Mavi Interview: ‘The Pilot,’ Sobriety and New Album ‘First In Flight’

“I’ve probably been home 28 days in the last six months,” Mavi tells me on Zoom. He’s walking through what looks like the parking lot of a store while talking to me on Zoom from somewhere in between Houston and Dallas. He’s opening on a few dates for Earl’s 3L World Tour, just weeks after spending two months opening up for Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist during the North American leg of their Alfredo 2 tour.

And just two days before, he was in L.A. at a release event for his mixtape The Pilot , which was released this week. The party’s date, Nov. 17, just so happened to mark a year of sobriety for him. He tells me the timing wasn’t intentional, but meaningful. He never felt like celebrating his prior albums, but the event felt like a commemoration of what he says has been a “great”