Released as a mixtape, IDK‘s E.T.D.S. (Even The Devil Smiles) taps into the immediacy of 90s and early-2000s mixtape culture, direct, fast-moving, and unconcerned with polish. The format reflects the intent: music made to circulate freely, without narrative padding or institutional framing.
Inspired by Black expressionism and IDK’s experience within a broken criminal justice system, the project unfolds as a story of survival and second chances. Built on IDK’s own production and contributions from MF DOOM, Pusha T, DMX, RZA, Madlib, Kaytranada, No I.D., and others, the mixtape treats experience as material rather than spectacle.
In this conversation, IDK speaks on authenticity, loss, and responsibility, on placing hip-hop inside museums as well as playlists, and on why E.T.D.S. feels less like closure than the starting point for what comes next.
Your new album dropped on January 23, the exact date you would’ve been released if you’d served the full sentence. How did anchoring the project to that date shape the emotional and conceptual weight of the music?
It’s not the exact date. I will rephrase this answer based on the actual fact. I would’ve been released around the time that I recorded the mixtape in 2025. For me, it put everything into perspective, how I viewed the world, my respect for honesty, and that respect is a non-negotiable. When I made this record, it started off with frustration and anger, and that turned into real realization. Let me know that I wasn’t really mad at anyone. I was more sad about the circumstances that I had to face at such a young age for what most would call a mistake that could’ve costed me in my life. Ultimately, it just made me appreciate what I learned and how I could move forward.
This album unpacks incarceration, injustice, and reform, but it also marks a moment of creative elevation. How did you balance telling a painful truth without letting trauma define the entire narrative?
Unfortunately, me being in prison was only the first of many painful truths. I lost my mother and father after that. I lost one of my closest cousins. I dealt with real loss and things that I couldn’t bring back. We’re all responsible for who we are and how we show up in this world, no matter what we come from. Just because I saw a parent being abused when I was a child doesn’t mean that I should be abusive to people as an adult, right? If that’s the case, I have to use the positivity around me to shape the man that I want to become. It’s very simple.
The guest list is generational and genre-spanning: Kaytranada, Goldie, Pusha T, DMX, RZA, Madlib, MF DOOM. What connected all these voices to the story you’re telling, beyond just musical compatibility?
They fit the sign of landscape. It’s quite simple when I feel something when I feel like someone should be on a record. I simply reach out. Sometimes it gets done sometimes it doesn’t, and even in this project, there were a few people who I’ve had things from in the past that I was fortunate enough to actually put out into the world. But everything that I do comes from a true connection to the Sans landscape in the world that I’m trying to build musically.
“S.T.F” features the first posthumous DMX collaboration approved by his estate. What responsibility did you feel carrying his voice into a project rooted in survival, redemption, and legacy?
The responsibility is something that I completely respect, but never feared… the responsibility for me was just making sure that I respected the wishes of his family and the people who are the closest to him. DMX is rooted and not authentic. He was the king of that. So all I had to do was be myself because I’m also rooted in authenticity. Even though we are all fighting to know who we really are. Our responsibilities are to show up every day, being our authentic selves.
You hosted an immersive listening experience at MOCA, with more art-based installations planned. Why was it important for this album to exist inside museums and galleries, not just on streaming platforms?
Hip-hop is an art form that I believe is Genius. It can be just as genius as a David Hammond sculpture. Not to say my art is exactly that, but the space will wrap and hip-hop was created is indeed genius. It lacked distribution in it early days. The lack of distribution forces people to do something similar to what people in prison do. They find a makeshift way to create whatever their vision desires, despite the confinements of what their “reality” shows. The idea of using records and turntables to create music and a landscape for people to do poetry over, because we lacked the resources to actually have bands and band equipment, is nothing short of Genius. It’s David Hammond, it’s Henry Taylor, it’s Basquiat. Therefore, it’s to be displayed in comparable places. My push to put this work in art-based installations was fueled by the fact that I knew it was right, even if no one else knew.
You’ve worked with MOCA, Harvard, Dior, Nike, and Virgil Abloh, spaces where art, education, and luxury intersect. How do you decide when culture is being genuinely engaged versus simply aestheticized?
I don’t believe it’s for me to decide. It’s kind of like when George Floyd happened, every company was quick to scream Black Lives Matter. Not just because it was trendy, but the simple fact is that they genuinely felt pressured. They were a small number of people who were really about that life, even if it didn’t affect them personally. But the rest were cap. In instances like that, our job is to become Robin Hood. We don’t need to be exactly on the same page. You don’t need to see my exact vision, the way that I see it. With the opportunity, however, I will bring whatever is back to the people who need it most.
Alongside the album, you’re releasing 92 Pages with HarperCollins, a philosophical memoir tied directly to your prison experience. What could writing give you that music couldn’t?
Haha, I love that you ask this question. For me, writing a book is quite similar to writing an album, but it’s actually a lot easier in some ways.. I can be poetic. I can have rhythm, but I don’t actually have to make it rhyme. So it makes it very easy to sit down and do 65,000 words rooted in my beliefs.
Your work consistently moves between rap, fine art, and luxury design, from Nike and Dior to Range Rover and McLaren. What does “luxury” mean to you when your story begins in a system built on deprivation?
Luxury means nothing to me. I consume it. I am guilty of having a connection to it. But at the end of the day when I align with it, it’s only because the bigger picture is rooted than what my name is.. IDK stands for ignorantly delivering knowledge and the reason why is because that’s the only way the world will listen. You put the things that are shiny at the forefront and Luxury is one of the shiniest things I could ever think of. I love when brands. Give me an opportunity to collaborate. But I love it even more when they allow me to challenge them to move forward in a direction that can bring change. That is my only reason for collaborating with anything like that, and that’s what I’ll continue to do in my journey until I’m no longer here.
You helped create a Harvard music business course alongside Issa Rae and Virgil Abloh. What do you think the next generation of artists needs to understand about ownership, power, and leverage that your generation didn’t?
Correction, I did not create that with them. This is an independent project I created with Miles and Marcelo. I only invited Issa and Virgil to be a part of educating. The people we felt could use in capitalize off of the knowledge we know. Working alongside them simply came from the fact that we were just cool and the opportunity was meaningful.
You’ve operated across platforms that shape culture, universities, museums, luxury houses, global brands. What have you learned about how power actually moves through these systems, and how artists can position themselves without being absorbed by them?
I’ve learned that no matter what, the bottom line is the dollar. Not to say there aren’t people inside of the systems or organizations that want to fight for what’s right. But I’ve learned that often times what’s right comes with the smallest budgets. I strive to connect with the people and companies and brands that don’t look at things this way, and can afford to change the narrative.
Looking ahead, with music, books, installations, and design all moving in parallel: Do you see this album as a closing chapter or the foundation for an entirely new cultural phase of IDK?
This is the foundation and the start of me being able to get deeper into who I am with my fans. Prior to this, I was able to give general ideas. I was very bad was the generalized version of even the devil smiles.
Watch ‘DEViL’ below:
