East London singer-songwriter Tiana Major9 first broke through with the Grammy-nominated “Collide”, her 2019 collaboration with EARTHGANG for the Queen & Slim soundtrack. Since then, releases including At Sixes and Sevens and Fool Me Once have established her blend of R&B, soul, jazz and Caribbean influence. Earlier this year she released her long-awaited debut album, November Scorpio, an intimate record shaped by love, independence and self-understanding. She expands that world with the release of the album’s deluxe edition, out August 28.

What song reminds you most of your childhood?

The Imogen Heap cover of “Holding Out for a Hero”. She was in a group called Frou Frou, and they did a cover of “Holding Out for a Hero” for the Shrek 2 movie. I heard it yesterday on TikTok, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, remember this?” It just kind of gave me chills because I think Imogen Heap is such an incredible, out-of-this-world talent, and that song is such a classic. But she made it so unique and so fresh, and also very tense as well for a Shrek movie. It just stood out to me, and it reminded me of being a child because Shrek 2 was a great movie. Phenomenal.

What was the first record you remember buying?

My dad used to get the newspapers that would come with a free CD. He would read the newspaper and he’d give me the CDs, and it would be basically like mixtapes. One time he gave me one that was like 50 of the greatest songs, or something like that, and there was a song on there called “Young Hearts Run Free”.

I was probably like nine years old, and I had this little karaoke machine that I would play my mum’s CDs on and plug a mic into. I put that in there, and it really caught my ear. I had never heard anything like that song. I was just listening to the lyrics at like nine, ten, and I was like, wow, this is such a great song. That’s probably one of the first CDs that I remember getting and really enjoying and playing out.

My mum also used to have karaoke CDs with the instrumentals and the lyrics, and it’d be different artists. She’d have one for George Michael, solely George Michael songs. One that was Whitney songs. One that was Brandy songs. Celine Dion. We were big into karaoke.

What song is the best representation of your hometown?

I would say Giggs, “Talking the Hardest”. Although I’m from East London and not a South London resident, I completely identify with “Talking the Hardest” as our national anthem.

Any party you’re going to, you’re hearing “Talking the Hardest,” and everybody is singing. The energy hits the roof, and there has to be at least two, three wheel-ups.

What song reminds you of traveling to a specific place?

“Just a Friend 2002” by Mario.

Set the scene. It’s end of Year Six, it’s summertime. I have my final big assembly, and then there’s the disco in about a week. In this assembly, I asked to perform with my friends. I’ve always been that girl, just performing.

You and your friends are practicing a dance, a short performance, but you need music. So I asked my brother to make me a mixtape of songs, make transitions, and just put all of these songs in there. “Just a Friend” by Mario was one of the songs. It’s such a good upbeat song. It was also popular at the time. It kind of resurfaced at that time for me, and it just reminds me of being in Year Six, waiting to go to the disco.

I also had a Jamaica trip booked after the disco, and my brother put that mixtape onto a little MP3 player that you got from Argos. I listened to that all the way to Jamaica.

What song do you wish you had written?

Oh my God, so many. But I really love “Creepin’” by Stevie Wonder. I think he’s just a phenomenal lyricist, and also someone that is really good at capturing a feeling. “Creepin’” is such a beautiful love song, and the lyrics feel very simple. He’s just perfect.

What song would you want played at your wedding?

“You Are My High” by the Gap Band. Incredible song, incredible song. Makes me cry almost every time.

Maybe going down the aisle, or first dance, or when we’ve done the courthouse and just have a moment to ourselves in a car as we’re going towards the reception. We’re just listening to music and talking about what just happened. I think that would be beautiful.

What’s the best song to play at a house party?

“Energy” by Tiana Major9. At my house party, I’m playing that.

At my house party, there’s gonna be a lot of smoking in the house, and that’s gonna be one of the songs that is just very chill. We kind of, not wind down, but it kind of sets the tone for the vibe of the party. We’re just bobbing our heads and chatting and maybe doing some picky bits and drinks and stuff.

You’re abducted by aliens, and when you wake up on the spaceship, they pass you the aux. What is the song you’re playing to convince them not to destroy Earth?

I would probably play “Heaven”, my new song. I think it would hypnotise them. They’d be in a trance, and they’d be like, okay, you know what? See ya. I’d put them under a bit of a spell. I would love to do that to them.

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Chuck Strangers has spent more than a decade moving between the booth and the boards, first as part of the Pro Era braintrust, then through solo projects including Consumers Park, Too Afraid To Dance, and A Forsaken Lover’s Plea. His new album, Glory of The King’s Hand, arrives July 10 via Lex Records.

We spoke in the weeks leading up to that record’s release, as Chuck basked in the afterglow of the Knicks’ NBA Championship win. “God bless my man Kyle,” he said, talking about a friend who had recently passed. “We used to always watch the Knicks and be like, ‘Yo man, we deserve a championship. We’re New York!’ When we really started getting good, he was excited about it. They hadn’t won a championship since the year he was born. Now they won a championship, and I know he had something to do with that.”

What song reminds you most of your childhood?

“Around the World” by Daft Punk. I don’t have a specific memory of it, but it just seemed like I heard it everywhere. This was probably around 2000. At that point in time, I wasn’t even conscious of the song until one day I was with my mom in one of those 99 cent stores. I hear the song again, and I’m like, “What is this?” I felt like this song was following me. I was like, “What is this ‘Around the World’?”

That was also around the time of all these other weird songs like that. Remember “I’m Blue”? That shit was playing too. I thought that was by Daft Punk, too. I was like, “Oh, this must be their other joint.”

Then I got older and realised Daft Punk, Discovery and all that kind of shit. I rediscovered it through Pharrell, I think. He had flipped one of their joints on a mixtape. “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” but he did it before Kanye’s “Stronger.” From there, I started doing my research on Daft Punk and I was like, “Oh, it’s those guys!”

What’s the first record you remember buying?

Invincible by Michael Jackson. This was around the same time as I was hearing Daft Punk. My mom took us to Sam Goody, and said we could both get a CD. My brother was already down with hip-hop, so he got The Blueprint.

I wasn’t allowed to get a CD with curses because I was still in like fourth grade. I was looking around like, “Damn.” So I was like, “Oh, I like Jackson 5. Michael Jackson just brought out a new album. Let’s check it out.” And it was good. There are things on it that are ahead of their time. There’s a Biggie feature on that album. That was crazy. It was no Thriller, but it was a good album, man.

And of course I listened to my brother’s The Blueprint. Often. All the time. But I wasn’t supposed to be doing that.

What song reminds you of traveling to a specific place?

This was a memory from my early teens. I remember walking up Nostrand Ave and hearing “Ripe Leaf” by Sizzla. In a weird way, I got a lot of strength and pride from hearing that song. I’m not even Jamaican, but just hearing that, and feeling so much pride in my neighborhood while walking up the street.

What song is the best representation of your hometown?

“Juicy” by The Notorious B.I.G. It’s cliché, but it’s real. Brooklyn is such a great place. There’s a lot of soul, there’s a lot of love there, but you should also just be alert. I think that song shows both sides of that coin really well.

What song do you wish you had written?

“Ha” by Juvenile. The beat is cool, but I don’t love it for the beat - it’s what he’s doing on it. I saw him explain his approach on the song, and he said he was rapping like an old man - one of those old men on the corner. It gave me a whole new perspective on it.

I wish I came up with the line: “You know how to use a triple-beam? Shit ain’t hard as it seems.” Man. I love that line.

What song would you want played at your wedding?

“I Luv You” by Wee. I discovered that album at a pivotal time in my artistry, right around the time I was doing my first album. I used to listen to it over and over and over. There are mad samples on there that I flipped a bunch of times. I don’t think any of the stuff I sampled ever made it on to anything, but to me it just sounds like genuine, fun, real love.

That’s how I think a wedding should be, even though I plan to elope. I don’t even plan on having a wedding, but if I did have one, that would be how I’d want it to feel. I’m going to play that joint for sure at City Hall.

What’s the best song to play at a house party?

“Ain’t No Fun” by Snoop Doggy Dogg - and I have a specific memory of this one too! I used to stay with a bunch of dudes, and found ourselves trying to have a little house party, but it was dead. Then one shorty just took control of the music and threw that shit on. It got lit.

It’s a great song, but it’s outrageous. It’s not 2026-coded, at all. It represents old values. Not necessarily my values, you know what I mean? It’s from a different time. We respect women.

You’re abducted by aliens, and when you wake up on the spaceship, they pass you the aux. What is the song you’re playing to convince them not to destroy Earth?

“My Life” by Mary J. Blige is just universal to me. To live life is to know pain. If you’ve been alive for longer than 10 seconds, you’ve experienced in your own way the feelings that she’s talking about. Anybody can relate to it and see the beauty in it. And also the sadness. All of it.

I thought that was fitting because they might hear it and be like, “Oh shit, this is crazy. Let them live. Don’t blow up the Earth.” Even if they don’t understand the lyrics, they’re going to understand the emotion of it.

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Words by Marissa Duldulao

Randall “Sickamore” Medford is a Trinidadian-born, Brooklyn-raised music executive, A&R, and entrepreneur whose two-decade career has helped shape modern hip-hop through a hands-on approach to artist development. Starting as a teenage mixtape DJ in Brooklyn, he learned the foundations of the music business early, immersing himself in both street-level hip-hop culture and the inner workings of the industry. By 19, he was already navigating A&R work, and at just 21 landed his first major-label role at Atlantic Records. Over the years, he has played a key role in developing artists such as Travis Scott, YG, and Don Toliver through leadership positions at Atlantic, Def Jam, Epic, and Interscope. Now, as founder and CEO of three times LOUDER, he is building a New York-rooted creative institution centered on mentorship, long-term artist development, and empowering the next generation of creatives.

What song reminds you most of your childhood?

“Black Roses” by Barrington Levy - he’s my favorite R&B singer. I grew up in a very Caribbean neighborhood in Flatbush. I’m Trinidadian. My childhood there was interesting because my landlord used to throw parties in the basement, and I lived on the first floor, so there was always a bashment growing up. Just for a little context, his dad owned the building and his son was a DJ. But later he lost the building, he was out of control. But if you watch the “Get Busy" video by Sean Paul, there’s a kid running around, that was me in there.

What’s the first record you remember buying?

I have a crazy story about this. So, I don’t know about with my own money, but my stepmother and I were in Toronto on a family trip, and I asked her to buy me — this is going to sound crazy — Puff Daddy & The Family’s album No Way Out. He was like the hottest thing when I was 12. We bought the tape and played it in the car with my whole family. And the first song was “Victory.” It was one of the best beats ever. And the chorus was, “Where my n****s is at? Where my n****s is at? Where the fuck my bitches at? Where the fuck my bitches at?” And she just turned the whole thing off and threw the tape out. I was 12. But it ended up becoming one of my favorite albums.

What song reminds you of traveling to a specific place?

“NO BYSTANDERS” by Travis Scott. It reminds me of Honolulu because we finished the album there. We built out a house we rented and invited all these different collaborators, from Mike Dean to WondaGurl and Don Toliver. They were all working at the same time. It was a long flight. When you flew from Atlanta, New York, or Houston, you’d be in the air for like 10 hours. That’s why he said the line, “Spent ten hours on this flight, man.”

What song is the best representation of your hometown?

Machel Montano. There’s a song called “Fast Wine.” He’s probably one of the biggest artists in the history of Trinidad and Tobago. He’s authentically Soca and Calypso. It’s like a carnival anthem. He’s our best export of Trinidadian culture.

What song do you wish you had written?

“MOOO!” by Doja Cat. I have a two-year-old that likes that song. I always thought it was genius. She was making something so simple into a hit. It’s a great song because she’s being so simple and sassy. Then it’s a play on her being biracial. Very, very clever. It just shows how clever and great of a songwriter she is. I have a whole playlist for my son, and that song is one of the only non-Elmo songs on it.

What song would you want played at your wedding?

Soca Boys. The name of the song is “One Cent, Five Cent, Ten Cent, Dollar.” It’s a real Caribbean song. They do a dance to it. It’s a vibe check.

What’s the best song to play at a house party?

At a house party that I wanna be at? “Faneto” by Chief Keef. It’s also like a vibe check.

You’re abducted by aliens, and when you wake up on the spaceship, they pass you the aux. What is the song you’re playing to convince them not to destroy Earth?

I’ll go with Michael Jackson, to tell you the truth. If you only got one shot to stop the aliens from destroying Earth, I’m playing “Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough.” And if they destroy the Earth, then fuck it. There was someone that said if aliens came down to Earth and Michael Jackson was doing a concert, they would think, “That’s the leader right there.”

Tony Bontana’s work as rapper, producer and label head pulls from hip-hop, grime, hardcore, indie and house in equal measure. Those broad tastes started early. He remembers his parents’ soul, funk and reggae records soundtracking his childhood home, while hours spent flicking through Sky’s music channels meant absorbing everything from grime on Channel U to the metal rotation on Kerrang. Video games played their part too; Guitar Hero opened the door to bands he’d never have found otherwise, while Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater nudged him toward hardcore and punk. “That was the starting point,” Bontana says. “After that, it was just going down rabbit holes.” In this Record & Tape Exchange, Tony traces that path through the songs that have stuck with him.

Tony’s album, My Name, is out now. He will be performing in London, Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow next week.

What song reminds you most of your childhood?

“Georgy Porgy” by Toto remind me of Sundays at my parents’ house. I’m from a Caribbean family, so on Sundays the speakers were absolutely blaring while they were cooking and cleaning. That one instantly sprung to mind. My dad somehow linked it to me - they’d rib me and decide the song was about me — “kiss the girls and make them cry.” That one definitely brings back those memories: good food, cooking, everyone up and active, sunshine. Just that good Sunday vibe.

What’s the first record you remember buying?

It’s the “Jungle Hurt” 12” single by Mathématiques Modernes. There’s a cool story behind this one - there’s a record store in Birmingham called The Diskery. My dad told me he spent his first paycheck there, buying records from a guy called Liam who still works there now.

Liam knew my dad, so he knew who I was. Whenever I came into the shop, he’d play things he thought I’d like. A lot of record shops try to do that now, but they never really get it right. Liam always did. He’d put something on the system and just wait. Within a few minutes, I’d be like, “yo, what’s this?”

That “Jungle Hurt” record was one of those. I’d never heard of the group before. I feel like I might have heard the song on a soundtrack or something like that, but that was the first time I really clocked it. That ended up being the first record I bought.

What song reminds you of traveling to a specific place?

“Only a Shadow” by Cleaners from Venus will always remind me of driving to the hospital on the day my mum died. I got the bad news early in the morning, and I was in shock. I was with my partner Catherine and when we got in the car, we just needed something on to break the tension in the air. That song came on. It was weird, because the song became so linked to that moment. The chorus goes “only a shadow, but she looks like you.” It was a dark morning as well. That memory is burned in my head.

I love this band. I think Martin Newell from Cleaners from Venus is one of the best songwriters we’ve had in the UK. It’s nice to see him getting his flowers now that they’ve been re-releasing a lot of the older stuff. That album, Midnight Cleaners, is probably my favourite of theirs.

What song is the best representation of your hometown?

It has to be The Streets - “Has It Come to This?” It perfectly sums up a Birmingham summer. When the sun’s out, windows down in the car, probably smelling of weed in the ends. The lyrical content is very Brum as well. People can relate it to wherever they’re from, but knowing Mike’s from Birmingham and hearing those lyrics, it definitely reminds me of home.

What song do you wish you had written?

“IDS Headhunters” by Terror Ave. They only ever released a mini album with maybe seven songs. IDS stands for Innocent Dreams Shattered — this New York crew tied to the hardcore scene. Even though the track doesn’t have lyrics, in terms of instrumentation and heavy music, it’s perfect to me. It’s groovy, it’s heavy. That whole Crownholders project is amazing. Not many bands get that balance where it grooves enough that you could dance to it but it’s still crushingly heavy. That song is chef’s kiss. I wish that one was under my belt.

What song would you want played at your wedding?

“You Send Me” by Sam Cooke. I’m not really sure how I came across that one. It might have been a movie soundtrack when I was younger. I just remember hearing it and thinking, “yo, I really like this song.” The lyrics, the voice — it’s just beautiful. That would be a pretty perfect wedding song.

What song would you want played at your funeral?

“Atmosphere” by Joy Division. That’s the one on Closer where it goes “walk in silence.” I decided a long time ago that when I go, that one’s getting played while the casket’s being carried. Not a dry eye in the house.

What’s the best song to play at a party?

“Get Low” by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz. I could have tried to pick something more left-field, but realistically if that comes on, everyone knows the words. Everyone knows what time it is. Everyone’s screaming the lyrics.

You’re abducted by aliens, and when you wake up on the spaceship, they pass you the aux. What is the song you’re playing to convince them not to destroy Earth?

“When the Sun Hits” by Slowdive - I can’t imagine an extraterrestrial hearing that and not thinking “these people are alright.” They might even shed a tear depending on their biological setup. That song is just one of the most beautiful soundscapes ever made. If we’re trying to save the world, that’s the one I’m playing.

Words by Sam Butler
Photographs by Liam Macrae
Fashion by Brezhané Townsend
Location c/o Found Objects

Larry June is sat in the shade, with a smoothie in one hand and his phone in the other. We are meeting in the communal garden of his luxury Los Angeles apartment building, and as he stands to greet me I spot a handful of fellow residents being guided through a morning yoga flow on an immaculately manicured lawn behind him. There’s a nice cool breeze, it smells of fresh cut grass, and I want to live here. This all feels very Larry. Short of there also being a Porsche 911 Carrera parked in the background, it’s about as on-brand of an introduction to the man as you could imagine.

The San Francisco native has spent the past decade developing an innate ability to articulate the simple pleasure of the finer things in life, coupled with consistent reminders of the hard work required to enjoy such luxuries. Projects have been dropped at a prodigious rate (including six releases during the global standstill of 2020), providing an increasing army of fans with the motivation and inspiration to, in the words of his collaborative album with Harry Fraud, Keep Going.

“We just kept it going,” Larry affirms with a smile, as I ask him how he remained so efficient through a year that brought most of this industry to a relative halt. “I had to literally block everything out, create this happy place in my mind and make some music we can ride to

At a time when one of the only experiences not affected by Covid was the long solo drive, Larry provided the perfect soundtrack. “I was actually a little nervous to drop Cruise USA,” he remembers. “I’m like, ‘man, I’m sounding too happy on this motherfucker, in the middle of a pandemic.’ I was stressing.” As it turns out, he had no need to worry—his unique brand of opulent escapism and pragmatic financial literacy was just what the world needed.

Although “Uncle Larry,” as his legion of devotees call him, is synonymous with the Bay Area, he spent a significant portion of his childhood in Atlanta. “I never asked my Mom this, but I’m pretty sure it was because there was a lot of violence,” he explains when I ask about the reason for the move. “That’s why I thank her, because if I would’ve stayed, I probably would’ve gotten into some shit in those years of my life.” He beams with pride when talking about his mother, telling me that after having Larry at 15 years old, she moved herself and her son from California in her late teens. “She was such a strong person for taking me to a whole different state, starting again, figuring it out and making it happen at that young age.” Charmingly, our conversation takes a slight sidetrack as he tells me about her career as a real estate agent in Atlanta. “She’s super successful right now. We came up together. I watched her come from one situation to another and now it’s all beautiful things; seeing her remarry, being happy, buying property and shit. That was dope. I love my mom.”

During his decade in the South, from ages five to fourteen, he would return to stay with his father in San Francisco every summer, and acknowledges that being exposed to two distinct cultures, sounds, and cities not only aided his personal development as an adolescent, but also sharpened the future tools of his trade.

This story was originally published in BRICK Edition 11, released in 2024.

Edition 11 also features Benny the Butcher, Amaarae, BKTheRula, Lord Apex, Mick Jenkins, Paris, Texas and many more.

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“I was heavily inspired by Southern music, that’s all I really heard,” he remembers, namechecking T.I., Ludacris, Outkast and Jeezy (whose hustler-self-help message has led to comparisons with Larry’s own you-can-do-it motivational style). “But I would go back to the Bay Area every summer to see my dad, and it’s a culture shock. Completely different styles—artists like RBL Posse, where I was like ‘Ooh shit, this is hard.’ So over time, my style formed this crazy combination where I can rap in every pattern from ATL, because I grew up freestyling on those beats.” It’s a story that goes some way to explaining his virtuosic versatility—whether rapping over Cardo’s warped, melodic 808s, or a flipped soul sample courtesy of The Alchemist, Larry always sounds like a natural.

“I also feel like it elevated my wordplay a little bit, my understanding of how to swag it,” he continues. “In the Bay Area, we don’t sugarcoat nothing. It’s like ‘Bitch, pay me or shut the fuck up and keep it moving.’ Maybe it’s because of the weather. Over there [in Atlanta], there was more of a finesse to it. Don’t get me wrong, we got people like E-40 and Messy Marv, a lot of people who got crazy wordplay. But the majority, we kind of were straight to the point.” A good example of the effectiveness of marrying these two disparate styles can be found on The Great Escape’s “Porsches in Spanish,” where Larry delivers the most evocatively luxurious three-word sentence I’ve ever heard: “Bentayga seats recline,” before tagging it with a shrugging “it’s just normal for me.”

The globetrotting braggadocio conveyed in Larry’s lyrics continued through 2023, a year that saw him venture worldwide with shows across Europe, Japan and Australia, while also releasing two of the most accomplished projects of his career; The Great Escape with The Alchemist, and The Night Shift with longtime collaborator Cardo Got Wings. “It was a great year, man. We put a lot of work in,” he reflects with pride. “We did a world tour pretty much, and it just showed me that it’s possible and the plan is working. That was a good feeling.” It’s no surprise to hear him talk of “the plan;” a resolute business acumen showing through both his musical output and numerous other enterprises, including his Midnight Organic clothing brand and several brick-and-mortar businesses in the Bay. “You can accomplish anything with a solid plan,” he raps in the hook of another of The Great Escape’s standout tracks, “Solid Plan.” While a meticulous approach to mapping out his moves and a formidable work ethic have seen successes multiply in recent years, he admits that it’s been “a real grind” over the past year. “I missed Thanksgiving, I missed a lot of time, but we touched a lot of people and shit, that’s what we do it for. It was a beautiful thing.”

Continuing that journey to connect with his growing legion of fans, it’s currently the Friday before Rolling Loud, and Larry is heading directly to rehearsals as soon as our conversation ends. With the experience of performing all across the globe in 2023, how is he feeling about the development of his live performances? “I’m excited, man. I feel like we’re way more organised and the whole team understands what we’re going up against now. And I’ve been practicing a lot, going to rehearsal and I feel I’m a little more comfortable than usual, instead of just thinking ‘oh, what am I going to wear?’ I’m just relaxing, and focussing on getting the job done.”

“If I wasn’t doing all this traveling, I would’ve probably dropped five tapes again last year,” he reflects. “When I’m at home, my whole schedule is get up, work out, make some food for my kid and then I record a little bit. Now, I have to take time off to have that schedule, so my work pattern is a little different.” As someone so dedicated to his craft, and even more so to the discipline of consistency, a year spent out of that routine required a renovation of his process; “What I do now is I just make sure everything is very peaceful and I incorporate work into my day even if it’s a little bit of time here and there. Inspiration comes from everywhere, so if I’m touring or whatever, I make sure I’m getting the best hotel room, so that I can get that 30 minutes of inspiration—let me just set this mic up and get it out of my brain. It’s good for my mental to record, to get away from everything with my headphones on and create some shit. It’s like a hobby for me. I love doing it.”

