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interview mit slug  
slug (atmosphere)

interview.

undergroundhiphop.ch exklusiv.

geführt von renzo im april 2004 am atmosphere-konzert in der remise, wil.

sprache: englisch.

 

RENZO: First of all I’d like to thank you for having some time for www.undergroundhiphop.ch and me.
SLUG: Oh, thank you.
How long have you been on tour now?
We started out last May. Late April, early May. Started in the US, took a break, came to Europe for a couple of weeks, went home, started the Warp tour, finished the Warp tour, took about two weeks off, then started the Seven’s Travels tour, which we pretty much just wrapped up about two weeks before we came here.
So you arrived about one or two weeks ago?
Yeah, little bit more than two weeks.
Enjoyed it so far?
So far, so good. Yeah, great! Sweden was very good to me! The girls were very nice in Sweden. I haven’t found a girlfriend in Germany yet but Sweden, Norway - lots of girlfriends.
How was the audience?
Good! Very Good. Every Show has been good! The only show that we had that was kind of bad was our fault. It was my fault, actually, I sucked that night, my head was just wrong but every other show they have been very good to us.
 Do you feel a difference between your American auditions and the European ones?
No, like honestly, there’s just as many nerds here as in America. It’s kind of the same group of people.
You are now on tour with Mr. Dibbs and not with your producer Ant. Is Dibbs a part of the crew?
Well, Mr. Dibbs is part of the touring vehicle of the band. We haven’t yet figured out how to work him onto the records because there’s no way to extract his demonic soul and apply it to audio tape yet but once we figure that out we’ll be hiding secret messages in the albums to make the kids go out and rob stores.
Ant does the production and does not go on tour with you?

Yes, that’s right. I guess, it’s save to say that he chose it to be that way. He doesn’t want fame; he doesn’t want his face to be known. He just wants to stay at home and make music.

I read somewhere that Ant supports you in writing your rhymes?
Who? Ant? He doesn’t help with them. What he’ll do is, he’ll say, nah, don’t say that dude, just figure out a different way to say that. He’s like a governor for me, cause I say fucking anything, very personal shit sometimes. And he’s the guy, if he goes ooh, then I know, oops I shouldn’t say that, because if he’s worried about some person hearing that then I know. He’s kind of my screen. Because when I write I’ll fucking write about whatever I want, about anything and I don’t really think about the listener, I only think about myself. So sometimes, I say things that I probably shouldn’t been saying. He’ll be the guy to say hey, you shouldn’t say that. He never helps with the actual construction of it or anything but he’ll be the guy that like if he laughs, than I know it’s good, if he gets upset, I know it’s good but if he goes ooh, I should probably edit that part out
So, if you hide irony inside your lyrics and Ant can’t see or feel it, most likely no one else will?
Exactly.
When did you actually start making music the way you do now? Did it start with the Ryhmesayers?
It started before that, with me and a kid named Spawn. We started making music in 1990 together. Doing it in a really wrong way though. We were going to the studio and spending money to make music instead of teaching ourselves how to do the pre-production. And so it would take us six months to make three fucking songs. Like we could have had the songs written in a day but to get it into the studio, to cover the cost, all the shit, make the beats, blablabla, we were making our own beats back then. We were doing it wrong. We met Ant in like 1993 or 1994, and he started making our beats and he taught us this is how you make music. You come to my house every Sunday and you stay here from 6 pm until 12 am and you make as much stuff as you can, even if you run out of words, fuck it, we’ll make freestyle songs. But you just teach yourself how to use your voice. I guess, ‘93 was when I started making music the way I am doing it now. Even before I hooked up with Spawn I tried to be a rapper just by myself.

[Food is brought into the room]

