CONCRETE #46 - Summer 2012

Right back at you! 7 Summers in a row.

Forever Scooby!

Gone but not forgotten. Scooby! #ForeverScoob

OPENMIC - Full Interview

CONCRETE: Where are you from?
Openmic: I'm from Nashville, Tennessee. I've been here my whole life. My family is from Chicago, but I've been here since I was 2 years old.

CONCRETE: Where did you go to high school?
Openmic: Pearl Cohn.

CONCRETE: What brought your family to Nashville?
Openmic: They came here to work. My dad is a musician. He came down here to follow some opportunities. We had nobody here. My whole family is back in Chicago.

CONCRETE: What kind of music does your dad do?
Openmic: He's a jazz musician.

CONCRETE: Your music has a lot of jazz influence. How did growing up with a father who was a professional jazz musician shape you musically?
Openmic: I didn't grow up on hip-hop. We didn't have hip-hop in my house. It was mostly jazz and gospel. There was not a lot of r&b, not a lot of soul music even. Maybe a little if it was classic like Stevie Wonder or Michael Jackson. It was mostly jazz in the house. So when I first started rapping I had to figure out a way to adapt hip-hop to the music I was already hearing. I didn't have beats. I started rapping when I was 13. I just started freestyling over top of stuff that wasn't really meant to be rapped on. It's a major influence now cause I still do the same thing.

CONCRETE: Did your parents ban hip-hop from the house?
Openmic: Well we were young. We couldn't watch certain TV shows and stuff, basic kids' restrictions. It wasn't so much they were anti- hip-hop. Definitely a Christian based household, major religious background. It was more like, 'you're too young to listen to this right now.' Hip-hop had a more negative stigma then to my parents than it does now.

CONCRETE: You started rapping at age 13. When did you start recording your music?
Openmic: I started recording when I was 17. That was in the closet of my sister's close friend's apartment. (laughs) We just started cranking out songs. I started sounding like Rocafella, like Jay-Z or Cam'ron. Those were my biggest influences at the time. But people just respected the fact that I could go of the top of my head. When I started writing things down I didn't know how to do that. So I just adapted it to other people I heard before. But my freestyle is where I really got my own sound from.

CONCRETE: With freestyling, how and where did you showcase that ability? Battles, cyphers?
Openmic: Everything man. In high school I almost got suspended for rapping in the cafeteria. (laughs) The principle came up to our table and was like, "If y'all say one more rap I'm kicking y'all out." When I was 13 I started rapping on the back of the MTA bus. I want to say it was the 3 West End bus. I started rapping there going home and to school. It was battles, kind of. But I was younger than everybody else. So if I said the slightest, half-way decent thing it was way ahead cause I was so young. But then I started getting good at it, and I started battling at school. But it didn't last long because people didn't want to battle me cause it would have been an automatic loss. (laughs) I didn't really stick with it either. That's not my strong suit at all. Nashville's not really a battle rap city. There's really no route for that. (We would) battle, cyphers, making up songs. When we had a substitute teacher, we weren't trying to hear what they trying to say, so we'd sit in the back of the class and rap. Just stuff like that all the way through school.

CONCRETE: What recorded, completed projects have you done to this point?
Openmic: The first one that we actually did and really tried to create a tape with was A Different World. I put that out Freshman year of college, I'm a senior now. After that we put out For The Rebels which was 2011. We just released Molotov last November, and it's done real well. Three under belt now. The fourth is on the way.

FOR THE REBELS MIXTAPE HERE.

CONCRETE: How do you describe your style?
Openmic: It's consciously fresh. If I had to use a term, consciously fresh. It's self inspired. Do you ever talk to yourself when no one is around. Sometimes you even catch yourself talking out loud. My music is the rhythmic form of that. A lot of the things I touch on are just random streams of thought that connect to create an overall feeling rather than something more strategic. It's not the more common place that you find in rap like, four bar - four bar - four bar format. It can go super out-of-space and then come super down-to-earth. Consciously fresh, approaching music with something to say, having a story to tell, an emotion to relay, or just going through a situation and getting those emotions out. At the same time you have your mass appeal music. You may have a catchy punch line, catchy hooks, things that many people can relate to at the same time. I like fashion a lot too, so your going to hear a lot about fashion and the way I dress.

CONCRETE: We loved the song Rock-n-Roll that ripped straight through with no hook. Are people taken back by that or are they feeling that?
Openmic: Now people are starting to get it. With songs that I do like that, you either get it or you don't. Then maybe two years from now you'll get it or may not. It's an acquired taste so to speak. People have been getting more lately, cause I've been doing it so much. People are now saying, "He's dope. He's a new type of thing, another level." They'll really listen and really start to hear it. We did a song just for the internet called "Run and Hide" and it's probably one of my most abstract paintings musically. It's done better than any individual song we've put out on the internet. People are like, "Wow. This is one of the most amazing verses we've heard especially from an underground artist." I think people are really starting to gravitate towards it inside Nashville and outside as well. It's a blessing.

CONCRETE: Last summer you stayed in New York. What did you do up there?
Openmic: I had an internship with 10 Deep. It was crazy. I was out there for an internship, but I was out there for rap as well. I've been in Nashville my whole life. Just being in New York is crazy. Being out there, the whole energy, the way there's no trees and grass unless you go to a park or something. (laughs) It's like a micro-chip. It took my game to a whole other level. It's how the grind works. Everybody in New York is busy. People just walk faster in New York. So that experience within itself was great. Being at 10 Deep really advanced me on an artistic level even though I was there for marketing reasons not design. I don't do fashion design yet. But being out there just gave me so much inspiration. Being able to talk to the owner over lunch. Eating a grilled cheese sandwich and this man is the owner of 10 Deep. Seeing his sketches and ideas and the other designers as well, Kareem and all of them. There designs were really dope. I saw them when they were on little scraps of paper and now I'm wearing them. Just to see that kind of thing happen gives me so much inspiration. It's like seeing a dream come to reality. More than anything I just took away the whole culture of New York and that element of creating what you see in your mind.

CONCRETE: On your project Molotov you worked with Ducko McFli. How did you guys link to put that project together?
Openmic: This wasn't supposed to be. Molotov, originally from that relationship wasn't supposed Molotov. It wasn't supposed to be Mic and Ducko. It was supposed to be me looking for some beats. (laughs) Ducko wouldn't e-mail me any beats. He was like, "Just come to the house. Come to the house." So I was like, "Aight." I was basically being stubborn like, "No you're going to e-mail me beats." And he's say, "Come to the house." That goes on for a minute, and I'm like, "OK we'll get up eventually." Finally I go to his house and listen some beats, and I'm like, "Whoa." It was some of the most off-the-wall beats. Ducko is extremely talented. At that moment he gave me a CD with 8 beats on it. I took those beats home for maybe two days or so, and I had songs ready to go for like 6 of them. I came back to lay them down and did all 6 in like an hour or two. He was like, "Yo, we should do a whole tape." And I was feeling so good about the music at that point I was like "Let's do it." At that moment once we finished the last song, it was like, "OK let's start making some more beats. Let's go ahead and knock it out." Cause I was only going to be there for so many more days. I was fixing to go out of town. The same session I brought him what I had back for those songs, the verses back, that was the day we decided, 'Yeah we're going to do tape.'

LINK TO MOLOTOV HERE.

CONCRETE: What's the overall feel of Molotov?
Openmic: It's all explosive. Molotov went places I couldn't go on For the Rebels musically. It's because I wasn't in the situation where I was working with any producers at all. For the Rebels has 2 beats from people that I actually know. Everything else I found, random songs. I set it up like this if For the Rebels was the protest so to speak. You have the voice speaking up like, 'Yo we're tired of this.' Molotov is, 'We're taking it past the protest. They're not listening, so we're going to throw a molotov cocktail and blow up the building.'

CONCRETE: Are you working on the next project?
Openmic: Yeah. We're working on For the Rebels 2. For the Rebels 2 is like Molotov is the winning of the war or rebellion. For the Rebels 2 is once you burn down the White House the establishment or system, you start to rebuild it. How do you rebuild it without putting those same things that we hated so much in the beginning, without the ideas growing back when you rebuild the building. It's kind of like from the inside out. We started from the outside. We tore down the inside. Now we're rebuilding the inside. We're trying to make sure we don't become the same thing we hated in the first place.

