If everything goes according to plan, by the time rising Brooklyn rapper Joey Bada$$ makes it out to Vancouver as part of his B4DAMONEY fall tour, he’ll be loaded up on fan adulation and at least a couple of boxes of Apple Jacks. Reason being, he sent out a tweet to his nearly 390,000 followers ahead of the trek, requesting the faithful to “make some big pretty signs to wave up and bring me some books and cereal.”

Pressed about the possibility of possessing an excess of breakfast treats, the artist notes that there are worse problems out there than him and his Pro Era crew having a van full of puffed wheat.

“It is a lot of cereal, but I’ve got a lot of mouths to feed as well, you know,” the rapper explains over the phone from an undisclosed location, a sizably sleepy yawn creeping out of his mouth, after being woken up by the Straight.

Composing himself to name a few favourite brands, Bada$$ reveals a serious sugar fixation: “I’ve told them to bring me Cap’n Crunch, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes, and Frosted Cheerios.”

Just as sweet as Bada$$’s carb-heavy breakfast game has been the 19-year-old’s career arc. Since issuing his free mix tape, 1999, in 2012, the New York native has racked up acclaim and downloads by throwing confident and compelling wordplay over classic, soulful boom-bap beats. Or, as he asserts on the freelease’s “Summer Knights”, by delivering a “style with no gimmicks”.

Since then, he’s discussed everything from blazing blunts between classes to channelling a transcendental, third-eye vision on the Pro Era’s PEEP: The aPROcalypse group tape.

Bada$$’s next project is a commercial full-length debut called B4.DA.$$, reportedly due by year’s end. Backed by Pro Era pal Kirk Knight’s 93 to Infinity–style throwback beat of jazzy piano rolls and sumptuous snare clacks, the first single, “Big Dusty”, has Bada$$ boasting about having “lines so deep a great shark is what I reel up”.

The song also finds the hip-hop MC employing a tone that’s steadily become raspier. This evolution is further highlighted in the Twitter-delivered couplet, “They say they like me better when my voice was soft/As if I don’t be spitting fire and my throat ain’t scorched.” Despite the line’s suggestion that some listeners would rather Bada$$’s style stay static, the artist won’t kowtow to expectations.

“Listen, when you’re speaking to me, don’t ever use the word expect,” he says, “You can’t just expect shit from me, I will never just give you what you want. I tell my fans to learn how to accept.”

Flexing the acting chops Bada$$ picked up as a high-school student, the recently unveiled “No Regrets” short film further traces his come-up through the ranks of the rap game. The then-and-now narrative is paired with another B4.DA.$$ preview called “Escape 120”, in which he rhymes of his burgeoning career, “although I’m gaining ends now, I’m losing friends.”

“I suppose what I’m saying is how hard it is to work on the album through all the struggles, through all the pain,” he says of the song, musing on his short time in the music business. “It’s definitely not what I thought it was. It’s not just fun and games, it’s a lot of other things. With great power comes great responsibility, of course—I just took a lot from the experience. I’m way more mature now.”

Joey Bada$$ plays the Vogue Theatre on Saturday (October 11).