David: Believe it or not, it is extremely central to who we are and what we are as a band.

Robert: The band came from me because I used to be a French horn performance major at Northwestern University in Chicago, and in high school and as I was growing up, I was trying to be bred to go to college, to be a horn player and then go to the symphony somewhere.

David: It sounds like you were in a factory...

Robert: It was a little bit, but it wasn’t really a factory. It was kind of like an apprenticeship type thing. Being a horn player. You work your way up. You have a teacher, and I u
 

sed to think of my teacher as a kind of mother/father to me. He was very influential. He would tell me what to do day to day, what to do about girls, to do our homework, and all this other kind of stuff. Horn is a part of you. It’s like another limb. It’s like in high school, my horn teacher, he was a really nice guy. He thought that I had a lot of talent and that I could be in orchestra. In high school, I won some competitions and I got a scholarship to Northwestern. I went to school as a horn player and the summer after my freshman year, I went to go intern with David. David was working at a post-production house in New York City. I interned there as a slave or whatever, as a serf.

David: Robert basically took this way of life… what I was doing in New York was kind of modern music production, where we compose, we write, we produce, and engineer everything just ourselves in front of a computer. And we don’t have any need for instrumentalists for the most part.

Robert: I would come in to the studio before everybody else because I had to practice my horn everyday to be ready for the school year. When you’re a horn player, you have to play every single day, otherwise you lose it. I used to get into the studio and practice an hour beforehand and an hour every day after work. I would be there two hours longer than everybody else. And I would be doing all of the intern work. And meanwhile, I never did any horn work on any of the commercials we were doing. Nobody used a horn because it was completely useless. I felt really rejected I guess.

David: And if we needed a horn, we would just get a horn sample, which sounded better anyway [laughs].

Paul Miller, known to his public as, DJ Spooky is a Washington DC-born experimental hip-hop musician, visual artist, film producer, author and postmodern intellectual. Miller eloquently told us about the root and depth of his inspirations, the message he is sending his audience, and the intricate thought process behind his creations. Miller’s thoughts on globalization and America’s role in the world speak directly through his multimedia. His works of art are custom made to connect with and speak to, a multinational audience. At the release party of his new album, The Secret Song, we talked about his latest projects including films, Rebirth of a Nation and Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica (The Symphony of Ice).

DJ Spooky: When I was growing up in the late ’80s there was a rivalry between Prince and this band called The Time with Morris Day…and there was a song called “What Time Is It” that he had. And yeah, I guess dancing to Prince, Purple Rain.

I’d say people move to anything familiar. That’s why mashups are so important…people really get into the issue of memory and familiarity. What was weird when Michael Jackson died, is that everybody for the next couple of weeks played every single Michael Jackson song you could possibly imagine. I guess, they miss you when you’re gone.

I’d say my ultimate goal is to get people to dance as a kind of thought process…like thinking is not separate from moving. But somehow, a lot of dance cultures kind of form as anti-intellectual and I always have to deal with that. But, I grew up in a household that was about expression and about inquiry…about thinking. My dad was Dean of Howard University Law School in the ’60s and the ’70s and my mother was a black feminist, dealing with ’60s transition in Washington D.C. and I had a very multicultural scene. I had a whole world of people from the embassies that were near my house, me and my friends were from totally different cultures.

So, God, you know, who would have guessed, thinking or getting people to move is always such a puzzle because people respond to song, pop song, certain kind of voice, certain kind of rhythms. And I deal with globalization in my music, that’s what the new albums about. And so the new album is in different languages. So, each one, like there’s a song in Chinese and a song in Farsi and uh songs in Russian and so on…So each one takes a tremendous amount of research to figure out what makes people in that culture move.

I would say the album is saying that hip-hop is now… globalization, turned the American idea of R&B, jazz, dub, rock…into like, an architecture that people around the world, use in their own way, because of that, it’s freed up expression in all different ways. You have hip-hop coming out of Russia, you have Chinese breakdancing, you have Korean rock. You know I love the fact that globalization has made all these cultures…relate to America even while we’ve had the last eight years of politics with Bush, which is…probably the lowest aspect of American history. So for me, race and class and culture are all intertwined and music is a mirror for those issues. So with the album, I did stuff like remixing, and updating Led Zeppelin, for example. Or splicing and dicing turntable stuff with music from Iran. Why? Because that’s what is on my mind…dealing with the economic collapse and the credit markets, or looking at the way people are fostering all sorts of bizarre political issues like Obama vs. all these right wing political lunatics.

My film Rebirth of a Nation came out a little while ago, and I got the rights to D.W. Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation from 1912. Birth of a Nation was sort of the DNA of American cinema, so I remixed that film a little bit before this album came out. Its been getting a lot of hype on the scene. So, you know, the thing that I think will break the American mood of race, politics, around black and white, is global.

Looking at complexity and saying that, I’d say, we’re all connected in radically different ways and Obama embodies that. But the mix is the same thing—they’re mirrors of one another. It’s very interesting to see how we can mix race in a person whose father is from Kenya and mother is white and…the right-wing types, they just can’t process that…their whole mental kind of architecture is collapsing and so that’s why they’re becoming more and more irrational. So, my mixes are kind of like that, but with sound.

Saying that, why do we limit the American notion of identity and what makes up the idea of American music, when really, everyone is mixing, everything is mixed. And that’s…the beauty of hip-hop and sampling. It’s about mixed culture, sampling this, this, this.

Every project is different, but this album was all about, kind of, deprogramming myself about Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, looking at all theses cultures that America’s had as antagonists…And also, at the same thinking about African polyrhythm, about turntablism and sampling.

After I finished this album, I went down to Antarctica and I shot a film about the sound of ice. So…it’s a symphony of ice.

I had a digital media studio down there, and basically the whole studio, we had these multi-firewire hard drives…editing and software were given to me by SONY so I got the whole thing in high definition Blu-ray. And each of these were projects, I mean the album is one project. The Antarctica thing, I’ve been thinking a lot about…it was something I just wanted to get out of my system. So, I went down there for four weeks…whenever I’m thinking about a project, what I sample is like my notes, my Cliffs Notes, about the issues that go into the project. So, with Rebirth of a Nation I did a lot of studies of blues and jazz, the turn of the century… and race, politics and the idea of black face, which the film Birth of a Nation from 1912 is primarily white people in black face… it’s a film of what used to define what is American African in the last century.

Well, I think paranoia and the idea of, let’s put it this way, white supremacy is the operating system of America for the last couple of centuries. Let’s be honest, not only was it fear of colonialism through the English if you think about white Americans, you know, the Pilgrims and the Protestant work ethic. Slavery was the kind of economic equivalent of the work ethic, you know having people work—a lot of preachers would always say, “If you work hard in this life then you get to go to heaven.” Birth of a Nation is based on the plantation system; everything in the film is about nostalgia for when everyone knew their place. And whites and blacks and anybody who was outside of the plantation owner’s system needed to be defined as enemies of the system.