CONCRETE: You use a lot of rebellion themes in your music, titles, artwork. What's the underlying message behind it? It seems to coincide with whole Occupy protests.
Openmic: I still don't know how I feel about the whole occupy movement as a whole. I feel like it's necessary. I feel like the voice is relevant. I feel like the people need to speak up and say some things. But some of their approaches and the actions behind it I can't really get behind. I feel like it's definitely necessary. But my music has nothing to do with that. And honestly, I know about politics to a certain extent, but I'm not a politician. I don't want to be a Senator. I'm not claiming to be the new voice of the people. I'm not Lupe Fiasco. The only time you can do something that's actually different is when you're completely yourself. The rebellion is about non conformity more than anything. It's about you can be a rebel and look like anybody else. You can be a rebel and have some of the same ideas as other people. But at the end of the day you know within you, deep down, who you are at the core of your existence who you are and you follow that to a fault regardless of what anybody says. No matter what if you know within you for a fact that this is who I am and you embrace that, that's what the rebellion really is. Somewhere when you go from deep down to the surface sometimes we lose what that is. It's a lot of self reflection, being consistent with who you are. Who you are as a man or a woman. That's what my message is.

CONCRETE: What are some of the good things that Molotov has done since you dropped that?
Openmic: People are saying that Molotov is better than For the Rebels. We've been sitting on Molotv for so long that I'm tired of it. Well I can't say I'm tired of hearing it, but it's not new anymore to me. It's not likea new CD that you pop in. We've been had this. But people out here are like, "Yo! This is dope." It's already done more numbers and downloads and views and stuff in one week than For the Rebels did in 5 months. So I'm like, 'Wow. People are really feeling this music.' So it's real positive. More blogs are picking it up, more websites. It's getting more attention around the country rather than just inside Nashville. We're just fortunate.Me and Ducko are going to be doing more work. (laughs) People like it, and we like it, so we're going to keep doing it. I look forward to it.

CONCRETE: Do you think you get the credit you deserve yet for your music?
Openmic: I work really hard. I study music. I study everything from lyricism to time changes to the iconography of like A Tribe Called Quest and what Wu-Tang did for the culture, everything. I really feel like a lot of people in hip-hop period, underground, commercial, whatever, aren't doing the types of things that I'm doing with the people around me. It's not just me. From the videos to the graphic design to the pictures we put out, I don't think people are really in tune with it. Once we find the middle ground the level of exposure is going to be really crazy. Plus, I want to be one of the greatest rappers that ever lived. I'm just going to keep working extremely hard. I encourage everyone that's in the Nashville underground culture we have that's exploding right now to continue to go extremely hard. Cause being in New York, these guys ain't no better than us. I could have brought 3 artists from Nashville with me to New York and just murdered every show that I went to. So everybody man keep going. Keep going crazy (laughs).

DJ Crisis - Full Interview

CONCRETE: You recently did a college tour. Can you break that tour down for us?
Crisis: The college tour we started back on October 1, 2011. We actually kicked off September 24 in New York at the RockSmith Flagship Store. We partnered with RockSmith Clothing based out of New York. They was trying to really get into the college market with their clothing line. It was only right for us to merge together and go on tour. What we did was hit up a bunch of schools that we had connections with and promoters from different areas and put together the Shut Up and Listen Tour with me, Zac Boog and Dee Goodz. We did a combination of step shows, after parties for home comings. We hit the most of the schools during their home comings. We went to MTSU, Lane College, UT Martin, TSU, Western Kentucky, Austin Peay, UT Knoxville, UT Chattanooga and a few other schools. Basically what we did was I went in on the turntables and did my thing, Zac Boog did his hosting and comedy thing and Dee Goodz performed 1 or 2 songs with what he had going on. The whole purpose of it was to get our brands out in these other markets and do something different. Cause you can hang out in Nashville all day, but if you ain't really getting out then you're really not doing anything for the city. A lot of people get kind of complacent. I caught myself doing the same thing. I kind of got bothered by that. That's why we jumped out on a limb and did the tour.

CONCRETE: Which colleges did you get the best turnout?
Crisis: I would say UT Knoxville. There was about 2,500 people. It wasn't even a club. It was big ol' sports complex they did it at. It was with the Alphas down there. It was the pre-party for their homecoming. They really brought them out. It was about 2,500 people that came out and rocked with us. It was a real good look. We got video footage. We've been releasing recap videos for each spot on the tour. It's been a good look each day.

CONCRETE: You've been doing radio with 101.1 The Beat also. How did you get on with those guys?
Crisis: I hit Dolewite and Scooby up about an internship back in 2008. I ended up getting on as an intern. A week later I ended up getting hired as a part timer. Then 3 months after that I started training for the Steve Harvey Morning Show to fill in for Jones. A month later Pam (Pamela Aniese) was like, "I want to have you on Sunday nights." In way less than a year I was on the air. I got my own show, Sundays from 8-12. It's working out good, cause I don't have to be in Nashville until Sunday. I'm not limited. That's my overall objective is to get out of the market. Really just establish the show's brand, the DJ Crisis brand, the Fly Major brand everywhere we go. That's the sole purpose of what I'm trying to do. The radio helps me be anchored in the city. I still have a voice in the city while I'm moving around outside the city.

CONCRETE: You still do events in Nashville with Fly Major. What does Fly Major have planned for 2012?
Crisis: We're planning more unique events than the norm. At the end of the day people in Nashville want different stuff, so they can feel it's something progressive in the city. If you hit the with the same old stuff over and over, which has been happening, people get board. They want to go outside of Nashville for entertainment. Really Nashville has enough stuff here for people to be in the city and enjoy themselves like they would anywhere else.What we're trying to provide this go round in 2012 is that new vibe from musical acts to something of everything. We have Fridays over at the new SoBro Nightclub, formerly The Place. Even with me as a DJ, I'm trying to get more in touch with the community. I'm just trying to help the city get back to where it was before I got here. When I got here I was hearing stories about how Nashville was. That makes me more anxious to get it back to where it was. I fell like I'm as responsible as anybody else from Nashville.

CONCRETE: You're have a mix tape series Shut Up and Listen. What's the history behind that and what's the latest news with that ongoing project?
Crisis: Shut Up and Listen was actually an idea that came into my head back in high school. That's how I got my DJ name Crisis, by just selling mixtapes in high school. Then I got to TSU. It was always in the back of my head to do, but it took like a year and a half to actually just go ahead and do it. I felt that I was ready to do it. It started off with just one volume. I had a bunch of songs that people liked. It was a response bigger than what I thought it would be. I always said I just wanted to do a mixtape, that's it. But the response that it got kind of made me have to go ahead and start a series. From volume 2 to volume three, then I linked up with DJ Drama one of my longtime inspirations. Now he's one of my biggest mentors and one of my good friends. It took time me doing mixtapes and staying consistent and working so hard to get to that point. So it went from working with DJ Drama to Drumma Boy. I did one with him. Now I'm working on a tape with Buck, Live Loyal Die Rich. That's going to be my first artist (tape) that I actually collaborate on with a Shut Up and Listen. From there I plan to work with other artists. Just big names that I can help with my brand and merge it with brand and make something real big. That's what I did with the mixtape series.

CONCRETE: When is the Live Loyal Die Rich mixtape dropping?
Crisis: We're saying December 25, 2011, but it's probably dropping the top of the year. We got all the songs done, but knowing him he's still recording stuff. He keeps on finding stuff. He called me one day like, "Man I got another song for the tape." And he'll send it to me. So that's how that's been working out. It really ain't no rush to it. I'm still working doing my thing while he's working. Whenever we get it all together that's when we'll put it out.

YOUNG BUCK & DRUMMA BOY - SHUT UP & LISTEN EXCLUSIVE

CONCRETE: Do you still do tour dates with Young Buck?
Crisis: Well he's got C-Dub who's been going some dates. I've been in school still. So from school, to outside gigs, to the tour I just did it kind of hindered me from going on the road with Buck the way I used to. But we still have the same working relationship we did. If he has a show he really needs me to do, I'll make the proper sacrifices to make it happen for him. That's just the kind of relationship me and him got. Anything he needs I'm there for him and vice-versa.