With new music on the way this Summer, Larry tells me that lately he’s been finding that inspiration in foreign language songs, allowing him to tune the lyrical content out and focus solely on the beats and rhythms of the track. “I’ve got a crazy playlist that Swizz Beats sent me, and a lot of it is just pure instrumentals from Brazilian artists. I don’t even know what a lot of it is, but it’s just peaceful and I’ll take a drive listening to it. Really, all I listen to is that, and my old music—even from 2015, ’17, ’18. I’m more studying myself right now, because that’s how you become better. If I want to be great, to be a master, I need to study that.” In his pursuit of greatness, of course Uncle Larry has a plan. And while those hours of study are sure to pay, there’s no substitute for the lightning strike moment of pure organic inspiration—and when those moments occur, there’s a plan for that too: “I take two hour drives sometimes, take walks, take my son to do things, clean my house—just regular shit. That’s when the idea just comes. You’re just busting moves and waiting for that inspiration to hit, then it’s like, ‘OK, I’m feeling that vibe, I got it.’ And then, boom—I’m straight to the lab. I’m basically just always brewing that idea, and I try to execute it as soon as it comes.”

Chris Nieratko has spent the better part of three decades in skateboarding - documenting it on the pages of Thrasher and Big Brother, but also actively shaping and connecting the culture around it through his work as an organiser. As an East Coast journalist coming up in the ‘90s, he also crossed paths with the biggest names in hip-hop on their way up. Our conversation, and his song selections, feature hip-hop tapes, backyard ramps, grief, gratitude, and a healthy dose of Jersey pride.

Chris is also one of the co-founders of Skate Shop Day - modelled loosely on the spirit of Record Store Day, it has grown into an annual reminder that independent skate shops are social hubs, not just storefronts — places where scenes are built, talent is nurtured and knowledge is traded hand-to-hand. The continued existence of those spaces rely on people showing up, and showing their support. If that sounds like something you believe in too, this year’s Skate Shop Day is Saturday, 21st February.

What song reminds you most of your childhood?

I grew up pretty much raised by my Portuguese grandmother, so most of my days were at her house and we’d dance to fado (Portuguese folk music) - songs like “Ó Tempo Volta Para Trás,” by Tony de Matos. But thinking more along the lines of what really defined me, it was the cassettes playing on the radio by my buddy Dave’s backyard ramp. That’s what made me fall in love with hip-hop. Public Enemy, a lot of that. Hands down though, it would be Eazy-E “Boyz-n-the-Hood.” I learned to drive on a ’72 El Camino when I was twelve, and hearing him rap about rolling an El Camino felt like it was speaking directly to me. When I moved to California I bought a ’72 El Camino, same car I learned on, and now I’ve got a silver ’71 in my driveway.

What’s the first record you remember buying?

I never really purchased too many records growing up. I had an older brother with metal records, but home life was gnarly and violent, and as soon as I found skateboarding I was out the door. It was escapism. You can’t really skate holding a record player, so it was more cassettes and then CDs. The first thing I remember buying was Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy by The Who. I picked it purely off the title because it made me laugh.

When I went off to college I became roommates with an insane battle DJ named Musa Bailey. He was winning everything in New York. He exposed me to so much music around ’93, ’94, when everything was popping off. The Roots, Nas, Mobb Deep, Wu-Tang. When I think of records, I think of Musa and that magical period. That time also sparked me to start doing interviews, and I ended up interviewing just about everybody in New York hip-hop in the ’90s.

What song reminds you of traveling to a specific place?

In the ’90s the skateboard industry was pretty much centralised in California. I started writing for Thrasher in ’96 and then doing work for Big Brother magazine, and I began travelling to Los Angeles a lot. The song that always comes to mind is The Notorious B.I.G. “Going Back to Cali.” Every time I boarded the plane, I’d sing the hook to myself. That’s the one.

What song is the best representation of your hometown?

This one’s tough. I wish it was Bruce Springsteen “My Hometown,” being from New Jersey and Bruce being the GOAT, but I’m from a tiny town called Sayreville, which has a beautiful view of a landfill and a human-waste refinery that’s exploded into our river a couple times. We call it Slayerville.

My skate shop, NJ Skate Shop, we remake Slayer-style shirts every once in a while that say Slayerville and alter the album titles because of the landfill and the plant. But the reality is we’re the cock-rock capital of the world because both Skid Row and Bon Jovi are from our hometown. So I’d probably go with Skid Row “18 and Life.” For our shop’s 18th anniversary, Anti-Hero did a custom board for us that repurposed a Skid Row band photo and said “18 in Life.” That was really special.

What song do you wish you had written?

I wanted to learn piano as a kid, but Sayreville was a predominantly Polish town and there was only one music teacher. My mom went to him and he convinced her the only way to learn piano was to first learn accordion. I took accordion lessons for six months, never touched a piano, got handed a full-size accordion at eight years old, the bellows pinching my legs, and quit the next day. I detest the accordion now, which is ironic because one of my favourite skaters, Matt Hensley, plays accordion for Flogging Molly.

One of my favourite songs of all time is Flogging Molly “If I Ever Leave This World Alive.” It makes me cry every time. In March 2003 a dear friend of mine, Chris Marshall, passed away just months before we opened NJ Skate Shop and the skate park in my hometown. He never got to see any of it. The day we buried him, Flogging Molly were playing in New Jersey. I went to their tour bus with a case of Guinness, barely holding it together, and asked if they would play that song for him. They opened the show with it. I cried my eyes out the entire time and left right after. I’m eternally grateful to Dave King, Matt Hensley and the whole band for doing that.

What song would you want played at your funeral?

I’ve always had major mortality issues, and I’ve thought about this for decades. There are numerous songs, but the one for me has always been The Kinks “Sitting in My Hotel Room.” I have notes left behind for anyone who finds me dead, my affairs are in order, and there’s a hard drive with a few self-filmed skate clips that I’ve requested someone edit to that song. I’d want them to play it at my funeral, the song and the video. It’s that idea of “if my friends could see me now.”

What’s the best song to play at a party?

It depends whether it’s a party for me or just to get a party going. If I’m not listening to hip-hop, I’m a real emo kind of dude listening to The Smiths and The Velvet Underground, which can turn a house party into something a lot darker. I don’t really dance unless I’m dancing with my grandmother.

To keep it simple, I’d probably just throw on Supreme Clientele by Ghostface Killah and let it play.

You’re abducted by aliens, and when you wake up on the spaceship, they pass you the aux. What is the song you’re playing to convince them not to destroy Earth?

My knee-jerk reaction is M.O.P. “Ante Up,” because if they’re going to blow up the Earth, we haven’t really done a great job of maintaining it and taking care of it, and we probably deserve it. But I don’t want all that blood on my hands.

So maybe Dionne Warwick “Walk On By,” because she’s from Jersey, and if they’re going to kill me afterwards anyway, I’d like to go down with a little bit of Jersey in the air.

Maybe War, “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” and if that doesn’t convince them, then maybe I’d ask for some southern hospitality and ask for a second song and have them play CeeLo Green “Fuck You.” Because I love Goodie Mob. I love Atlanta. The greatest skateboarder of all time, Grant Taylor, is from there. His dad, Thomas Taylor, rest in peace, opened up Stratosphere Skate Shop in 1986. They’re celebrating the 40th anniversary this year. So if it’s not Jersey, then it’s ATL.

Lil Noid is an architect of Memphis rap. His seminal 1995 album Paranoid Funk, (produced by hometown compatriot Blackout) created an entire universe within its 20-minute runtime. Bleak, futuristic and stoic, Noid’s sound is often replicated but never duplicated. His feature on the Black Keys 2024 album, Ohio Players, exemplifies the reach of his influence through time, geography and genre.

What song reminds you most of your childhood?

“Smile” by Scarface and Tupac. It’s nostalgic for me. You know, “Smile for Me,” no matter what’s going on. As kids, I don’t think we knew what it was like to frown. Through everything, I don’t care what we went through, we’d still smile and we still had a great time. We ain’t as picky as the kids are now!

What was the first record you remember buying?

Oh that’s easy! It was Comin’ Out Hard by 8Ball and MJG. I got it at Cat’s Music on Austin Peay Highway. It’s been closed for quite some time now, but back then, Cat’s and Spin Street were the two record stores I used to go to. I got a job when I was 14, so I could buy my own CDs. I used to actually work with both of my parents, I don’t think they knew what I was buying with my pay at the time though, and I’m glad they didn’t!!

What song reminds you of traveling to a specific place?

I got a song called “A Block Away.” I always play it when I’m kind of moving around, when I’m just traveling by vehicle. That song always kind of puts me in that mood, for travelling.

What song is the best representation of your hometown?

Project Pat “If You Ain’t From My Hood.” I remember, the first time I heard it, it’s on the album Mista Don’t Play: Everythangs Workin’ and I was looking for something else on there but I ran into this song and I just stayed there for a while. Just stuck there. It was just so different, you know, [raps] “If you ain’t from my hood / you can get from ‘round here!” And when I grew up, we was all about the neighborhood. My neighborhood even played a big role in how I met Juicy J. It was always about the neighborhood.

What song do you wish you had written?

“Welcome Back” by Young Jeezy. I was with a friend listening to that album and he kind of skipped over it, and I was like, “no, go back, go back one second!” I think, if I’m not mistaken, DJ Squeeky made that track out of Memphis, so it’s kind of self explanatory why I like it. It’s kind of like being back at home, in a sense. At that time, Jeezy was so hot. They would play four or five Jeezy songs throughout the night in the club. Even if you’re only there for one or two hours, you may hear “Welcome Back,” and then “Amazin’,” and then something else. And what it was, you not only had the guys be rapping, but the girls in high heels that was sophisticated would be throwing a finger in the air too, you know!

What song would you want played at your wedding?

“The Matrimony” by Wale and Usher. I think they got Seinfeld at the beginning, where he talks about “anything new is supposed to be an experience. You’re supposed to not be good at it, because it’s the first time you’re doing it.” And then it goes off into Usher and Wale, but I had to choose this, the name of the song is “The Matrimony!”

What’s the best song to play at a house party?

I was kind of caught up thinking about this one at first, but I think I got it. Drake, “Nonstop.” Once again, the producer on “Nonstop” is from my neighborhood, it’s Tay Keith. So yeah, I will play that Drake! Now, I have a Rolex, and what he said? [raps] “This a Rollie / not a stopwatch / shit don’t ever stop.” So I have to throw my wrist up in the air sometimes! It’s just a way for me to stunt and be silly. And it’s funny, cos a lot of the times I don’t even know upfront that it’s a Memphis artist who produced these songs, then I go back and I know what drew me to it. Like this one, I instantly went to it. I don’t know how to explain. It’s like a magnet.

You’re abducted by aliens, and when you wake up on the spaceship, they pass you the aux. What is the song you’re playing to convince them not to destroy Earth?

My dad would like this one. It’s Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On?” It supersedes time. It’s weird how someone from back then could see what’s going on now. It’s crazy when you listen to that song. I watched a video of him performing, and he had this gray jogging suit on with some Chuck Taylors—and he was laying down, singing a classic. On the floor! And I was amazed because he was just that comfortable. He was just that good. It all just came so naturally to him.

Words By Ricardo Miguel Vieira

It’s a strange feeling reading old interviews with Matt Black, half of mixing grandmasters Coldcut, and ending up with the impression that one is actually revisiting the present. Like when he foresaw ten years ago that the world would become a much more dangerous place, or when he anticipated with his duo-companion Jonathan More that electronic music would be essential again as soon as a new generation unearths and reinterprets it. Perhaps that explains why this Londoner once claimed a talent for predicting the future. He always lived years ahead of the pack, anyway.

Beyond the prescient words, Coldcut’s sharply revolutionary art speaks for itself. It’s one fine kaleidoscopic statement of both past and present, be it in music production or radical politics. In fairness, none of these elements are isolated atoms in the duo’s body of work, which has assumed many translations over the years. Coldcut’s early explorations were established on sampling cut-ups and quirky mixes influenced by hip-hop’s swift progression. Their creations were one-of-a-kind, pioneering the art of mixing whilst establishing both a far-out visual aesthetic and a place in British musical history. Yet, it was Black and More’s do-it-yourself approach that gave them an offbeat reach and allowed them to forge a path through roads less travelled, from starting their longstanding radio show “Solid Steel” to developing audio-visual manipulating software.

Black is devoted to carving his own sound architecture in the electronic scene, an assuring sign of longevity for a music inventor and computer programmer who’s been part of the ever-changing relation between producers and technologies in this hyper-connected world. Hip-hop, the root of Coldcut’s identity, has also navigated the transformative wave, with young producers - just like Black predicted - independently reinventing the scope of the genre through solid compositions and renewed sampling styles.

With this in mind, I sat down for a chat with Matt about the meaning of the sample in contemporary hip-hop culture, and the genre’s influence in shaping Coldcut’s identity.

Coldcut are considered champions of sample-based compositions and masters of cut-up hip-hop collages.I’m wondering if you see yourselves emerging more from hip-hop or early electronic experimentations?

We come from hip-hop. We were looking for the perfect beat, something new to interface us to the future, and I felt hip-hop was a futuristic sound. It was the strongest musical influence on Jonathan and I. Records from America inspired us to try and make our own cut-ups, so that’s what we did using turntables and a four-track cassette; and I guess Jon and I have always been using tapes to make mixes or little jingles. Records like The Adventures of GrandMaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel and Double Dee & Stenski’s Lessons 1, 2 & 3 were blueprints for us, they were outrageous and we wanted to work out how to do something like that. Hip-hop was all about sampling, so we were particularly interested in production, scratching and DJing – the electronic music making side of it. The DJ’s ability to take slabs of vinyl and manipulate it, in real time, with this lovely interface called a turntable mixer. Hip-hop was a really good channel for that. It was fascinating. Although we did live mixes, we made our first record using that interface, taping that live-jam-scratch-party and putting the results on plastic.

Let me touch on your remarkable remix of Eric B & Rakim’s “Paid in Full”. That was a landmark both for the project but also for the mixing scene in the UK. How do you see that project in regards of its role on where Coldcut is now?

“Paid in Full” was the remix that made our career. We’d been releasing our own records independently in London but pretending that they came from America. Then Julian Palmer, from 4th & Broadway Records,wanted to get a remix of Eric B & Rakim - and he came to us because of those records. He said he could only give us £750, but we loved Eric B & Rakim, those guys were dons, and it was an opportunity to work with an American hip-hop artist, so we went along. That was a great opportunity and we did it in an unexpected way. It fitted the appetite of the moment, it did very well, was a very big hit around the world. The success of that record was a big part of our career.

Having worked with American hip-hop artists, when it comes back to UK grime, how different are thedecisions in production and sampling?

I’d say the grime producers don’t work with old loops so much. They take samples, but are more into a sound that’s great in the clubs - original, heavy, clean, synthesised. Personally, I like to mix that with the analogue, the clean and the dirty, the heavy and the fizzy. Grime has gone in a different direction with finding an old record and sampling it. It’s almost orchestrally inspired, actually. I hear it more like some Götterdämmerung orchestra-opera hip-hop than just sampling a lick.

The fact that grime doesn’t use loops in favour of something more orchestral may be reflective of a genre that didn’t exist before the internet, so there’s always been more developed tools and resources instantly available online. Do you feel the internet has transformed the art of sampling?

The internet, like sampling, is a by-product of technology; it happened because of technology and then fed back into it. All these digital technologies are very much intertwined. It’s all part of the same thing basically, it’s information. But the techniques nowadays are pretty much the same. What happened is that samples have gotten a lot more powerful. We have a million times more memory, capacity and processing power than before. It’s still about taking slabs of sound, like sound frozen in time, and then manipulating it in different ways. Looping, processing, scratching, chopping it up. We picked up the new technologies as soon as they became democratised and pushed them as much as we could, and we took that attitude and aesthetic and applied it to making visuals, too.

Your visual identity and accompanying technologies is unique and was ahead of its time. It also triggered the development of unique software tools, like VJamm, that blend multiple aspects of music production. What motivates you to build your own working tools?

We built our own software so that we could manipulate sound and visuals for our live shows through the ’90sthat we were broadcasting on piratetv.net, which was an early, experimental jamming and streaming station, and then we kept developing it. Ableton Live appeared at a certain point and that changed things. There’s a danger in using Live because it became very easy for everyone, and everything, to sound the same, so I became more interested in developing our own software. We developed various bits for manipulating sounds and visuals and currently we have the Ninja Jam app. For me, that app is my comment on electronic music and hip-hop, as well as sampling and remixing - things we’ve been involved with for the last 30 years – all boiled down into this new application that I continue developing to make even more funky! That’s the instrument that Coldcut uses live now. I’m excited about it as a new arena, beyond turntablism, which kind of peaked out. It’s all very well recycling old instruments of the past, but we actually want something new, so I’m into designing that.

And in what ways does the evolution of music production technologies reflect what we hear today?

Every technology has a mood, which may be defined by the ways it’s first used by humans. An old record like EPMD’s Strictly Business is so raw and funky, it has a special feeling that I love. I would always play that in the club because I know people recognise that human feeling, it’s in its DNA. Scanning through a piece of vinyl with your hands on the record is a very direct way to navigate the material and although I don’t do that so muchnow, I still love it as an interface. On the other hand, modern, really well produced records would sound heavy on a big system. I love that too, although it becomes boring sometimes because every record is so maxed out that when you look at it in WAV format, it’s just a solid bar of black, there’s no dynamic range. You can’t deny that it thumps out on a big rig and nowadays, sound systems are a lot more powerful, especially in the sub-bass department, so people mixing records ring out that energy, and I admire that. All these approaches have their charms.

Do you think sampling has the same meaning to hip-hop today as it did 20 years ago, considering the change in production styles?

It does evolve, but I’m not sure that’s where the most cutting edge uses of sampling are at the moment. There’s a fairly generic formula with hip-hop sampling nowadays. Still, there are people pushing the boundaries, like Flying Lotus for example, and for me, that’s where the cutting edge is. Sampling is a form of hip-hop, but it isn’t just about old school hip-hop nor just about rap. It’s about production and coming up with authentic new sonic.

What is interesting is that conversations about hip-hop’s edginess and authenticity boils down to new school versus the old school…

Everything exists as dualities, as polarities. Night and day; good and evil; analogue and digital; old school and new school. They don’t mean anything without each other. I’m not so interested in conversations about old school or new school being the best, the same goes with analogue or digital. I think that’s all a load of bollocks. For me it’s about mixing it up and standing on a balancing point between the polarities and working them to your will. There were some good records made back in the day, but it’s more about an attitude than the technology. I recently listened to a lot of Schoolly D, and EPMD, and the groove and rawness of those records is undeniable. You could make an even ruder record than Strictly Business on a basic program like Fruityloops, if you had the attitude to do so. Every so often someone comes along and rattles the box and changes production for everyone by virtue of a new sound that they create. The thing I’ve heard most recently that did that was the Arrival soundtrack. There’s a lot of sampling in there that would’ve been unthinkable 20 or 30 years ago when soundtracks were always about an orchestra with strings and maybe a few synths. But now the cutting edge sonic weapons are sampling and granular synthesis, which, in a way, are a combination of sampling and synths. I would say Arrival’s soundtrack is a masterpiece, and not just when regarding soundtracks. I’d say that it ups the ante generally for electronic music, and that includes hip-hop. We should all go and bow down and work how that guy is making those fucking outrageous sounds, really.

Definitely. Sampling has been re-invented and developed so much over the years, up to the point of theoutrageous sounds made by the aforementioned granular synthesis - would you say that it’s a revolutionary art?

Sampling is a neutral technique which could be used to make a Marlboro cigarettes advertisement if you put your mind to it, there’s nothing inherently revolutionary about it. I think there’s a lot of possibilities, and I love it because it gives me access to the whole history of culture and I like searching through that for things I find inspiring; being able to recycle them into a modern context and give them to a modern audience’s ears. Hip-hop is about sampling, it’s still a search for the ultimate sample that’s nestling in those dusty old crates, waiting for someone to go “a-ha, that’s a fucking loop!”

Touching on the political, using elements of history and culture within music can be a way of processing and interpreting current events, are you still using sampling to this effect?

For years I’ve been working on a track called “Papua Merdeka”, which is “Freedom for West Papua”. The country has been invaded by Indonesia and lots of terrible genocides have been going on. The track will be about freedom for Papua and a call to end the genocide. It will feature the wife of the head of West Papua’s People Tribal Assembly, a family that are friends of ours. It’s highly politically focused and it’s going to be a sample-based track. It takes the voices of the community members to, hopefully, make a revolutionary hit to help create profile, change and freedom... so in that sense, sampling is working for me. I’d say if you look at history, most artists and musicians used to be called leftists or vague socialists. Those terms are so loathed now that I would really like to define a new one that people agree is good. There’s a lot of people in the world that can agree on the basics of ‘good’ and I think most artists and musicians in the past would support that. That is a revolutionary statement, because the psychotic elite are so well off on the back of the rest of us that it will take a revolution to shake them off. It’s the attitude really. Do you want to do something, or you just want to consume? We’re the creators.

Words by Sam Butler

In a way, you can consider this story an extended liner note to “You Worked Your Miracle,” a resplendently singular disco-soul track by Chuck Bynum that BRICK is very proud to release as a limited 7” vinyl pressing, in collaboration with The Sound Council. It’s our first step into physical music releases, brought about by a chain of events that you’re about to hear recounted by the people involved.

I hope you’ll be drawn in, as I was, by hearing Stephen Chin remember the first time he laid his hands on a Chuck Bynum record, at Val Shively’s Aladdin’s cave of a store—R&B Records in Philadelphia. From there, a small group of DJs, archivists and music obsessives, captivated by Bynum’s long-forgotten work, set out to find the man himself. The story they discovered is as remarkable as it is sprawling. It’s a tale of opportunities granted, and lost, of musical virtuosity persisting no matter the circumstances, and ultimately, of a family reunited. Along the way, trails turned cold. Doors closed. People tried, failed, and then tried again.

This oral history is told by the people who carried Chuck Bynum’s music forward, and the people who met it on the other end. If the record is the object, this is the conversation around it—a testament to talent, determination, patience, and the transformative power of a single song.

Part One: “Marathon Lover”

Stephen Chin:It all started at a place called Val Shively’s R&B Records in Philadelphia. It’s just this crazy maze with a ridiculous amount of records. There’s three floors, and the guy has got everything from 45s to disco 12”s. Val is a thin old man who is like the gatekeeper of this kingdom and he doesn’t let people in. People try to get in all the time. They have to walk past the desk Val is sitting at to get to the records, and if you don’t know what you’re looking for, he’ll just say, “get out.” He is a grumpy dude, but my father’s been friends with him forever, and he lets me go in. He is a family friend, and a legend in the record collecting world. His place is truly a national treasure. I would describe his naturally stern demeanor as a mix of “tough cookie” and kind-hearted gentleman all at once. He would always call me a lost soul; he’d shout “Go ahead, Lost Soul!” when he let me in for a look around.

