Recently, I had the honor of being interviewed by German website www.rap4fame.de (whose logo is only partially pictured here)…and for those of you gifted enough to sprechen zie deutsche (which is totally not how you say that in this case), here’s a link:

Grip Grand Interview at Rap4Fame (German)

But if, like me, you don’t speak the father-tongue, then here’s a handy version for your ignorant, English-only-speaking ass. No pretty pictures, but let’s face it…they weren’t improving things.

Grip Grand Interview by Kilian Matzke

http://www.myspace.com/snoopfroggyfrog5

1. Hi, how are you? Thanks for taking your time doing this interview.—Hi, I’m terrific. And you’re welcome. My pleasure.

2. For anybody who’s too lazy to ready your bio, what would you say is the most important fact about you as an artist?—Clearly, any and every fact about me is of the utmost importance. That said, my bio is a pack of malicious lies and dubious slander, not to be trusted. I believe it was written by a mental patient, or possibly by an inmate of some sort, as part of a state-funded program. Regardless, the most important thing to know about me is that I produce my own beats, making me a (write-in) contender for the Honorary Diamond D Best-Producer-On-The-Mic Award.

3. I used to ask this question a lot, but what’s the meaning of your name?—You know what? The real answer to this question is so boring and mundane that I’ve decided to make something more interesting up. So here it is: In 1989, after falling asleep while listening to a well-worn cassette of Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, I had a dream. Afrika Bambaataa was high on a mountainside, suspended from a cliff with a chisel in his hand. He was hard at work carving a series of faces, each one as tall as a six-story building. Through the swirling dust I could barely make them out…but as the clouds parted, a ray of light shone upon a great spectacle, a Mount Rushmore of Rap. There, hewn into the living rock, were the founding fathers of modern rhyme–Big Daddy Kane, KRS-ONE, Rakim, Slick Rick, Melle Mel, RUN-DMC…and there were many others, too numerous to name–it was a pretty crowded cliff. But way down at the foot of the mountain was a face I’d never seen. I called up to the great man, dangling far above:
“Whose face is this?”
Wise Bambaataa replied:
“That’s Grip Grand.”
“Grip Grand?” I said. “Never heard of him. What’s he doing on your mountain?”
To which Bambaataa said:
“What mountain? You’re looking at a mirror.”
And then I woke up.

4. I read that you moved along the West Coast a lot. Where are you living at the moment?—It’s true. I’ve been all up and down, City to Town, and I’m currently residing in Orange County, just south of Los Angeles. But my whole crew—the mighty, mighty Rec-League All Stars—is in San Francisco these days, so I head up there when I need to record with the team.

5. So which one was/is the best place to live at?—At the risk of offending Southern Californians, I much prefer the Bay Area. Not as hot. Less plastic surgery.

6. Imagine you grew up and lived in… for example Atlanta. What would your music be like, would you still be all the same?—I love imagining. OK, I imagine my music would be roughly the same, with a few more Southern overtones. I mean, I grew up in Cali, but I don’t think my style is especially West Coast, and we always listened to hip-hop from all over…I would say, if anything, my main musical/lyrical influence as a kid was classic East Coast rap, because that was what ruled the world back then…but we listened to Sir Mix-A-Lot and NWA and the Geto Boys and 2 Live Crew, too. I think cats my age down south share similarly broad influences. If I grew up in Atlanta, I’d probably (Lord willing) sound something like Outkast or Ludacris…but not like, say, Crime Mob.

7. What made you the artist you are now, what made you not do Hyphy music or whatever?—Hyphy music wasn’t an option back when I started…I mean, it didn’t exist. The scene it grew out of was pretty different back then, musically—old, classic Bay shit had that soulful instrumentation you hear on albums like The Click’s Game Related or Too Short’s Get In Where You Fit In (both dope). The current shit is waaaaaay more synthy. Which itself is not a new sound for hip-hop, it has roots in stuff like Planet Rock and Miami Bass music. But I didn’t gravitate toward any of those styles, because my favorite albums growing up were mostly East Coast releases like EPMD, Gang Starr, all the Native Tongues shit…that’s how I always wanted to sound, so that’s who I tried to emulate.

