Mark Stefanos
Duckwrth has fucked up a lot with women. The multi-talented musician hailing from South LA has had all sorts of relationships, and they’ve landed him in the 21st century archetype that so many men find themselves, but few are ready to admit — the fuckboy.
His newest album All American F*ckBoy, due out April 2, compliments the diversity of genre-bending music he already has in his acclaimed catalogue, and may just be his most bitingly real exploration of self yet.
Narrated by Lakeith Stanfield, the album plays out in four acts, and is a sonically sprawling yet intimate play-by-play of a fuckboy spiral that young men devolve into these days.
He’s clearly a product of the wide-ranging sounds of LA, with influences ranging from Zeppelin to Frank Ocean. The album is filled with pop-punk anthems, sultry R&B tracks, punchy raps and even some gospel, worthy of heavy rotations on your playlists. But it’s the depth and honesty that will keep you revisiting Duckwrth’s journey for a long, long time.
In our interview below, Duckwrth gives the genesis of his “fuckboyitry” — starting with the breakdown of the Black American family and his father’s infidelity. The album, like our convo, illustrates the tough work he’s done to recognize how he’s gotten here, and with it, builds a roadmap on how to get out.
LA Weekly: This album is like a movie. So, I’m watching the thing. Is this a true story? Is this like a specific girl or relationship or is this kind of more like just an amalgamation of different experiences that you had?
Duckwrth: It’s both. It’s a true story and it’s an amalgamation of different experiences. And then some storytelling. But for the most part, a good 95% of this album is factual.
And how long was this happening in your life, this period of you feeling like you’re a fuckboy and this introspection?
*Laughs* It’s been years, dude. It started a bit after college. Probably when I was 24, 25 is when I would say the fuckboyitry, or I would say, fear of commitment in certain ways, or infidelity, came about. I think it started around then. But in society, men who are promiscuous or who cheat, just womanizers — we get applauded. So I didn’t really feel that, I just felt like I was just doing what men normally do. I didn’t really see it as being a fuckboy until much later.
Duckwrth (Tatiana Katkova)
When did you start dating? How old were you?
10th grade. There’s this one girl, I met her in high school. She was this alt Black girl who was into Green Day and My Chemical Romance, and I don’t know, she just took my whole heart. Cuz it was nice to find someone who was different like me so I think that’s when I started dating.
And then after college that’s when the fuckboy stuff started happening.
Well I had a bad relationship in freshman year of college. I was dating this girl and she was cheating heavy on me. *Laughs” I’ve let it go.
But just to speak on a benchmark in my perspective of commitment and trauma that I didn’t really work through — and how that kind of turned into me doing the same, from the lack of trust that I had in women, and lack of trust that I probably had in my own self. But yeah, I think that happening in college kind of fucked me up honestly, and then yeah, everything happened after that.
So you’re barely 18.
Yeah, I think it was 19.
And that started a cycle of this path basically.
And for me it didn’t happen immediately. I think I was just really hurt by it. And then from then I didn’t really trust being in a relationship. And then it went from that to me being in a relationship and it was all great. It was amazing. But then it was a trust thing. And this person who I was dating I could have completely trusted. This person was amazing, like, extraordinary. They even revealed to me that I had a gluten allergy — cuz I thought I had a stomach problem, and they were like, “No you idiot, You probably just have a gluten allergy.” So this person was an extraordinary human being, so there was no reason for me to even cheat in any way, shape or form.
And I think just not working through those past issues and past feelings of trust — I don’t know. I guess I just repeated it. Still even just thinking about it, it just feels so, like … dissonant. It’s just like damn, cuz I would say that person did not deserve to be cheated on.
Yeah, the cycle I’m aware of is you date somebody that’s kind of fucked up to you, then the next person you date you go the opposite way — you date someone real safe and you become the bad person.
You become the abuser.
Did you feel guilty?
