Writing this interview in the aftermath of another November Election Day, it’s easy for me to agree with West Coast lyricist Ras Kass’s assertion that human beings are divisive by nature. But even if this is true, there is nothing divisive about the union of Ras and Grand Rapids-raised Cool Edit pro Apollo Brown. Then again, when at his best, the poetic flourishes of Kass always have been sort of superhuman, whether omniscient (“Nature of the Threat”), omnipotent (“Interview with the Vampire”), or straight-up invincible (“Waterproof MC”).
Thankfully, rap is an artform in which monumental, Marvel-Universe-style team-ups often live up to or even exceed expectation, and the partnership of Ras with vinyl-crackle auteur Apollo Brown does exactly that. Issued by Mello Music Group on Oct. 28, Blasphemy serves as both a redemption song for Ras (though, as you’ll read, he doesn’t consider his career arc as asymmetric as others might) and flag-planting for Apollo.
Tiny Mix Tapes had the privilege of meeting with both artists at a Manhattan recording space.
Ras, Blashphemy marks a departure from your previous work because only one producer is involved. Even on Spit No Evil, there were two beat-makers. How does creating an album with one producer compare with working with several, and is there any particular reason you haven’t done this before?
Ras: It’s definitely different. I’ve enjoyed the ability to not wear that hat. Sometimes, especially early on in my career, a lot of my first songs I was producing, like “Miami Life,” and all that type of stuff, I produced. And that’s not my expertise. I like digging and finding a cool little sample, but there’s Apollo and Premier and so many dope producers who just hear sonics better than me — how to filter, where the vocals should be, what kind of snare, hi-hat, or tambourine — so it was refreshing to be able to give him the keys to that car [so] I could focus on writing and conceptualizing.
It’s funny you mention DJ Premier. You’ve got memorable collaborations with he and also with RZA, stuff that had crazy fans like myself saying, “Imagine a Ras Kass/RZA album” or, “Imagine a Ras Kass/Premo album,” and in Apollo you have somebody who’s likely influenced by both, so in a sense it’s the album people have been waiting for.
R: Definitely.
What was your first exposure to each other’s music?
Apollo: My first exposure was “Soul On Ice,” “Miami Life.” I’ve been a fan ever since, just like 99 percent of the hip-hop community, and that’s self-explanatory right there, but I’m curious to know what this guy says.
R: I don’t know the first record [I heard]. It’s not Trophies. I think niggas was rapping over instrumentals of yours. I just heard shit like that. You know how you know something but you didn’t pay attention? That’s not a cool thing, but that’s just being honest, like you’ll hear a name but all of a sudden you start seeing it a lot and you realize it’s existed all that time, but you just weren’t aware; you were seeing what you wanted to see. So, Apollo’s name had came up, I had heard shit that he produced, and I’d always be like, “Yo, that shit is hot,” and finally I think my notice-taking was the album you and Guilty [Simpson] did.
A: Dice Game.
R: There are some ill records on that, and there’s one where Guilty does kind of the same verse twice. I just thought that was an interesting record. I’ve probably been aware of Apollo since 2009/2010.
It was like, “Wow, OK, maybe I could do this full-time.” I gave myself a year. I was like, “If my bank account doesn’t reflect what I want it to reflect, if my reputation doesn’t reflect what I want it to reflect by the end of this year, then I’ma go back to work.”
Apollo, you’ve been a flagship artist of Mello Music Group since the label’s beginnings. How did that relationship come about?
A: It’s funny, man, in January 2010, the first week in January, I got laid off from my nine-to-five, and a few days later I got a call from Michael Tolle, and he wanted to bring me aboard and sign a production deal to the label. It was kind of weird: You sign a deal and get laid off in the same week. You know what I’m saying? I never met this dude. “Where’d you get my number? I don’t even know you. How do you know me?” But it was like, “Wow, OK, maybe I could do this full-time.” I gave myself a year. I was like, “If my bank account doesn’t reflect what I want it to reflect, if my reputation doesn’t reflect what I want it to reflect by the end of this year, then I’ma go back to work.”
I haven’t went back to work yet, so my career is in the music industry. This is what I do full-time and I make a pretty decent living at it, and I get to work with cats like Ras Kass and travel the world and meet all kinds of amazing people who are instrumental in my career. And I just get to wake up every morning and make beats! Come on, man, for a living! That’s amazing. I am as humble as they come when it comes to that, because this can all end tomorrow. My fans could turn on me and be like, “You suck, we hate your music,” and it can end tomorrow, so I’m grateful and I’m humble and I’m blessed.
