Supastition is one of the most talented artists working in hip-hop today, with an extensive run of albums released over the last two decades. In this new interview we discuss his most recent work, including Every Last Word and the Speaker Bullies album, new music coming soon, and the importance of being open about struggles with mental health.
You’ve had a busy year so far, with Every Last Word dropping in March, and the Speaker Bullies album in July. How do you feel these recent projects have been received so far?
It’s been a hectic year, for sure. The feedback has been amazing for both of those projects. I’m honestly humbled by the support. The plan was to release the two-part series with Every Last Word and All That Was Left Unsaid together since the Speaker Bullies album was taking forever to finish. Soulspazm hit me a few days after Every Last Word dropped and wanted to release the Speaker Bullies album immediately. I had to call an audible and change the plans a little.
Every Last Word dealt with issues like health, and loss of family. You have the companion project, All That Was Left Unsaid, coming soon. Is that a continuation of the same themes and tone?
Both projects are related to each other but have a different mood to each one. The album covers (by Philly artist Pecue) will look very similar. Every Last Word was me dealing with the grief of losing my close friend and biological father as well as recovering from a terrible case of Covid that damaged my lungs and caused heart issues. The feeling was hopeless and borderline depressing because that’s what I was going through. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to rap again. On All That Was Left Unsaid, it’s a more optimistic look at life and more so about celebrating the wins and the good times. I wanted one project to show the downsides, but I wanted the second to sound more thankful for those life lessons. It’s about balance for me.
You’re very honest and open about subjects like mental health, which is so refreshing to see in a genre of music often closed to these problems. Do you find it hard to open up?
It’s not difficult for me to talk about it in my music because I’m comfortable sharing my struggles in real life. Men aren’t taught to show certain emotions because it makes them look weak. The myth is that rappers always gotta look tough and invincible. I don’t subscribe to that anymore. As a survivor of suicide and depression, I am a mental health advocate and I want to do my part to help people going through it. I’m human… I wake up every day and go to work just like most of my supporters. We have the same problems and that can be stress, anxiety, depression, or insecurity. Right now, somebody is reading this, and they are going through hell. Hearing someone else talk about it could save somebody’s life.
We first came aware of your music in 2015 with Gold Standard. How would you say you’ve evolved or grown as an artist since then? One particular way of note is that you now self-produce most albums.
Wow, that’s dope to hear! Gold Standard was like a factory reset for me. I went on the biggest tour of my career and came home to realize that touring wasn’t the life for me anymore. I had to make some changes. I’ve evolved in the sense that I only care to do things that I truly love. I used to force myself to do things that I hated because I was taught that it’s what you have to do to become successful in music. I didn’t enjoy touring for months because I was missing out on family stuff, affecting my kids and marriage. I love to listen to, write, produce, and record music and that’s where my love for music starts and ends. Everything else in this industry isn’t important to me.
As far as the self-produced projects, I started producing my albums when I realized that I wasn’t putting out much music because I was waiting on other people. It had always been an issue finding consistent production and dealing with different producer’s personalities. Musicians can be weird sometimes and egos are everywhere. It slows down everything sometimes. It would take me over a year to find production and get the producer to track out the stems. I could write, record, and produce two albums on my own by the time it takes me to get half of an album done with outside producers. For years, people were only listening to me because I worked with certain producers. When those producers moved on, they stopped listening. Those weren’t my supporters, in my opinion. I needed to build my own (fan)base of listeners who truly rock with me.
You’ve always been close Phonte and Rapper Big Pooh, and you recently went to the Little Brother Welcome To Durham Block Party event. What was that like?
I’ve known those brothers for over 20 years and we’re still cool to this day. Before they dropped The Listening, they opened for me at my 7 Years of Bad Luck album release party back in 2002. I paid them out of my pocket to perform because I believed in them that much. We have been friends ever since.
The ’Made In Durham’ block party was an amazing experience. Watching them go from performing in front of small venues to a block full of people from all over the US shows how things came full circle for them. They weren’t looked at as “hometown heroes” in the beginning, but their legacy and body of work are undeniable now. Many of us got to see the talent and hustle before the rest of the world saw it. Salute to my brothers Pooh and Phonte.
Do you have a confirmed release date for All That Was Left Unsaid, and what can we expect from you after that?
It was scheduled for an October release, but it has been tough to promote the Speaker Bullies album and put together these two upcoming vinyl releases on my own. You can expect to see it released sometime in November though. There won’t be a big rollout for it this time. As soon as it’s ready, I’ll drop it.
I can’t speak on the other upcoming projects right now, but I have two or three different EPs coming with some bigger-named producers. I hate announcing them prematurely because sometimes things don’t work out and people get annoyed. I think people will be excited when they are finally announced though. I don’t know how much time I have left to record and release music so I’m releasing everything I can over the next year or so.
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Stream Supastition’s music on Spotify, and purchase it from Bandcamp. Follow him on X and Instagram.
Following a couple one-off collaborations, Detroit emcee Guilty Simpson and Uncommon Nasa have finally joined forces for their long-awaited collaborative effort, Escalation. Out tomorrow via Nasa’s own Uncommon Records, Matt Horowitz recently spoke to both of them about the new album. Check out the conversation below, which has been lightly edited for clarity.
How long have you two known/known of each other?
Guilty Simpson: It’s been a couple years now. Since I started working on the Guilt EP with Man Bites Dog Records.
Uncommon Nasa: Yeah, during that time, I was, also, recording for Man Bites Dog Records and we had Guilty get on “Compass” from Written at Night and, then, later “Sunrise” turned up on Uncommon Nasa & Kount Fif’s City As School. After two collabs and one that I produced, I wanted to make a full album happen. So, it’s been since at least 2017.
Have you ever met each other in-person? If so, would you mind describing the circumstances behind your first face-to-face meeting?
GS: Never met in person. We communicate through phone, social media, or email.
UN: Not in person yet, but I’m glad to say that I think myself and Guilty come from a similar place musically, so we were able to really connect through the music. I felt an instant familiarity working with him, musically and personally. With some artists, it might have been a blockage to not be in the same place, but it was easy for us, I think. It’s how most music gets made these days, even with other artists that I’ve known longer and that I have met in person.
What made you guys decide to join forces to collaborate on Escalation?
GS: During the process of knowing each other, we collaborated on a few tracks, so we had a working situation going on already.
UN: For me, it seemed like it could be a natural fit. Especially after those Man Bites Dog Records tracks we did. I’d been a fan for years, so I had an idea in my head of how it would sound and I wanted to make that a reality. So, I reached out and now, we have Escalation as that collaboration.
How was working together on Escalation different from each or your past releases? What elements or qualities would you say you brought out of each other that makes this specific release unique?
GS: I liked how left-field the tracks were. They aren’t the standard “Guilty Simpson-type beats” I’m used to hearing, so it challenged me to do something different.
UN: I wanted to make beats for Guilty that would fit his voice, flow, and style—but that still sounded like I made them for the people that were familiar with each of us. I wanted it to be a true collaboration, one that fits into each of our catalogs and makes perfect sense and I think we got there.
How would you say your collaborations on Escalation have grown, progressed, evolved, and changed since your last collaboration?
GS: Just more advanced with the sound. I feel that track paved the way for us to understand it could work.
UN: I think that showed the potential that got this all started. We were able to go much deeper than one collab on Escalation and stretched out those vibes on a full-length. Guilty had the space to flesh out a theme across 12 tracks of my beats and that was really ill to be a part of.
Who or what would you both readily cite as some of your greatest sources of personal inspiration and influence while collectively creating Escalation?
GS: My inspiration never changes: J Dilla and Sean Price. Those are the people that made the biggest impact on me during my musical journey, so they’ll forever be my inspiration.
UN: When I reached out to Guilty to put this album together, I was focused on his mic work and what we could create together, but once this became a reality it, sunk in that Guilty had worked with J Dilla, Madlib, Apollo Brown, Gensu Dean, Black Milk, Katalyst, and the list goes on and on. That was a lofty list of producers to try and keep up with, so that was an inspiration for me. I had to literally stop listening to Guilty’s music during the making-of this album to ensure that I stayed focused on what I could contribute; keeping his past work as an influence in my head, but not a direct influence on my ears, if that makes sense. His catalog is stacked and I’m proud to be a small part of that now. So, that all really
inspired me.
Who would each of you choose to enlist for a hypothetical companion remix album for Escalation and why for each selection?
GS: Roc [Marciano] would be dope. His style is imitated so much these days, I’d like to work more with the original. I hear so many well-respected rappers these days taking the shortcut and copying him with these drum-less albums, it’s gotten corny.
UN: I have to agree with that statement and reiterate that Escalation HAS drums on it! There are a variety of approaches I took with the beats on Escalation, not everything is boom and pound kicks and snares (although, there are some like that), but it all has percussion to it. I think that’s what Roc, and, also, KA, bring to those quote-unquote drum-less productions that are hard to replicate. Those guys can flip stuff where a solitary conga or a bassline serves as the “percussive” element to drive the beat and they are some of the most talented emcees out there, so it all works perfectly. So, yeah, it’d be awesome to hear Roc’s version of some of these tracks or if KA remixed them, that’d be ill because I don’t remember him remixing anything before.
Who designed the album artwork and packaging for Escalation? What kind of vibe were you or the artist going for with this sort of theme and layout?
GS: Somebody from Nasa’s side did it and I think it’s fire!! Really dope and I wanna thank them for their contribution.
UN: Big shout-out to DJ Jazzpants on that. He worked from some photos of us, but created 100% original artwork from scratch. The vintage comic look and feel to it was all him. The vinyl has extra images, similar to the cover, on a full-color inner-sleeve and the CD shows them inside the digipak. Really appreciate his work on this one.
What do each of you have planned next either in support of Escalation and/or your own forthcoming separate solo efforts?
GS: I’m working on a gang of stuff. I wanna push this record and, also, line it up for my future projects coming. I have some special things happening and in my element. Me and two amazing emcees are working on an album that’s game changing!
UN: Same here. Trying to get this album to as many ears as possible is my mission. I, also, have a few more albums I’m in the middle of producing; the first one that you’ll see and hear in early 2024 is from Pastense (Guilty’s on that album for a track, as well, actually,) but I always have my hands in something
production wise and Uncommon Records has a lot of releases lining up, as well.
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Escalation is our October 13 via Uncommon Records. Stream and order here, including on vinyl. Follow Guilty Simpson on X, Instagram and Spotify. Follow Uncommon Nasa on Instagram and Spotify.
Matt Horowitz has been a hip-hop fan ever since he first heard Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) back in the mid-90’s, which positively or negatively changed his life ever since, depending on who you ask. He single-handedly runs online music publication The Witzard, and has been fortunate enough to interview Eothen ‘Egon’ Alapatt, Guilty Simpson, Ice-T and Mr. X, Dan Ubick, Career Crooks’ Zilla Rocca & Small Professor, Cut Chemist, and J-Zone, amongst countless others. He enjoys writing about and listening to hip-hop, Punk/Hardcore, and Indie Rock on vinyl with his lovely wife, while drinking craft beer, red wine, or iced coffee. To paraphrase both Darko The Super and the Beastie Boys: “Already Dead fans, they want more of this… I’m a Witzard like my man Matt Horowitz!”. Follow Matt here.
Veteran L.A. producer Kenny Segal has already been behind one of the year’s best hip hop releases, thanks to Maps, his second collaboration with New York rapper, billy woods. Now he’s set to score another win with his upcoming album with Ruby Yacht artist, Pink Navel. GingerSlim recently spoke with him to discuss the two albums, as well as his roots in the L.A. scene, his early love for drum & bass and his work with Jefferson Park Boys.
How you doing, man? How’s everything going?
Things are good. Had a bit of a hectic morning but I’m here and we’re finally making this happen after many tries.
I know, yeah. You seem to be in a perpetual state of activity whenever we exchange emails.
Yeeah, summer’s been very busy and abnormally so for me because I don’t usually tour that much, especially not since the pandemic. And you’ve seen how on this tour we’re on little short runs, so instead of it being one big chunk where I’m gone for a month, it’s been three months where I’ve gone for a week, then home for a week…
Is that harder to manage?
