What does it take to be a dope MC? If you use one of Columbus’ illest lyricists, Illogic, as an example, it takes writing most of your rhymes at work, sharpening your battle skills with your exercise group, and immersing yourself in hiphop until you simply crave silence. Follow along on this interview I recently conducted with Illogic to understand the man behind the mic as he sheds light on his long overdue sophomore release, Celestial Clockwork, the upcoming Got Lyrics? EP, and the highly anticipated supergroup, The Orphanage, which consists of himself, Aesop Rock, Blueprint, Eyedea, and Atmosphere. Intrigued yet? Enjoy

Jbutters: You have a lot of projects lined up, I sometimes wonder how emcees work on so many projects at once, you always have those heads with the phantom projects that never drop but..

Illogic: Well, all the projects I’ve been working on are gonna drop sometime soon. My Got Lyrics? EP is going to drop in September, I got a single that I’m working on for Rhymesayers, that should be coming out in August, and Celestial Clockwork should be out next summer. Everything is coming out; it’s just the process that takes time.

I got a list of stuff you got coming out, your second album Celestial Clockwork, like you mentioned, the Orphanage project, the Iskabibbles LP…

Yea that will be out probably be out in July. That’s done. We’re just waiting on the artwork and then get it mass-produced.

With all the attention Weightless is beginning to receive there is a lot of hype and momentum building, within that what are your goals in hiphop and how do these projects fit into those goals?

I just want people to feel what I feel through my music. With everything that’s happening right now everything is looking on the up and up. People are accepting our music for how we present it and its not gonna do anything but get better from here. In my opinion, there is no comparison between Unforeseen Shadows and the future solo projects I have working out. Unforeseen was my first album and (look at) the attention that got. I’m proud of it, but in comparison as far as the work and the feeling I put into Celestial Clockwork and Got Lyrics? I hope people like those as much and hopefully like it more because I do. As far as hiphop, I just want people to know me. Ha ha

Haha

I just want people to know my name and say Illogic is my favorite rapper. I want to touch people. I’m not the battle all the time cat, I like to give you some stories and talk about some stuff. That’s what my next album is basically, it’s a more conceptual album than Unforeseen was.

That pretty much leads into my next question, some people have a lot of different goals for the second album. Some say it’s hard to outdo the first album. Is that what you were looking to do or were you only trying to build upon the first album?

I’m just building upon it. The first album was just a collection of stuff I wanted people to hear. If people feel where I’m coming from then I can focus on doing a whole album how I want to. I didn’t do Unforeseen as an album. We just did songs, did some more songs and were like ok let’s put it out now. With Celestial I had the whole album written before I even started recording it. I had plans for each song. As much attention as the first one had, with heads calling it classic and so on, I wanted to top myself. I may not, but in my opinion I have because I’ve made a conceptual album. Every song on Celestial has a place on the album and is apart of a story. I basically built upon where I was, in certain songs I may have taken that feeling and explained it more or made it more intense. I expanded on feelings I had in the span of time between the first album and this one.

Is Blueprint still doing all the production?

Yea Blueprint is doing all the beats except a couple extra bonus cuts I might include from some other producers.

I heard you received a few beats not too long ago from some top underground producers, will any of those be on there?

They probably won’t be on the album because most of it is done and I have the beats already picked out. I just have to record four more songs. I’m doing some stuff with Blockhead, Ant (Atmosphere), and some producers here in Columbus as well. So I’m doing stuff with a lot of other people, I’m just not working on any albums with anyone else right now, just compilations.

Do you think if you mixed some other producers with Blueprint that you would have still been able to achieve a full conceptual album?

Nah the whole album has a feeling and Blueprint knew the mood I was going for because I talked to him about the concept beforehand. When we first went into it I told him what I wanted to do and this is the type of production I wanted and he made music accordingly. Everything fits because having the same producer and the same machine allows for the beats to have the same feeling and the same mood. It’s just different extremes of that mood. I don’t think it would have had that cohesive nature if it had been more than one producer. Its like with Aceyalone’s album, Book of Human Language, without Mumbles doing all the production the album probably wouldn’t have came off as conceptual as it did.

There has been a lot of talk about your upcoming album, but I’d have to say it’s been more talk on the supergroup of sorts, The Orphanage, that you’ve formed with Atmosphere, Blueprint, Eyedea, and Aesop Rock. Is the idea behind the name that your styles have no home?

Basically that’s what it is. The way we came up with it was we were all in New York at Rocksteady last year and Slug was naming some group names that he wanted to use. He said the Orphanage and we were like why don’t we use that. That was even before we decided to do an album, it was just like that’s who we are. We’re a big group of cats who all do music together and we’re all friends.

