Esso: The Meaning of Essocentric By Melanie Cornish .. type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript"> --> function MM_openBrWindow(theURL,winName,features) { //v2.0 window.open(theURL,winName,features); } //--> ..>
When the notorious Howard University cancelled its baseball program, Hip-Hop benefited from one of its discarded. Esso is one of NY's finest representing uptown goes against the grain of what one traditionally expects from a rapper. He took his degree from Howard and easily moved from the dugout to the booth.
Having only served an 18 month sentence in the music game he has encouraged the attention of numerous movers and shakers in the industry by his direct interaction. Esso has used the showcase route to encourage the wide spread usage of his name. Networking with people who can actually encourage progression, he has gained invaluable experience from his dual life-style.
The streets and school have definitely encouraged this lyricist's ability to develop conceptual songs. "Limelight" and "Bein Me" exemplify why, even though only prevalent for a year and a half his ability to make you listen and relate to his verses, have us reminiscing about Hip-Hops golden era.
Talking to AllHipHop.com about marketing, education and 'swagger,' Esso may just be that man to lead and direct the new generation of New York rappers past home plate.
AllHipHop.com: You are repping Harlem New York. NY hasn't really been represented hard on The Breeding Ground over the last few years.
Esso: Well New York is here.
AllHipHop.com: So why is it that we haven't seen anyone coming out of NYC?
Esso: That's a good question and I really wish I had the answer for you.
AllHipHop.com: Well what is it that you are hoping to bring?
Esso: With me, a lot of different people say Harlem has this individuality to it. You know on one side you have the Harlem renaissance and on the other you have the AZs and the Rich Porters, you know you gravitate to one side or the other. I grew up in between both of these worlds and maybe that is what sets me apart. On one hand I remember, you know I was too young in the 80's to be doing things real heavy in the streets like that but at the same time I remember all of this from being young. So I remember hearing all of that and knowing what was going on but, I was just too young to be involved in it. My parents always kept me in school; I went to college. Even though Harlem is in me, I have been able to see outside of the hood and see a different perspective and maybe that is what sets me apart.
AllHipHop.com: You went to Howard University right?
Esso: Yeah I went to Howard and the University of Michigan.
AllHipHop.com: But this was totally unrelated to music I believe, you were playing baseball right?
Esso: Yeah I played baseball for three years in college. I played for one year at Michigan and then two years at Howard. I am only 18 months in the game and people ask me why I am so young in the game, but until 2000 I was being scouted for professional baseball. I really thought that was what I was going to be doing. Music was always something I did and something that I enjoyed; it was like my relief. But then in my junior year in college, Howard cancelled their baseball program and all the momentum I had going towards possibly playing professional baseball was done for.
AllHipHop.com: Couldn't you have gone on to play somewhere else?
Esso: Well when you are practicing every day and you have practices in the spring and then start playing in competitions with division one athletes, you are constantly testing yourself. I had already transferred to get to Howard butb didn't want to transfer again to get to somewhere else. The good thing about me moving from Michigan to Howard was I could still play but I wasn't really compromising anything on the school side of things. A degree from Howard was just as strong as it would have been from Michigan; but had I transferred somewhere else then I may have worried about the piece of paper not being worth as much. So at that point I decided to stick with it at Howard and ride it out.
AllHipHop.com: What was your major?
Esso: Advertising.
AllHipHop.com: That obviously has helped you in promoting yourself though?
Esso: It definitely helps. I got to understand how to consider yourself as your own brand. That goes for the way I dress, the way I present myself, the way I present my music, the way I present my website, my myspace page. You should always feel like you are getting a consistent experience and that is the one thing that I learned to understand, people like to know where it is you are coming from. Part of the marketing is that you are a true fact. You know nobody drinks Coke® or Pepsi® because they feel one tastes that much better that the other one. Coke® brands itself as a classic and Pepsi® brands itself as a new generation. So if you feel that you have a classic personality you will drink coke® and if you feel that you are the next generation, you will identify Pepsi®. I read something that you had wrote before where you said education was kind of taboo in Hip-Hop but it is all about the type of education that you have. The music industry is 80% marketing anyway, so that definitely helps to understand that world.
