New York City’s PremRock released his acclaimed latest album, Load Bearing Crow’s Feet, last month. We caught up with him to talk about the new project, his work with billy woods, ShrapKnel, and the Wrecking Crew.
The new album came out late last month, and it’s a great piece of work. Can you breakdown the spirit of the project for those yet to hear it. Can you also fill us in on the name. What exactly does Load Bearing Crow’s Feet mean?
First off thank you for taking the time. It’s a heady brew so it takes a bit of navigation perhaps not sonically but some of the writing can get pretty dense. Crow’s feet are simply the wrinkles formed around your eye from ageing or maybe frequent squinting. I’m not often in disbelief but I am constantly squinting and I don’t know why. I liked the idea of maybe the crow’s feet are holding it all together, your thoughts, your worries, stress etc. Maybe that’s why over time it gets more pronounced. They’ve been overworked.
Plus it made me laugh, it feels silly and it feels surreal. I write iPhone notes a lot sometimes when I am also drinking and I woke up one morning with simply “Load Bearing Crow’s Feet.” I could never stop thinking about it.
Some of the most creative hip-hop from the last few years has come out on billy woods’ Backwoodz Studioz label. And each time there’s a critically acclaimed woods or Armand Hammer record, more people get to discover artists like you, Curly Castro, Henry Canyons. Tell me about how you first connected with woods, and your relationship with the label.
I’ve known woods over a decade now and that’s crazy to think about. After I started working with Willie Green in 2009-10’ we started appearing in each other’s orbit. He was unsurprisingly a bit mysterious but always very friendly and seemed to like my music. It wasn’t until Green’s wedding that woods and I really connected. We got fitted for tuxes together and that and the wedding were the first times we had real convos, shared a drink or a meal. The cloak revealed a really thoughtful and decent dude. He actually had copies of History will Absolve Me in his backpack, I think he was dropping them off somewhere for retail. It wasn’t like he was hawking “do you like hip-hop?” haha although that’s hilarious to think about after talking a bit he gave me one. That record blew my entire mind. Super Chron Flight Brothers was cool to me but it wasn’t really my bag at the time. HWAM was a different story. I told anyone within an earshot of me 2.5 whiskeys deep that I thought it was the best record that year and maybe beyond. It was everything I wanted out of rap music at that moment. I basically believed in the man and the label after that. If I had 100K I would have invested in them. Of course, I had no money but tried to rep them whenever I could. I want Green to win as much as anyone in the world so the pairing made this an obvious choice that one day we would work together in an official capacity. It took the time needed and when the time came I knew I had to bring him a definitive project.
You’ve also made some excellent music in the last couple of years with Curly Castro as ShrapKnel. Do you feel like that project allows you to be different to a PremRock solo record, or is it always the same persona? And can we expect new ShrapKnel music soon?
Thank you, and I can say I agree with you. I do think it’s excellent. We turned out to be even better foils for each other than we had hoped. It really exceeded expectations. I think I adopt a persona that is a bit more malleable to Castro. Writing will always be personal for me but a solo record is a bit more so. ShrapKnel is like running an offence suited to your strengths and to complement your partner’s. It’s a different process entirely. It’s still very much me but I believe there’s quite a few facets and chambers to tap into and this one happens to sound as good as it does on record as it does in my mind. A rare feat. ShrapKnel has a full clip I can assure you of that. Some really great music and interesting production pairings to be revealed in due time. We’re running a two man weave on everything we touch, it’s exciting.
You and Curly Castro are also members of the Wrecking Crew alongside Zilla Rocca and Small Pro. What’s the dynamic like when you guys get together to record, especially with some of you in New York, some in Philly?
Castro comes up to NYC quite a bit. It’s really dope to be able to link in person to tweak stuff or record around each other. That energy is always different in person no matter what. Zilla and I like to write in person and then record immediately. ShrapKnel has more focused intent in terms of demoing, and maybe making three versions as we sit and live with the music. Zilla records mostly at home, Smalls communicates via smoke signal. You know it’s time to ride when you see him.
Circling around to Backwoodz Studioz again, you have Elucid and Fielded on Load Bearing Crow’s Feet but not woods himself. How come?
There’s a short answer and a longer one but both are correct and I’ll provide both. Short one is I didn’t hear him on anything. Longer answer is now that I reflect perhaps I wanted to step out of the nest on my own so to speak. I could have pulled more strings and sought bigger fish in general but I felt this was a statement I wanted to make without these moves. There’s little doubt a woods feature would boost the cache of the record but I just didn’t have the song for him. It never emerged. We had a great collab on ShrapKnel last year and we’ve had some good songs in the past but it started to feel like I was fixing to shoehorn him on the record rather than organically letting it breathe and occur like every other time we worked together.