So the biggest films of the beginning of the last century were like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Birth of a Nation, and Gone With the Wind. And then later on, with the development of speech in film, like sound in film, we had Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer (1927), which was one of the biggest films of its time. The jazz singer was a white guy [who] wanted to be black and play jazz, so he painted himself a black face. So the arc of, again, like thirty or forty years of the beginning of the last century, we have reconstruction. We have World War II, World War I, to make a long, long, long story short, as a writer, artist and musician, what fascinated me with film and with sampling is the collapse of categories.

You have the records of different ethnic groups, classes and styles of music over here, here, here. Sampling blurs and blows all categories to smithereens. It takes the whole record collection, throws it in the air, and mixes anything with anything. And it sounds cool, and that’s why I think hip-hop really has been able to reach people around the world, because of that eclecticism and dynamic—sort of viral—like, takeover of people’s idea of the future. And yeah, I think that’s what my album is about.

I’d say probably, a lot of my heroes, regretfully, are dead. You know, I’m fascinated with Mahatma Gandhi for example, or Martin Luther King, or Miles Davis, or Jimmy Hendrix. But let’s update it and say that you can’t have all these dead heroes. You have to have living heroes. The people whose work I really like are…people from the turntable scene, like DJ Krush, he’s an old friend—we never formally collaborated together. I’m a big fan of Radiohead for example; I’m also a big fan of TV on the Radio…I’d love to do a collaboration with those guys…Actually, I did a collaboration with Kevin Shields from My Bloody Valentine, one of my favorite rock bands—you know who I would love to do a collaboration with, is Bad Brains.

I’d say, be true to many voices and not to play one style. Because, I think, what ends up happening, is people will lock into just one style and they lose themselves and their ability to keep up with developments in music. Music is changing rapidly and this whole culture is about a kind of dynamic, like collaborative filtering. Pulling together all these things and filtering and cycling through them and updating continuously, is what makes music interesting, you know. So, that’s what I think I would advise anybody starting out now—blogs, forget normal newspapers, go read other peoples ideas and be open, constantly absorb.

I’m all about the idea of—literature is music. Music is art and art is literature. There is no separation, everything is combined, and kind of, like, flexible in a way that I think makes life interesting.

I love ’em all. I mean, each one is different; it’s like saying, which toe do you like best? Or which finger? I don’t know…they’re all parts of my body and my ideas and my mind.

They have voices. I used to do a lot more instrumental hip-hop, but then the whole lounge hip-hop thing took over, and a lot of people just like, chilled out, lounge, like, anonymous music and that starting driving me crazy. I was like, “Fuck man, how do we figure this out?” Because I don’t just want to make music for cafes, everyone’s just relaxing and going numb.

Well, I was going through all of the selection stuff and I was looking for a title and initially it was going to be called, The Invisible Hand…I changed my mind about that because I was thinking a little too much about economics. And I was like, “What connects everything?” I was like, it’s got to be something obvious and subtle…and I was thinking, thinking, thinking, and I was like, there’s a song that connects all of the songs. And that’s what this album is about.

In 2009, after a six year break, Anti-Pop Consortium returned to the studio to record the follow-up to Arrhythmia, their delightfully unpredictable second LP. Fluorescent Black, their new album, reunites the boundary pushing rhymes of emcees Beans, M.Sayyid, and High Priest with the unorthodox mixes and arrangements of producer Earl Blaize. The quartet, who are currently on tour, recently met up with BRM to discuss their studio reunion, the new album and what’s been spinning on their players.

Beans: Yeah, we’re back to being a group. We’ve been doing things as a unit for a bit so we define things as a unit.

It wasn’t difficult because we purposely waited to the point where it would be the most organic. Until it was that time for us so it wasn’t laborious.

This album is an attempt at reaching our older fans while introducing our music to newer fans. It’s also an indicator of where we’re going to be going next.

I think it was a natural progression. We had somewhat of a template of what we wanted to do, things we were trying to achieve, but this is just how things turned out with this record.

As far as the creation of the songs themselves, we each come to the table; we all bring production to the table. We all contributed to the production of this album but we each contributed individual songs as well. We listen and then we add, arrangement wise. And then at the final stage, I mix it, pull it all together and make it one cohesive project.

I like having the ability to do both in terms of individual expressions and the collective experience working with Anti-Pop.I like the balance of working on both craft forms.

The big obvious difference is in the decision making process between one person and four. Sometimes it’s refreshing just to be able to have something that you connect with from start to finish yourself but at the end of the day, we are stronger as a unit because we all can stand individually. That equation works because it takes our music to another level - the original level is multiplied by four.

Well, right now we’re doing a lot of headline gigs but we had the opportunity to tour with those acts because we simply picked up the phone and asked. We are open to the idea of playing with anyone because we have the ability to do that. Whether it’s Bright Eyes, Radiohead or whatever, we do what we do. It all depends on our abilities.

We’ve been listening to a lot of this Psych Funk compilation that we all really love. And we’ve also been listening to the Purple Brain mix. And then we’ve been listening to Flying Lotus and the new Raekwon album.

Buy Fluorescent Black!

 

Clare Manchon, leader of indie chamber pop band Clare and the Reasons, has no problem admitting that taking the super indie DIY route as a band can be a little difficult, but she has no plans to go all mainstream. Instead they're trying new ways (fan pledges) to make things a little easier. “If it doesn’t work out that’s why God invented credit cards,” laughs Clare.

This sunny optimism falls right in line with the message of their music. Their first album, The Movie, was a delicate pop album featuring Sufjan Stevens and Van Dyke Parks. The album was best played for small, quiet rooms where each and every sound had a chance to be heard. With their new album, Arrow, Clare didn’t want it to be quite so fragile or cutesy and she looked to toughen things up a little. Of course there are still some precious moments, but now they are balanced with some reflective maturity.

“I think it’s just who we are, we take music very seriously but we don’t take ourselves seriously,” she says. “I think it’s having those different playful textures are a result of how we go through the world.”

While Clare does the singing, writing and imagining, her husband, Olivier, does the arranging,. You can adds this has another check in the cuteness column, but don’t discount them as some twee indie pop band just yet. Their blend of style and kookiness makes things interesting instead of formal, boring or cheesy. So if there's a little cuteness mixed in, let's not knock it.

While taking a break from rehearsing for their upcoming tour, Clare talked about speaking out for what she believes in, hanging out with the guys at Home Depot and how her love for Genesis has finally come full circle.

Clare Manchon: I would feel pressure if it was our first or twentieth. We want our work to be good and be a complete factor of itself, this record has these qualities and these records has these. With Arrow we wanted it to be more up and less sleepy. I think a little bit less precious.

