{"id":41729,"date":"2025-07-23T15:29:35","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T15:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/23\/new-york-rapper-bay-swag-talks-debut-album-damaged-thoughts\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T15:29:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T15:29:35","slug":"new-york-rapper-bay-swag-talks-debut-album-damaged-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/23\/new-york-rapper-bay-swag-talks-debut-album-damaged-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Rapper Bay Swag Talks Debut Album ‘Damaged Thoughts’"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tManagement firm 11AM NYC\u2019s midtown Manhattan offices are abuzz on a Wednesday afternoon. Plaques for hit releases by A$AP Ferg and Lil TJay adorn the walls, and employees are moving about, hoping to help Queens rapper Bay Swag<\/a> earn one of his own for his upcoming debut album, Damaged Thoughts<\/em> (out July 25 on United Masters with a documentary to follow).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe office\u2019s air conditioner is on the fritz during my visit, which means the office is baking on this 86-degree day. But Bay Swag and his four-person team are keeping it cool inside the main conference room. He greets me gregariously; I\u2019ve met young artists who haven\u2019t yet assumed the social responsibilities of being a star, but Bay isn\u2019t one of them. He has a natural alacrity, and he\u2019s also been around the music industry since he was nine, when trips to the Queens strip club Starlets weren\u2019t out of the question.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was scared, bro,\u201d he jokes of his first time at Starlets. \u201cMy uncle had me in there. I\u2019m like, \u2018No, I\u2019m gonna get in trouble with my mom!\u2019 I\u2019m nine years old, it\u2019s girls shakin\u2019 ass everywhere.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHis manager Derben Chrisphonte comedically interjects, \u201cI was there,\u201d adding that he\u2019s 15 years older than Bay, who\u2019s \u201calways been around\u201d him and older peers. \u201cWe had a dog and a kid in the club. A French Bulldog,\u201d the manager marvels. \u201cI never hung out with kids my age,\u201d Bay adds. \u201cI was always with my big cousins.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s not entirely<\/em> true; he tells me about middle-school years spent enjoying the competition and camaraderie of playing organized basketball, football, soccer, and baseball with fellow kids in the Little Neck section of Queens. But in time, his adolescence was shaped by private jet rides with Diddy\u2019s son Christian \u201cKing\u201d Combs, whose CYN collective Bay Swag joined in 2015. He also frequently met stars at the warehouse for renowned New York clothing brand SlowBucks, where his uncle Windsor \u201cSlow\u201d Lubin hosted \u201cliterally every rapper, every actor, every whoever\u201d who came through New York.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tAnother key figure in his early life was his father, Lloyd \u201cBay Lloyd\u201d McKenzie. Bay Swag tells me fondly about grabbing Chinese food with his father, and playfully singing the intro to Jay-Z\u2019s \u201cSong Cry\u201d while riding through the city. Bay Lloyd is a party promoter from Queens who\u2019s worked with A Tribe Called Quest: He\u2019s in the 1993 video for \u201cElectric Relaxation\u201d<\/a> as a waiter, and he has a production credit on \u201cBusta\u2019s Lament\u201d from the group\u2019s 1998 album The Love Movement<\/em>. He also toured with Tribe and Swizz Beats, forging industry connections for both himself and his son. Passingly, Bay reveals that his dad \u201cmade\u201d radio DJs play his early songs on the radio; anybody who can pull that off carries a lot of respect.<\/p>\n

\n\tBay Swag tells me that New York rap<\/a> icons like Jim Jones, Juelz Santana, and Jadakiss, as well as Philly rapper Meek Mill, essentially watched him grow up and are still just a phone call away. He strikingly resembles his father, and it\u2019s worth wondering how much of Bay Lloyd those artists see in Bay Swag.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2017, Lloyd was convicted for allegedly ordering the 2012 murder of law student Brandon Woodward. Reports framed the murder as a $161,000 drug deal gone bad<\/a>. The McKenzie family believes he was wrongfully convicted. As their petition on Change.org<\/a> puts it, \u201cLLoyd McKenzie is presently [serving] time on a 85 years sentence for a crime he DID NOT COMMIT NOR HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF.\u201d On 2017\u2019s \u201cSaucin,\u201d Bay Swag raps, \u201cDaddy got locked \u2019cause my daddy was trappin\u2019\/They tried to say he killed a nigga in Manhattan\/Jury believed the nigga that was rattin\u2019\/I\u2019ma get you out, Pops, swear I ain\u2019t cappin\u2019.\u201d Currently-incarcerated Chicago rapper Lil Durk jumped on the remix<\/a> and rapped about his own father\u2019s incarceration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tBay Swag says \u201cSaucin\u201d was his graduation from a lithe-voiced teenager exploring his craft into a young adult with a defined creative approach. He started rapping at 13, when his father had him record over reference tracks he had procured. But after his father\u2019s incarceration, Bay Swag had to make his own songs, crafting verses in his head (a practice he continues to this day). That development has led to Damaged Thoughts<\/em>, a project he says is as much about introspection as it is about fun songs like \u201cCaicos\u201d and \u201cMatte Black Master.