There are a lot of styles within the group, how do you feel the styles will complement each other?

The type of thing we went for we were just on some MC shit. We weren’t trying to be the next great supergroup. We were just trying to have fun. Everyone has done stuff together before just never everybody on one song. The stuff that we have done sounds good, we didn’t know how it was gonna turn out either. So far what we got right now are some stories and songs with only a few of us on it. It’s turned out rather well, probably better than what we thought it was going to. We just got together and said lets do songs and see what happens.

Where has the bulk of the recording taken place?

We did all the recording in Minneapolis.

I don’t know if you’re online much or frequent different message boards, but the hype machine has started. A lot of word of mouth promotion online has been known to set unrealistic expectations for albums yet to be released.

I think that’s what its going to be. I think a lot of people may be disappointed, not really expecting what were putting out. We didn’t sit down to make a big concept album. Just because all of us separately do things of that nature people are expecting us to get together and make this super dope album. We just tried to make an album.

Some heads have practically certified the album a classic without hearing one song.

They maybe disappointed. They might be like this isn’t what I wanted. I hope people like it though.

Do you think that word of mouth could negatively affect how it will be received?

I think the word of mouth will help it more than hurt it. Either way it goes people will buy it and like it or hate it. The album’s gonna be released off Rhymesayers in the future.

I mentioned the infamous word “Classic” and I feel it’s completely over used these days. What are your thoughts on the over usage of the word in hiphop?

I don’t think you can call anything classic until you can put it on 5 or 10 years from now and still get hyped when you listen to it. You can’s say that an album that came out yesterday is classic today because it cant be a classic without longevity. I don’t feel I have a classic album yet, but if cats are still listening to Unforeseen in 2020 then it will be a classic album. Right now it’s a good album, but not a classic. I don’t use that term very often.

I read Got Lyrics? is supposed to be a battle oriented compilation EP. What artists are on it and why did you choose to put it out before the second album?

Got Lyrics? was originally a project I was doing with a kid here named True Skills, but he was slacking. It was supposed to be out last year, I had everything written but we just couldn’t get together to record. I wanted to do a complete battle album. That was the plan, but it was pretty much dead. Blueprint was like you got the songs written you might as well put it out and not waste your writing. So I went down to Cincinnati and in 2 days we did 8 songs. The only other featured artists are Aesop and Vast (Cannibal Ox). I might put an Orphanage song on there, but that’s still up in the air. I was gonna have a lot of MCs from Columbus on it but that fell through so it didn’t happen like I wanted it to. It will mainly be me; it has about 4 or 5 battle songs.

So is this even an EP or your second album only it’s not your second album?

It’s an EP really, there are about 8 songs on the whole thing. Some people will say it’s an album and some will say it’s an EP, but it’s the second album before the second album.

I read you’re also in a group called RCA.

Yea that’s dead. The kid I was in the group just disappeared for 3 months and no one knew where he was. We had the album basically done with only 3 or 4 songs left to do and we wouldn’t see him for months at a time so we just scrapped the idea.

Where did he go?

He was here, but not into hiphop. He had moved way out into the boonies and didn’t have a car or everyone’s numbers because other heads were moving. A cat started using their verses for other stuff and by the time he came back around it was pretty much dismantled already. There will be a couple songs from it on some compilations Weightless will be putting out, but as far as an album its dead.

Are there any other crews or groups your in?

Well, I’m in a crew called Spitball here in Columbus. It consists of about 20 MCs. There is one kid named Prism who does production, cats just come by his crib and drop a verse here and there. He takes them and compiles songs and releases them a few months later. Its all battle stuff, cats will lay down verses and not even know who is coming on after them. We all hang out and do shows together. It’s fun, that’s like my exercise group. They keep me on my toes with my battle stuff.

Speaking of battles I heard about your beef with the crew 3rdeye a few months back. Now that both parties put out material dissing each other where do you all stand, is the beef squashed?

As far as squashing it with them we haven’t, but we have as far as not really talking shit about them and just letting it die because we won. There really is no reason to say anything else so it’s dead to me. They put out another CD talking shit. Then I did a solo song at an expo they were at dissing them and calling them out onstage and none of them said anything. Its dead but it was fun while it lasted.

In an interview with 4th-district.com you said it took 8 months to write and record Unforeseen Shadows. Before you even started Celestial Clockwork did you go into it expecting to spend at least twice as much time?

Yea because I wanted to spend time with it. I wanted it to be better than the first. Unforeseen had all this hype and I wanted it to be a good follow-up album. I didn’t want the first album to be good and be like other MCs where the next album is garbage. I wanted to put thought into each song I did and pick the beats carefully. I had plans on taking much more time and it has been around 2 years and I still have a couple songs to record.