Even though the last album went well and [we] toured a lot it doesn’t mean you wind up out of the red. In order to continue you have to think out of the box. We came up with this with the engineer (Alex Vengeur), a home recording that didn’t sound like a home recording. We certainly rented a very nice studio for the strings and the horns, we saved up our money for that.

Alex has really good gear at home, [he] just doesn’t have a recording space. Olivier and I went to Home Depot and hung out with the guys with the big back belts on and brainstormed, got a bunch of wood and literally hammered together a recording booth and got every blanket we and our neighbors owned and went to work. Some nice mood lighting in it, and we wound up writing quotes all over the wood. It got broken down, but we have the quote wood in our basement.

Maybe Obama inspired me a little, because if everyone gives a little it doesn’t hurt anyone, but can help a lot. When we go to Europe… it’s very expensive, you have to be pretty up there to make a profit, you’d be surprised who doesn’t make a profit. I think we’ve gone a very indie route, but it’s nice to have a little bit of support. We’ll see if it works out. I’m not like the harassing type, [I] won’t be sending out emails every day. If it works out it was meant to be, if not it was fun to make our stupid little video. [Editor’s note: the band reached their goal of $5,000 on October 30th]

Well actually, they are such an amazing company, we know them from a while back . They are a company that started in France and they’re really successful and mainstream there. We’re big supporters of Fair Trade, anything that is counterintuitive to those evil corporations. We thought it would be a really fun way to join our small communities together. People at the live shows could learn about the company. It would be a good idea. I think Fair Trade is a little before their time. So much more important, than even organic. Organic has become very skewed. I think local and Fair Trade are the way to go.

I am a believer in being vocal, but don’t think it’s a role or direction that some artists want to go. Being anonymous with their personal personality and opinion, which I respect as well. Maybe it doesn’t fit with their music. Last year we were singing “Obama Over the Rainbow.” I don’t know if all bands would go that far, but I thought it was really good energy. I’m opinionated what can I do! (laughs)

I find my kitchen to be really good secure place for ideas, songwriting in there, often multitasking, cooking and sautéing things. I don’t know, sort of crazy, but works for me, I also get a lot of song ideas when outside and call myself and leave message. I go through all my messages, and see what’s a really good idea and what’s a silly idea. It’s just my place of thought.

(laughs) It’s possible! A lot of my songs wind up being very short narratives, fictional things that you know they’re not very diary-like. I’m sure there are elements of real life things that make their way into the song, but I’m very into making up worlds. So yeah I don’t know if the sage mixed with the leeks made me write something. It’s possible.

I’ve always had such a crush on that song, I just thought it might work. We kind of decided, a few months before what the instrumentation would be. I thought it would so great with tubas driving it, worked in my head. Olivier wrote an arrangement, quickly and it’s what we have now. It’s one of the most fun songs on the record. Classic heartbreak, so basic lyrically, but not at all cheesy.

I can’t think of a better description than chamber pop. I think it lets the listener know that it’s very arranged music. I think Van Dyke [Parks] said with an edge, which I like because we do often throw in some distortion on the guitar. It’s not only like “listen up and sit up straight.” It’s quite fun and there’s quite a few songs that have no chamber elements.

I think it’s lovely. I don’t want to jinx it, but so far, the challenge comes up, when to turn off the “I’ve got an idea for a song” thing and instead go for a walk in the park. Be normal. I don’t know if we’ll ever be good at being normal. We both get obsessed about a musical idea. We just work really well together we secretly respect each other completely and totally. We’re both very honest. There’ not that whole fragile ego. I’m really spoiled to have that sort of ability to communicate musically and otherwise very frank.

I was listening 98% to American black music from the ’20s to the ’50s, the only music I knew when I was growing up. I had Rusty Smith in my Walkman, a little strange. I strongly desired to be black. I believed I could sing better. I don’t know what that means (laughs). I grew up listening to that music, then when I was a teenager, discovered more white music, Beatles, Beach Boys.

It’s funny because I grew up in a bubble. When I was younger, I was rebelling and I remember putting on that Genesis song, and thinking, that was my punk rock. So yeah, I’ve always really loved that song.

Lyrics Born has been kickin' that soulful funky fresh for over a decade. Whether he's flowing with fellow Bay Area lyricists like Gift of Gab and Lateef the Truthspeaker to holding down guest spots on late night TV (Jimmy Kimmel Live!), the ear drums are in good hands. With a new Variety Show mixtape out and a new album on the way, the emcee took a moment to chop it up with BRM about the new project, fatherhood and rappers who sing.

Lyrics Born: That's really tough. I would say multi-dimensional, melodic, musical.

Yeah. I pay attention to delivery, period. The way that people talk and how other languages sound. The way people use their voice in ordinary conversation.

Well, nah I can't really. I definitely got into it more as I started rapping and started looking for new ways to do things.

I listen to other music. I watch a lot of movies. I like all kinds of art, just to stay inspired.

That's not hip-hop related? Most of the things that inspire me are not hip-hop related right now. I don't know, I would say the birth of my son.

Every time I'm getting ready to release an album, I like to do the Variety Show mixtapes. It's a lot of fun for me and it gives people an idea of what I've been doing since the last album. It also gives people a sneak peak to what's happening on the next album As You Were. I like to work with a lot of people and I did a lot of exclusives for this mixtape and I also did a lot of things on other people's projects, both domestically and internationally. You might not hear all that stuff until I put it on the mixtape.

It depends. I think a lot of guys do mixtapes because they don't do albums. I do make albums, I try to do one every 18 months or so. I only have so many hours in the day so I have to be careful about where I put my time. If I wanted to, I can easily do four or five Variety Shows a year. Or I can do one Variety Show and one album, then continue to tour 150 dates out of the year.

Nah, I really liked that beat. I thought that beat was sick. I also like the cadence and the style he used. When I heard it, it sounded almost like something I would do. So I said why don't I just go ahead and do it.

(Baby crying in the background)

Do you hear babies? (laughing) How do I feel about rappers singing? You know, I'm not going to hate. I will say Auto-Tune has got everybody thinking that they can sing. At the same time, I can't lie; I like a lot of songs out there that use Auto-Tune. When people look back ten years from now, this will be known as the Auto-Tune era. These past few years until whenever it passes. It will become the Auto-Tune era. I think it works a lot of times and it doesn't a lot of times. I like it when Drake does it, like it when Kanye does it, like it when Lil Wayne does it, like it when T-pain does it. For me, it kind of reminds me of…when I was in kindergarten or the first grade. Everybody was using the vocoder just because it was the hot new thing. It’s just trends, musical trends. I think it does have a lot of people thinking they can sing when they can't. But, I like it when people use it to create a vibe. I think T-pain does that. I don't feel like Jay-Z does about it, I'm not an Auto-Tune hater. I do feel like it’s overused. I don't think it should be done away with.