So, I’m digging around in there. You know how we do it—“What’s this? What’s that? This looks interesting. This looks cool.” I happened to come across a record called “Marathon Lover,” by Chuck Bynum. I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t think much of it, because it was on a major label and I usually stay away from that stuff. It was on Warner Brothers, but it said “promotional use only” on the label. A lot of times, a promo record will have a different version than is on an album, or it just makes a record more special. It’s more unique.

I added it to the whole stack of records I had picked out throughout that day of digging. Val has a little turntable where you can review the stuff before you pay, and I put “Marathon Lover” on, and it blew my mind. It fell right on the borderlines of Boogie, Soul, and Disco. And that intrigued me. There was a vocoder on it too, on a song from 1980. It was just really unique, and a great song. That started the fire for finding out more about Chuck and his music.

So I was doing my research — you know how it is — you look at the titles, the names, the credits, and track it all back. And going back in time, I realized that Chuck was in different bands, one of which was called TUME, The Ultimate Music Experience, which was a disco funk thing — another dope record. And I found out that he worked with Natalie Cole. Then, I found that he was a guitar player in Marvin Gaye’s band, and has credits on some of his records. I was just like “who is this guy? How can he be on all this stuff, and yet I’ve never heard of him?”

Part Two: “It’s You”

Stephen:Through my research, I discovered there was this folkloric 45 called “It’s You.” No one ever heard it—it was a missing link. The only thing that I could find to prove it existed was an eBay auction that I missed. It’s impossible to find. It wasn’t on YouTube. It wasn’t anywhere. Eventually, I found a one minute clip of the 45 that was on Popsike.com. That was the only remnant, which I downloaded and saved and listened to probably a hundred times. I was so enthusiastic about it. I knew I had to share it with Scotty.

Scotty Coats:Stephen and I have spent two decades going back and forth sending each other songs. We had always talked about setting up a little reissue label or whatnot and had never got around to doing it, but when he finally sent me the clip of “It’s You,” it was like, “this is it.” The music sounded as if Sly, Stevie, and a Brazilian musician had a baby. It was all my favorite feels wrapped into one feel-good, well-written song.

Stephen:He heard that one minute clip and instantly said, “I want to do this.” It’s one of those songs that hits you and just hooks you in. I also loved how much the song spoke to the nature of our friendship.

Scotty:It really did feel like a testament of Stephen and I’s relationship. We’re real friends, and we’ve gone through the ringer. We’ve had many fights, had good times and bad times. But at the end of the day it’s like, “It’s You.” I respect you for who you are. You’re never going to change. I’m never going to change. And we finally settled on this song, after 20 fucking years of talking about doing a reissue together, we were finally going to do it.

Stephen:The only problem was, as I said, the record was seemingly impossible to find. It was never for sale, but on Discogs, the great platform that it is, you can see the people who own a record—or claim to own it—and the people who want it. There were four people on there who said that they had it. So I reached out to all four, and no one answered! Eventually, I get an answer back from some guy named Rob and I explained what we were trying to do; explaining that we would only be doing the reissue if we could get Chuck’s blessing, and make sure that the money from any sales went to him. And he goes, “I’ll have my guy send it to my engineer [to digitise].” It was that easy. But then nothing happened for a month or two, and I’m just like, “Ah, man, this guy’s not going to get back to us.” The next time I saw Scotty, I mentioned this guy Rob, because Scotty knows everybody and connects everything. And yes, he knew him—it was Rob Sevier, from Numero Group.

Rob Sevier:When Scotty mentioned “It’s You” to me as something he was working on as a re-issue, I knew the record very well. I had played it a lot when I was DJing in Japan. In fact, a buddy of mine in Japan has been bugging me about wanting to get the record from me for many years. He’s always trying to find a trade for it. He’s very respectful of course, and I understand, it’s impossible to forget that song.

Scotty:Rob was so gracious and recorded the seven inch, and sent us the .wav file. That’s how we got the audio. It was a straight rip from the seven inch.

Stephen:Hearing the song in full was mind blowing, but because it was a demo that was distributed as a promo, it wasn’t fully arranged or mastered. I talked with Scotty and I was like, “I’d really like to edit this and just make it complete,” and he was all for it. I didn’t add or change anything except the arrangement. It was a true disco edit—as soon as you add anything, it becomes a remix. I wanted to keep it true to form, and be respectful. I’m really happy and proud of the job that I did with that.

Scotty:Right from the opening whistle, I just knew it was right. Hearing that opening piano riff, and then as it got into the lyrics, I cried. I could listen to it a hundred times and not be sick of it. I think it’s one of the greatest songs ever made. It’s fucking brilliant.

Stephen:Scotty and I have a mutual friend named Sam Holborn, who I had also been working with on potential projects to reissue—and Chuck was one of the things that he was feeling, too. Sam is who really began the search—not just for more of his music, but for Chuck Bynum, the person, which seemed really impossible at that point.

Rob:I did actually poke around and try and find Chuck myself, quite a few years ago. I didn’t have much luck. At that time, I had no idea how interesting his story was either.

Stephen:Initially we just wanted to get in touch with him to ask for his permission to reissue “It’s You.” All of our searches resulted in ambiguous information—it didn’t lead anywhere. After looking everywhere online, we eventually landed on archive.org. Here is where Chuck finally appeared, in an insanely amazing music video for a song of his that I hadn’t heard before, called “You Worked Your Miracle.” From reading the description under the video, we learned that it had been made in the ’90s, while Chuck was in prison at the California Institution for Men in Chino.

Part Three: Arts in Corrections

Sam Holborn:Finding that video was amazing. We were so intrigued with how it came to be—what was the context? Why was Chuck in prison? How did he get the gear to record the song and the video? I didn’t even know you could record music in prison—where did that DX-7 synthesizer come from?! I had so many questions.

Stephen:Sam and I just kept doing research. We said, “this music’s so good, man. We got to get in touch with the brother and get his stuff out.”

Sam:As we got more involved, looking into Chuck’s musical background, we realised that his story was super special. And everybody loved the music.

Stephen:We couldn’t fathom it, how did somebody pull that off in jail? It’s so quirky, and it’s so heartfelt. My personal highlight is when he’s moonwalking in Asics wrestling shoes. Somehow in the midst of all this, Sam had reached the director of the prison music program of the time, who had produced the video of Chuck.

Sam:Yeah. I found Tom Skelly. I don’t remember exactly where that thread connected. I was looking for rehabilitation programs at that specific prison, found that there was this art program and that the guy who ran it was still around—so I reached out to him. It was a long time ago, I didn’t even know if he would remember Chuck, I just thought, “Hey, maybe he still has some material.” But he was really excited to get my initial email and to talk about how much the art program helped people. He very much remembered Chuck, and that he was serious about both his music and the program.

Tom Skelly:Chuck was very committed to his music and was somewhat of a loner, in the sense that he pursued his own original vision and always showed up to do his projects alone. He never created any problems, he just always wanted to be as productive as possible during his “visits” to C.I.M. Those videos really bring back some memories from the golden era of the Arts-in-Corrections program, which ran from 1985 to around 1995. We had lots of funding, lots of resources, lots of support from both the inmates and staff. You can see in one of the music videos filmed in my classroom that a Correctional Lieutenant is playing congas with the inmate jazz band. That could never happen today! Looking back, it makes me realize how much good was done from morning ’til night. I am so happy to have been a part of this intensive full-time AIC program. And I know that Chuck was creating not only to “do his time,” but to pave a future outside the system.

Stephen:It sounded like Chuck was a great guy, he was a model inmate, and he was really tuned in to his music. I was developing my understanding of him through his songs, and learning about the sort of person he was from people that knew him in prison. We were trying to piece it all together.

Sam:I spoke to the people around the AIC program and the people that archived the video, trying to find Chuck. I’m calling 10 people a day, trying to track him down. Stephen and I, we both just throw things at the wall until they stick, that’s how we work.

Stephen:Eventually we found him, through one of these detective search engines that comb through public records.

Sam:I think the big breakthrough came when we found out that he was actually still alive. A lot of his music was from 30, 40 years ago. We knew that he had been in prison not that long ago, but you never know. We heard that people had seen him recently, members at his church were telling us that he was there, and that although he maybe wasn’t in particularly good health, he was still around.

Stephen:Yeah, we learned he was living at a church parish in Florida and playing keys in the church band. He got out of jail and he ended up there, and that’s when I finally got in touch with him.

Part Four: The Life and Times of Chuck Bynum

Stephen:He was really tickled that I’d contacted him. He had been in a complete bubble since being in prison and had no clue that anybody even cared about his music. He didn’t know about Discogs, and didn’t know that the “You Worked Your Miracle” video was out there on the internet. But he was picking up on my enthusiasm, and we had a really good rapport.

Chuck Bynum:There are few things that can still surprise this old soul, but meeting Stephen Chin was one such event in my life. On the first encounter with this man, I was not expecting to hear his vision of sharing my story and re-releasing my old songs—but unlike a lot of people, he actually did just what he said he would do.¹

Stephen:He was jiving on what I was telling him—that people were collecting his music around the world, and so many people respected “Marathon Lover” as this amazing piece of dance music. That initial conversation set the tone, and then he began to tell me his story. He was running around with Marvin Gaye in ’79 and ’80. He gets in the studio with Natalie Cole, and they record a couple demos together. He ends up getting an advance for $50,000 to make his album—I think he got the Caddy and everything! So he had $50K in his pocket in 1980s LA—that was hot, right? And culturally, drug wise, et cetera—there was a lot of experimentation, I should say. It was the good stuff back then too, as I understand it. And he gets popped in possession of cocaine. That’s it. Reagan Administration, 1980, Clink clink. A life sentence for a nonviolent crime. He lost his deal.

Chuck:I went from playing guitar for various artists like Marvin Gaye, Natalie Cole, D.J. Rogers and numerous others, to scoring my own record deal, then being handed a life sentence for a drug related offense.

Sam:I just went, “wow.” This guy had all the makings of somebody that should have had his own record, his own LP, but that was all taken away.

Stephen:Those 45s were supposed to lead up to an LP, but it was never made. While he was in prison, Chuck helped rehabilitate others through music, and I guess he found “the way,” if you know what I mean. And it’s all expressed in that song, “You Worked Your Miracle.”

Chuck:I spent 18 years behind bars, going from one federal prison to the next. Some were more violent than others, but because of the length of my sentence, I had to be free of any major offenses in order to finally be allowed to go into a medium security facility. It took ten years to achieve that goal, and let me tell you, it was not an easy thing to do. And then, by the Glory of God, I was released by President Barack Obama just before his term was up. I was one of the 5%, among over 35,000 people with similar offenses, who were granted a commutation of sentence—sort of like a pardon, but with other stipulations and probation conditions in place. 1,700 of us got the nod from the president to be released.

Stephen:So he was at the church, and he was happy about all this. Happy about playing again. He was like, “I get to play every day.” It was almost like that was more important than anything really, that he had his freedom to play. Chuck is one of those dudes you’re like, “OK, this guy’s got something special. He operates differently.” It just seemed like he was in a good place, man.

Chuck:God saved me from my own prison, touched Obama’s heart and landed me in Pensacola, Florida, where I became Minister of Music. I played piano, which at the time of my release l could not do well, but I developed a great ability to achieve a wondrous aptitude. The main reason for this gift was the change in my heart, mind and body. Let me be totally honest here; the whole time I spent in California on probation for drug sales and related offenses, I never stayed out more than a few months. Some of you will probably think, “oh here we go…” but after letting go, and letting God, I have been out since 2017. But, this story is still being written.

Stephen:And then Chuck just dropped off the face of the earth again. Putting the record out meant so much to Scotty and I, but we wanted to do it properly, not bootleg it. Even though Chuck had already verbally agreed to it, we just didn’t want to do it without a handshake, at least.

¹ Chuck Bynum’s contribution to this oral history has been taken from written correspondence sent to Stephen Chin between the years of 2018 and 2019.

Part Five: The Bynum Family

Stephen:I couldn’t find Chuck. I called the church, left messages, and they said they couldn’t give me any information. I said, “look, this is the story. These are the things that we talked about. I’m a friend of his.” So then they told me he had a stroke, and that was all that they knew. I was calling different hospitals all over Florida, trying to find him. He must’ve been released from hospital by the time I was calling, he was just gone. Then everything stopped. It was Covid. I thought that he had passed away, honestly. We were at a complete loss. We wanted to put the record out, and we were just sitting on the sideline, waiting. We were talking to each other, thinking that it would be wrong to put it out without Chuck’s final signoff, but also thinking that, if he really was no longer with us, it would be so cool if we could do that for him.

Scotty:But then Stephen got in contact with Chuck’s son, who said “Yeah, he is my dad... but I don’t know that person.”

Stephen:I was just doing detective work again, really, but yeah, this guy said, “yep, Chuck Bynum is my father, but I don’t know him. He was barely in my life.” He’s a gospel and R&B producer by the name of Joaquin Bynum, and he was actually on Roc Nation. I played the “You Worked Your Miracle” video for him, and it put tears in his eyes. He was like, “I feel like I’m watching me.” He said, “I got to be honest with you, man, I love the music. But my dad was in and out of prison my whole life.” It wasn’t a positive thing, but it was almost like, just for a second, the beauty of this music outshone that negativity. Joaquin and I remained on friendly terms, and one day he sent me a message: “by the way, I found my dad.” And I was like, “dude, I’ve been looking for him for two years now. What?!” He said that Chuck was in Vegas, and his sister, Latasha Bynum, was taking care of him.

Latasha Bynum:I got a call from a hospital in Florida, saying “your dad had a stroke and he put you on his paperwork.” I’m like, “wow. He put me on his paperwork?” And the nurse was like, “yeah, as his emergency contact.” I was shocked, because I didn’t grow up with my father. I only met him when I was 16. My mother ran into him at a grocery store in Inglewood, California, and asked me if I wanted to meet him. I did, and when I met him, he didn’t pay any attention to me. So I was like, “forget it,” and I didn’t have contact with him anymore. When the hospital called, that was the time the Lord said, “if you want your dad, this is how you’re going to get him.” So they released him to me out of the hospital, and that’s when Stephen reached out.

Stephen:That’s when I reconnected with him, finally. I got him on the phone, but it was really difficult to communicate as the stroke had affected his ability to speak. Latasha was kind of translating; but he would give these shouts of joy. I was telling him that we really wanted to get “It’s You” out as a re-issue with Scotty and Sam, and he was happy about the idea. It all came together on that phone call. He was receptive to and in complete agreement.

Latasha:Stephen explained that he found us through my brother, Joaquin, who I had been looking for all my life. We had never met, but he came over on my birthday a year ago. It took time for him to want to be around my father, we both went through the same things with him. He was like, “Sis, I don’t want to see him. He’s done so much.” I said, “look, you’re not just seeing him. You’re seeing me.” When Joaquin came, he didn’t even know he was his son. He hadn’t seen him since he was 17, so he didn’t even recognize Joaquin. When we told him, he cried with both of us and apologized for not being there. We just all cried together. Joaquin and I talked about what we went through as kids, and he just took it in. He knows he was wrong, and he can’t run from it no more. The Lord has sat my dad down and said “Be still. No more running the streets, no more drugs. Sit down, it’s time to stop doing that fast life.” That’s it. Now, he done gained seven grandkids.

Part Six: “You Worked Your Miracle”

Latasha:I stopped working in 2020 to take care of my father full-time. His right hand is paralyzed. He still tries to play bass with his left, but when he was in Florida, they didn’t really give him the proper therapy, so he’s having to overcome a lot. Stephen and Scotty sent him a bass guitar so he could try and play as part of his rehab.

We also sing together a lot. It’s hard to understand his speech, but when he sings, it comes out better. The tongue rolls a little bit better when there’s music there. I love to sing, and I never knew why. I always wondered why I got this gift, and now I understand it. When my father heard me sing, he’d be like, “dang!” and I would say, “yeah, I guess I get it from your side.” I sing in the choir at church now. I was always scared to sing in front of people, but I don’t care no more.

Stephen:Discovering Chuck’s story, getting to know him and his family, it just confirmed that music is all about personal connection. Seeing Chuck respond when Latasha puts him on the phone, hearing the joy that still comes through, even after everything–that’s been the real reward of this.

Latasha:This whole experience of reconnecting has taught me that even if you don’t grow up with a parent at the beginning, they’re still your parent. Don’t give up on your parents, because once you find them, things can come out for the good at the end. The Lord will bring it all together for a reason at the time when He’s ready.

Epilogue

BRICK, working in collaboration with Stephen, Scotty, and Sam, is releasing Chuck Bynum’s “You Worked Your Miracle” as a very limited 7-inch vinyl pressing. It’s our first ever physical music release, and we couldn’t think of a story more deserving of being brought to life off the page than this one.

To purchase a copy of the record, click here.

This story was originally published in BRICK Edition 13, released in 2025.

Edition 13 also features Venna, John Glacier, Obongjayar, Jay Worthy, Minaret Records, Lexa Gates, Kwengface, and many more.

Click here to purchase the issue from our store, or join our paid tier on Substack to receive a free copy as your welcome gift.

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• Dave’s new album The Boy Who Played the Harp arrived a few weeks ago, four years on from his last full-length solo record. It’s a beautiful body of work; patient, deep, searching. Hearing it sent us back to this 2019 piece, from Edition 07 - an interview in the days leading up the release of his debut, Psychodrama.

• Also taken from Edition 07, Max J. Joseph’s essay on the Bay Area explores a region whose self-made hip-hop scene was priced out of its own streets as the tech industry rewrote the map.

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• For our readers in Los Angeles, we’re hosting a signing session with Jay Worthy next week to celebrate his Edition 13 cover story. We’re keeping the location a secret for now, but keep an eye on our Instagram for more details soon.

• Also, we currently have a massive billboard up in LA, just down from the corner of La Brea and Oakwood. If you see it, send us a photo on IG!

• Speaking of Edition 13, it’s now on shelves at all good newsstands and magazine stores. Or, if you’d rather receive it directly from us, you can pick up a copy here.

• Or, you can choose to subscribe to the mag, and we’ll include a tote and some stickers in the package, too.

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  If you made it this far, thanks for reading. We’ll see you in a couple of weeks.

  

Words by Mardean Isaac
Photography by Sirui Ma

On Dave’s debut album Psychodrama, music is the mise-en-scène, and rapping the performance. Pianos set the tone, drums follow the pace—often that of reflection itself, of the time it takes to process experience. And with poise matched by intensity, Dave delivers some of the most thoughtful bars to come from this rising generation of British hip-hop talent.

In the face of contemporary forces and pressures—money, violence, fame, illusions and delusions of several kinds—Dave forges his own truth. It is widely felt that the self is a world unto itself today, and Psychodrama is testament to the art that can come from that state. Personal experiences and reflections upon them are the thread that links Dave and his audience. The album contains a comprehensive account of the hypocrisies and outright crises of his London community—a community of which he is fully part, yet critical. Awareness of this artistic perspective is expressed on the album itself (“Do you believe that I can illustrate what Streatham is, then break the fourth wall and base “Lesley” on my relatives?”), throughout which Dave displays mastery of his domain and terrain as a narrator. That mastery allows the central preoccupations of the album, like making distinctions in value and meaning—between friendships, lovers, goals, ways to live—to convince.

Psychodrama is a strikingly coherent and mature record, but Dave (who turns 21 this summer) has been building his approach—grounded in vocal, sonic and conceptual clarity—in two previous EPs, moment-stealing one-offs like “Hangman”, and a string of outstanding guest verses. The pristine, rounded instrumentation across the album allows space for his richly formed character and sophisticated personality to take centre stage. Dave’s pure delight in the sport of pun and punchline is very much on show (“I got nothing for a fed, copper for your head / And that’s the definition of a penny for your thoughts”; “Hiding cro’ inside a Rubicon drink / Which is funny ‘cause that’s how we put food in the fridge”), and his inclination towards direct commentary well served on an album-length project that seeks to counter superficiality and impulsiveness with focus. A therapist opens and punctuates the album, making comments and asking questions—in a dry, cold spoken voice—that incite responses in song form. Many contemporary conventions (hooks, featured rappers) are largely forsaken, and Dave draws on a sense of taste not bound by that of his peers or his city.

“Environment” sounds a note both urgent and compassionate. “Screwface Capital” grinds and curls, Dave’s flow both declarative and unrestful, before unwinding with an instrumental outro. “Disaster” is dominated by a sour, moody synth riff and a dirty groove. J Hus, whose collaborations with Dave have provided some of the most compelling moments in both young artists’ careers, is searing in his verses (“I’ve done some evil things that I wouldn’t take back,”) and riveting on one of the few choruses on the record.

Dave has seized upon the possibilities of the moment to create a new kind of British rap album. In chronicling the suffering and desire he has experienced, Dave finds his purpose: “The past is just the reason that it came to this / I thank God for the pain because it made me this.”

I spoke to Dave in the early evening, having just wrapped the shoot of a music video, and days before the release of the album.

BRICK: What were you most driven by, in terms of the possibilities of an album, that you hadn’t been able to explore so far in singles or EPs?

Dave: To make something of importance, that really affects and shifts the culture and music. Long-standing importance.

BRICK: Growing up, what role did albums play in your mind and in your life? Did you have a particular interest in them; do you remember being thrilled by complete bodies of work that were more than the sum of their parts?

Dave: Yeah. Albums are the soundtracks to your life. If you identify with music, if you like it, and it helps to fuel you; if it makes you aspire to things—yeah, that’s one way to describe it: the soundtrack to your life. If you relate, you relate; if you identify, you listen.

BRICK: Even looking at the early freestyles you did, on Black Box or Street Starz for example, you were already working on the structure and internal direction of those raps, even though they were just freestyles. Did you always have that sense of a bigger picture: a musical, emotional narrative?

Dave: You know what; I’m a weird one, because I work on my structure, I try to improve—but at the end of the day, my life is one big freestyle. I’m freestyling everything in life: what I do day-by-day; phonecalls, when I speak to people; definitely in my lyrics. So it’s interesting how on the album, only four out of the eleven songs have hooks. When it comes to structure, I feel like I’m keeping it freestyle. That’s my natural inclination. That is my structure.

BRICK: And what about your formal understanding of music, do you think that’s enriched your understanding of writing as well? Do the two work together?

Dave: Of course. It definitely helped; they complement each other. Having some background knowledge just allows you to be even more involved in the process of making an album.

BRICK: I was thinking of the concept of resolution: there’s a lot in terms of the chords you use, but also the narratives and the emotions in the songs. I feel like you’re playing with subjects like that, in a very intuitive but also conscious way, on this album.

Dave: It’s one thing to be able to articulate yourself with words; it’s another to be able to articulate yourself with music. When the two go hand in hand, I feel like you really feel it. Before I might have known what I like, but I couldn’t put it into words. Having an understanding of music now definitely helps to convey whatever emotion I’m trying to, whether it’s positive or negative or all of the above.

BRICK: Did you audition the therapist, and did you write his words, or did he improvise them?

Dave: That was something that came through actually going through the album tracks and actual conversation really. It wasn’t one of those heavily choreographed things, you know? It was very natural, it just sort of happened in the way that the journey of the songs actually plays out.

BRICK: On “Black” you say, “Black is so much deeper than just African-American”. Do you feel like black people or black culture outside of America has lived under the shadow of the image of African-Americanness?