Well on one hand I like it, in that being on a long, gruelling tour… and gruelling is the operative word, I’ve been on a tour where we’ve done 30 gigs in a row, which definitely wears on you physically. But I’m not that great at hopping back into regular life. Like my homie Mr Carmack, from the Jefferson Park Boys, he’s perpetually on tour every weekend. He doesn’t go on long tours but he goes out of town almost every weekend for a gig. I don’t know how he does that shit. He comes home and just jumps right back into life, takes care of shit and then heads out of town again. For me, when I get back, it takes me a few days just to get back into the flow of things.
Do you like touring, aside from that element?
Yes and no. I’m more of a homebody, I would probably rather be at home making music and doing my own thing. But that being said, it’s undoubtedly fun. I mean touring – and it’s funny cos Maps is all about this – ultimately the majority is not fun, but then the parts that are fun are so awesome that it kinda makes up for all the other stuff.
And do you enjoy being in the spotlight like that? Are you that sort of performer, or do you prefer to be anonymous in the background?
I’m not a natural performer. I have grown over the years to be better at being a performer and to accept it and enjoy it more. If you’d asked me that a decade ago, I would have told you that I absolutely do not enjoy being on stage, or being in the spotlight whatsoever. I’ve got better at it from repetition and just from being a part of it, you start to enjoy it and cosy up to it more. In my head, if Flying Lotus had never happened and turned producers into artists… back when I first started, producers were not artists. Producers were just part of the people making the record. But over the last two decades that has completely switched, to the point where sometimes producers are bigger than the artists themselves. I was maybe being a little cheeky in my reference, but to me Flying Lotus was kinda like the person who made that shift back when he first became popular. If that had never happened, I would have been perfectly happy as a background player, toiling away and making stuff in the studio – knowing that I did a good job, but no one else knowing about it. But that’s just not the reality we live in anymore.
I wanted to go back to the beginning, because I know you’re from the East Coast originally and that a lot of the rap you listened to back then was East Coast. Do you feel like your music would have been a lot different if you had stayed there instead of moving to L.A.?
Hmmm not necessarily because I was always into being experimental. Definitely as far as hip hop goes my original references were mainly East Coast. Although very early on I had a dubbed copy of AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, but I was totally unaware of Project Blowed or any of that. I was more into Gang Starr and all the DJ Premier stuff, like Group Home and Jeru Tha Damaja. Then when Wu-Tang happened, I was into Wu-Tang. But the music I was making, which I was already doing when I was in high school, well I was more into the rave scene than hip hop back then. I was much more into electronic music. I was into early drum & bass and minimal techno, like Plastikman and the Detroit stuff where it was really minimal. So the music I was making at the time was more like rave music. I was making experimental breakbeat tracks and some techno tracks. So early on I was into weird stuff. Yes I was listening to Gang Starr but I don’t think that was a big influence on me. If anything, it wasn’t until I moved to L.A. for college and met the Project Blowed rappers at Konkrete Jungle, that was when hip hop started being more of a musical influence on me, as opposed to just being something I listened to for fun.
Okay and so when you did transition into hip hop, was it easy for you? Did it feel like a natural fit?
Yes but more because I didn’t look at it as a transition at the time. I just made beats and I didn’t look at them as techno beats, or drum & bass beats, I just made all sorts of beats. So to me, making a hip hop was just me making a slower beat. And at the time – I think I’ve told this in some other interviews – my roommate was selling weed and a lot of the rappers from Project Blowed would hang out at Konkrete Jungle, which was Daddy Kev’s club before Low End Theory. Some of them started coming over to my dorm to buy weed from my roommate and Peace – who I think Daddy Kev actually bought over to my dorm – he heard me making a beat that wasn’t a drum & bass beat and he’s like, “Let me rap on that”. And that actually became the song “FakinDaFunk” on the album Megabite. That was literally the first time anyone had ever rapped on my beats and that was the first time that I ever thought that I was trying to make something for someone to rap on. For quite a while after that I wasn’t ever really making a hip hop beat, I was just making beats that weren’t as fast. It wasn’t until a bit later that I thought, alright now I’m making hip hop beats, so now I’ve got to think about that aspect of it a little bit more. So it was kind of a natural transition, brought about by the people I was around at the time. P.E.A.C.E. is arguably one of the best freestylers of all time, so to have someone like that just hanging round your house, smoking weed and freestyling, it rubs off on you.
Yeah, it must be infectious. Just going back to what you said about early drum & bass. I’m from Bristol in the UK, which was one of the major cities in its development, but at the time it felt like a very British thing. Was it a very big scene in L.A.?
So definitely in L.A. and even in D.C. When I was growing up and in high school in D.C., it was basically progressive house and drum & bass. There was no happy hardcore or any of the other type of rave genres at the time. There was a club called Buzz that was pretty seminal in D.C. at the time and they would bring out all the UK DJs, like Roni Size, the Renegade Hardware dudes, so all of that was happening. But then when I got to L.A., it was a weird shift for me because it was all happy hardcore and drum & bass, and it was much more ‘ravey’ at first. But because of people like DJ Hive and Daddy Kev himself, with their label Celestial, I really feel like at the time – I mean, you’re more of an expert than me – L.A. was really the centre of drum & bass outside of the UK. Or that’s what it felt like for quite a while. Then when Konkrete Jungle got established, that completely solidified the fact that drum & bass lived in Los Angeles and all the big dudes were coming out there too at the time. Then we had Respect as well, which was another big drum & bass club that still goes on to this day. So between Respect and Konkrete Jungle, every big UK act was playing in L.A. very regularly at the time.
That’s mad. So what year was this?
I moved to L.A. in ‘97. I think Konkrete Jungle started in ‘99, so it would’ve been from then until around 2002.
Yeah, so I would’ve been 18-19 when that started. I was going to raves but I think because this was early internet days, everything still felt quite insular, it was very local. So I had no idea about what was going on in L.A. beyond the hip hop I was exposed to.
Well similar to how when Low End Theory was happening, it felt like the entire world was paying attention to what was happening in L.A., and at the time we were all paying attention to what was happening in Bristol, London and Manchester [laughs]. Cos Roni Size is from Bristol right? His music was very influential to me when I was fooling around with drum & bass, because he was one of the ones who started putting jazz into the music and his approach even had more of a hip hop feel. I was also really into Danny Breaks back in the day and he was doing this sort of hip hop / drum & bass hybrid stuff as well early on.
Yeah, well obviously in Bristol before Roni Size blew up, we had Portishead and Massive Attack, so there had always been that sort of fusion of genres.
Totally. At the time I was also into Portishead and Tricky, all of that. And in fact, bringing it full circle, me and woods are opening up for Unkle in a couple of weeks.
Oh wow.
I don’t really know what James Lavelle is up to at this moment if I’m honest, but back when he was doing the stuff with DJ Shadow, that was very formative for me with my production ideas.
I still think that’s some of Shadow’s best work on Psyence Fiction. And who else was putting Kool G Rap and Richard Ashcroft on the same album?
[laughs]
Just talking about Low End Theory, how much has the musical landscape in L.A. changed since then? Is there still that same sense of community?
Yes, I mean one thing that I will say that Daddy Kev is the master of is building communities. He did that with Konkrete Jungle originally, he did that with Low End Theory for something like 12 years and now he has this new club, Scenario. Although it’s a different thing from Low End Theory, it’s a much smaller space that it’s held at, it has a very similar sense of community. And if anything, I think he’s really dialled in to the early days of Low End Theory. It had a number of phases over those 12 years but in the early days, one of the coolest things to me was that you never knew what you were going to get there. You’d go there and one week there would be a band playing and another week there would be a rapper and then another week it would be just straight electronic music. Then there might be someone playing trap music in between all of this stuff as the DJ. It was just such a melting pot. And there was definitely music that I didn’t think I was into, that I would hear and be like, oh shit I actually really like this. Like trap, I never would have been into that at all if it wasn’t for Low End Theory. And now Scenario similarly is back into those days. It’s very different week to week the music they play there and everyone is just down to come along for the ride and be exposed to stuff. Which I think is a very cool thing.
Yeah, that sounds cool. I’m glad to hear there’s still stuff going on. Obviously you’ve been interested in music since a young age, so where do that first come from? Were your parents musical at all?
I wish I could say I was from some cool musical family but not really. My dad was a personal injury attorney and my mom was a housewife… I mean certainly my dad had a record collection; he was into 70’s rock but it’s not even like I grew up in a house where he was playing a lot of music. My mom played oldies on the radio when we were in the car… that being said, my parents really encouraged me in elementary school to take piano lessons and then I started playing cello in middle school in the school orchestra. I don’t know if I would have gone on those musical journeys if they hadn’t encouraged me to do that. But very early on, at least the way my parents tell it, I was more interested in making original music than learning the instrument. When I got my cello for instance, I was never super good and I never liked to practise. Instead of practising I would write songs and record them. At the time my parents had a very early Tandy computer with a Sound Blaster sound card and I had some tiny sort of Radio Shack mic. Then I had his kids walkie-talkie that I disassembled and turned into a pickup for my cello. I would record into this program I had called Cool Edit, which was like an early Windows program that let you multitrack. Then we got the internet shortly after that and I discovered FastTracker, which is when I really started making beats, in maybe 11th grade or something like that. And the funny thing is that some of that came out of the fact was that I had this friend and we were really nerdy computer guys. Like we loved the Doom, if you remember that game? And we had this Doom level editor, where you could make your own levels. So we were really into that and then I think you could add music as well. This was before MP3s were invented, so music files were ginormous. But trackers let you have the sequence and the samples in a small package, so a lot of video games used them. I think I got FastTracker originally because I was trying to write a song for one of our Doom levels, but then once I had this playground where I could record audio, then sample it and play it back at different pitches, that just opened everything up. It’s literally 30 years later and I’m still tripping off how much fun that is.
Yeah, that’s beautiful. Now just coming back to Maps for a moment, was it liberating being able to make a second album with woods, that deliberately didn’t follow on from the first album?
I don’t know if liberating is the right word. I’m cosying up to the idea now because I’ve done it successfully a few times, but originally I was very not into the idea of doing follow-ups for anything. Like after me and R.A.P. Ferreira did So the Flies Don’t Come, we kept on working with one another, but the idea of making a whole album together, it took like five years before we did Purple Moonlight Pages. To me, as a fan, I know how I view these things. You’re always going to be comparing it to what the person did last and it just seems like a losing proposition a lot of the time – doing a follow-up to something that people really love. So I don’t know if liberating is the right word but I’ve now discovered that I get a sense of when it’s the right time… obviously it’s not just me – it’s woods, or R.A.P. Ferreira or whoever I’m working with – we get a sense that we’ve grown enough and we have new stuff to say. I think that’s the real pitfall that people can sometimes fall into: going back to the same well that you were just drawing from. Sometimes it can happen very quickly that you have new inspiration, but you have to wait until you have new life experience, new things to draw upon. I dunno, maybe I’m generalising this and I should just talk for myself, but to me it’s not fun to do the same thing again. Part of the fun of making art to me is constantly exploring new stuff. So making the same album, or just trying to find a new twist of what you’ve already done, that’s not very fun to me. So I’m always trying to do something new. With that being said, Maps was super fun in that we already had a rapport and a friendship. When you have a deep rapport, it always makes it into more of a shared journey, rather than a personal struggle [laughs]. So yes, we had a lot of fun making Maps but ‘liberating’ would probably be the wrong adjective.
Okay yeah, that makes sense. Now the album, along with a lot of your production, has quite a heavy jazz influence. Was that a genre you were interested in before you started making beats?
