400-capacity room in DC felt like an accomplished feat. "At first there wasn't any big team behind us," he says, describing those first few gigs. "It was me, my computer, my manager, and my agent." And when Carnage was first picking up steam in the EDM world, a lot of agents turned him down. "We told them, 'Yo, something big is gonna happen,' and they turned us down. Now they all regret it."

"The big fall bus tour is gonna shit on everybody else's, 'cuz I'm gonna have a cool looking bus, with my face on it," he says, scheming. "Or just a picture of me in a bathtub, rubbing my stomach and shit, some sexy-ass shit. Why not? No one else is doing it." I asked him who might be joining him on tour, and he told me to be patient. "I don't want to waste it—I don't want to make you cum yet… no homo."

There's no denying Carnage is having his cake and eating it too: his single with Migos could take his name into the Top 40 charts (one of the rare occasions in the hip-hop world where a producer gets as much credit his associate rapper), and at the same time, his EDM career is taking him to the world's most luxurious party destinations. It puts him in rare company.

"I did Future Music Festival this year in Melbourne and that was tight as fuck," he recounts. "Fucking hottest girls ever, and they love American black guys." Plus, "there's kangaroos, koala bears, and hella good Asian food," he adds, revealing a softer side—one that you might notice when you watch him cuddle that baby brown bear in his forthcoming music video.

Migos with Carnage on set of the "Bricks" video. Photo courtesy of Clayton Woodley

"I feel blessed," he says, then pauses for a moment. "I don't know. It's weird. Obviously, that's your worst nightmare, to have everything in your hands and then lose it," he admits.

The rising star certainly isn't resting on his laurels, and his plan for world domination is simple: he's just got to keep in step. "If it keeps climbing—and not at an insane rate—but if it keeps going and going and going, then you have a winning product, and it's all about the product. So, the product is an amazing album that's about to drop." He says it with such confidence that I can't help but believe him.

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Max Pearl loves Carnage… no homo. @MaxPearl