CONCRETE: Are you the tour DJ for any artists besides Buck?
Crisis: Actually before I was Buck's DJ I was Starlito's DJ. We did the Tenn-A-Keyan Mixtape. I put my little cousin DJ Crucial on. Now he's Starlito's road DJ now. I think that my situation, by me having so much other stuff going on has been a blessing for others. Because I was able to be like, "OK Star needs a DJ, you should rock with (Crucial)." The fact that I brought him up as a DJ, Star is able to trust him cause he trusts me. They've been doing shows for the past three months together. It's been going real good.

THE TENN-A-KEYAN MIXTAPE HERE.


CONCRETE: When you get done with school, do you plan to get back on the road with some artists?
Crisis: When I get done with school I want to do more moving around period. Still be stationed in Nashville, but during the week I want to be in Atlanta, cause that's where I'm from. I got plenty of ties and connects down there. Just working, I want to work seven days a week not just on the weekends. I've been so many places this past year it's opened my eyes to so many opportunities outside the city that could help the city eventually. I can help just by being in New York or at the BET Awards just knowing so many people. I always wondered what that phrase "it ain't what you know it's who you know" meant. Now I'm realizing most of the opportunities I've been getting has been of the basis of relationships. That's the important part about it is just building those solid relationships to get to that next level. That's what I really want to do when school is out. Still do what I do for the city, but at the same time get outside of the city. Tony Neal of Core DJs, I was in Miami in May (2011) for the Core DJ retreat, and he told me, out of his mouth, and it still sticks with me to this day, "You can't put on for your city if you're always in your city." And I say that day-in-and-day-out to myself. It really makes a lot of sense, because until someone gets back out there and sheds light on a national level for Nashville, Nashville won't get the attention that they deserve. When Buck was in his prime, back when G-Unit first got on and he was screaming Cashville on BET and Mtv and stuff like that really shined light onto Cashville. Nashville needs that next person to do that. I feel like me being in the position I am, I feel obligated to do that. I feel like it's on my shoulders and I really just got to get out here and do it.

CONCRETE: When are you set to finish school?
Crisis: May 2012.

CONCRETE: You're tight with DJ Drama. Is there still an APHILLYiates crew?
Crisis: To my knowledge yeah. You got Sense and Drama. And you know (Don) Cannon and Drama still do stuff together.

CONCRETE: Do you have any aspirations to be in the APHILLYiates crew with DJ Drama or to start your own crew of DJs?
Crisis: Coming up as DJ that was one of my goals was to become an APHILLYiate, but now I would still love to be a part of that and what he has going on. But I know the type of person Drama is, he would probably want me to find my lane and work in that lane. He told me, out of his mouth it's really just about being original with what you do instead of just following. I'd love to be a part of what he has going on and help expand his brand on the collegiate end and to those who support me and just getting it out there. I'm also part of another DJ coalition in Atlanta, some friends that went to school with me back in high school, The Arsonists DJs. Two of my cousins are part of that DJ coalition. It's just good to be a part of a family that loves the same things that you love. Back to the Drama thing, I would still love to be a part of what he's got going on, cause that was always one of my goals and dreams, working side-by-side with him.

CONCRETE: You have a lot of family members that DJ. Who are they?
Crisis: DJ Crucial, DJ Dark Knight, DJ Jazzy T, she's not my cousin, but we went to high school together then she moved to Memphis and then to TSU so we still had that connection. It's more so a brother sister kind of thing. She was just like, "I want to be a DJ." So when she got here her freshman year I started showing her the stuff. Now she's out here rocking clubs just as much as I am. I feel that I've been a blessing to others. That's what I'm here for really. If you can't share your talents or help bless someone else then you ain't really doing what you're supposed to be doing. My upbringing makes me do that. It's more family oriented from my manager Pat to everybody that's around me. Zach Boog, TheLowKey.com is a blog site a partner of mine Lorenzo. Solo Altitude clothing which is the shirt I got on right now. He's a guy that's in Fly Major. Everybody is starting to come into their own with what they're doing. I feel if I can help them then I go about it anyway I can. Everything's working out and it's good to see eevrybody that started with me coming out into their niche, their lane. And everything is coming back together piece by piece. It's a good thing.

CONCRETE: What are your main goals for 2012?
Crisis: Really just getting Nashville back to where it needs to be. That's my immediate goal point-blank period. I notice different DJs or promoters or people period they might graduate from school or get to a certain level and they just want out of the situation. Because it's difficult to get it to where it needs to be. But everywhere was difficult. I remember growing up in Atlanta I knew it was hard for Outkast and DJ Greg Street, everybody that was in Atlanta that was instrumental in getting to where it is today. They all had to put in that groundwork. I feel as if nobody else want to do it I have to do it. I think that I set enough trends for the city for DJs, that I know if I start really getting the city back involved everybody else is going to want to join back. It's really just based on everyone getting on the same page. That's the problem right now. You've got to get the artists from the radio, to the DJs, to the promoters, the clubs, everybody has got to be on the same page for Nashville to get to where it can be. I don't feel my work is done until I make that happen. I know it's going to happen. There's so much potential in the city. When I graduate I want to go and move around in the city a lot more as far as artist wise. Me and Open Mic have a project coming up. Me and Buck got a project coming up. I'm about to be instrumental in Star's situation. It's time to get Star on a more National basis with his music. Dude has so much talent. He just hasn't really had the outlets to these bigger markets. I feel as a DJ I have more leverage to kind of get them there as opposed to just being an artist trying to do it themselves. I'm working with D-Goodz on his situation. He's out grinding and working. That's what it starts at. It starts with the music and the whole hip-hop culture in Nashville. It's creating a voice for Nashville. I think it's here, but without someone to actually bring it out it ain't going to happen. You're going to have frustrated people that don't want to go out. That's what it is right now. They thinking that it's over with when it's really not. I've been taking notes and studying the whole situation.

CONCRETE: Any last words or shout-outs?
Crisis: Shout-out to everybody man. Shout-out to my team. Everybody that's involved, everybody that helped me. That's one thing I learned. Without having the right people around you then you're not going to get where you need to be. People around you are going to push you and bring out the best in what you got going on. Fly Major to the Shut Up and Listen team to LowKey.com to Solo Altitude to RockSmith, everybody that helped me get my dreams out and what I wanted to do. I'm supportive of what they got going on. I feel as if I'm indebted to them. From like Elite Clothing, words can't express enough how much Ramadan has been instrumental from advice to free gear. I can't remember the last time I really bought anything from there. Anything he needs from me like DJing a turkey drive to DJing a birthday, anything he's got going on, anytime, I'm not going to charge him. It's more of a brother type of situation. That's my brother. Ramadan has done so much. He's bent over backwards for me, and I feel I have to do the same for him. I feel like everyone is supporting me and I want to support back.

ISSUE #44 - OUT NOW!

We have a special flip-cover edition featuring DJ Crisis and Robski on the covers!

The 2011 Rap Up

The homies Capo and JoeRilla put on for Nashville, and dropped this mixtape and video at the start of 2012.

DOWNLOAD MIXTAPE HERE.
And the videos:

CHANCELLOR WARHOL

STIXX IZZA

THA CITY PAPER

DEE GOODZ

OPEN MIC

DRUPY FLI MUSIC

BLACK CATFISH

BARZ MAJOR

SEMI
ICE COLD JAY
GEMINI TWINS
MALAKI

Gummy Soul: Amerigo Gazaway

CONCRETE: How and when did you get into DJing?
Amerigo: I started DJing probably early 2000. I was freshman in high school. I got my first Gemini starter set. I just started collecting any kind of records I could get my hands on, mostly 99¢ bin records, dollar bins, hand-me-downs from people's basements, attics, whatever. My record collections at the time was mostly that type of stuff. As time went on I got further involved with jazz, funk, old bossa nova, different types of stuff. My dad (Gary Gazaway/El Buho) is a jazz musician. Through that I've been exposed to a lot of different types of world music. He's played with bands like Phish, Soundtribe Sector 9 and different jam bands. He's been big in the jam band circuit doing his thing for the past 20 or 30 years. So I've always been into music. I grew up around keyboards and samplers and mini-controllers and stuff. So I started as a DJ.

