Listening to the new record, the way your dad comes up … there’s a pride in it that hadn’t been present in some of the older stuff.
I recorded all that shyt before he died. Everything except for “Peanut,” I’d recorded. “Peanut” and “Riot!” And “Riot!” is my uncle Hugh [Masekela], who died two weeks after my pops.
Oh, man.
Yeah, “Peanut” and “Riot!” were the only two I added. But that album, even the shyt where my dad is speaking, I was gonna just drop that, not tell him, and tell him to send a cease-and-desist if he wanted.
So, you were working through the relationship in your head and in your music, and you were just going to present it to him. Did he ever get to hear it?
No. It’s rough. It was a crazy one, bro.
You’re really calling it Some Rap Songs?
Yes, sir.
How did you arrive at that title?
Just the concept of brevity. I’ve become … It’s been made evident to me that I’ve become kind of obsessed with simplifying shyt, which sometimes can lead to oversimplification. People take a lot of liberties, I feel like. Incomplete shyt is really stressful to me, and the concept of unsimplified fractions is really stressful to me. So, with things like the album title, how I structure shyt, and even how I write, it was really just like, What is this? The album title was kind of a response to that question.
Do you feel like people are gonna hear it and have that question?
Like, “What is this?”
It’s a bit of a detour for you. You’re getting a little bit closer to the thing — like, the independent rap, early 2000s, “We didn’t have a label; we did it ourselves” kind of thing. I feel like there are going to be people who hear it expecting polish, who won’t get it.
Yeah. I’m anticipating that a little bit, but I hope what people take away is … I guess just brevity. I’m always trying to whittle this shyt down … I have to be really thoughtful of what I’m doing. Music is a really powerful thing, and the people that I feel, like, get applauded for the subtlety are the people that care and are aware of the powerful shyt that they’re wielding. I’m aware of the fact that [Some Rap Songs] is kind of a hissing thing. There’s a lot of technical imperfections. The track list has gotta be perfect, and the song gotta loop perfect, and I gotta exit before … I really dedicate a lot of myself to not over-rapping.
It makes me think about Dilla. He didn’t program so cleanly. It was a lot of human time, and I feel like your approach to the lyrics and your approach to the production in this new stuff is getting toward that. It doesn’t have to sit perfectly on beat, which is interesting because you’re a very technically sharp rapper, but it makes me more conscious of your lines when you’re not.
Exactly!
Who did you end up working with?
It was just people that I was around. The first one that I did was “December 24th.” It was a beat that Denmark gave me.
Denmark Vessey?
Yeah. He’s just a prolific dude, a big brain that’s been inspiring me since I heard the dude. Then I got beats from my friends, my brothers … Sage [Elsesser]. That’s who I really spent most of my time and shared space with. Navy Blue’s on that album. He’s on “The Mint,” and he did the beat for “The Bends.” Yeah, him, my man that DJs for me, Black Noi$e, who is also really incredible. Just, like, too versatile a person, musically. The rest of it … I did a bunch of production. Sixpress from sLUms did “Nowhere2Go,” and Gio from Standing on the Corner helped me mix and master the whole thing and also did cover design and back-cover design with me.
His sound was influenced by SLUMS NYC collective and black noi$e. He was smokin that Tierra wack pack and wanted his album like hers.Spoke on it here.
Two tracks in and this shyt is like a contender. I love this unpolished fukk a final release shyt that's been happening in hip hop lately.
