El-P

Jeff Mao

Ladies and gentleman, thanks for joining us here for our afternoon lecture. Our speaker this afternoon is a revered producer, an MC, co-founding member of a group called Company Flow, and he’s here all the way from Brooklyn, so please welcome El-P. (Applause)

El-P

I am revered. (Laughter)

Jeff Mao

How’re you doing today? Thanks for being here.

El-P

Good, yeah. Thank you for having me.

Jeff Mao

Yeah. You know, we got lots of things to talk about, but I like to start these things off with a little bit of music. You said that this would make you feel uncomfortable so I’m actually pretty much looking forward to it.

El-P

Go for it.

Jeff Mao

You have some new music, actually, in addition to the things I briefly mentioned in the introduction, and this actually came out, what, just a couple days ago, officially?

El-P

Yeah.

Jeff Mao

So, we’re going to hear a little music from El-P. Who’s the other gentleman on the track?

El-P

He’s going to stare at you while you listen to it.

Jeff Mao

(Laughs) I’m sorry. Who’s the other gentleman on this record?

El-P

Killer Mike. So it’s me and Killer Mike. We have a group called Run The Jewels. That’s the current project and this is a song.

Jeff Mao

OK. This is a song entitled “Get It.”

(music: Run the Jewels – “Get It”)

El-P

This is how I do my show too. We got a big tour coming up if you guys want to come see that, for an hour. It’s a big deal.

Jeff Mao

So tell us a little bit about this particular track and your creative relationship with Killer Mike. How you guys have done stuff in the past? And maybe a little bit background for some of these folks who might not be familiar with that project?

El-P

Me and Killer Mike did a record together last year called R.A.P. Music, which was Killer Mike’s album. And we met through someone that we both knew, who sort of heads up a lot of the creative aspects, especially the music stuff, of Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, and William Street Records, etc. We both worked with him in different capacities. He was a friend of both of ours, separately. He had signed Killer Mike to do a record, and he asked Mike if he’d be interested in working with me, and he asked me if I’d be interested in working with Mike. We both knew each other but not as much as we know each other now. We both knew each other’s music a bit. I knew him from, of course, the OutKast songs, and from some of the PL3DGE mixtapes, which were sort of his post-OutKast stuff. And he knew me from Company Flow, and he knew the name Def Jux.

But he was open, and they flew me out. I went to Atlanta and we sat in the studio together. And after about three hours, Mike was just like, “So you’re doing the whole album, right?” And I was like, “No. Not at all, man.” And he was like, “Alright, cool, so you’re doing the record.” And I was like, “No.” But, you know, there was something really amazing about what happened. And for me, I’ve been around for a minute working with other people, and I’ve had a lot of experiences doing albums with different people. And when you get to be in your thirties you don’t really expect to be surprised anymore. You know, you have to fight against getting – I don’t want to say jaded, but the idea that collaborating with someone is predictable. That you’ve done it, you know, and there’s only a few ways that it can go. And you kind of know how it works.

You have categories in your head. There’s the difficult guy (laughs). Then there’s the guy who falls in love with the first shitty version of the demo that you give them and won’t let you change it. There’s the guy who thinks that he’s producing and I’m just a mechanism for his [ideas]. You know, you have different ideas and not all negative of course, but you just sort of think you know what’s gonna happen. And meeting Mike, even on a life level, you know, you get to a certain part in your life where you kind of figure, “Well, I’ve made all my friends,” you know? You’re not expecting at 35 to meet your best friend. You know who your friends are. So this happened and me and Mike just were best friends. And so because of that, I said yes.

And I was in the middle of making my record, I was in the middle of making this record, Cancer 4 Cure, and that’s the reason why I was saying no, because I had promised myself that I would finish the goddamn record. Because I’m really slow at making my own records. So I went up there with the word “No!” in my head, and I was practising it. “No! I can’t, I’m sorry.” And I said yes, eventually. You know, eventually. Because if you know Mike, it’s really hard to say no to Mike. He’s scary on record, but no, don’t let that shit fool you. He’s like the cuddliest, smiliest bastard on the planet, and so we said yes. And I said yes, and we went in and did this record.

