 |
||||||||||
| reports | download | forum | ||||||||
| Interview with soso by mattr.
(january 2006) |
| Hi soso! The first question is always the most difficult one. Let's try this one: Whats your favourite word? |
| I should tell you this now, I don't really have a favourite
anything |
| What's your favourite book? |
| Uh oh... now it starts! |
| What's your favourite movie? |
| Lost in translation |
| What's your favourite author? |
| I don't read
enough. |
| What's your favourite MC ? |
| It
changes every day. |
| What's your
favourite meal? |
| Pasta! I'm a
fucking carbohydrate fiend!! |
| What's your favourite planet? |
| You must have mistaken me for a nine year old! |
| What's your favourite rap album? |
| Oh man come on! |
| So.
Think i asked enough simple questions. Let's go on. |
| Thanks goodness
the simple ones are over! |
| How would you describe yourself? |
| I'm and
underachieving-idealist-cynical-romantic-multi-tasking-control-freak
with alcoholic tendencies and a swimmer's build. |
| Where and how did you grow up? |
| I grew up on a small farm near Saskatoon. I remember it being
very dirty and I often felt isolated. Fortunately I have a brother who
is one year younger than me and we had each other to keep sane... My
folks worked very hard to build a nice home and improve our land. My
parents are both bright and inquisitive people. ;y mom has acouple of
university defrees and she taught me how to write... she is also
responsible for my crooked teeth and red facial hair. My family is
close and very supportive. |
| What are you generally interested in? |
| ideas, scheming, visual art, music, food and
cooking |
| What's your
first memory? |
| vomiting at a house party and being carried
downstairs by one of my parent's buddies. |
| What's your
worst memory? |
| I don't know if i can answer that... my
sister was telling me that there is a biological reasion why we retain
bad memories. It's like a form of self defense... |
| What's your
best memory? |
| Boy you sure like these best/worst/favourite
questions! |
| Are you happy? |
| I'm not sure. I laugh lots. |
| So let's talk a
bit about music. Talking about Canadian hiphop most people (who know at least a little bit about today's music) will think about Buck65. What do you think of him? |
| I think Buck65
is a very dedicated and creative artist. I loved Vertex... it was an
important album in my progression as an artist. I respect his work... |
| He recently said that hiphop had been kind of a blockade,
that he hadn't been really free, that hiphop had made him kind of a
prisoner. Would you agree on his statement? |
| If
it wasn't for the support of a progressive, intelligent and engaged
hiphop audience I wouldn't have a practice. I suppose after a cvertain
amount of time and personal investment inthe artist's work, the
audience starts to feel like they own a part of that artist... maybe
that creates pressure to please the audience... of course, I have never
been successful enough to worry about that (thank goodness). |
| Listenning to many
canadian records it seems that a lot of canadian rap is quite different
than the average. Why do you think that plenty of canadian rap goups
have found an unique wy to express themselves (thesis sahib, epic,
noah23, buck65, sixtoo etc...) |
| I can't speak
on behalt of such a large, diverse group of artists but i have a couple
theories based on my own experiences... I love the music and want to
participate and contribute to the genre in a meaningful way.
Reproducing popular american style is not only uninteresting but
insincere as well. I am thankful that there have been a bunch of
progressive artists who took risks and have made it possible for people
like myself to release albums. |
| Ok.
Let's focus on your delivery. |
| Ok. |
| With whom have
you collaborated so far? |
| I'm not much of
a networker and my music doesn't really lend itself to guest verses and
such, but I've been fortunate enough to work with some of my friends,
including M Phasis, Epic, Pip Skid, John Smith, Nolto, Cavemen Speak,
Recylcone, Kehla (fka Kutdown), Factor, Ira Lee... |
| How many
records have you made so far? |
| I've made 6 mixtapes since 1996, 3 proper
solo projects - sour suite 12" EP, birthday songs, tenth street and
clarence - poor mans survey ( a little instrumental cdr thing) and the
goose hunter 7". I've produced a couple albums for Epic, and have
collaborative albums coming out with Recyclone and Khela. |
| When and why
did you start making music ? |
| I
guess my formal relationship with hiphop started in 1995 when i picked
up some dj equipment. I loved the beats from that period and wanted to
dj and make beats. Armed with a pair of mismatched 1200s and this radio
shack mixer (that i swear was 2 feet wide) i started messing aournd
scratching and mixing records. I had rented some samplers and stuff to
try making beats and decided to take the plunge and buy some gear. |
| What's your
goal? What do you want to achieve with your music? |
| Without a word of lie, long term planning freaks me out. I started thinking about where i want to be in five years and iI was totally depressed. I just need to continue to write and make music and art and hope everything works out. |
| What equipment do you use? |
| I use an akai s900, a midi keyboard and a pc. |
| What's
your inspiration for making beats, where do you get your ideas from? |
| I steal my
ideas from mcenroe. If that fails, then I usually build my beats around
the samples I'm using. On occasion I'll start with a drum pattern and
tack on strange blips or whatever. |
| Where do you find your samples? Do you have
to clear them? Have you already gotten into troubles? Sole recently
said he never cleared his samples and obviously he never had any
toubles, although he had taken quite wellknown samples, as he
admitted (I just remember a velvet underground sample). |
| I've
been collecting/accumulating old records for quite a while now... I've