The extra-large condoms are mine!
Luckyiam: Stop lying, Sean!
How is the HipHop community there? Did you inspire or motivate a lot of young groups by doing what you’re doing?
I don’t think it was me, I think that the Rhymesayers Collective did inspire the scene to like start taking itself serious and doing something about it as opposed to just be open-mic emcees
In your lyrics from Overcast to Lucy Ford to God Loves Ugly and Seven’s Travels, do you see a development, not only in perfection or..
Yeah, I do see. I think the development is really self-explanatory. Ant broke it down to me once, and he said when he sat down and made Overcast with us he knew then that I was in the middle of trying to find myself between being a rapper and just being a person. When you listen to Overcast you can hear the songs where I’m just a rapper and then you can hear songs where I’m an actual person. And he said the reason he liked that record so much, and he still likes that one probably the most, I think he likes God Loves Ugly the most now. But the reason that record works is even a listener can hear me battling myself going back and forth from trying to be like a lyrical, spiritual miracle to being a guy with something to say. By the time we got to Lucy I had found myself and had found some of the things I wanted to say. I look at each of these records as a concept record even though I didn’t realize I was doing it with Overcast but by the time I got to Lucy I realized I want to make albums that have a point to them even if nobody cares and nobody listens, I at least know that I had a point. And I’ve been careful in the construction of them even though like I’m not the greatest at making albums I still have been trying to be very careful in the construction of them to give you a hint to what the next record will sound like. With Overcast, when we first put it out, it was just normal but when we had to re-issue it we put a song at the end, a hidden track called Primer – I own the camaro and the mobile home, where the fuck you wanna go-song because that was the hint to Lucy Ford. And then at the end of Lucy Ford there’s a hidden song I did with El-P called Homecoming that was a hint to God Loves Ugly and to what the concept for God Loves Ugly would be which is just a matter of a fucking normal guy like me learning how to deal with having some of the minor successes that I’ve had. And then the end of god Loves Ugly which was Shrapnel, was a song about, you know, when you blow up, it’s not just you that blows up but the people around you are getting hurt too. And so that’s what set up Seven’s Travels for me to, like, okay you know it and now I’ll give you the idea about how and why it happened the way it happened. And the Always Coming Back Home To You-song on Seven’s Travels is the set-up for The Baby Farmer, which is the record Ant and me have been working on over the last year.
Are all these hidden tracks on vinyl as well?
Nah… Well we did make sure most of the hidden tracks came out on vinyl, well the one with El-P never came out on vinyl but the Primer was on the Overcast vinyl…
How did that deal with Epitaph happen?
Well, we got offered a bunch of deals and I didn’t want to sign with anybody and then we had to figure out something for distribution. For God Loves Ugly it was through Fat Beats who are distributed by BMG, and BMG-distribution is bullshit, it’s really bad. So, I had made friends with the people at Epitaph previously, not because they were trying to sign me but they got in touch with me to ask me about people like Sage Francis and they just asked advices to who I think they should try to work with. So I called them back and said, hey, I turned down all these deals and I don’t wanna do a deal with you either but I need some distribution, can you guys help us? And yeah we did a license agreement for distribution only. It was great because the actual contract was about that long [indicating a pile with his hands], it was one piece of paper, cause there was nothing to it, you know it was real simple and basic. Yeah, and I gotta say they’ve really impressed me because they’ve got on their way to do a lot of things that they didn’t owe me, you know things that were not part of the deal, that they’ve decided to try and do just because they believe in things I’m trying to do. I really have a lot of respect for them, they really have gone far beyond what they needed to do in order to accommodate us. I think that’s great.
Sage actually did a real deal with Epitaph. He did a three-album deal with them.
 
