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Lethal Injection

Kansas City rapper Mac Lethal is in the game too deep to get out now.

What: Mac Lethal with Botzy, Andre Mariette, Ackronem and Cato

When: Doors at 9 p.m., music at 9:30 p.m., Saturday

Where: Fine Line Music Cafe, 318 N. Firstst Ave., Minneapolis

Cost: $13 advance, $15 day of the show

Ages: 18+

 

It has been a year and a week since everything changed drastically for Kansas City, Mo., rapper Mac Lethal.

On Nov. 30, 2011 he released a video of him cooking pancakes while rapping over the beat from Chris Brown’s “Look at Me Now.” That video, which showcases his wordplay and timing, titled “Nerdy white kid KILLS ‘Look at Me Now,’”**** has since garnered more than 26 million views.

“Two weeks before I put that video out, I was wondering what I was going to do,” Mac Lethal said. “Because I’m just sitting there, I’m not on a record label, I don’t have a publicist. … I was just feeling some strain. I felt pinched.”

In the ensuing year, Mac Lethal’s career and life have changed dramatically for the better.

He’s bought a house, gotten married, paid off his car and has a son on the way. He also finished an epistolary novel based off his successful blog, “Texts from Bennett.“

“A lot of people say, ‘Oh, I can’t complain,’ but I’ve been great,” Mac Lethal said. “I literally can’t complain. I’m an [expletive] if I complain. I won $11 in the Powerball last night.”

The subject of the lottery got Mac Lethal thinking about what the future holds for him, and it’s all positive given the newfound financial security granted by his successes.

“I’m not getting on stage anymore trying to get laid, and I’m not getting onstage so I can just plow through my material with a fake smile plastered on my face, make my bones and go home and pay bills,” Mac Lethal said. “I’m in this space where I get on stage and have a good time.”

Last time he was in the Twin Cities to play at the Fine Line Music Cafe Mac Lethal got someone’s cellphone and ordered 20 pizzas from Pizza Lucé — eventually doing a song while handing out pizza to a crowd of hundreds of people. He’s in that kind of mood all the time now.

“I’m sitting there like, man, this is what I got into this [expletive] to do. This is why I do it now,” Mac Lethal said. “I’m not worried about the cute girls that some dude dragged in who have never heard of the musicians on stage. Everybody’s worried about those girls instead of focusing on the fans who are there because they love your music.”

It’s a catch-22 for this goofy KC gangster rapper — getting money makes you not worry about money which makes the job more fun, which makes making more money easier.

This all makes the title of his most recent album, “Irish Goodbye,” seem much less likely. An Irish goodbye is leaving the bar without telling anybody — a move Mac Lethal had alluded to as the way he would leave rap.

“I’m way too far into it to leave now,” Mac Lethal said.

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