Mike Dimes may not be a name at the tip of your tongue yet, but with the release of his debut album, IN DIMES WE TRUST, out today, that will soon change. The San Antonio, Texas-based rapper has been steadily building buzz off the strength of hard-hitting singles like "NO TRENDS" and "WISS," which itself followed a bit of TikTok virality with the early single "MY STORY." The latter would end up on the rapper's debut mixtape, 2021's DLOG (Double Lamb OG), while the former two find placement on IN DIMES WE TRUST alongside the opening track banger.
Image provided by the artist. Photo credit: Jalin "Hype" Morgan
At just 21-years old, it seems there is a lot of room for Dimes to grow into a massive rap career as well as his massive sound. The rapper is definitely embedded with a Southern style, nonetheless, there's also a varied touch to his music-- as he counts his early influences to include a few famous New Yorkers, such as 50 Cent, A$AP Rocky, and surprisingly or not, Joey Bada$$. In a musical landscape that feels increasingly auto-tuned and melodically-washed, Dimes is stepping out of that tired sound by giving us some clean, bass-heavy, production and the deep-voiced bars to match. What's more, he's relying on mostly up-and-coming producers-- citing YouTube first and foremost as his beat playground. "I listen to 100 beats a day," he tells us during our exclusive interview, a week before his album is due to drop.
We hopped on a Zoom call with the young Dimes, aka Double Lambo OG, to find out about his Texas roots as a military child, his varied early ambitions from basketball to architecture, and more. Read our exclusive interview below, and be sure to stream IN DIMES WE TRUST here.
Interview edited lightly for clarity.
HNHH: Hello.
Mike Dimes: Hello?
I'm Rose with HotNewHipHop. How are you?
Good. How about yourself?
Good, just like, freezing cold in my own house.
Where you at?
I'm in Montreal, it's like snow everywhere. It's freezing in Canada. Are you in Texas?
Yeah, it’s hot in Texas right now.
We’re going to introduce you to the site with this interview. So, I want to just start with, you know, telling our audience who you are and where you're from.
My name is Mike Dimes aka Double Lamb OG. I reside in San Antonio, but I'm a military child. So, I just claim all of Texas because I’ve lived all around here.
You were saying you mainly grew up in Texas. So you didn't move around to other states? It was really just all Texas?
I was born in a small town called Temple but then after that, I moved to Colorado and moved back to Texas. I lived in Killeen and I went back to Oklahoma, went back to Killeen and then I moved to South Carolina. I was there for like, three years then I moved to San Antonio.
How did that impact you growing up? Were you able to make friends everywhere you went?
I made friends, not like the long lasting friends. I was always good with talking to people. So making friends wasn't hard. It was just after like the first three moves, I realized that my friends wasn't really my friends. They wasn't gonna stick around forever. So I just got used to detaching real quick. So that's how it really came about for me.
Which city had the biggest impact on you? You claim San Antonio, that's where you reside now?
Yes ma’am.
Is that the city that had the biggest impact on you? Musically? As a person?
Yes ma’am, because before I moved here, I was in South Carolina playing basketball. I was ranked and I wasn't even thinking about music. I used to just write poems just for fun, but I never thought I was going to take it seriously. I moved here and ended up hating basketball. Then my parents was like, “What are you going to do?” I just started rapping.
What happened with basketball? Why did you end up hating it?
I played for the competition. I like facing people that was really good. South Carolina is really known for a lot of stars coming from basketball. Then I moved to San Antonio and I went from being the shortest to regular height on my team, to being the tallest here. So, I went from playing point guard to center. I didn’t like that.
I also read that you wanted to pursue architecture at one point. What was that? When did that happen? And what happened there?
I'm still in college right now. But before, I was an architecture major. Then once my music started blowing up, I realized that architecture takes a lot of time and music takes a lot of time. So, I just switched to business management so I could be able to do it.
That's smart, though. Because now you're gonna learn– you're a new artist. You're learning about the business in school as you pursue your career. With the architecture degree, I was just curious, do you like to draw? What drew you to architecture originally?