CONCRETE: Your father is deep in the jam band scene. How did you discover hip-hop?
Amerigo: It was through my older brother and sister. They were into hip-hop when I was in middle school. My brother left for college and went to UT Knoxville. I found this shoebox of hip-hop cassette tapes that he left behind when he went to Knoxville. Except none of the cassette tapes were in it. It was all empty covers for Black Moon and Gang Starr, De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest. I was in middle school when I found it, and was like, 'I'm going to go out and buy these.' So I started buying these albums I'd found in the shoe box. I got into hip-hop that way. Then I got my first DJ turntable set, and started collecting any records I could find.

CONCRETE: At what point did you go from just playing music to producing your own music?
Amerigo: It really didn't take long. When I was a freshman or sophomore in high school I got my firs copy of Acid Pro. Which was the program to use back then. So I spent four or five years making beats on Acid Pro with whatever samples I could find. My senior in high school, my hard drive crashed. I lost everything. I lost all the beats I made freshman thru senior year of high school. When that happened I went out and got a Mac. I got a bunch of new programs. That's when me and Josh (Wally Clark) started hanging out. I started relearning in all these new programs like Reason. We kind of learned together. I taught him what I knew. He was really big into soul and funk and he put me on to that. Cause I was always a big jazz head. I was always into weird stuff like sound tracks, kids records, all types of weirdo records. Hanging out with him, he got me really deep into the whole soul thing. That's when Gummy Soul came about.

CONCRETE: You rap too. When did you start rapping?
Amerigo: It just kind of happened. I think just being around it. Going to Hillsboro, they had the studio with Mr. Gabany. A lot of what I did came out of that. Skipping class and going to the studio. Hanging out with people and free-styling. Riding around and free-styling. It was just a natural kind of thing. I never intended on being a rapper. I wanted to be the DJ, cause I didn't like being out in front of people. I wanted to be playing the background. One thing led to another and I started rapping.

CONCRETE: What was the first rap you released?
Amerigo: I haven't released a whole lot. I released that track "Dragon Park" little bit earlier this year, before the "Flood" song. This year in particular has been my first official releases to come out. I released an instrumental album last year on the label Cold Busted and instrumental hip-hop, trip-hop label out of Colorado. As far as the rap goes I've just kind of been sitting on it for a long time. I've been in school is the other thing. I've been in school for like the past 6 years going to MTSU. I haven't had time to work on music like I wanted to. Music got put on hold. Now that I just graduated like a month ago, it's taking off again. I'm really back into the music. And with this new project it's really blown up.

CONCRETE: What was the project you did for Cold Bsuted?
Amerigo: It's called Selective Hearing Volume 1. It's basically what the title implies. I have selective hearing. I hear what I want to hear. I listen to these records and I take only the piece that I want to hear the most and create a beat out of it. That's how the title came about. It seemed like the perfect title for what I do. It's on BeatPort, Amazon, Pandora. That's what's really cool about the label, I didn't have to do much. Just release the album and they get on all these outlets for me. It's been pretty successful. It's been featured on some radio shows in Germany. It's cool to see how that stuff spreads. It's crazy the time we live in.

CONCRETE: Can you break down your new project Fela Soul?
Amerigo: Basically what I did was took samples from Fela Kuti, the father of Afro beat music, and made beats with it. Then I took De La Soul a cappellas and put those on top of it to create new songs or remixes. When people hear mash-up they think Pearl Jam with Jay-Z or Weezer meats Lil Wayne.



CONCRETE: How did you pick the materials from the careers of each?
Amerigo: I was kind of limited in terms of the a cappellas I could find for De La. It was hard to track down some of those a cappellas. I had to order Stakes Is High off ebay and wait like a month for that to show up. It was worth it. I knew that I wanted to have that song, and it ended up being the first track on the album. I'm really glad I waited and actually got ahold of that. I was kind of limited in terms of that. And Fela Kuti is all over the place. If you listen to his music it's really different and cool, but it's really difficult to try and marry the two together and get it to sound right. We had the idea for it last year, fall 2010. Then I forgot about for a long time, cause I was busy with school. It was some time this summer I sat down and started making a beat and I started humming a sample from a Fela Kuti song and I just remembered. The whole idea and vision for it came back to me. So I obsessed over it for two or three weeks and did it.

CONCRETE: What are some of the cool things that have happened since you released it?
Amerigo: It's funny, cause we weren't going to release it until later this year. I was still fine tuning it, tweaking it, trying to get it to sound just right. But then Questlove came in town to play a DJ set at Mai. Anyone who is a fan of The Roots or Questlove knows how big of a Fela Kuti fan he is and how much of a De La fan he is. So me and Josh (Wally Clark) found out he was coming to town decided 'we're going to give him this CD.' So I brought my camera down there and posed as a press photographera dn Josh reached up. The super giant that he is, he was able to reach up on the huge DJ booth of Mai and stick the CD up there so Questlove could see it. We were determined to get this CD to Questlove. Once we were successful at doing that we knew that we had a week to actually release it before Questlove would just forget about it and go on with his life. We got everything together. I mixed the album. I mastered it. We did the video to go with it. We did liner notes. And we released it a week later on Tuesday, September 13. Since then it blew up. Questlove tweeted it to his 2+ million followers. It got a feature on OkayAfrica.com and OkayPlayer.com which is Questlove's website. I really owe a lot to them because they really got the ball rolling. If they didn't pick it up I'm not sure it would have blown up like it did. Big shout out to Questlove for posting it. After that we didn't do much. It spread virally on the internet. In the first two weeks we did over 10,000 downloads and 80,000 plays. That's from our bandcamp. I also found out it's been uploaded to torrent sites and it got a lot of activity there also.

CONCRETE: What are you working on next?
Amerigo: I want to follow it up, but I don't think I want to follow it up with another mash-up project. I think the next thing I want to do is a full length rap album of myself and Gummy Soul. We want to release a Gummy Soul album with myself, Kurtis Stanley and Wally featuring all 3 of us. So I think those are the two projects I'm going to focus on for the next few months. Everybody's been begging me for my rap album forever, and I've been in school and haven't had time. I've just been releasing instrumentals and remixes. That's where my true passion lies, so that's something I have to cross off my bucket list so I can move on to other projects. I think that's where we're headed. We got a lot of stuff in the works. Kurt Stanley has a video coming out for his tracks off the Gummy Soul album. We're going to be releasing singles in the mean time just to keep the buzz going.

CONCRETE: DJ, producer, rapper, which is your favorite?
Amerigo: That's a tough one. I think when I started making beats that was cool because I felt like I was one of the only dudes in my high school that did it. Now everybody's a producer. Everybody's a DJ. And everybody's a rapper, but I think rapping is unique. The way I put words together is unlike anything that other people are doing. Everybody's different in terms of lyrics. So I'm going to go with rap.

CONCRETE: Any last words or shout-outs?
Amerigo: Shout out to everybody who downloaded Fela Soul and reposted it. OkayPlayer.com, OkayAfrica.com for getting the ball rolling. All my Nashville peeps and people who have supported me over the years. My brother (Rickey Mindlin) he's my manager and he's been a huge help through all of this. And my parents.

Gummy Soul: Kurtis Stanley

We've been knowing Kurt since before he was Kurt and before we were CONCRETE. He's always had a presence on the mic. Freestyle sessions at Bracey's crib in Knoxville during Monday Night Football were a must see! In the years that followed Kurt Stanley has harnessed that raw presence into a flow and show of irresistible feel-good. Most recently he got down with producer Wally Clark and helped solidify the Gummy Soul brand. They've been churning out some bangers and raising their bar on every record and with every show. Here's a quick Q&A with Mr. Kurtis Stanley.

CONCRETE: How did you link up with producer Walter Clark and start working together?
K. Stanley: It was a mutual friend Dave Meador, DJ Tommy Ill. He's a DJ. We me t in Knoxville. Josh (Walter Clark) knew Dave. That's a long story. Basically we all met up in Atlanta through Dave. It wasn't here until recently that Dave made the bridge between me rapping and MCing and Josh actually making beats. He was like, "Hey man you should get in touch with one of my dudes. Actually you know him, Josh." I was like, "Cool." He put us in touch and from there we kind of felt each other out. See the different styles and made sure it meshed. Then we immediately got to work. We didn't even have a solid plan moving forward. We were still just feeling each other out. The first thing we recorded was "Right On" the mian single from the Gummy Soul album we released.

