The 10-track project was made during the rapper’s first year of sobriety
Today, Charlotte rapper Mavi officially announced The Pilot, his new mixtape dropping on Nov. 25. The project was debuted last night during a listening event at LA’s Galerie on Sunset, on a date that was also his one-year sobriety anniversary. Attendees included project collaborators Smino, MIKE, and Earl Sweatshirt. He offered listeners a prior glimpse of the 10-song project with a Nov. 7 performance of “Silent Film” on the COLORS platform.
“The Pilot was created during my first year of sobriety,” Mavi tells Rolling Stone in a statement. “The title refers to me piloting a new version of myself in a time of constant travel, growing exposure to the arts and design, and alienation from home. It is an introduction to a rejuvenated, yet seasoned Mavi, and is the table-setting for my upcoming studio debut, First in Flight, where I lean even further into collaboration and community in new territory that excites me.”
The project includes previously released singles “Potluck” with Smino and “Landgrab” with Earl Sweatshirt — the latter marks the first time Mavi collaborated with a rapper on one of his own songs. Kenny Mason also appears on the mixtape’s “Typewriter.” This year, Mavi was on “Jammers Anonymous” with Niontay and “SWIM” with Guapdad 4000 for the HIM soundtrack. He also featured on rapper/producer Ovrkast’s “MAVKAST!.” Along with releasing new music, he spent two months as an opener on the American leg of Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist’s “Alfredo 2” tour and is set to open for Earl Sweatshirt’s “3L World Tour.”
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The Pilot is the follow-up to last year’s Shadowbox, a cathartic project that he told Rolling Stone was “a trophy case to my failures.” Elsewhere, he said he felt like he was in his “Steve Nash” era, likening himself to the basketball player who suddenly elevated from an all-star to a two-time NBA MVP. “That’s probably where I would put myself,” he said. “Not many niggas better than him, but we don’t want to say he’s the best.”
Of his new mixtape, he says that “paradoxically, a more structured, intentional lifestyle allowed for a more collaborative, fun, and free-flowing creative atmosphere, contrasted with the hedonism and strictly disciplined creative language of Shadowbox.”