AllHipHop.com: You have taken a different approach to making a name in Hip-Hop though. You have opted to take the showcase route. Why did you opt to do that?
Esso: What happened was that a friend of mine who was a producer, he had landed a placement on Fifty's album, The Massacre and so I was working at the time and he approached me as me and him worked together when I was in Michigan. The first rap song he ever even produced was a song that he and I recorded together. So he knew I always wanted to be an artist and when he had that kind of breakthrough, he approached me and said I could go and help him run his company and then in return we would start working on my project when there was time for it. He offered to pay me what I was actually making right then which was kind of over-zealous but it was what it was. It took me a long time to walk away from that stability because I am one of those people who hates to compare themselves, but it is like the same way that Jay-Z came back in '96 and said that 'without music I will be good for the rest of my life' because for me without music I will be good for the rest of my life. You know I can go somewhere right now I could be making money and not have to worry about music to make a comfortable life. But when something is so much a part of you, you just cant let it go and when that situation presented itself, even though it took me while to walk away from it, I said to myself I would be mad at myself ten years from now if I didn't take the opportunity and see what was going to happen and the way I even got into the showcases was that the situation with that producer folded and I was basically left out on my ass. I had two choices, I could either go back to what I was doing which was working or I could put myself out there and see what the response would be. So what I did was I started performing at any open mic I could find just to see how people would react to me and the music I was making and the stuff that I thought was good. After a while I started to be embraced and people were feeling what I was doing and that was how I got started. In terms of getting my name out there, I didn't want to be one of those people who you would look at and say you have never heard of me. If you look at a lot of the artists coming out of New York right now, I saw you did an interview with Stimuli, we did a mixtape together, he knows who I am, Jae Millz knows my name as I did a song with an artist that fucks with MH. So a lot of the people who are coming out and are in decent positions when it comes to being the next generation from New York, they know who I am. Once you perform, a lot of these performances are for A&R's so it's not like I go to these shows thinking I was going to get signed. But I did think that once I was there and done with my show I would go and introduce myself and make contact with these people and that was where my networking actually started, at the showcases.
AllHipHop.com: So you understand the different aspects of networking and how important that is?
Esso: Yeah you have to and a lot of people get it confused and think that networking is how many people's numbers you have or how many different cards you have. It's not how many people you know, it is how many people that know you and what those people are willing to do based on the relationship they have with you. Its not about having Jay-Z's phone number, that doesn't mean anything.
AllHipHop.com: Well yeah it is a case of would you be able to use that number.
Esso: Exactly and it is also knowing the time to use it.
AllHipHop.com: Obviously you could say you performed on a baseball field. Would you say that it was the same kind of buzz you got when you started doing the showcases?
Esso: I think it definitely helped because of a lot of that nervousness I didn't really feel. There is no danger in me getting up in front of a crowd and doing music. The worst thing that can happen is they don't like my music. But I played infield and if a ground ball comes to my face, I could get a cracked jaw, that hurts, that is pain and something to be a little nervous about. Somebody not liking my music, I understand that I cant please everyone all the time. As long as I stay true to myself and to the people who like my music and what I do I am good.
AllHipHop.com: You are very conceptual with your tracks, was this something you wanted to exemplify with your writing?
Esso: With me I like to have an idea behind a song. A lot of people make songs just to make songs. Our generation of artists that are coming up now, the golden age is supposed to be those from the late 80's early 90's, but to me the golden age was like Illmatic, Reasonable Doubt, that was my golden age as all those albums were put together with an idea behind them. It was something a little bit different to what others were trying to do and that is what I grew up watching and learning from. So in terms of the kind of music that I want to make, the one thing that I can say I learned is that you should try and have people feel your emotions through your music and I cant do that if I am just talking about a pair of sneakers that I have how or how much my jeans cost or how much my chain is worth, or if I am drinking this liquor, that's not going to make you feel anything. But if I tell you what it took for me to get to the point where I can afford those jeans or if I tell you a story that you can follow and you know someone who went through something similar to, then you are going to feel it and embrace it and I think that is where people identify with me. I give you something you can identify with even though I tell it in my own way. I don't think my story is that different from anyone else's. We all go through the same things, we just see it through different eyes.