CONCRETE: What projects did you do between Obtuse Music and Gummy Soul?
K. Stanley: During that time it was kind of like a lull. The same thing, a friend of a friend Bracey Halbrook he went to school with a cat Kent Gillum who is at Dirty Cabin. The Obtuse thing was a great experience, but it wasn't necessarily the exact sound that I was looking for. I wanted to get more into the sample based production. Bracey pointed me in the direction to find Kent. Again, me and Kent got together checked each other's style. It worked. We made an album called Time's Flying. It was very, very underground. It turned out great though. We really want to go back and release that. Those guys are still in the picture. I always talk to Bracey. These guys are in my group of peers that I like to send new music to. The relationships were never ended on any kind of sour terms. It's just life happens and on to the next. But they're still very close friends of mine. Kent actually mixed the Gummy Soul project for us. That was courtesy of Dirty Cabin. The sound on it was excellent.

CONCRETE: What is Gummy Soul?
K. Stanley: Gummy Soul is really a collective. Amerigo and Wally were already doing so many things. It started with Wally, and Wally had a radio show at UT but also the most prominent one and one he became known for was the show at Vanderbilt, WRVU. He had a great show with a wide listenership across Nashville. That's really where the brand got it's first recognition and starting getting a feel for what this guy is about.

CONCRETE: Today, is Gummy Soul the collective?
K.Stanley: Yeah. There's a lot of different dynamics. We put on a hell of a show. At the same time it is a production house. There's two producers Wally and Amerigo, but they're also DJs. Multi-faceted, multi-talented, and where I fit in is I'm the artist on the label with the lead project titled Gummy Soul. It was fitting because it was kind of an introduction in terms of them being producers not DJs. I'm the MC which is what I'm known for. We combined forces. I think that best describes Gummy Soul currently. That doesn't limit it to what it could be. The plan is obviously to continue growing.

CONCRETE: You also did Gummy Soul Meets The Stuyvesants. How did the project with that Brooklyn collective come about?
K.Stanley: That was something that Wally told me about and introduced me to that project.I listened to it, probably for a week straight. I was like, "Man this shit really, really feels good." And it feels similar to what we were already doing. Why don't we bridge the gap? This is music city. We're known for all kinds of different music. Obviously a lot of country, but there's so many scenes that are going on in Nashville right now. There's this new breed coming up, all these different cats, different sounds. We wanted to open the listenership for people who are here in Nashville for those guys up there. Because we really respected and appreciated the kind of music they were doing.

CONCRETE: How did the recording process for that work?
K. Stanley: It was pretty much, at the time, they had no idea that we were doing this. They had no idea. I think that was their purpose in releasing an instrumental album, to see if they could get cats on there who were actually flowing and send them some stuff. I think ultimately they appreciated what we did. It was a sincere effort on our part, because we really appreciated what they were doing and respected their craft as producers. Wally pointed out to me that they were using basically the same kind of production that he was doing. It immediately felt right. We just went in and tried to pick (our favorite), cause the whole instrumental album is dope. We selected a few, went in. We didn't want to make it too long. We just wanted to make it a nice feel good, summer release. It worked out really good. We got a lot of activity because of it.

CONCRETE: What project are you working on now?
K. Stanley: I got a lot of things in the pipeline. Because of recent things that have happened, the Fela Soul, we've had people reach out. Also my track record just as an MC here in Nashville, there's a lot of people that I didn't realize recognize my name and my brand. They've reached out to me for collaborations just to get on different projects. We're trying to get heavy on the show circuit with LoveNoise and Kidsmeal. We're working on the next Gummy Soul project with these cats. The project is close to being done. It's about the same length as the other one. We feel good about that length. It's like 35 minutes. It's still meaty. It's streamlined. For me, I live outside of Nashville, and I can put on one of our projects and come into town and listen to 90% of the project. That's where that idea came from like, "I want to put on a project I can bump continuosly all the way on my commute from my house to work. Just one project the whole way, but it has to be solid. That was obviously the goal, it's everybody's goal. With the production that we've got it's such a good flow, a good feel. It typically works out, so far it's been working well for us.

CONCRETE: When do want to release the new project?
K. Stanley: There's really not a set time or anything like a deadline. I would say right now we have 80-90% of it done. But working with these guys, I'm telling you, Wally will make about 5-10 beats a week. And that's on top of the thousands that he's already got in his library. So he'll forget about beats and he's like, "Man I made this one five years ago." There were probably 2 or 3 tracks that he made pre-2000 era that went on the Gummy Soul project. He's got a serious vault. So much that he forgets about them. It's stupid man! (laughs)

CONCRETE: If you guys are recording all the time, and have that much material, there must be some throw-away tracks. Are there? What do y'all do with all the music?
K. Stanley: Don't misunderstand. That doesn't mean I'm rapping on every single beat. There is a selection process. Some tracks that we do happen to throw-away, we're like, 'Ah this is good, but it's not the right feel.' Bear in mind, at this point, we've only done one project. So some of the other stuff that we have previously recorded could probably go. That's why I'm almost done with this next project. Really we could stop right now and have about three projects released like 'Bam!' But we're trying to be strategic with it. We don't want to just throw it all out there completely. Some people get in the habit of droping stuff (all the time), and I get that. Your audience is totally different from what it was when I first started. It's just changed.

CONCRETE: Like their constant thirst for new material?
K. Stanley: Yeah. It's constant, constant. It's not that we lack the output to do that, but I think that's one thing that makes us kind of different. We're trying to build solid, whole projects with even mean singles. The lead singles for each one, first, second and third are going to be hot singles. But at the same time the project can stand completely by itself. The singles can stand by themselves. Strategically we've been doing this a good year and a half. So it's still fresh to us. We're still strategically inline. That's how we've been going about it up to this point.

CONCRETE: Any last word for our readers? Any shout outs?
K. Stanley: Shout-out to all the folk that are supporting Gummy Soul, Kurtis Stanley, Amerigo Gazaway and Wally Clark. Shout-out to you guys, CONCRETE. I've been messing with y'all for I don't know how long, even before CONCRETE. You guys are growing, we're growing, I'm growing personally, so thing are good. It's an exciting time for us. I appreciate y'all having us.

Gummy Soul: Walter Clark

So his real name is Josh, but he goes by Wally or Walter Clark. His counterparts in Gummy Soul use all three when speaking on the man who founded the collective. This producer/DJ/designer has crafted an aesthetic similar to classic 90s hip-hop when producers chopped samples from the most soulful of tunes. We asked Wally Clark to break down exactly what Gummy Soul is, how it started and where it is going. We also got some insight into his music making technique. Enjoy!

CONCRETE: What is Gummy Soul? How did it form?
Wally Clark: Gummy Soul started when I started making beats. I took the name Wally Clark from Wallabees (Clarks shoes) and kind of as a Ghost Face tribute. And I used to go by Wally and The Champs, that was my fake band, just as a producer. I came up with the name Gummy Soul as like my fake record label. It was all right when I first started. It was just confusing to people what Wally and The Champs was, because I would say I'm Walter Clark in Wally and The Champs. The with Gummy Soul everyone just responded to that name. It's just been whatever I needed it to be. When I had a soul show on WRVU it was called Gummy Soul. I made the website Gummy Soul. And I would try and introduce myself as Walter Clark, my original name, but I started saying Gummy Soul and everybody recognized that. Then when I got with Kurt (Stanley) he just immediately embraced the essence of what I was trying to do. We were thinking of a name for (our project), and he had kept shouting out "Gummy Soul" through the whole thing. So we were like, "Why don't we call the album Gummy Soul." So that became another thing called Gummy Soul. It's semi-confusing to people, but I like the fact that it's vague and not very hip-hopy. The name also reflects the production style that I do.