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy thoughts were damaged a lot from just growing up seeing the things I\u2019ve seen,\u201d he says. \u201cJust having to deal with so much hate and envy.\u201d Snacking on his second fun-size bag of Welch\u2019s fruit snacks, he explains more what he means by that.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe tells me about how a heartbreak frayed his perception of romance: \u201cI might think a girl is doing something [devious], and she might not be. I have a lot of girl friends. I see what they do, so I\u2019m like, \u2018Damn, is my girl doing this?\u2019\u201d The late Philly artist PnB Rock<\/a> was a friend, and Bay Swag laments that in 2022 he was killed while simply eating a meal at an L.A. Roscoe\u2019s Chicken and Waffles. \u201cThat fucked me up,\u201d he says. \u201cBeing an artist is the most dangerous shit in the world. You gotta post where you\u2019re going to be\u2026 Shit crazy, bro.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe album\u2019s title track is the most personal, as he raps about his mom\u2019s cancer diagnosis (he tells us that she\u2019s since \u201cbeat it\u201d) and rhymes, \u201cSometimes I be lost in my thoughts with my friends\/But it\u2019s not my fault, \u2018cause I don\u2019t talk about my problems\u201d over a heartfelt vocal sample. The line is true to life, he admits, telling me, \u201dMusic is therapy. I don\u2019t talk with people [about hard times], so I just rap about it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe result is a holistic project that marks him as an artist willing to dig deep. There\u2019s a scene in the upcoming Spike Lee film Highest II Lowest<\/em> where Denzel Washington, playing a record executive, demands that a posturing artist shed his swagger and be vulnerable. The moment speaks to the throng of rappers who are quick to rap about violence or be braggadocious but won\u2019t always admit the trauma that such bravado conceals. Damaged Thoughts<\/em> shows Swag never needed that memo. When I ask him how he manages to have the fun he has on the album while going through some of the turmoil he rhymes about, he smiles and says, \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d while shaking his head. \u201cA day at a time,\u201d Maria Gracia, a senior marketing director at his label, adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s wearing a white hockey jersey and designer jeans, though he might be changing for the video shoot in Teaneck, New Jersey, that he\u2019s headed to after our holistic interview. Swaying back and forth in his roller chair, he makes consistent eye contact, and after expressing himself sometimes asks, \u201cYou get what I\u2019m tryna say?\u201d in a way that doesn\u2019t feel like a knee-jerk punctuation, but a genuine desire to have a two-way conversation.<\/p>\n

\n\tEven without his lineage, Bay probably would have won over many of the artists in his vast network. Damaged Thoughts<\/em> boasts appearances from 42 Dugg, Sheff G, Meek Mill, Quavo, Kyle Ricch, and Young Thug. Bay Swag recorded \u201cLil Jasmine\u201d with the latter artist before the YSL indictment<\/a>, and says they have since recorded another song alongside Ty Dolla $ign. He counts Thug as a friend who once offered to pay<\/a> for his father\u2019s lawyer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd, of course Bay, Swag gets slizzy alongside Cash Cobain on the smooth \u201cDon\u2019t Care No More\u201d and bouncy \u201cCaicos,\u201d which has a similar island vibe to Cash\u2019s bubbling \u201cFeeeeeeeeel\u201d single. When I ask Bay Swag about the first rap song he fell in love with, he mentions Nas and AZ\u2019s \u201cHow Ya Livin\u2019,\u201d saying he loved their back-and-forth rhymes and enjoys emulating that format alongside Cash.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tMany were first introduced to Bay Swag\u2019s music when he featured on Cash\u2019s \u201cFisherrr,\u201d a silky track that helped set off last summer. Bay Swag says he thinks people love the sexy drill movement because people \u201cfeel good\u201d listening to it, and it\u2019s danceable without being violent. As I wrote in 2022<\/a>, it\u2019s an offshoot of drill where listeners can have fun shimmying and mimicking the slithery cadences without worrying about lyrics dissing dead people or other borderline themes. Bay Swag is a notable figure in that shift, entrenching his name in the fabric of New York culture in the same way his father did years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHe shows me a promotional clip for the album where he notes, \u201cIf [my father] would\u2019ve never went through that, went to jail, had life in prison, I would\u2019ve never had that hustle. I would\u2019ve never had that drive. That made me become the man of the house, at a young age too.\u201d New York City, like so much of America, is plagued by the justice system\u2019s systematic thrusting of parents from homes, sparking changes of fortune that only sometimes lead to triumphs like Bay Swag\u2019s. Hopefully, we can reach a world where more artists can find their greatness without having to prove their resilience amid tumult. But in this one, Bay Swag is yet another example that it\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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