The Big Rap Cookbook features recipes from some of the finest names in hip-hop, including Masta Ace, The Doppelgangaz, Sonnyjim, Marco Polo and many more. We spoke to the book’s authors, Sam “Fatty” Hemingway and Scott “Booda” French, for the lowdown on how the project was created, who writes the best foodie rap lyrics, and a lot more.
Where did the idea to write The Big Rap Cookbook come from?
Sam: I originally had the idea to do it after hearing so many food bars in hip-hop…they go round and round in my head all day even now! Stuff like Jehst: “It’s the troglodyte bachelor, flipping tyrannosaur meat with a spatula”. Or; “My name is Mos Def, this is as good as it gets…I make you rub your lips like sardines and grits”. Bars which include some obscure food reference have always tickled me for some reason. We started posting food bars on Instagram and then approached artists to contribute an interview and a recipe. We got a great response and it grew pretty quickly once we were able to connect the idea with people.
What’s great about the book is that, unlike some previous hip-hop cookbooks, your contributors take it seriously, with genuine passion for the recipes. And there’s an impressive number of emcees included. Did you reach out to some artists specifically because you know they drop a lot of food references in their rhymes (The Doppelgangaz, SonnyJim, Juga-Naut), or was it more based around who you could schedule time with?
Sam: We never wanted it to be a jokey, humorous, throwaway thing. We did a lot of research for the interviews in order to explore the artists’ backgrounds from the food angle. And yeah, we tried to target people we knew would be into the project, either because they reference food a lot in their bars or in some cases they just like eating…much like us! The way the book is presented you get the background of each artist through the interview and then the personality really comes out in the recipe part. It’s makes for an interesting read – I’d definitely buy it!
Scott: I’ve been around the hip-hop scene for nearly 20 years (ouch!) in various forms, so the first people we reached out to were friends or people in my network. I think those early collaborators gave us a bit more clout, and even self confidence in the project, to go and approach others. We were very keen to make something that could stand up in the food world as much as the hip hop world and have been fortunate that the artists we’ve featured have all been excited to be apart of it and respected the project enough to put a lot of thought into the recipes. Even those who aren’t into food as much as others still provided amazing recipes and often had an interesting food-based back story to speak about in the interviews. Some really surprised us.
Sam: Yeah man, it’s been a lot of work. Obviously, these artists have got a thousand things going on so it’s hard to pin them down for a shoot and interview, especially when we’re both working full time as well. But all the artists who contributed to the first issue have been really helpful and offered us a lot of advice on what moves to make next with it so it’s always rewarding. We’ve got to shout out our photographers who have given up a lot of their time for it as well – Jae Storer and Anis Ali. The shots they’ve given us really tie the two worlds together. We took Jae out to NY with us and he got bitten by a spider while crouching in the gutter, shooting The Doppelgangaz in Coney Island! His ankle swelled up like a balloon. Luckily, Marco Polo invited us up to his crib and gave him some magic pills which took the swelling down and he trooped on!
Scott: It was definitely a lot of work and luck, both good and bad. Learning to control what you can control and letting go what you can’t – especially when you’re dealing with up to 30 people’s schedules, across 3 continents and countless cities. Again, we really relied on everyone’s enthusiasm for the project to make it work. We definitely worked Anis and Jae way too hard on the shoots, and my girlfriend, Georgia who turned around some dope illustrations in record time. Certainly learnt a lot on this issue. We could probably write another book just from the conversations we had during the shoot.
Who was on your wish list that you wasn’t able to get? Bronson springs to mind as someone who would have been a good shout.
Sam: Yeah, obviously Action has been a big inspiration for us…we’re both addicted to the Fuck That’s Delicious series and Big Body’s quotes! We wanted to lean away from him a bit as well because he’s already done the whole cookbook thing and we didn’t want people to just associate food and rap with his name. We also wanted to get Jarobi from ATCQ as he’s a chef as well but he didn’t take us up on the offer. The biggest names are always the hardest to get but hopefully after releasing this first issue we’ll have a bit more leverage to approach artists we want to feature.
