Clark D’s new album opens on a rather… daunting note.
“Good luck trying to stay alive,” a voice booms on “THE IRONY OF IT ALL,” the first track from WHAT A LIFE.
That’s not some tongue-in-cheek Halloween remark, either. For the Mattapan-turned-Atlanta rapper, “staying alive” — literally and artistically — isn’t something to take for granted. He’s already glimpsed at grave faces of the dying in hospital beds. He’s witnessed his peers’ creative passions wither away just the same.
But he’s still here, preaching a gospel of gratitude with work like WHAT A LIFE (released today, October 21). It’s what teenage Clark D would want for his older self, after all.
“I made a promise to myself and my mother at 17 that I was going to make it work,” he tells Vanyaland, reflecting on the hustle of young adulthood. “Whether it was because it didn’t make sense financially, or because the passion ran out when reality hit, a lot of my friends just completely abandoned their sense of individuality and expression when they got older.”
As a budding artist, he understood these difficult situations — but he wasn’t about to succumb to the same fate. That’s right around the time Clark D made an unflinching vow to himself and his generation to never let his creativity stagnate.
Then pulmonary problems ripped up his road map to acclaim.
In 2019, crisis struck when Clark D’s lungs spontaneously collapsed. He was rushed to the emergency room just in time to undergo “traumatic lung surgery,” and luckily walked away unscathed — but not without a serious recovery period. It would be six months before Clark D could record music again, and years on top of that before he was fully recovered and pain-free.
Know that when his “COMPLICATED” interlude says “Tryna stay alive / Don’t call the reaper,” Clark D isn’t exaggerating. You could even say that he’s survived twice: Once in the hospital, and again when he waded through the aftermath of his surgery, working his way back into the studio and piecing that metaphorical road map back together. WHAT A LIFE isn’t Clark D’s first project since his complete recovery, but his new approach to life still shines through the record.
“Being hospitalized and seeing people on the brink of death, in a hospital all by themselves, put a lot of things into perspective for me,” he notes. “I’ve always been a positive person, but my surgery humbled me and made me more passionate about clinging to life. I’ve seen so many people ‘die’ (a.k.a., become shells of their creative selves) and this project in particular was a reflect on that, with me feeling a certain level of survivor’s guilt.”
But where there’s guilt, there’s gutsy motivation, nudging him towards fulfilling that teenage promise. “If you gonna stay in the same place / Better do it without me,” he raps on “SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. Later on the record, Clark D affirms his ascent: “I’m climbin’ / divine timin’,” he rhymes on “A THOUSAND MILES.”
Beyond the bravado, though, Clark D just hopes he can be a positive model for younger artists. After watching so many of his peers peter out, Clark D hopes WHAT A LIFE will demonstrate that musicians can make great art throughout adulthood, regardless of whatever exhausting “rat races” or monetary problems threaten to weaken their creativity.
It’s the same positive example he searched for as a teen in Mattapan, but never found.
“There’s plenty of kids out in the world, like me, that grew up financially disadvantaged, that are living in very draining environments,” he adds. “I feel like seeing someone like me come from the place I came from, and achieve success at the highest level while staying true to myself will be a paradigm shift for generations to come. Similar to J. Cole, Kanye, Kendrick, A Tribe Called Quest and more — those people are all household names in hip-hop who were able to achieve commercial and cultural success at a high level while coming from a financially disadvantaged background. I think my generation, and specifically our region, needs someone who will take it there while paving the way for others, and I think I make a strong case for being that person! Only time will tell, though.”
Tap in to WHAT A LIFE below.