So he finally left Anticon for good?
Yes.
Didn’t fit in there anyway.
No.
You just told me about your new record that you’re working on with Ant. Are there any other projects that we can expect from you? Probably another Felt with Murs?
Me and Murs are working on a new Felt album, right – Dedication to Nicole Ritchie. Last time it was Christina Ricci, this time it’ll be Nicole Ritchie, Lionel Ritchie’s daughter…
Ah, the one that hangs out with Paris… Let the people out there know why you turned all those deal offers down? And why didn’t you sign with a label like Def Jux?
Oh no, that wouldn’t make sense. I’m friends with those guys. But I am part owner of Rhymesayers so it wouldn’t make sense for me to take one of our projects to another label unless it was a side project. I founded Rhymesayers with three other people: Ant, Sadeeq and Musab (formerly know as Beyond). So there’s really no sense. But for example, we still have that Orphanage project, that’s me, Aesop Rock and Blueprint…
Oh, that’s one thing I wanted to ask you about since the Orphanage freestyle is one of my favourite tracks. I don’t get it, well, I don’t know, the topic orphanage does that apply to your life, have you been an orphanage or is it just a metaphor?
No, but it just kinda felt, at that time, like we were outcasts. Like, a lot of the people struggling to be more mainstream in hiphop look at us and don’t like us because we’re not trying to be mainstream but yet were being more successful than they are. And so we really felt like outcasted. Like I’m trying to make friends with anybody that’s a good person and you don’t like me because my record is doing better than yours is. And so we decided to call it the Orphanage project.
Is there in any way a relation with the term ugly used by you like in God Loves Ugly?
Now with the Orphanage project, it’s especially because most of those guys think they’re very attractive, especially Eyedea, he thinks he’s incredibly attractive. He thinks he’s a male model. I think he looks like Teen Wolf but whatever…
Is Sage Francis a part of the project?
Sage is not in it. I know a lot of people thought he was in it because of the track on one of his Sick Of… albums but he was never actually a part of it. I would love to put him down with it but I think that he’s just too smart to do that. I think he knows what he’s doing.
Would you say that you have any strong influences from the 70’s, like from what I heard on Lucy Ford?
Both, Ant and me, are heavily influenced by the 70’s, mostly like 70’s soul and classic rock. I listen to a lot more 70’s rock than I actually listen to hip hop.
Yeah, Eyedea put that in a rhyme once, I like Jimi Hendrix more than any rap shit… How has the feedback on Seven’s Travels been so far?
So far, so good. I mean, you know some kids think that it’s less edgy… Hey man, what do they expect, I’m 31 now, but I was 30 when I made that record, it’s like I am less edgy now, I don’t wanna fucking punch you in the face anymore. Now it’s like I just see the world a little bit different. It’s just gotta be one of these things when the kids abandon it and go to listen something else, that’s okay. Like I used to do that when I was a kid. There was a time when I fucking hated LL Cool J and I turned my back on him. And so I think it’s only natural. Especially when you’re younger you’re defining your own individuality by art, by music and film and stuff like that. You need to constantly push yourself, so if you used to like me and now you see what I’m doing and you’re like aahh, I don’t like that. If that pushes you to find something better, that’s good, that’s part of my job. It’s not my job to make you like me but it is my job to inspire you to do something. So if I inspire you to fucking run away from me and find something better that’s kind of good, that’s a good thing. You know, I can take pride in that as well.
I think it’s all about expectations. I experienced that stuff with Outkast. Southernplayalisticadillacmuzic and ATLiens just blew my head off, Aquemini was alright, but then Stankonia came and made me run away… til Andre3000’s new stuff on the double Album…
Exactly, and so I think, it’s only natural. I can’t imagine any rapper, well there’s maybe two rappers that I liked for there whole career… but even with bands, I don’t think that there’s a band out there that I can say I’ve liked them the whole time…
Not even The Roots or bands like that?
No, not even The Roots, not even Radiohead… you know what I mean, like there’s bands where it’s okay, they reach a point where they either outgrew me or I outgrew them. Outkast is a great example, they outgrew everybody. And people just was, I don’t even know what you’re fucking doing anymore but it still is beautiful, you might just not listen to it. And so I think it’s a natural course for artists as well as for listeners cause the listener has to grow too. It’s like two friends. Maybe we went to High School together and then after High School you got a job, I went to College, you got married, I travelled the world and then we come back together next year and we don’t even know what to talk about, we don’t have anything in common anymore. So, it’s natural, it’s okay… and I think that I did a good enough job putting my foot down in it. It’s like, even if it gets to a point where there’s no more listeners that will listen to me, I established my self enough now, so I can stop and go be a tour manager for Eyedea, or go sit behind the desk at Rhymesayers and still play a positive role in the music, just maybe not by being the rapper, you know what I mean, doing something, I’m going to be stuck in hip hop for the rest of my life, somehow doing something, and I’m happy with that.
If you had to recommend any rapper to somebody who says he doesn’t like rap at all?
I mean, if you’d never listened to hip hop before and I was to recommend you something, I would probably say, for the underground stuff, Sage Francis… that’s a tough one, man… Brother Ali, you know something that’s not like, you know, I like the heavy stuff but something that’s heavy but also accessible enough for you to understand and relate to. Somebody that uses their voice in a way so that they’re not just rappadyrap with good words but they know how to express to make you understand what they feel and mean exactly what they’re saying, you know it’s emotional. You can hear that as well as you can be like I don’t know what this guy is talking about, but whatever he’s talking about, he really means it, you know what I mean, I would probably say some early KRS One even, some of the earlier Boogie Down Productions and stuff, it’s always a good thing first. Generally, people who’ve never listened to rap, it’s good to play them political rap, stuff that’s got an actual social message to it cause everybody can relate, so even if you don’t like rap you might hear what the guy’s saying and be like, okay that guy’s got something to say. So I would say a Brother Ali or a Sage Francis or Public Enemy maybe or even the earlier De La Soul stuff or earlier Boogie Down Productions.
Alright, thanks a lot for your precious time!
Thank you too! Enjoy the show, man!