Yeah, I like listening to jazz and I certainly went through a period in my life where I was pretty obsessed with it. But I would also say that it’s a specific type of jazz that I like to sample. It’s not like all jazz. I’m not a big Wynton Marsalis kind of dude. I’m definitely more in the Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, spiritual school of jazz. I just enjoy interesting forms of music, where things are unexpected. Where there are harmonies or melodies that you don’t expect, or tonalities that you don’t expect, or timbres that are being matched together unexpectedly, and jazz has a lot of that. Now there’s plenty of jazz that doesn’t have that and that stuff is boring to me… I will say though, that people tend to think I sample a lot of jazz but I think I sample all sorts of things. I certainly don’t go around thinking I only sample jazz records, in fact sometimes I specifically try not to sample jazz and do something different.
Oh it’s definitely only one element of your overall sound, but it felt quite dominant on Maps.
On Maps it certainly skewed towards it, but it just kind of evolved that way. Some of the initial songs that worked out really good were like that and I so I started pursuing that kind of sound. I would say that Maps is probably my most sample-heavy album. I mean all of my music is samples-based, but Maps is a lot more traditional – actually I don’t know if that is the right word because I don’t think anything is very traditional sounding about my beats… I dunno, it’s hard to talk about yourself like that. I’ll just quit while I’m ahead on that one.
[laughs] So is that your normal approach to making an album, you find the direction it will take as it progresses?
I mean there is always a little bit of a plan. With Maps the plan was just not to do Hiding Places! But usually albums just start with me sending a whole bunch of random beats to someone, throwing shit up against the wall and seeing what sticks. Then we usually see some things as they work out… in fact, one thing I’ll correct that I’ve stated in previous interviews, is that the beat pack that I originally sent to woods for Maps – which had about 15 beats in it – I think in another interview I said that only one of those beats ended up being on the album. Well I went back recently and listened to that beat pack and actually four of them ended up as songs. The beats for “Rapper Weed”, “Soft Landing”, “Bad Dreams Are Only Dreams” and “The Layover”. Now “The Layover” and “Bad Dreams Are Only Dreams” we didn’t use until much later on, but “Soft Landing” and “Rapper Weed” were some of the first songs we did. Then each beat pack after that we used much more of the contents because I was a lot more dialled in by that point. But it was really “Soft Landing” and “Rapper Weed” that made me hear a sound emerging and also to see a new synergy with the way woods sounded on my music that was very different from Hiding Places. It’s funny because I was just talking to woods about this in Vancouver, when we were trying to remember why it was we had originally decided to do Hiding Places. We couldn’t quite remember, but I was telling him the one thing that I could remember is that when I first started wanting to work with him, it was after I had given ELUCID the beat that became “Pergamum” on Rome. The second half is just like this very minimal beat and woods’ verse just sounds so dope on it, that to me was like the thesis statement originally where I was like, holy shit this dude’s voice sounds amazing on this beat, we’ve gotta do more of this! And so I think “Rapper Weed” was that moment for me with Maps, where I thought his voice sounded really different to how it had in other situations and I really wanted to explore it more.
We mentioned it briefly before, but I’m a big fan of your work with The Jefferson Parks Boys. How did you guys first come together?
Back in 2011 or 2012, there was a group called Team Supreme that I was a part of. Team Supreme, for those who don’t know, was basically like a beat cypher. It was a bunch of kids who were originally friends from a music making class, at a college in California. They started having a weekly beat cypher, where one person would choose a sample and then send it to his friends. Now at the time I still had a day job at a studio doing music for TV shows. I was going to Low End Theory a lot and I was good friends with DJ Nobody, who was one of the residents there. He somehow got on to the email invite for the Team Supreme cypher no. 1 or 2 and I’m pretty sure he posted his beat on Facebook or something. I was like, oh shit this sounds like fun, I want to do that. So I literally just sent Team Supreme a message to their Facebook page, like, “Hey my name’s Kenny, I make beats and I would love to be a part of this”. Great Dane, who was in charge of it at the time, he wrote back immediately and said sorry but it was only for friends, like an invite only thing. But then I think he Googled me and at that time I had already done stuff with Abstract Rude and I had already put out the album with P.E.A.C.E., so he was like, “Oh dude we’d be so honoured if you’d be a part of it!” – They were all just kids back then who had no credits at all. So I started making beats for their weekly cyphers and we didn’t know each other, but then they decided to do a show and that was the first time I met them. Mr. Carmack and Mike Parvisi were members of Team Supreme at the time and so that’s how we initially became friends. Then there was this moment, because I had just bought a house – which was a big milestone – and everyone else were college kids so they all started crashing at my house a lot. We’d go out and party, or we’d have a show, a lot of people would crash at my house. And Mr. Carmack, who lived in San Francisco at the time, when he would come to town for a Team Supreme event, he would crash at my crib for a couple of days. The neighbourhood was called Jefferson Park and they all loved it so much, so when they started to graduate they all rented a house right down the street from me. Then that was kinda like a gateway, because then Mr. Carmack moved out and got a different house in the neighbourhood, then Mike Parvisi did the same thing. So Jefferson Park Boys came out of a time in 2017, 2018, when me, Mike and Mr. Carmack were hanging out together all the time. We each had studios in our houses, so we’d make beats for the first part of the day and then just graze around the different studios, adding stuff to each other’s beats, smoking weed and having fun. That was what Jefferson Park Boys was all about.
And so, will we hear more from you guys in the future? Have you got anything else planned?
I mean we’re still all best friends. Unfortunately, Mike has now moved out of the neighbourhood so he lived about an hour away from us and then just last week he moved to Boston, so now he’s on the other side of the country. But me and Mr. Carmack still live down the street from each other… in fact, we’ve had half of another project done for like a year and a half now, so we will definitely have more stuff. And we’ve been looking for another artist to work with, because I’m even more excited about producing an album for an artist than I am about doing an instrumental project, like the way we did for R.A.P. Ferreira. There are little seeds being planted for that at the moment, so I’d say within the next year you will hear something. Also, Jefferson Park Boys are always doing stuff, like on the new Pink Navel album Mike Parvisi’s on a song, Carmack’s on a song. Even on Maps, with “As the Crow Flies”, it’s basically a Jefferson Park Boys beat. So it’s inevitable that there is always music being made by the three of us, just because we’re all friends and we’re constantly working together. But as far as a formal project, that’s definitely in the works, just with no actual timeline at the moment.
Okay, well good to know. And what about the more immediate future? I know you’ve got the Pink Navel album coming…
Yeah, I’m very excited about that. It’s coming out on Ruby Yacht. This album was made concurrently with Maps – in fact I made like four albums concurrently in 2022… this will be the second one to come out. There’s still an Abstract Rude one that may come out by the end of the year, or the beginning of next year, and an album with a singer named Benjamin Booker, the guy who sings on “Baby Steps”. We have a whole project which is also fairly complete that we’re shopping around. But back to Pink Navel – this album’s amazing is all I have to say. I think beat-wise it is as exciting as Maps. It has a lot of cool experimental beats that I’m very proud of. And Pink Navel was already an amazing rapper, but they have stepped up their game in every way on this album. The reason I wanted to work them in the first place, I mean not only are we friends and we have a rapport, but also although they make music that is nerdy and appeals to a certain type of hip hop fan – and I think this is true of R.A.P. Ferreira also – they have bars! On just an objective level, he is a very good rapper and I don’t think people have recognised that as much because it’s hidden beneath so many layers of different aesthetics of nerdiness. But this album really lets Pink Navel shine and will show that not only do they have really cool ideas and artistry, they’ve also got bars. So I’m very excited for people to hear it. Also, one last thing I’m going to plug is that I have a video game that I’ve created myself and that I coded, that’s coming out with the album. I’m really excited to have people play it because I legit think it’s a fun video game. It’s already an interesting thing when you put music out and you get to see other people enjoy it and react to it. But music is something that’s a very personal enjoyment, so it’s going to be interesting seeing people playing the video game. I feel that’s another aspect of seeing people react to something that’ll be unique, that I’m looking forward to.
Gingerslim has been a hip-hop fan since 1994 and has written for various blogs and websites since around 2006. During that time he has contributed to The Wire, style43, Think Zebra, Headsknow, Front Magazine and more. His main interests in rap are UK hip-hop and the underground movement in America, with a focus on Rhymesayers Entertainment and the once mighty Def Jux label. He lives in Bristol and has a beard. All other details are sketchy at best. Read his own hip-hop blog and follow himhere.
We catch up with the Clouds in a Headlock collective to talk about their new album, Breakfast in Phantasia, musical influences, working with MF DOOM, and more. Stream the album below, and read on for the full interview.
For those not yet familiar, tell us about the history of Clouds in a Headlock, and the wider ŌFFKILTR collective?
Èph: Clouds in a Headlock came about roughly three years ago when Lovecraft, Doctor Outer and myself had just finished global tours with other groups. After two plus years of touring projects and not being in the studio all that much, the three of us had a primal urge to vent all the stored up experiences we had been through and put pen to paper. We hadn’t done anything as a trio for quite a while, although we have worked together many times before, and have known each other for a minute. Doctor Outer had deep vaults of beats that he shared with us, and we just got writing. All for the love of the craft and sharing penmanship styles with the other two guys that we respect and value so much. It felt like being back in high school together again and after a couple of weeks and over 50 tracks in the bag (on loop), we knew we had something. We made two mixtapes out of those initial demos and called it Clouds in Headlock – ASMATTIC. Lovecraft pieced together the accompanying video content and we got straight back to writing. We got two other good friends from way back involved on the production side (Rhino + Daylight Robbery = Runway 45) and knew that the group was complete, with everyone firing on all cylinders within their respective ability. ŌFFKILTR is an even wider circle of long time homies and collaborators that all fit under the crew umbrella—more of which will be revealed soon. ŌFFKILTR = eternal circle.
Doctor Outer: ASM and Daylight Robbery are actually childhood friends who went to high school together. ASM has been doing their thing. I was in Charlotte, NC, doing music with my group The Others. We met in Paris working with Wax Tailor on his tour. We knew immediately that we would one day work together without saying. We traveled for like five years on that tour and did stuff with other artists together, BUT it wasn’t what we knew we were capable of doing together. Fast Forward a few years later…I had stopped touring with Wax Tailor and was settling within my studio. I was a bit sick of the music game and people telling you how an album is supposed to be formatted. Everyone was making albums for the business of music and they sounded like it. No one I really knew was making music for just the pure sake of making music. So I took the time to do whatever I wanted to do, with no traditional rules and no intentions for releasing, just for the art and science of creating sound and the biggest part….have fun doing it….like a child with no one advising you what to do. Eventually it got lonely, so I couldn’t think of anyone better to merge and return to this re-found freedom of creating nor anyone that would get it and embrace it, or had the ability to just be dope, except Lovecraft and Éph. That’s when we formed Clouds in a Headlock, for the love of it. We took a bunch of beats (shout out to Madwreck & DAC) I had stashed and recorded two mixtapes worth of music for fun called ASMATTIC Vol 1 & 2. To change up our known identities we went into our imagination and reinvented ourselves. It felt like teenagers after high school hanging out but from our remote locations. It was a given to add Rhino in after because of his unlimited ways of making different styles of production and Daylight came shortly after with his sharp ear of picking samples and structuring them into beats to form Runway 45 along with The Ghost In The Machine who provides the skits, additional samples with delays and effects.
There is also Pitch92, a producer from London who is in the ŌFFKILTR crew. He will be introduced in another project titled, Endgame. We needed our own sound and the guys on the production side knew how to compliment what and how we write basically without trying. I think it all works because we aren’t trying to impress people or blow up the spot and take over. We are brothers living in different countries which are not the same places we grew up, who just resonate together in life beyond music. We’re just having fun making what we want to hear. Everyone played a role in getting here.
And what’s behind the name Clouds in a Headlock? What does it mean?
GT Lovecraft: We wanted the name to conjure an image that represents us and our approach to crafting sound. The cloud is the ethereal ever changing. The headlock is the visceral undeniable. We felt like that was a dope piece of imagery that works on multiple levels.
Doctor Outer: Clouds were used back in the days (especially with old cartoons) as a form of thought coming from a thinking head where they were locked up. What you are listening to is production and rhymes, and what you are viewing are visuals that all came from artistic thoughts (clouds) that we have in our head being unlocked in sound. We just passing through what we do.