What guests are present on the second album, any Orphanage heads?

I have a song with Slug, a song with Vast and Aesop, and one with Greenhouse Effect.

Do you feel like by collaborating with heads outside your immediate crew that the album might not have the same personal feel as the first one?

I think it will because the cats that are on it were on the same type of mind state. For instance the song I did with Slug is a father and son song. The song I did with Aesop and Vast is called “Time Capsule”, where we are talking about putting a time capsule in the ground and what we would want people to remember us by. So the ideas I used with other people are the ideas we both have in common so they all tie in with everything I’m doing on the album that’s solo. I think it added to it more than it took away from it, because it gave another perspective on those songs.

I’ve mentioned a lot of projects you have or are still working on. During the time where the most recording took place did you ever feel close to burnout?

During that time I was at the point where I didn’t want to do anything involving hiphop sometimes. There were some nights I’d want to sit in silence. There would be road trips we would take for shows and there would be 4 or 5 hour trips where we would ride back in silence just because we where overwhelmed with hiphop. After Rocksteady I didn’t listen to hiphop for a week because I was just immersed in hiphop the week I was in NY.

The Internet has played a big role in your popularity, do you think there are some new ways the Internet will be able to level the playing field between underground and mainstream?

I hate the Internet. Its cool for selling albums, but not as far as cats talking a lot of shit. I really don’t go on the net much. I might check our site, a few others, and my email but I don’t post on boards or really get involved. However it’s a good tool for advertising and getting to a wider audience without having huge distribution. You can sell your stuff to someone overseas and just mail them a copy. It’s a lot easier and makes things more accessible so that’s the positive about it. As far as a lot of the Internet heads most of them wouldn’t be into hiphop without the net and that kinda irks me. Its cool that you can get involved in other hiphop scenes and not really be there but when cats take it too far it gets on my nerves.

You touched on some personal issues as well as some battle oriented material on the first album but you say the second album is one complete focus. What type of story were you aiming for before you started recording?

Basically it’s a story about me. Its a lot of the stuff I’ve experienced in life, lessons I’ve learned from it, and things that have formed me into the person I am now. Out of the 14 songs there are 4 or 5 stories. I think I have 1 that’s kind of a battle song on there but its real abstract. The story line was just me, it goes from my birth to my death and talks about everything in between. I cant wait for it to come out because its really frustrating me. Half of it has been done for almost a year and the other half has been sitting on my notebook for about 6 months. Its just waiting to get it done, get it out there so everyone can hear it and leave me alone about what’s coming out next.

Do you ever worry about having too many projects in a row and somewhat over saturate the market?

Not right now because I’m not that big. If I was big and I was on everything all the time I would be. Right now I’m trying to get known and that’s the reason I’m doing all these projects. I’m trying to get to a place where I can do an album every year and a half and not really have to do a compilation here and there just to stay in people’s heads so they’ll remember me. I’m doing a lot of stuff now because I’m enjoying it and I just want cats to hear my name and voice and say that his verse is ill.

Is getting to a point where hiphop brings in most of your money an ultimate goal?

I’d love to be in a studio and be working or be sitting at the kitchen table writing a rhyme and be working. Id love to get to that point but until I get there I have to have a job and if I don’t get there so be it. I’m working to a point where I can live like Slug or EL-P and not have to work. Instead be able to go on tour and sell albums and that is where the money comes from. I would love to do that I can’t wait.

Do people at work know you’re an artist and if so how do they respond to you needing days off for shows?

My job is cool about it. I take my notebook to work with me all the time and write at my desk. Most of Celestial Clockwork I wrote at work.

Ha Ha, you wrote it at work?!

I’d write a song like every other day. It could take a week or so to write a song depending on what it was so I write it at work because that’s where I spend most of my time. So on lunch break I’m writing or in between my work. People would always ask me to read what I was writing to them. I would and sometimes they would be like what the hell are you talking about?

They weren’t like get back to work?

Nah, because my supervisors are like we know you are not gonna be working here forever. My supervisors buy my CDs and cats I work with come to shows sometime. Everyone knows I’m serious and that I’m only working there because I need income. If I need a day off here and there I get it.

I kinda relate I don’t do much writing at work but I’m on the Internet all day printing information and interviews.

See I wish I had the Internet at work, I would probably be on the Internet a lot more too.

You mentioned on “What it Takes”, the ingredients to be an MC, what do you think it will take for you to be successful in hiphop personally and ultimately whichever level of success you are aiming for commercially?