Elucid struck me one day as the finishing touch to an already good song. It was just the extra seasoning to make it more memorable. He obliged and I’m grateful. I did happen to know he was recording with Green on a day coming up so perhaps strategy was involved… perhaps! Fielded occurred the same way, she’s singing a sample actually Zilla had in place. I wasn’t worried about clearance per se as I did pick up where it was from I just thought it’d be iller if she sang it and in the middle of quarantine she obliged. Thank you!
Henry and I have never made a song together which is a bit incredible to think about seeing as many miles together on the road and have become close friends. The thing I love about him as an artist is his exclusivity. He doesn’t acquiesce to the demand of the current attention span and I like to think neither do I. He always rarely does features. It isn’t about the money he just has to be very much onboard to complete something. I really respect that. I finally heard a beat that was a Eureka! moment and hit him immediately. He agreed. This is kind of how I want all my collaborations to go but sometimes challenges arise or you simply don’t have the chemistry required. Not everyone is meant to work together.
One of the things I respect is how you are very open about having a day job (or rather night job, seeing as you work in a bar, right?). It’s refreshing to hear an artist be honest and not try to make out they fully earn a living from hip-hop. Is it a conscious choice you made, or just something you’ve never given much thought to?
I do work at a bar, a couple in fact. It’s as entertaining of a job as you can probably have. I try to be honest about what goes on in my life that I’m willing to share. I don’t see the need to lie like I have money like that. I really don’t but I know how to get it when I need it. I definitely do okay and feel like with this skill I’ve acquired I could live anywhere in the world and make a living while probably making new friends along the way. Bartending has informed a lot of my writing. It’s really great fuel for understanding people. People aren’t fundamentally that different. They want to be heard and they don’t want to be judged.
I know doctors, teachers, drug dealers, painters, executive chefs, magicians, working fortune tellers, real estate agents, musicians, lawyers, social workers etc they all convene at a place where they need a break from life. Shit, I recently discovered an old regular of mine is a convicted murderer, he annoyed me at times but we had a solid rapport. They also tell me a lot, and I keep a lot of secrets. Some are there too much but that’s a different tale! A social worker from the Bronx told me I was his social worker. He came when the gig got too intense and drank and we talked hoops. This guy, like a lot more than you’d think, has no idea I rap. It doesn’t matter to me, if it comes up it comes up but I’m not wearing a sandwich board about it. I have a tremendous amount of empathy for broken people. A real soft-spot for the down and out but sometimes you need a smack in the face and I am also quite happy to provide that too. It’s made me a somewhat popular figure in the area which is fun when you want it to be but not always. Definitely fun when the server at a restaurant recognizes you on a date and sends free drinks but not as fun when I feel like a therapist who just saw their patient at the grocery store.
The service industry went through an especially hard time during the pandemic. It seemed pretty bleak for a long time there but the emergence has been rewarding. It’s a gig you can pick up and put down whenever you choose. It’s not for the faint of heart, the people who like to take any type of dinner break or folks who like to do anything fun on the weekends. It’s sort of an outlaw’s way of living, walking home when some are leaving for work well outside of the societal norms, sharing inside jokes with the ne’er-do-wells of the town because they know you don’t judge them or what they do. Making a rich lawyer visiting from Texas wait as you serve your favorite Mexican barback who lives around the corner, hey pal my house, my rules. A slice of societal correction if you ask me.
Anything else you’d like people to know about Load Bearing Crow’s Feet or what’s coming for you next?
I made this especially for the folks who have believed in me this far and hope some new ones will join as I continue on. I do not ever plan on slowing down until life has other plans for me. I want to continue to push myself to make better and more nuanced music. I want to achieve a place of complete freedom when writing and creating. I am on my way. There’s at least a dozen projects I want to create that I haven’t even begun yet. I am just immensely grateful that I am adding to the conversation in general. There’s plenty to be excited about.. ShrapKnel, Sedale Threat, Ockham’s Blazer and Bourbon Generals to name a few. Also to delve further into my production is something I’m looking forward to. Hopefully people who check this record, take the time required. I know that’s a tall task in 2021 but I have faith. Thank you for having me and for the support all these years. It means the world.
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Load Bearing Crow’s Feet is out now via Backwoodz Studioz and you can get it here. Follow PremRock on Twitter and Instagram. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.