The San Francisco MC, who is currently celebrating the success of The Orange Print, is quickly becoming the face of the healthy movement in hip-hop.

If you were to judge Larry June by the nature of his sound, you’d think that he was similar to the pimps and hustlers’ sound of his native Bay Area stomping grounds. But for those familiar with his style, June is more likely to rap about turkey bacon, smoothies, driving a Prius, and seven-dollar lemonades over gangland tales. 

His star has been consistently on the rise over the past decade, curating a health-centered vibe on- and off-wax. With songs that range from hyphy-tinged slappers to syrupy-slow anthems, June is poised to not only transform Bay Area rap, but how the rap game incorporates health into the culture. In a genre where jewelry, cars, and bragging rights are symbols of excess, June’s stuntastic possessions are more likely to be expensive blenders over TV Johnny Dang bling.

June is hip-hop’s Jack LaLanne—a masterful creative whose consistency resulted in 19 underground projects, a four-album run during a COVID-19-ravaged 2020, and a chart-topping project with Orange Print. As a proud healthy lifestyle advocate, June is a serious workhorse and student of music, whose style reflects more trips to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s than to the traphouse. 

Taking off some time between planning his next road adventure and his DIY release, the Bay area rapper sat down with EBONY and chatted with us about his organic rise in hip-hop and why he is the most health-conscious MC in the game.