As far as being successful period I want to have hiphop generate my income. I don’t want to have to conform to be a success in hiphop. To me being successful is staying true to myself and my music, doing what I feel as an artist instead of doing what everyone wants. A lot of people do what sells instead of what they feel. I want people to feel my music because its what I feel, and if they feel me then they will feel my music and vice versa. As long as I have that one person say he touched me with that song I’ll feel I’m a success. As far as monetary gain I’d love to be rich and ride around in limos, have a big crib, diamonds, and a garage full of classic cars but I want to do it doing the stuff I love and not have to sellout. If I can do Celestial Clockwork and blow up enough for me to have money for diamonds I’ll have diamonds.

Ha ha

It won’t be selling out because I like that stuff. I’m a flashy kind of person, I’ll have a nice ride because that’s the type of person I am. As far as my music I just want to touch people.

Touch em and be rich after touching them haha

Be rich while I’m touching them

What other goals do you have outside of hiphop? Are you going back to school?

I’m trying to get back in school in the summer to be a journalist and write for magazines and write books. I’m working on a book of poetry right now and a clothing line as well so if I don’t make it in hiphop I’m gonna have other avenues. I can write books or ghostwrite for people haha. If Missy can ghostwrite for someone why can’t I?

Haha she always be writing those songs where its always about some dude touching her. I’m like come on yo stop that.

Haha, I just got other avenues so I’m not putting all my eggs in hiphop. Hiphop is just something I love to do and I’m glad I’m good at it. I’m working on my other stuff too and hiphop will be funding a lot of that.

What type of clothing are you putting out?

Right now I just got T-shirts that I’m designing but it will get bigger than that. For now it will probably just be a T-shirt line, like long sleeve T-shirts and hoodies.

You can sell them at shows

Or in record stores with the CDs that’s the plan. With work though I don’t have a lot of time to work on that stuff. I write a lot poetry, so I’m working on my poetry book so I can put that together.

You’ll probably be writing that at work too

I write everything at work I don’t write at home much I write at work because that’s where I’m at and when I’m open because everything is happening.

I read you said you go to shows to observe MCs, wack or otherwise, out of your observations what have you learned, added or subtracted from your stage show?

Usually I learn more from good performers than bad ones. With most of the bad performers I already know not to do it. They really haven’t done anything new that’s horrible. Usually it’s the same horrible stuff. I learn when I see good shows like when I seen Atmosphere perform for the first time, they have a great stage show. There are a couple of cats I’ve seen that nobody knows like this kid BahDaddy Shabazz. He is from NY but lives in Dayton and he is probably the illest performer I’ve seen in my life. He is a solo artist, all he has is his producer, and for the hour and a half we watched him perform his energy level didn’t change. From watching him it was like I gotta do some shit. Good performers are the ones that make me say I wanna add or subtract this from my stage show, as far as being an artist sometimes you want to be able to take that performance energy into the music that you record.

Any shoutouts

Shout out to Columbus, Ohio, Spitball, Orphanage, Cannibal Ox, Atoms Fam, and everybody that I know in the whole world. I’ve had fun talking Peace, Love, and Blessing to everyone.

For more information on Illogic and Weightless Recordings log onto weightless.net

OB1: Oldominion is a massive crew and I’ve seen reports of anywhere from 9 to 13 members. How many people are apart of the crew and what does everyone do?

Onry: There are 25 total members. We have 2 DJ’s, 8 producers, and everyone emcees.

Your music is thought provoking, challenging the listeners to comprehend your concepts with abstract references. What is the driving force behind this, and is it your goal to keep heads thinking on a deeper level?

It’s like this…The leader of Oldominion past away about a year and a half ago.

Who was the leader?

Rochester A.P. the common alien. His album will come out! What it was is that everybody in Oldominion was always really spiritual. Some people are in to god, some people are in to good, some believed in whatever it was… There is a lot of spiritual emotion going around. Instead of dictating which direction each member would go we all knew we were trying to achieve something good. You know music is another language, in it, it is rarely seen that you get what you see. I’m not saying necessarily don’t cuss or don’t talk about weedz and that, but make sure the person listening knows where you are coming from. Try to relate to them, that’s our main objective. He (Rochester A.P.) was the main person who made us believe in ourselves. Don’t be ashamed of what you believe, you can share it and then take some of what other people believe, and then balance it out and grow. He passed away so were trying to carry that on. The group is really spiritual, real soulful.

So it’s not just Christianity then?

No, that’s the whole thing. People be like, your Christian rappers. My answer to that is were what ever you get from us, whatever you feel in you heart, whatever it makes you think about, whatever you see, whatever… Anything, that’s what we are. I’m not going to label anything. I believe in god, and I believe in Jesus and all that, but that’s me. I’m one member out of 25. There are a lot of members that feel the same way as me, but that’s not the point. Religion has really, to me, screwed up. I think this because there’s lot of tradition that was made up in the church that has nothing to do with the true belief in our heart. So this is what it is.

