Fake For Real

"I am one of the few remaining advocates and proponents of progressive hip-hop today". Thus says Ceschi Ramos, in our last interview with him. And he is perfectly right. Through the Fake Four label, he manages with his brother David, and through his multiple activities (and when not hampered by some legal problems...), the rapper is the one making the most today to maintain alive the indie rap scene, as it appeared in the 90's. It was logical, then, that he shares with us his vision about this subgenre, as part of our indie rap series.

Joe DelCarpini, a.k.a. Joe Beats, is a beatmaker from Rhode Island. He used to be the other half of Sage Francis' Non-Prophets, and pursued a solo career in parallel. Later he became part of another duo, with Blak from One Drop, before leaving the rap game. As part of our "Indie Rap Series", he is sharing his view about the underground rap scene of the late 90's / early 00's, through a full article of his own, pointing out the limits and side effects of the "indie" label.

Alright, so let's start from the beginning. First time I heard about you was on Sole's forum. It was around 2005 i think. You were proposing to send a free demo to anyone that was sending you a pm. It was the Kind Of Blues mix-cd I think, that I latter submitted to Hiphopcore. I gotta say I was receiving a couple of demos from young producers because of the reviews I had in HHC and WCI and I wasn't expecting much. But this thing was special, right from the beginning. It was raw and very original, from the music to the art… You didn't try to sound like anyone else. You already had this blend of blues and beats going on… You were still living in Baltimore at the time, maybe to your parents' house? How life was back then and what did you want to put in your art? What were your influences?

I gotta say life was pretty strange. I just moved in with my childhood buddy who had a tendency to get black out drunk and woop ass so needless to say I felt safe from intruders but I had also just come off a crazy experience with almost going deaf and my ears were completely fucked up for a year to the point I couldn't really listen to music and up until recently I felt the effects. This past year was the first time I could use headphones and talk on a phone without pain. So coming out of that experience I wanted to venture into my own terrain so for Kind of Blue I stayed up for 72 hours drinking psilocybin tea and collaging with 4 turntables, MPC and whatever electronics I had. Came up with an idea to make collages and give ppl their own unique copy for free. It was my way of introducing myself and establishing the criteria to really push myself to the limits and experiment in the truest sense of the word. The adventurous side of art is what keeps me going...

Four years after their excellent Rapstars EP, Lexicon’s brothers Nick and Gid Black, supported by the guitar and bass players Erich Schneider and Alex Pauley, finally released an album which fulfilled all of their promises. This made a great opportunity to meet them and know a bit more about the reason for the evolution of the group toward such a rock / rap recipe, and to share some insights about what happened to hip-hop over the last few years.

Radioinactive isn’t your average rapper. It’s been a while since we became interested in the unstoppable rap of this unusual MC who reinvented his music formula record after record. From the first recordings of Log Cabin to the recent Soundtrack to a Book, his catchiest album so far, it’s been a long way. But so far, we never had the opportunity to meet him. This is now something we've achieved.

"Astronautalis is definitely a rapper who sings the occasional chorus, as opposed to a singer who dabbles in rap". This is the much relevant way the Floridian guy is introduced in a review from the All Music Guide. This difference may seem subtle, but it is capital. This is the key explanation of the personal music our Floridian guy makes. In this interview, Andy Bothwell tells us how the white battle MC he is has become the author of one of this year’s best albums.

Hue is already our favourite hip hop label for the year 2006. There, in Japan, on the other side of the world, some people have decided to propose us a kind of best-of of Canadian and Belgian rap. Shin Ohsaki is the manager of Hue. We asked him to introduce himself, to tell us the story of his label and to conceal some of his next projects.

The highly recommended Don’t Be a Martyr album released in 2004 confirmed it: Joe Rath deserves far more attention than many of his counterparts from the post Year 2K’s indie hip hop explosion. So please read the following interview of this New Jersey native and encourage him to release the new gem he hasn’t have the opportunity to record yet.

We can’t stop these men. After launching the Cavemen Speak, Stacs of Stamina and Gunporn projects, Siaz from Belgium and Marcus Graap from Sweden teamed up again under the Zucchini Drive name. Together, they released the Being Kurtwood album, one of the nicest hip hop records for the beginning of this year. Their concert with Bleubird last winter in Paris at La Guinguette Pirate was a first opportunity for us to meet personally this European counterpart of our beloved North American indie rappers.

La Mano Fria is not a musician. But as the key man behind the Beta Bodega Coalition, he plays a major role in Miami’s hip hop. His few days in Paris last February allowed us to ask him a few questions about the history of Miami electronic and hip hop scene, politics and messages, and his core activity: design.