: Maino's Personal Struggles Dig Deeper Than Rap, "My Closest Cousin Committed Suicide"

recently opened up about his recent family loss and how music has provided him with an escape from his troubles.




According to Maino, he has had to deal with unexpected family deaths.



"I'm really going through it," Maino said in an interview. "Even right now, my closest cousin committed suicide. He's been on the road with me. You probably seen me with him...You get in the game, you think you escape all this. This is not a distant relative of mine. This is my closest cousin. We grew up together. My mother and his mother are sisters. Just thinking about that and going through that while I'm trying to attain fame and this lifestyle, it's two worlds. One side, everything is all good. On my personal, it's really not. My cousin was just here; now he's not...It's almost like no time to grieve. What are you gonna do? What am I gonna tell MTV: 'I can't do an interview. I'm going through something in my personal life. Everybody in my family is crying right now'? You still gotta work, you still gotta achieve, you still gotta win. Under no circumstances do we stop for one minute. This is the theme of my new album -- really giving it up and showing you what a person really goes through to get to that point. I was starving to get here. Now that I'm here, it's like, man, it's not what I thought it would be. It's not really that good. It's great, but personally, you go through things regular people go through." (MTV)

The rapper recently discussed the status of his upcoming reality show.



"All I'mma say is I shot something and it'll be out in a few months," Maino told radio host Jenny Boom Boom. "I'm sneaky, I feel like a lot of people sleep on me and I like to sneak up on them and just hit them with stuff that just comes out of nowhere. So I don't like to just really put out my moves where they see me coming. I'm a thinker, so I try to strategize my moves and not really put them on blast because as long as a person is sleeping, he puts me at the advantage. [Expect a new album] very soon. Like I said, the movement is not stopping any time soon. As long as you keep playing them records, we're gonna keep grinding and we gonna keep making videos..." (Jenny Boom Boom TV)

Last summer, Maino gave details surrounding the reality show.



"It's 90 percent solidified," he told radio host Angela Yee. "This is why I haven't really spoke on it because it's not etched in stone yet. But there's something reality-based and around MTV 'ish. It's about a white dude, he doesn't come from my culture. He doesn't understand the rap game, he doesn't understand what it means to be a rapper everyday. He lives with me and tries to like, understand what goes on in our world...Nothing I do is scripted. So if you see smack somebody then maybe it's really going down." (Shade 45 Lip Service)

Maino's debut album, If Tomorrow Comes... debuted in the Top 50 last year.



"Hi Hater" hitmaker Maino's long-awaited If Tomorrow Comes... album also debuted this week resting at No. 25. With a week under his belt, the Brooklyn, New York-bred emcee's debut has sold 18,300 records. (SOHH Sales Wrap)