Dave: It’s definitely a tricky one. I think that’s a multi-faceted lyric. But it’s my sort of way of saying that someone can try and make a blanket statement about someone who is black and just say ‘African-American’, but there’s so many different actual layers to it: there are so many different cultures within Africa, so many different forms, and they’re so vast, you know? And I think the statement ‘African-American’ can sometimes be used in a way that doesn’t really allow for people to be super in touch with their background. If someone asked where I’m from or what my nationality is or what my heritage is, I wouldn’t say I’m just African-British, it would be specific: Nigerian, Jamaican, Caribbean, or you’re from Ethiopia. Not just the blanket statement of a continent—it’s deeper than that, you know?

BRICK: I’m struck by this pairing of Caribbean and African culture and music that’s happening in London or in Britain, especially given that as a Caribbean or African diaspora there’s a more direct link to those places here compared to African-Americans who were severed from their heritage so many hundreds of years ago. I’m wondering about that incredible line [“it’s Somalis I roll with / so it’s akhi/ackee on side like saltfish”] on “1800” with Headie One, because that pun plays on that link: the word ‘akhi/ackee’ is a kind of pivot or hinge between Caribbean people and Africans. I was wondering what you think about that line in relation to the question of blackness.

Dave: You know, trying to be more so inclusive than decisive: I think that’s my thing. My Somali friends are my aks; and my Jamaican friends are my brothers, or my guys, and that’s what it was about. Not really trying to make it about what is ‘the most’. I mean, sometimes people feel like their version of whatever it is, is the ultimate version. And I think that’s what it’s about: the black British experience, and that’s what I’m narrating in the song, but that’s as far as I can narrate. I have no clue as to more than that, really. And it would be unfair to try and speak on the black American experience, in the same way; it would be unfair for me to speak on the black French or black Aboriginal experience.

BRICK: As a black man in Britain do you feel like you have access to the whole musical and cultural heritage of black people everywhere, including in Africa, or do you feel like there are certain barriers or differences that are difficult to overcome or reconcile?

Dave: I feel like Britain’s a good place: there’s access, we’re very in touch. It’s not very far removed. Your parents, in a lot of cases, have come directly from the country, or it’s a generation or two. So it’s not necessarily crazy far removed. It’s something that we’re just immersed in. And music is the same: we still support our artists and listen to our music and that’s an influence on all of us.

BRICK: In terms of psychology and art, there’s a really good line on the record about suicide only moving pain, this concept of pain as a quantity that flows between people, that you can’t really get rid of: you’re just increasing the pain of others even in taking your own life, essentially. Is there a connection in your mind between taking your own pain away through music and helping alleviate the pain of others?

Dave: Yeah. Nothing’s ever created or destroyed when it comes to energy. What I think is: if I can alleviate my pain through what I do in music, then hopefully I can transfer the same feeling towards the listener, and do the same for them. That’s what it’s about, really. It doesn’t stop the pain, but I think that Psychodrama as an album is a good journey between feeling like you want the pain to stop and feeling upset, and coming to embrace it and understand that it shapes you. Towards the end of the album, that’s the connection I made; what was discovered on that journey.

BRICK: There’s a lot in your work and on this record in particular, about distinctions: things that matter and things that don’t; what’s real and fake; what’s hypocritical and what’s truthful. But also the question of time: how distinctions and the consequences of decisions based on them can shape you and change things. Are you interested in these questions because you’re reacting to what’s around you? Because we’re living in a time where language itself, and questions of reality and image, are being constantly degraded and deformed. On this record, are you trying to encourage people into thinking more clearly about things?

Dave: I’m definitely trying to make people look at things from a clearer perspective. On tracks like “Black”, “Legend”, “Purple Heart”, and “Environment”, it’s definitely about shaping perspectives and changing things and hoping people listen to the album and learn something. That was my overall goal. Like I said in “My 19^th Birthday” a while back: “We do have thoughts, but nobody’s thinking”. I think that’s flowed through into this album. Not only has that flowed through in what I’m trying to show people, but what I’ve displayed in the album. How ignorant a lot of my first views were—on the first track, the second track—and as the album goes along, just getting wiser.

BRICK: Do you remember the exact moment when the Ralph Lauren line [“man are not bad in person / I’m with guys that are riding solo / that’ll do it like Ralph Lauren: / that’s one long stick and a blacked out Polo”] on “Peligro” with Giggs came to you?

Dave: Yeah, I was in Germany, actually. I was writing for a different song: I had it there for a different song. And then I was writing the “Peligro” verse and it just kind of made sense and worked, but I had to change it and tweak it. I was coming back from a festival in Germany, and I was thinking: ‘Polo, Polo… how do I work with the word Polo?’. Then I realised I could use it like the car and also like the sport. And I thought about who plays polo. And so, Ralph Lauren. “One long stick and a blacked out polo.”

BRICK: You were in Nigeria recently. What was it like?

Dave: It was amazing. Definitely a great experience, to go home: to be back in Nigeria, to be in touch with the world that I came from. What the reality is there day in, day out. It’s a beautiful place. It’s so different to what I’m used to. Different in a good way; I’ve definitely embraced it. I had a lot of fun. It’s a completely different world and culture, but it’s beautiful.

BRICK: Did you spend time with musicians there?

Dave: No. I was just there for two days. I just got to see local people; walking through markets; pretty general stuff.

BRICK: This series of features you’ve done with guys who, when you’re rapping alongside them—guys like Fredo, Giggs, Headie one—they have far more direct street content. And you’re on the other side observing, chronicling, commenting on that world. Is there a sense that these guys that you rap with are standing in, on the track, for your brother? Almost like an attempt to be with your brother; or speak for him, or with him, or to him.

Dave: No. I wouldn’t say so myself. Those are just the artists that I work with, that are in the UK. Basically everyone in this scene has some element, at some level, of experience they draw on. And in our case, where we’re coming from in London, when you’re young, the vast majority are drawing from a similar experience that we all face. I think that in terms of me speaking about or commenting — narrating — about it in an observational way about things that are happening from a street level, it’s just because of the fact that I’ve been doing it for a while, and there’s a level where I think anyone kinda understands that music becomes your life. It’s a whole different ballgame when you’re three or four years deep in.

I think that everyone will have to go through that phase, or reach a crossroad in their life where they have to choose between music or everything else that could be calling. When I was 16 or 17, I was young and I was first making music, of course I was charged up, talking about the stuff I would do everyday or the stuff I would do tomorrow. But I feel like as I hit 19, 20, there’s a whole bigger picture of changing your perspective in general life, and it affects the way I make music.

Words by Max J. Joseph
Illustrations by Rob Engvall

“Ain’t it a pity, that you hate this city / But the way you feel, ain’t no big deal.” That’s how the chorus to Oakland duo Zion I’s “Koncrete Jungle” begins. Unlike Zion I, who released their first record in 2000 to much acclaim, many other hip-hop artists and producers who came up in the Bay Area of California through the 1990s are no longer making music today. Many are now dead, some moved away and found regular jobs, while others simply disappeared from the scene.

The Bay Area is a collection of nine counties sprawled out around San Francisco’s Bay in northern California. These counties cut through five sub-regions, with San Francisco serving as the nucleus of it all. In the early to mid-1990s, the city itself was a haven for artists who wanted to live the urban life for modest money. There were shows of some kind on every day, art schools were widely available, and while rents were still relatively expensive, the overall cost of living was reasonable. The most important thing San Francisco promised was a lifestyle you couldn’t really find elsewhere in the U.S. at the time.

The tech creep which characterises its current persona started in the southern regions of the Bay Area and moved north. Tech developers and entrepreneurs, many of whom were just as geeky if not more than the traditional creative types involved in the visual and music arts, finally made it into San Francisco en masse and the rest has been history. Where these wizards went with their digital products, sales and marketing teams invariably followed, and thus the first real wave of gentrification truly engulfed the city.

Even though the dot-com bubble of the mid-’90s lasted a mere half-decade, the city of San Francisco had its first partial makeover. Office blocks were going up everywhere. Today, apartment space has shrunk into half of what it was, for almost double the price. Sadly, this boom didn’t actually bring in as many people as it pushed out, and for a while at the beginning of the millennium, San Francisco was known as the “fastest shrinking city.” In the ’90s, a house in San Francisco would set you back an average of $420k. The median home price there today is $1.3m. Native artists were among those who bore the brunt of this inward migration and implosion.

125,000 years ago, San Francisco was an island, and amusingly, many of the locals retain traits and dispositions more easily associated with island folk: perennial pride, protectiveness, and insularity. Depending on your own tastes, you might view a city like San Francisco as Los Angeles’ introverted little brother or its stern older brother. However you view it, there is no doubt that each city has its own unique personality, but whereas L.A. has largely retained its same character and glitzed itself up, San Francisco has changed dramatically in socio-economic orientation.

The 1990s were a time of momentous economic propulsion, but also terrible tragedy. References and affection to hip-hop once produced in the Bay Area are scant in popular culture today, especially outside of the Bay. Attending any regular bar or club in any major city around the world will probably expose you to hip-hop from southern California, not to mention the endlessly reprinted records, continued radio play, and the general veneration enjoyed by the familiar big-hitters: Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac among others.

But even Tupac, a figure firmly established in hip-hop folklore as a product of L.A., spent four of the most important years of his adult life living in the Bay. He moved to Marin City, north of San Francisco, in 1988, before spending time in Oakland and finally heading to L.A. for what was tragically the last year or so of his life.

He even recorded his debut solo album, 2Pacalypse Now, in Richmond—a city in the Bay Area. Yet his attachment to the Bay Area is mostly absent in his lyrics, despite there being a good representation of Bay Area rappers present throughout his albums. There is an argument that an artist who moved around as much as Tupac did would have transcended the thematic confines of any single location, but the evidence for this suggests otherwise.

One of the only references to the Bay that comes to mind was in the form of a shout-out in the ubiquitous “California Love.” Earlier, in a 1993 interview, Tupac explained, “When I got to Oakland, that’s where I learned the game. So that’s why I give all my love to Oakland. If I’mma claim a city, I’mma claim Oakland.” The disconnection in the public consciousness between his formative years as an artist in the Bay Area compared to the peak of his career elsewhere tells a story about the culture there at the time: first, it was easier to achieve success away from the Bay, and second, it didn’t matter to many people that he spent important years in the Bay—a place with its own character—in the same way that it would matter for the artists associated with L.A. and New York.

The guys from southern California who were going through the same trials and tribulations had perfected G-Funk, a subgenre of hip-hop emerging throughout the West Coast, so that it resonated with audiences beyond not only their own neighbourhood but the state. Meanwhile, up north, MCs seemed stuck in the stress and misery of their own circumstances. The similarities between these two variants within a subgenre are extensive, yet the schisms which permeate the flow, content, and delivery on a deeper level manifest when examining the music and the circumstances it was created in.

From the outset, we can do some preliminary landscaping: northern California, even before its tech boom, enjoyed much better public transport, whereas mobility in the south of the state is (still) very much about where your own car can take you. The geographical layout of the Bay lends itself to the development of small fiefdoms, dislocated from each other yet stitched up by the wonders of urban planning. On the other hand, Los Angeles is a singular, sprawling, densely packed metropolis. Diversity is a rule in L.A. and an effect in San Francisco.

Even something this small ties into how things were organised: the Bay Area famously produced compilation albums by various local artists, masterminded by a handful of key figures, whereas the south produced individuals who became superstars in their own right, sometimes collaborating for mutual benefit or in benevolent hierarchies, but never really needing to.

In a way, the Bay Area was the West Coast’s East Coast—a largely self-contained arena of artistry. As much as it often pretended not to be, it was a tradition firmly contained within its own community, and one which ultimately sought answers from its own community. For many artists, this came out of necessity—they simply had nowhere else to look for answers but themselves, and quite often and understandably, they couldn’t find any. In a cruel irony, the Bay—home of this self-referential creative community which knew best how to talk about itself—gave birth to the digitally driven hyper-connectivity that would leave that community gutted open.

During this transformation, the Bay’s gritty scene eventually gave way to the Hyphy movement: a noughties tradition of feel-good hip-hop with up-tempo beats, eclectic use of bass, and machine-gun rhyming developed to complement the Bay Area’s prosperous image today. This was an area undergoing radical change. The music had to match it to keep up.

The Bay Area, once home to some of the most lucid, talented rappers who were never known as well as their southern counterparts, became tremendously gentrified by a slew of tech entrepreneurs who went on to found the biggest centres of cultural production in the United States: the aforementioned Silicon Valley types, the social-media gurus—all from a very different, and overwhelmingly non-local, demographic.

What was there before these sidewalks became servers? What happened to this culture before it was displaced and told to get with the programme or move on? What were those voices saying?

Bay Area hip-hop in the 1990s represents a distinct and overlooked thread of G-Funk. When people were humming along to “Let Me Ride” by artists who always seemed destined for greatness, little-known rappers like Fly Nate the Banksta were asking “What Should I Do?” in the north. Stylistically, there seems something inevitable about the success and longevity of the better-known hip-hop pioneers in the south, while those in the north were grappling with change that was largely not inclusive of them, rendering each day unpredictable and their futures in music-making even less certain.

Hip-hop produced in the Bay during this time was conceptually unique. Its originators and pioneers are still virtually unknown despite leaving a huge effect on the cultural memory of Bay Area natives who either still reside there or have moved away due to gentrification. While Dr. Dre went on to found a business empire, artists like Herm, one of the key individuals who put together the classic Trying to Live in the Ghetto compilation album and its follow-up Still Trying to Live in the Ghetto, went on to manage a janitorial company.

Herm Lewis, who simply used his first name as his rap moniker, hails from the Bayview-Hunters Point area of San Francisco. Described in SFGate in 2002 as “an ex-con who became a self-appointed big brother on the streets” who “has spoken at too many funerals in the Bayview to count,” Herm brought together people who might have otherwise been wrapped up in feuds. In a 1995 interview, he told SF Weekly, “When I’m hosting, I come out on the positivity tip, talking about stopping the violence and increasing the peace. If I notice any negativity during a show, I’ll get back on stage and try to calm things down.”

And violence was certainly a regular feature of Herm’s life and career. “A majority of the time a rap concert is given, something goes wrong,” Herm said in the same interview. And that’s just how it was. Two of the three members of the up-and-coming group RBL Posse were shot and killed in gang-related killings (Mr. Cee and Hitman), with the only remaining member losing an eye (Black C). Teenage rapper Lil Swoop was murdered on the same day as Tupac. Coughnut, Killa Keise, Rappin’ Ron, Mac Dre—other MCs from the Bay who lost their lives to violence.

Violence in the Bay was exacerbated by turf wars, poverty, and terrible stress, chronicled most notably in the track “Stressin’” by 2 of the Crew, and Cellski’s “Stressed Out,” with the latter featuring Swoop’s best-known verse in a life brutally cut short shortly after his teen years. Both songs portray vulnerable states of being, with an openness undisguised by a tough-guy act. The stress of living in a place like San Francisco as a recording artist and performer during this time meant realising your own obsolete state in slow motion—it meant having an acute feeling of being left behind. Your homes were not only being colonised, but your art redefined and repackaged.

Stories of sticking up for yourself, the frustration of meeting demands related to narcotics, the shady and unpredictable interplay with clientele and everything that came with it were all cast as tedious and then as necessary. There was an awareness that these were just things you had to do growing up even if they may not be the things that would help you leave this life behind.

Les G (real name Leslie Gray) was another producer from the Bay who put together compilation records, with the excellent Silent Cries from the Ghetto standing out due to a sublime array of tracks and terrific artwork by the prolific Phunky Phat Graph-X. The art of compilation became big business very quickly. Albums that would have cost $10–15,000 to produce (including artist fees) were making a lot of money back as hip-hop heads felt more confident in their quality—after all, it’s difficult to have filler with only one song on a record. Seeing these profits, artists started to charge more, and costs quickly exceeded $100,000 in a matter of years. Les G was prescient enough to release this record before the market became saturated.

The production here was so on point: Taydatay’s “Everybody Die” is as brooding and relentless as it is elegant. The staggered, ascending and descending bass grooves coupled with the matter-of-fact chorus, “Everybody die, everybody die,” and high synths make you feel like you’re on a steady route forward, regardless of the morbid conclusion.

“Doin’ Things” by Devious offers more characteristically muted yet driving beats punctuated by perfectly rendered synth notes. Finally, the album wraps up with the title track by Big Ed, another artist sadly gone before his time. A line from the track delivered almost in isolation, “Why do I have to see the murderous things that I see?”, is a running theme. There is a sense of being stuck pervading throughout the consciousness of the artists on this album, but like good artists, they all find creativity through limitation.

Another artist who appears on Silent Cries… is Young Ed (now known as Bread Ed). He put out one of the most memorable albums from the Bay in the ’90s: Time to Stack. A stand-out track, “My Way,” was remixed by Les G for Silent Cries, and rendered darker. The synths remixed into the track in Les G’s version sing out and speak of a pensiveness which almost kisses the coasts of the Far East melodically. In the Cellski-produced original, the mood is lighter and less severe, with classic G-Funk synths neatly peppering the track, and every other track throughout the record.

Cellski is a major component of the success of this album musically, producing every track and appearing in several—a standout being “Where the Love At?” This is a solo record recorded by a senior in high school from the Bay Area that actually stands the test of time without sounding tired or unfocused. Cellski was a capable producer and spitter, having demonstrated both skills on his own solo record. Young Ed was thrust into the spotlight, riding beats that sometimes felt he had to match in quality in order not to be overshadowed. For the most part, he succeeded.

The most astonishing thing about this record is how cohesive it is despite featuring over ten different artists. This isn’t to say it is low on variation, but high on thematic style. Each artist is aided by the brilliant subtlety of Les G’s production skills throughout the record, and each artist offers their own story on a rotating Bay Area canvas developed specifically to enhance their own individual styles.

What of other solo records? The Bay Area wasn’t all lucrative mega-albums with shared revenues. An artist named Fly Nate the Banksta released Nothin’ but the Money in 1996. On it, contemplative gems like “Message to the Woodz” and the aforementioned “What Should I Do?” offer a glimpse into honest introspection of life in the Bay with minimalist and effective beats:

It’s hard for true talent to make a mil / so I’m rapping about what I see every day / they say negativity gets no radio play / so what shall I do? Rap about the fake, or rap about the true?

That particular dilemma is common in hip-hop storytelling, but it was difficult not to compare levels of success with the artists developing farther south and offer some kind of commentary on what was going on—cue the familiar wars of authenticity. The awareness of success in the south was always there: “Watch me blow up like Snoop and Dre / West Coast South Bay” (G-Pack on “South Bay Groove,” 1995). In a way, these artists weren’t struggling against “selling-out,” but rather struggling to preserve their own unique Northern California sound—and to win with it.

Yet it wasn’t all doom and gloom. More light-heartedly, San Quinn was inviting us to “Come On In” to observe his life of run-ins with the police and dreams of better tomorrows to playful melodies, high-hats, and outrageous bass in 1995 before trap was a thing. One of the best flows never heard, the amount of intricate bars packed into this track on his debut solo effort, Live N Direct, is simply dizzying. Other groups like 2 of the Crew and their underrated debut Dankaristic Pimpshit didn’t even get a pressing. In some ways, it’s a marvel some of this music was even made in the first place given the circumstances.

“These contracts we have with rap labels pay us twice a year,” E-Sic of the Cold World Hustlers told SF Weekly in 1995. “Shows are the food on our table,” adds Big Vic. When hip-hop started vanishing from the clubs and nightlife in the Bay Area, it hurt the artists the most. Because of where these artists were from and the potentially violent crowds that would be following them, they struggled to secure gigs elsewhere. As a result, they were unable to showcase their live skills, gain new fans, or even make ends meet.

When one factors in the over-saturation of the compilation album as a vehicle towards the end of the Bay’s own golden age—to the ludicrous point of offering mammoth four-CD bigger-must-be-better releases nobody had time to listen to—the economy surrounding the scene began crumbling. Greedy promoters began charging exorbitant ticket fees for what they complained were high-risk shows. Artists resented the arrangement and complained of insufficient funds spent on security despite the high fees. While this to-and-fro was happening, the police would always be lingering, ready to kick the doors down.

Many of these artists were caught between doing these shows simply to earn money and having their own safety at the back of their mind given the recklessness of club managers and promoters. Violence wasn’t uncommon at shows, but no more so than at punk or metal shows, where promoters and the police were noticeably softer. The mostly white crowds attracted to those shows would usually be forgiven for any carnage wrought, and their favourite bands would be invited back without as much as a second thought.

None of this music provided my own first experience of the Bay Area. When I was eight years old, my older brother, then seventeen, went to live with my uncle in San Francisco for most of the year. His period of absence wasn’t as memorable as his return: he brought with him a range of cassettes and CDs, all hip-hop, and all utterly unknown to a London audience, let alone my young ears. It wasn’t until I became a teenager myself that I could really begin to listen and appreciate the music (or even understand what the MCs were talking about).

I asked him how he came about this material, and he said our cousin there had introduced him to it. This was of course before he had stolen my uncle’s car one night and spent a summer’s evening joyriding across the state with no licence and a few girls in the backseat—no doubt, whilst some of this music he had never heard was playing. He was eventually pulled over by the police and hauled in front of my uncle, whose face he still remembers vividly today.

One of the records he brought back was Cellski’s Mr. Predicter. This is a record I have probably played just as much as The Chronic, yet none of my peers had even a mild awareness of it. I would put tracks from it on at house parties to rooms of mostly uninterested people who could not sing along and wanted the music to revert, much to my chagrin. “I’m just young thug / selling dope and drugs / the city that I’m from really ain’t got no love”—I feel you, Cellski.

What this record actually symbolises, more than my own modest experience of it, is a mega-album that never was. Every single track is masterfully produced, and each verse paid attention to. This is a rare enough achievement on any record, never mind the often neglected and underfunded solo releases of Bay Area artists. What Cellski achieved with this album should have become timeless.

Yes, when people were still listening to established artists a decade or two ago at their prime, it was virtually unknown outside of the Bay. Yet I have put it on nearly twenty-five years after its release to bemusement and wonder. My friends simply cannot believe how good it is—to compare it to anything as embarrassingly overlooked in the East Coast, I can only summon up Masta Ace Incorporated’s Sittin’ on Chrome released in the same year: 1995.

The whirling beats with tremendously low basslines found in “Braindead” would not be out of place in stellar releases by Dre during the same time period, but where Mr. Predicter really shines is in its range: from chorus-less dirges to urban cruelty like “The Inner City” to the effortlessly cool, jaunty anthem “Livin’ in the Bay,” all the stories here are impeccably told. The production on these two tracks alone defies expectations for new listeners. Mr. Predicter really is a testament to the enduring sound of the Bay in the 1990s, and how much the music industry failed these artists at the time.

Partaking in a far less eventful outing than my brother, I spent an evening last summer in Chicago driving north along Lakeshore Drive towards Evanston for dinner—an affluent suburb in the Chicagoland area. The transformation in Evanston hasn’t been nearly as ruthless and all-encompassing as seen in the neighbourhoods of the Bay Area. This was a poor neighbourhood with a sizeable African-American population which has concentrated into areas defined by stagnation and neglect, whereas Evanston proper enjoys trendy brunch places and themed restaurants. The eerie effects of socio-economic segregation can be felt even here on a small scale.

I am being told about the history of this suburb to the sounds of “Peep Game” on Mr. Predicter, and I am wondering where the communities in the Bay moved to when the tech giants moved in, and what impact this had on the hip-hop scene there.