What is the religion you choose to follow?

I was raised Catholic but I’m cool with all religions, but I am a strong believer.

What is it like being part of such a huge crew? Do a lot of issues come up such as splitting money, mic time, who gets to travel, and what not?

Realistically the only problem we ever have with each other is that we get annoyed with each other. As far as mic time, it’s all good. We all get about equal amount of rap time on everything, we have 6 albums on the internet, and we have this album we just put out now, “One”. So were always making music, so nobodies ever really mad, and everybody has their solo projects. So just as people we are so different that yeah we clash, but we learn to work with it. Money has never been an issue. I’ll put it this way if I have $500 and everybody else only has $5 then I’ll pay for them until I’m out of cash. That’s how everybody does it. So it’s like whoever has money pays for it. When it comes time to pay everybody, if we only make $4, then the entire crew only makes $4. There’s so many of us, but we take care of each other, a big family.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Are you aiming for commercial success or are you content with where you are?

Lets put it this way, in hip hop this is yet to be done. I know there are a lot of legends and a lot of people who won’t be forgotten. Such as Rakim, KRS-1, Dr. Dre, but you know how the Beatles are, the Doors, Led Zeppelin, certain groups that where you can still put on one of their jams and it’s like it just dropped. That has been lost, music now-a-days is the moment, it’s like we want to put your album out, we want to put your single out, next year your forgotten, you made us our money. I want to have the impact to where in 2015 if you put on a Onry Ozzborn album, or an Oldominion album, or anything from us, it’s like it just dropped, you know what I mean. That’s hard to do in hip hop, so we’re trying to create that sound to where it is timeless music. That’s the only way to explain it.

Your not dating your self with the music you’re making…

Yeah, exactly and that’s very hard to do in hip hop.

You have a harder almost dark feel to some of your music but yet the lyrics are positive and spiritual. How much does spirituality play a role in the music?

It plays a large role because a lot of the time I’ll hear a beat, close my eyes and start listening to it and start writing. I’ll go into the studio, drop the verse and then 3 days later it’s like listening to someone else. A lot of times it feels like my hand is moving, it just does what its going to do. I don’t read books. I’m from New Mexico, a small town by Albuquerque where nobody knows where it is, so everything I’ve ever learned was on my own, but I’ve always been able to come through in a certain way with certain words that I can’t even explain myself. A lot of people don’t believe me with that…

You sound more like a painter…

Yeah exactly, it’s funny that you said that because my second album on BSI Recordings is going to be called “Salvador”, after Salvador Dali. The painting is exactly what I’m talking about.

With the spiritual feel are you trying to portray a message to your fans?

A lot of times I feel as though I’m talking to myself. I’ll write a whole song and then listen to it; I’m telling myself to do that, so it’s like I’m going to write my songs according to how my life is going and I know there are a lot of people out there going through the same thing I am. So it helps me, I don’t ever sit down and be like I’m going to write this for this certain type people. I don’t ever think about that. This is what I’m going through, this is what I’m writing. This is like therapy for me, it helps me balance life out.

What are you feeling right now, what are you listening too?

I listen to Staind, one of my favorite bands; Linkin Park, I went to their concert and I thought it was dope; Deftones, and some 80’s music. I don’t really listen to much hip hop, it has turned to garbage, I’m not trying to diss, but… Swollen Members, I heard their new album and it’s going to be one of the greatest albums ever! I like the darker stuff. I can’t stand most hip hop. Most of my favorite MC’s are doing something’s I never thought they would do, except there’s one person I give some credit to is Pharoahe Monch. It doesn’t matter if he does a jiggy cut or what, that fool is still flipping some the illest cadences. Pharoahe Monch is one of the greatest to me because he is always on. I’m feeling the Smut Peddlers, I love Cage; I like the Weathermen, Aesop Rock is dope. Aesop Rock is a perfect writer, his lyrics, his word play is phenomenal. But there is this cat in our crew named Nyquil, honestly he to me is the most phenomenal writer I have ever heard in my life. He is going to have to just show and prove when his album comes out. He is one of those artists that really is going to go crazy, and he’s not going to be felt till he’s gone. I’ll shut up now but poetry is an understatement for what he writes. He is just phenomenal. Outside the group though Aesop Rock is word perfect.

Any last words?

This may not have any importance but at our show in New York my man Bishop I battled a cat from the Atoms Family named Alaska and Bishop I slaughtered him! I don’t care what the internet says, I don’t care about what anybody says, he humiliated him, and that’s real. They’ve been putting it on the internet that my boy got sliced, and they’re all New York people. No diss to New York, I mean El-P, Big Jus, and Mr. Len are my friends, them my boys. I know people in New York, it’s a dope place, but Bishop slaughtered him. I want it to be known he slaughtered him!

