A Phone Call With Max B, Riding Out His Last Year of Prison
The mixtape phenomenon isn’t out until 2021, but he’s writing daily, recording as much as he can, and prepping himself for a changed world
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Max is ready.
Thirty seconds after the text appears on my phone, Max B is on the line. His voice still has the nasally, gruff charisma you can hear on songs like “Never Wanna Go Back” and “Why You Do That.” Remember, this is a man who’s rapped he could find Osama Bin Laden in a New York City corner store, a man who compared his dick to a “Chevy with a V-10 engine sitting on 20-inch Pirellis.”
But while the voice of the East Jersey State Prison inmate on the line is unmistakably Max B, it doesn’t sound like Max B. His tone is measured, his delivery less menacing. Max B is on the phone, but Charly Wingate, a 42-year-old Black man, who has spent the last quarter of his life in prison, is speaking. And he’s ready to come home.
Over the last decade, his following has grown from a cult to a culture. During his 15-year career, the months in which…