Oh yeah. I like Cee-Lo, I like Andre 3000. Those guys can really sing. I like what Mos Def does. I love Nate Dogg. I like what Kanye does. Like I said, I like what Drake does. Phonte is a dope singer. People really don't know about that.

What's the group he's in now? Foreign Exchange, ahh man.

Yeah they're local guys. They're from the Bay Area here. We both worked with Dan the Automator. So Dan kind of bridged that gap for us. I mean, that's my thing. I'm not looking to be pigeonholed. I'm looking to work with all kinds of artists. Everybody from E-40 to Kasabian, Dan the Automator to DJ Shadow.

Yeah, that's the whole point. I'm not trying to do what other rappers are doing. I just ran down a long list of everybody that I love, but the world already has them. So if I'm going to add on to the musical landscape, then I have to do something different. I love Cee-Lo, Andre, Kanye, Jay-Z, Eminem, but the world already has them. I'm not doing the world a service by walking in somebody's footsteps. I have to add a different color to the picture.

There was a point where...and I say this not to complain, I say this matter-of-factly because it does exist. I'm a very optimistic person and I see things changing every day. But, I gotta call it how I see it. If you're selling hundreds of thousands of records independently. You're selling out a 150 to 200 dates a year, domestically and internationally. You have the number one song on commercial radio. You're just clearly good at what you do...and I still can't get on a cover of a magazine? It became very frustrating for me when I see people around me working with far less and being given far more. I just see it as how it is right now and not how it's going to be later.

In a lot of ways my career has come full circle. I've been making records for over a decade. I'm at a level now where I can see it for what it is. I've been through it all first hand.

I'm working with producers Jake One, DJ Shadow, Hipnotik, Trackademicks, Teak “Tha Beatsmith”, this guy named G Coupe. Collaborations I'm working with Clyde Carson, Gift of Gab, Lateef, Sam Sparrow, Joyo Velarde...I'm sure I'm leaving out some people and there's many more to come.

I love it. It's true what they say, it's the toughest job you'll ever love. It's hard as hell, I'm not gonna lie. It's funny though, a lot of the things we've talked about doesn't mean shit in comparison to this. It doesn't matter how many records I've sold, how many tours I've done. If you would've told me this a year ago, I would've told you to go to hell. I just never understood. Up until this point didn't mean shit. It's like life is now beginning for me.

(laughs) Maybe.

That's it, my man. I'm happy to see the reception that everyone's been giving the Lyrics Born Variety Show. It's all there for you LyricsBorn.com and the new album, first quarter of 2010, As You Were.

At first glance, the three piece alternative rock unit Lights Resolve could be your typical post-MySpace band, riding on the power of social networking sites, skinny jeans and crazed teenage girls to keep them afloat. Certainly these are all contributing factors to the success of these baby faced Long Island natives. But sit down with these guys, or better yet, bypass the pictures and use MySpace to actually listen to their music, and you’ll quickly realize this band is on to something big.

Like many bands before them, Lights Resolve was born from another band. When the singer quit and the band began to dissolve, then guitarist and back-up singer Matt Reich was forced to step up.

“We were left there not knowing what to do,” Reich explains from backstage of their sold out headlining show at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom. “We were auditioning singers and nobody was quite as good as I was.”

Reich devoted himself to voice lessons, and along with drummer Neal Saini and eventually bassist Luke Daniels, the group transformed themselves into Lights Resolve.

“We all built ourselves up, because there were only three of us,” Reich says. “We wanted to create a really big song so that people looking at us on stage would be like, ‘Holy shit, that’s only three people?’”

This trio of twenty-somethings has certainly done something right, having seen their share of success as an unsigned band. Lights Resolve has toured with and opened for big names such as The Used, Shiny Toy Guns and Panic at the Disco. They’ve even benefited from the magic touch of MTV as their song “Another Five Days” appeared on Real World/ Road Rules Challenge. And of course, they remain supported by loyal fans via MySpace and Twitter.

“It’s a blessing and a curse,” Reich says of the band’s large online following. “Now there’s ten trillion bands that are out there competing against us.”

“There are so many distractions out there,” Daniels adds. “You have to get people to listen up. It takes a very loud noise to do so.”

If the collection of excited fans filling out Bowery Ballroom is any indication, Lights Resolve is making noise enough. As for the kind of noise, Reich described it as nu-gaze.

“Basically it’s crazy pedal rock. We’re trying to make a bit of a layered sound that’s sort of rock and roll but with pop sensibilities,” Reich explains. “From the beginning we knew we wanted to create our own sound so if someone heard it they’d be like ‘Oh, that’s Lights Resolve.’”

Developing and maintaining original music can’t be easy for a group that spends the majority of their time on the road, but the band maintains they are in the songwriting process, and they are in it together.

“We’re not one of those bands where Matt will go write a song and bring it to the band,” drummer Neal Saini says. “Luke will play a bass line or I’ll add drums over it and we’ll make a crazy sound. We’ll hit a groove and go with it.”

“A song can stem from any sound, the point is we’re in it together,” Daniels says. “Matt always says it’s like standing in front of each other naked.”

“Sometimes it gets a little hairy,” Reich adds with a grin.

If you’re hoping to catch Lights Resolve live, be prepared for a wild display- the boys are known for their outrageous stage antics, including throwing water bottles and spitting on one another. And if you’re looking for a hug, get it before the show.

“At the end of the night, people just look at us and we look like we’ve been through a train wreck,” Saini says. “We’re just dripping and sweaty, we try to leave everything out there.”

“Nothing is about looking pretty, we walk on looking nicely dressed, and we walk off looking like absolute hell,” Daniels says. “But people who are nicely dressed will still give us a hug.”

“Yep,” Reich laughs. “I rub my sweat over everybody.”

Mike Kinsella's upgraded from fuzzy scruff to full-fledged beard. Is the man bracing for a brutal winter? Running out of razors? Emulating the great Sam Beam?

Of course, Kinsella, who just this past September released a record under his solo moniker Owen, is the only one who knows the truth behind the Iron & Wine-esque facial hair, but it isn't a longshot to assume that some changes have been taking place in his life between 2007's At Home with Owen and his latest, New Leaves, out on Polyvinyl.

In fact, according to Kinsella himself, "There's a ton of shit going on." Sure, the long days and nights of being on the road take their toll on traveling indie folk singer-songwriters like Owen, but that isn't all that he's referring to.

The man, whose tattoos (reminiscent of his time in Chicago indie bands American Football, Joan of Arc and Cap'n Jazz) sneak past his Oxford shirt's rolled up sleeves, is cool, calm, collected, and seems to have an aura around him—one that he nurses close to him like a secret treasure that he, and only he, can care for. And this makes perfect sense, as he is literally nursing something entirely brand new to his life: his first baby, born just six months ago.

