Evidence interview

How do you feel about your latest effort, the Layover EP?

I’m just excited with it. It’s an EP and with an EP people are usually expecting five songs on a digital release nowadays. I did nine songs, plus a DVD that came with it. I kinda treat it like an album campaign. I just took it a little further than most people do.

It was originally supposed to be a five-track internet promo with Khrysis...

Ow, I see you know whats up! When I was on tour with Little Brother we were just talking about it. We were stuck somewhere and he had a bunch of beats. So we we’re working on a couple tracks together, to do something for the people together. We are friends, but we hadn’t worked together. It changed a little bit, but that is why I made the first two songs Khrysis songs. Just put those first to kind of pay hommage to him and let him set the soundscape of it all.

So, with you being stuck somewhere with Little Brother, it literally was a layover? Is that where the concept came from?

It was something like that, yeah. And then we also thought about how the L and the A with the EV backwards would work. I was like this is too good to to do it. I really didn’t have plans for it to take off like it did. It was supposed to be mixtape-ish.

The company I’ve put it trough, Dcon Media, is really innovative. They just attached a lot of visuals to it. We did a great internet campaign. We didn’t too many trade-adds in a real magazine and stuff, but the viral presence was really there.


You have a longstanding relationship with ABB. You released your first Dilated projects through that label, as well as your last solo album. So why it didn’t come out trough ABB?


Like I said, this was originally going to be a side project. Weatherman LP to Cats And Dogs, which is my next album, was supposed to be the one-two punch. I had been promoting Weatherman since late 2006 all trough 2007, and 2008. I looked at the clock and realized I was missing 2008 there. I needed to put something out. I wasn’t ready to drop Cats And Dogs, so Layover was the next best thing.


Benni B. and ABB is family forever. Decon Media is Jason Goldwatch and Peter Bittenbender. Both of them have been involved in my carreer since the beginning. Jason Goldwatch did all the videos for Dilated, since Worst Come To Worst. That’s just another family, another situation.


Right now I’m not signed to ABB records or Decon Media. I’m a free agent right now. I’m just kind of like going different places with friends doing musical projects.


So, do you enjoy being a free agent? Dilated just got out their four-album deal with Capitol which didn’t really work out well. Is that a reason for you to not do multi-project deals?


I don’t want to throw jabs at Capitol or EMI cause they did a lot of good things for us. At the end of the day the records did come out. Other people fight, and they don’t come out. So for us at least they didn’t budge. But it was a lot of uphill battles and wasted energy. Sometime when you got a fresh project and there is no bureaucracy behind it, you get it out and the people can just feel the innocence of it. With Capitol, it made us grow up a little. It spoiled the innocence of it.


A lot of people have been trying to figure out the industry, and I don’t have the answer. But  what I do know is that I make sure that everything I do is an on-off right now, to keep my options open. To be honest, I’m getting really closed to finalizing something with somebody I’m really exited about. And when I do, I do a youtube and let everybody know. I think when people hear the business decision that Imma go through, the avenue I’m choosing to put out Cats And Dogs,  they’re going to understand the bigger picture coming to fruition.

You already mentioned Cats And Dogs a couple of times. What can we expect from that new project?


I always knew I was going to call it Cats And Dogs. On my first Weatherman LP single, Mr. Slow Flow, I said: “Umbrella’s up, it’s raining cats and dogs.” It just means more rain. It’s not always that sunny place in California. I’m always on the rainy thing. I’ve been going through a lot of struggles since I’ve been putting out solo records, like the issue of my mother passing away and other stuff. I chose to make that public.


You’ll never get over anything like that, but when you learn to live with certain things your whole outlet changes. Weatherman was dark, Layover was dark with some moments of brightness, like So Fresh. I think the next one is going to be a little more lighthearted. Not less in expression or putting me forward, but just with the beats and just like the feeling. I think it is going to feel a little bit better. Not upbeat in tempo, but just the vibe of it.


When you say “ it’s not always the sunny place in California,” you probably talk about Venice Beach.  People know about the Venice Boardwalk, the palm trees and stuff like that. But there has always been a more grimy side to Venice Beach as well. How did that affect you, growing up as a kid?


I think, as a kid, you only know what you know. I was raised in Santa Monica, in a part of it that nowadays is like an extremely rich area. It was a nice middle-class area when I was growing up. When I was like five, six years old, my parents divorced. My mom couldn’t afford that and we moved to Venice, which was completely different. I’m just glad that I was so young, because when you’re young you can adept. Learn new languages, go to a new school and make new friends. It’s harder to do that when you get older.


I noticed the difference and adapted to what was going on. Instead of kids playing sports or going fishing with their parents, they’re doing graffiti or skateboarding. It’s not necessarily like these kids are bad kids, its just what the environment breeds, you know? So I just got in where I fit in.