Yeah, I felt guilty because — *laughs* and it’s gonna be some fuckboy shit for me to say, but I felt guilty because I was caught! That’s the crazy part, cuz a mutual friend of that girl and me was there when I cheated and then she just felt bad about it. So then she told my ex like, “Hey, by the way, this happened in LA.” So then my ex hit me up. She was like, “You idiot, bro. Why did you allow her to tell me instead of you telling me?” So I was first guilty that I got caught and then I felt guilty. And you think it be the other way around, but such is a toxic cycle.
I felt terrible after, and then she wanted to meet. It was a time where Channel Orange came out, Frank Ocean. I feel like she wanted to just hop in the car and drive up the hillside and listen to the album and talk and I was like, “she’s about to kill me.”
But she didn’t. She was so much more mature than I was. And she practiced a level of forgiveness and understanding — which is crazy because I don’t feel like I even deserve that forgiveness, so immediately. But she truly and honestly was just like, “I understand. You’re young, you’re an idiot. But you’re also figuring yourself out and learning.” And yeah, it’s crazy. It’s wild. So insane.
(Photo: Mancy Gant; Collage: Jewel Baek)
From this album, I know you eventually become the man that goes through this process and becomes elevated. There’s a feeling of hope at the end. But what did it take? How many times did this have to happen for you to start recognizing this in yourself?
It’s taken me a while, and I’m still working through it, honestly. When something is so embedded in your daily life, you’ve built these habits for years, you’ve created neurological pathways in your brain that perpetuate these habits. It just takes time. And, I feel like there isn’t enough accountability for just men — men to men, you know — or just men in general, to be better. So until there is a social galvanization of “men need to do better,” it’s up to that man to do the work and actually want to change, because you’ll be the 1 out of 10 who actually want to change.
If there was more of a movement of men should be better and do better then maybe it would be easier, but it’s not in popular culture at the moment. But speaking on me, I’m still working through it, but I think the most recent situation was a person who I really loved and who just really fit well, and me being an idiot, I lost that person. They always talk about the one that got away, and for me, I have my one that got away.
With that last one happening, I was like, “Alright, I can’t keep doing this.” And I’m getting older. So, what am I going to do with my life? Am I going to keep playing these games or am I going to start being better? Because, eventually, I think I want a family — but it’s like if I stay on the same path, I’m only going to repeat what my father did. Because my father was a fuckboy, and it is very much instilled in me to repeat that shit. So, it’s like if I want to be my father, I could be. But if I want to actually be a good father and a good husband, the change has to be exponential, honestly.
On the album you talk about how this all started with your dad’s infidelity. “Permanent Vacation” spells out these moments. Can you kind of walk me through some of those moments where you’re witnessing it happening?
I don’t want to go too crazy in detail — I don’t have that many memories of it because I feel like my subconscious brain has suppressed it. But what I do remember — I have this memory of my mom in the hallway and my dad was saying goodbye because he’s about to go to work and he’s trying to kiss my mom on the cheek, and my mom turned her cheek. And I was like, “Daaamn!” And I didn’t really know what that meant, I was just like “Oooh. This is spicy, like what’s really going on?”
Come to find out that she knew that he was cheating and stuff. So he was probably already fucking up and she was just over it. They were still married by the way, but she was just over it. So it’s moments like those that are kind of ingrained in my brain. And it’s sad because I don’t remember the good memories. But I remember all the bad ones, which is crazy.
What’s your relationship like with them?
My mom is good. I just called my mom earlier today because I’ve been having sleeping issues. She was like, “You need to pray.” I was like, “All right, mom.” But my dad, I don’t talk to him. I saw him in a hospital last year, and that was the first time seeing him since 2015. So, nothing. We don’t have a relationship at all. […] They were married while my dad was cheating but they divorced when I was eight.
Duckwrth (Mancy Gant)
So when your mom found out she didn’t let it go on for long.
I think she just needed real evidence. Or maybe it just needed to be real for her, cuz it’s like when you’re in a marriage, you don’t expect your partner to be cheating. And they’re like Christian. So, that’s another thing on top of that.