The press release for your new album, Breakfast in Phantasia, describes your sound as being like “early Souls of Mischief and Company Flow”, and I’d also probably add The Pharcyde to the list. Would you say that’s accurate, and that you take influence from groups like that?
GT Lovecraft: For sure, we definitely grew up as kids listening to free-spirited, nerdy playful rhyme flipping stuff like Souls of Mischief and The Pharcyde, and of course all the East-coast Natives Tongues and affiliated stuff. When the backpack vs jiggy era came in, we listened to a lot of DOOM, Def Jux, Rhymesayers etc, when we were on some graffiti writer crate digger young knucklehead purist kind of tip. From a craftsmanship perspective, those artists definitely flew the flag for credible lyricism, but often I felt like some of the energy and vibe of earlier hip-hop was getting lost. A lot of the stuff felt like it was experimental for the sake of it, rather than from a genuinely aesthetic place. In the last years we’ve honestly listened to mostly jazz, psychedelic stuff, rare soul etc. When it came to working on the Clouds stuff everything we came up on I guess filtered in through the subconscious, but it’s really just about what we consider good music, and respecting the integrity of the craft but exploring freely.
Tell us about Breakfast in Phantasia, and what we can expect.
Doctor Outer: This album was created during the pandemic, so we were locked away remotely in our homes where our studios became like an escape room from the world. An imagination station. Phantasia is a place where you can go left, have fun and do what you dream. An escape from the herd and the normal everyday action that everyone is caught in. It’s a sound universe where you can be…. you. Make what you want to hear and be different.
Not unlike some of the classic groups we mentioned earlier, what I like about the album is that it’s serious but also a lot of fun, which hip-hop often isn’t. Is that something you guys intentionally make as part of your music?
Daylight Robbery: Definitely. So much of the new rap we’re listening to, and enjoy, is missing this element. It’s become even more rare than it used to be. The Pharcyde is a great example of a group that took humor and fun to the extreme. Some of those tracks/skits like “Quentin’s on the Way” gave you a real sense of what it would be like to just hang out with those guys. The only modern example I can think of is Action Bronson who seems to have a strong sense of fun across much of how he presents himself. A huge part of who we are, just as a bunch of close friends, is so heavily centered around comedy and jokes that if we didn’t incorporate this into the work in some way it would feel inauthentic and not representative of who we are as people. What I like about our approach is that some of the comedy is in your face and some less obvious, it catches you off guard and makes you question if we’re serious or not, walking that line in itself makes me laugh.
Èph: It comes naturally. We’ve always made music for fun above all. Ego and competition are undoubtedly huge parts of hip-hop, and there are elements of that in everything that we do too, but they are not the catalyst, nor the cornerstone as is so often the case—especially nowadays. Making music together is an extension of us just hanging out, as well as our collective passion and respective skill sets. So it always starts with fun and enthusiastic discussions which seamlessly transition into creating sonic tapestries that reflect our communal mind. It just naturally occurs because of who we are and how the group’s dynamic works.
Doctor Outer: ASM are masters at this. Create whatever comes to mind with no fear or trying to be relatable. We study and share a lot of stuff individually from film, lectures, music, food, people, books, and life. We rhyme about what we do in everyday life and put it together like a puzzle in an abstract dimension. It’s fun. No pressure. Nerdy unexpected bars and patterns over psychedelic, abstract, to jazzy organic production. We range out to the unknown to re-find or discover what we love.
The group has its roots in ASM, who have had critical acclaim over the years. I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask what it was like working with MF DOOM on the track “Masking”?
Firstly, Rest in Peace to the Villain. That DOOM feature was a wild one, and something that meant a lot to us at the time and has taken on another layer of meaning since his passing. We have been flying the DOOM flag for years, and to this day his pen remains in a league of its own. The project we were working on at the time was entitled, The Jade Amulet, which was a full concept album set in a fictional realm where all featured artists played characters in the story. We wrote the whole story before we started composing the music or writing any rhymes, and the narrative was anchored in the monomyth idea. We straight up wrote the part of the antagonist tyrant king for DOOM. At the time he was notoriously elusive, but we happened to meet him at a show where we were both on the lineup in Marseille, France and connected like that. He was in the spot all day, did his sound check and we drank beers together. Good old regular dude, definitely had jokes and a mischievous streak. I remember he deliberately left the venue like 15 minutes before his show time to basically be late for the show on purpose which bugged me out. But he killed it. When it came to hitting him up for the feature, he was down. I guess he just gravitated to the idea of playing a character and writing his parts to fulfil a very specific brief in terms of narrative function and what pieces of information needed to be conveyed by his character to move the story along. One day his people hit us up like “He checked himself into a hotel room in London with a bottle of Cognac. Can you send the instrumental again?” The way he executed the brief was nothing short of masterful. That record is very close to our hearts. The last line gives me chills when I hear it now “And he was gone, through a false panel in the room, disappeared across the lagoon”
Once the dust settles on Breakfast in Phantasia, what’s next up from Clouds in a Headlock and ŌFFKILTR?
Doctor Outer: Just making music and living life. The music will take us where the unknown awaits. We got a lot of stuff that’s set to be released under the ŌFFKILTR umbrella – Odd Holiday which is Doctor Outer and Daylight Robbery! combining, Endgame which is GT Lovecraft, Doctor Outer, and Pitch 92 on beats, and the follow up Clouds In A Headlock album. All three of those should drop in 2023. We also got a Runway 45 instrumental project in the pipeline, new ASM, and more to be created. We and you will see.
Last month, Lyrics Born released his latest solo album, Mobile Homies Season 1 (listen below), which comes off the back of his podcast series of the same name, as well as a career that has spanned more than three decades. Ever since he first made his mark on the scene as part of the highly influential Solesides crew, he has been one of the most innovative and prolific voices in rap. GingerSlim recently spoke with him about the new album, as well his allegiance with Solesides and Quannum, the subject of anti-Asian hatred in the US, and his burgeoning acting career.
The new album has just dropped and I was wondering, do you still feel the same sense of anticipation when you’re putting out a release, as you did in the early days?
You know, no. But only because it’s a different sense. When you’re putting out your first, or second, or third, there’s a certain set of emotions and baggage that come along with it. You’re still kinda wondering, can I actually do this? Or you can’t believe it’s actually happening. And I don’t mean to say it doesn’t feel as good, it just feels different when you’ve put out 12. So now the set of emotions is can I get to 20? Can I get to 30? But something that never goes away is the hope that people really like it. That part never goes away. And you really don’t know until it comes out.
I was quite impressed by the number of different styles and sounds that are at work on the record; a lot of variation between the tracks. Is that important to you to keep mixing it up like that?
It is and I don’t really feel like I can grow unless I’m able to experiment, you know? And I don’t really feel like I’m able to grow unless I can work with other people, who can help me get beyond my own limitations. Who can help me to think about music differently, think about songs differently and trigger new ideas… and so for both of those reasons, I don’t think I can do without making albums like Mobile Homies. I don’t have to stick to a theme, I don’t have to work with just one set of people – which is typically what I do on a studio album. If you look at my past five studio albums or something, it’s generally one producer as the throughline for the whole thing, and then maybe a few guest vocalists. But never to the degree that I did with this album! This album is 12 tracks and it’s 10 different producers. I think I have an average of 2-3 vocalists on each song… and I’ve never collaborated to that degree.
And how was that for you? Was it daunting at all?
I think it was necessary, given that most of these songs were recorded during the pandemic and I could tell from the response, that most of the artists felt the way that I did. We were dying at that point to collaborate, to get on tracks with each other and just interact. It was great, man. It was funny too because I would have conversations with people about the songs, where we’d talk about direction etc., and the actual conversation about the song would last a couple of minutes, but the conversation in totality would be an hour, an hour and a half. I think we were all so starved of human interaction at that point, that it was just necessary.
I mean, that was the reason for you starting the podcast in the first place, right?
That’s 100% correct. A friend of mine, Evan Leong, said we should do this. Everyone’s at home, everybody’s isolated; everybody needs that kind of interaction. Not just me and the guests, but everyone watching too – the audience, the fans. And that became really clear, early on. It was pretty amazing, the response we got, and I realised these were some of the best conversations I’d ever had in my life. These are all my friends, but you don’t really have time for these sorts of conversations. You see each other in passing, you’re on tour and you might see them backstage, but you’re always pressed for time; you never make the time to just sit and have a one-on-one convo. And they became really meaningful. Then I was like, well if this is a hit podcast series then there’s no reason it shouldn’t be a hit album series too, so that’s what we did.
Yeah I was going to say, because I loved the way you spliced corresponding clips from the podcast in between the relevant tracks. That was a nice touch.
Thank you. Yeah I wanted to tie it all in. I wanted it be consistent and cohesive with the podcast, so people could kinda see what the origin was, and see that there’s more context there.
Now for me, “ANTI” is clearly the most powerful song on the album and arguably one of the most powerful in your catalogue. I was wondering how long the track had been brewing in your mind for and why did you decide to release it when you did?
You know it was funny, because when all the anti-Asian violence began to spike about this time last year, I started getting calls, texts and emails from a lot of my non-Asian friends. They were like, “God when did all this violence start happening?!”, and my response was – 300 years ago. This is something we’ve lived with for our entire existence in this country, you know what I mean? And elsewhere where we’re not natives. It was a worldwide phenomenon for all Asians who weren’t in Asia. I’ve never known, my entire life, how it feels to be completely safe. I’ve never known what it feels like to not have an insult waiting for you just round the corner, or bias, or prejudice waiting for you round the corner. This is something we live with daily, it’s just woven into who we are unfortunately.
So when things started to spike, Cutso, who produced the track, he hit me up and said we need to do a song here. We need to respond to this because this is out of control. And it was really difficult for me to deal with at the time, because I had family members who were insulted, accosted… and it’s not just like you’re worried about being taunted on the street, you’re worried about being hurt or killed! It’s hard for people who don’t live that reality, to know what it feels like, so we had to contextualise that, while also living through a pandemic. Like I say in the third verse about how I could lose my job, I could lose my home, I could lose my family, I could catch Covid and die, and then there’s this extra layer on top, where I could just walk out into the street and be attacked or killed, just because I’m Asian. So when [Cutso] approached me about the song, it’s not like I had to dig deep for the material. You see what’s going on, it’s not hard to access those emotions, or what that feels like. So he approached me with the concept, we conceptualised it, wrote, produced and recorded it, shot the video, started a donation campaign to Stop AAPI Hate, all in 10 days. All that happened within 10 days, so that lets you know the urgency that we felt. It lets you know how important it was to get it out quickly, while we had this moment and while we had the world focused. I don’t ever remember hearing the words ‘Asian American’ on CNN until now, so we knew this was a special moment. We knew we had to take advantage to shine a light on this.
So, given that this is all so widespread within Asian communities, why do you think there is so little coverage in the media and so little attention paid to it by the authorities? Or is that a stupid question?
No, that is the question. And I would ask you, why do you think that is? That’s kinda telling isn’t it? It’s like I say in the remix – “A new psycho, swoops on a dude and his newborn / We’re still getting clipped like coupons, but the news cycle moved on”. We live in a very fast-paced culture and things only live in the news cycle for a very short period of time. I mean its absolutely awful what’s happening in the Ukraine now, but think about how even now Covid is on the backburner as far as the news is concerned. So that’s a great question and it’s sort of down to the world we live in. Which is why we felt the urgency we did, to respond as quickly as we did, because those of us who are in the media can see how quickly these things move. You really do have a limited window where you have people’s attention.
And do you think the song is simply a good way of raising awareness, or do you think that music is a legitimate way of affecting change?
Oh yeah. Look how’s it’s changed your life, look how you’re spending your free time with me today. I’m sure like most of us, you have a million things you could be doing, but it’s how you prioritise your time. And how you prioritise your time, directly correlates with what you feel is important in your life. So you and I have obviously made a dedication to music that has certainly changed our lives. And I don’t think I would be so involved in music if some other artist hadn’t affected me and inspired me to want to do this with my life. I feel like it’s one of the last places where you can be unfiltered and speak about daily life in a way that people respond to differently, than facts, figures, stats and metrics. There’s a reason why Bob Marley is Bob Marley; there’s a reason why Curtis Mayfield is Curtis Mayfield; there’s a reason why politicians tap up artists to come play their campaign, or they want to use certain songs in their campaign… and I’m not judging that, I’m just saying there’s a reason why.