CONCRETE: How do you describe your production style? How do you approach making a beat?
Wally Clark: When I started making beats, just looking for records, I didn't have that much money. So I was looking for records that I liked to listen to also. And I love soul music. So I naturally gravitated to those samples. When I first started making beats, I thought I was going to make dark Wu-Tang beats. But it's just a style that has come out naturally. When I go in there I don't want to make dark, depressing shit. I want to make soulful, almost happy sounding beats. That's just what naturally always came. So when I pick things out, I usually take a song and I hear that it's got a good tone, and I chop the entire thing up into like a 100 different little chops. The I just start layering on top, and layering and layering.

CONCRETE: When you sample, are you sampling individual drum sounds and creating new patterns as well as other sounds like trumpets or flutes, all from the same track?
Wally Clark: I take the drums from, I have a stock of drum sounds. So I'll just build a kit after. I start to fuck with the sample, like I get a basic drum just kick and snare going for count. Instead of listening to a metronome is annoying. So I just do that. Then I lay something in, usually the sample has drums in it also. So I listen to that and get the groove there. Then I just add drums around it to compliment what is already in the sample.

CONCRETE: What projects have you released under Gummy Soul?
Wally Clark: I did the Kurtis Stanley and I joint project Gummy Soul. I basically just waited until I thought I was good enough to pursue it. I made beats for five years without even really telling anybody. I was hoping someone like (Kurt) would come along that I really clicked with. We did that. As a place holder while we worked on the next one we did The Stuyvesants Meet Gummy Soul. It's actually beats provided by a Brooklyn based duo called The Stuyvesants that I just happened to have the beat tape and Kurt liked it. I didn't do the production on that. We tried to make that clear in the lyrics, but people still think that I made it. He responded to it because it still has the same feel as I do. That was intended to be more like a mixtape thing. Aside from that we're working on new stuff. I'm producing when Amerigo rhymes. I produce for him. So he's an instrumentalist that makes stuff, but when he rhymes I produce for him.

CONCRETE: DId you produce the flood record (The Great Flood)?
Wally Clark: Uh huh. Yeah. Everything that Amerigo has released so far I've produced.

CONCRETE: Are those the only 2 MCs you produce for?
Wally Clark: Well now we have a song with Tre on it, from Sam & Tre. I've gotten with D-Goodz a couple of times and he's writing something to record real soon. We are now in a position to start looking to work with more people. I haven't pursued it to this point, because Kurt gets the job done, and we work so well together.

CONCRETE: Any last words or shout-outs?
Wally Clark: I'm just happy that people are feeling it, and I hope that Gummy Soul the music helps people to discover Soul Music. That's a main love of ours. GummySoul.com

Yelawolf Full Interview

When we did this interview, it had just been announced that Radio Active was being pushed to Nov 21 for release, and Yelawolf was walking his video "Hard White" onto 106 and Park.

Our first interview with Yelawolf, he talked a lot about the childhood years he spent in Nashville (INTERVIEW HERE). So this time we wanted to talk about Radio Active and The Slumerican Movement. He was a bit tight lipped about Radio Active, preferring to let the music be a surprise for fans when it drops. But besides the music he really opened up and gave us well thought, honest answers. Here is the unedited interview.

CONCRETE: Radioactive was pushed to a November 21 drop date to do some "finishing touches'. The Source Magazine gave the project 4.5 mics, so what finishing touches need to be made to a 4.5 mic project?
Yelawolf: Nothing musically. The translation is a little off. There's some things around the ... it's kind of hard to say without blowing the surprise. We got some things we're working on that's between the release date that's for the fans. Just to create more awareness for the album. Just a couple of surprises. There's some shit that's going to go down between now and the release. Musically there were just a couple of mixes. There's nothing going to change with the music itself. There were just a couple of mixes I wanted to get in and tighten up. I'm just very picky man. But musically it's not going to change. The album that got reviewed is the same album that people are going to hear.

CONCRETE: You're on the Hard White Tour. Is this your first headlining tour?
Yelawolf: Yeah. Well I ran an East Coast tour. I did Minneapolis during that tour too when I did the Trunk Music Tour. I did New York. This is the first time I've ventured out West. I did Boulder and Denver, and I'm in Idaho tonight. So this is the first time I've been out here to these areas myself as the headliner. It's going great. The fans are coming out and getting rowdy. And I got DJ Craze out with me this time. I got my first two roadies out here with me. So it's dope.

CONCRETE: Who are your roadies. The ATL twins?
Yelawolf: Nah. The Twins?! Yeah right! (laughs) Brooklyn is my road manager or tour manager. My man Bobby Straight Edge is the stage manager. So them two together, they're making it happen. I got a more produced show this time. There's a little more attention as far as the stage. It's more official this go around.

CONCRETE: You seem real laid back when you're not performing. On stage and in the booth you have a lot of energy. Do you have any rituals or anything you do to get ready?
Yelawolf: People have asked me, 'Man what's wrong with you.' And I'm like, 'Nothing. Just chillin.' I'm not performing right now. I'm just chillin.' I guess because the way I see a performance, It's a performance! Some artists would rather take the energy that they have day to day on stage. I like to transform and become a part of the record and really just rock out with the fans and to make a connection. That just comes from being inspired by it. Performers like Axel Rose, or Redman or Mystical, Triple-6-Mafia shows, Jim Morrison. I watch a lot of festival footage like Rage Against the Machine, Primus. I just try and capture that energy and make sure the shows is fun to be at and something they'll never forget.

CONCRETE: We saw a track list for Radio Active. Who are some of the producers you worked with on the project?
Yelawolf: Well anything that was leaked out to the public as far as the track list, we still have to leave something for surprise. The cover art dropped this morning. We're giving people enough. This is a project that I've waited years and years to put out. I've told people enough about features and production features.

CONCRETE: Did you work with Diplo?
Yelawolf: Yeah.

CONCRETE: We've heard he also stayed in Tennessee for a while. Did that come up in any conversations with him?
Yelawolf: Diplo's the homie. Outside of making music, he's just a cool-ass dude. When we see each other we kick it. I met him first at Coachella Festival. We just hung out and started chopping it up. We finally got the opportunity to work on a project. He sent me music and I was just blown away. I wrote the record and that was that. I ended up getting FeFe Dodson on the hook. It's crazy. The rocerd turned out phenomenol. As far as talking. I know he spent some time in the South. He told me about that. You can sense it in his music though. There's a lot of bounce in his music.

CONCRETE: It's out there that Eminem is on the project also. What's it like working with him as an artist also knowing he's the head of Shady Records that you're signed to? How do you draw that line? Is that weird?
Yelawolf: Nah. Nah. It never really crosses my mid that he runs Shady Records when we're making music. That doesn't really matter. That's not even a thought really. After we start putting up the album and crunching down the records, adding on or taking away. It's all a creative process. There's no business. When they start crunching numbers and shit like that, that's where you call in management. That's a whole different discussion. As far as making muisc, we're just making music. You get in there and have fun and make records, that's what we do. That's the best part about the whole journey is when you're in the studio making classics. When you record a record and you know it's something special it's the best feeling in the world. There is no line to be drawn to answer the question. When you're making records, business doesn't exist. We don't even talk about that shit when we're making records.

CONCRETE: You've dropped the first single from Radio Active, "Hard White." How did you decide that would be the first single?
Yelawolf: Well "Hard White" we felt was just a good buzz record. As far as first big single, we knew that it was a dope record and it could grow its own legs. But we also knew that it was a little too hardcore for certain markets or whatever. But it started growing it's own wings. The record started moving by itself. Sometimes you just never know what a record is going to do. We personally didn't expect too much out of "Hard White." We just knew that it was a good record. It wasn't our 'best foot forward' but it was good burner for the streets. It wasn't too far left of Trunk Music. It wasn't alienating the fans we had created with Trunk Music. It made sense. It was a good burner for the streets. We shot a video. The video turned out great. It's getting picked up. (It's on) MTV. It's getting picked up by 106 and Park today. I'm walking it on today (10/7). So yeah, it kind of grew its own legs. We have records we feel like our going to make leaps and bounds for me and for the album. And also for people's perspective of what I'm capable of doing and where I'm about to go.