We had such a great time and we had such a great chemistry that it led to a tour, and it led to a whole bunch of stuff. We really both felt like we had found a like mind, you know? Mike had been doing amazing stuff throughout his career, and he’d come really close to blowing up a couple of times. He’d was on Bone Crusher, (sings) “I ain’t never scared.” He was on that. That was a huge hit. He was on “Whole World” by OutKast, and that went platinum and he got a Grammy. And still it didn’t quite happen for him, because I think that when he was doing his solo stuff he ran into different things. He’d run into label troubles, different things. So he kept putting these projects out and the projects were good, and he was obviously really good, but Mike, from what he has conveyed to me, was looking to be produced.

He grew up on a lot of the same records that I grew up on, we are the same age and we grew up on a lot of the same records. But some of the records that inspired us when he started talking to me about what he wanted out of the project was, you know, Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, Ice Cube. Like, when Ice Cube left – I don’t know, were any of you old enough to remember when that record came out? (To audience member) You are, the other ginger and the other ginger. Three gingers in the room. (Laughter) Well, when that record came out, Ice Cube was known for N.W.A. and he was like the quintessential West Coast artist, and Dr. Dre was God of the West Coast. The Gods of the East Coast were the Bomb Squad, who produced Public Enemy’s records, you know Nation of Millions and Yo! Bum Rush The Show – most importantly Nation of Millions, probably, and Fear Of A Black Planet.

So when Ice Cube had a falling out with the whole N.W.A. camp he did a really surprising thing and he went east and he worked with the Bomb Squad. And at the time – even though now we all look at it like a classic record that had to have existed, and it led to a lot of different things – but at the time everybody thought it was crazy. At the time it didn’t make any sense to anybody. And because me and Mike both had that history of knowing that that’s how it panned out, that reference was really good for us, because in our minds we were like, that’s what we can do. That’s what we can accomplish with this. We can take people’s expectations and flip them.

When you have a career and it spans a course of records, you’re not only working with the idea of trying to make a new record that is relevant, but you are also carrying with you expectations you are aware of and you understand how people perceive you, what they are thinking about music today. And we knew that us doing that record, even though for us it was very natural and it made all the sense in the world – we were the same age, we both bonded over all these records and have have all the same sort of memories of hip-hop unfolding and falling in love with hip-hop – we knew that would play with people’s expectations. Like, it was a way for us to to fuck with people and make something we thought would be great.

I think, for that record, sometimes it’s not just about just making music. The music has to be great, but also you have to understand what you are playing against. You know, what is the idea that you are putting out in the pantheon of the way that people listen to music? And for us it unfolded exactly how we thought it would, which was people heard that me and Mike were working together and everyone was like, “Well, that’s just a fucking mistake. Clearly, that’s wrong, so sorry you’re doing that, Mike.” And it turned out that it worked for us because people liked the record. But beyond that, we were really pleased. We had a lot of fun. And I have been through a lot of recording processes, mostly my own, that are miserable. Pretty much just miserable.

Jeff Mao

Yup.

El-P

And that wasn’t the case. So because of that, because of how much fun we had, because of how much we are genuinely friends, we had that idea of doing it again, doing it more and keeping it going, and we didn’t want to stop, you know? So we came up with this idea to do this record.

Jeff Mao

So, thus Run The Jewels.

El-P

Thus Run The Jewels.

Jeff Mao

It’s funny though, ‘cause you talk about collaboration, that’s the whole sort of thing here. Everybody in this room, is from somewhere. They don’t necessarily know any of the people they are going to be hanging out with here for two weeks, and there is a limited number of studios for them to go into to work on stuff together. When did you realize you and Mike were going to work, not only as far as being compatible personalities, but that would also translate to music? Because it doesn’t always work that way.

El-P

No, it doesn’t always work that way. What you guys are doing right now is throwing yourself into a room and collaborating. What I’ve learned about that word, and about that process, is that one of the major parts of a collaboration is the relinquishing of control. It’s not necessarily always about the perfect melding of your idea and someone else’s idea. You can make your own record, and it can all be exactly what you want and exactly what you think. (Distracted by audience member) Of course you’re the guy smoking. Could you pass that to me please? I kind of do. (Laughs) Yeah, son. (Pretends to leave to smoke) Oh, it’s one of those?