And the final straw, I’m not gonna tell the story, but these moments where I believe that there is a god or a creator or a master engineer or universe, whatever you want to call it. But I was literally used to reveal to my mom that my dad was cheating and it was the craziest thing that could ever happen. Insane! But it happened and she got 100% proof that he was cheating. And I think a year later they divorced.
You’re saying God used you.
Or universe, whatever you want to call, the winds, I don’t know. But the chance of it happening and how it happened, I’m telling you, it’s one out of a thousand.
Wow. So your father was a musician in the church, did you guys attend that church?
Yeah.
What did that do to your relationship with your faith?
I don’t know. I think I’ve always had dissonance with church itself — religion and everything. I never was fully invested. Even when I was young, I was just like, something about this was off. Faith-wise, I think I still have faith today.
I think I just lost faith in humans honestly *laughs* more so than I guess external spirit. I lost faith in men — that’s what I did lose faith in for sure. I couldn’t trust men in my life, even to the point that a lot of my relationships that I have that are platonic are female relationships in my current day, because I feel like that stain is still there in my psyche. It takes a specific type of man that I can link with and be very close to, often because I’m just like a fluid human being. So, it’s like when dudes are super aggro — that’s cool, but I can’t get down with that. I guess finding other men who are kind of in your same playing field, you don’t feel so alienated.
But beyond that, when I was little, I was in church, of course, and then dudes would try to come and be a supportive male role figure in my life, I suppose. And every time it went to shit
Except for when I was in Boy Scouts. I think Boy Scouts was like everything I needed as far as a male influence. Like, a healthy male influence in my life. And all the men in Boy Scouts had integrity and they taught me so much about life. So Boy Scouts for sure. That helped out in years.
How long were you in Boy Scouts for?
Ten years.
Wow! How high up did you go?
I almost made it to Eagle Scout. I was a Life Scout and I could have made it to Eagle but I didn’t. Cuz it got to that part of high school where it was just “All right bro, like.” I started liking girls and stuff and, I can’t be big pimpin’ as a Boy Scout, so I left.
That’s amazing. I didn’t know that about you, that’s crazy. You grew up in South Central. What high school did you go to?
Yeah. I went to Morningside and then there was this elevated learning division called City Honors, like a magnet program. City Honors moved to Inglewood High School, so I graduated from City Honors, but as a part of Inglewood High School.
If I had an interest in art, my teachers would notice that and then they would give me advice. I remember my history teacher, he was like this older white dude and he was a surfer and I was just getting into Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and he would geek out that I had that interest, and he would give me other bands to check out. It was pretty cool. But yeah, when they found out you like something they would help you harvest it.
So where did the interest of Zeppelin or the more rock and alt — where did that start from?
They just kind of spoke my language. I was pretty sheltered, so my mom didn’t want to listen to anything, besides us being in the church. South Central in the 90s was crazy — people getting shot every day, and there was this connection between gangster music and just the activity that was happening.
So, I kind of had to start finding other music to be into. I think rock just kind of spoke my language. And my introduction to it was bands like N.E.R.D. because they were black dudes that were making their version of rock, but it still had an element of hip-hop to it, and they made it safe for black people to listen to that shit.
And I was just like, “All right, what’s next?” I’ve rinsed this N.E.R.D. album. *Laughs* I scratched the fuck out this CD. I got to find some other music.
In Search Of, or which album was that one?
Fly or Die. And then me dating different girls who were into rock. My introduction to that was dating that girl and she put me on to Green Day and My Chemical Romance. But it’s like all the emos were getting beat up in high school. So, I was just like, man, I’m not trying to … *laughs*
So, I was like, I’m trying to be with the punk shit. So, I secretly fell in love with this other girl who would wear these punk shirts. She’ll come to school and she’ll have a Sex Pistols shirt, or a Cheap Sex or a The Casualties shirt. So, I think the first band I checked out from looking at her shirts was The Casualties and then I was like, “this is where I need to be.”
What would it be like when a dude from church would try to come in and be your father figure?