AllHipHop.com: Listening to "Limelight" you have a distinct sense of self in your rhyme pattern, your stories, you mention being compared to others, who have you been compared to?
Esso: One thing that I have been compared to which I am flattered by is people who have had an extremely long career and people find different people to compare me to. When I first met Sickamore and he went through the songs that I had at that time which I think was in November, he said I reminded him of what Nas would sound like if eh was from Harlem. There is a Nas comparison and then a lot of other people say because of my demeanor and how I carry myself they compare me to Jay.
AllHipHop.com: In what way do you carry yourself to be compared to Jay?
Esso: I guess, I hate saying the word swagger, I guess it is just my demeanor; I have always been a confident person. Its like I say in my track, I remember third grade at my desk, looking round the room wasn't no-one as fresh; that is the first time I remember actually thinking why people weren't wearing the pants that I was wearing, you know they should have been trying to look like me. I don't know where it came from but I always had that mentality. I believe you have to take a risk to get what you want in life. Music is one of the most unstable industries in the world and if you think differently you must not be really into the industry. I have also heard LL, I guess I must be good at talking to women (laughing).
AllHipHop.com: Talking of women your track "Limelight" does cover the topic of gold-diggers and that appears to come from experience. Is that the case?
Esso: That song actually came from a story that a friend told me. She was telling me about a friend of hers who doesn't fuck with anyone unless they are a rapper or a drug dealer, you know or have a whole lot of money and this story was like she was messing with a dude and the dude goes to jail and he had always been providing for her, paying her bills and that. Then when he comes out of jail and he is trying to get back to the place he was, she isn't really feeling him. But then when he gets back on his feet she wants to fuck with him again. Its not a knock, I don't knock anyone for what they do but there are a lot of women who don't realize the position they put themselves in. There are a lot of unfortunate things, the streets are hard. You know if you can't get to the person you are trying to get to you take the closest person to them.
AllHipHop.com: You did the mixtape with Sickamore; do you have plans to put any more out?
Esso: As far as mixtapes go, they are a great way to get your name out there but, you can't really measure that and that is a lot of the difference in the grind of an east coast artist and a down south or west coast artist. Out West you can put a barcode on a project and down South you can put a barcode on a project and then on top of that you can get airplay a lot easier. In NYC you have Hot 97 which isn't just the number one station in the city it is the number station in the country, you have Funkmaster Flex being syndicated throughout the country so you can imagine how hard it is to get a song on Flex as opposed to the hottest DJ in New Orleans of the hottest DJ in Houston. This is not to knock anyone who goes that route as it still isn't easy, but it is still a whole lot easier than giving it to someone like that. Even the morning show, DJ Envy has an office at Virgin. That grind is a little bit harder. As far as future mixtapes, I am probably going to put one out in about March or February.
AllHipHop.com: Will that be like a taster for your album Essocentric?
Esso: Actually, I wanted to call the album Essocentric but, what actually happened was the mixtape ended up being Essocentric because at first I wanted to make my mixtape history in the making, but then JR Writer's album came out and I have a good relationship with Dipset as Duke Da God is a friend of mine, so I didn't want to do anything to mess that relationship up. So me and Sicakmore got together and we talked and I told him about the Essocentric concept and he said to use that as the mixtape name. So the next mixtape will be Essocentric Volume 2 and that will probably be, I don't want to say a traditional mixtape as I don't want to do a traditional mixtape as I don't like to do what everyone else is doing but, as far as features and original production, for people who are looking for that, they are going to get it on the second one. On the first one I wanted people to have an opportunity to get to know me, I didn't want to have people listen to it because this person was on it, or because that person was on it. I just wanted them to listen to it because they wanted to hear where I was coming from.
AllHipHop.com: So you are confident that you are going to shine?
Esso: Absolutely, I wouldn't put myself this far into it if I didn't think I had the opportunity to be real major.
Esso's Myspace page is www.myspace.com/esso