His latest record, while complete with all constant "Owen factors"—the delicate and intricate acoustic guitar, the softspoken and witty lyrics—carries this same new and distinct tone, invigorated by his entrance into fatherhood. In a rather creepy, lair-like basement room at the Mercury Lounge, Kinsella can't help but ruminate his life-changing experience and most recent release, while ruffling through his beard.

Although most bands release albums every few years or so, the actual writing and recording process doesn't usually take more than a couple of months. But for Owen's New Leaves, it was a two-year labor of love. "Because it's just me and nobody else [in Owen], I'm not going to be writing parts or getting stuff done, nor was I slaving over it," he explained. In fact, the songs came together sporadically, at all times of the day, every few days—a slow method that he wholeheartedly believed in and found the most productive.

"Some of these songs I had been sitting on for nearly four years, but they start off as skeletons, and every so often, even while watching football or going through a mid-life crisis sitting in a broken car while on tour, I'll add to them," continued Kinsella, "but these songs are never really done until they are finally recorded." And even though there's much time in between the writing and actual releasing and playing of the songs, they never grow stale to or detached from the Chicago-bred songwriter. "They actually have a new whole relevance to me all the time."

Many of the tracks on New Leaves, such as the fluid, more upbeat single "Good Friends, Bad Habits," have a much richer texture than those on previous albums. The bells, piano and tambourines that might have only played a minor role in past songs, here sonically come through more strongly, giving the entire record a more polished and full sound—all of which helps to frame Owen's music more beautifully and elegantly. This other newfound change can be attributed to Kinsella relying less on his recordings from the studio in his mom's house (where he's recorded chunks of past released material) and more on the assistance of professional engineers and producers. He's had to update this process because, according to him, the stuff at that studio just can't keep up with what professionals are doing elsewhere. But that doesn't stop him from hanging out with his mom—who is both an avid fan and, when he's at her house, "his personal chef." He even jokes about recording a family Christmas album, with him on vocals and her tickling the ivories.

Structurally, the music and lyrics should be familiar to any Owen fan, as he hasn't really changed it up all that much since earlier releases No Good For No One or I Do Perceive. The language is complex, verbose, flowery and even poetic at times. Kinsella takes much of his lyrical cues from the literary styles of Raymond Carver, commenting as he thought back to his high school English classes, "It's blunt and it's stated really simply, but maybe in reverse of how you'd actually say it." He went on, "If I'm stuck on something, maybe I'll just flip it around and say the same thing in a different way because you can miss it less easily and if it's a little different, it will stand out more."

Above our heads and through the ceiling of the tiny room, the opening band is finishing up their set. The walls vibrate with sound and Kinsella is fiddling with his brown boots as he recalls the past couple of sleepless and hectic months prior to hitting the road for the New Leaves tour. The change in his life has been far more than just one great impact; instead, according to him, “it's mind-blowing all the time, especially since my lifestyle now is very different than it was just two years ago." Tracks like opener "New Leaves" discuss his transition: "You spend the fall turning over new leaves, one by one." And "Amnesia and Me," a song written about his wife and daughter, features Kinsella sweetly singing about the impact of both fatherhood and husbandry: "Amnesia and me, sitting in a tree F-O-R-G-E-T-T-I-N-G everything we once knew." While the newness of his life rattles him everyday, he seems both extremely pleased and agitated by it.

Just thinking a few seconds about the fact that he is thousands of miles away from his newborn daughter freaks him out. "I should be home! What kind of dad am I, if I'm not there with her and my wife right now?" But he said he keeps in touch constantly via phone calls and rabid text messages. "A lot of my inspiration for my music comes from being gone and being on tour," he says as he thinks back on past records, "but home now means something entirely different than it did before."

While Kinsella's been a successful musician for over 10 years now, his paying gig now poses a new kind of dilemma for him: "For me to make money for my family, I have to leave my family." But he's quick to express his love for playing shows and meeting new people every night.

Looking ahead, Kinsella tells me he's very curious to know what his daughter's reactions will be to his long catalog of music. And while countless fan requests to reunite American Football have been dashed and forgotten, he informs me that possibly a special request by his little girl would do the trick. "Yeah, I doubt that will happen since kids always seem to rebel against their parents, so I'm not going to give it much thought."

 

"I'm content like I've never been born." - "Never Been Born"

"I like a little ink on my girl."- "A Trenchant Critique"

Minneapolis emcee Brother Ali is at it again. The follow-up to 2007’s The Undisputed Truth, Us was just released a few weeks ago and critics are once again swooning. The album, his fifth for Rhymesayers, is Ali’s most refreshing to date, and features swinging hooks and beats from Ali’s main man and one-half of hip-hop duo Atmosphere, Ant. Ali recently took time off his busy schedule—he’s currently touring the States in promotion of Us—to talk to BRM about his new record, his new life and the music that keeps him sane.

Brother Ali: My albums are really autobiographical. I’ve developed this really personal way of writing about my life—who I am. I worked on it for about four CDs, two full lengths, two EPs, really worked on developing it. Then we did The Undisputed Truth, and I felt like I really hit my stride on that album, so I wanted to do something new. I really wanted to branch out and start talking about that same truth, that personal truth, but apply it to other stories.

Yeah, exactly. I have a fan that’s been coming to my shows for five, seven, eight years now—she actually gave me that name “Street Preacher.” She was like, “You know, that’s what you’re doing. That’s what your mission needs to be. You need to go from city to city and talk about curing, uniting people on the concept of love for each other and love for yourself.” So I took that and I used it as a motivational tool for me to write this album. I saw it as an opportunity for me to spread a message.

So I kept working and working and working, and I made the album with that as the working title. Then when I got to the end, I realized that Street Preacher was a good idea for what she was saying, but I didn’t like the connotation that came with the word “street” and I didn’t like the connotation that came with the word “preacher” either. You know, technically when someone is preaching they’re telling you what you’re supposed to do, they’re telling you how you should think, how you should feel, or how you should change, and I’m not doing that. What I’m doing is talking about myself and the way I feel, and telling the true stories of the way people around me feel, what their life has been, and my relationship with them. I realized that I’m not preaching and it’s not a particularly street record. I also realized that this is the first album that I’ve made that’s not about me, it’s about us. It’s about the people that I love. Inclusion, you know. It’s about inclusion.

Yeah, in a way. You know, I think when you are struggling to survive you focus on self ’cause you’re just trying to make it. You know, like they say when you get on an airplane, “If we lose oxygen and masks fall from the ceiling, secure your own mask before you help the people around you.” That’s kind of where I was at in my life up until the past two years. I was just struggling to survive and trying to build my life in a way that was going to complement me. I was trying to make it and I was really concentrating on myself. But now that I don’t have to struggle as much just to live, I actually have some peace and some happiness in my life, and it’s made me focus that much more on the people around me that I love who don’t have that yet and don’t necessarily have access to it. Instead they have roadblocks, obstacles, challenges in their way. It made me focus on them a lot.