In the same way that there’s a lot of artists who say no when politicians approach them. Now I want to go back to the start of your career, mainly because you guys had such a big impact on my relationship with hip hop back then. I think between Quannum, Organized Konfusion and Eyedea, you completely changed my perception of lyricism as an artform. Did you initially set out to be that innovative, or was it just you doing what you did?
No, I did. I never wanted to sound like anybody else and I still feel that way. It doesn’t mean that I don’t pick up on what other people are doing, it’s all useful information and obviously we all have influences. But I never wanted anybody to be like, “Oh that Lyrics Born sounds like so-and-so”, ever. And I think our identity is the one thing we have control over, if we take control. It’s so important to me and it’s something you really have to fight for. You have to fight to find your voice, to use your voice; you have to fight to maintain your voice, because it’s just difficult. We all have moments where we question who we are and I think that’s natural, but it’s vitally important for our own happiness that we maintain our sense of self in whatever it is we do, but also to add on to what everybody else is doing, in a meaningful way. Does that make sense?
Yeah, of course.
So I feel like since day one my voice, both figuratively and literally, is something I have fought very hard to find, develop and maintain.
Well you’ve succeeded, time and time again. I think Latyrx in particular blew my mind over and over. Did it feel at the time that you were all doing something special?
Yeah I knew we were doing something special, I knew we were doing something different, but there’s no way that any artist can gauge what the impact is, or what it will be. From the moment we did that first track, where we rap at the same time, because we were so immersed in the art and in the culture, we knew nobody had ever done that before. We knew that and that was the point. And that’s sort of how I’ve approached my career – I’m going to step back, I’m going to look at the landscape and see what’s missing. Where is the void? What are people not doing? And then I just insert myself there. What voices are we not hearing? What subject matter are people not tackling? And that’s not always possible, it’s difficult to do that album after album, song after song. So, if I do tackle subject matter that someone else has done before, then I make sure I do it with my voice, in my way. I try to approach it differently.
And again, that dates back to Latyrx. I think one of the beautiful things about that Solesides / Quannum era that I look back at with a lot of satisfaction and pride, is that as a crew we were trying to out-unique each other. I never wanted to sound like DJ Shadow, I never wanted to sound like Gift of Gab, and I’m sure they would tell you they felt the same way about me. And I mean that in a great way. So the underlying ethos was similar, but we were trying to express it in our own ways. I think that was one of the reasons that made it so great and also made it very contentious at times.
Yeah it was always fascinating to me how different you all sounded, but how similar you all felt, if that makes sense?
Yeah, thank you. That’s the point I was trying to make. I think we all had that same ethos, but it just showed up differently with each of us.
Lateef is on the new album, and you guys are obviously both still very much active, so does that mean we’re going to hear more Latyrx in the future?
I hope so! He’s a farmer now.
Oh really? [laughs] I had no idea.
He’s raising chickens now and livestock.
Oh man, he’s living the dream.
That motherfucker has quail. He’s still as active, if not more active, than he’s ever been. He’s putting out and releasing more music than I think I’ve seen him do in a very long time. It really makes me very happy to see.
That’s good to hear, man. You’ve been dipping into the acting world over the last few years, is that something you would like to concentrate more on?
Yeah, I love it. I feel like it’s always been in me, but I was always so consumed with establishing a music career and pushing that forward, that I never really had the opportunity to focus on acting. But in the last five years I’ve really had the chance to focus on it and I have a lot of great friends within the industry, who have really been looking out for me. So I’ve been really fortunate on the acting side that I’ve been able to work with my friends over and over again. It’s pretty amazing! [laughs] It’s a pretty unusual situation I’m told.
So you’re still engaged with the music, but do you think there will ever be a time when acting overtakes that?
I doubt it. I don’t think that I’ll ever… you know we live in this sort of binary world where people think it’s gotta be one thing or the other, but I’ve never lived my life like that. So I don’t think so. Music is my first language obviously, but I don’t think I’ll ever give up either for the other. I just don’t believe you have to do that. I don’t think I’d be happy if I did that, you know? And really that’s the ultimate gauge for me.
The album is out now, the podcast series is ongoing… so what’s next for you after that? Is there anything else on the horizon?
I’ll be touring the album pretty much all summer, and then I have another album coming out in the fall.
Oh wow okay. Is that continuing this series?
That will be a studio album. So that will be and… well there will be information to come on that, but we’re finishing it right now.
Gingerslim has been a hip-hop fan since 1994 and has written for various blogs and websites since around 2006. During that time he has contributed to The Wire, style43, Think Zebra, Headsknow, Front Magazine and more. His main interests in rap are UK hip-hop and the underground movement in America, with a focus on Rhymesayers Entertainment and the once mighty Def Jux label. He lives in Bristol and has a beard. All other details are sketchy at best. Read his own hip-hop blog and follow himhere.
Last month saw the release of the first full-length album from Blockhead and Aesop Rock, Garbology, after more than two decades of sporadic collaborations. GingerSlim recently caught up with Blockhead on the phone to discuss the making of the new album, as well as the duo’s early days and his recent lockdown project of Unlikely Remixes.
[The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity]
First of all, thanks for speaking with me. How are you doing at the moment?
I’m alright. Can’t complain, you know? I’m home for three days between tour dates, so I’m just relaxing.
I know you said you’ve been busy with promo for the album, has that been pretty hectic?
I mean this week is alright because I’m just hanging out, doing interviews and watching TV. Then I go back out on Friday.
Has it been good getting back into touring?
It’s been weird. Covid has affected the turnout a lot, so the West Coast was good but the East Coast was weird. It’s just different. Well at least for now, because Covid is still very much a thing.
Now, obviously I want to talk about the album you’ve made with Aesop Rock and I was wondering if you still get excited about album releases, or are you at the stage now where you’re happy when it’s done and dusted?
This one feels different. Like with my instrumental stuff, it’s just me and I feel like I’ve got my audience, it’s not going to change. Like they’re either in or they’re out at this stage. But with this one it’s a much bigger platform for me. I haven’t made an album with Aesop in so long and his fanbase is so much bigger than mine, it’s put new eyes on me. So, it’s pretty exciting and nerve-racking at the same time. And there’s a whole section of his fans that never really listened to the older stuff, so they started at Skelethon. So it’s exciting to know that it’s going to get more eyes on it, you know? Or more ears on it…
You guys have been working together for years, since the beginning in fact. Was there ever a desire to make something like this happen sooner?
It never really came up, because the last time we worked together on an album was None Shall Pass and he was living out west by that point. Plus he was always a producer anyway, he basically produced as much as I did on the earlier albums. And he just kinda liked making beats, so he did his own beats and I didn’t really think anything of it. But we never really discussed doing this and it didn’t really happen consciously; we just started making songs over the pandemic and then eventually it was like, “hey we have enough songs to make an album, so let’s do that”. But we didn’t go into this with the intention of making an album, and then all of a sudden, we only needed like four or five more songs to make it happen.
That’s wicked. So in terms of the beats, were they beats you already had in the stash or did you send him a new batch?
A little bit of both. I always have an artillery of beats ready to go and I don’t think I’d started working on my instrumental album yet, but the beats he picked ranged from stuff that I’d just made, to stuff that was maybe two or three years old. It’s always interesting with rappers because you never know what’s going to be picked and what isn’t. And I don’t work with that many people, I’m not like Alchemist who puts out 10 albums with rappers very year. I work with billy woods, I work with Illogic; I put out little one offs here and there… but then Aesop was like, “Hey I haven’t heard any of your beats for 10 years”. Okay, so here’s all of them [laughs]. But I sent him new ones as I was making them too.
Yeah, well it sounds really cohesive considering that was the process.
Yeah, I think it worked out well. But then it’s also the beats he was drawn to, you know?
Yeah, of course. I understand you guys met at university and I think I also read that you were rapping back then too…
I was [laughs].
What prompted you to give that up and focus on production?
Me and my friends would rap, and I’d been doing it since my early teens. It was fun cos I was like this battle rapper, punchline kinda guy. Then I met Aesop in college and it was the first time being in front of someone and being like, oh wait you’re actually good. It put my whole skillset into perspective to see someone who was a naturally gifted rapper. He could freestyle, he could write… and I was quite well versed in hip hop at the time, I was listening to a lot of complex undergound stuff that I couldn’t do. But this was the first person I’d met where I was like, he actually is one of these guys and I’ll always just be this. I was already making beats at the time, so I just shied away from rapping and I never regretted that at all. It was for the best.
So where did the interest in making music originate from?
I always liked production and I started looking for samples before I even had a sampler. I used to make beats on a cassette deck by looping, just recording these sloppy loops. Then I had friends that had samplers and I’d go over and like backseat produce, so give them the samples then they’d do all the button pushing. And then eventually I was like, I should probably do this myself [laughs]. So then I got a sampler when I was 17 or 18 and that was it. As a person with no musical background, who couldn’t play any instruments, it was something I could do and had an ear for. And really that’s all it is for me. I’m 100% ear and intuition. There’s nothing else, I’m not worth anything else [laughs].
Talking about your sampling, because that’s always been a favourite part of your music for me personally, I think Aesop described it in the press blurb as stemming from old and often neglected music. So without giving too much away, where do you source stuff like that? It always sounds pretty obscure.
Well, it’s changed a lot. For years and years I was a dollar bin guy, and that’s well into my career. I’ve never been a digger at all and I’m still not. I don’t care about old records, but what I do like is trying to find original sounding things that haven’t been touched yet, which is getting harder and harder. I think there is a sample or two on this album that after I finished, I realised someone else had used and I was like “Oh. Shit.” [laughs] But nowadays I don’t even sample records anymore, I mostly do e-digging. I have a couple of websites, a couple of premium services where I get digital copies of records from. Because I’m not really trying to buy a rare $200 record that I don’t care about, you know? There’s no point to that, I’m not supporting record collectors. Those greedy record collectors [laughs]. But as far as what I look for, it’s just something that catches my ear that sounds different. Like when I was a guy who would actually go through records, I was always looking for stuff from other countries, stuff from certain eras. Especially stuff that didn’t look like it would make sense with rap, like a meditation record from the 70’s or a klezmer record, something like that.
I know nostalgia is a hell of a drug – or a scam, as you put it on your last album – but is there anything you actually miss from the rap scene during those early days?
I miss when being different was something people strived for. For better or worse, because it created a lot of dumb styles as well, but it was just people trying to be different. And then something happened where people would see something going on and try to imitate it. Not so much in the underground, but also a little bit of that going on. That’s just boring to me. I definitely never made a beat while trying to sound like someone else, even if it did. I hear people recreating other people’s styles, which is cool but it’s also just lazy. There’s an inherent laziness to a lot of artistry these days and I do miss that focus from the old days, of really trying to expand instead of follow.
Yeah, agreed. I seem to remember a little while ago on Twitter, you did a recap of rappers from back in the day who made a few bangers then disappeared. Would you say Chase Phoenix fits in that category? This is more for my own personal interest cos I was a big fan of that album he put out and I know you worked on it.
He never put out anything after that… I’m actually still friends with Chase… but he put one record out on, I think, Battle Axe Records, that I did half the beats on. I went to Highschool with Chase, I’ve known him forever.
Oh, wow okay.
Yeah, and he released that album at the tail end of the indie boom and I think it got lost in the shuffle a little bit. Its biggest pull was having Aesop on it, but I don’t think many people knew about it. But Chase is really good. There are unreleased songs of his that are some of my favourite songs ever, from like ‘96. He was doing stuff that was really ahead of its time, like he was talking about crazy conspiracy stuff way before a lot of these guys were [laughs]. But yeah, Chase is a talented dude and he definitely fits in that category. You just reminded me of him, I was like, shit I should’ve put him in there! [laughs].