Scott: Of course, Action is the obvious one and we’d love him involved. Like Sam said, he’s kind of covered the ground ten fold but would be great to see if we could find any new angles to discuss. Jarobi, of course would be amazing. Styles P and Jadakiss co-own a juice bar in Queens and Styles has spoke about the changes he made in his diet which we’d love to get in a future issue. I’ve seen GZA speak about a health consciousness in food and you know you’re always going to learn from the Genius. Prodigy (RIP) would have been amazing also, he released a cookbook so it would have been cool to learn more about that. I’m reluctant to say too many names as we’ve already started on Issue 2 and the line up is looking ridiculous.
Were you surprised at how much some of these recipes mean to the artists? For instance, Masta Ace talking how vital a healthy diet is for him since being diagnosed with MS?
Sam: When we were in NY, the first three interviews we did were with artists who had changed their diet completely for various reasons. John Robinson talks about turning vegan after being on tour and wanting to detox, Masta Ace, for his health reasons, eats really clean and J-Zone talks about how Greg Nice called him fat one day and he changed his lifestyle after that! It was a common theme – Coops talks about turning veggie after spending some time out in South America. There’s a good mix in the features of clean eaters and a few dirty ones as well! Dirty Dike used to live off sugar sandwiches!
Scott: I was surprised and unsurprised. It was interesting to hear the individual relationships with food but food is food, its essential to existence so everyone has their relationships and idiosyncrasies with it whether they consciously think about it or not. Food can be a mutual grounds for discussion between all worlds of life, we just chose to explore that through a world which is a part of our life – hip-hop. Which adds another element to it as rappers and producers are often represented as these macho, unreachable egomaniacs but speaking to them through food really brings out the “human” in them that’s not often on show and everyone can relate to.
Sam: For me personally, it’s The Purist’s Lobster Linguine recipe. It’s quite a delicate dish and very tricky to get the flavors right. I spent four years living in Italy so I can definitely relate to that one.
Scott: Good question. For me, probably Melanin 9’s Fly Salmon Fillet. I’m trying to get off meat so admittedly I haven’t tried them all. Jae, who photographed the food shots vouched for Grim Sickers Brown Stew Chicken, as did my girlfriend. Looking forward to who the people vote for!
And who in your opinion writes the best food raps?
Sam: I’ll break it down to US and UK. For the US guys I’ve got to give it to The Doppelgangaz with bars like: “It’s truly valid, shorty schooled me on shawarma and tabouli salad”. In the UK I’ve got to give a joint title to Juga-Naut and Sonnyjim for bars like this: “Lump fish beluga, sushi on the move, she a mover, Subaru cruise seared tuna” (Juga-Naut) and “Got your girl cookie baking, tushie shaking, tagliatelle with the truffle shaving, I’m done playing” (Sonnyjim).
Scott: For me, Sonnyjim and The Doppelgangaz – both are in the book. It’s interesting, as a rapper myself, to hear the Dopp say they call about food because the words are often phonetically pleasing. That’s a geek mode for me. I’d say Juga-naut, Roc Marciano and Ghostface would make the top five for me. The more obscure, the better.
This is billed as Issue 1 of the book. When can we expect Issue 2, and who will we likely see in it?
Scott: Issue 2, next year. Hopefully summer. Bi-annual would be nice but it’s a lot of work around our full time jobs and we’d much rather take the time to make it right than rush it to fulfill a promise. We want to make it a collectible series and want everyone who gets a copy to be proud to have parted with their hard earned money for it.
We’re also working on some other mediums to branch out to. Personally, I’m really into the interviews and the sociological side of the relationships with food so I’d like to get the podcast up and running where we can explore these in more depth. Can’t say any names yet but we’ve got some exciting people for issue two! Going to be nuts. Can we just take a moment to thank everyone who’s supported the project on any small or large way. The love has been overwhelming and it’s definitely taken us back a bit. Can’t wait to get the books delivered to everyone…
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The Big Rap Cookbook Issue 1 is available for order here. Follow on Twitter and Instagram. Photo credits: Jae Storer, Anis Ali. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.