Well, I didn’t make that as a decision. I don’t sit down and say “Ok, what are the topics I want to talk about on this album?” I had a general idea that I wanted to expand my focus, not change my focus per se, but just step back and deal with its context a little bit more. These are the stories of all the people that created me, the things that I’ve been dealing with, that have been around me, in my heart, in my mind since I was a little kid.

Well, I come out of what I think is a kind of unique view of race. I come from a white background but I’m albino. I don’t have a big family and we’re not very close, so I kind of felt isolated as an individual while I was growing up; I never felt a part of white America in any way. But I was embraced by a group of individuals and family, mostly African American people, who taught me a lot of the things that I needed to believe and understand, a lot of the wisdom that I needed to still value myself and still believe that I was worth something. And I grew very, very fond of and very close to African American people. You know, I would have such beautiful living experiences with them and with their families and their peers and then I would go back around my family, back around white people, and it was pretty obvious that they didn’t appreciate black folks the way I did.

You know, everything from flat-out racism and bigotry and prejudice, all the way down to the most benign and the least threatening version of it, which is just ignoring black folks, comes from the underlying, sub-conscious belief that a white person is a more valuable, legitimate human being and that really troubled me when I was a little kid. It just really made me ask, “What is the cause of this?” And as a result, it’s made me want to analyze and study that all my life.

So I studied the legacy of slavery, studied Jim Crowe, studied civil rights, studied our country’s history with race, studied spirituality and what spirituality has to say about it—you know, different types of Christianity—to try to have some kind of peace, and what I arrived at was that there were certain elite people in the power structure that created this new idea of race that came about as America was born, and when the new modern American slavery trade was born and we were all brainwashed into it, all the common people were really divided and conquered based on a lot of things and told to pick sides.

I think there’s a lot of insecurity in our society about honestly looking at what created this situation that we have in America, and what it’s really going to take for us to be the complete picture of America. I think we have to take a long, hard look at ourselves and be willing to say, “Well hey, maybe the way that I look at these things is completely unnatural. Maybe there’s a lot that I don’t understand about race. Maybe I’ve got some dormant, sub-conscious thoughts that aren’t benefiting me, aren’t benefiting anyone. Maybe I do have an opinion of people who are black that isn’t healthy. Maybe I do have some thoughts that are biased, prejudiced, or racist. Maybe I need at look at myself and maybe I could be better.”

And so “The Travelers” is basically asking us to look at one of the worst crimes against humanity that ever took place in our world, and realize that’s what created our country. That’s one of the reasons why we’re the most wealthy and one of the most powerful countries in the world—because our country was built for free by people who lost their connection to their world. That can’t be done to somebody without accepting the heart of everyone involved, whether you’re involved hands-on or just by proxy, by allowing it to happen, by benefiting from it, even if indirectly. I think it’s damaged everyone involved. We need to heal this thing, and not just out of charity for black folk, like, “Oh yeah, we’re going to do things just so we’re good.” No, it’s healing that needs to happen. You know, humanity is all one thing. It’s all connected.

Absolutely. We need to look at race as not something that just happens, because half of America has been a victim in this situation. We need to hear it for the sake of everyone. You know, we look at some of the leaders that we’ve had in our country for the last 20 years and the fact that people have been saying that America can’t produce a good leader anymore, but that’s because we weren’t allowing everyone to participate. And now you look at Barack Obama who is probably the most capable, intelligent, wise leader that America has had since JFK, and say, well, look at what we have been missing out on. If you think about every area where we have historically allowed people of color to contribute—you know, “Well you can play basketball all you want,” or, “You can contribute to music; you can entertain us if you want”—that’s historically kind of been the opening that we’ve allowed African Americans, and they have given us art and jazz and basically the origins of all modern music, but that wasn’t enough. The idea in Us is that everyone’s story needs to be included. Like I say at the end of “The Travelers,” “No one is free until everyone is free.”

He’s my best friend in the world. We hit it off really quickly back in early 2000, started working together in 2001, 2002. We have a lot in common and we also have a lot of things that are opposite, but our core beliefs and values and what’s important to us about music and life is the same. We’ve really taught each other a lot about the other’s way of seeing things, and that conversation transfers right over to the music.

You know there is a reason why it can be so intimate and personal on these songs because when I make them it’s just me and my closest, closest friend in a room together, with no one around, and there’s no time to say anything superficial when you’re making music with your best friend. Unless you’re trying to make him laugh, on something like “Bad Mf Pt. 2,” you know, I’m just trying to make him laugh. Or just trying to impress him. We have this thing where Ant thinks I’m one of the greatest so he wants to give me music that’s complementary. And vice-versa, I think he’s one of the greatest, so when he gives me this amazing music I want to write something on it and perform in such a way that it’s going to be worthy of me having the opportunity to have it be mine.

Yeah. For example, we made “The Travelers” on Christmas. I’ve never been big on Christmas—it brings bad memories of my childhood. Anthony loves Christmas. So we all hung out this past Christmas‬, cause we’re really like a family, so we hang out with our parents and family on the holidays during the day, and then at night we all come over to somebody’s house from the crew, at Slug’s house, and you know everybody got together, ate, had fun, our kids played together, and then afterwards I went to Ant’s house and made that song from about midnight until six in the morning. He played the music, I wrote it and we made it. It was just kind of one of those days. Something about what was going on that day made him make that music and something about that day made me finally write that song.

Yeah.

In terms of music, I have my standards that I listen to once a week. I gotta hear Stevie Wonder once a week. I gotta hear Nina Simone once a
week. I gotta hear Donnie Hathaway once a week. Marvin Gaye, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Bloodhound, Bob Marley once a week, you know, Michael Jackson once a week—all stuff that contributed to me waking up and being happy about the world I’m in and hopeful about it. If I get my Stevie, it makes me feel like it can be okay, it can get better.

In terms of new stuff, I really like Jay-Z’s album a lot, The Blueprint 3. I think he’s such a leader for rap and hip-hop not only because he’s one of the top selling artists, but because he’s so lyrical, message-wise, style-wise, topic-wise, and he made an entire album that’s really about looking forward, and not just what people wanted him to do, what people wanted him to be, about the street life, because that was a long, long time ago. His life is different now, and he probably felt like he needed to reflect where his mind is now. I don’t necessarily think that’s the album people wanted from him. Realistically, it wasn’t the album I initially wanted from him either. You know, I thought he was going to make a really hard hip-hop album and I was so excited for that. So when I put it in and listened to it, it wasn’t what I wanted at all. My first listen through, I was like “Okay, wow, I’m a little disappointed.”