I used to draw a lot. One of my very first hobbies was drawing portraits of people. I used to play Minecraft a lot. I used to play that mess a lot, a lot. Then we always moved around and lived in different houses. So, I always liked the designs of houses and how they was built. So, it came from both of those together.
Image provided by the artist. Photo credit: Jalin "Hype" Morgan
That's cool. So you're still pursuing your college degree. You want to get it and you have no plans to leave or anything? How many years do you have left?
A year and a half. I’m a junior right now.
Cool. I listened to your new album, we're gonna drop this interview the day that the album is out. On “Paparazzi,” you rap, “In 2017 I told the teacher ‘Who was hot as me?’” Take me back to 2017. Was that high school? Tell me about this. What was happening in your life in 2017?
I moved to San Antonio in 2016. Then I just talked about rapping. Then in 2017, I started going around freestyling. Going to fast food places. We had freestyle battles for free food with the workers there. I was already kind of cocky when it came to rapping. At school we used to cut class and just be in the hallways rapping. Even the cafeteria rapping. Just went around being arrogant, talking to the teachers– talking s**t. Excuse my language, but we used to always do that.
I wanted to also know, can you clarify your label situation right now? You're signed to Camp Billy. Is that an indie imprint? What's your situation and are major labels after you?
Camp Billy is my collective that me and my friends in San Antonio started. All my homies, that's what we built together. It's like a brand. It's more of a collective and than a label. It's a whole bunch of people that do different things on the creative side. Then, I'm with Joie at Encore Recordings for an independent deal. That’s who I work with.
Okay. Are major labels reaching out to you as well at this point? Are you considering that down the line? What do you want to do? Do you want to stay independent?
Signing a deal– I know a lot of people say f**k a deal, but the people that say f**k a deal are people that aren't getting offered deals because they don't know how to a lot of stuff works. Of course, I plan on signing because it's beneficial. As long as it ain’t no 360 and I'm free. I could still have free will and not be a puppet for anybody. I could just make my art the way I want to.
For sure. You're gonna be more smart on the business side, just having some experience learning about it in school. With the project, it goes really hard. I really love it. What was the vision? Going into this project, did you have– what inspired the sound or like going into did you have a vision in mind like, “I want it to sound like this?” Or did that just come together song by song?
It was really just arrogance. My cockiness and arrogance was so in this because of my first project. It was very grimy, rough, like, “I'm trying to get there, but I already feel like I'm there.” This one is just like, “Yeah, I'm trying to get there, but more people know me.” So, I could really be flashy a little bit more and talk my, you know.
Who are the producers? I don't know if they're names that we know. Obviously, your voice is there, but the production helps bring everything to another level. So I'm just curious, who are they? What can you tell us about that?
Well, Hollywood Cole helped with about one or two. Some of them came from YouTubers I made connections with. Just a whole bunch of YouTube producers. That's where it all came down to. Then we started talking TreeTime, Zuri, Racks, and a lot more. A whole bunch of people. I look at like 100 beats a day. I pick probably one out of 100 and just roll with it.
That's crazy. So you also have a really good ear for beats because you're choosing beats that are just– these producers are all unknown. You're going to bring them up with you. For sure there's going to be some new producers popping after this, I feel.
That’s the goal.
Speaking on the project, you have two features. One of them is Duke Deuce, so I just wanted to speak on that one specifically. How did you guys connect? Did you reach out to him? Or like, what was that? How did that happen?
Well, like my style is very Texas, East Coast and very, like Memphis in it. We was in the studio when I recorded that track. It was probably eight of us in there. Some of my team was just like, “We need to Duke Deuce on here.” And we was like, “Yes, this really is a Duke Deuce sounding record.” So I mean, pay homage to the influence for that track. My team, Barry, my homie, they all know Duke and his team. They reached out for me, made it happen.
That's sick. Speaking of Memphis now, as you said that, I could totally hear you on a song with Key Glock too. That would be so hard. That should happen.
That’d be wild. I listen to Key Glock too.
