After years of making people laugh, rap along, and argue back, Prince Pierre turns the volume inward with an eight track spoken word project.
Quick disclosure before we start: Pierre is my friend, and I am proud as hell of him.
The funny thing about knowing somebody personally is that you forget how much history they have. You’re busy talking shit, swapping posts, and picking apart whatever nonsense happened that week, and then they release something and you zoom out. Wait, this person has been out here building a body of work the whole time. (Yes, I knew. No, I did not say it out loud enough.)
Prince Pierre, born Pierre Phipps, has spent years moving through music, queer culture, and hip hop commentary without ever making himself easy to put in one box. Now he’s made something that doesn’t sound like he’s performing for the room at all.
Do Not Disturb, released October 2nd, is an eight track, roughly 20 minute spoken word poetry project, and the title tells you exactly where his head is: everybody outside can give him a minute. The tracks include “Voicemail,” “First Time,” “Missed Call,” “Pages In Your Love Notebook,” “Mean,” “Tired,” and “Voicemail 2,” with appearances from Sage the Gemini and longtime Freaky Boiz partner TT Got It. Pierre also announced the project is on the ballot for GRAMMY consideration, which is a wild thing to attach to what he called a “crazy little idea.” (I’m being very professional about this. Internally I am running laps.)
Before the Quiet, There Was Freaky Boiz
If you only know Pierre from what he’s doing now, you missed a whole chapter. He was one half of Freaky Boiz with Terrance “TT Got It” Wilson, a gay rap duo that started in Chicago with an online video that unexpectedly took off before they relocated to Los Angeles. Those early viral records grew into singles, EPs, and the 2021 album Freak Show.
They made explicitly gay rap when much of the industry treated queer men in hip hop like a punchline, a secret, or a marketing problem. Pierre and TT weren’t whispering. They rapped about sex, dating, money, men, mess, and joy with the kind of confidence that made it fun first and political almost by accident. When the Los Angeles Times covered them at South L.A. Pride in 2023, Pierre talked about what it means for a young Black gay boy to see someone like him onstage and know another kind of life is possible.
Please don’t call them “ahead of their time.” They weren’t standing outside the culture waiting for it to catch up. They were already in it, stretching what queer rap could look and sound like.
Then came Purse First, the podcast he hosted alongside writer Sesali Bowen, which centered female and queer rap and moved him from the artist people discussed to one of the people doing the discussing. It was criticism, fandom, humor, and the occasional read somebody probably had coming. That history is why spoken word is such a flex for him now.
There’s no hook to hide behind and no beat to lean on, so the voice carries all of it.
A Door Barely Cracked
The cover tells you everything before you press play: a nearly black room, a door barely cracked, light slipping underneath, and a DO NOT DISTURB hanger exactly where it belongs.
The track list reads like somebody emptied a phone, a notebook, and a few private conversations and arranged them into chapters. There are voicemails, missed calls, first times, exhaustion, love notebook pages, and a song simply called “Mean.” (I’m assuming that one is not about somebody being a delight. I will be listening for names.)
Most of Pierre’s public work has needed immediacy. Rap asks you to land the bar, podcasting asks you to have the take, and social media wants the idea before somebody’s thumb moves. Poetry makes you sit there and deal with it. For a guy whose public personality runs on humor, sharpness, and a little “girl, please” energy, going interior is like turning the camera around.
That’s why TT Got It showing up makes sense. If you’re making something about memory, relationships, and the thoughts that follow you into quiet rooms, you invite someone from one of the earliest chapters of your creative life. He isn’t there for nostalgia points. He’s there because the history is real. (Also, I am ready for a Freaky Boiz reunion. If this is the door cracking back open, I’m already standing in the hallway.)
The timing is perfect, too. Artists are expected to explain the rollout, feed the algorithm, film the content, tease the teaser, and stay interesting through all of it. Naming your project Do Not Disturb is a little rebellious. Some days you just want to shut the damn door.
Permission to Be Different
What I appreciate most is that Pierre isn’t treating growth like a costume change. Once an audience decides which version of you they understand, they ask for that version forever. Make that song again. Tell that joke again. Give us the energy we already know how to label. Do Not Disturb refuses to let familiarity become a cage.
The format uses the same tools that always made his work interesting, including timing, voice, humor, vulnerability, and cultural awareness, and rearranges them into something quieter and more personal. He’s been a rapper, performer, podcaster, and commentator, and this adds another language without pretending the others never happened. That’s a better kind of growth than the dramatic “new era” announcement artists feel pressured to manufacture.
Making something personal is risky in a different way, because you can’t hide behind everybody agreeing it was a smart business move. You make it because it keeps bothering you until you do. This project doesn’t spend its twenty minutes staring backward. It sounds like somebody taking stock of who he’s been, closing the door long enough to hear himself clearly, and deciding he still has a few things to say in a different voice.
And since I’m his friend, I get to say what a press release wouldn’t. I’m proud of you, Pierre. (Now enjoy your quiet for a minute, because I’m about to start bothering you again about that reunion.)
Press play on Do Not Disturb on Apple Music, then tell us which track got you. Follow Pierre, and follow Freaky Boiz while you’re there (the reunion campaign continues). Then follow @newhollywoodmagazine and visit newhollywoodmagazine.com for more conversations that go beyond the press release.
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