Yeah, initially it wasn’t what I wanted. But he’s given us so much that I felt like I owed it to myself and to him and to listen to it like three or four times all the way through. The third time through, it hit me, this isn’t another street record, this is where this man is now, this is him. It’s kind of like in The Undisputed Truth was me saying, “I’m going to present this in the most raw and honest way, I’m not going to try to impress you, try to look cool or tough or strong or righteous, nothing, I’m just going to give it to you as real as possible.” I feel like The Blueprint 3 is his album like that where he is saying, “I don’t care if you expect me to still be a hustler. I’m making music that I believe and you’re just going to deal with that.” And I’m really inspired by it.

On the other hand, the new Raekwon album, the one that just came out a week earlier. It’s weird because I never would have guessed that he would have been the one to bring Wu-Tang back, but he really did it. He went and made a Wu-Tang album that’s really fresh.

 

Rapper Donny Goines is two things: polite and dedicated. For an artist who gigs constantly, YouTubes it up on his channel, Tweets, blogs and speaks to nearly every specialized hip-hop site, Goines converses with an undivided attention – even if he is explaining the album title, The Breakfast Club, for the umpteenth time.

Goines, whose real name is Donny Scott, has an unmatched grind, rivaled only perhaps by the prolific writer from whom he takes his name, Donald Goines. His debut, Minute After Midnight, was followed by a series of mixtapes and EPs and now Goines is coming with it on The Breakfast Club, an upbeat, more commercially viable record than his previous releases.

Being the well-mannered gentleman that he is, Goines was kind enough to spare a few minutes for BRM before hitting the stage at the Blender Theater. Here’s what he had to say about his ongoing motivation, serving in the navy, and possibly teaming with the Chili Peppers.

Donny Goines: At first I was a little hesitant because I didn’t want to infringe upon his legacy but I thought about it and I felt it really made a lot of sense. What he illustrated within his novels like Kenyatta’s Last Hit and Never Die Alone really resonated with me. We shared a lot of similarities – kind of messed up childhood, growing up in deprived areas, serving in the military. He suffered a lot with drug use, crime and a troubled past, but the thing is he used those experiences to do something positive, which is write his novels. I’m, in turn, doing the same thing. That’s the parallel. Instead of me being in prison or in a grave, I’m on stage at the Blender Theater.

I joined the navy as an escape. At the time, I was getting in a lot of trouble - crazy things with my past, run-ins with the law, personal and public situations, whatever the case may be. I felt I would end up dead or in jail. Long story short, one day I was in Harlem walking on Fordham Road and I happened to pass this office and I asked the gentlemen inside to take me to the army office, only to find out he was enlisted in the navy. He walked me to their offices and I ran with it.

There were a lot of benefits and a lot of negative aspects. The navy really practices conformity and has this constrictive kind of attitude I don’t like. I’m a creative person, so to have me in a certain regime where everybody had to look and dress a certain way didn’t work. In the beginning, it taught me a strong work ethic, discipline, and things I probably never would have learned had I not worked for the military. But, eventually, I started to rebel against that system. It’s an experience I value, but, at the same time, I wouldn’t go back.

I was getting twisted like every day of my life for a long time; a lot of shit I shouldn’t have been exposed to at an early age. That was a major reason I joined the navy – not that I wouldn’t be exposed to those elements – but I’d be a little more secure, further away from it. But the military was bad, if not worse, than those situations. People were in there popping pills or sniffing coke.

When I left the military, I got an apartment, and partied for six months straight up. The only things in my fridge were half gallons of gin and vodka. After that, I got a job, and I said, ‘I can’t be getting into this no more, it doesn’t make any sense, and I’m not progressing.’ When I decided to pursue music, it’s the one thing that kept me sober.

Five years ago now.

Exactly. It’s funny how everything leads to this. I got into a big fight in my neighborhood in Harlem, so I left and moved to Westchester. Out of boredom, I got a couple of movies and one happened to be Fade to Black. Once I saw it, I just knew that was going to be the career for me. I was rapping since I was 17 but I never took it seriously.

At the time, the movement made a lot of sense. He came from neighborhoods like mine and rose to levels of not only being respected in the rap world, but in the business world. Right now, to be real with you, I’m not as inspired by Jay-Z as I was back then. I’m more inspired by my peers around me.

When you get in your own zone, sometimes it’s hard to absorb what others are doing. And I already know his story to some extent. I get it.
Now I’m trying to create my own story.

No offense to any artists, but it’s the people who inspire me. They’re the ones that create my music, whether they believe it or not, because I draw from the people around me. At first, when I didn’t know anything about the business, I was looking at the big screen to see what was going on there. Now that I’m deeper into it and understand the mechanics a bit, I look at more organic things. That’s really what it entails – more organic vibes.

I have to incorporate the organic into the business mindset. My last album, for instance, even though it was a free album, was sponsored by two companies. So my business acumen is on point and I have people around that are very smart. The trick is to be true to yourself, not only as an artist but as a man because I’m a man first and an artist second. I would never do things that go against what I stand for as a person, but I also have to intertwine my business and music sense into my organic vibe.

It’s hard because everything is so diluted and “un-organic.” It’s a big reason why I’m still unsigned. It’s not that labels don’t want to sign me; it’s just that I like being independent and uninhibited.

If I didn’t have a public that loved what I do and understand it, then I wouldn’t do it. That’s really my driving force because if I gave up, a lot of people would be like, ‘Man you came from nothing and look what you’re doing now. You’re just gonna turn around and give up?’ I feel a responsibility to show them it’s possible. The same way I felt when I saw that Jay-Z documentary - when I saw the possibilities - I have to show them. I’m dead serious, I live that way. I won’t stop ’til the wheels fall off.

‘Necessity is the mother of all invention.’ If I had never been an artist and I didn’t have to market myself, I would have never realized that skill within me. I started to realize, ‘Damn, I’m pretty good.’ In the future, if I decide to step away from the mic, I would definitely look into opening my own marketing company.

If it’s oversaturated, you want to diversify yourself from the oversaturation. If it’s a million people out there, you have to be that one in the million. You have to show people what separates you from them.

That’s something you have to do on your own. I tell people all the time, I’m Donny Goines; Donny Goines doesn’t sound like Mickey Factz, Mickey Factz doesn’t sound like Drake, Drake doesn’t sound like Cudi, Asher Roth doesn’t sound like Drake, and so on. Everybody’s different and they figure out what it is that separates them from everybody else. As an artist, that’s something you have to find naturally.

No. I just think the two albums are complete opposites. Whereas one album was serious in nature and had no emcee collaborations, the other one is lighthearted and has a ton of collaborations. To whereas one referred to darkness, the other refers to light. They’re meant to be total opposites and also part of a trilogy. The third album is going to intertwine both of those albums.

Not at all. Growing up was a little chaotic in that I grew up in Philly when I was much younger. I didn’t really meet my real father until I was 8 or 9 years old; he did an eight year jail sentence. I ended up moving to the Bronx and my grandmother was taking care of me for a long time. My mother was gone and my father, he was around physically, but he was using drugs and wasn’t really there.

