Grown Up Rap

We chat to emcee and producer Zilla Rocca about his new album out this Friday, Vegas Vic, how it feels to be back on stage, the Wrecking Crew and more. 

Vegas Vic is out this Friday. Tell us what we can expect.

It’s my first solo album is close to 2 years and I wanted to tap into some Ghostface energy with this one, specifically “Ironman” which is my favorite album of all time. I wanted to make it very insular with guests and have alot of vibrant colors and more energy with the beats and rhymes. I’ve been collaborating with Chong Wizard, Ray West, Small Professor, and Wrecking Crew the last couple of years, so “Vegas Vic” was my chance to be in control solely again and trust my instincts to find the styles and sounds I needed.

The album has self-produced tracks, and production from Small Pro, as is typical of your projects. But there’s also a lot of production by Disco Vietnam. It’s arguably a different sound for you. How did you guys get together?

Barry aka Disco Vietnam and I have been friends for over 10 years. He’s been to most of my shows in NYC for the last decade and would always give good pointers and notes. He suddenly became a monster at making beats the last couple of years after taking time off, and he would send me damn near every beat he was making. They were all FIRE. So he ended up doing “Favors are Bad News” with Armand Hammer off “Future Future Rapper” and 2 joints off “96 Mentality” that set off that record. My inbox just kept piling up with heaters from him so we decided based on our relationship and my trust in him that he should oversee the entire album. It reminds me of how RZA was heavily involved in “Supreme Clientele” even though he didn’t produce the whole album. You need someone with a vision for you that highlights your strengths. That’s what Barry brought to “Vegas Vic”.

We’ve talked in previous interviews about how you write very intricate, literary lyrics. PremRock has a similar writing style, and has talked about how working in a bar gives him great material. Other than movies and novels, what inspires your writing and the kind of characters you write about?

I’m at a point now being a dad where I don’t interact with as many characters any more. But maturing has given me more solitude to recall the 30 years of wild stories, memories, rumors, and myths I experienced living in Philly my whole life. It’s like being a record collector and just going back into your collection for a while rather than buying new pieces each week. Most lines and stories on “Vegas Vic” are things that just emerged in the process of writing lyrics, whereas in the past I would deliberately set out to tell a specific story based on something I had read, or saw, or heard about. I’m more instinctive now which is more fun – you discover these thoughts and people coming up like hot air balloons across the sky in the writing process rather than cultivating it from the dirt up.

You and the Wrecking Crew returned to the live stage recently. What did that feel like after so much time?

It felt oddly normal. None of us had ever gone that long without performing going back to the beginning of our perspective careers. I’ve been having fun on Instagram Live playing music, and doing demo sessions on Zoom with our Patreon subscribers for Call Out Culture, and it still doesn’t compare to watching people in a crowd at a venue react to music. The digital space is great for connective with people around the world at the same time, but you’re still sitting in your house and they are sitting in theirs. Having to get up and spend time and money to actually go see people perform is a true privilege.

New York’s Uncommon Nasa releases his sixth album, Only Child, on August 6. We talked to him about the concept behind the project, working with Messiah Musik, and more. We’re also bringing you the premiere of the video for “Vincent Crane.” Watch that below, then keep scrolling for the interview.

As the title suggests, Only Child looks back at your life as a kid without siblings and your relationship with your parents. How would describe the experience of being a child and how has it shaped you as an adult?

Being an Only Child, things happen to YOU. I think when you have siblings there are lots of “WE” stories to tell. I think that difference in point of view shapes you.  The dedication to my folks is regarding our ups and downs together, many of which are discussed on the album. There are lots of events we shared together, but as a kid that’s an only child, you spend a lot of time alone when your parents both work. All of that time alone really shapes you and I feel strengthens you in a lot of ways as an adult.

Your albums are always very reflective and personal, and Only Child is definitely part of that cannon. There are also no guest features. Is that a way to make sure the narrative and direction of the album stayed 100% your personal story?

Yes. It would be hard with this subject matter to bring someone else into this theme. This was an opportunity for me to tell my story on my own terms and I purposefully kept the artistic circle very small, even down to the instrumentation. One producer for the whole album with me playing any additional material myself. No one else from the outside really.

You also talk about how being 40 with no children to channel your energy into, you instead look inwards to find the inner child in you. I recently turned 40, I have two kids, and I was not an only child, so your experience is the opposite to mine. Can you elaborate on this feeling?

I think when you have kids, whether it’s at 18 or 38 it matures you in some ways exactly where you stand. Some level of focus for a life other than your own will change you. When you don’t have kids, this sort of epiphany has to happen to you naturally and for most that will kick in around 40, at least it did for me. I’ll never forget my 40th birthday, watching the sun set that day and thinking about how the sun was setting on an entire phase of my life. I can only assume for people with kids that happens when they hold their kid for the first time. I think once you get to that point in life, hitting 40, without kids, you do become your own parent. Your references to kids come from your own experiences growing up and not from raising others. Thinking back on the mistakes you made or dumb things you thought, instead of looking at a child and thinking that. I do feel that connecting with your own history and childhood is important for everyone though, whether you have siblings or kids or not, a deep connection with your inner self is so important in my opinion. I just think in my case, that sense of self evolved naturally due to my circumstances.

Only Child is produced by Messiah Musik. His profile has been rising recently from his work with Mach-Hommy, Your Old Droog, billy woods, etc, but you guys go all the way back to New York Telephone in 2014. Tell me about your relationship with him.

I’m super happy for Messiah Musik, he’s starting to get the attention he deserves.  We actually began selecting beats for this project quite some time ago, I may have even been on tour behind New York Telephone at the time.  The way he produces, it leaves me the space to get my themes and stories across. He’s a good dude too, humble and trustworthy.  Those are qualities that you have to surround yourself with in this business, especially at this point in my career.

We talked in a previous interview about how, as an artist who writes across different mediums, whether your approach to writing differs between, say, a rap song versus your poetry. When you are making an entire album with one producer like Messiah Musik, does that impact how you write, as opposed to when you are writing to a beat you produced yourself?

Absolutely, my production style is a lot more aggressive, but my writing and performing style is not always that. As an artist of multiple disciplines, those disciplines do not always line up. So even though I want to produce something that will make you smash your head against the wall, that’s not what I always want to write. On Only Child I wanted to tell my story in the most cohesive but provoking way, and I feel like Messiah Musik’s beats gave me the opportunity to do that. Some of these songs flowed out of me so naturally.  I write to the beat I use for a given idea about 99% of the time, so the direction of the album was something carved out of the pocket these beats put me in. Other producers will inevitably send me in their own unique direction, including myself as a producer.

Lastly, did you get chance to listen to Open Mike Eagle’s What Had Happened Was Season 2 with El-P? El gave you a couple of shoutouts for the part you played in the Def Jux story.

I did not listen to the whole thing, but I had some people send me texts and links to certain parts including where I was mentioned. I poured a lot of hours of work and passion into the music coming out of Definitive Jux during that era. While I would certainly expect some mention, having been there as deep as I was, it doesn’t always work out that way in the music business so I definitely appreciated El doing that when the subject came up.

***

Only Child by Uncommon Nasa is out August 6 on Uncommon Records. Pre-order vinyl, CDs and merch here, or via Bandcamp. Follow Uncommon Nasa on Instagram and YouTube. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.