#nosaj

3. What’s your medium—pen and paper, laptop, on your phone? Or do you compose a verse in your head and keep it there until it’s time to record?

All of the above as well as napkins, cardboard, envelopes. 

I’ll treasure hunt my writings/cut & paste them until I locate what I wasn’t looking for and then when I’m walking my dog I’ll continuously simplify it in my head until it feels like a conversation.

4. Do you write in bars, or is it more disorganized than that?

From my disorganization my bars grow.

5. How long into writing a verse or a song do you know it’s not working out the way you had in mind? Do you trash the material forever, or do you keep the discarded material to be reworked later?

Immediately. Both.

6. Have you engaged with any other type of writing, whether presently or in the past? Fiction? Poetry? Playwriting? If so, how has that mode influenced your songwriting?

It’s all one continuous essay.

7. How much editing do you do after initially writing a verse/song? Do you labor over verses, working on them over a long period of time, or do you start and finish a piece in a quick burst?

I live to edit. 

I eat sleep & piss over verses until it feels right.

If the devil is in the room I can turn out a verse in flashes.

8. Do you write to a beat, or do you adjust and tweak lyrics to fit a beat?

Both. I write to instrumentals of songs I love.

9. What dictates the direction of your lyrics? Are you led by an idea or topic you have in mind beforehand? Is it stream-of-consciousness? Is what you come up with determined by the constraint of the rhymes?

All of the above and none of the above. 

I’m a leach/thief. I’ll snatch shit from anywhere.

10. Do you like to experiment with different forms and rhyme schemes, or do you keep your bars free and flexible?

It’s all an experiment.

11. What’s a verse you’re particularly proud of, one where you met the vision for what you desire to do with your lyrics?

Each and every verse. I don’t publish anything that doesn’t completely turn me out.

12. Can you pick a favorite bar of yours and describe the genesis of it?

"Modern Man”:

My city ain’t my city anymore  These buildings and these streets I don’t recall  And where did this man in my mirror come from That’s not the face I knew when I was young 

I was walking around NYC feeling like a tourist in my own town and an outsider in my own body. Time waits for no man.

13. Do you feel strongly one way or another about punch-ins? Will you whittle a bar down in order to account for breath control, or are you comfortable punching-in so you don’t have to sacrifice any words?

I punch my demos.

14. What non-hiphop material do you turn to for inspiration? What non-music has influenced your work recently?

Dark Magus-era Miles Davis. Mark Knopfler's "Madame Geneva’s."

My children.

15. Writers are often saddled with self-doubt. Do you struggle to like your own shit, or does it all sound dope to you?

All of it sounds fucking dope to me!

16. Who’s a rapper you listen to with such a distinguishable style that you need to resist the urge to imitate them?

Greg Nice and I don’t resist.

17. Do you have an agenda as an artist? Are there overarching concerns you want to communicate to the listener?

Freedom.

RAPS + CRAFTS is a series of questions posed to rappers about their craft and process. It is designed to give respect and credit to their engagement with the art of songwriting. The format is inspired, in part, by Rob McLennan’s 12 or 20 interview series.