Audience Member

You’ve got to push the button.

El-P

Oh, and then you inhale.

Audience Member

Push now. (Laughter)

El-P

I got a little. Alright, fuck you. Take your little purple, fucking, vaporize... Oh! Grape. (Laughter)

What was I saying? You know, forever and ever, I was making records and it was always about me, my record, my idea, my thought, my life, this has got to be me, this is my statement. And when you collaborate with somebody, the biggest lesson for me was to learn how to let go of some of those things, and to just realize not what you’re trying to do, but what is happening. The thing that is actually coming true because you’re sitting down with somebody else. And that’s super important in the process of having different collaborations with different people. There are a lot of different ways that can go down. I felt very honored and very grateful that my collaboration with Mike was of pure trust. You know, Mike decided that he trusted me and that gave me a lot of freedom that allowed me to guide him, that allowed me to be a real contributor to what he was doing. I was not only just making beats for him and sending them. We sat in a room and for three months smoked weed all day long. That’s important, kids. So that, all day. (Laughter)

There were no managers and there was no one else. Obviously, not everyone’s dealing with that, but there were no other voices and there was no idea except two fully grown, ageing children, just trying to make themselves smile and do something with complete disregard for any tropes that are popular. We weren’t playing the game of what everyone else is doing. We were literally just sitting there and seeing what was this, what is that we did, you know? So I think that’s maybe in my mind the definition of a real collaboration, you know? And I’ve thought it was going to be that way and it wasn’t, and you adjust to that too, you know? And one of the things, especially for a producer, one of the things you have to understand is that not everything that you do is going to be the realization of your artistic vision. Sometimes it’s going to be that you’re a functionary to try and help someone pull their idea out of thin air. And depending on who you’re working with, they may have more ideas than you do about the project. You may feel like, “Well, why did you get me, why am I here doing this?” And the reason you’re there doing it is because if you’re good at what you’re doing, if you’re learning how to actually be a producer, you have the ability to listen and to understand and to bring that out for someone, and to gently guide them. And then there are collaborations where you’re like, “Alright, let’s do this shit.” And then you get in and you’re like, “You suck.”

Jeff Mao

(Laughs) So specifically, did you actually send Mike the stuff beforehand? Did you make the beats in his presence? How did it work?

El-P

The Atlanta session that we first did when we first went out there was... The thing about working with Mike is that nothing happens without you being there (laughs). Like, with the record, it took probably a total of three months, over the course of nine months, you know – because nothing was happening until we were in the room together. So no, it wasn’t one of those things. It wasn’t one of those, like, we’re emailing beats, he’s sending me back verses or anything like that. If you’re not in front of the mic, it’s just not even existing. It’s not there, and that was actually cool because really what it was, was him saying, “This record is ours, we’re doing this together.” And so it didn’t happen until we were in the room together.

Jeff Mao

I feel like we should play something from R.A.P. Music, just to contrast what you did for Mike with what you do for yourself musically. Is there anything in particular you want to hear from that?

El-P

I don’t know. What’s good?

Jeff Mao

I mean, “Big Beast” is the...

El-P

Yeah, what are you guys in the mood for? Like, something that’s really gonna make you uncomfortable or something that’s gonna relax you a little bit? Uncomfortable? OK, cool, cool. Alright, yeah, why don’t you do “Big Beast.”

Jeff Mao

Alright.

El-P

That’s the worst to just sit...

(music: Killer Mike – “Big Beast”)

Jeff Mao

So “Big Beast,“ Killer Mike featuring Bun B, T.I...

El-P

...and T.I., yeah.

Jeff Mao

And Trouble as well on the hook. So something like this, would you say this a departure from the stuff that you would do for yourself, or, how would you categorise it?