I mean I think they were just trying to get close to my mom, to be fair. And they would try to play like this “I could be a father figure to your son.” But I think they’re just trying to pop off at my mom, honestly. But there’ll be some that would have a genuine curiosity about me and they’d say “I want to help him figure his life out.” But they never really had the time.
And I went to a celebrity church. I went to West Angeles which is on Crenshaw. So, it will be a lot of actors and stuff and who will just be trying to be in my life and stuff — but they about to go to, I don’t know, Switzerland, in the next three days, and they’re going to be there for three years. So, just what’s the reality of you doing that? But I think it was more just so they can have a good light about them with my mom — so they can pop off at my mom. *Laughs*
I’m sure that didn’t help your trust issues with men.
Nope! Not at all. Not one bit.
So you’ve said that we need a national movement for men to be good representatives to men. What would that look like for you?
I think it will be holding men accountable. It won’t be women holding men accountable because men don’t listen to women, sadly enough. And the only reason why I even have any type of accountability in my life is because I mainly kick it with women — they’re just so intuitive on another level and they’re just so emotionally intelligent, that they’re just like, “Hey, Duck, can I be real with you about something?” I’m like, “Yeah, sure.” And then they *woo-woo* break it down. And I’ll be sitting there like “oh my gosh, I am an asshole.” But they will say it out of love, cuz they’ll see me operating in such a toxic way — in ways I wasn’t even aware of. I would say that I definitely learned accountability through women.
But I think it’s important for men like me, which is why I wrote this album, to come out and be like look, I’m just as fucked up as y’all. But I’m coming out to admit my faults and to start the conversation. What does it actually look like if we evolved emotionally? I feel like we weren’t allowed to have dynamic emotions as men. We were always taught to put them to the side. And if you were an emotional man, you were seen as feminine or gay.
I was reading this book called “The Dynamic Man,” it’s pretty much talking about [how back in the day] men were super masculine and it was very specific gender roles. And then now we’re at a place where men are more emotional — men shop, men take care of the kids. Men are just more emotionally mature, and that’s an option now versus that wasn’t an option for my grandpa, that wasn’t an option for my dad.
Sometimes I’ll talk to my grandpa and we’ll be ending the conversation and I’ll say, “I love you, grandpa.” He’ll be like, “Bye!” And hang up the phone!
And at first I was like, “Yo, what’s going on?!” But then my mom was like — they weren’t allowed to be emotional. They were just trying to survive because, black people, at that time, was getting hit with the water hose and the dogs were being let off on them during protests, and we had color only and whites only, so they were just trying to survive at that time. So you had to be super masculine. Your security level had to be on 10.
And then my father’s generation was after the civil rights movement, but then they had to deal with the crack epidemic and police brutality. So it’s just all these years of trauma and all these years of not feeling safe in your neighborhood, and in the nation that you live in. So emotions — what is that?!
So now we’re not in the safest time in America, but it’s much better than what it was before. So I think we’re now allowed to have emotions and to dive into those and now that when you dive into it, it’s so much benefit that you have when you understand your emotions.
So beyond that, what it looks like is men having conversation with men and being like, “hey bro, you fucking up.” My homie a couple weeks ago was telling me about this whole ordeal that he’s having with his lady friend — and I let him rock, I let him talk, but at the end I was like, “you know you wrong.” *Laughs*
Accountability doesn’t mean you have to have all the new lingo and everything like that. I think it’s just being able to call out your other male friends when they’re doing toxic things. I keep saying fuckboy because that’s like a trending word, but when they’re ghosting, when they’re gaslighting — just calling them out when they’re fucking up.
Duckwrth (Mancy Gant)
How would you define fuckboy?
It’s wide. I think it’s being a womanizer. Using women to your advantage for sexual pleasure, or for validation, or as a trophy — a lot of times we do that. It’s like us having a collection of women. It’s kind of like how — this is going to sound so crazy, I hate that it’s like this — but you know how people hunt for game and they have the different deer heads? It feels like that sometimes. It’s just like “I got this one. I got that one! I got five on rotation. Woo woo woo!”