8. By the way, what do you think about the Hyphy movement?—I’m probably not the most qualified cat to speak on the whole hyphy thing. I mean, I don’t have a ton of first-hand experience…you won’t find me in my scraper doing donuts at the sideshow. But I do enjoy getting dumb as much as the next man, and I recognize the need for music that makes you want to act wild and reckless. Still, I prefer my songs to have more verses and less call-and-response…some of the tracks I hear nowadays (and it’s not just hyphy shit) are all hook, no lyrics. That may be fine for the club, but I’m not at the club. Ever. I wanna hear you rhyme.

9. How did your signing with Look Records come along?— I had released my first album (Welcome to Broakland, 2002) on Bomb Hip-Hop Records through my man Dave Paul. The day I went to the Bomb offices to sign that contract, a cat named DJ Design (the DJ/producer for Foreign Legion) dropped by. Dave gave him a copy of my only record to date (Pro-Gress, a self-pressed 12-inch I did in 1999 or so), I shook his hand, and that was it. I went back home, my first album came out, many moons passed. In the interim, Dave had given Design a copy of Welcome To Broakland, and Design kept bumping it. I guess he was favorably impressed, because he hit me up about doing a project for his new label, Look Records. It was only then that we realized we’d met, years before, in Dave’s office. And Design still had that Pro-Gress 12-inch. Which, as an aside, is pretty rare now, limited as it was to 300 copies.

10. You just released “Brokelore”. How successful has it been so far?—Well, that depends on how you measure success. If success means that I made my family proud, that strangers all over the world hit me on MySpace and say they love the album, and that I finally get to live out my lifelong dream of doing an interview with Rap4Fame, then Brokelore has been, by all accounts, wildly successful. Spectacularly so. If, however, success means that I’ve moved a lot of units and made a lot of money and become really, really famous, then, um…I don’t know how to finish that sentence. The album has sold more than one copy, making it (mathematically at least) well on its way to Platinum status. It’s already like 1/1,000,000th Platinum. I’m just estimating, here. I don’t have the numbers right in front of me. But hopefully you can see where I’m going with this (even if I can’t). My point is, I’m a huge star who lives in a mansion made of giant diamonds and drives a fur-lined hovercraft, except the exact opposite of that. Didn’t you see me hosting Jay-Z and Beyonce’s honeymoon on my gold-plated yacht, floating in a sea of baby orphan’s tears? Damn, son, you must not be a high-roller.

11. What about the hard drive meltdown in 2007 @ Look Records? What happened back then?—Yeah, that was a bad situation. See, I used to record demos at home, and then I would go up to the Look studios in San Francisco and basically recreate them in ProTools (which isn’t what I use at home) with DJ Design…and I’d redo the vocals, too. So at some point, the main hard drive at the Look Records studio in San Francisco just crashed, and crashed bad. I wasn’t there, I don’t know what happened exactly, but basically my whole album up to that point was on that faulty drive, and the data got corrupted so bad we couldn’t recover it. All the recordings and multitracks were gone. Luckily, every time we had finished a song we would put it on CD to listen to it in the car, so we had some version of the songs to work with. But we couldn’t do additional mixing, we couldn’t really add or remove anything, and we didn’t have any instrumentals or acappellas or clean versions to release or remix. In one way it was a terrible loss, in another it was a blessing that we managed to save the material at all. A lot of other people’s stuff was on that computer, not just my shit, and they may have suffered more than me. Anyway, I ended up doing the last few songs for my album entirely at my home studio, I combined them with what we saved from the meltdown, and Brokelore was done.

12. In what way did this meltdown influence your album?—Well, if we’d had the instrumentals and acappellas we might have been able to rework some cuts and get a little more mileage out of the material through remixes, an instrumental album, etc. But mostly it made me try to improve the sound of my home recordings so they could be mastered and released as is, without first recreating them in another studio.