Today, the biggest factory of American cultural production is no longer Hollywood, but the tech industry. The same shift exists in all developed states: technological design and output is the main source of consumption for all of us who enjoy music, art, or any other form of cultural production. What does this mean for the music industry? The old model of selling records is now over—what matters now is clout, downloads, and marketing campaigns. This is a whole new way to do things, and for many artists who grew up in the streets, it’s difficult to properly adjust and make a living.

Alongside the technology industry, there is now a nostalgia industry catered to providing a sense of a valuable past that we are in the process of losing. Old sounds, rhythms, and methodologies are resurfacing: the cassette tape release, the resurgence of vinyl, and uncomplicated beat structures are all throwbacks to a bygone era when these were the standard. There is a danger of falling prey to gimmicks over substance as we fall back in love with things we can see and touch, but the chances are that if the artist is investing in analogue, they’re investing in their own staying power and relevance.

But it isn’t all romance. Bay Area artists came under enormous pressure to adapt (or conform, depending on your view) to new patterns of music, new sounds, and new realities on the ground. Technology companies are now taking music almost fully off the streets and filing it into servers and online spaces they design, moderate, and own.

The marriage of art, tech culture, and big business has affected the world as we know it, but it’s interesting to investigate the effects on the physical spaces the tech industry still needs to headquarter its digital worlds. It may be that we only fully realise these effects in the future with hindsight and a longer pattern of study, but some are already there.

Artists making hip-hop in the Bay during the 1990s represented a midway point in the evolution of the local scene. The seeds of this scene were planted in the underground during the ’80s; they blossomed from the early ’90s and finally terminated with the “good times” of the ’00s, where the culture began its decline and gave in to excesses mostly imaginary.

The Bay Area today is a bustling, technological utopia for Silicon Valley types who believe that technology can not only solve all of the world’s problems, but create and provide all of the world’s entertainment. It has become a place for people who enjoy and have secured their own lavish, traditional spaces in the real world whilst sermonising to the masses, particularly the creative types they’ve pushed out, that the most valuable real estate is now online.

This is a new kind of poverty where the only spaces these artists can now afford are free and online, because they are not getting paid anymore. This practically deletes, not reformulates, an entire idiosyncratic economy, and replaces those dollars with advertising revenues contracted to big servers. The little guy with a microphone can now be heard by anyone around the world instantly because of modern technology, but the same technology threatens the material conditions that make art sustainable.

The strength of conformity is now strong in San Francisco. Tech giants have emerged and introduced specific ways to not only do things, but specific ways to create and think. There is orthodoxy present where none existed a few decades ago. Because the local economy has been so defined by the tremendous success of technological start-ups in recent years, it has created a profile of success. Previously, San Francisco and its immediate suburbs were defined by a sense of spontaneity, pretentiousness, even recklessness, but this has all given way to sleek, palatial buildings crammed full of the same kind of brilliant person.

Flattening culture and digitising it turns us all into online citizens first and foremost, eroding the connection we have with our local communities. It’s a new kind of poverty; one where styles are informed by consent rather than exposure; one where the thing that is being pushed away can simply be ignored in favour of something selectable and desirable. This turns everything into a bad love poem.

It can be argued that the monopolisation of urban space, particularly in the Bay, has virtually destroyed a scene. In other high-density, high-cost cities, the same process is underway. Artists developing something original are often poor, because they are by definition not part of a reliable franchise. So with barely a curb left to hang out on, what does it mean for the future of the idiosyncratic, local hip-hop scene?

We don’t have to be nostalgic about these historic struggles which can feel even more real than our own, but we can learn from them as important new battles continue to be fought today, a time of unprecedented wealth but also unprecedented hunger and scarcity.

Sometimes, the struggle to be heard now takes place after your last social media post—we find ourselves not only competing with each other, but the things we have put online every day in real time. People used to compare albums released years apart in the abstract and according to taste, but now that everything is quantified in a certain way, it becomes difficult to resist the machinery around the music and its influence on the creative process.

The struggle has transformed: the guy selling tapes out of a van has been forced to migrate online, hosting music on websites like SoundCloud and setting up a Patreon account in the hope that enough people decide he is worth more than “free.” Yet, looking at these forgotten souls from the Bay who gave us so much and received so little in return, nothing is ever really free.

Sitting down to write an Editor’s Letter is one of my favourite parts of the whole process of making this magazine - it’s a chance to reflect on the stories we’re sharing in each edition, and the journeys that we went on to bring them to you. One thing that still surprises me about this exercise is that although we never start work on a new issue with a specific theme in mind, when I look back at the artists we’ve collated into those 244 pages, there’s always a common thread that emerges. Maybe it’s my own experiences of the past year forming a lens through which I re-assess these stories and take the lessons I need from them, or maybe those lessons were in there from the start, waiting to be appreciated.

Either way, for Edition 13 (which is available to pre-order now), that common thread is resilience. Not resilience as a slogan, but as a quiet daily act. The persistence that keeps people connecting, creating, and moving forward when circumstances shift. You’ll see it in our interview with Jay Worthy, who never stops collaborating, curating, recording - and has built a career out of consistency in his ability to bridge the gap culturally, geographically, and sonically. Obongjayar speaks to it too, in his conversation with Christian Adofo. His is a story of shedding masks, learning that survival can evolve into self-acceptance, and recognising the limitless power that evolution can unlock.

John Glacier shows that resilience in her restraint. Every detail of her discography feels deliberate, her strength lying in precision. She builds music from fragments and feeling, allowing space for silence, doubt, and self-possession. Her fellow Londoner whose story opens this issue, Kwengface, is perhaps the strongest embodiment of that resilient spirit - coming home, finding focus, and turning his experiences into purpose.

Resilience runs through more than the artists; it’s in the act of documenting them. From Minaret Records in Los Angeles, reinvigorating jazz by prioritising community over commerce, to the astounding story of Chuck Bynum, these stories remind us that culture survives through care, not spectacle. That’s how this magazine has always been built — slowly, carefully, with the hope that what we make will last longer than the For You Page.

Thank you for continuing to read, share, and believe in what we do. Independent magazines like this only exist because people keep caring enough to come back for the next one. So, please consider picking up a copy here, or spreading the word by passing this email on to a like-minded friend.

Cheers.

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“I’ve always wanted to make an album of my own, but BROCKHAMPTON kept me so busy that it was always a secondary venture,” JOBA explains, as we catch up a few days before the release of his solo debut LP. “Then when the pandemic hit, it really allowed me the space and time to explore what that could be.” The result of that exploration is the self-titled (after his government name) Russell Boring - a complex, freeform, personal, and most-of-all triumphant new record that sets out a distinct creative vision. Eager to discover some of the influences that have weaved their way into the broad musical tapestry of the album, we connected to create a playlist that has soundtracked some of his personal milestones.

What song reminds you most of your childhood?

My song “Emerald Eyes” always reminds me of my mom. I originally wrote it about a woman I was in a relationship with, and then as I lived with the song I began applying it to anyone with brown eyes. As I was going through the motions of listening to it, that song just landed with my mom - it reminds me of being a child and seeing her eyes.

“What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong also has childhood memories. Oh, man. Anytime I go through a breakup, or a loss of a loved one, or any life-changing event, I always go back to that one.

What was the first record you remember buying?

I think it might’ve been System of A Down, Toxicity. It blew my mind. I bought that, and I bought Issues by Korn. Both were just random picks, based off the album cover alone. I had no idea that I would put it in my Walkman and it would change my life. It was pretty wild. I think I have to give an honorable mention to Slick Rick, that actually might have been the first one I bought. Or it could be the 20th Century Masters Louis Armstrong compilation as well. It’s definitely one of those four!

What song reminds you of traveling to a specific place?

“Mama Roux” by Dr. John. That whole album, GRIS-gris, is amazing, and I have so many memories that are set to that music, whether it be driving across the country to help somebody move, or touring in Australia with Brockhampton. That was one of those albums I was just obsessed with in that period. “Mama Roux” was on loop.

What song is the best representation of your hometown?

I would say the whole of Townes Van Zandt’s self-titled album. I think that’s one of the best albums ever. He’s such a beautiful writer and great guitarist. The whole body of work is great, but I’d say a song like “Colorado Girl” has always taken me to a certain place. I also love “Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel,” and “For the Sake of the Song.”

What song do you wish you had written?

I was actually talking about this the other day! The answer is “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” There’s so many, but that was the last one I said that about.

What song would you want played at your funeral?

That’s a wild question because I’ve actually already considered it, so let me go through the list of options. I try not to be too morbid these days, but this is just one of those questions that I’ve asked myself before. There is a classical song that I can’t quite remember the name of, but for my backup option, I’ll say “Twilight Zone” by Dr. John, from the album Babylon. That would be pretty cool.

What’s the best song to play at a house party?

“Flamenco Sketches” by Miles Davis, off Kind of Blue. That song to me is just very memorable. I’m picking that one with the idea of a more mellow kind of house party, like a backyard barbecue.

You’re abducted by aliens, and when you wake up on the spaceship, they pass you the aux. What is the song you’re playing to convince them not to destroy Earth?

That’s a lot of responsibility. I would honestly say “Ordinary People.” I think that’s one of the best songs ever, man. I listened to it the other day, and it’s true - it really showcases the emotional sentiment of the human race.

I mean, there’s so many others I could list… I’d also like to play some of my music. I don’t want to presume that I know what an alien would like, but I would maybe play “Lonestar.” That would be a fun soundtrack to their travels through space and time.

Joba’s debut solo LP, Russell Boring, is out now.

Photography & Introduction by Mallory Bea
Interview by gum.mp3
Styling by Gabi Contreras

There was a moment of silence when our friends were playing pool and it was just the two of us, me and 454, when he turned to me and said, “Do you have any siblings? You said you have a sister, right?” The question was, for whatever reason, so jarring to me that I could have cried. When was the last time anyone had been conscientious enough to ask about my sister?

454, born Willie Wilson near Orlando, FL, is an artist who the public needs no convincing is great. Engagingly enigmatic, his releases—whether it be a record, a mix, or a shoe collaboration—garner the sort of attention that signal he’s a producer and rapper who is genuinely beloved by his fans. Beyond traditional accolades, it’s worth noting that the response his musical contributions receive from real life people rather than institutions (like the “if nobody got me, I know 454 got me” memes which go viral every few months, for one) make it obvious—even in a world on fire, his music makes people feel good.

On our walk to the bar after shooting the photos for this story, we stopped to flip through CDs at a yard sale. Willie told me he remembered meeting me at a MIKE show, but I was pretty sure this was our first time meeting. Really, I credit the producer (and polymath) Gum.mp3 for introducing us—I asked Gum to facilitate this interview between the two after I saw his tweet a few months prior which read something like, “Who’s gonna let me write about 454?” which followed a series of tweets he wrote analyzing lyrics to the track “STITCH + LILO.”

In fact, I first learned about 454 from the North Carolina-born Gum, which would make sense—the DJ who’s worked as both a librarian and academic archivist posts 454 tracks on a weekly basis. I like Gum not only because his own music is great, but because he publicly likes what he likes, and is usually finding a way to share whatever that is for free. He manages a Google Drive filled with folders of revolutionary texts he scanned himself; even now, as I write this, he sent over an essay about the Situationist movement that I had been trying to find for days.

You listen to only half of a 454 track and learn quickly that he’s just as generous in his own right. Also from the South, his music is filled with intensely vivid feelings. The two have a shared language of bravado, except rather than a pretension of alienating themselves from their peers because they’re better, there’s a sweet and traditionally Southern celebration of the mundane in their music, punctuated by reflections of loss and a sincere curiosity about what happens next for any of us. Instead of, “I’m the best!” 454 records are more like, “I’m alive! I’m blessed by connection to people and place!!” And though it’s humble, it’s this unmatched down-to-earthness that makes 454 so special, a unique figure both aspirational and accessible in equal measure. And it bears repeating—if nobody got me, I know 454 got me.

Gum: This is my second time interviewing somebody, ever. I’m 2-for-2 on interviewing other Black Southern people. I say all that to say this—in my previous interview with another Black Southern individual, the starting point was religion. A lot of people think I’m religious, but I grew up in a super agnostic household. The only reason I went to church is ’cause I wanted to play on the church-league basketball team.

454: That’s crazy! But with that though, did you learn anything [about Christianity]? I guess you had to.

Gum: We had Bible study class and I gotta be a good student—my mom wasn’t tolerating anything else. What was your experience of Christianity like growing up in the South?

454: Growing up, my grandma and all her sisters were in church. So I went with her on Sundays, Easter, New Year’s Eve, stuff like that. I had these two brothers who I skated with. They were older than me, and they were really good at skating so I looked up to ’em. I was 18, and they had ended up getting into Christianity really heavy. Through that, I just started looking into it. They would just come to me as a younger homie and be like, “Yo, you should check this out.”

So, I started checking it out and then I also got into it heavily. Started going to church on my own and just memorizing scriptures and quoting them every night and morning, bro. It had got serious, but that was 2014 or 2015. When I got [to NYC] in 2017, I got exposed to a little bit more life. My girlfriend, she kind of opened me up a little bit and my relationship to Christianity changed. I’m not saying I lost that, but I just wasn’t as extreme on myself. I used to carry myself a certain way, and I felt like I still had a shell. I wasn’t really social, so I was still to myself a lot. But yeah, I had gotten into it for real. I stopped listening to certain music and everything.

Gum: What caused the most friction with me with Christianity was that it has always been framed to Black people as like a punishment-oriented relationship. As a STEM kid growing up, it was hard for me, on top of the racialized aspect, to deal with things I couldn’t “prove” with science and already didn’t believe in. The idea of being punished for certain things didn’t sit well with me either. I always had more alternative interests and more radical politics. That being said, it’s amazing to see that this piousness and devotion came to you through skateboarding. How’d you start skateboarding?

454: Bro, so in 5th grade I moved to the suburbs. My parents got a crib that was maybe 15 or 20 minutes from Orlando. My cousin had an old school skateboard. I took it around the neighborhood and I saw these kids—they had a ramp though! I was like, “Damn!” They skated, but they were a little bit more elevated than me. So I went over to ’em and I was like, “Damn bro, I think I want to try this.” So I tried to drop in, bro, and I fell—got smoked! But I just kept trying it. I was like, “Man, I really like this!” After that, it was a wrap.

Gum: I think I started probably around the same age. This is another important question: Did you have four wheelers and dirt bikes growing up?

454: Sure did, bro. We had a four wheeler. I didn’t have a dirt bike, but I had a Pocket Bike.

Gum: Yes, the red joints!

454: Exactly.

Gum: What’s your favourite skate video?

454: Baker 3. That stuck with me a long time, but as I got older, I realised there were a lot of older videos that I just didn’t see until I either moved [to NYC], or they were just pushed more towards me based on the algorithm on YouTube. I like Girl’s Mouse. What else? It’s Official, the DGK video. I’m gonna say one more: Fully Flared was like the first video I had seen! At the skate park they had a little fake premiere. They just were like, “Yeah, it’s a new video. We’re just gonna play it.” That was one of my top videos for a long time.

Gum: I’m glad to hear some DGK love!

454: DGK was killing it! When they were in their prime, skating was in a different era then. They were going crazy. What about you, what’s your favourite?

Gum: The Supreme Cherry video, and Palasonic.

454: Facts. Cherry was one that brought something else to skating, you know. Everybody realised like, “Yo, this shit is insane!”

Gum: I had that shit on my NYU Google Drive so I could watch it in class while I was in my art lectures, bro. I was tuning into that shit weekly. When I was in college, I think that was the time where I wasn’t necessarily skating the most ever, but it was a time where I was skating the most at a decently high level. I came to college and I was skating everywhere. I was at Tompkins Square Park religiously.

454: I didn’t even know you were out here around then. It makes so much sense now.

Gum: Take me all the way back. The context I’m interested in the most with Florida is this budding culture war. When I look at Florida, with all the book bans and obviously the murder of Trayvon Martin—Florida even kind of has that meme reputation. It’s like, “Yo, Florida niggas crazy!” Ostensibly, there’s always some crazy shit going on in Florida. I’m wondering about your experience as a youth and as an adult. How did navigating these subcultures brush up against the rest of the insidious conservative Floridian miasma that’s everywhere else? What is it like to be a skateboarder and what is it like to be a Black Christian in Florida under all these conflicts?

454: Coming up, I didn’t really see how crazy it was. When I moved to a new neighborhood, there were some things going down back then that were kind of weird, that white people were doing to us, but I was too young to really know what the fuck was going on. I didn’t realise a lot of it until I got older. Being a Christian too, bro. It’s just a part of our history in a certain way. I started thinking how fucked up it is the way Christianity was brought to Black people. Being in New York, I look back on Florida and there’s certain shit that just... Even going back, there’s a certain energy, but it’s weird because Florida is so diverse. It feels like something’s happening...

Gum: Something that shouldn’t be happening?

454: Y’know? It’s super weird, bro. And I really don’t get it. But maybe that’s because it’s a red state, and I think it’s because there’s a lot of people with money there, too.

Gum: The retirees.

454: Yeah.

Gum: What was your school experience like?

454: School was cool! Middle school, I was skating. I wasn’t always a “loner,” but as I got older, I started to just like, go deeper—deeper into just wanting to be by myself. Especially when I started making beats and trying to figure that out, and then balance it with skating. Not that I didn’t really care to have friends, but if I had friends, it was because we were skating together. I didn’t really have friends in school who didn’t skate or were into music. And I wish I did! I started ninth grade in Tampa, and then we moved in tenth grade back to the area where we were living before, closer to Orlando. It was kind of weird, bro. I ended up doing virtual school for maybe a year and it didn’t work out. I finished up at this charter school. It was like, you go for four or five hours and you just do your shit and you can go home, do whatever. So I just finished out that way. Then, I was just skating heavy and making music!

Gum: Are we the same age? I’m 26.

454: I just turned 27! Yeah, school was calm. I was a shy kid coming up, but I still had my homies and friends and whatnot. School wasn’t where I was thriving though.

Gum: Did you do music in the church at all?

454: Nah, and that’s my thing. I really wish I did. With the church, I wish I was able to have that discipline of sitting down and getting that done.

Gum: Some real mentors.

454: Right. Learning from somebody with their own technique.

Gum: Who’s been in your corner, as far as music? Are there a couple people or a specific person who’s really pushed you further along?

454: Honestly, a lot of homies. With putting out beats on YouTube, that came from just you know, SoundCloud culture. Just wanting people to hear my shit, trying to get heard. Through that, there was a couple underground heads who tried to support ’cause they fuck with me. But since I’ve been up here, really trying to put out my own songs? Really bro, Niontay. My sister Pig [the Gemini]. My homeboy Marc. That’s really it, as far as like, from the get-go.

Gum: How do you think your relationship to masculinity has changed since then?

454: Growing up I wasn’t really getting girls or like, trying to make that a thing. I wanted to skate. All through high school, dog, I was just skating. Right before I graduated, I started dating this girl and it just wasn’t the relationship that I wanted it to be. It just didn’t pan out. So after that, I was for sure like, “Oh hell no. I’m definitely scared.”

When I met my [current] girl, bro, that definitely evolved me as a person—as a man. I just realised where I was, even if I didn’t think I had masculinity. I realised all that when I got into a healthy relationship.

Growing up, the men in my life—I was just not taught. At that time it was just, you know, you gotta be tough. You gotta hold a certain, I don’t know, a dominance. That’s what I got from my uncles and from my dad and from just being in that era. Really up until I met my girl—that changed a lot for me. We met when I was 20. It was a crazy time to get myself right.

Gum: I think that’s also something that comes through in your music. I was trying to articulate how I felt about the music, but I think—just that question. It wraps it up for me, I think. And for why other like-minded guys are attracted to the music. Even if it’s not explicitly said—and it does explicitly come across in the lyrics sometimes—it’s just from an earnest and a genuine perspective. I think people resonate with that. I definitely resonate with that. I feel what you said about masculinity, and about dominance.

454: That’s the only thing I could really think of when I think about masculinity around that time, and what was taught to me. It’s fucked up. Seeing what my cousin went through, how they were treated when they came out as trans, it was just fucked up in a sense to where I didn’t wanna be that type of person, you know? I didn’t wanna live my life like that.

Gum: I don’t know why I had that kind of conflict with what I thought was masculinity either. I have such a strong mom. So, I knew that I didn’t necessarily have to be this super tough, angry guy—but then I also really looked up to my dad. I love my dad, and he’s not in the streets anymore. He’s been a barber for over ten years at this point. We have a great relationship. Growing up, I thought he was the toughest guy around.

I came to New York with a big chip on my shoulder, and I thought I had to be tough as the out-of-towner trying to make his way. I’m acting out doing this, that, and the third. I’m being somebody—not that I wasn’t—I was being a part of me that should have stayed a part of me, but I wanted it to be my whole thing.

454: That’s crazy though, bro. I had the same chip. Niggas shot my dad, he lived.

Gum: Right, so we’re thinking, “Oh, we up! We tough!”

454: I feel that. That’s real life.

Gum: Back to what we were saying earlier about the music and why people will resonate with it. This earnestness definitely contributes to this virality around your music. That’s one thing I noticed when I read any other writing about you. They’re always talking about you going viral all the time. Obviously, that’s an important part of your career and how you’ve been received to larger audiences. I wanna hear how you feel about it because things going viral makes me paranoid. I freak myself out about surveillance and people knowing a lot of stuff about me. How are you navigating that? Does it freak you out? Do you plot and plan for viral moments, or any crazy marketing scheme that’s going on? Is it just all random?

454: Honestly, all random! It’s weird because I don’t understand how shit travels. Just how even people who are outside my circle or outside of people who I knew in Orlando or New York are even hearing the music. That was mind blowing because I never knew how people would react to hearing my voice versus just the beats. Not saying it was never meant to happen, but I never wanted to be a rapper. I wanted to just produce and skate. I wanted to go pro at skating, but when I got older, I realised that wasn’t where my head was at. I just didn’t have it in me. I wanted other things out of life.

It’s still weird seeing certain shit and seeing people come to my profile and see who I am. Sometimes they just hear my voice and don’t even know how I look. That’s kind of weird. It’s really funny. I laugh every day!

Gum: How do you feel about using your vocals lately?

454: That’s my thing, bro. I don’t know, it’s just something about my voice that—not that I don’t like it—I just always had something with it. I’ve seen certain jokes and comments about my voice that I’m just like, “Oh, yep. They damn sure are right! My [voice] does sound like that.” But then I got people who fuck with it.

So there is a balance. It’s a good balance. Putting music out has allowed me to just be grateful for my voice. I try to capitalise and use it now as an instrument, versus just rapping. I’m trying to make everything sound like one, if that makes sense. I want this shit to sound like, I don’t even know...

Gum: More refined.

454: Exactly. It’s helped me just love my voice and my girl always tells me, “That’s literally why I’m with you.” Like, that’s part of the reason. If I’m ever down about anything, that helps me for sure. My thing is though, I wish I could sing. I can’t really do what I want.

Gum: What’s your favourite song that you’ve written?

454: I would say “Late Night.” That was a song where I was like, “Yo, niggas gotta hear this!” I was super hyped. I just wanted it to be a certain way and I recorded it and made the beat all in the same day. It’s not necessarily written like a traditional song. It got a little hook, but it don’t really got a hook. It is a very weird song, but I like how it’s written. Since then, I’ve been trying to just be free. However I came up with that song, I want to be free with other tracks like that, and just let it flow naturally as opposed to overthinking. I would say “Heaven,” too. That’s the one that took me the longest on the project. I sat with that track for weeks, and just kept taking stuff out or putting stuff in.