Ras, your break from Priority has been widely publicized — you didn’t exactly leave on good terms — and yet a lot of fans out there consider the albums you did with them to be your best work to date, and now Blashphemy is rightly being lauded as well. Do you think having the structure and the financial support of a bigger label brings out the best in you as an artist? Or is it that when you’re working your hardest at being a great artist, you find yourself in situations like these?
R: Neither of those. The reality is “put your money where your mouth is.” Every album that I’ve done, whether it came out or not or whether it came out on a major or not, was my best foot forward. People believe what shines is golden. I don’t take nothing away from what I’m doing today, because I just gave 110 percent again, but you’ve got to remember now there is no label; I am the label — so I could’ve took that $50,000 and bought a car. I said this before in a rhyme: “I got no regrets for the records I make / How could I disown my own soul?” This is me. I bleed on wax, I bleed on these tracks, and I tell the truths and talk about things I might’ve done wrong. People deserve to have their opinions, but it won’t affect my opinion. I know how dope Revenge of the Spit is, I know how dope Barmageddon is. I spent my money on it. You think I would spend my money to fuck it off? So, I don’t worry about that, man. If that’s how they feel, that’s great. I’m definitely happy to have an expert doing what he does expertly, to have the resources to get it mastered correctly, to have the meta data in there so we can track it and be in-depth. Sometimes, I didn’t have enough money for that, but I love everything I ever made, because I always try hard.
A: Let me add something to my last question, something I don’t always say, but being that Mike hit me up out of the blue in 2010 when I was a nobody, I owe him a lot. Obviously, I’ve done what I’ve done and I make the music that I make, but I definitely give a lot of credit to him and Mello for bringing me from where I was to where I am now, so I just need to put that out there. I definitely give him a lot of credit for believing in me when a lot of people was like, “Who the fuck is this dude and why would I ever mess with him?”
Also, I want to make my own question, or I’m going to answer my own question. My three favorite Ras Kass songs? Of course “Soul on Ice” (Diamond D Remix), “The Evil That Men Do,” and “It Is What It Is.” I don’t know if anybody else would name those, but those are my three favorite Ras Kass songs. I listened to those songs religiously throughout my life.
R: I caught a lot of shit over “It Is What It Is,” and that was the funniest thing. What nobody knows is I was crying writing that song, because I wrote it to my mother, so I don’t care what people think or say about that song. It just shows you’ve got good taste. That’s the most important song on that album [Rasassination], and when I finished the song, I gave it to my mother and it was cathartic. There’s a back story to why I was crying, but that’s why I say, “Kiss my mother on the cheek because her love is deep / like Keith Sweat…” I would just cry as I was going over it, and other people can say what they need to say. “Oh, well he tried to sell out. Why’d he use that sample?” Alright bro.
A: “If You Were Here Tonight” is my favorite song of any genre ever, so that is the greatest song on Earth to me. I’ve listened to that song more than I’ve listened to any other song in life.
R: And you know what’s funny? The little kid at the beginning is my nephew. That’s my cousin Blue’s son. It a family structure reflecting, “It Is What It Is.” Maybe I might fail in this music shit, but I’m doing the best that I can, so, you know, it’s about that. And bringing it back to Blasphemy, these are time capsules of my feelings, scored, orchestrated by Apollo Brown. It’s the point of my life to be able to get in the studio with hot-ass production, gun a record out, maybe cry on the record. I didn’t… do any crying on this one, but—
A: Now with technology, these are here forever. These will always be here.
R: And shouts to Mello Music. There’s vinyl, there’s a CD, there’s an mp3.
Well-packaged vinyl.
R: Hell yeah, I’ma go cop mine. I want that shit.
I got no regrets for the records I make / How could I disown my own soul?
Another aspect of this album that stood out to me is the song length. Although there isn’t an “epic” track, there are a lot of four- or five-minute songs.
A: A lot of long songs on here, and that’s cool though. I mean there’s a lot to say, man. And you said, the “epic track.” I personally don’t make hits, never have, never will. I try to stay as consistent as I can because consistency leads to longevity. When you ask a bunch of people what’s your favorite song on the album, everybody has a different favorite, and when you can do that you’re doing something right. You don’t want everybody to gravitate toward one song. You just don’t. You want everyone to have [their own] favorite. That’s consistency.
Or even better, when one person listens to the same album and each time has a different favorite song. One of my favorites on it, speaking of which, is “48 Rules Part 1.” Would you talk a little bit about the process behind writing that song, and will there be a Part 2?