13. The design of “Brokelore” has this phantom with GG written on its chest. Why do we only see a Grip-Phantom, not the real Grip?—Partly, it heightens the mystery, which I enjoy. And I think the cover image that the artist (Ques) created helps to visually reinforce the world I describe in the songs. Besides, there’s plenty of unattractive photos of me out there on the web, if that’s what someone’s looking for. In fact, the cartoon cover design was chosen over another, earlier version, which featured a massive close-up of my smiling face, and I was giving a big thumbs-up to the camera…and on the back I was riding a unicycle through a field of daisies. It was really something. But in the end, I think we went the right way with it.

14. Brokelore’s your second album. Can you tell us a little bit about “Welcome To Broakland”? And how did you come up with the title “Broakland”?—My first album, Welcome to Broakland, began as a series of four-track cassette recordings from around 1998 to 2001. When I had enough songs to sequence an album, I did. Having done that, I decided to send out some demos to labels with just a few cuts on a CD, in these crazy, handmade ransom-note envelopes. Dave Paul from Bomb hit me up, said he was interested, I sent him the homemade album, and he decided to put it out as is (minus one song and a few interludes). We didn’t redo any of the material. He had it mastered, that’s it. Strictly basement style. So that’s how the album got made. As far as the name…all through those years, I kept moving around—I was in LA, then Oakland, and eventually, when the album came out, I was in Santa Cruz. But the majority of the four-track demos were recorded in Oakland. I was scraping by, working a series of strange, unsatisfying day jobs, and often feeling broke, brokedown, and broken. So that’s where the Broakland comes in. Broke plus Oakland equals Broakland. The math ain’t complicated. It’s not a term I had ever seen before I used it, although I’ve since seen it elsewhere. Just a coincidence, I’m sure. By the way, Broke plus Folklore equals Brokelore! Are we seeing a trend here?

15. There’s a song on your second album that deals with a review on the first album. Another story that you need to tell us about…—My album got a review (maybe my first online review, I don’t remember) on a certain website I won’t name, which has since gone under. The reviewer had hit me up in the first place, asking for a copy to review. So I sent one, only to get a mediocre write-up. It wasn’t really a terrible review…it was more along the lines of These songs would be good if they didn’t sound so bad, stuff about the sound quality. And there were a number of other complaints, I’m sure. So the song you’re referring to, Love/Drama, is more or less a line-by-line response to that review, addressing each comment it made. It was all in good fun, calling out the critic, like You say I’m wack? You found me out. I’m so very, very wack…and since you know all about what makes a great MC, naturally you must be the best MC of all, right? I tend toward sarcasm, in lyrics and in life. Incidentally, my jokes and jabs in the song were not directed at critics in general, or music bloggers, or anything like that. Some reviewers of Brokelore seem to take the song personally, along the lines of Aren’t I entitled to an opinion? Yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion. And the web is, evidently, an excellent place for sharing. However, I sometimes think that having an opinion, by itself, doesn’t qualify you to be a critic…being critical is not the same thing as thinking critically. I take reviews slightly more seriously when they’re from a reputable news source with some set of journalistic standards and practices, but still…for every person that loves something, another person hates it, and a third is indifferent. There’s no accounting for taste.

16. Have there been reviews on “Brokelore” which were similar?—Not really…no complaints about the sound quality this time. Some people don’t seem to understand why Handle That is on there, and I anticipated that not everyone would get the parody aspect of that song. But mostly, anyone who has bothered to write up the album has said a lot of positive things, with reviews ranging from above-average to amazing. It’s funny, sometimes it seems like they need to find fault with it just on principle like, Well, the raps are dope, and the beats are hot, but…but what? It’s not perfect? I guess they’ve got me there. It’s not perfect–it’s art.

17. Bringing in another song off the album, what makes up a “Hip-Hop Classic” ?—Man, if I knew the answer to that one, I’d be recording it right now. But there’s no formula…could be the beat, could be the rhyme, could be where you were when you first heard it. It doesn’t have to be from a specific era or region. There’s classics from wherever and whenever. Besides, it’s largely subjective. But, for me, the combination of a hot beat and a hot rhyme is a good start…and most songs i first heard in high-school are classic. That’s the power of nostalgia.