“Not the Rapper With the Zany Antics…”

Last year I recorded a college radio show that featured “underground” artists. All the mainstays were played - Dilated Peoples, DITC, Del, Kool Keith’s latest persona and since I live on the East Coast, anyone Premier ever worked with and numerous Wu Tang affiliates.

Out of the twenty or so songs I recorded, it was Yah Supreme’s “Full Circle” that caught my ear. Doing something that hasn’t been done in awhile, Yah chose to rhyme about life. Over a reflective piano / bass loop, he tells the story of an emotionally abusive woman who leaves only to make an attempt at reconciliation. Of seeing ones peers condemned to a fate their family and friends would not have wished for them, and describing the pressures of making your way as an adult in society.

Next time I was at the vinyl spot I saw his record. There was nothing flashy or catchy about the cover. No cover art, no photos, just a shrink-wrapped record in a black sleeve. It reminded me of what I heard in a KRS One song once, “Relying on talent instead of marketing and promotion.” So I bought it even though I had it on tape.

I kept his name in my head and when his next single, “Live at the Improv” came out, I headed to the store to buy it. Where I shop, records are listed individually by title, not alphabetically. I could see that it had been in but had been sold out. Cool, I thought at least someone bought it, if not myself.

The following is interview I conducted with Yah.

Damage: Let me get this tape rolling.

YS: Take your time. I’m just chilling. Listening to some instrumentals.

D: So where are you from?

YS: Brownsville, Brooklyn. I was born in Harlem and lived there until I was three and then my family moved to Brooklyn. So I consider myself a Brooklynite. That’s where all my formative years were spent. All my defining characteristics were formed or molded.

D: What do you think is unique about living in Brooklyn?

YS: The bugged out thing is Brooklyn as a name or a word rings bells and everyone thinks they have an image of what Brooklyn is. No matter where in the world you go, you say Brooklyn and it conjures up images. From stories you’ve heard from a friend or from records or from what you’ve seen in the movies. When you’re from Brooklyn and grow up it’s not completely different from it, but you have an insiders view on where that mystique is coming from.

Basically, you’ve got a meshing of every culture in the world in Brooklyn. I think more so than most places around the globe and more so than most cities in New York. You’ve got a Hasidic community. You’ve got bohemians here. You’ve got a West Indian community. You’ve got everything.

D: It’s safe to say you came across different musical styles there.

YS: Yeah, it was part of the landscape. It’s kind of a New York thing. But if you grew up in a certain part of Manhattan, you get things that you wouldn’t find in the other four boroughs. But Brooklyn, in particular, there is no embargo on noise. You can be as loud as you want and no one is complaining about the noise. So, basically, people are. You can hear different kinds of music in an apartment you grew up in and no one is complaining about the noise. No one is hitting the ceiling with a broom getting you to turn the sound down. You’re pretty much free to do whatever you want. It’s just like a blank slate that you can pretty much inscribe anything you want. You can go in so many different directions coming from here.

D: Any particular eras of hip hop influence you more than others in Brooklyn?

YS: Actually, a particular era of music and world history that influenced me was the seventies. I was born in seventy two. I grew up listening to the records that my parents and grandma and aunts and uncles passed down. A lot of Motown and Atlantic, lotta soul. And then in the era I was growing up in, I was listening to disco, rock and all kinds of things. Not too much funk growing up in New York. Some of the stuff we got. It was mostly a disco type city in the seventies. Soul, dance music. Roller skate type music. Just fun music, y’know. Five, six or seven minute long ballads by powerful vocalists. I listened to a lot of Stevie Wonder. A lot of Jackson 5. Mostly I’m influenced by the Marvin Gaye’s and Donnie Hathaways. They appealed to the masses but were very distinct.

And then when hip hop came in, you could see how organic they came from so many different forms of music and the lifestyle that was taking place. So there wasn’t a particular MC or style of hip hop that was grabbing me. It could’ve been Run DMC. It could’ve been Melle Melle. It could’ve been the Fat Boys but it was everything. It was everybody and everything that was happening.

D: Didn’t I read that you moved to Saint Louis at some point?

YS: Yeah, I went to college there.

D: Notice any major differences?

YS: Yeah, man. Saint Louis is in the dead center of the country, or as about dead center as you can get, and people were influenced by the south, the west and the east. All sides. But mostly what was going on in the west. Because the city was very similar to a West Coast city compared to an eastern or northeastern city.

D: What do you mean by that?

