as told to: Jay Riggio photo: Dennis McGrath
If life is in fact a winding road that inevitably pops with twists, turns and impromptu, uninvited circumstances–then LA based rapper Mickey Avalon’s life is a seedy city street, riddled with puke, blood and enough undirected belligerence to sink a vessel full of black-market Shetland ponies. With a past that involves heavy drug use, male prostitution, robbing, stealing and his evenhanded share of delivered and received fists—I think it’s safe to say that at only 27, our man Mr. Avalon has seen some serious shit. If you don’t believe me, listen to his self-titled debut, as his ridiculous rhymes and weirdo flow mercilessly document his filthiest exploits. As the co-owner of the record label Shoot To Kill and member of the side project band Dyslexic Speedreaders—he continues to tour ruthlessly, without a shirt or a care in the goddamned world. Before telling Mass Appeal about his days as a blade-wielding pugilist, Mickey mentioned that just moments earlier as his limo neared a Mexican border checkpoint, he stashed his drugs inside his ass.
“I was fourteen and had found a box cutter. It was all fucked up and rusty and I just put it in my pocket. This one day me, Andre Legacy, AZ and this guy named Matthew all played hooky from school. We were at Matthew’s house in West Hollywood playing quarters and finishing a bottle of 151. We ran out of juice, so we were walking to 7-11 to get some more and AZ was real wasted. Everyone he passed he talked shit to. He’s just all drunk and no one’s paying him any mind, they’re just like looking at him and walking by. But then we walk by this bar next to this hardware store and this one short, buff guy comes out of the bar. AZ looks right at him and goes, ‘Puuunk!’ He was fully drunk. Like, couldn’t even pronounce it or anything. This guy was a little drunk too and goes, ‘What?!’ Then AZ is like, ‘What, you think you’re crazy?’ And the guy said, ‘Yeah I’m crazy!’ They’re going back and forth and I’m holding onto the box cutter in my pocket, not thinking anything will happen. Then the guy turns around and does a fly kick at me, maybe ‘cause I was the smallest. I guess he thought he’d knock me down and everyone would run away. So as he’s in the air doing the fly kick, I swing the blade and he misses me and I miss him. Then he comes again for one more, and this time I just get his stomach, all the way across. It was pretty gnarly.”
“We all got away except Andre Legacy. The guy chased Andre in the hardware store and [Andre] pulled out a can of mace and was like, ‘Dude, stay back. I didn’t do that to you, step off!’ Then the cops came there and the guy’s like, ‘They cut me.’ And he’s lifting his shirt and bleeding on the ground. The cops end up taking Andre to the side and go, ‘Just get out of here.’ Like, the guy was a punk ’cause even though we technically started it, we weren’t trying to cause problems. I feel bad because it was a rusty blade. I’m sure he had to go and get a tetanus shot.”