18. Would you consider yourself a representative of Backpack-Rap?, as this term always has a sour note…—I don’t really consider myself a representative of any movement. I try to make rap songs that sound like the music I enjoy and that I grew up on, next to none of which I would describe as Backpack Rap. I’m not even sure what that means, anymore. Back in the early 90’s, backpackers were just cats who dressed a certain way and listened to, like, Black Moon (I guess I was one of them, then). Nowadays, it seems to describe a much more underground scene full of relentless ciphering, true-school ethics, and kids who were barely born during hip-hop’s Golden Age. But I grew up in that era, and now I just try to put what I learned then into the music…I’m not out to prove my realness. You will not see my in front of the record store selling homemade tapes out of my knapsack or freestyling at open-mic nights. Even if I probably should be.

19. You got features by Percee P and A.G. on “Brokelore”. Why not, for example, Hieroglyphics?—Well, A.G. was recording his album for Look at the same time as me, and he was interested in getting on the Poppin’ Pockets remix after hearing the original version. He’s a hip-hop legend and a rapper I’ve always admired, plus he was a label mate. So that’s how that happened, and it was an honor for me to work with him. As far as Percee P, Design had hooked up with him for something (I don’t remember what), and he called me and asked how I would feel about getting Percee on my fast-rap track, Paper Cup. Obviously, I was ecstatic…another legend, also from the Bronx (birthplace of hip-hop), and one of the foremost practitioners of fast-rap known to man. And he absolutely killed the track…dope. So why didn’t I get, for example, Hieroglyphics? Well, I don’t know them. I never met them. And they didn’t offer. But if the opportunity ever arose, I would jump at it. The Brokelore guest-spots came down to fate, and to which artists fell within my meager sphere of influence. Luckily for me, those that did are giants in the field. But in general, I’m up for all types of collaborations. I just did a verse on a song with One Be Lo and Zion, produced by my boys Flip and Slick from Ireland. Plus I’m doing a remix for it. Whoever has talent that I can get down with and learn from, I’ll do it.

20. Will there be a tour? And are the European and German fans ever gonna see you perform live?—Man, I really hope so. This is a top priority for me right now, and Look has been pursuing the possibility of a European tour…but with the weak dollar right now, and the label having limited funds for travel, I’m not sure what the outcome will be. So promoters, if you can make it happen, holler at me direct! Help me bring the music to the people. My passport is current. My bags are packed. I’m waiting for you to send me my tickets (and don’t forget my hype man).

21. How much Rap music do you listen to in your free-time? Are you even interested in all the things going on in the Rap-game?—I listen to rap every day and I try to absorb all I can. Seems like there’s lots of good hip-hop out there nowadays, but it’s hard to find, or the cats that do it can’t really get the recognition they deserve. In some respects, though, that was always true. Popular rap has gone in a direction I don’t always love (too much Auto-Tune, not enough lyrics), but there’s plenty of so-called commercial music that’s dope…Kanye West, for example, continues to put real hip-hop on his albums, right next to the club jams. Jay-Z does, too. Whatever the style or genre, I love good songs, and that’s what I’m always listening for. So far, human beings have never run out of them. And we’ve been making music a long time.

22. What albums out of 2008 did you listen to? What was recommendable?—The year’s not even half over yet, are we already picking the winners? If pressed, I would recommend a little album called Brokelore, a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.

23. Looking at the East Coast and its vivid “underground” scene, you can notice some kind of renaissance-movement. Apposite or not?—It seems to me that New York hip-hop, which is like the foundation of rap music, never goes away…the only thing that changes is how much attention the outside world pays to the scene. Because those cats have been grinding for years, but the media only shines a light on them every once in a while…and hopefully now the listeners’ tastes are shifting a little more back to that raw rap shit, so the media will cover it and play it. I love to see a dude like Joell Ortiz, who makes straight up hip-hop, get some shine. The roots have to be strong for the tree to grow, and East Coast rap is the roots.

24. I just read some news with Lil Wayne in it, what brings me to my next question: is there a greatest rapper alive?–This is a controversial topic, but in a recent song I wrote a line that kind of summed up my feelings:

How can you be the best rapper alive/
When Rakim, KRS, and G-Rap are alive?