YS: You don’t have a lot of high-rise apartment buildings that people are living in. People are growing up in homes and two family houses, versus a block where you have fifteen twenty story buildings. You might not ever meet all the people in your own building. That’s where I was growing up. Whereas there (Saint Louis), things were more spread out. A little bit more slowed down. They don’t have a subway because they are on a fault line. You have to have a car to get around. So it was more influenced by what was going on in the West especially from the late eighties to early nineties. I was surprised that they were up on the Fore Fathers and the old school legends but they really related to the slowed down more bass heavy tracks with rhymes that weren’t as intricately patterned but just dealing with reality in terms that everyone could understand.

Where in New York, you had KMD and 3rd Bass and the Native Tongues and a lot of MCs who were very lyrical, verbal, and intricate but they were rather cryptic. I still don’t know what Dan Stucky is. I know what Jennifer is. But I still don’t know what Dan Stucky is until this day. (laughs)

Out there people were like you need to listen to this Too Short. Or you need to listen to this Ghetto Boys. I heard about Master P and Mystikal six or seven years before they caught on in a New York market. They were open to music from all regions. The Miami bass. The Texas sound, the Ghetto Boys and the Fifth Ward Boys. They were getting it from all sides. Where as a New Yorker and being on a New York vibe, you have things centered around New York.

D: Do you think you picked up on that artistically?

YS: Couldn’t help it. I still listened to the artists I was listening to but I developed a respect for MCs that weren’t elaborate. That weren’t flipping my brain with these…these…coded messages and clever word play. When I first heard “My Mind’s Playing Tricks On Me” in ‘90 or 91, or whatever, I was like Wow, It was just so simple that it was intricate. It said everything it needed to say and no more.

Also the people I was working with were from different backgrounds. So I would put people on to Nice N Smooth, Masta Ace, Gangstarr, and Kool G. Rap. People put me onto whatever area they were coming from. There were MCs and acts I had no exposure to and would not have had that exposure if I had not left New York.

D: Have you always been rhyming? Were you into any of the other elements of hip hop?

YS: Ummmmm, I spun records on college radio because I felt like I wanted people to be aware of hip hop as an art form and a form of music. I was never a turntablist or anything like that. When I was young, I used to breakdance just for fun. You kinda had to. It was kind of a staple. I never really thought that that was what I was going to do with my life.

When I was a freshman in college, my work-study job was as a custodian at the medical school of the university campus. So, y’know, I would have to take the shuttle over there and then for four hours a day, I’m cleaning floors and using vacuums in the lecture halls and auditoriums and windexing the glass doors of the library. I had all this physical labor and I was alone to collect my thoughts and I would start to think of rhymes and I was like someone needs to say these rhymes and no one was saying them and I was like, wait a minute. I should say them. So I started to write them down after a month and a half of thinking rhymes. It started off as a passion I indulged and hear we are ten years later, running an independent record label.

D: And what’s the background of SonDoo Records? What’s the history behind it?

YS: SonDoo was officially formed in 1998. Recognized by the State of New York as a corporation on January First of that year. But it was an idea that sprung up in ‘96 when as a group, me and the producer, Cave Precise, had been shopping demos around through entertainment attorneys to no avail for a few years. We tried to get a production deal through another producer we knew from Saint Louis. We were trying to get in any way we could. But we really had no buzz. We started to worry that time was going by and nobody’s really jumping on our demos. Is it because we’re not good and we shouldn’t be in this game? Well, let’s find out. All the rock bands were doing it. They press up a 45 and go around and sell them at shows. Let’s go straight to the people and find out if we suck. Then if they encourage us we will keep going.

An A & R’s job is no longer to find and cultivate talent. It’s just to say, “Are you down with this rapper or that rapper?” Okay, let him do a cameo appearance and let him write some rhymes for you and then you’ll get your own thing. We just figured out how to start a corporation; which is very easy. How to get a membership at ASCAP. How to copyright material through the Library of Congress. Twenty bucks here. Forty bucks here.

D: Do you think that intimidates people initially?

YS: I think people think there’s a lot more involved in the administrative end then there is. To set up a corporation, you can do it in a week. You just have to get the forms and write the text out. That’s the only thing. Protecting your material once it gets out there. If it catches on, you have the rights to it. Someone can’t capitalize on something you worked on. That was really the only reasons we did it.

So we incorporated and recorded our material and put out a single called “Old and Wise”. That was in 1998. We put that single out and it caught on throughout the U.S. and Canada. About a week later we got offered a distribution deal through Fat Beats, which obviously we had to take. Everything was happening real fast. We didn’t really know what we were doing. We said we got a single out that seems to be doing well on the underground circuit. People are blowing up the phones. What do we do next? We made a video for it. We shot this really artistic aesthetic that ended up getting played on The Box but we sent it to MTV and BET but we didn’t realize at the time how much politics were involved.