El-P

Nah, not that much, not really. I mean, to be honest, most of the music that I make, in some way or another, is started with the idea of me making something. Whenever I’m sitting down and making music and starting something... You know, this, in some form or another, existed before Mike. It changed and it became Mike’s. And one of the things is like, there’s a balance, you know? One of the hardest things for me to learn was that I wasn’t making my record for somebody else when I was producing for someone else. It was like, I had to make someone else’s record and that meant I had to give them a sound. I had to tailor it to them, I had to make sure that it wasn’t just me fighting for my idea, you know? But no, I would've rocked on this shit. In fact, I didn’t even wanna give it to him. (Laughter)

There’s a couple of beats on the record where I was like, “Alright you fuckin’ bastard, you can have it.” But they don’t live, and they’re not records until they’re claimed. It’s like, they’re claimed by whoever’s saying whatever they’re saying and the way that they’re doing it, and they get altered and they get changed for that person. And a lot of the songs on the record were made in front of him. You know, with him. But that one in particular, no, I definitely would have kept that.

Jeff Mao

You said that you were hesitant to do that project because you’re trying to finish your own album. Did that in any way help your process? Because you’ve said that the process of you making your own album is typically, in your words, miserable.

El-P

Did I say that? Yeah, it did help, it did help. You know, it kind of came and I gave myself up to it. Making a record with him was just so much more fun and so much more easy than… I suck to work with. He is great. Me, sitting in a room alone, high – again, all day – I suck. I’m the worst. Mike? Mad fun. So it definitely energised my shit. I was probably about halfway through my record, and yeah, I went right back into after finishing his, and it gave me a lot of energy for that. So we ended up putting both records out within a week of each other, which is kind of crazy and unheard of. It wasn’t really planned that way but it just happened that way.

Jeff Mao

I guess we should talk about the album, and I do wanna go back at a certain point, but with Cancer 4 Cure, what was your mindset? You’ve done three albums under your own name, solo projects – is that correct? Or four? Three, and each album of course is a representation of you at whatever stage in your musical career, in life. So with this one, what kind of stage were you at?

El-P

I’d say it started in a bit of rough phase, started in a bit of rough patch. A very good friend of mine, who I worked with and lived with at certain points, who was very much a part of my life,d who passed away prematurely of lung cancer. And that kind of threw my world a little bit, it was the first domino that led to a lot of changes in my life. So that’s where I was when I started writing the record. The title honestly doesn’t have anything to do with that, but I’m sure that the word was rattling around my head a little bit.

When I do my records they’re a little bit different for me. I try and take a really accurate snapshot of not who I want to be but who I am. And that can be a little bit tough. Just because, a) you wanna be honest about it, and b) you wanna understand it, you know? Sometimes it takes me a while to get these things started because I don’t really know where the hell I’m at. And I can’t really be bothered to constantly take a snapshot of whatever is going on. But when I delve into these records, a lot of times it’s a somewhat growing process of kind of trying to let the voices speak. Not in the sense of, like I said, I don’t wanna be the voice of the person that I wish I was on record. I’d like these records, if possible, to be the voice of who I am. And if you pay attention, and if you’re serious about getting the details down emotionally, then in some ways, if you as true to yourself as you possibly can be about who you’re at the time, then you may be able to capture how we all are at the time. May be able to capture something that someone could look back on, you know?

I mean, look, if you take a photograph of a person on a corner in 1976 and you’re focused on the person, you’re still gonna catch all the shit in the background, and that is not just a picture of the person, that’s a picture of the world, it’s the picture of a place and many people. So, I want that, I want to be that, you know? When I write these records I want to be honest and I want to be as detailed as I possibly can – not in the sense literal detail but in the sense of emotional detail. We’re not these incredibly unique snowflakes that our parents told us we were, we’re actually not. And we all kind of feel and experience the same shit in slightly different lenses and slightly different perspectives, but there’s nothing that any one of you in this room has felt that the other person sitting next to you hasn’t felt in some form or another, and vice versa.

And that’s something I realized, you know? When I first started making music I was really just about being a rapper, I was really just about saying the coolest shit possible, and the funniest shit, and the hardest shit, and I still do that, I still like that. But I grew a little bit into a direction, which, when I started to realize that I, you know – backtrack. At that time, when I was doing that younger, I thought that if you got too detailed about your own personal existence that you would lose people. That it would be too self-indulgent, you know? And I realized that, in fact, it was the opposite. I realized in fact that the songs where I thought I was just simply just writing about me were the ones that people would come up to me and and have real feelings about. So I started to get addicted to that, I started to realize that. Because all you’re doing is tapping into something that is intrinsic in all of us, and if you’re tuned into that, no matter what the details are, no one is going to share the exact details but they will share the experience. So… I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.