Gum: Getting real granular with it.

454: Yeah, “Heaven” for sure.

Gum: First date I had with my girlfriend, I was driving back and “Pisces” came on. I was like, “This nigga is my favourite artist.” Because nobody’s gonna understand how I’m feeling about this young lady until I show them this song! It’s very serious. I played that shit like 20 times that night.

454: That’s unbelievable. That’s great to hear.

Gum: I’ve had so many pleasant experiences to Fast Trax 3 and 4 Real. All of your projects really. I play them on loop and just go drive somewhere. I feel what you were saying, though, about trying to let go of traditional song structure. That’s something that baile funk is really helping me get out of.

454: That’s what Fast Trax are, just a bunch of tracks that I felt like were unfinished but that I wanted to get heard. Thank you again bro, for even understanding.

Gum: If you think you ain’t got no fans left in the world, I gotta be dead. I’m here, I’m tuned in! What’s your dream situation to make an album in?

454: One of my life goals is—the cliché—go to somewhere that’s secluded, whether it’s on the ocean or in the mountains. Just go somewhere and have people come through and make whatever. I wanna see how that experience is for me and see how it would be for me to work with others in that environment. It would be dope to go to Jamaica, or go to Electric Lady and make something. The homies, man, making music with friends. That’s where I feel most comfortable.

Gum: What are your ambitions for this year?

454: I always hope to just go on a cool tour. It doesn’t necessarily have to be with somebody whose music I really love. But if it could work for us both to travel together, then I’m so down for it. I’m just hoping for that. I love going on tour. That’s really why I do it, aside from putting music out. It’s dope to just go and see and meet people who like what you’re doing. It’s dope to play the shows, but I really enjoy meeting the people who come to the shows.

Gum: It makes everything visceral.

454: Real visceral, you know. Because this is still so unreal to me.

This story was originally published in BRICK Edition 11.

Edition 11 also features Larry June, Benny the Butcher, Amaarae, BKtheRula, and many more

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Words by Mardean Isaac

We originally published this interview with Andrea Dennis and Erik Nielson, co-authors of the book Rap on Trial, five summers ago. Since then, the issue of lyrics being used in legal proceedings against artists has only grown in prominence.

In the United Kingdom, one report by researchers Eithne Quinn, Erica Kane and Will Pritchard “found 68 cases between 2020-2023 that involved 252 defendants, the overwhelming majority of whom were Black or mixed race, in which rap music was used as evidence for serious charges - including murders.” These defendants included the likes of Loski and Unknown T, two of the most impactful London MCs of recent years. One piece in The New York Times described how Ladbroke Grove’s Digga D had the trajectory of his career altered by authorities after a prison sentence following a court case in which his music videos were presented as evidence. He subsequently had to submit his music for police scrutiny, was limited by parole conditions from speaking about his past, and was banned by a judge “from releasing tracks that describe gang-related violence.” In America, where Dennis and Nielson have documented nearly 700 cases, stories involving stars continue to emerge (and underneath them, many more involving less well resourced artists.) Chicago’s Lil Durk earlier this year protested his lyrics “being used against him” in his murder-for-hire case. But perhaps the most high profile case to date came in the form of the YSL Records racketeering trial, the longest criminal trial in the history of the state of Georgia, which has most prominently encompassed Gunna and Young Thug, and during which Nielson served as an expert witness. As grim as those proceedings were, they at least yielded the spectacle of a suited Thugger encouraging his smiling attorney to bop along to ‘Halftime’ with him, as his complex flows and obscene declarations boomed across an otherwise stern court room.

The Rap on Trial website contains a map of American cases, information on relevant legislation, and links to media, including the Emmy-nominated documentary As We Speak, for which Nielson was one consulting producer.

Rap on Trial is about the criminal prosecution of rap music in America. Authors Andrea Dennis and Erik Nielson, academics in the respective fields of law and literature, have identified around five hundred cases – almost entirely involving poor young Black and Latino men – in which rap lyrics have led to arrest, trial and often incarceration. In nearly thirty of these cases, lyrics helped prosecutors secure death sentences.

Dennis and Nielson have written the book as a way of chronicling, and potentially advancing, their efforts to combat this practice. Their central thesis is that “the criminal justice system has effectively denied rap the status of art.” They recount cases where police and prosecutors present rap as “autobiography rhymed over a beat”, treating lyrics as “confession”, “evidence of the defendant’s identity, motive, intent or knowledge with respect to the crime”, or when lyrics are deemed threats and therefore no longer protected from criminalization by the First Amendment.

In these American legal spaces, where the freedom of citizens is being determined partly through textual analysis of a great American literary and musical form, lyrics are read out as evidence without any sense of their art or the commercial incentive involved (unless the rapper is already shielded through success and wealth). “Rarely do [police and prosecutors] acknowledge,” write the authors, “as they do with films, novels, and other musical genres, that there’s a distinction between the author and the narrator telling the story.” The practice taps into deep-rooted fears of Black criminality and lawlessness by taking the conventions of gangster rap in particular – which presented an inverted vision of American capitalism and violence to the very society it was pushing back against – as direct and literal evidence of the inherent criminality of the accused.

“In short,” the authors write, “this practice happens because it works, few are aware it’s happening, and even fewer are critically challenging it.” While they have blazed a trail in the reporting of this practice, and some major figures in hip-hop – most notably Killer Mike, who writes the preface to their book – have backed them, the authors also expressed disappointment at the lack of support they have received from rappers and industry people. They spoke about their plans to invest in grassroots and local political efforts as a way to combat this injustice, which is not only unknown in its true current scope, but is growing.

BRICK: I thought we would start by discussing the historical period when this story begins. You specify you aren’t fully certain that the first case of rap on trial you cite, United States v. Foster (1991), was really the first, due to a lack of comprehensive database information. But essentially we’re talking about an era where gangster rap, as a commercial product, expands into broader American society. And the music’s sociological aesthetics evoke deep racial narratives in American history, and fearful reactions.

EN: You’re correct, we don’t know precisely when it started. But it’s not a coincidence that rap on trial began just as gangster rap started to become ascendant. Gangster rap explodes to the point that without much radio or MTV play it’s still outselling a number of other genres and sub-genres. When labels started to see the success of the gangster rap model, the music industry itself starts moving rap in that direction, and over time it becomes the dominant form of rap.

And gangster rap became very threatening, especially in the eyes of non-listeners; it became politically charged and controversial to perform. Look at the famous FBI intervention with “Fuck tha Police.” Gangster rap responds to the war on drugs in unique ways and gains traction not only in Black and Hispanic communities but white ones; arguably white listeners ultimately become the biggest consumers of it. Many people found, and still find that, threatening. At least in part, that explains why you started to see the use of these lyrics in court.

During this period, you also started to see more confrontational lyrics from the East Coast, through groups like Public Enemy. But gangster rap is what has been weaponised, for the most part, in court room settings.

AD: From the legal side, in the late ’80s and early ’90s, you begin to see a significant ramping up of the War on Drugs and anti-gang action, in the form of policing and prosecution policies, on state and local and federal levels. Federal money flows into states and localities to help with prosecution of drug crimes and gang crimes, with significant attention being paid by prosecutors to these kinds of offences. These police and government policies generate the birth of gangster rap. And of course, what gangster rap is focusing on is over and hyper policing – on brutality – along with criminality in particular communities. So the perfect storm of police and prosecution policies generates a new art form which then reinforces common stereotypes and tropes. And you have police and prosecutors acting in a very instrumental way – what evidence can I find that proves my case and helps with the investigation? Quite naturally, from their perspective, they turn to gangster rap, which has helpful and salient information that they can draw on to tap into understandings, beliefs, concerns and fears about rap and Black and Latino men in urban environments.

BRICK: Of course freedom of speech is enshrined in the American constitution and has been upheld rhetorically as a point of pride for American society for many decades. There are protections in place at almost every level you describe, in principle. The issue is that they have been made unavailable to rap and people who perform rap, with the exception of those who have made a successful business out of it. There appears to be continuity of purpose even if not of method. For example, obscenity was sometimes the free speech exception cited to pursue a rapper, but especially after the failure to prosecute 2 Live Crew in 1990, prosecutors moved onto focusing on threats. Can you explain how that process functions internally? Is this information travelling between lawyers?

EN: You’re absolutely right: we have the first amendment, and there are exceptions – certain types of speech that it doesn’t cover. Using those exceptions, law enforcement has used the jurisprudence around the first amendment to punish an art form that could only exist because of free speech. That kind of irony isn’t new. The idea that we have a set of laws and rules and protections that apply differently to different groups – that’s always been true, particularly when we talk about Black Americans and speech. As long as there have been Black people on American soil there were two sets of rules, and speech was always viewed as a severe threat. I’m not just talking about the antebellum south; you can take it up to J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI through to the present day. The motives seem to be the same going back centuries, it’s just the mechanisms that have changed.

Law enforcement seized upon rap music and used different strategies to go after it, whether through obscenity or threats, and we worry that will continue to extend. I think that is in large part because attorneys are talking to each other; we know they are, on both sides. There are formal training manuals that, in a general sense, encourage prosecutors to go after lyrics. Over time, the success or failure of tactics becomes known. With 2 Live Crew, they went after obscenity; it didn’t stick, and they moved on. One of the things they moved onto is ‘threats’, and those are sticking. As a general rule, as things become more successful from the prosecutorial side over time, not only do individuals share that directly, but it becomes part of what you see working and functioning. And even when you appeal and those convictions are upheld, you become emboldened.

AD: It’s a mashup of ways and methods – transmission of knowledge and tactics – within the larger government community among police and prosecutors, even legislators and those in the executive branch. They turn their attention immediately on rap music – sex, violence and threats are always going to attract government officials on the basis that young children (read: young white children) will be negatively influenced by this popular culture. So you already have legislators and other government regulators paying attention.

Within the standard toolbox, sex, obscenity and violence equate with threats. So you already have a legal toolbox for concerns and a doctrine that already exists for challenging obscenity and threats. You’d expect they would leverage those tools: to talk about them informally through phone calls and conversations they would have with each other: this is what’s in the toolbox, this is how we’d go after them. But then if you think about the move towards using the lyrics as evidence, that’s where you have police and prosecutors figuring out a way to maintain their policing and prosecuting priorities – young Black men, violence in urban settings, gangs and drugs – and as I said before, what’s the best type of information and evidence to support that. So now they’re having training sessions, talking to each other informally, preparing manuals – transmitting both the information and skill and tactics, both formally and informally. In many respects they’re just playing on and leveraging a standard legal toolbox. Rap on trial is within a new context, but one that is historically longstanding.

BRICK: These cases are weighed heavily towards amateur or aspiring rappers rather than established ones. One of very few famous names in the book, Eminem, is cited as a negative example: his lyrics were not prosecuted as a threat because they were performed at a concert. Are rappers who are widely known and/or rich, even those who frequently allude to illegality, protected from this phenomenon?

EN: In that example, which went to Supreme Court, the guy was merely quoting Eminem lyrics. But that speaks to your point. There are some examples of well-known rappers who have been targeted by this practice, but it is rare. The vast majority of cases involve amateur or aspiring rappers. They rarely have the financial ability to mount a vigorous defence, and along with that fact, once they’ve reached a certain level of celebrity, people, begrudgingly or not, have to acknowledge rappers as entertainers and artists.

The underlying assumption to all of this is that rap music isn’t art; that you can read it literally as rhymed confession. And I think that just becomes more difficult if you’re talking about someone who has sold millions of records. It becomes harder to make that argument, whereas if you limit it to these kids you view as unsophisticated, in communities you have no familiarity with, you can “other” them and negate what they’re doing as an art form. Celebrity can bring to bear many more tools to the criminal justice system than the average person; certainly versus those targeted by this practice. We know that in the United States, outcomes are in large part driven by financial resources.

BRICK: Unsurprisingly and simply, there’s a strong overlap between your socio-economic status and the outcomes you’d expect to achieve.

AD: People tell me that Jay-Z makes common references to his past and what’s he done, whether genuine or hyperbolic or somewhere in between. But along with current status and wealth, you also have the passage of time. Police and prosecutors are not interested in going after someone who is, as they put it, ‘clean’, or not worth their time right now. Decades-old potential criminal activity won’t be their focus. The low hanging fruit is what they’ll go after: amateur rappers who are still working their way up, still in the streets. There are examples involving famous artists that aren’t necessarily rap on trial examples. Every once in a while you’ll see an artist surveilled or monitored resulting in a gun or drug charge for what’s on their tour bus, or prosecuted for a shooting among their extended associates. So they get caught up in it but still not as deeply as the cases we’ve studied. In those cases, you are unlikely to see lyrics and persona trotted out to support a case, but there might be rare instances.

EN: You see a double standard between amateur and professional artists in variety of cases. Eminem talks about killing his ex-wife by name. I was recently involved with a case where a young man was convicted of conveying a threat because he identified police officers by name. But Ice Cube made songs where he threatened actual police officers in his community with murder, in detail. No one considered a prosecution then. Granted, the late ’80s and early ’90s was a different time. I wonder if gangster rap could have taken root today.

BRICK: It is distressing to encounter the unsearchability of the names in this book. These people effectively don’t exist in the public consciousness, or in the consciousness of professional society, in extreme contrast to someone like Jay-Z. This is why easily searchable information made only a limited contribution to the database you used for this book.

EN: I’m glad you said that; it reminds me of something. Occasionally I see instances where it seems clear to me that prosecutors and police are doing this under the radar because it’s very questionable, even in their own minds. One of the reasons that you might see this double standard is that if you go after a celebrity, you’re shining a spotlight on yourself too. And one of the things we note is that a lot of this is happening out of public discourse, out of view. That’s the story of our criminal justice system, not just about rappers. But I think that makes them especially easy targets, whereas celebrities can make a whole lot of noise and have political clout.

BRICK: The percentage you cite of white defendants is startlingly low: 1-2%. Why?

AD: We can start with our criminal justice system, which historically targets young Black men. The data we find is quite consistent with that historical fact. You can correlate it to police and prosecution priorities focused on certain types of drug crimes, and certain locations for violent crimes, at least until late: crack cocaine, heroin, so called drugs you might find in urban environments where police are prosecuting, in contrast with suburbs, exurbs, or rural America, where the population of whites is higher. Certain types of violent crimes are focused upon: urban violence, which tends to be predominated by young Black men.

We could correlate it to the producers of rap, who tend to be young Black men or Latino men, as compared to white folk. Of course that begs the question: for other musical genres that are predominantly produced by white artists, are lyrics being similarly used? And you know the answer is no.

EN: Most hip hop is still produced by Black and Latino men, yes, but that doesn’t account for why only 1-2% of defendants are white. In fact, it’s worse than that, because a couple of the higher profile cases involving white defendants ultimately won: the Elonis case, in which a 27-year-old white man posted violent rap lyrics on Facebook directed at his ex-wife, was overturned at the Supreme Court. Cameron D’Ambrosio, a kid in Boston, couldn’t even get indicted. What’s been startling to me – as someone who isn’t an attorney, hasn’t been up close to the criminal justice system until this work – is how you see at every level, knowingly in some cases, the system is set up to target young Black and Hispanic men. A lot of people find this practice surprising and shocking. It becomes less so when you put it in the context of a system that has been doing this forever and shows no real signs of changing. We’re still seeing videos of kids running and getting shot for nothing, and having to issue an outcry just to have people investigate. These situations would obviously be different if the races were reversed. Every day we’re reminded of the disparity you mention.

BRICK: There’s also a geographical, state-by-state disparity. Can you account for that on a historical or racial or economic basis?

EN: Some of it is just record keeping. From a procedural standpoint, it’s easier to find the data in some states than others. In some states we don’t have cases, but we know they’re there – it’s a matter of finding them. The aggressive anti-gang tactics that Andrea already mentioned – that the LAPD and others used in California before the ’80s, but which became increasingly militarised in the ’80s – would help explain why California appears to be the epicentre for all of this, why we still continue to see significant numbers of cases there compared to other places. It’s not just because California is populous; it has been a state which has foregrounded these tactics for a very long time.

Chicago is an example where there are many cases but not many of them show up in legal databases. Authorities there for a while now have tried to link drill and criminality. And while we know they are targeting that link, and we understand some of the connection they make, we’re not seeing cases. I’m fairly certain that’s more about how well those cases are being documented and recorded, and not based on regional differences.

AD: We should also mention New Orleans and the surrounding parishes, from which lots of cases emerge. Partly the correlation is those are large urban centers with thriving rap industries, which run from the professional to the amateur and up and coming, and are correlated with large Black urban populations and heavy policing and prosecution.

Even in some of these states where we’re not finding that many cases within the state – Erik worked on a case in Knoxville, Tennessee – it’s usually in the geographical area that has a relatively high Black population that we’ll find a case: “high crime area” is the term I hesitate to use, but we’re talking about heavily policed and prosecuted areas.

BRICK: Moving to the courtroom itself: the question of language in rap is where the racial, cultural and legal come together. There are the internal elements – the meaning of words and their arrangement in verses, different connotations and structures and dynamics – and then there’s how a rap lyric sounds being read in a courtroom, where the language is ‘objective’ but in this context also becomes ‘white’, set against Black American English. You convey the reality of mostly white people who have never heard this music, and are perhaps generally sheltered, being confronted with this stark language they had no prior knowledge of. In a relatively rare instance of an appellate court overturning a case (Skinner in 2012), the majority wrote that “we have a significant doubt about whether the jurors would have found defendant guilty if they had not been required to listen to the extended reading of these disturbing and highly prejudicial lyrics.” Can you talk about the nature of rap and legal language coming together in this context?

EN: It comes together badly for defendants. When I testify in court, it’s often based upon a relationship I’ve had with the attorney before the case goes to trial. I do what I can to work with them to avoid the scenario that you just described, where the lyrics are de-contextualized, musically or otherwise, with no sense of any of the artwork that goes into it. One of the injustices to rap music and artists, in that moment, is perverting art to suit your purposes. So when I work with attorneys, the first thing I do is get them to push to make sure that however the lyrics are presented, it comes as close to the artistic intention as possible. One of the things I try to do when I testify is explain that context: “I know what you just read seems really violent; I know you aren’t familiar with this culture, and the prosecutor said rap was a series of confessions. But actually, let me take you through the artform and talk about the literary, lyrical context; the tradition of literary, musical and cultural antecedents that all come together in this sophisticated way.” If you take the lyrics out of context and put them on a page and start reading them aloud, it sounds comical. It’s only comical to a certain extent, of course, because you know what they’re doing is potentially damaging. One of the first things you have to combat is desire to decontextualize lyrics, because it allows you to misrepresent things further.

AD: The three of us understand the literary and artistic distinctions between poetry, spoken word and rap. Those distinctions exemplify the problem in court. You have words on a page that may be transcribed by some person ill suited to transcribe lyrics. These might be lyrics that shouldn’t be transcribed – or translated. Then they are read in court, and while spoken word is performative, what happens in court is not musically performative at all. And what’s fundamentally missing, of course, is the sonic dimension of the music, which creates additional layers of feeling and understanding.

So there are some difficulties in translation between written and spoken word and lyrics, and also with whoever has transcribed or translated the lyrics and read them in court.

While you lose the artistic and musical aspect, police and prosecutors find recordings online, or find videos online. And that presents other problems with stereotypes, tropes and narrative: violent, hyper-aggressive, dancing; weapons and gang signs; in front of a trap house or in an urban environment. We have presentations that can be used in ways that can build on unconscious or express biases in jurors.

EN: The way I’ve tried to navigate dilemma is pushing for the video to be played, especially if it shows production quality, because I believe that adds to the argument that this is art or entertainment and something worthy went into it. That’s the dilemma that you find: if you play the videos, now you’ve introduced a whole new set of challenges. The only way I’ve found to navigate it is to provide analogs: “You understand that blood is part of horror, right? You remember how you like Scarface and The Godfather?” I provide popular culture examples to mitigate.

BRICK: At a certain point it might become difficult to prove you have friends. You write that you “regularly hear about cases in which prosecutors use a single rap video to indict various people who happened to appear in it, even if they were just standing or dancing in the background.” Having people around you to display the support you have, or to represent your neighbourhood, is labelled automatically as a gang based on people watching videos and pointing fingers.

EN: One of the things that came out of this research is a much deeper understanding of how police label and go after gang members, how they decide what a gang is and how dangerous it is. I’ve heard a police offer on the stand say that just living in an area that is gang active ticks the box for equating you with a gang. It has been made clear to me just how non-transparent, how one sided, this process of determining what a gang can be actually is. And the consequences can be devastating, even involving minor crimes, particularly in places like California. If you can connect someone to a gang, we’re potentially talking decades in prison.

BRICK: Erik, your experience as a countervailing force to gang experts is recounted in the book. How did that originate? Describe your engagement with defence attorneys, and how it has changed over time.

EN: I identified all the Google examples during the early stages of my research, and I knew there were far more. When I would hear of a case or I would find something on a legal web search, I would reach out to the attorneys: “What can you tell me about this case I’m doing research on?” Again, I’m a non-lawyer, so I’m learning both about the practice and about how the law works. I would learn a lot from them; most were really willing to talk. And at a certain point attorneys started saying, “I’ve helped you, now how can you help me?” So that’s when I started testifying and, yes, I’ve definitely had more requests over time: I can’t say yes to all of them. I’ve worked on a lot of cases now, and as Andrea and I have done more work to publicise the practice, and our interest in this area has also garnered attention, more people have reached out.

Just as this practice grows through word of mouth and in writing, we’re trying to get word out ourselves: You can bring in an expert, and you should. Before I knew about this practice, and Andrea was writing about it in 2007-2008, it seemed almost controversial to suggest you should have an expert; it was uncommon, certainly, and now it’s absolutely common. I don’t face real opposition as an expert; I’m always admitted. I’m not sure that was true when Andrea was writing in ’07-’08. Just as police have tried to build momentum for their practice, we have tried to build momentum for ours.

BRICK: Can you talk about your engagement with the hip-hop community? Have there been new developments following the book’s release?

EN: It hasn’t been that long since publication: we’re only six months out and COVID has put everything on pause. But we’ve had successes in reaching out to more folks. Killer Mike has been a mainstay; he’s been there for years now, as an advocate for this kind of work and our work. Mike and I wrote the amicus brief for Jamal Knox, which Meek Mill cosigned even though he wasn’t part of the case. An attorney from ROC Nation – Alex Spiro, one of Jay-Z’s attorneys – was able to get more to sign on: 21 Savage, Chance the Rapper, and Yo Gotti among others. And Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew signed on, too. Right now, it’s just people lending their name to the cause, and Killer Mike is best example of a high profile artist making it one of their issues. But we have set out a goal of including more artists with some success.

I have been disappointed by the level of engagement by artists on this. And it’s not as if they’re unaware of it: they have become prominent enough to not be in the crosshairs anymore, but they are aware that police are watching them and the people coming up behind them. Artists aren’t saying bad things about this work; they just aren’t saying anything. You get 50 Cent or Charlamagne Tha God saying, “Don’t rap about bad stuff – don’t be stupid and you won’t get in trouble.” That’s logical but counter-productive.

BRICK: It’s the equivalent of telling someone to act submissive in front of the police to save their life instead of asking why that’s necessary to begin with.