I still listen to that album a lot, so I was just interested to hear what he’s up to, but I’m glad to hear he’s alright.
Yeah, he’s working. He’s living life.
I was a big fan of your unlikely remixes series and I was wondering how that first came about? Was it just a product of boredom and then it progressed from there?
Yeah… I mean I’ve done little remixes like that over the years, but this time I was kinda in between things. My album was done; the Aesop album was done but we couldn’t talk about it and so I was just making beats. Then I happened upon some acapellas, so I started playing around with them and the more I did that, the more I was like, I love doing this! It was just so much fun and then I got kind of obsessive with it, where I made 10 of them in a week [laughs]. Because I’d be like, “Oh shit Take on Me has an acapella and Fast Car has one?!”. Those were songs I didn’t consider would have acapellas and then I had a pretty large amount of beats just laying around, which worked with the songs. So I just kinda did that for fun, with no intention of ever selling them – because I can’t – but I thought other people might enjoy them. And some people did, others did not [laughs]. But it was really for my own enjoyment. I would do only that if I could.
So have you ever tried to get involved in remixes like that officially?
I don’t really know how I’d go about doing it. Like calling up Journey, “Hey can I remix Don’t Stop Believing?”.
[laughs] Okay fair, so maybe more modern stuff in other genres…
I don’t get a lot of people coming to me for remixes and the ones that do are rappers, which are like the easiest thing on Earth to do. You don’t have to deal with the key of a song, you just find a beat with drums that work and you’re in. But I like remixing vocal stuff and I don’t listen to a lot of current vocal stuff… I mean I’d love to remix a Fiona Apple song or something, but I don’t know how I’d go about tracking that down.
Ah, well I hope it happens someday.
Yeah, me too.
With that in mind, are you the sort of artist who is always messing about with beats. Like is that how you pass the time when you’re not working officially?
I go through phases. The pandemic was a very prolific time for me because I was bored, I tend to work when I’m bored, or I’m touring. Or if there’s an assignment and someone says you need to do this by then, then I’ll go full steam ahead. But there are times when I won’t touch my stuff for months, I’ll just be like, whatever. And then I’ll get right back into it and make 10 beats in a week. It’s really an arbitrary thing and I don’t really know what dictates it. But boredom definitely inspires me to work. Like my last solo album was me sitting in the house and being like, “Well I guess I should make an album… because it’s time” [laughs]. And then two months later it was done.
So when you’re making those instrumental albums, is there any sort of vision for how you want them to sound, or does it all come about as you’re making them?
It depends. It usually comes about as I’m making it, but Bubble Bathwas where I said I’m going to make an album of mellow shit. That was my goal, nothing fast, nothing upbeat about it. And then the next album, Space Werewolves, was going to be the opposite of that, like a more upbeat album. But then as I started going through it, I realised I didn’t want to make an upbeat album. So then I shifted gears and made a more rounded album because it fitted the mood better. Like we’re in a pandemic, shit’s going crazy round here, so it didn’t make sense to make a cheery summer album; which isn’t really my disposition anyway.
Yeah, that makes sense. So the album with Aesop is out, the Space Werewolves album came out in September, you’ve done the tour – what’s next?
There are some unreleased Space Werewolves songs that are going to come out, I think this month, but in terms of what I’m working on next, I don’t really know what I’m going to do. I’ve been talking to billy woods about Free Sweatpants 2 and that’s perhaps the next thing I’ll do, but that takes a lot of organisation, so I think I’m probably just going to chill for a bit. Maybe stockpile some more beats for whatever project is next. I don’t really stop and then the more stuff I have, the easier it is to make that next project.
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Garbology with Aesop Rock is out now via Rhymesayers. Buy or stream it here. Follow Blockhead on Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.
Gingerslim has been a hip-hop fan since 1994 and has written for various blogs and websites since around 2006. During that time he has contributed to The Wire, style43, Think Zebra, Headsknow, Front Magazine and more. His main interests in rap are UK hip-hop and the underground movement in America, with a focus on Rhymesayers Entertainment and the once mighty Def Jux label. He lives in Bristol and has a beard. All other details are sketchy at best. Read his own hip-hop blog and follow himhere.
The Lasso has been behind some of the most interesting musical projects to emerge over the last few years. Whether it’s his rap experimentation with ELUCID as Small Bills, or his jazz fusion stylings alongside Jordan Hamilton and The Saxsquatch, The Lasso has quite rightly earned himself a reputation as a truly innovative producer and artist in general. GingerSlim recently caught up with him to discuss his music, as well as his creative relationships, coming up in Michigan, and learning to find a balance between making art and having a life.
[The following interview has been slightly edited for clarity]
So how have you been keeping?
Yeah, I’ve been okay. I’ve had a crazy year but things have been really good recently. Just being able to play some shows again… I’ve got a lot of work right now and stuff. I went through a divorce this year and a bunch of other intense stuff, so life was really intense for a while, but I’ve been feeling good recently.
Well, that’s good to hear. I know you were involved with the recent Armand Hammer tour?
Yeah, I did the last two nights, I played with them in L.A.
And how was that?
It was amazing. It just felt so good to play Small Bills music live. That music’s been around a long time, but then it was the pandemic so we never toured or anything, so it felt good to play that. And it was just life affirming to be on a stage with Elucid, woods and Alchemist, in front of a big crowd. You work for these things for a long time, so it’s cool to land there.
Yeah, I can imagine. Now it’s good to start at the beginning and I know that making music has been something of an obsession of yours since you were quite young, so I was wondering how that first sort of came about? Was there much musical influence in your family?
My parents were pretty much classic music fans who came of age in the 60’s and 70’s, so they had a lot of records and music had been a big part of their lives. No one was a musician in my family but it was like constant listening and my parents were the ones who always drove people to concerts, so I had that love and appreciation of music. My mom’s an artist and my dad’s a writer, so there was a lot of info to gain about creative life etc. But music for me really became an obsession, first as a listener, then in fifth-grade I started playing clarinet and it was just an instant obsession. Then clarinet turned into piano, then guitar, other horns and eventually recording. So, I had the listening obsession that pushed me into the creative part of it.
I actually played the clarinet myself when I was younger but it was more because I had to settle for the clarinet as I couldn’t afford a saxophone, and it was supposed to be an easy transition between the two. But my teacher was a very militant old woman and we didn’t get on at all, so I gave it up fairly quickly which is a regret of mine.
Yeah, I believe a lot of people don’t make it through the clarinet [laughs]. It’s sort of the beginning and the end for a lot of music careers [laughs]. Yeah, I don’t know, it just appealed to me, I think. I still play clarinet and I still really love that instrument but it’s funny to think back to that because I definitely didn’t want to play it either. I think I had my eye on the saxophone or something else, but it was just the more affordable entry point. That’s why you’ve got 40 clarinet players in the sixth-grade band [laughs].
Yeah, I was an 80’s kid so the saxophone was at its peak then. I think I saw Lost Boys and was like, hey I want to be that bare chested guy at the beach concert [laughs]. You’re based in the Detroit area, but is that where you grew up?
I grew up on the other side of Michigan, on the east side of the state, but my mom is from Detroit and in terms of music culture, it really begins and ends there. There are other towns that I love, like Kalamazoo, which was a big part of my music life. But in terms of gaining that musical influence, there weren’t really concerts in the 90’s if they weren’t in Detroit, that was the spot you went.
Obviously, Detroit’s rap heritage is exceptional, but did that have much of an impact on your entry into music?
Detroit is funny, because you can say that about rap, rock and techno music. And almost with funk music too. All the best Funkadelic records were made there and of course Motown. You definitely sensed the musical history and as you got older you began to understand it more; it’s really a town that invents sounds. So, I was definitely aware of all that… I mean the age when I was really starting to get into making beats and stuff, it was like the D12, Eminem height of insanity, so it was hard not to be inspired by your proximity to something that’s getting all this love from the whole world. But for me, I’ve always felt comfortable in hip hop but I’ve never pretended that it’s my home. I think that’s part of my strength, understanding how I fit into hip hop and rap. So in general, Detroit’s just a really hard sound. It’s a grimy place. Just the weather and the culture; what you go through if you’re a native Detroiter, that’s a really unique life to live. With the heaviness of that kinda rap, I’ve never really felt like there’s a place for me but I’m definitely inspired by it. I think these days, I love the techno part of Detroit too; just the whole thing. The whole fusion of sound is what inspires me personally, the fact that all these things co-exist there.
Yeah, that makes sense. Your 2121 album was the one that really shone a light on the levels of your musicianship for me. Extending way beyond being a producer, into more of a musical director role. Is that an evolution we’re going to see more of from you? Do you have an end goal as far as that’s concerned?
I mean I take it like a project at a time, but my roots are really more in that sort of area. What you hear on 2121, I think that was me kinda going back to some of my earlier knowledge and finally learning how to use it in the music I’m making now. So in terms of being a bandleader, being someone who plays a lot of instruments, someone who’s played in orchestras, punk bands, rap shit, jazz groups… I think my ultimate strength is being able to communicate with a lot of musicians. And also write and compose music that gives a lot of different kinds of people a place to shine.So the musical director, bandleader thing is a really natural role for me because my ego doesn’t need to be the centre of attention. But I do think I’ve spent the hours to get to this place where I can communicate with a lot of types of musicians, so yeah, I do think that’s where my craft is going in terms of these records I’m putting out.
I can still make rap beats and I still want to be able to push that part of my craft, but it’s all about finding your voice, what’s sincere and what you have to offer that’s unique. For me, it’s that fusion of the live musicianship but never losing the beat-maker aesthetic at the same time. Because despite me using all these instruments and musicians, the way I create is still closer to a beat-maker than a band. I like being able to fuse those things and I think the next records I have coming out all extend from that place. Whether it’s new Small Bills music, or new Lasso music, I’m just so interested by what happens when a bunch of people get together to make the final product. Even if I write the chords or get the drums going, the final product isn’t something that one person thought of. It’s something that required a lot of people’s voices and I think that’s when the most interesting stuff happens.
Yeah, definitely. Well I look forward to hearing what you’ve got in store. I found a similar energy on the Small Bills album, which for want of a better term, sounded quite experimental to me. It also felt quite organic and spontaneous, so was that how it happened as you were making it?
It was spontaneous in the sense that ELUCID has an openness to hearing a ton of all kinds of beats. So there was so much material we pulled from because it wasn’t like, let’s make it sound like this or that. There was a little bit of setting up boundaries, but there was so much space… like there’s not a lot of rules to that project. That’s why we’re so excited about it still and why we’re working on new music. I don’t think either me or Elucid thought of ‘the Small Bills sound’, it was just the culmination of being in the studio, trying stuff, bringing different people in and just being open to finding a voice that isn’t just… you know people love him as a rapper and I’ve got the producer thing, but we didn’t just fuse our sounds; we wanted to make something new.
Your latest album, with Jordan Hamilton and The Saxsquatch, is arguably the one most removed from hip hop, albeit still in the same vicinity. Is that something you would like to explore further?
Yeah definitely. Like 2121, Small Bills and Tri Magi kinda account for my three lanes. Like I wanna be able to make instrumental music that is rooted in beats but has elements of jazz, classical and other stuff. Then Small Bills can be avant garde, but it’s more based around a rap vocalist. Then with 2121 and working with A. Billi Free, it’s kinda like song-based music; there are hooks and there is probably more singing than there is rapping per se. So I look at my craft in those three realms – instrumental music, rap music and song-based music; all three of those things I have so many ideas for. And like all these albums I’m putting out, I’ve had the ideas since Mello signed me; I knew I was going to make an album with Jordan and Jarad. These are the goals you sort of dream of. Like I know my sound would work with this cellist and this sax player… then once you do it, it gives you so much power to do it again and do it better. So, once I’ve spent the time to learn how to create with a cellist and a sax player, I’m just going to keep doing it, because it’s not easy to find those sounds. And once you do get there, you want to bask in them. But I don’t think I’d ever make straight jazz, I always want my records to be at the intersections of a few different places. That’s always what’s interested me. Can I find new styles, even if they’re pastiches or reimaginings. I think that’s a big thing that motivates me – feeling like there’s a newness to the sound.