And it’s some type of a reward for doing that? And I don’t understand it completely. I’m sure it’s been going on for hundreds of years.
But I think being a womanizer for sure is a big portion. And then things like ghosting — even though there’s no gender to ghosting, everybody ghosts — but mainly the things that are upheld in society. It’s the patriarchy, quote unquote, which is a society that mainly benefits men and women are like a counterpart, but not the main part of a male experience.
Whereas, if you want to be real about it, women are way more powerful than men. Let me bleed once a month. You know what I’m saying? Let me craft a child in my stomach and then birth that child. I think men would die if we had to bleed every month and if we had to give birth to a child. I feel like women are just like they have a different level of strength, and it may not be physical strength — we equate physical strength as the fucking apex of strength in general — but there’s so many other places that you can be strong in. And I feel like women just innately have that. So, yeah, for me I see it as kind of like an even exchange. You can’t have one without the other.
And this isn’t a debate of sexuality. I of course believe that men could be with men and women could be with women. But when it is the dynamic of men and women together, I feel like the roles should be equal. Or, honestly, sometimes women can be a little bit higher — cuz it’s been so many times where it’s like I’ll be lost in life and then it won’t be my homies that lift me up, it’ll be the women.
It’ll be the women in my life that remind me of who I am, or give me tools — for instance I’m dealing with issues and I’m going to the doctor and they give me all this medication and stuff that got 20 side effects. It’d be the women in my life that be like, “just check out this herb that does the same thing.” It may take a little bit longer to work, but like you will be healing yourself from the ground up. It won’t just be putting a topical band-aid on top of your issues
So, I feel there needs to be an upliftment of women in our life. And that comes from not seeing them as just some type of game or just objects of our pleasures.
It sounds like … you would love to be in a good relationship.
*Laughs* Yes, definitely.
So you’re 36. Where are you dating wise right now?
No where. *Chuckles* I don’t think the universe is allowing that person to come in yet for whatever reasons. But I feel I have to look so deep within myself. And it is a bit of me also saying “no,” because I’m still learning so much about myself, I don’t 100% trust myself in a relationship just yet. I feel like I’m much better than I was years ago, or even a year ago. But I think there’s so much to destroy and rebuild. And I want a healthy relationship, you are correct, I really want to have the relationship — and not just because I’m lonely.
[Duckwrth contemplates for a moment] Sorry, it’s the whole thing of feeling out your emotions. I miss that exchange of having — not just like a girlfriend — but a partner. I understand that we are not meant to be on this planet alone. So yeah, I look forward to it, but I want it to be healthy, because I am 36. So it’s like “what we talking about,” you know?
I’m working towards having a future, and I can have kids in the next coming years. But I can’t repeat what my father did, and that is one of my fears — to do the same things that he did. So because that is a reoccurring fear, I think that’s what stops me from being in a relationship now until I really can have a hold on it. And I can get it to the point where it’s not “thought to action.” It used to be thought-to-action a lot. Now thought-to-action is three out of 10 times. *Laughs*
But if I can get it to “just thought” — where I just have this fuckboy-ass thought, and I’m just like, “there’s that shit again,” and then I just breathe it out and let it go. I think that will be quite advanced of me
And that’s giving myself grace, cuz we’re never going to be perfect. And it takes generations of adaptation and evolution to fully change. So hopefully my son — if I have a son — maybe he’ll be better. I’m sure he will be. Or grandson, who knows. But when it’s been years of trauma it just takes time to really dig through it and understand it and change and then pass that down to generations under you.
How did you get to this place where you’re able to recognize your thoughts and see your actions?
Self-awareness. I think a lot of things that I do and we all do as human beings is autopilot because we live in a capitalist nation where you get up, brush your teeth, get to work — I think that doing that every day kind of puts you in this redundant pattern.
And then when I am in the real world and I am in my actual thoughts, I start to recognize certain things. I start to recognize certain patterns.