EN: Exactly. The music industry is highly competitive. In rap, staying relevant is a constant battle involving constant hustle. So I understand that – as we are paying more attention to the criminal justice system, and we have been over the past decade – it’s harder to get this on people’s radar when there are so many things happening at once in our broken criminal justice system. But I feel that this hits close enough to home for rap music – and that the industry should be more wary than it is, especially because of the potential for other exceptions to the First Amendment – especially incitement, but there are others – being trotted out to go after rap and rap labels as well.

AD: One part that will be key is figuring out more of a local or grassroots effort. We may not be able to draw the attention or time of a high profile artist – there may not be much to be gained there beyond drawing attention and resources – so moving a few levels down in the industry and talking to local organizations and speaking to criminal justice reformers that leverage hip-hop artistry for juvenile rehab or re-entry and re-integration programs. Plenty of those operate locally which provides an opportunity and space to intervene, to help educate and inform, to help develop a grassroots effort to deal with this problem.

EN: And those are spaces in particular where I think this information is needed. One of the concerns I have is that hip-hop as an educational tool, as a therapeutic tool, has shown itself to be highly effective in diverse contexts. In schools or other community organizations, hip hop is being promoted as a vehicle to help with a variety of issues – but in doing that they are setting people up to be targeted by police. So even if your intentions are good, if you’re promoting rap as a tool, you also need to make people aware of how that tool can be used against them. People go into high schools, try to be the cool teacher, and get kids to write Biggie lyrics – but that’s risky. So our involvement with those organizations is about education, but also raising awareness at that level, rather than aiming at celebrities.

BRICK: Could the reluctance of rappers to speak up be a legacy of their own persecution?

EN: There may be something going on where your history or legacy might be weighing on you in some way. But not when you’re Dr. Dre or Jay-Z or Eminem. If you’re worth hundreds of millions of dollars you’re no longer going to be subject to the vagaries of the industry and you don’t have the same worries about your livelihood, or being arrested. At that point, you should feel an obligation to speak out in some way, because I don’t accept that you’re a vulnerable target anymore.

BRICK: There’s a grim line in the book: “In short, this practice happens because it works, few are aware it’s happening, and even fewer are critically challenging it.” That sentiment is obviously bleak in terms of what it says about the criminal justice system. But do you think that owing to that margin of ignorance connected to this injustice, and given how deeply the practice runs against the vaunted grain of American society, that it might be ended through sustained action?

AD: One proposal we have is that individuals be more conscious of who they’re electing as prosecutors. To the extent that prosecutors allow and encourage their officers to look for this type of evidence, they will do that. But if they are unwilling for whatever reason to pursue this tactic, that’s the win for us. So encouraging individuals to ask local prosecutors whether they support this tactic or view it as problematic is significant. The central lynchpin in this process are prosecutors.

EN: It is depressing but there is room for optimism. Because if it has been persistent due to the lack of a spotlight, perhaps there is room to weaken it. We do see glimmers of hope. I have worked on cases that resulted in acquittals where it was quite clear if we had not raised this awareness, if I hadn’t been involved, it wouldn’t have gone that way. One of the reasons we are pushing is we do sense there are spaces where we can have victories. But right now we are too small, and it is still getting worse. I’d like to say we’re David and Goliath, because then at least we’re David. But I’m not even sure we’re there yet.

There are small victories. The book itself has helped. There is a high profile race in LA county for District Attorney: Jackie Lacey versus George Gascón. A huge territory and highly contested space. There were debates and town hall meetings with some of the candidates. During one of them, the moderator brought up this issue and put them on the spot: “How do you view this practice?” And to my delight, at least the ones who showed up said: “Yeah, this is crazy, we wouldn’t do that.” So they’re thinking about it, maybe for the first time. Even if they get to office and it’s a different story, at least we have them on record. It starts to create the kind of pressure which, if we can multiply it, can shape outcomes.

Photography by Lindsay Ellary
Words by Bianca Betancourt
Fashion by Jordan Boothe

As we get acquainted across a tinny Facetime connection from Chicago to L.A., I ask Dijon Duenas what he thinks of being called one of “the next big things” in music. Without hesitation, the 26-year-old singer-songwriter replies simply; “it’s horrible”.

It’s evident from the bashful laughter that follows his statement that he realizes how silly it sounds to say out loud, but since his departure from his initial stint as the vocalist of R&B duo Abhi/Dijon and with the release of his first solo EP, Sci Fi 1, Dijon has been unofficially anointed as the latest indie music darling.

It’s not hard to see why. And while acclaim has been widespread, it’s difficult to find consensus on where exactly Dijon’s work fits into landscape of genres that comprise contemporary music. Indeed, his own Soundcloud page runs a broad gamut by his own self-tagged classifications; a string of releases from 2018 are listed as Country, R&B, Soul and Techno. The one tag that seems to have stuck, however, is Americana.

“That started off as a joke,” he admits, when I mention the Americana label. His music has the folkloric guitar strum and melodic humming we’ve come to recognize as the base of classic American music. The twist is that it’s a millennial brown boy composing the work, and it’s not his own musical output that he views as Americana, but rather the entirety of the music that influenced and defined his adolescence. “I felt like the most American person in the world, because I grew up on specifically American R&B and rap - it's something that could only exist here. It's a part of the American experience. I just always thought of the phrase ‘Americana’ because I think that black music and things like that are the most American.”

For Dijon, his composition choice of bare boned lyrics and stripped-back guitar is solely because it’s the way that makes the most sense for him to express himself at the moment. Sometimes the grit in his controlled belting (like in the smooth and sultry track “Drunk”) shows shades of Prince. More monotone moments, like the EP’s opening track “Lace”, calls to mind the more minimal side of Frank Ocean, with his painfully honest yet mellow rap delivery.

Dijon credits the blunt and biographical composition of his work to being raised listening to the raw lyricism of hip-hop. “Growing up on rap, it's quite an intimate thing if you step back from it and distance yourself from the general idea of what we think it is. It’s kind of someone just talking to you, and I think that is probably forever embedded in me,” he explains. “I don’t necessarily seek out that intimacy in my music, this is just the only way I'd ever do it.”

Although many of his inspirations stem from rap and R&B, he doesn’t view himself or his music as obvious children of these influences, specifically citing the inauthenticity in the braggadocio of artist’s words as something he is consciously railing against: “The way R&B music works sometimes is that it's so effortlessly cool, but I'm not a cool person. I don’t feel the need to posture as sexy or fun. I do feel like there's a little bit of a sham in music and this false intimacy that people have with an artist. Maybe the artist isn't as open or as accessible as the music suggests, and I’m trying my best to find a way to actually do that,” he says, acknowledging that “I'm sometimes the worst person in the world, sometimes I'm the sleaziest person in the world, sometimes I’m an OK person. I think that was my goal with the record, to try my best to just continue to chip away at the membrane between artist and audience. I don’t want to be cool, I don’t want to be sexy, I just want to be a guy.”

Dijon’s lyrics display a maturity beyond his years. The new EP’s tracks deal with a very personal subject matter, derived from the end of a years-long relationship of Dijon’s, combined with the experience of moving across the country from Maryland to Los Angeles to pursue music full time.

“The story of the EP was the guilt and the shame that you feel [post-breakup] and trying to reckon with the decisions you make as a person and what they do,” he tells me. “It’s a little bit of contempt, and a little sad.”

But rather than feeling a sadness when listening to the EP, the project’s lasting impression is one of bittersweet warmth and nostalgia. SCI FI 1 sounds like how memories feel — solemn yet soothing. It has become a hallmark of his work, the ability to conjure images so vivid and detailed that it feels like examining an old photo album; a motif explored most literally in 2018’s “Nico’s Red Truck,” where a re-discovered photograph, “all faded and bunched,” leads the singer to reminisce on a series of scenes from adolescence. That retrospective angle is present throughout SCI FI 1, processing past experiences in order to move on to whatever comes next, but also, always there for when you want to remember.

With such personal and intimate sensibilities running through his catalogue, it’s a surprise when he tells me that his “favorite genres of music are decidedly anonymous—I’m a really big house music fan, I'm a really big fan of industrial music. But I never felt like I had much of a capability to express things in those worlds.” Pausing for thought, he goes on to explain that “I think that’s why [the music] comes off as really personal and intense—which is fine, I have no problem with that, I love that. I wish I could make aggressive techno but it's the only way I can do it.”

When it comes to the pressure of proving himself as a musician, the only competition Dijon considers is himself. He sees no point in comparing himself to equally as talented artists who have completely different musical goals. His goal is to make meaningful work—music with intention. He hints that his upcoming, and already sold-out, tour and in-the-works music will better reflect this mission as an artist.

“I don’t necessarily feel the pressure to compete with the idea of what I could be. Tomorrow somebody else will be really good, and that doesn't concern me,” he states. “The pressure comes from being able to be a musician, to make music as a living and also ensure that I make music that I'm proud of and that I'm challenged by.” It’s a characteristically contemplative approach from the 26-year-old, and one which looks set to propel him to new creative heights in the years ahead. “I just want to make something new and fresh, and touching and warm for people. I lose a lot of sleep over it. It's hard to do, but I’m confident I can do it.”

Photography by Theo Cottle
Words by Hayley Louisa Brown
Fashion by Guy Louis Miller

“Come in… if you’re handsome!” calls Mrs. Olaloye, in response to the knock on the front door that she knows her son is responsible for. She pads down the hallway to open up, leaving me in the front room with her youngest son, Ben, who has just returned from playing football and is now frantically turning on Sky Sports to catch what’s left of the Manchester United game.

Jim enters, exclaiming in delight to his mother, before he’s immediately followed inside by many more footsteps. Along with Jim, there’s his manager Luke, plus a handful of close friends. Shoes are removed at the threshold, the entryway looking like a monochromatic stockroom at Nike (all black, all Air Max 97s), and the apartment full of noise. Mrs. Olaloye brings out a bowl of Chin Chin, a Nigerian fried dough snack, and boils the kettle. Our photographer Theo and stylist Guy are in one bedroom, setting up lighting and manoeuvring around pieces of furniture as myriad conversations ebb through the walls.

Jim’s older brother, Ayo, has pulled out a special Assassin’s Creed deck of Magic: The Gathering cards to show Luke, whilst the rest of the boys pile onto sofas to watch Tottenham score their second goal of the game. It’s then that I realise that all 3 of the brothers support different teams.

When, a few weeks later, I reunite with Jim to interview him, it’s one of the first things I ask about. “It’s a mess, bro!” he exclaims, shaking his head before giving a much needed origin story on this Shakespearean family divide:

“Well, my Dad supported Man U, but my [older] brother was like, “I don't really like the colour red.” Those were our priorities when we were kids. I loved red, so I heard Man U and I was like, “hell yeah, that's lit!” But my brother wanted to support a different team. So he’s Arsenal. My sister, when she was alive, me and my little sister were supporting Man U with my Dad. Then, my little brother was born and he was like “I'm not really on this Man U propaganda, I'm not feeling it. He initially thought Liverpool was called Liver-poo, so he would laugh at that all the time and based on that, that’s who he supported. You know what, when you're a kid… your priorities are so dumb. When we play FIFA, it’s beef. I can't lie, there's been times where Liverpool are losing and I'll just be creasing, but now obviously Liverpool are way better than Man U. I don't even come home when they lose.”

This natural flair for storytelling is something that’s reflected in Jim’s music. He refers to it as a “hodgepodge,” which is a humble discredit to the magic that his unique blend of styles conjours. Listening to anything by Jim Legxacy is like that scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex has his eyes pinned open; each song so layered that a never-ending stream of references flash before you as you listen.

Back at Jim’s own apartment (a short walk from his Mum’s place) his Apple Music playlist streams through the TV. He sings along to every track that appears; we start with Caroline Polacheck (“her Desire, I Want To Turn Into You album is so sick.”) before pivoting to The Sugarcubes, then CATALYSTPVD and YhapoJJ, before a hard left turn into Lady A’s “I Need You Now.”

I wonder what his favourite ever record is, considering the sheer breadth of his tastes? I mentally prepare for a few minutes of umm-ing and err-ing in response, imagining the rolodex of options scanning behind Jim’s eyes. Surprisingly, the response is almost instantaneous:

“The Life of Pablo. That's the first rap album I sat through top to bottom. For that to be my first one is insane because a lot [of albums] have structure and organisation… But the first one that I found was the most chaotic Kanye album ever that had no cohesion, and no real sense of identity outside of the fact that it's chaotic, and I think that has shaped so much of what I do.”

And is his approach to creating his own work chaotic, too?

“It's a bit off the cuff, but I usually start with a four bar loop or an eight bar loop. I write a chorus on that and then leave it for months, because I feel like you have to let your demos age a bit before you understand them. Something like ‘Aggressive,’ that came out almost a year after when it was started. So it just takes a while.”

“Aggressive,” the lead single from his forthcoming mixtape, Black British Music, feels so distinctly familiar from the very first listen; new but nostalgic. Retro-futurism at its finest, with Jim’s sweetly reserved vocals mixing seamlessly with samples ripped from the Grime history books, sandwiched between an audio water-mark for the project, the words “Black British Music” echoing like a pirate radio station; reminding you exactly where you are - as if you could forget.

“I remember when I made the hook, I knew there needed to be a line being repeated, but I didn't know what it was. I was looking through a bunch of British classics and I remember seeing ‘Oopsy Daisy,’ and thinking ‘the “crush” sound could be interesting - just taking the word ‘crush.’ And from that, it started to come together. I felt like it assisted in weaving the narrative together a lot.”

Luke interjects, momentarily stepping in as interviewer:

“Would you say people like Dizzee and Giggs, for you, are like Black British classics?

I smile to myself; I love that, despite knowing Jim inside-out, he’s been listening intently to our conversation and has a genuine curiosity. The pair have known each other only a couple of years, but have a shorthand like they met on the first day of preschool. Jim nods: “Yeah, I think Chipmunk, Giggs, Dizzee, those are the ones that I feel like, in hindsight, were truer artists. I respect what those guys built for themselves, and for us.” Luke speaks up again, finishing up the thought: “Yeah, they’re the people that broke down the doors in the industry, I think, for you guys to exist.” and Jim nods again, with enthusiasm “Massively. So, for me, it's important to reference those guys and give them their props and what they deserve.”

Embedding the artists he admires into his own music acts as a public love letter; Jim really, really loves music. “A few years back I used to dig through SoundCloud all day, dig through YouTube as well, just trying to find music that interested me. But right now, I find it really difficult to find new things; because I feel like everyone's habits for finding music have kind of aligned into one place.” - and though Jim doesn’t say it specifically, he can only be referring to TikTok - “So I guess what I mean is, I find it hard to find something different. I find it easy to find what's popping. It's so easy to find that. But I do feel like what's not popping, that's what I've been looking for.”

I ask when Jim’s deep-rooted love for music turned from appreciation to creation? How did he begin his journey into making music, rather than just soaking it all in?

“Initially I was a big MF Doom fan, a big Kendrick fan, a big Avelino fan as well. So when I first started making music, I wanted to make music like that. I was learning to rap on those classic rap beats, and then I got, in my opinion, pretty good at it… but I felt like the process wasn't stimulating me enough… so I started making my own beats. Every time I learned to make something new, I was like “alright, done with it. Lemme make something else.” I kept doing that until one day I got to a point where I started singing instead of rapping, And I kept moving, acquiring new skills. I was so obsessed with the process. I started listening to more music, gathering more knowledge, and then it just turned into what I do now.”

And what he “does now” is so special and oftentimes, unexpected, that it feels as though it should have always existed. The layers of sounds, samples and fingerpainted strokes of genius give reassuring comfort; moments of vague deja-vu when you hear an 8-bar amongst the noise that shaped your own teenage years. In “Homeless n****a pop music” it’s Dizzee Rascal, Michael Jackson, Sampha. In “candy reign (!)” It's Soul For Real and Tinie Tempah. It is, in its own way, totally anarchic. In Jim’s own words: “bro, I can't lie. I think sometimes I just want to hear the song [I love] in my song.”

In his living room, I ask what instruments he can play, after spotting a keyboard carefully tucked underneath the television. “None, absolutely nothing.” he says, pulling the instrument towards him and revealing the letters A, B, C, D, E, F and G drawn on the keys over and over in Sharpie. I laugh, and he continues “Yeah, I can't play none. I just figure it out… I have a gift for what I think sounds good, and I never doubt that.”

Jim’s use of samples and interpolations act as instruments, adding layers and dimension, responding in the same way an orchestral group would to their conductor telling them to play more loudly or to quieten down. That’s exactly what Jim does: he conducts the samples. He tames them. Bends them. Pulls them out gossamer thin and plucks them. Squashes them into flat little pucks and stacks them. Every combination is a snowflake.

“I feel like that's the thing with samples,” he states. “They can be done so lazily and I really don't want to be like that. I want samples to be tasteful and strong and meaningful. Sometimes I hear the same key [in my music as in a pre-existing song]… and be like, “What does this remind me of?” Do you know what I'm saying? And when I figure out what it reminds me of, I'll drag [the sample] in and it fits perfectly. So sometimes it just feels divine. It feels divinely guided”

From my perspective, the switch from rapping to singing was divinely guided too - he only pivoted during the 2020 pandemic-induced lockdowns: “I think, obviously, lockdown was a terrible time, but a lot of people discovered so much about themselves in that isolation. I felt like I did too.” Jim spent that period of time at his Mum’s spot, no escape from the aforementioned football rivalry (“there was a lot of conflict in the house!”), but despite the close quarters “a lot of it was just me still learning music and teaching myself, trying to get things right. I was locked in, plugged into the matrix.”

I find it hard to imagine the Olaloye house during lockdown, having only seen it full - visitors fighting for sofa space, spreading out into the hall. My lasting memory of my visit was of Mrs. Olaloye, older brother Ayo, and friends Daniel and Ari on the sitting room floor, playing Ludo. The atmosphere reminded me of my own home as a teenager; it was the place my friends would congregate. I ask Jim if his house was like that, too? “Low key!” he exclaims “That’s what is, but also my mum grew up with nine siblings. She grew up in a house with 11 of them in Nigeria with two bedrooms. So my Mum doesn't like being alone. She can't really deal with it. She likes companionship, so when there's bare people in the house she feels very good. She really likes it.” And how does she feel about Jim’s unorthodox career choice?

“She's always been supportive, from when I was a kid. She was just like, “whatever you want to do, make sure you don't give up.” And I feel like those foundations, from such a young age, encouraged me to keep exploring. I think that was so necessary for me to figure out who I was and who I was going to be. So I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for the whole thing.”

And Jim’s upcoming project, Black British Music, which (not by accident) shares the same acronym as the Blackberry messaging app that reigned supreme before the iPhone, is a culmination of everything he’s learned so far: “I feel like there's a bit of a reset going on within Black British Music right now,” Jim says, explaining “so much music in the last five, seven years was heavily commodified and a lot of artists that were getting traction were trying to make a dime as opposed to communicating who they are and what things mean to them. So with this mixtape. I wanted to communicate narratives and let them be what they are proudly.” he says of the record. And the name? “Patriotism!” he cracks, before clarifying: “Well, only half of it is irony. I grew up in a Nigerian household. When people ask me what country I'm from, I'm always going to say I’m Nigerian. But when I go to Nigeria, they don't refer to me as Nigerian… So I'm not that. I'm something in between my Britishness and my Nigerianness. Do you know what I'm saying? So this mixtape is me being able to sit there and embrace everything; embrace Nigeria, embrace afrobeats, embrace everything that makes me the Nigerian part, but also embrace grime, embrace all the things that make me Black British as well.”

He goes on: “It's confusing, but it's something that we have to start thinking of now, before we try to force things on our kids. My kid's not going to grow up in a Nigerian household. I was raised with the cultural richness that my mum and my dad brought to me [from Nigera], and I'm not going to bring that to my kid. So my kid is actually going to be Black British, one of the first waves of African Black British people. And if I start embracing that now, I'll be able to understand my kids a bit more in the future.”

Jim’s “hodgepodge” approach to music appears to mirror the feelings he shares around his identity, too. He is a self-taught savant; and like an athlete, his PB is never enough. I ask what goals he’s currently working toward, and the answer, it turns out, is a tl;dr of this entire article:

“I just want to grow innit… I just want to execute my vision the way I see it in my head, and I feel like if I do that, I'll be happy. So that's my goal. Bottom line: I’m excited.”

This story was originally published in BRICK Edition 12, released in 2025.

Edition 12 also features Clipse, Navy Blue, Tommy Wright III, DJ Spanish Fly, Nia Smith, JOBA, Young T & Bugsey, and many more.

Click here to purchase the issue from our store,
or join our paid tier on Substack to receive a free copy as your welcome gift.

Subscribe now

Photography by Rahim Fortune
Words by Mardean Isaac
Fashion by Marcus Paul

BRICK: During the period after you took a step back from the group, you continued writing, including a book, and your own albums, mostly with religious themes. Can you talk about those literary and religious influences?

Malice: I can honestly tell you from the very beginning of our recording records— growing up, it was something about the word of God that always spoke to me. I just didn’t necessarily believe it. But I always thought: if this were true, it’s amazing. But I didn’t always recognise it as the truth. I thought the literature was just incredible. The account of this man Jesus: you can’t take some of it, and not all of it; there’s no way you can disregard certain things. If any of it’s true, all of it must be true. It’s too profound and too relevant. I found too many principles and theories that if I had listened to, I’d have been all the more better—especially as I was navigating such a worldly lifestyle, and not knowing why I was running in circles. It speaks to my every intellect, my every being. It speaks to my everything.

BRICK: Do you do a lot of reading?

Malice: Reading is my thing, bro. That’s all I do is read, actually.

BRICK: Old books, new books?

Malice: My go to book is 100% the Bible; I’m reading that every day, without fail. Early in the morning, 3:30, 4:30—that’s what I’m reading. But I also have a crazy book collection.

BRICK: Is there a particular version of the Bible?

Malice: KJV [King James Version].

BRICK: Is it common in Virginia to read the KJV?

Malice: I think it is common among the mature Christian. There are Christians who swear by the KJV and refuse to read anything else. Some people just don’t understand the KJV; they might need it a little more plain, or laid out. It speaks to me: it’s just so poetic. It touches you, man: the wording. The way things are worded, it has to be true—just from you wording things a certain way. I love it. The different translations—to me they’re cool, but it don’t bring it home like the KJV.

BRICK: There’s something about the wording of Clipse verses that is special: it's about finding that bond between word and truth, which is clearly driven by something profound. You can’t quote Clipse lyrics any other way; it’s exactly how it’s said, and it can’t be paraphrased.

Malice: I can dig that—thank you. I see us as speaking from the heart. To me, hip-hop has to touch you—the rhymes have to touch you—in a certain way to make you feel it, and to know that a person has literally been through that, you know what I’m sayin’? You can’t manufacture it, in my opinion. And when it is manufactured, it might even be some good music, but there’s a disconnect between the storytelling and the artist. If it makes for good music, I’m not mad at it either.

BRICK: When you say you’re reading scripture at three or four in the morning, are you just that early a riser, or is that part of some ritual? Do you go back to sleep afterwards?