I was never close to gangs or stuff like that. I mean, it was around me. But it’s not so glorifying when you see people being hurt, hiding out and ducking and dodging. It’s not like the movies. I was into graffiti, that was as far as I wanted to go haha. When the letters started changing to gang stuff, I wanted to stop right there. Sometime when you’re doing graffiti, like three or four in the morning, there are gang dudes out and the worlds collide. But I was never into gangs or anything like that.

 
It’s the same thing with Rakaa in my group. A lot of people in his family might be into that stuff, but he chose to listen to Jimi Hendrix and just be different. I think there is nothing wrong with being from the ghetto, from the hood, and not gangbang. Hollywood just paints a misconception.

You seemed to be involved with a lot of hiphop elements, like graffiti and breakdancing. How did you bet into that stuff?

  
I’ve probably just seen a kid in school tagging and being like “wow, I wanna do that.” Breaking was just the first thing I really wanted to do. That was what I did first. At that time, all the movies were out, like Beat Street, Wildstyle and Crush Groove. All that was out there. So that was like feeding the flame. Just putting out cardboard in my yard. Then skateboarding, then rapping and then producing.

As far as producing, I think Quincy Jones son, QD3,  put you on to that. How did you meet up with him?

That was the beginning. That was what made us all wanna do it. I moved in next door to him, luckily. I don’t know how that happened, but it’s a blessing. I was in my room, and next door I heard those boom-boom-boom noises all night. I was like; “what the fuck is going on there?”

He would drive in front of  our house and pull up to his garage or whatever. He had dreadlocks, the kind of guy you want to know. I thought maybe he’d smoke weed. His mother is from Sweden, and his father is Quincy Jones. So he had a good vibe to him. I just walked over and said; “Hi, I’m Mike. What are you doing back there?” So he said; “I’m Quincy, and I’m a rap producer. Come check it out.”

I went over there and just saw how it got done. He was like; “this is a drum machine, and these are keyboards.” I had no idea. I thought you had to have a band, or sample James Brown or whatever. I didn’t know how it went and he would just show me. I saw rappers coming trough, like Divine Styler and Everlast. I’d just sit there and watch, and I wanted to do it.

I had friends who knew I lived next door to him and was doing demos there. So my friend Will was like; “Please, let me come over and do a song.” He’s Will.I.Am now. My other friend Alan was like; “Yo, I gotta watch this.” He’s Alchemist. Same with Joey Chavez.

QD3 is like our fucking master, haha. He wasn’t even teaching us. We were just sitting there, watching, drinking and smoking weed. He’d just let us hang out because I was too young to do that at my house. I was like; Fuck the music, we can go over there and party!

How did  you find your own style as far as beats?

I used to just watch Alchemist, Joey Chavez and QD3. I was just emulating that first untill I found something else. They were just all ripping off Premier and Large Professor. But in the middle of somewhere you find your own style, which is crazy.  I was like; “I wanna do the same pattern that Gangstarr did. When I finally do it I’ll play it a little differently. The sounds I chose were different, and by the time I’m finished with it you don’t even realize what I was trying to do.

It was just a lot of biting haha, creative biting. By the time it’s done, as long as it’s your own thing... I mean, nothing is new under the sun. Everybody rhymes cat with hat, its just how you do it in between.

You have your laptop, with Reason running, in front of you right now. We’re living in a digitalized era of producing right now. How did it change your style or the way you make beats nowadays?

I’m evolving right now, going to a phase. I’m getting close, but it has been a year or two of having to adapt. In the process I have made a few ugly paintings haha. I still work with MPC’s, ASR’s and all that, but I’m not trying to lug it all around Europe.

The most important thing is that all my sounds are on this laptop right now. When I use this, I use it as primitively as possible. I’m trying to use the same analog sounds, not no Alchemist_Snare_2 or Dr._Dre_Kick_3. Anyone can have that. I still try to keep it personal. Loop, drums, bassline, couple added sounds and noises, raps, cuts and then mix it and finish it. It’s not overcooked. You can easily go way too far now because you have so much access.

I guess that is a problem with modern day technology. Everybody is able to do stuff over and over again. Back in the days of recording to pause-tapes, you couldn’t do that.

When we literally recorded to tapes, if you kept going over the same spot, the tape would wear down. If you implement the old ideas with the new possibilities, that’s the shit! A lot of people weren’t there for the old to experience it. I just caught the last of it. I remember the last sessions where the two-inch reels started going out, and Pro-Tools was coming in.

I was there to see the whole transition. I’m fortunate. I think in later life that will allow me to be an engineer. Do certain things with sound quality that other people might not understand, just being from that era. I’m just one of the few mohicans left.

As far as the change, I think there is a bad side to it, and a good side as well. Records are brighter and bigger than they used to be. Some of them don’t have the same feel, but... You know what I mean? It’s definately evolving. And we can do so much more now. The fact that I have all these EQ’s and compressors. I just could never make beats like that. It allows me to work more. I used to be like; “ow, this beat is cool, but wait to we get to the studio to put reverb on the snare” or something like that.
 