I mean, all the classic cats who invented the styles people rock nowadays are still here, for the most part. And there’s like a hundred who’d have to die before the title went to some of these young cats. That said, Little Wayne has some pretty amazing bars under his belt. I semi-hate songs like Lollipop, but then he’ll go and kill some beat like Upgrade U or Black Republican…you can’t front on talent. I’ll buy Tha Carter III. Tha Carter II was dope.

25. Back to you and your music. You’re a producer, too, you actually produced a lot on your album. What’s more important to you, producing or emceeing?—I think they go hand in hand, one informs the other. Knowing how to rap improves my beats, and vice versa. Plus, I know rappers who don’t make beats, and they have to rely on other people to produce for them. I’m a self-contained, self-reliant package.

26. Did you produce for other artists yet?—Yeah, I’ve done a bunch of production for Rec-League colleagues like Rob Rush and Q’M (aka Cumulus)…in fact, I just did half (or more) of the new Q’M album, The Happy Hour. And I’m working on that One Be Lo and Zion remix for DJ Flip right now. Plus I’ve done non-hip-hop production for some independent film projects, some scoring and sound design, some rock and jazz songwriting…whatever I can get my hands on.

27. Now, standard question, what will your future look like? Any new releases planned?— Of course, always more music. Look for a Grip Grand mixtape in the fall, as well as the upcoming Scoviet Union album with the ferocious Richie Cunning. Plus I have a few other projects under my belt. As far as what will happen after Brokelore goes quintuple-Diamond and becomes the best-selling album of all time, well, it’s too soon to say…but I’m guessing I’ll buy a private island somewhere, maybe build some kind of personal spacecraft, and start planning to colonize the Moon.

28. If you had the ability to put yourself as an artist into any time in history to make music, what time would it be? The 90′s, today or something else?—I would go back to 1994, make an album produced by Pete Rock, Large Professor, Premier, Q-Tip, and L.E.S., and call it Illmatic.

29. What would Grip Grand do if he wasn’t a Rapper/Artist?—I’d be dead if I wasn’t making music, but unfortunately I can’t support myself doing it (making music, that is…not being dead—although that’s an equally bad career option). I have a Bachelor’s degree in German and Russian Literature. Real money-makers. I guess I could write, or teach. Or take over the world. One of those.

30. Off-topic:
What and how much do you drink when you go out on a, let’s say, Saturday ir Friday night?—I tend to drink at home, and when I do I stick to Mexican beer, St. Pauli Girl, or Guinness (depending on the weather)–just a few bottles. Sometimes I drink brandy, and I used to get down with cognac…but ever since me and my man Al Jones split a bottle and he woke up the next day under a tree in some park, I’ve cut back. I’m really not much of a drinker. But if you see me at a coffee shop in Amsterdam…well, you know what I’m saying. That’s much more my style.

What about Video-/PC-Games? Any Favorites?— Unlike most rappers, I don’t play a lot of sports games and shooters. I do like the new Grand Theft Auto, although I miss a many of the features from San Andreas. I dig RPGs…I’m replaying Elder Scrolls: Oblivion right now. Not new, but still addictive. I like all Zelda and Mario games. And Rock Band is really dope…at least until Guitar Hero 4 comes out.

31. So, that was it, we’re done. I’d like to thank you and give you the opportunity to get some last words off your chest…—I’d like to thank you for the opportunity, and I’d especially like to thank anyone who ever gave my music a chance. I encourage folks to contact me—promoters, potential collaborators, people who need beats or rhymes, people who want me to leave a message on their voicemail for a small fee, haters who want to tell me where to stick my awful album—at www.myspace.com/gripgrand, or through the Contact page at www.routinefly.com

And if you like my music, please tell a friend. If not, well, maybe you could do me a favor and just keep it to yourself, pal. Thanks a million. Also, I realize that this interview will be translated into German. So if, at any point during it, I sound like a stupid moron and/or an insane asshole, I was just joking. It didn’t translate. I swear. But it was totally hilarious. Trust me.

As I like to think of myself as the Walter Benjamin of Rap (and I have no idea what that means), I will leave you with this quotation from Theses on the Philosophy of History, translated from German into English and I suspect, by the time you read this, back into German: “This storm is what we call progress.” Boo-yaa.

I think very deeply,
Grip Grand