Malice: Absolutely no ritual. I don’t know why I wake up at that time, but that’s the time I wake up—and I feel that’s the time I am to get up and start my day. That’s the time when I have my freshest ideas; that is the time that my list of things to do for that day are very, very clear, and it lets me know how I am to execute that day. Afternoon, things start getting a little foggy to me, but first thing in the morning, it's like the clarity is just so intense. Even my mom would say the same thing. If I was working on a song and I couldn’t complete it—maybe, I guess, someone might call it a writer’s block or a mental block—all I gotta do is go to sleep, and next morning, before I even open my eyes, that line comes to me, you know what I’m sayin’? [laughs] I’m like, wow: how could I not have thought of this yesterday? But first thing in the morning [snaps fingers] that line comes right to me: it’s like a gift. And it’s been like that since the inception of Clipse, for me. It’s always been like that. I know I have to get up. If I go to sleep, I’ll overlook it; I won’t get it. So I get up to retrieve that line, ‘cuz that line be waiting for me like a gift. I dare not sleep it off.

BRICK: Push, I wanted to ask about songcraft, because you’ve had an intense solo career as an artist, but you’ve also done so many collaborations and worked on Kanye’s albums. Had your perspective, when coming back to do this record, changed after those experiences?

Pusha T: There are definite codes that you take with you. In working with a different producer in Pharrell, I think there’s a different science, though, than the Kanye science. On “It’s Almost Dry,” I showed that both worlds could coexist. There’s always been this debate of who’s better, who gives me the best, and what do you get from both. So even in constructing that album, it was more about showing: that’s a way harder decision to make than people make it [laughs]. And I think, more importantly, it showed that those two worlds of production can actually co-exist and that the Clipse, myself, we can grab greatness from each of those.

BRICK: Central to the Clipse is the younger brother-older brother dynamic: brashness versus maturity, profanity versus faith, acting on impulse versus wisdom. I feel like those dynamics actually exist within each of you as well as between you; on this record, Pusha has quite a few deeply spiritual lines, and Malice has braggadocious lines. I wonder how you guys see the brotherly dynamics of the Clipse on this album.

Malice: Like you say, I feel like we have a lot of parallels, in many ways. I feel like I’m more laid back; I know I’m a little more reserved. But given the right circumstance, I’ll kill you [all three of us laugh]. And I think that’s how Pusha, to me, and through my eyes, is a standout, flashy; just a light. Just a star. And over these past years, these recent years, I believe what I’ve witnessed is him become more reflective. And I’m not saying he’s never been reflective, but I’m just saying more visibly reflective. I see him with his family, and with his son, and I think it’s made our working space very much compatible. And it’s definitely more cohesive. But we have a lot of parallels, but we do tend to live each of us separately in the opposite spectrum of those parallels.

Pusha T: For me, some of my more introspective content is brought out by having Malice next to me. People have heard me brash and braggadocious for so long. And when you place a verse of that next to Malice saying some super real shit, that hits you—hits you differently… It’s like, man, for me, I look to that—and I look to how people get hit by things that he says, and I think: I need some of that, and I want some of that. It turns competitive. Singularly, or solo, you can say a fresh line about a car; standing next to Malice, he’s saying something that’s damn near condemning it—or something that is so real, that it’s like: the world is so much deeper than that. And it’s like: damn, it’s a hard race to keep up with at times. It’s something to be mindful of—that I’ve had to be mindful of.

BRICK: “EBITDA” is a special one in terms of all three of you rapping, but also you two trading bars. Was that a fun one to make?

Pusha T: I love “EBITDA.” I like to call it the Tribe Called Quest moment of the album [laughs]. But the Tribe Called Quest moment when Q-Tip does a song for Mobb Deep, you feel me? It’s like that. The energy we were trying to mimic, the colour; we likened it to that. Once we heard the beat we was like: oh yeah, this colour is ill, and we needed to add it. Super fun to make.

Malice: It’s always a highlight, a special moment when you get Pharrell rapping, the way he raps. A definite plus.

Pusha T: That’s a good point—getting Pharrell to rap, that energy is always good, because it takes me back to a time when rapping was all that we all cared about. It takes me closer to that time, back then, when there were no other distractions: it was only making music, it was only hearing fresh lines. And that’s what made up our day. There’s so many distractions; we all have lives, we all have something else to do. We’re all consumed. And when everybody feels like they have to be on a beat [laughs], it’s like, yup: we hit the vein on this one.

BRICK: I wanted to ask about time. One of the most powerful dimensions of the record is that you play with different these different layers of perspective: you immerse the listener in life as you once lived it, life as you live it now, and also the experience of looking back on the past from the perspective of the present, in light of everything that’s happened and how you’ve evolved as individuals and a family. Can you talk about the role of time and different perspectives offered by time, on the album?

Pusha T: Time is the flex. Whoever can stay the purest the longest—that is who wins. And I think that we’re showing that; competitively, we are showing that. Time is how we are showing that we are better than everyone else. And not trend chasing at it either. Nah: we can make reality sound fresh, and not just in a street sense—in a real life sense. I don’t think other guys have done this for this long.

Malice: Nah, they haven’t.

Pusha T: They haven’t tackled these issues or tapped into these emotions. “Birds Don’t Sing” is hard to do. I don’t know if people can just make that. Time is the flex, man. What is time? And how you navigate through time; and how you fit in, in the time? Are you still competitive in the time, or are you just existing in time? We’re not just existing; this music isn’t just existing.

Malice: I look at it like the old adage: time will tell. And over the years, and with all the time that has passed, you can look at people and tell what they have been doing with their time—and what they have not been doing with their time. We got a song called “Grace of God,” and I think it just speaks to what people can find themselves in. Not managing your time, or squandering your time—mishandling your time—it can land you in a personal hell. And we see that with indictments, and death, and drugs. And people wear what they’ve been doing on their faces, you know what I’m sayin’? And it’s the resilience of the Clipse—at our own pace, doing what we do, how we do it, always have done it. And it’s like my brother says: who can stay the purest, the longest. Slow and easy win the race!

BRICK: I wanted to ask about “Grace of God,” which for me is part of a line of epic Clipse tracks including “Nightmares” and “Life Change” which deal with fate and the moments where the consequences of actions suddenly make themselves felt. The song has a celebratory aspect to it—escaping punishment and incarceration—but also there’s pain and questioning. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the power and potency of that song in terms of your lives and journey.

Pusha T: I think the song itself is just so reflective. The hook is so strong to me. It just speaks to everything we’ve witnessed. [He slowly recites the lines of the hook, as if taken aback by their power.] “They missed this wall”—with drugs in it, luckily [laughs]. Just a lucky metaphor. It’s like, man. And it was just so cool—such a cool way to say it. A cool way to mention being lucky, but also speaking to the grace of God. I sing it the most, actually; I sing the hook the most. Again: heavy, heavy—a hard record. But not quintessentially hard. It’s so consequential—it just speaks on so many different consequences. It’s kinda what the Clipse has always been known for; speaking to all sides of the situation. Not just speaking to the glamour of it all. It’s funny you picked that song, man. I listen to it everyday, I’m on the treadmill to it everyday—but I sing it a capella all the time [laughs].

Malice: What I like about the song is how everyday decisions, consequences—even making bad decisions, I believe—well, I know—it can happen to anybody. It is not above anyone to make mistakes. But also, you have to be aware, to be observant. You have to pay attention when the fire gets too hot. You definitely have to be learning from certain mistakes. And some people choose not to—some people just want to float, and just coast, and not pay attention to the warnings you’re getting all along the way. There are warnings: you don’t just find your ass in a fire! There are tell tale signs that say: hey, you may want to rethink that. And if nothing else, it should open the mind, especially to the youth, who are out here doing what you do. We may understand what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, but pay attention. One of my good friends Iceman always says: Gene, sin feels good, but is it friend or foe? And you gotta ask yourself these kinds of questions, and just open your mind; open your eyes.

BRICK: There are quite a few references on the album to the events of 15 years ago—I believe it was actually April 2009, eight months before your last album [Til the Casket Drops] came out—when your people were taken away. I wonder about the legacy of those events, especially in light of time passing, kids being born and growing up, perhaps some of the guys actually being released, and whether making this album marks some kind of landmark that in some way connects to those people who came up in the music game alongside you?

Pusha T: I don’t think so. We’ve spoken about situations and instances and energy within that time. But that wasn’t even the realest times of our lives, I think that’s what we’ve proved [laughs]. That was a time. It was a time. But life goes on; life really goes on. And I feel like it speaks to those losses that were taken, whether in time, whether in friendships—any of the losses taken during that time. We bounced back from ‘em all. As Gene said earlier, it’s about the resilience. That life wasn’t even the end all, be all.

BRICK: Another powerful dimension to the Clipse is that the group simultaneously represents a deeply local narrative, a deeply American narrative, and also a global one. I’ve heard Push speak about connections in Germany; I know he’s been coming to London since the late 90s; you guys are connected to Japan as well. So I wanted to ask about the international vision in relation to this phase of the Clipse.

Pusha T: International has always been such a big deal for us; we’ve always been moving around internationally as a group. We were one of the first hip-hop groups on the European festival circuit, with this level of content. International we’ve always looked at it as a must. It’s never just been here in the States that we only cared about—because we’ve gotten so much love in those other places. And that has a lot to do with doing those European runs; European press; Japan; and so on and so forth, as well as the fashion side of it. People in those places relate to it. I just left India. We’re looking to engage everywhere; we’re looking to be out here and really run the circuit, wherever Clipse fans are, we want to see them all. Hip-hop is so large that I feel like, between the music itself, and the internet, everywhere is across the street. Nothing is far anymore.

BRICK: Pharrell’s Louis Vuitton shows in Paris have both featured new music from you guys, with “Chains and Whips” last year and “Birds Don’t Sing” this year. Can you talk about your experiences of those shows and what it was like to have the songs featured there?

Pusha T: The experience was amazing. What I think the Clipse represents is the intersection of culture and music. Street culture, fashion: 360° of hip-hop. That’s the only way you can exist in this thing today, to me. Incorporating the music and the high fashion and just creating that world around us that we’ve been in since ’01-’02: the intersection of streetwear culture, high fashion; the influence in all of those worlds and how the music brings all of those worlds together. It’s a moment of putting a stamp, like: yes, we have been part of hip-hop culture, fashion in all aspects. We don’t just rap about it; we actually really live it—we’ve been influential in all these spaces all before. We’re walking the show—but we were talking and buying Pucci years ago. We were actually doing it and wearing it; and it was high end. Whether it was BAPE or Japanese denim, we’ve always been entrenched in that. And our fans followed us because of these things as well; it actually broadened our fan base. The way we articulated ourselves, in those worlds, on the music, it opened us up to more fans, I believe. So it’s just a full circle moment to be able to walk in these shows and have the music debut there. Man, that “Chains and Whips” rang off; people knew. They was like “Oh my God” [laughs]. I love watching that one, ‘cuz it’s like: you watchin’ Hov make a face as he’s listening to these raps, he’s like: ah man this is crazy! Co-sign without the co-sign.

BRICK: While sitting next to Bernard Arnault as well.

Pusha T: Mm-hmm. Awesome.

BRICK: There are many interconnected narratives with Clipse and fashion; we can mention names from Nigo to Jerry Lorenzo. But I wanted to focus on LV, which is a story in itself, and a growing one, as a brand that has gradually incorporated Clipse aesthetics and language: Virgil embracing Pyrex Vision and Off White as terms and using tracks from Hell Hath No Fury in his playlists, and now of course Pharrell becoming creative director of the brand and Push becoming a house ambassador there. I wanted to ask about Clipse’s role in the transition from streetwear to luxury, what it means to you guys, and what your hopes are for developing it even further?

Pusha T: The transition is a ping-pong. I don’t think you ever stop wearing streetwear, or luxury—or mixing the two. That’s what people need to see. I’m watching how people are taking specifically my ambassadorship over at LV—and they want to see it worn. They can see it on the runway, but they need a tutorial, through me, to the streets, you know what I’m sayin’? You don’t wear everything like a runway show. And it’s dope to see how it translates to the streets. And I think that’s my goal in it for sure. That’s what we aim to do in doing it.

Malice: The music and fashion will forever be intertwined. Those who come up behind us in this artform, I hope to give them an idea of how it can be done. You don’t have to burnout, and you don’t have to compromise. It’s a way to do it, and the level that we do it on, you don’t see this often. I would even go so far as to say you don’t see it at all, if you ask me. Maybe one or two of the greats. But you don’t have to put an age on this. It’s just: are you good at what you do? Are you into what you do? Do you have something to offer? As long as you do, and you leave a good carbon print on this world, you’ll always be relevant. And I just want to show others, this is how it is to be done, and how it can look—and still be in competition, and count.

BRICK: On this album, you guys wrestle with the darkest and most violent and tragic aspects of life, but you sound like you’re having so much fun putting words together, especially as brothers. I wonder if you could reflect on that dynamic, between the darkness of the subject matter and the joy of creating art.

Pusha T: I think that’s the new goal—to be creative in that space. We do dark music—dark-themed music—but it’s about how creative you can make it. How articulate you can still be; how fundamentally hip-hop and lyrical you can still be, without being repetitive. Especially in today’s climate, we put ourselves under a scrutiny that is like none other. We could be cheap all day long; we just couldn’t live with ourselves [laughs]. But we could do it. Just trying to make it better—more creative, more colourful—that’s a big thing for us. The first thought is never the one; it’s always the fifth. And trying to compare your discography with the greats. Creating the movie. I think B.I.G. was very good at that. It’s all movie time now.

This story was originally published in BRICK Edition 12, released in 2025.

Edition 12 also features Navy Blue, Jim Legxacy, Tommy Wright III, DJ Spanish Fly, Nia Smith, JOBA, and many more.

Click here to purchase the issue from our store,
or join our paid tier on Substack to receive a free copy as your welcome gift.

Subscribe now

Photography by Rahim Fortune
Words by Mardean Isaac
Fashion by Marcus Paul

One evening in June, 2023, the Clipse strode across the Pont Neuf—the oldest bridge in Paris—between seated rows of illustrious guests. Malice (Gene Thornton, b. 1972) and Pusha T (Terrence Thornton, b. 1977) were modelling at their old friend Pharrell Williams’ first show as creative director of Louis Vuitton. Wearing a knee length coat and varsity jacket emblazoned with glaring oversized graphics, they stared eerily into the distance. Violet streaks were still visible in the sky above the dark blue Seine; a grid of powerful lights beamed across the Damier pattern of the runway, casting long shadows behind the various walkers. Among the medley of strings, pianos, and gospel music accompanying them, a new, unreleased song played out. “Beat the system with chains and whips,” Pusha incanted on the hook, double entendres flipping bondage into liberation through the ownership of jewellery and plush automobiles.

“Chains and Whips” ended up as one of twelve tracks on Let God Sort ’Em Out, the first Clipse album in 15 years, entirely produced by Pharrell. Recorded between Paris and the trio’s hometown of Virginia, the record represents a return to old ways as much as a new beginning.

It was Pharrell who first envisioned the brothers forming a group. Steeped in music from childhood, he met Malice on the Virginia oceanfront in 1990, where youngsters gathered to freestyle. At that stage, Malice was already rapping—and instructing his little brother on distinctions in matters of taste. At a session with Pharrell and former partner Chad Hugo, Pusha—whose rap alias was also given to him by Pharrell—wrote his first verse. The producer came up with the group’s name—playing off the overlapping motion of the celestial eclipse—and secured their first record deal.

The early years of Pharrell and Hugo’s collaboration as The Neptunes were marked by hyper-productive genre-crossing sessions in Virginia Beach, which yielded hits for hip-hop, R&B and pop artists. Clipse secured their share of that glut of beats for Lord Willin’ (2002). Spurred by percussive single “Grindin’”, the group began—in their own telling—to play “brown bag shows” to local hustlers; but with their next album, their audience soon extended to white college kids they called “clipsters”.

Hell Hath No Fury (2006), another Neptunes production, is one of the most disquieting and artistically singular explorations of criminality in the hip-hop canon. The brothers quested with fervour for the outermost limits of both the seductions and horror of avarice and violence. Their lapidary bars channelled the mystique of the outlaw vernacular and the thunderous register of scripture. Endless distillation of street realities became a way of refining the truth of the world beyond the street.

Then everything fell the fuck apart. In 2010, a cluster of drug conspiracy sentences saw nine of the Clipse’s closest associates incarcerated in long bids, including their former manager Anthony Gonzalez. Chilling prophecies of downfall on tracks like “Nightmares” had come to pass.

The brothers remained free. But the Clipse itself became a casualty of the events. On a flight out of Virginia, Malice announced to his brother he wanted out of the group.

The parting of ways felt like a chapter in the saga of their artistic personas as much as an event affecting the human beings behind them. Pusha’s flamboyant recklessness dictated persevering; Malice, deeply shaken by not only the imprisonments but the vision of his music as a soundtrack to wrongdoing, succumbed to his fearful prudence. Pusha pursued a solo career in accordance with his brazen sensibility (“You think Tony in that cell would have made us timid? / we found his old cell, bitch: we searchin’ through the digits”, he rapped on “40 Acres”); Malice was possessed by a religious revelation, compelling him to turn away from materialism and hedonism and towards God. The brotherly dynamic obtained, even as the musical act did not. There was no beef; no conventional break up. Malice supported Pusha; Pusha respected Malice. The asterisk of the group’s potential return was founded on that bond, and the artistic greatness that only it could unleash.

During their hiatus, it became clear that those who pigeonholed the Clipse as “coke rap”, or encouraged them to dilute, compromise or diversify their approach, turned out to be projecting their own limitations, not exposing those of the music. Instead of Clipse bending to the world, the world bent to them.

The group’s influence could perhaps be felt most prominently in artists who didn’t rap about street shit. Tyler claims to have been permanently transformed by “Mr. Me Too”. Kanye drunkenly ranted about how “everything is Pusha T” and cast Pusha as a protagonist during his most panoramic artistic run. A point shrouded by later events: Drake idolised the Clipse so much that he bought a mic apparently signed by Pusha on eBay and rapped the group’s songs into it in his basement.

Let God Sort ’Em Out is guided by a resolute faith in artistic fundamentals long mastered by its makers. It feels like a continuation of an obsession with craft that is inherently restless and abhors staleness. But the album also registers the passage of time; it is deepened by tragedy, yet freshly enlivened by the prospect of joy in creation.

Some Pharrell staples are at play: tactile drum sounds and patterns, a mastery of synth tones; the album opens with a four count. Striking soundscapes include the escapade patters of “EBITDA”, the stomping, fumy “FICO”, and the hookah-scented “So Be It”. As ever, Clipse hooks rise to the level of Greek choruses, Pharrell’s gospel snark on “So Far Ahead” and purifying witness on “Grace of God” particular highlights.

On a lean album in terms of length as well as instrumental stretches, the beats act as a pedestal for language—and justifiably so. “Lifted all this weight / now I live behind the gate”, Pusha says on “EBITDA”, punning on selling dope as repetitive exercise and a burden to be cast off, the terseness of the couplet enacting the stark simplicity of material aspiration. “See mine made sure he had every base covered / so imagine his pain finding base in the cupboard”, Malice raps on “Birds Don’t Sing”, encapsulating an entire generational crisis in a single moment of domestic drama.

In a world that rewards lies, the Clipse’s devotion to honesty feels almost saintly.

Within about half a minute of the album’s opening track, Pusha yearns for the touch of his deceased mother, mentions his wife’s miscarriage, and the relief that his son—craving siblings—didn’t notice she was pregnant.

“Birds Don’t Sing” is an elegy for the brothers’ parents: their mother passed away in November 2021, and their father the following March. Over a forlorn piano riff, the brothers narrate the moments they discovered those deaths, and evoke the whole course of their family history through those discoveries. Just as they are exposed to the tender fragility that suffused their parents’ final moments, they become stewards of their legacy. The composure of the brothers’ delivery only heightens the pain behind their words, as if they had to maintain the verbal gifts bequeathed by their parents to pay appropriate tribute to them.

The brothers spoke to me from their home state, but in separate spots, over a call: Malice in the same place he’s had for over two decades, Pusha in his mansion on the Lafayette River, a more recent investment. I ask Malice if he’s into interior design like his brother. “Not as much as Pusha is, but I’ve been doing a lot of renovating and decorating; I did the whole house actually,” he replies. When I ask about the physical aspect of the work, he says: “I do nothing myself. Everyone tells me: ‘you can do this yourself’; I’m like, I’m not into none of that: I’m not trying to be frustrated, aggravated or nothing. I’d rather pay for it.”

“I guess the mantra ‘brick by brick’ isn’t necessarily that literal,” I offer. “Not every time,” he responds through laughter.

BRICK: What were the conversations or events that led you guys to start working on the album?

Malice: My reintroduction started with working on the Jesus Is King album with my brother and Kanye, and being able to write on a few songs. That’s when the activity started: back with the brainstorming and coming up with verses, and just me being in that atmosphere again. And I always knew we were always able to do it—it was something that could be done—but that was part of the baby steps that was happening with me, to start interacting with rhyming with my brother again. And then we did “Punch Bowl” on Nigo’s album, and my brother put me on his album It’s Almost Dry with “I Pray for You”, and those songs were well received. It was just the timing: and it was natural, it was organic, and it was just a perfect flow.

BRICK: The album was made in Virginia and Paris. How would you compare your recording set up in each place: the studio itself and the structure of the team?

Pusha T: The recording set up in Paris was pretty unique in the sense that it was done in the Louis Vuitton atelier. There was a room that has all of the music equipment—microphones, laptops, so on and so forth—and at any given time, the studio area could be four or five of us, with the engineer. There’s just a sliding door that can separate you and you’re looking out into the design studio, into a room of 30-40 people. Versus: we’d take some of the ideas home, and we’d record in a private home studio of the first engineer and studio owner that started us out: his name is Rob Ulsh. He basically started the Neptunes, Timbaland, Missy: all of those albums were recorded in his home, and he embraced Teddy Riley when he moved to Virginia as well. So now he works out of his home and only works with certain individuals—and of course we have free range there. It’s in a suburban neighbourhood, just tucked away—you would never know what’s behind those doors.

BRICK: Did you sketch out ideas for the record as a whole or for particular songs before getting started, or were you guided by what spontaneously emerged as you began to work?

Malice: I feel like it’s the same formula that’s ever been with the Clipse: it always starts with that foundation, with the beats. And you find that, from there, that’s where the ideas and the hooks and the background is formed. Once you crack that code, everything opens up.

Pusha T: This album was made with composition in mind, though. Meaning: being extremely mindful of hooks and flows and cadences. They all have a quality: the whole album was about cohesiveness, from themes to the soundbed of it all. There was a super intention behind making it sound cohesive, and making it be cohesive. I’m kinda feeling that a lot of that isn’t out there today. We’re album artists, and I think there was a heavy intention on showcasing that.

BRICK: Malice, when composing your verses for this album, how did you draw on your experiences over the past 15 years?

Malice: I think with the Clipse, that’s all it’s about: staying true to your art, as well as to our real life experiences. With this album, what you’re getting is life, experience, growth, maturity—and just the Clipse in real time. Not patterning ourselves or fashioning ourselves after anything, which we have never done—never chased after anything that was going on. I feel our music is ahead of the curve—and real, and it’s genuine. And that’s one of the things that I think we pride ourselves on. It’s always a look inside our lives, and a look as to what we’ve been through and are going through. It’s just real, in every aspect.

Click here to read Part Two.

This story was originally published in BRICK Edition 12, released in 2025.

Edition 12 also features Navy Blue, Jim Legxacy, Tommy Wright III, DJ Spanish Fly, Nia Smith, JOBA, and many more.

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