You guys had all worked together previously at various points, so how did you first meet?
I’d actually known Saxsquatch for more than a decade. We all hang around in Kalamazoo, which is a little town in Michigan that has this crazy music history. There are tons of studios, tons of musicians. That’s where Gibson guitars started… so it’s this small town with this overwhelming number of musicians and we all kinda came up there. Saxsquatch and I were from a generation earlier, then Jordan was maybe 5 or 7 years younger than me and he was just another person coming up in this Kalamazoo music world of really well-trained players. But at the same time, it’s this really small town and you’re not forced to try to be some sort of vanguard and shit, you can just play with your friends. Sometimes I think of my job like I’m a director, writing this music and then I’m trying to cast the right people in it. It just sounded really interesting to have an album focused on two instrumentalists, as opposed to just one; I liked that idea. Like looking at those old jazz records and you see all the names on the cover and stuff, I wanted to have that feeling but with a different genre.
Now I know we touched on some of the experiences you’ve had this year, which haven’t been great for you. I just wanted to know how that sort of things affects your creativity, do you find yourself knuckling down more to escape the gloom, or does it tend to bring you to a stop? I know it’s definitely the latter for me.
Yeah, that’s a really good question. It’s been a less creative era for me in some ways, but I never stop. It’s changed so much and they were such seismic changes… like I was a foster parent last year and what you go through with all that, like the world looks really different to me than it did a year ago. I’m not even talking about Covid, I just had so much stuff going on that my life is fundamentally different. So I never stopped making records throughout this last year, but my motivation in life changed. I’m playing some of the biggest shows of my life, I’m living my dream and I’m so grateful because I worked my ass off to get to this point, but it’s not the beginning and end of the world for me. I want to be happy, I want to enjoy life, I want to treat people well, but some of that stuff is hard to negotiate with a music career. You see heavy things, or you go through an experience and you’re so grateful for music. It is my life, my collaborators are keeping me alive and giving me so much love; that’s almost more important to me than just putting out records and playing shows. That stuff is wonderful but I guess I value happiness in a way I hadn’t in the past.
But yeah, it’s hard to be creative when you’re down. I did learn that. This year what I was inspired by was often love and happiness, not depression and anxiety. Like I can reflect on them. I’ve made some music that deals with what I’m going through, but that’s not my favourite way to live [laughs]. You know, just recycling through your negativity and trying to make something out of it. There’s a lot of great art that comes from that but I’ve never believed that myth… you know, I make depressing music when I’m happy sometimes, I don’t need to be depressed to be an artist.So it’s definitely been life altering and the main thing music related that I’ve gone through in my personal life is that I’m grateful to have had a passion in my life for so long. Something that holds me down in weird times and gives me direction. The language of music is really reflective. If you’re down and you find the right song, you might feel better a half hour later, and I love that.
And sticking with that same sort of theme, I know we spoke before in one of our message exchanges about how you find it hard to ‘stop the ideas coming’, I think was the phrase you used. So I was wondering if you have got any better at switching off and actually relaxing?
Dude, I appreciate you remembering that and asking me that. Yeah, I worked on it a lot. That was what I was talking about when I answered that last question – you get addicted to the creative process and it feels so good to create something from nothing. Then it becomes your career as well, and your income stream; also, a way that people see you in the world and you can kinda get this obsession with doing it. And also, that’s just how I like to live, I make stuff every day and I have for many years. I’m in a really creative long era of life and I don’t take that for granted, but you’ve got to balance that, right? So that’s what I’ve been working on and I’ve gotten way better. I take days off, I’m more willing to cancel stuff, and not just force myself to take opportunities when I’m not ready for them. But it’s funny you ask me that because my life has changed so much. I used to be married and have foster kids, but now my life is so different it’s easy for me to live in my creativity right now and maybe that’s where my life should be. I’m still figuring that out. But yeah, I really take days now where I won’t make any music. I try to do that one or two days a week, and it feels really good.
I’m glad you’ve managed to find that balance, man. Do you feel it’s had any impact on the times when you are trying to be creative?
Yeah, it has! ELUCID or anyone else I’m producing for now, it’s made it so that I’m building up this sort of inertia all the time, and then when I do sit down to make music… I’m really into making music in the presence of people now in a way. The past few years it was, oh I’m in my studio every day making tons of instrumentals and sending them out. Now that I take more breaks, build up this inertia and listen for a day or two before I create, and add in the presence of my collaborators, that’s my favourite thing now. Making beats in front of the people I’m producing for. It’s also a way that allows me to take more breaks, so I can say look instead of spending the day by yourself, why don’t you practice guitar for an hour, learn some chords and build up energy for the next time you’re in the studio? So, I have noticed a difference in that when I do sit down, it’s a little deeper in the well.
I was very pleased to see that you’re working on an album with Fielded, can you give me any hints as to what we can expect from that?
We’re figuring that out too. We’ve got some tracks done and we’re hard at work on it this fall… the other accomplished singer I’m working with right now is A. Billi Free, but she raps too, so I can give her a certain kind of music. Whereas working with Fielded, she writes really through long melodies and stuff first, so I’ve got to write more chords and giver her denser music on the front end, rather than just the groove and a bassline. So its cool… I’m trying to think what it compares to… a lot of Kate Bush, a lot of new wave, a lot of early 80’s New York funk / punk intersection… yeah it’s a great project. But she can just *sing*, and it’s amazing to be in the studio with someone who can just sing with so much volume and presence.
We did a week of sessions to get to know how far we can take it and then we’re just letting it unfold for a while… But I’m really excited to be working with her. I’m not big with genre words but it’s got a sound. It has a universe; I just don’t have the words to describe it yet. I’m just really glad that ELUCID and woods connected us. I find that regionally, artists are so different. Like if I work with an artist from New York, as opposed to an artist from the South West, they’re just fundamentally different cultures and peoples, so I might still be making hip hop with two artists who fit within that same genre, but they sound totally different. Their lives are different. The energy of New York is so specific, that’s just gonna be a part of mine and Fielded’s music, if we’re recording together.
She’s also done other things as well though right? I’m sure I saw her say something about being part of noise scene she was involved with, in another city in the US..
Yeah and currently, still! She performs with an artist whose name I can’t think of right now… some sort of avant garde performance artist… Fielded is a great beat-maker, she makes stuff that sounds like Joni Mitchell with synths all over, then you hear her on Armand Hammer records and it’s like a scary, gothic vocal cloud [laughs]. So she’s got such a range that we’re a great pairing, in the sense that we’re not trying to sit down and make a particular thing. Just blend our voices and let it go from there.
She was actually over here in the UK recently and invited me to a gallery opening in London where she performed.
Yeah she was touring out there. They play like crazy music and stuff, it’s more performance art. It’s really cool, so that must have been awesome. I’d love to see that show, she’s shown me a little bit from it.
So did your collaboration come about from her association with ELUCID and woods?
I was working on the Small Bills record…
Oh of course, she was on there.
Yeah and she’s got a little studio in her apartment, so ELUCID and I would record there. Then I did a remix on that project that Backwoodz put out and through working on that together, it was like oh shit we’ve got to make a record.
Well I’m glad it’s happening. That’s about it from me and I was going to ask what else you’ve got in store, but it sounds like a lot…
Yeah, I had so many solo releases these last few years and I definitely could keep the pace going… I’ve got a record coming out early next year, but I don’t want to say too much because it’s more fun when they just get announced. I don’t know… I just work with the people I like working with. I mean I’m certainly getting exciting opportunities but I don’t really worry about where it’s going. I know today I’ve got to mix all day [laughs] and I’m in Atlanta soon. I’m trying to book more time in really awesome studios this year, that’s one of my main things. So I guess to answer the what’s next – I have a lot of records done, or I have a lot that are in the early stages like the Fielded one, but my craft has been so solitary for years so now I feel like I’m stepping out a little bit more. I’m booking more time at studios and just making sure to push myself. I practice piano and guitar as much as I make beats right now. And I’m saving up money to make some really unique high-fidelity records. So that’s kinda where my heads at, just getting better. I don’t worry about who raps on it, I know if you focus on the interesting part of the craft then everything else unfolds from there. So I’m just staying obsessed with writing music.
GingerSlim is a music journalist from Bristol, UK. His self-titled blog has been covering the UK and US indie rap scenes for over a decade, and he’s also a regular contributor to The Wire Magazine, Off Licence Magazine and The Find Mag. When he’s not writing about rap, you will usually find him with his face buried in a book, or talking to the birds. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
The pain of losing so many hip-hop icons in the past couple of years has been hard to take. And while never a full-blown household name, when Steve “Stēzo” Williams died in April, 2020, it was another huge blow for the culture. Stēzo’s long-time friend and fellow industry veteran, Chris Lowe, is helping keep the legacy of Stēzo alive, releasing The Last Dance last month, with contributions from some of rap’s biggest names. We recently spoke to Chris about the album, Stēzo’s role in the history of hip-hop, and more. We also bring you the premiere of the latest video from the album, which you can watch below.
It’s been a terrible couple of years for hip-hop artists dying too young. It felt as though, with so much happening last year, Stēzo‘s death was a bit forgotten about. For anyone who doesn’t know, tell them about his legacy in hip-hop.
Well let’s start here. Once upon a time when hip-hop was fun—back in the ‘80s—hip-hop dance evolved. Stēzo was one of the hip-hop dance pioneers. I will never forget when EPMD debuted Steve in their “You Gots To Chill” video and showed a split second of him doing the Steve Martin. The dance spread across the country like wild fire. This was also in part due to the video being aried on Yo! MTV Raps, which was the most famous video show back in the day. To this day, when you hear “You Gots to Chill” many of us immediately think of Steve’s dance. People still do it today. Shortly after all this hype, Stēzo went on to drop his debut LP, Crazy Noise in ’89.
And you and he go way back to your teenage years, right? Tell me about what you experienced together?
Steve and I were both deejays. That was our connection. Steve loved how I cut on the turntables. He was good too, but I had the style he loved. So we came up deejaying and then graf writing together and then Steve went on to breaking. We would meet up at parties and be the attraction for the night. Me on the turntables and him breakdancing on the floor. We were hip-hop kids from the way we dressed to the way we talked. Me, him and his cousin Dooley O. When breaking died out, Steve started freestyle dancing and making up his own moves. We would go to legendary hip-hop clubs like Latin Quarters and Union Square where he would become an attraction there too. This eventually led to him joining EPMD.
Stēzo was influential to hip-hop as a whole, but in particularly to the early growing scene in Connecticut. How was he able to mentor local artists and open doors for them?
Steve influenced local artists simply by showing others that it was possible to make it in hip-hop coming from Connecticut. You just had to be unique and have a style all your own. Of course you had other artists like The Skinny Boys out of Bridgeport, but we were from New Haven and Steve danced his way to a record deal. Connecticut watched Steve go from being a dancer to releasing his own album on Sleeping Bag/Fresh Records.
The Last Dance has an incredible list of artists paying tribute. How did it all come together?
It started with me just reaching out to all of Steve’s friends in the industry. Rappers he actually had history with, like Special Ed. Steve and Ed’s albums dropped the same year back in ’89. Some reached out to me, like Kangol Kid. Kangol had a little inside story to share which you peep on his “Hip-Hop Eulogy” interlude on the album. There were also people I reached out to that declined but overall everyone I reached to happily obliged. Steve knew a lot of heads. There were even rappers that missed the album because they were in the middle of projects like K-Solo and Ultramagnetic MCs. Others paid tribute through social media, like Questlove and DJ Premier. Eminem shouted Steve on Nas’s “EPMD 2” joint, so there was much love showed around the industry.
I’ve personally chatted on Twitter in the past about Stēzo‘s music with Just Blaze, so it’s great to hear his tribute message on, The Last Dance. It must have been very satisfying to get that one?
