Vinyl Record: Mums FP, Cause and Effect

Mums FP raps with such a confident, cocksure air, one could easily mistake him for an old, moneyed aristocrat. Or a young, untested Jay-Z. Either way, the kid’s got balls. His upcoming album, 24, rips a page from the scripted Fox suspense drama of the same name. Unlike Jack Bauer, however, Mums’ episodic adventures unfold around the fast-paced, intertwining plots of an enterprising 20-year-old consumed with chicks, quips, and Facebook video clips.
— Rodney Carmichael

When I used to stay with my grandma in Pittsburgh, she had already been getting on me about mumbling. But one day I came in and she was like, “What do you want to eat for dinner?” And I mumbled it to her. And she was like, “You’re talking like you have a mouth full of shit.” That’s what she said to me — but like in a grandma way. And being 8 years old hearing that, you’re like, “Whoa, did you just say shit in front of me?”

So, she said, “You know what, I’ma start calling you Mumbles ’cause you’re just always mumbling.” One day, I was outside just playing around and she was trying to call me in. She was like, “Mumbles, bring yo ass inside.” Everybody was like, “Mumbles? Who the fuck is Mumbles?”

“Um, that’s me.”

So, I come back down to Atlanta, and when I first started rapping, people just started naturally calling me Killa Cam. I’ve never killed anybody in my life. I haven’t even had to get close yet. So I was like, I can’t do Killa Cam. That’s when the C. Mums came in. I cut the C. off and now it’s just Mums FP — for profit, for people, fun party — whatever.

I feel like in rap, or any music you’re doing, you’ve just gotta be your biggest fan. And rap is really just a type of music in which you personify yourself and make yourself look good. Even the most conceptual rapper raps about himself from time to time – “I’m this. I’m that. I can do this better than that guy can.”

But I’m just kind of that way in real life. I feel like I’m flier than a lot of people. I may not just say it to their faces, ’cause I don’t know what kind of reaction that’s going to get out of a lot of people. So music is just where I kind of let that out.

But I feel like in everything you say, you’ve got to be confident. Especially when it goes on wax. Because if you don’t sound like you believe it, people are gonna be like, “What the fuck is he talking about? He doesn’t sound like he believes what he’s saying.”