My mother cleaned herself up, came back when I was 14, and my grandma and I moved in with her. That’s when things took a turn. Instead of being the kind of person that was very studious – I was always in the best classes and on the chess team - I really started to rebel. I was very easily influenced by the people around my neighborhood. I got into a lot of trouble growing up and it lead to the situations I spoke upon earlier. My mother tried her best to do what she could, and my father is currently incarcerated.

Of course. I wanted to be a father. It shook me to the core. I didn’t understand it; I still to this day don’t understand it, and I don’t try to. I just move on and say there are blessings and tragedies.

It took me a long time to address that situation. My first born son died prematurely, seven months in the womb. He was on life support for the first six days and his body just couldn’t handle it so he gave out. It’s one of those situations that really, really, really took a lot out of me. This happened in late 2006. I really had to internalize the pain and deal with it in my own way, as a person, as a human being.

Around that time, my mentor Disco D committed suicide. He was one of the first people who took me under his wing. He gave me advice that helped make who I am today. When my son died, he told me, ‘Put the pain in the music.’ That’s when I switched gears as an artist; before then, I didn’t really have direction. With that being said, on “The Time is Right” I knew that I really had to talk about it and get it off my chest. But I made it in a positive way to inspire those people that may have lost a child to show them that, you know what, your son or daughter might have died but there’s a heaven, or whatever you believe in, and your child is smiling from up above.

Spiritual. Not religious.

I believe in it. I just feel like the laws of man don’t apply to those kinds of things.

Funny enough when I was younger, I used to go to church by myself. When I was nine or ten, I remember going to church around the corner from my grandmother’s house in the Bronx. They spoke in Spanish and I didn’t understand a word, but I stood there and the vibe made a lot of sense to me. I still struggle with that everyday, but it helps me get by.

Maybe not.

It’s a classic movie. My favorite one is actually Short Circuit.

Each of these albums in the trilogy is going to have a dual meaning. All of them refer to time. Minute After Midnight: Cinderella story. She had this pumpkin that turned into a magical carriage - I used that with an analogy for hip-hop. Instead of the carriages, you have the Bentleys, instead of the gown, you have the clothes, instead of the glass slipper, you have the jewelry, and so on. But what happens after midnight? All those things disappear because they’re fantasy.

The new album works with the concept of the movie The Breakfast Club, meaning there were different personalities in the room and all were stigmatized by society in certain ways as a geek, princess, and so on, so forth. But in the end, they all realized that they had more in common than meets the eye. That’s really what the album entails. You’ll notice that I have a lot of different characters. You might expect a real hip-hop record with Termanology, Big Lou, Reks, and Rain, but then I have a love feel record, something completely different like “Oh No” which features a rock group called Patent Pending. Then I have a record with Naledge and Amanda Diva, which is different from other vibes. The point is, no matter how you classify me, or those around me, music is the common thread. Instead of characters in a detention hall, there were different artists in a studio; they came together and realized common things within them.

Not at all. There’s a difference between doing something contrived or forced upon you, and doing something you want to do your own. If you listen to those lyrics from the second verse [begins rhyming]:

Ok people let me pose some questions/what if I showed my wardrobe the exit?/Threw out the fitted caps, baggy clothes, and fresh timbs/ Would you really believe that my flow’s impressive?

How bout I blend electro/rock music and techno/nothing that’s retro and simplify my lyrics because executives said so/then would I be the best… Don’t force me to do what I don’t want to do. That’s my conformity issue. If I decide one day to do a song with Anthony Kiedis, you can’t tell me not to. That’s what “These Times” represent.

I want it all, man. I’m coming for the world.

The Breakfast Club is available for free download here.

As his popularity soars, Skyzoo manages to keep his feet on the ground and pen to the page. The Bedstuy native has been around for a while, but you might not have heard of him yet. Now is your chance. At his album release signing for The Salvation, held at Fatbeats NYC on September 29th, Sky was met by fans dually impressed by both his music and sincere gratitude. Skyzoo was nice enough to step into the hallway with us for a brief interview.

Skyzoo: Well with the album this is the debut. It’s the first joint. It's what everything leads up to. All the mixtapes, all the collaborations, all the features, everything was about this. So take your time with it. There’s a saying that goes, "You take your whole life to make your first album." The moment you start doing what you do, all you think about is getting the album out. Whether you’re 9 years old or you 20 when you start. So soon as you start, all you think about is let me get an album out in stores. So it makes sense you know what I mean.

Yeah, absolutely. So with that being said, everything is supposed to matter. With the album man, I just wanted do to talk about things I wanted to talk about.

Lyrically, it’s real dense, real dense and really lyric heavy. You have to listen to it more than once. You can’t just hear it once to get it. The first listen, you’ll be like this album is dope, it’s crazy. On the 3rd or 4th listen, you’ll realize the album is somewhere else. I promise you. And, it’s not because I wrote it, but because I know what it talks about. There are records like, “Shooter Soundtrack,” “My Interpretations,” “Metal Hearts,” “For What It’s Worth” and “Dear Whoever” which mean so much and talk on so many levels. There’s nobody doing it right now. If you could sum up the album in one word its lyrically about temptation.

Yeah. That’s where the title, The Salvation, comes in... When you go through life, whatever you’re dealing with, you have your temptations and you know what makes you give in or what makes you fall back…then when you do, what’s the pros and cons…if you don’t give in what’s the up and down, if you do what’s the up and down…it all plays out together.

That was a huge element… A lot of dudes put out records with wack beats, people got dope beats and dope rhymes, but they don’t mesh…I wanted all the beats to tell a story before I got on it. So, before you even heard me rhyme, if you heard the intro of the beat you knew what was going to be talked about… With every beat, I was really picky…and I was blessed to get who I got.

Yeah, 9th, Just Blaze, Knots, Needlez, Black Milk, Ill Mind, the list goes on man…but, I just didn’t go grab names to grab them, I grabbed the sounds I like. There’s huge producers I like but didn’t get, not because they was wack, they’re incredible, but the beat didn’t match the story. It all had to make sense and be cohesive.

Sonically? Mm okay. I was listening to Reasonable Doubt, Illmatic, a lot a John Coltrane, a lot of Miles Davis. I’m a huge jazz head…There’s records like, take "Metal Hearts," there’s a trumpet solo with trumpets on the hook. That was a live trumpet. “Dear Whoever,” there’s live saxophones, violins, grand pianos. That was on purpose.

Yeah, I’m a writer. So that’s why I put on the thank yous…government names. Like Brad Jordan, who’s Scarface, Sean Carter, Donald Warns. I’m a writer first.

Always Jay… I’m a big fan of the Clipse. Nas whenever he drops something. Lots of good stuff, my man Wale, Torae, lot of emcees brewin’.

I’m not working on anything yet … because I want this to really live, brew, marinate. I want people to get it.

It may pop, you never know ahead of time.