So, for instance 8 p.m. I’m just chilling and finishing work and all of a sudden something flips a switch, and I start feeling extra tempted to hit up this woman or that woman. But I just have to understand that maybe 8 p.m. was a time where I would be doing my shit from the past.
These are patterns and habits that have been built up for years. So, it’s just recognizing that, okay, that makes sense. All right, cool. You have that thought. Don’t text nobody, just breathe it through and then finish the song that you’re working on. Or, I don’t know, stretch or make some food or something like that.
How long did it take to put this album together?
Two and a half years. The first thought I had was like, I was in Germany in December 2022. I think I was finishing a tour and I was talking to my friend Alana and I was like, “I want to make a rock album, but I want to trick people into thinking it’s not a rock album *laughs* by putting all these other elements in it.” But the initial goal is to make some type of alt rock album.
And then from there, I started getting these different downloads of “you need to go deeper.” And my manager was challenging me as a writer to go deeper, so I can have purpose again in what I’m doing and have a deeper connection with my listeners and my audience. And I had the name “FuckBoy” just keep repeating in my head and I was like, that would be so cheeky if I named the album “FuckBoy.” And then “All American” got attached to it maybe five months after. But pretty much when I got home in 2023, I started to build it and I went in a studio and started to work on it a bit and it just developed from there.
Where did the “All American” part come from?
It came from the things that the government and society did to break up the black family starting from slavery. And then different things like the crack epidemic that, once again, ripped apart black families. Because it’s just such a pattern that I find in a lot of my black male friends — it’s like you ain’t got a dad, you ain’t got a dad, you ain’t got a dad. It’s way too common and it’s not a coincidence at all.
This is my American experience but when I talk to my homies who are in Africa, in the UK, all around the world, and they’re like, yeah, I got my dad in my life. And not every black man in America ain’t got a dad, but their relationship to their family is much different, and I find too many times that black men in America just don’t have their dad around, or just have a really bad relationship because their dad was dipping out on their mom or was just doing the most.
So, I wanted to include that in there, and I was just tired of not claiming the country that I live in. I feel like my ancestors did a lot to build this nation and get no credit for it. And when you think about America, you think of a middle America redneck, you know? *Laughs* When you see the American flag, I used to get triggered before. I’m just tired of that. They work so hard so I can be where I’m at — just for me to have thoughts like “I’m about to dip to Paris. I’m about to live over there. I don’t want to live here.”
But what would be the point of them protesting and working day in day out? All the shit that they had to go through just so I can like not have land? Or just so I can not claim the place that I’m from, when my experience is, I’m an American? I’m an American expert, I have an American lens. The way I speak is American. I sound like a dude from Los Angeles. Fuck it, I’mma just claim it and see what happens.
But what I’m noticing is a lot of people are now claiming it. I’m starting to see the American flag on black people much more. And I feel like the zeitgeist right now is just very rich, and we’re all pulling from the same place of, “you know what, I’m here, and I don’t plan to go nowhere.”
Like Beyonce, she got the flag on her right now. She turned up. She caught Cowboy Carter. And she’s kind of doing it from more of a positive place.
I think mine is I’m using horror and surrealism as my vehicle of telling my American story of generational trauma that affected me in my adulthood with my issues with commitment.
Yes. Is it the Fly or Die album where they’re coming out the American —
— Yeah! They’re coming out the [American flag] egg. Pharrell has benefited so much from this place, and he represents how vast the black experience is. Seeing him being the creative director of Louis Vuitton is mind-blowing. I don’t think that opportunity would have even been a thought in the 80s and the 90s — you know, “Like, what?” Never.
But times are changing. I think it’s very interesting the time that we live in now, where we can have Donald Trump, but then we can also have Pharrell be the creative director of Louis Vuitton. *Laughs* It’s insane. This is insane.
And we got you!
And we got me! *Laughs* Literally.
Duckwrth’s album “All American F*ckBoy” will be released April 2. Interview edited for length and clarity.
Duckwrth on the March 21 cover of LA Weekly (Photo: Tatiana Katkova; Cover design: Jewel Baek)