CONCRETE: In the song "Hard White" there's a lyric "Rest in peace Wayne Bush", and we recently saw you send him a birthday wish on Twitter. Who is Wayne Bush?
Yelawolf: Wayne Bush was one of my best friends. I tweeted that on his birthday (Sept 26). He died in a motorcycle accident a few years back. Basically he was a young dude off the streets. He was a single parent of two daughters that would wake up every morning and take them school and pick them up out of school. He sold weed for a living and was really, really good at it. He made a lot of money. But he was one of the best people in the world. He would come and help me to survive really when I was at the bottom. He put money into a studio. He would carry me to shows. He just supported me fully. He put a studio in my house on a street called South 11th Street. He would have all his boys come over and help me make money by charging them for studio time. He was just one of the best dudes. He was so involved with me musically that I know if he was alive today he would be on the bus right now. That's who Wayne Bush is.

CONCRETE: Can you break down what the Slumerican movement is all about and who is affiliated?
Yelawolf: Slumerican is a cultural brand. It's a family of like-minded people. Me, myself I'm the President, Mr. President. Lower Managment, Jon Newport. The original Tyler the Creator, Tyler is the creative director. He did the album art for RadioActive. He's doing the artwork for Slumerican. Basically, things we've always wanted to see shirts. People that we want to associate ourselves with based on their genius. It could be a skateboarder. It could be a photographer. It could be a rapper. It could be a singer, guitar player. It could be a professional beer drinker. Just rad people that came from the bottom and are proud of the American culture. Because, it's obviously a play on words, but it's patriotic. It just represents the underbelly of it all. The people that make our world go round, the 9-to-5ers. So we just started associating the name with people we were backing. Rittz from Gwinett County (Georgia), obviously Newport as a skateboarder, Tyler is also our photographer, an ill-ass photographer. So I actually rocked the first shirt that we put up, on the front it says 'The Losers Win Again' and I'm wearing it on 106 today. That's the first shirt that we've made. Some more gear coming out of the brand. It's slum patriotic.

CONCRETE: How did you link up with Struggle?
Yelawolf: I met Struggle through Alex King. He's another rapper from Nashville, rapper, entrepreneur, this fool does everything. Alex Hustle is his nickname. I met Struggle through him and we just clicked. It was just one of those things. We just clicked straight up. Even before I knew that he was rapping. 'Oh shit, you do music?' Then come to find out he's Waylon Jennings grandson. Which I was like, 'What the fuck?! Seriously?' I couldn't believe that. he was like, "Yeah man I'm Waylon's grandson." His story is just phenomenal. He came out of the streets. He became a huge dope-boy out of Nashville. He has 32 prior convictions. He's been shot at and shot. His street story is amazing while maintaining a relationship with his grandfather who has now passed. So now they have collabs. Shooter, Waylon's son, he had unreleased masters to Waylon Jennings originals for struggle to do a collabo. So it's a Struggle and Waylon callabo album they're working on right now. It's crazy man. It's something that hip-hop has never heard and country music have never heard a project like this before. This intense and this real. It's pretty dope.

CONCRETE: So we see one of your listed occupations as "professional drinker." Are you sponsored by Jack Daniels?
Yelaowlf: Actually I am. They brought cases of it to the "Hard White" video shoot. They brought me the big Jack Daniels statue. They invited me to the distillery and tour the company and go an the tastings and shit. I'm not sure if they're ready to fully commercialize it, but they're backing me. I'm psyched about that.

CONCRETE: You still doing tre-flips at the DGK Playground?
Yelawolf: I did a tre-flip over a gap or off a ramp or something.

CONCRETE: Who's your favorite skater of all time?
Yelawolf: Of all time?

CONCRETE: OK top 3?
Yelawolf: Dude there's just so many with so many different reasons. I guess one of the first, most influencial people street skateboarding, well there's two Matt Hensley and Tom Penny as far as street skateboarding. Ramp skateboarders Danny Way is probably my all time favorite vert ramp skater. Who else, Rune Glifberg was another ill-ass vert ramp skater. But Danny Way has just pushed it. He's just the gnarliest ever. One of my favorite current skateboarders is Paul Rodriguez and Torey Pudwell. His Big Bang part was insane. Grant Taylor is also like new breezes, game changer. The way he can skate tranny and street, that's just the evolution of skateboarding. Andrew Reynolds, (Mike) Carroll the whole Plan B squad. Marc Johnson, there's just a lot when you start thinking about it. Shit man Kareem Campbell.

CONCRETE: Have you ever hooked up with Jamie Thomas? He's from Alabama.
Yelawolf: Yeah. I've skated with Jamie. Damn, can't forget Jamie either man. Just to add to the question, you know skateboarding has always been style oriented to me. Like a person's style could always over-ride their trick ability. I could just watch a person's steez. One person could switch 180 up a curb and it just looks so much more steezy than one other dude's tre-flip. It's just fun to watch certain skateboarders skateboard so it's really hard to pick my favorite. Technically I think I've mentioned enough. There's still a lot of underground homies that are ripping it that I love to watch skateboard like Josh Dowd and Newport, the whole Last of the Mohiquan Squad (VIDEO HERE) the Miami Squad.

CONCRETE: What do you think about Lil Wayne putting out all these videos from different skate parks?
Yelawolf: I think that what it does, looking at the brighter side of that situation, is that some Lil Wayne fan is going to pick up a skateboard and it might be the next best skateboarder the world has ever seen. Some 7 year old kid who's the hugest Lil Wayne fan is like, "Fuck that I'm going to skateboard." And they might have some natural ability. I was pretty lucky. My roots are pretty ill. The first skateboard the reasons that I started skateboarding when I was 6 years old I was all about the Bones Brigade. I had Steve Cabellero Half-Cabs, (by Vans) all the most legit shit, just because I was surrounded by the right people I guess. For people that never had an interest to skateboard, if Lil Wayne fans see him skateboarding they might be inspired to go skate. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just a culture that you've got to respect. Who knows, he might stick with it and get better. He might quit, who knows. I think it takes a while. Unless you can throw down a board and cruise, mob down the street with the homies, ollie around up on curbs and off curbs without looking like you're clumsy, you can't really call yourself a skateboarder. You got to be able to mob comfortably. You've got to look really comfortable on a skateboard.

CONCRETE: So did you go to the Antioch skatepark when you lived in Nashville?
Yelawolf: Damn. High Rollers. Damn man, I got bodied there. I tried to drop in on that vert ramp, straight to flat. That was all about spine ramps and Chucka Boots, the original snap backs with the flat bills. Dude skateboarders pioneered so much of style that it's just crazy to me.

RITTZ - FULL INTERVIEW

As part of our Slumerican Cover Story (Issue #43) we interviewed Rittz, the red-haired, double-time rapper from Gwinnett County (North Atlanta). We first met Rittz in Feb 2011 (CHECK THE CONCRETEtv INTERVIEW), but since then he has dropped his White Jesus Mixtape, hit the road with Yelawolf and now has his own budding, national audience. There was a lot of new ground to cover and he was down to let us in on his career development.

CONCRETE: Your song "770" was your first regional hit in the Atlanta area. Can you tell us about Gwinnett County, where you're from, and about that record?
Rittz: It was 2007 when I did that. Gwinnett County is like a suburb, like a Metropolitan area of Atlanta. When I was growing up rapping, it was just the suburbs of Atlanta. Now it's gotten to be so many people here, there's a movement from here. It's really the North Side of Atlanta. You know you got the East Side, the West Side, the South Side and this is the North Side. There's actually a lot of rappers reppin' from the North Side, but nobody really got it to that point yet. At that time, that's what that was. I was just trying to represent where I was from and put it on the map a little bit.The thing about Gwinnett is you get to live both sides of life. It looks like it's a nice area to live. If you're not from here you'd think it's a great place. It's just a lot of shit goes down here, cause it's a lot of people. It's a huge population, and it's a big drug area. That's pretty much where that comes from, just writing about my experiences growing up here. And just letting (North Side) have a voice in Atlanta. Everybody that comes to Atlanta that says they live here, a lot of them live here in Gwinnett.

