Things tend to take time. MC Grandmilly and producer Shozae, both from the Uniondale/Hemsptead area of Long Island, NY, have been working on music together since 2012 or 2013, but Adventureland, due August 24 on Stones Throw, will be their first physical album release. I first saw Grandmilly on stage in 2012, among SpaceGhostPurrp’s Raider Klan massive, but I didn’t see Grandmilly perform live until May 2018, with Shozae. Boiler Room co-founder and longtime Stones Throw fam Sofie Fatouretchi has known Grandmilly since at least 2013, as she deejayed for him during sets in both Los Angeles and New York that year. However, as you’ll read, it was a very recent email from her that helped put the Adventureland Ferris wheel in rotation, as it were. (And for at least two years, I’ve been bugging Shozae for the instrumental to “Exits,” a track off his 2013 album with New Jersey MC SageInfinite, Dark Minded — no luck yet, but maybe this feature will curry enough favor to seal the deal ;-) )
I spoke with Grandmilly and Shozae on July 25, just under a month shy of their Stones Throw debut. Our discussion covers the conjoining paths that led the two artists to this shared milestone, as well as the timeless process by which this album came together. Also: Gaia, The Warriors, and Toni Braxton.
When we last spoke, you guys mentioned that you linked up through Y2the3rd and Ace Who. When was that, and how long ago was it that you began working on music with each other?
Grandmilly: Maybe 2010, 2011 when I first encountered Shozae. When I first met him was like 2012. I knew he made music, but I hadn’t heard what he was working with until one day I had come over his house and we all migrated to his backyard because he had the garage with equipment, microphones and everything. He threw a beat on, and we all just attacked the beat, and I was like, ‘Yo, I’m rocking with this nigga, no matter what, all the way,’ because his sound is where I was trying to go at the time. He was making East Coast music, and that’s where I was leaning towards.
Was The Miseducation EP the first project you guys worked on together?
Shozae: Nah, at the time, we made “Extendos,” which was just a random single. After that, Milly was working on albums, so I had a couple joints on his albums here and there: Amerikkka the Beautiful and then Miseducation. At the time, we wasn’t making albums together, but we had a couple joints together so we was slowly gradually getting to that. I was making albums on my own also so that was something that was gonna happen anyway.
Milly, you’ve posted photos of you on stage with Spaceghostpurrp at SOBs in July 2012. I was in the crowd at that show, and I remember being amazed at the amount of people he brought up there with him. What impact did that night and the overall Raider Klan movement have on you?
G: It was cool. Purrp had fans. He wasn’t super famous, but it was a lot of people, and the energy backstage was undeniable. You felt like you was with a bunch of stars, people who was destined to be somebody. I tell my manager Kazeem all the time, I cherish those times going back and forth from the city to meet with Purrp and Denzel Curry and Matt Stoops, because it was fun. Purrp lived in Miami, so he’d only be in New York for a couple dates. His manager Randy Acker would set him up with NY dates. Me and Kazeem, Sho sometimes, we’d go up there and wind up being on stage or backstage with this nigga, smoking weed, enjoying being with Raider Klan.