THE FAST TIMES AND HIGH CRIMES OF A HIP-HOP GRIFTER

SWAGG MAN'S OPULENT LIFESTYLE LED TO A MASSIVE SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWING. NOW, HE'S ACCUSED OF SWINDLING HIS OWN FANS.

- MARC WORTMAN

“WHO’S SWAGG MAN??” the 36-year-old rapper currently wanted by the law poses the question to himself in a text to me. “I was born an artist … Swagg Man is a fictif [fictional] guy. Same like all artist[s].”

I’ve been trying to talk to Swagg Man for weeks. He says we will meet in Paris; then he says Miami, where he can show me his car collection. Finally, unable to get him to fix a time and place, we speak for two hours via Zoom. He claims that this is his first time speaking to the press in six years, though even that is questionable.

Facing me in sunglasses and a backward black baseball cap, he’s a charismatic figure. In his music videos, he comes across as handsome and lithe, in high-gloss designer wear and bejeweled accessories, striking poses, moving and dancing fluidly, often breaking into a raucous, almost delirious laugh, his klieg-light smile lighting up against his countless tats. In person, he is far calmer, speaking in a smoothly pleasing tenor that registers far higher in his songs.

“I never do something for the money,” Swagg Man insists to me. When someone says it’s not for the money, it’s usually for the money. And few people love money like Swagg Man. In post after post, he caresses cash, licks his piles of jewels, and dances on his Bentley and his Lambo. “I do something for the pleasure,” he continues, “for the passion first, and the money comes after.”