CONCRETE: Your mixtape "White Jesus" has a lot of tracks produced by DJ Burn One. How did you link up with him, and how did the mixtape project come about?
Rittz: I met Burn-One at a Yelawolf show when he first put out Trunk Music. He was DJing for Yelawolf. He said he was a fan. I didn't know Burn One did beats. I had heard some mixtapes from Burn One but I didn't know he was a producer. Then my manager told me he produced. One night at Tree Sound (Studios) he was there and played me some tracks. The tracks he played me was the shit I love. The tracks I still like, not a lot of producer make these days, a real soulful sound to it. So it was like perfect match. I used to make beats, and I tried to make beats like that. So to find a producer that actually had the style of shit that I like was kind of strange. It was like meant to be type shit. Working with him was cool. A lot of it was done through e-mail, sending me tracks. I like that. I've had a home studio for all of my life, so I kind of work weird. I like being on my own time and doing shit on my own. I don't really get with a producer and writing a song with them and all that shit. I kind of do it on my own. I record it and send it to them and go from there and make the track what it is. It was cool. Their style, it's a team of them. It's Burn One and four other dudes. They call themselves 5 Points (Music Group) The Green Machine. It's their whole crew.

CONCRETE: On the mixtape's title track "White Jesus" at the end there's a sample from Joel Olestine (TV Evangalist). Are you a fan of his do you watch him on TV?
Rittz: Nah, not really. I'd be lying if I said I did watch him. I'm not "not a fan" of him. I was just searching. I wanted to put something meaningful on the end, like some type of sermon. I was on YouTube and was searching speeches about destiny and that popped up. The (music) video kind of portrayed it out to be kind of a joke thing, cause Yelawolf's on there interpreting him or imitating him. But actually the speech meant a lot to me as far as what I've gone through to get to this point. Just everything in a nut shell he said it in that. It was just the perfect thing to put on the end. It's funny that it happened to be one of the biggest dudes, if not the biggest dude on the country.

CONCRETE: We didn't see Yelawolf's portrayal (monk/priest) as a joke.
Rittz: You know what I mean. Not a joke. It was funny. It added an element with him joining on there that made it tight. But actually when I got (the sermon sample) I didn't even see it visually, I just liked what he was saying.

CONCRETE: You have a video out for "White Jesus". Are you planning to release more videos from that project?
Rittz: It's just a slow process as far as budgets and stuff like that, and really just not being at the point to do them yet. I really want to wait until it's going to be the most effective. There's a lot of people that haven't heard the project period. So we don't want to waste videos right now. We want to get a little bit more people into the project and then put some videos out. That's kind of the hold-up on "High 5." The plan is to shoot a video for "High 5" "Blowin' My Mind" "Nowhere to Run" and Sleepin'". Those are coming soon. I just did a viral video with 3 Little Digs here in at Tree Sound Studios for a song I've got called "Wishin'". That's going to come out. And I'm in a video with Jackie Chain, that's about to come out. That's a feature song with Jackie Chain and Jarren Benton from a SMKA Project. So I've got a couple feature videos but nothing that's just mine coming out yet. I think after this tour that's the next move is to start getting on these videos.

CONCRETE: We've heard in other interviews, you describe "Nowhere to Run" as sort of a snapshot of your life at that point. This wasn't that long ago. That song is about straddling the rap game and a 9-to-5 job. Have you been able to quit your job as a cook?
Rittz: I just quit that job. It was weird. I was touring with Rehab and my boss was letting me off work on the weekends, cause all the tour dates were on the weekends. Luckily I had gotten a new boss, because my other boss wasn't feeling me getting the time off. He was about to get rid of me.Which couldn't happen financially. But luckily I got a cool boss to try and solve the situation i was in. He was like, "Dude, this (music) is way more important." I had taken so much time off that I was always gone. So the last day wasn't as big as I thought it was going to be. It kind of just happened gradually. Next thing you know I was barely even there. Finally it was time to come and be like, 'Look this is hurting me more than it's helping me.' Cause I was always missing out on things cause I had to work. It literally just happened. I just quit my job in, I think it was August or the end of July. It just happened. It's been kind of crazy all the way up to this point just working and doing the music shit.

CONCRETE: What restaurant was that?
Rittz: I worked at Jim and Nick's Bar-be-cue (Suwanee, GA). I was a cook in the back. I worked the fry station, salad station. I worked in the back at the drive thru. I didn't work the window, but I put together orders. This restaurant where I'm at, it's a chain so there's some in the South, but the one I'm at is extremely busy. I had never taken a job serious ever since I dropped out of high school when I was young. I've never been serious about a job. I was always hustling on the side, or just doing whatever I can. I really just wanted to rap. But I got to that point where I had to pay bills and do that shit for the first time in my life. It's time to wake up. So I really put in a lot of hours there and was busting ass and kind of took it seriously. It sucked. Yeah, Jim and Nick's.

CONCRETE: For people who haven't heard you, how would you describe your style?
Rittz: My flow is obviously fast and double-time. I can do it the other way too, but it's pretty much what I do. Lyrical content is based on, I try to be lyrical on everyhting I write. I spend a long time crafting each verse. I like all my syllables to match. I don't go in and write verses really quick. It takes me a while. It takes me a few hours to write on verse. It's a lot of words. I just try retort back to when I was younger and partied and even now, and struggling. I just try and relate to everybody. Not just one group of people, something everyone can relate to. Definitely fast and lyrical.

CONCRETE: We've heard you talk about syllable matching in other interviews. Could you break down a bar for us, and show us what you mean by that?
Rittz: Man that's tough. I'm trying to think of a specific rap.

CONCRETE: How about the line from "Nowhere to Run" where you talk about the other cooks talking about you in Spanish?
Rittz: OK. Well actually that line specifically is a bad one to do, because the hardest lines for me to write and to match are things that are coming from the heart. That actually came from a real situation. But, how I break it down and how I would approach that is, 'Someone's talking about me in Spanish.' I can't just rhyme "Spanish". I've got to rhyme "Talking 'bout me in Spanish". So it doesn't rhyme perfectly, 'It's getting harder to manage, They're talking 'bout me in Spanish.' It's trying to rhyme each syllable, not just the last word. So if I come up with 'Man I hate my life, my job. Then I feel like my days dissolve.' Each syllable has got to go in, not just that word. My main thing is I'm just self conscience. What I'll do is if I want to say, 'talkin bout me in Spanish' and I say 'harder to manage', since 'harder to manage' and 'bout me in Spanish' don't match perfectly, I might spend 15 minutes thinking that line sucks, without just going with it. An average person would just roll with it like, "Man that shit's tight." But I might throw away my paper just cause that didn't match. It's kind of ridiculous honestly. Yelawolf gave me some advice like, "Dude you just got to keep going and just know you're dope." Part of that process is what makes me good anyway, but sometimes it gets a little bit ridiculous. Like if things don't match up perfectly, and that's one of them, 'bout me in Spanish' and 'harder to manage' don't rhyme perfectly, because 'bout me' and 'harder' doesn't rhyme. So I spend a lot of time. I will come up with a line and just try to fit in the pieces in between. I guess that kind of sums it up.

CONCRETE: Have you started working on music for your next project?
Rittz: Yeah. I'm starting to get beats together right now. I've got a few songs done. I don't really have a plan to put it out yet. I'm just getting stuff ready on the back burner. I'm really looking for beats, cause the next project I do, I know what kind of sound I want for it. Now it's just getting the right type of tracks that's going to make the project sound how I want it to sound. I'm getting beats together. I've been getting beats submitted to me, but I'm looking for certain things, so it's hard. I don't rap just on everything that I think is half-way tight. I want it to have a vibe, a consistently throughout the project. It's in the making though. It's getting started. I will say that. I got a few songs, so whenever it's time I'll be ready to go.

CONCRETE: Any last words or shout-outs?
Rittz: Shout-out to the whole Slumerican crew. Especially up there in Nashville. Struggle, Jelly Roll, Shawty Fatt, ATL Twins, everybody we was with out there, the whole crew. I'm just really happy to be with a group of people like that. Just to fit in and everything matches so perfectly. It's a real exciting group of people. It's looking positive, for once. So it's a good thing. Just shouting out the crew, shouting out the people at Tree Sound Studios. That's it man.

Rittz, Yelawolf and Slumerican hanging out at the CONCRETE Magazine photo shoot.

After the photo shoot, Rittz shows Yelawolf, Mamawolf and Papawolf his new Rittz T-Shirt merchandise.

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