URB: Grouch, as an MC, how inspiring is it to work with such different sounding tracks and how import is that diversity?
Grouch: There are a lot of tempo changes, a lot of style changes, and it is definitely inspiring as a rapper. It makes my job easy when I have such good beats to choose from. Eligh has just been cranking them out. Amp Live has just been cranking them out. Even those who didn’t make them album who submitted tracks, there were great tracks. I feel blessed to be in a time period to be able to reach out to someone and ask them to send me something and then just to get emails with very talented work, and then to be able to choose from it, I feel like I am in a great spot.
URB: Talk to me about “Sign of the Times” how did you come up with the ideas to use that doo wop melody as the foundation for what you are rhyming over. I don’t think I have ever heard anything like that done before.
Eligh: I made that beat about seven years ago, and I brought back out. I have been working on this ASR 10, this sampling keyboard, but I remember finding this beat, and re-gave birth to that beat. That vibe is undeniable to me. “Worry About the World” is another beat that I found that I had done awhile ago and went into the archives and picked.
URB: What you say Grouch’s strongest trait as a producer is?
Eligh: I would say his hear man. He is a little bit of a perfectionist. I can always tell when it is a Grouch beat. He chooses sounds and samples that only he would choose. It is really funny that we don’t have any Grouch beats on this album. That’s just how it ended up. He has a family and a daughter. It takes three or four hours out of your day to make a track, and he doesn’t have that kind of time, so the producing fell more on me, which is I am defiantly happy to do because out of everything, producers is my number one love.
Grouch: Well honestly, I have been doing a lot, and I haven’t been concentrating on making beats. I have been doing more of the writing, rapping thing. I kind of like the break. I think it is something different. I guess the first G&E was more half and half; the second one was more like 60/40; I didn’t make that many on the last one either. Usually it’s an ego thing like man I gotta get my beats on there too, so this time I was just like I don’t have that ego any more. I don’t know if its ego, but I just didn’t have the desire to be like I gotta get my beats on there. If I had beats that I felt needed to be on there then I would have put them on there. The more I do music, the more I realize there will be another day to make music.
URB: Will your next project be another collaboration with Zion I?
Grouch: Well I am actually working on another Grouch album right now because I don’t want to wait so long between Grouch records but as soon as they want to do that Zion I and Grouch thing, I am down. I can’t wait. They are one my favorite groups. I think they are one of the most under rated hip-hop groups around. I need to always be working on music as an artist. I am in the studio and that is what is coming out. DJ Fresh has been sending me beats that I have been feeling, so before I know it I am already 6 songs deep into something that I really like. The project will be produced by DJ Fresh and will have less features than my last couple albums. This album will be short and sweet.
URB: What would you say is Eligh’s strongest trait as a producer is?
Grouch: He makes so much material and so much of the material is good. I never have to tell him that his beat is wack. He will give me these beats, like 15 beats, and they will all be good. He is pretty quick with it, and he is consistent with it. Even when I go in there to make beats, I cannot go and knock them out like he does.
URB: Going Back to “Boom”, I saw it as a humorous look at how you used to listen to music.
Eligh: Yeah, that song all around is a playful song because that beat just brings out that old school feeling to me. I always want to hear bass in music. When I heard that Amp beat, there is this underlying bass kick that is super low that you can only hear it if you have two 15’s in your trunk. If you are listening to it on stock radio system, you won’t hear how much that song really bumps. It was my idea to get Slug on it because I never heard Slug rap over anything like that. My whole point for guest appearances is to get them on tracks that you normally wouldn’t hear them on. What would Sage Francis normally be on and what can we put him on? That excites me and that excites them too.
URB: I would say that the joint that Pigeon John is on, is the perfect Pigeon John track; He completes it.
Eligh: Oh yeah. He is the glue on that song. He was the first guy I thought off for that track. He made that chorus and that chorus is the song for me.
URB: What is your favorite line from this album?
Eligh: It might be Pigeon’s chorus: Spending my whole life on the search for nothing, came up with something, it’s on again. That’s what I like dude. Being lost on your path and then realize, this is what I am here to do. Then you put all of your energy into it.
Grouch: Oh No. Man, there are so many good ones. One of my favorites is in the chorus of “Say G&E” , “That’s my brother, can’t touch that, plus raps spit with each other. ” That’s one of the things that sums up the album to me partially, and it has to do with the family thing and it says that in that line and it describes G&E because our rhymes fit together like a puzzle piece with his flow and my flow. It is kind of like missing links to each other and the fact that I have found him in this world. Us not being born by the same mother but feeling like we are brothers is one of the outcomes of doing music together.
URB: Because you and Eligh know each other so well have this strong relationship, is it easier to foresee when a potential issue may arise, so you can just circumvent it completely?
Grouch: Definitely. I mean there are certain topics that I would not even bring up at a Living Legends session. I can see that maybe there will be a topic that they don’ t want to rap about, and I will just save it for G&E, but sometimes I will have a topic that I will bring up anyway just to see if they are open to it and sometimes it is just me thinking that they won’t be open to it. It goes both ways. If we got 8 guys in there its harder to get everyone on the same page, but sometimes you get 8 x the brain power. Then you get to write a shorter verse and that makes your job simpler.
URB: Was that your experience on recording the Gathering?
Grouch: There was definitely a lot of songs that the topics came easy. There were disagreements. There were a few things that were said on that album that I didn’t feel represented me, and I got into arguments for it. We all used to live in warehouse and that was when everyone was more likely to be on the same page. We were living in the same experiences. Now it is different. Some of us have kids, some of us have houses, some have cars, some of us don’t have the stuff. Certain people have gotten to where they want to be in their career and others are still hungry to get to different places. For the most part, it’s all under this blanket of I can see where you are coming from. You say what you want to say, you are you, but every once and awhile I feel like it is stepping over. Then there is a big argument because this is music and people are saying what they feel and even I can feel that. I don’t want to be someone who is censoring someone, but at the same time, if it is not representing me, I have to speak my mind too.
URB: What the rumblings of another group project right now?
Grouch: There are those who really want it and others who don’t want it right now. It usually takes two or three to really spear head it. I have been that spearhead in the past, and Sunspot has been that spearhead in the past, and Murs was, partially, on the Gathering. I don’t feel like spearheading right now. I will definitely participate in it but once one of these guys says I got these 10 beats right here, and someone kicks a verse, that might kick it off. One time we did Maui, another time we recorded in a studio where Dre does all of his shit, another time we passed around this old Roland recorder, so it is a different style every time. It will happen. I just don’t know when and where.
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