Blaze is my dog! A real hip-hop dude. Stēzo was a favorite of his. Prior to his death, Blaze would mention Steve in interviews right out of the blue. I can tell he had the album, he was a fan and we were fans of him. We knew Jay would snatch him up!
Aside from what we hear on, The Last Dance, was Stēzo actively working on more music in his final few years, and as such, is there much unreleased material?
I wish I had more on Steve but I don’t. Me and Steve took time off to pursue other things. He didn’t start recording again until his documentary surfaced. When the doc came out, he started to get calls to come out on tour again. I was like you gotta have new material, so we did five songs before he sadly left us.
What would you like for Stēzo‘s legacy to be?
Steve left his legacy and I’m satisfied with it. Stēzo was the first hip-hop dancer to step up to that mic and become an artist. No matter what you thought of his rymes, he still had the heart to take a shot. He even influenced other hip-hop dancers to grab the mic. And his legacy will forever be the “Steve Martin Dance.” Do you know how hard it is to make people all over the world do a dance? Stēzo did it. Whenever you hear “You Gots To Chill,” somebody is gonna do that dance.
Finally, what’s you favourite memory of the years you worked together?
I’m left with so many memories of Steve going back to our teens. Too many to name. Steve was a fun dude to be around, if he wasn’t pissing you off [laughs]. He was multi-talented so not only did we share music, but we were also barbers. It was Steve that got me into cutting hair. Before he passed, we even started a barber clothing line. Steve was one of the few friends I’ve known over 30 years, right up to his lasts days. That’s why I had to release this album so I can hear him anytime I want. Rest in heavenly peace Steve, I’m carrying your torch my dude.
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The Last Dance is out now and you can purchase it here. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.
Preservation is perhaps best known for his extensive work with Mos Def, his production for the GZA, Roc Marciano, Your Old Droog, Mach-Hommy, billy woods and countless others, and for being one half of Dr. Yen Lo with Ka. His most recent album, Eastern Medicine, Western Illness, is possibly his finest album yet. He recently spoke to Gingerslim about the project, and how it was influenced by Preservation’s time in Hong Kong.
How’s everything gone with the release so far? I’ve seen a lot of positive reviews in circulation.
It’s been good. Feels great to finally have it out on all platforms and physical. Specifically I’m really proud of how the limited edition double cassette came out. I always wanted to do a custom packaging with an exclusive element which is the beat tape.
I read that the album was created from a challenge you set yourself, where you wanted to make a project solely using records you had found while digging in Hong Kong. I was wondering what sort of records you had to work with initially and were they fairly typical finds for Chinese record shops?
A lot of the local records I was discovering in Hong Kong did not have much variation in styles of music, so it made it a challenge to find the right loops and pieces that would work with my style and the MC’s I was envisioning for the record. I had to listen to a lot of music before I found that one gem that popped out amongst the rest, so creatively it made me have to dig deeper. Most of the music from the 60’s and 70’s were based on what was popular at the time. Cha Cha, Go Go etc.. Most of the lyrics were sung in Mandarin with a lot of the records coming from Taiwan and Singapore. Then in the 70’s more songs were being recorded in Cantonese developing into Cantopop created in Hong Kong.
What had drawn you to Hong Kong initially?
I first went in 96 to visit a friend but later I came a few times to do shows with Yasiin Bey. Then in 2014 my wife relocated for her job to the Hong Kong office. Initially it was going to be a 6 month stay but ended up being 3 years. I always had a connection with the city growing up watching movies from there and being fascinated with the culture.
With regards to the album’s title, what do you view as the West’s illness and does the East really hold the cure / answers?
First and foremost my intention was to put what I consider the illest Mc’s from the west on the sounds of the East. During my 3-year stay starting in 2014, I witnessed the student umbrella protest movement in HK, mirrored with the negative news coming in from the West including Trump’s election, mass shootings and the continued police oppression and killing of black lives. The act of creating was my solace. I feel there is a different way of going about healing in the East through more handed down traditional methods and also a strong respect for family. Turn on the TV and it’s obvious no region in the world holds the cure, but for me this experience was therapeutic and hopefully that resonates with the listeners.
The list of guest spots is beyond impressive. Did you have a fairly good idea of who you wanted to work with when you started production, or did it evolve more organically as things progressed?
I created a list of people I knew and worked with in the past and also artists that I was listening to at the time I was living in Hong Kong, like Tree, Mach, Grande etc… Ka was instrumental in bringing the album together and making a lot of those connections with artists I didn’t know personally. Most of the time I make music with people I already have a relationship with but in this case a lot of the artists were inspiring the sound I was making for the album so I was open to making new relationships through the music.
Did the album lead you in any new directions that you hadn’t envisioned when you began working on it? Did you notice any shift in your usual production techniques or anything like that?
In the past, I was doing music with loops and no drums, then during the Dr. Yen Lo sessions, I was learning a lot from Ka about opening things up even more and letting samples just ride. My thing is layering and creating a collage of sound. For Eastern Medicine, Western Illness, I felt like I was bringing some of the elements I used to do before and after Yen Lo and trying to blend them including adding drum loops here and there. I think “A Cure For The Common” and “Lemon Rinds” capture that direction.
What is the Hong Kong hip hop scene like in general; is there much struggle with censorship or anything like that? For example, are there any politically-minded local artists making music?
Hong Kong has a large EDM scene stemming out of a heavy disco/club culture coming out of the 70’s and 80’s. Hip Hop isn’t that popular but has a small underground community. The Graffiti and street art element is very big and the B-boy scene got some things going on as well. There is a group called LMF from the 90’s still doing their thing. I think it was the only Chinese speaking Hip Hop group signed to a major label at the time. A lot of the younger mc’s now are doing the trap sound with some doing boom bap sound as well. As far as the lyrics go, I’m not exactly sure what most of the content is, but I would guess that some of it is speaking about certain day to day issues and political oppression. Censorship is definitely becoming an issue more and more especially with recent events including the student movements and the Hong Kong national security law.
Sticking with that subject, how did you and Young Queenz end up working together?
It was important to me to have a local Hong Kong artist be a part of this album and represent and draw the listener into the city. I was combing through YouTube videos of Hong Kong rappers, but couldn’t really find anyone that could match the vocal tones I anticipated would end up on the album. I asked Gary Leong who runs White Noise Records, a local vinyl shop that specializes in new music. He mentioned Queenz and hit me with his cd. It was heavily influenced by 90’s hip hop and you could tell he studied the craft – but it was his voice which stood out. Heavy and raspy, so automatically I felt that he could fit in the sound of the album. Turned out that a friend knew his manager and made the link. I went to go see him perform at one of the few underground music venues in Hong Kong. The place was packed to capacity and headlining was LMF, the veteran hip hop group. Young Queenz took the stage with his crew, Wildstyle records and did a whole trap set. I wasn’t expecting that kind of sound because of the CD’s boom bap sound but saw in the moment that he was a special artist taking full control of the stage and audience.
I was wondering if you have any aspirations to use this creative model in any other countries?
Hong Kong is a great jumping off city to visit other countries in the region and I took advantage of that during my stay. So, I’ll definitely be releasing some projects related to the music I was fortunate enough to acquire during my travels.
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Eastern Medicine, Western Illness is out now on Nature Sounds. Visit Preservation’s site for more about his music, and follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
Gingerslim has been a hip-hop fan since 1994 and has written for various blogs and websites since around 2006. During that time he has contributed to The Wire, style43, Think Zebra, Headsknow, Front Magazine and more. His main interests in rap are UK hip-hop and the underground movement in America, with a focus on Rhymesayers Entertainment and the once mighty Def Jux label. He lives in Bristol and has a beard. All other details are sketchy at best. Read his own hip-hop blog and follow himhere.
Today we’re excited to bring you the premiere of the new album from Justo the MC and producer maticulous, County of Kings. A follow-up to last year’s Mind Of A Man, the new project is more of what you’d expect from the true-school duo. Hit play below to listen now, and keep scrolling for our interview with maticulous.
Tell us what people can expect from the new album with Justo The MC, County of Kings?
First off, thank you for reaching out, it’s good to talk with you! I think what people can expect is the evolution in chemistry we’ve had making records over the past two years. I’m very proud of Mind Of A Man, the first record we did in January 2019. It was organic and we’ve really just relied on our ear and creativity to guide us through each project and County Of Kings builds upon that. You never want to make the same album over and over…
Its about only been about 18 months since Mind of A Man, and a year since the Bonus Room EP. Do you guys tend to record new shit pretty much non-stop, or do you just have plenty of music in the vaults ready to go when you feel the time is right?
When we first started working on songs it was just to see if it’d progress into a full project. Since finishing Mind Of A Man, we’ve been consistently working and building projects. Bonus Room came to be because we were in a really chill/vibe-out type zone for a few months while working on Mind Of A Man. The Bonus Room tracks did not fit the energy of the album, but it turned into a Summer EP.
Has the way you guys work together changed or evolved much since you first started collaborating?
For sure, working on this much music you develop a brotherhood. More ideas spark and get bounced back and forth and I think it makes the music better overall. All organic, nothing is forced or trying to fit in a certain lane, just trying to create high quality hip-hop from our perspective.
The first time you really caught our ear as a producer was with The maticulous LP in 2015, which we posted about a lot at the time. It had a great mix of emcees on there (Masta Ace, Your Old Droog, Guilty Simpson, Blu and more), and I’m curious as to how you chose who you wanted to feature, and do you craft beats with specific artists in mind?
Thank you. When I do producer projects I map out instrumentals and sequence it to have an album-feel as opposed to just a compilation of tracks. Once I have them all sorted, I’ll reach out to the emcees that I feel would best represent each sound. I also enjoy featuring artists that have never worked on tracks together before — for example RA The Rugged Man with Duck Down artists on “Body The Beat”, Blu and Masta Ace on “Bet Your Life”, Fame and Rah Digga on “Black Hoodie Rap”, etc. It’s fun approaching it from a fan point-of-view!
This leads nicely to the inevitable question about which rappers are on your list of who you’d love to have over your production.
Black Thought, Anderson .Paak, Phonte, Freddie Gibbs, Nas… I could go on, haha!
How has lockdown been for you creatively? I think it was El-P who tweeted a few weeks back how a lot of artists probably thought they’d be mad productive during this time, but how art doesn’t always come out that way, when you have free time. How are you finding it?
El-P is 100% correct! It takes a while to figure out your own process as an artist and finding what process brings you the most fulfilment. My productivity comes in waves, and when I’m inspired I want to work all the time, and if I’m not I don’t. However, telling an artist they have unlimited free time can be crippling because too many times I’ve tried to force things and I end up regretting the time I spent.
Do you tend to work with rappers in person? I ask, because that cohesive sound you only get when a producer and emcee actually make music together in the studio is definitely something that Covid 19 is effecting.
Working in person on any level is my favorite, whether it’s just playing beats, recording, or mixing. It’s more productive than sending e-files back and forth. You miss the energy and the collaboration of doing everything over the internet. This is not to say you can’t make dope music strictly that way… in my experience I’d say it’s been a 50/50 mix.
Lastly, what can we expect from you next now that County of Kings is out?
Justo and I are in the midst of our third album. All the beats have been crafted and lyrics written… recording and post production next. Our workflow is enjoyable because he doesn’t subscribe to a certain sound or whatever the flavor of the moment is. I’m always creating, stacking beats, sometimes you’ll hear where my vibe is when I post some snippets on my IG. I appreciate the questions, thank you to all your readers and supporters of the music!
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Purchase County of Kings here. Follow Justo the MC on Twitter and Instagram here and here, and maticulous here and here. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.
Supastition is one of the most talented artists working in hip-hop today, with an extensive run of albums released over the last two decades. In this new interview we discuss his most recent work, including Every Last Word and the Speaker Bullies album, new music coming soon, and the importance of being open about struggles with mental health. 
Last month, Lyrics Born released his latest solo album, Mobile Homies Season 1 (listen below), which comes off the back of his podcast series of the same name, as well as a career that has spanned more than three decades. Ever since he first made his mark on the scene as part of the highly influential Solesides crew, he has been one of the most innovative and prolific voices in rap. 
The 