developed a great appreciation for music. I've sampled all genres but
typically I seem to gravitate to guitars and pianos and strings, pretty
melodies and low resonating bass lines. I've never been busted on a
sample... well actually I tried using a Rodney Dangerfield clip on sour
suite and the plant refused to press it unless I changed it... it's
getting a bit trickier in CAnada tu use movie dialogue and shit like
that but music samples have never been an issue. Given the small
numbers of albums I press I think I'm under the radar. |
| When
have you started writing rhymes? As we know from artists such as sole
or dose one they all started with traditional rap and then grew out of
it. What's your story? |
| As
I mentionned earlier, I got my start dj-ing and making beats. I was
making songs with other people and I wanted more control of the content
so I started writing. Thankfully, the face of hiphop music was already
changing and there were fewer barriers to releasing music as a shitty
white rapper from but-fuck Saskatchewan. Whew! |
| What do words mean to you? Do you simply want to express yourself or do you simply have to, means are you forced to do so? |
| I
think the language and style
of writing used in my songs is critical to the content. I try to be
very conscious of those things when I'm writing songs. I'm not sure
what drives me to write... I am a very poor at communicating with
people who are close to me. Sometimes writing is an outlet for
repressed emotions, frustration, anger, etx. Other times it can be way
to organize my thoughts and pull together disparate events and
experiences to help me understand the world. Sometimes I make songs for
the pleasure and satisfaction I get from creating something. |
| I
read in another interview that
your songs are strongly autobiographical. Right? Is it easy to talk
about all those personal matters in the way you do? Are you completely
honest? Are there any borders? |
| I
think most writers pull
details from personal experience... as a listener it's little details
that I find compelling. My work has become increasingly personal and I
think more interesting. We are complex creatures, our identities are
constructed by all our experiences, histories, little family secrets,
landscape, weather and I try to explore these in my work. That's said,
it can be a delicate balancing act... I need to to respect the privacy
of my family members and consider how my work might affect them... for
those reasons I might avoid certain subject matter or alter details to
avoid hurt feelings or worse yet, feelings of betrayed confidence. |
| What
di your close friends think
about your music? |
| I
know Chaps likes my songs. |
| Let
me quote one of the many
myspace-comments you got: "for such a happy guy you sure make sad
music". I don't know you personally, but Iwould agree on the second
part of the comment: your songs are often very melancholic and
sometimes just overwhelmingly sad. As na aritst I write mostly about
topics like death, suicide, pain, hate etc. And it's sometimes hard to
explain to outsiders why I am doing this. Some people even asked me:
don't you think that we suffer already enough from reading papers,
watching tv? shouldn't an artists try to make the world a
happioer place? What are your thoughts on this issue? |
| Ok
I don't have time to develop
a concise and insightful argument discussing the role of art in
contemprary society... that's a huge topic! Or is this an art vs.
entertainment argument? Oh geez... let me just say that I worry about
the environment, drive a car, buy 3rd world clothes, follow a
vegetarian diet, exercise, eat Doritos, enjoy Rob Schneider movies,
drink too much and write sad songs. |
| One
of my favourite tracks on your latest album is "your skin brown from
the sun". Which of your songs means the most to you? |
| I
like really some of the stuff I've written: "we always thought she's be
the first to go", the singing part from "it goes", the first verse of
"birthday songs", "hungover for three days straight (don't matter)",
"your skin brown from the sun", "waiting under a wax paper sky",
"finding out about a big pile of stones". |
| What
do you think today about your song "dyke look"? I mean this song is
quite different from all the others, isn't it? |
| It
was silly and Knowski liked it. I put the responsibility on his
shoulders. |
| How
important is performing shows for you? How do people react? |
| I
have middle child syndrom so I've always tried to entertain people. I'm
the jerk with the running monologue at a public assembly and I'm the
same person who makes a joke at an incredibly awkward moment, It can be
difficult to be charming and funny when you're delivering bad news but
finding the somber mood makes people laugh more easily. You can imagine
my live set as alternating sad slow songs with short breaks of funny
dialogue in between. But that shit is getting really old. haha. In an
effort break myself of this habit I've recently incorporated
instrumentation and dj-ing into my live set with my homie and talented
musician, Maybe Smith (check him out at sirhandsomerecords.com). I
think it makes for a much more engaging and musically interesting
performance. And I can still be funny if need be. |
| What
does the soso future look like? Tell us about future projects and what
they're gonna be like! For example, what styles can we expect? When is
your new stuff gonna be available? Are you planning on coming to europe? |
| Expect
delays and more high singing... I love the high fragile singing. I
continue to fuck up my life and think too much... I should have enough
material for another album in the next year or so. I'm not sure what's
happening on the production front... I might get Maybe Smith to lend a
hand on my next project. And of course I would love to tour Europe...
I'm looking for a reason to run away, hook me up! |
| thanks
for the interview! |