D: They never played it at all?

YS: No. A video in this day and age is a commercial for a CD that you can get at Camelot and The Wiz or Tower immediately. We had like 1500 units of the single on vinyl in a few Mom and Pop stores around the country but were mostly used as promos at a few hundred radio stations in the U.S. and Canada. That’s what got us our buzz. We lost a little money and burned up a little time but one thing we learned was we needed to have product flow. So that’s why we started to recruit other acts based on the success we had attracted from our single. People saw we were serious.

It’s just something we learned as we went. People offered us helpful advice. Some people took us along for a ride. We were trying to deal with venture capitalists to record and do it right. That didn’t work out. So we work day jobs and we come home and make it happen. We work with our artists and critique each other’s work. Try to get out there and keep the buzz going.

D: Any releases coming out soon?

YS: We’re coming out with a compilation album called For Your Information. It contains previously released songs from everybody on SonDoo. Me, Oktober, Anom, Dee Surreal, Altered St8s of Consciousness. And it’s gonna have some bonus cuts and we will be releasing some singles that will only be available on the compilation.

D: And yourself? You got anything coming out?

YS: My solo album. It’s been in the works since like 97. That’s when I turned the corner and knew exactly what I wanted to get off my chest creatively. I’ve written some stuff over the past few years that still holds up, and I’ve scrapped songs but I’ve got enough of a catalogue that towards the end of this year, we’re going to put it out.

D: Reviews of your music always say you have “jazz influenced” beats and that you’re lyrics seem very personal. Do you feel that is accurate as to what you’re trying to make?

YS: It’s a motive. I try to deal with things that people deal with. A lot of times during the bling bling version of hip hop a lot of people my age feels like the art form lost them somewhere. It’s turned into something else other than what they grew to love. Some people grew to love it in any incarnation. But some people feel like they can’t listen to hip hop anymore and then they hear what we do they say, “Oh, if there was more hip hop like that, then I would listen to it again.”

I think the reason is the songs I write are very personal, like you said. People are experiencing the things I’m talking about. Not people in the ghetto. Not people in the drug game. Not people on the street. Just people. People have had a bad tryst with a woman. People have had a bad day at the office. People don’t know where their next meal is coming from. People don’t feel like going to work on Monday. I try to write songs that are about life or elements of life that people relate to. You don’t have to know about hip hop to understand what I’m saying. Hip hop is just a vehicle for that.

D: I talked to one group who said when they heard from people in Australia they realized they were reaching people. Have you heard from anywhere you didn’t expect to?

YS: We’ve gotten a lot of feedback from places like Iceland and Japan and Germany and Prague and Italy. All kinds of places. In terms of demographics, I knew that sonic landscape they’re jazzy and more groovy, that has more appeal. To that extent, I wasn’t surprised.

What I’m surprised about is certain songs we put out ends up on the certain radio stations here. Our single, “Old and Wise”, Premier spun it on Hot 97 It surprised the hell out of me because Premier was playing a lot of Group Home and a lot of Jeru. His Jay Z remixes. His Biggie remixes. All the stuff he did for the heavy hitters. Then all of a sudden, they do a station ID over the “Old and Wise” instrumental. Then all of a sudden he started juggling the vocal version of it.

As far as groups go, Gangstarr, if you want to talk about groups that stay in the hunt and stay in the trenches and do music their way. Even if it’s not receiving platinum status or super acclaim. They’re sticking to your guns. So when he played that, it was just amazing to me. My phone started ringing. Everyone’s calling me saying, “Are you listening to Hot 97 right now?” That to me was one of the best experiences and most shocking. To have it played on that station and to have had Primo spend enough time listening to the record to juggle it and ring it back to the beginning at certain phrases was extremely validating to me. It gave me enough gas in the tank to run on for a few years.

D: I did a search for music and your stuff comes up on some acid jazz.

YS: Playlistings.

D: Yeah. How do you like being heard outside of a hip hop format?

YS: I’m glad it turns up in any format. I’m glad it’s being played. I’ve heard from college radio guys who aren’t playing hip hop, but eclectic mixes. When I was doing a college show we really tried to find out who was out, who was up and coming and then put the listener on to it. So I really like to see these songs show up on those formats. That means someone put in the time and energy to say the listeners need to be aware of this material. I love that. I hope it turns up on a country music playlist.

D: You think that will happen?

YS: I hope so. (laughs) Maybe Nashville needs to turn onto hip hop. Actually, there was a guy at a college in Nashville who said the stuff is getting a lot of burn there. I want it to reach every crevice.

Thanks to Yah Supreme for his time. Check for the For Your Information compilation and Yah’s solo album on SonDoo Records.