A: There has to be.
R: It’s kind of been forced. It’s set up that way.
Rather than “is there,” when will there be a Part 2?
R: I don’t know.
A: There has to be one whether I produce it or not.
R: No, he’d have to produce it. It wouldn’t be right if he didn’t do it. Probably one of these days he’ll send me a beat and it’ll be, “Well this should be ‘48’” and I’ll write it. We’ll figure it out. Maybe he’ll have an album and ask me to do a song, and I’ll be like, “Can I do ‘48 Rules Part 2?’”
The process was pretty basic. I like to transcribe stuff. A lot of young people go check a Wikipedia, half the information is wrong, and they think they know shit. People talk about 48 Laws of Power just like they taught about Machiavelli, and they said he faked his death and came back three days later. That’s not what it says in Machiavelli. Did you ever read Machiavelli? The book is this thin. And that’s the problem with people, they just don’t read, and then they repeat shit and act like they know it. And so what I wanted to do was to remind myself, I wanted to apply to the streets and to the music industry those 48 Laws of Power and throw them out there. It was a reminder to myself that there’s some strategy involved in life, especially in corporate America, and [not to] get too emotional and how to deal with this shit, because at the end of the day, they’re good steps to apply.
A: “Let others do your work and take all the credit.“ [Laughs]
R: And then I [adlib], “Puff Daddy perfected that.”
A: It’s definitely prominent. I made sure that was up.
R: Some real jerk shit, but it’s kind of true. It was a great song to write, plus, come on, who can’t resist using Chuck D’s “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.” I gotta get one of those off one time.
Let’s talk also about Francine.
R: [Laughs] Awesome.
I like the ironic twist at the end, because this song works well in that so much music on the radio today is this hyper-sexualized, and you’re going in like that, but then at the end…
R: That is my ode, honestly, it’s my ode to Biggie, [Kool] G Rap, Nas, the story, and so I just wanted to tell a dope street story. I wanted to throw a twist to it, so the whole thing was just coming up with a cool concept, a story where I’m not the superhero and I don’t win, because a lot of the street stories is how you killed a million niggas and, “Then I flew out the window and the car skid upside down / Police kept coming, then I shot the helicopter down.”
It reminds me of Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story” in that sense. At the end, your character gets what was coming to him.
R: Yeah, because I’m kind of popping shit off like, “Niggas ain’t worried about nothing, I ain’t trippin’, I ain’t trippin’,” and then it’s like, “Oh, hold up.” So, thank you, I like that song a lot, and I hope that the Ghostfaces and Nas’s and G Raps at some point get a chance to check it out, because it’s really a dedication to them, Biggie, Slick Rick.
Apollo, you’ve produced albums for Hassan Mackey, Boog Brown, Guilty Simpson, OC, and now Ras Kass. You’ve also got the groups The Left and Ugly Heroes. It seems like in all these cases you’re cultivating your beats for the artists and, whenever possible, actually producing a record. Hip-hop and music in general kind of moved away from that model, but now it’s coming back—
A: I never left that. It’s really important to me when I’m making an album, and especially a full-length LP, that I get into the studio with the person I’m making the album with. We’ve got to feel that vibe. I need to see that artist’s face when I start playing this beat. I need them to see my face after [they] spit a 16, because tonal inflection is very important. I could text you, “Yo I like the verse,” but you don’t know I LIKE THE VERSE. It’s different when we get in the studio, and he comes out the booth, and I’m like, “Yoooo.” I like to build with the person I’m doing a record with, and I need to know them personally. We need to get beyond the music thing. I need to know who you are and who I’m putting on a beat of mine. It’s an intimate thing for me. My beats are intimate. My music is intimate. I make this with all my heart and soul, and my feelings are shoved into these drums and into this music, so I’m not just going to put anybody on it. I’m not just going to send anybody a beat and be like, “Yo, rock this.” No, I need to be a fan of you and I need to know that I’m not babysitting you. I give the artist like Ras something, and I’m like, “Yo, do what you do.” He kept trying to send me stuff and show me stuff, and I’m the type of dude who will listen to it when we record it, because I trust you, I have faith in you. I know it’s going to be dope, because I’m a fan and I’m a fan for a reason. But yeah, I love producing full albums. I love holding my own on an album from top to bottom. It’s something I enjoy, the consistency, and when you’ve got somebody you can build with and know personally, it’s easy, it’s organic, it’s natural, and to me, personally, I think it’s easy to make a classic when you’ve got those ingredients.