That would be sick. There's one other song that I wanted to talk on. “Snow White” I find it different. It's almost like a palate cleanser even though it's at the end of the album. It’s just a little bit different from the rest of the songs. What inspired that song? How did that song come together?
That's my favorite song.
It's really cool. I was gonna ask you next what's your favorite song off the project.
The whole project is very hype. The whole thing is very energetic. Even with “Backroom,” it's talking about the girl that don't really know about what the rapper does, but once the benefits, aka the drugs and all the stuff that rapper gets offered. So, “Snow White” is like an add on to it. Talking about how the pretty girl grew up and got everything she wanted. Everything that glitters ain’t gold. So, she ended up turning to the drug route.
It's interesting because it's more of a storytelling song. It's you talking about someone else rather than talking about yourself or what you're doing. I really like that song. So that’s your favorite song off the album for sure?
Just because it’s like a plot twist. It changes everything. You’ll be vibing the whole way, and then you hear that one song and it’s like, “Damn, this took a turn.”
The production is so good. I'm curious, growing up, who were the rappers that inspired you? When you were growing up, you wanted to emulate these rappers if you could.
The first artist I really was picking a lot of game from was 50 Cent. That's because my dad used to bump him a lot. Then after him, I started diving into music. Before that, I was just like, whatever my mom and dad played, which was Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Andre 3000, all that. Then I started getting 50 Cent, went from him to Tupac. I started writing poems because of Tupac. After Tupac, I saw A$AP Rocky. I was like, “Dang, he got a little flair to it.” So I started rapping and making it like a cool way of delivering my lyrics. Then after that, I heard Joey Bada$$. I was like, yeah. So, this is what I really want to do after I heard Joey Bada$$.
That’s interesting. I see those influences all there scattered across your projects. I wanted to touch on a tweet that you tweeted, I don't know how long ago it was. “I was still working at the supermarket when I touched my first 10 million streams.” So I'm just curious, what supermarket was that? And when did you quit? You're not working another job now?
I didn't quit, they forced me. They made me quit. My whole team was like, “Why do you still work there?” I was a cashier for this Texas place called HEB. I worked there ever since I moved to San Antonio. I think I got attachment issue. After I was there the whole time I was like, I don't want to leave. I tried to put an LOA and because I have tours coming up and I've been traveling a lot. I went from working 40 hours to like 30 minutes. So, I would just put an LOA in. I told them I wanted an LOA. They said, “We can't give that to you because you're leaving to pursue another business.” They made me quit. I quit probably three or four weeks ago.
Okay. Wow. Okay, that's crazy. You are going on tour. You're going on tour with Earth Gang? That's coming up.
I have my Texas tour in two weeks. After my Texas tour, I have my run on West Coast with Denzel Curry. After that, I’ve got Earth Gang from April to June.
You have so much stuff lined up. Are these your first real tours? What have you done previous to this? Just like local shows, or?
Yeah, I did local shows around San Antonio. I did one show in Houston before, but other than that, this is my first time being on a major platform with it.
That's dope. I feel like it’s a good pairing. That's exciting to see you guys all together. I want to wrap up. There's one question, because you mentioned this before in another interview and you put it on Instagram. What happened to your belly button? Is that actually a thing? Did you actually lose your belly button? Did you have surgery?
[Laughs] They cut it when I was a kid. I had a hernia and they had to cut it off.
Okay, cool. I just wanted to know. That's generally what happens when you have to have a surgery or something [laughs]. So anything else you want to share? What's your goal for your career, the next year? Whatever you want to end with.
The goal is just to establish who Mike Dimes is. Establish what Camp Billy is. Help my team reach the big leagues. We’re trying to make it to the big boy leagues this year. We’re just trying to be upcoming, we're trying to be a name people remember. That's all it is. Better music coming. Better art coming.
Actually, I did really like the cover art. It was so dope. Is that like a concept that you came up with yourself?
My team came up with it. I wasn't thinking about it. My idea was all left. And then they were like, “Your name is Mike Dimes. Let’s just make it Mike on a Dime.” It makes sense.
Mike Dimes IN DIMES WE TRUST cover art
Okay dope. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.
Yes ma’am. Thank you for having me.