I want to talk about the Weatherman LP for a moment. How did your Weatherman alias originate?

That was just about the fans. I was rocking methapors with lyrics talking about weather a lot. Somebody on the internet said; “You’re allright, but you talk about the weather too much.” I thought that was funny so I said; “I’m the weatherman.”

Years went by, and then the Weathermen came out, which was Cage, El-Pee etc. They had a crew called the Weathermen, so I kinda got discouraged on the idea. But when it finally came down, I was like; “this is what I planned on doing for years and I’m cool with them.” There is Dre from Outkast and there is Dr. Dre. No one cares. We’re all grown up. We’re not in highschool anymore. And they didn’t care either. So peace to them, I got great respect for them.

The album contained a lot more insight into your personal life, compared to your efforts on the Dilated Peoples albums. Was Dilated a place for you where you couldn’t get out of the box, as far as putting your emotions on the table?

A lot of people be like; “you sound different on the Weatherman album.” Thats me actually. I was frontin’ for Dilated. Like, I could never quite find my lane in Dilated Peoples. I think that is why a lot of people like the group, because it was never over-preaching.  Rakaa would start a message and then I would go somewhere else.

You’re all different characters within the group.

Yeah, I do a weird flow, then he does a straight flow. There were so many angles to it. That is why Dilated is great, and always will be because it will never oversaturate you with one element. But at the same time there was a lack of identity, I think, in Dilated. Like, I’d be on stage and didn’t know if they were cheering for Babu, Rakaa or me. It is like there are so many variables.

So I was like; “I finally have a name, that’s under Evidence. If Evidence don’t show up, the show can’t happen. Lets put it all on the table and do an Evidence record and show people who I am within the group.” So now you know about my life, and when Rakaa drops his album you will know about his.

Was it scary for you to put it all out in the open, or was it a relief?

Scary untill it came out, relieved when it dropped. I was just really worried because I did a song about my mom and shit like that, that people would say they didn’t like that song or say the snare drum was too loud. I was worried that they would critique shit unnessicarlily just to throw jabs at me, but nobody did.

The whole album probably was some sort of an hommage to your mom. Two tracks were dealing with that issue specifically. One happy song called ‘Chase The Clouds Away,’ and one really sad song called ‘I Still Love You.’ They’re both really different in the way you look at your moms passing. How did you battle those mix of emotions?

It was just the music really that helped me the most. I’ve always been a tough person, as far as saying “I can handle that,” as far as mentally, not physically. When we were young, we used to do acid sometimes, or mushrooms. People would have bad trips and I would be like bad trips were only for weakminded people. That only happens because you’re not in control.

When my mom passed, that was the first time I went trough a bad trip, like I lost control. There was just something greater than me that I’ve never experienced before. It was just a lot. So, I don’t know how to say it, but I started making a lot of down music. Actually not a lot of music at all. I was trying to do different things, like Brazillian martial arts and Jiu-Jitsu. I was trying to do that a lot, and I went trough therapy. I did everything, and none of it worked.

But the music worked the best. The part of it that worked the best for me was that I thought I was alone. But when you start doing the songs you’re realizing that other people are going trough this, or are going to go trough this. I was like; “ow shit, I got a purpose now.” It’s not like I’m just sad, but I’d be like; ”Wow, this could actually help somebody.”

So it’s just like a rollercoaster. Up, down, high, low. ‘I Still Love You’ was recorded for Dilated, for the 20/20 album. But it just didn’t fit. It would be so stupid. So I had recorded it that long ago. I recorded it right when she passed...

You recorded that song by yourself, right? With nobody in the room.

I did it originally. It only had half of a verse. Then I knew I had to put it on my album. So I had to re-record it and I had to master it on the first of January. I had to get a plane on the twenty-sixth of December. It was the twenty-fourth, on Chrismas eve and I was all by myself. It was just like this weird emotional experience. The second I finished it, normally I listen to my lyrics and move my doubles to match a little bit, I didn’t do anything and just sent it out to get mixed and didn’t hear it untill it made the album. There was nothing to listen to. It wasn’t about whether the flow was fresh or not, you understand? It was nothing like that.

We’re about to conclude this interview. One last question, what does the future hold for Evidence as far as releases and such?

Cats And Dogs, first quarter of 2010. I’ll try to put out a single at the end of this year and start working it.  Stepbrothers, which is Alchemist and myself as a group coming out. Alchemist is about to drop Chemical Warfare, finally. Rakaa’s Crown Of Thornes album coming out. Babu’s Duckseason vol. 3.5. Fashawns album, Boy Meets World. I got my hands in a lot of good shit right now, surrounding myself with good energy and people. Green Tape instrumentals coming out. Shit... I just wanna stay busy. I’m kind of just enjoying living in my own bubble right now instead of being so caught up in what’s hot and what’s not.