Do you still make beat tapes apart from your instrumental albums?
A: Beat tapes? Like a beat tape to shop?
Not necessarily to shop to different people, but to send to Ras Kass, for example.
A: Nah, because when I make an album I like to keep a certain sound, and I’m not just going to send an artist a tape with like 30 beats and be like, “Yo, listen to this, let me know what you want.” I’ll [send] small batches.
I love holding my own on an album from top to bottom. It’s something I enjoy, the consistency, and when you’ve got somebody you can build with and know personally, it’s easy, it’s organic, it’s natural, and to me, personally, I think it’s easy to make a classic when you’ve got those ingredients.
R: I like that better too.
A: I don’t want to overwhelm you.
R: Yeah, because you’ll fry a person’s brain.
A: I want you to really know what you’re listening to. If you listen to 30 beats in a row, you’re not going to remember number 1 and 2. You’re not going to remember number 17. A batch of four or five, you can listen to over and over and over and point out, “I don’t like that one, I don’t like that one, [but] 2, 3, and 4.” But I don’t do beat tapes like that. I do instrumental albums.
I was going to ask what determines if a track ends up on an instrumental album?
A: Because that’s just what it is: it’s an album; it’s not a just bunch of beats thrown together on a CD and given to people. They’re ordered, they’re arranged a certain way for a certain reason. I put a lot into the arrangement, it’s important to me. Also Clouds is themed, Thirty Eight is themed. There’s a certain sound, a certain feeling. I’m taking you on a roller coaster. There’s a reason why this song comes after this song. It’s all strategic, but as far as a regular beat tape just to send out to artists? I don’t do that. Me and artists work on an individual basis, so if somebody hits me up like, “I need a beat for the album,” I’ll send what I feel is right, or I’ll ask him, “What do you have on the album now, and what kind of sound are you looking for to cap it off?” No beat tapes though.
I’ve heard you talk several times about making beats using Cool Edit. You got that Peter Quistgard crack?
A: Nah, nah, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
For a long time, everybody using Cool Edit had the same bootlegged copy. Peter Quistgard was the User ID.
A: Oh, no, no, mine was uh, Marco Hardmeyer. That’s who mine was. But yeah, I use Cool Edit, I’ve been using Cool Edit since 97 and never switched over, never did the Adobe Audition.
I know that you say it’s because that’s where your comfort level lies, but do you also think that there’s something more organic or authentic about the limitations of Cool Edit?
A: I mean that software is very limited: there’s no plug-ins, there’s no multi-track. You’re literally painting on an all-white canvas and starting from scratch, so I like it like that. It is a comfort level, it’s where I started and I know it like the back of my hand. I don’t like change. That’s what it is, and Windows XP is the last operating system that it’s compatible on. That was like four or five operating systems ago, so I’ve always got to keep buying computers, because I keep crashing, so it’s starting to get a little scary, but I got a Maschine too. I’m going to start messing with that. Native Instruments presented me with a Maschine a couple years ago, and I don’t really use it, but—
R: They got an app too, for your phone. I seen somebody kind of killing it.
A: I’m not a pad-hitter, man. I don’t like hitting pads. I’m precise. I can make a beat without listening to it. I look at a beat and know what it’s going to sound like, and how loud it’s going to be and the levels. I’ve made beats for people just playing around and not listening to it, just putting it together and listening to it afterward and seeing what it sounds like.
That’s ill.
A: Because I know how to look at the beat; I’ve been doing it for years.
What’s crazy about that to me is you always hear about these old-school cats who didn’t want to make the switch from analogue to digital, but you work in digital, yet with this older digital platform, and you don’t want to use analog stuff. You do use analog in that you’re ripping records, but it’s kind of this older, basic digital [application]. It’s the same concept in a way.
A: Yeah, yeah, definitely. No doubt.
There are two other songs we’ve got to talk about. On “Animal Sacrifice,” you [Ras] call yourself, “the West Coast’s lyricist, they Hendrix/…Kendrick before Kendrick.” Who were some West Coast lyricists you came up listening to?
R: Oh man, some people may not call him one, but I feel like Ice Cube and Ren were going at it, and if you listen to all those old N.W.A. albums or solo albums — D.O.C., technically he’s Southwest, he’s from Texas but D.O.C. comes out through Dr. Dre with “The Formula” — but if you listen to those albums, every last song on those albums they would bar up. You know, “Grand Finale,” it was a posse cut and niggas was going in.
A: “Grand finale, yo it’s my turn to bust/ So let weak motherfuckers turn to dust/ If you’re weak it ain’t your fault/ Just take a kick in the ass and get turned into a pillar of salt.”
R: See? He knows bars. “Picture a nigga that’s raw.”
A: “Motherfuckers I’ll slaughter…”
Apollo & Ras: …”blow ‘em out the water/ Word to me, fuck the father.”
R: Niggas was going in.
That’s kind of what I was trying to get at, because people say “West Coast lyricist” as if “West Coast” and ‘lyricist’ don’t go together, but clearly, anybody who knows what they’re talking about knows that’s not the case.
R: Right, right, you know, Hiero[glyphics] going in, styling up; Del’s first album. I think the grandfather of all L.A. slang really is E-40, and if you put him over a hip-hop beat it’d be like ODB. It’s still lyrical. He said some great shit. Jayo Felony; there’s a lot of dope MCs that came out before me; Saafir. Specifically for L.A., there were the gangsta rappers and then there were the [rappers who had] a bit of a Native Tongue influence.
Project Blowed?
R: Yeah.
A: A lot of rappers on the West Coast had style. It was just more about style and telling a story. I loved the West Coast, especially in the early 90s.
R: We had our lyricists. There were people who didn’t really quite get heard but paved the [way] for me.
When you ask a bunch of people what’s your favorite song on the album, everybody has a different favorite, and when you can do that you’re doing something right. You don’t want everybody to gravitate toward one song.
Apollo, from listening to your past interviews and looking at your catalog, it seems like you’re at least conscious of, if not heavily concerned with, building a complete discography, looking to build a complete body of work that will stand the test of time, so who are some producers in and out of hip-hop, or just musicians in general, who you feel have achieved that?
A: Oh my God.
I mean a full body of work. Everybody’s got that one [flawed] album. Who do you think has a flawless discography?
A: Isaac Hayes, Barry White, David Axelrod—
Who you [Ras] have worked with.
R: Yeah.
A: Bob James…
Ras Kass: Bob James is a beast.
A: …Who I saw in concert about three or four months ago.
You think Bob James’s discography is flawless?
A: I think Bob James is fucking amazing, yeah. We’re talking about composers; Galt MacDermot. But then I’m a big Preem fan. I’m a big DJ Muggs fan. Muggs influenced my sound greatly. He’s one of my top-three producers of all time; great, great discography. A lot of people don’t know his discography and they don’t know the work that he’s put in, so they kind of discount him when it comes to their top producers. Dre has an amazing body of work. You can’t discount anything he’s ever done. I’ll stop right there.
Good list. Lastly, Ras, there’s a religious overtone throughout the album, but it’s not the first time you’ve touched on these topics. Would you talk about “How to Kill God” as a continuation of “Interview With a Vampire”?
R: It’s not a continuation of “Interview With a Vampire,” really. I’ve done other songs [that touched on these topics], I’ve done a song called “B.I.B.L.E.” with a gospel that’s on Institutionalized [Volume 2]. I’m a philosopher. Probably, at the end of the day, I’m an urban philosopher. I’m always investigating how religion affects people, their belief system — be it atheist, Catholic, Protestant, Judaism, whatever people choose to believe — I’m always investigating those things and why they affect the world I live in so much. I’m always curious about that. I mean look at Sunnis and Shiites. They chop off each other’s heads and they’re supposed to believe in the same religion. They’re both Muslim and they kill kids over that. What drives the human psyche to say, “My god wears a beard and yours doesn’t, so I’m going to kill you for it”? That’s weird to me because I’ve stepped outside of religion, but it still drives the world, the culture, the politics of the world that I live in, so I’m always playing with those notions no matter what.
Like I say in “How To Kill God,” “I just ask the questions the preacher can’t answer,” which is why I left organized religion. I said, “OK, we’re Christians and Jews say Amen too and that’s Amun-Ra, the Egyptian god of sun, sun god, son of god, Jesus… Why don’t we just practice Egyptian Mysticism if we’re still denoting their god?” [My preacher] was like, “Fuck out of here, we don’t want to answer it.” And I was like, “Oh, well, I don’t need to be here.” So, yeah, I always play with those things. We know how similar human beings are. Why do we feel the need to specify between blacks and whites, and da-da-das and da-da-das? Because people need to feel they’re better than someone else. If you put twins on two sides of a lake, 50 years from now one’s going to say, “I’m the right-side laker and y’all suck over there,” and then go kill them, because people are divisive by nature.
More about: Apollo Brown, Ras Kass