Jeff Mao

(Laughs) Well...

El-P

Please guide me.

Jeff Mao

You were talking about just where you were when…

El-P

Yeah, so again, where I was when I did this record, I was where I’m always am, which is, “Oh fuck, I’ve got to do another record,” you know? And what does that mean? Who the fuck am I? What am I doing? What am I trying to say here, you know? And you can overthink that shit, and I am a great overthinker. But ultimately you just get over the hump and you start just saying shit. And hopefully you tap into that stream, you know? You kind of keep saying it and keep saying it until it just starts coming out.

But I thought I was in a really dark place with this record and it ended up that I didn’t feel that way. At the end of the record it ended up I felt like I had written… that actually I felt differently, you know? It started with the death of a friend and I thought that I was feeling very jaded, I was feeling very hopeless and just kind of heartbroken, a little bit. Tired. And at the end of the record I ended up feeling like I had rediscovered something. That I actually had discovered something about myself that I didn’t really remember or realize, which is that I’m very hopeful and I’m very romantic, and that I have a lot of hope and I don’t think that it’s all fucked. For me, I never really know what the hell is going on until I’m done and I can step back from it and I can look at it and be like, “Oh, that’s how I feel.”

Jeff Mao

And who is your friend who passed, for those who may not be aware?

El-P

He’s an artist named Camu Tao. I actually put out his posthumous album. I put together and put out his posthumous album a couple of years ago. Which anybody who’s interested in production, or vocal techniques, or anything, should really check out. It’s called King Of Hearts. It’s very raw because it’s mostly comprised of his demos, the stuff that he did on Garage Band because he was basically just too sick to finish the record. But it’s pretty mind-blowing, and especially when you consider when it came out, he was doing things approaching production and doing vocal stuff that people weren’t really doing that maybe sound a little familiar now, but at the time were not. But he also has shit that no one’s ever done and no one ever will do because he’s a very unique person. But yeah, that was Camu Tao, yeah.

Jeff Mao

And his voice is on one of the tracks from the LP?

El-P

Yeah.

Jeff Mao

Should we hear a little bit of that? Just taste that?

El-P

Sure.

Jeff Mao

OK, this is something from Cancer 4 Cure. Entitled?

El-P

 “The Full Retard.”

(music: El-P – “The Full Retard”)

El-P

We’re playing all the really punishing songs for some reason.

Jeff Mao

It just worked out that way. Well, I think it’s good that we played this particular track, not only because Camu’s voice is featured as the hook, but also I think this is a good example of what you’ve done throughout your career. You’re known for, for lack of a better word, a progressive style of hip-hop. It’s a vague word but I’ll use it. Yet at its root it’s something that’s pretty much grounded in the hip-hop you came up with in the ‘80s. You know, some of the records that were super influential to you. You can even hear it in the stabs in a track like that, which is probably going to be familiar to anybody who’s heard hip-hop through the ‘80s. That sound may not be the exact sound but it evokes something that’s very, very much of that era. And I think that’s one of the things that, at least for me as a listener, I’ve always got from your music, both what you do on your own and with Company Flow. I guess, just going back, what was your introduction to hip-hop and how did you get involved in it?

El-P

I mean, it was like anything else. I mean, I think like anyone else, I was just a kid, I just heard it. I mean, I lived in Brooklyn, I would listen to Mr. Magic’s radio show and I would listen to Marley Marl, and I’d listen to Red Alert, and basically just discovered it through the radio. At the time there were actually boomboxes. (Laughs) People actually walked around with gigantic [boomboxes], sometimes with record players in them, and people would just bump this shit in my neighborhood, basically. It was just exciting music to me. And at the same time I was listening to Devo and Talking Heads and Prince and Michael Jackson, Run-D.M.C., Fat Boys, LL Cool J. When the Def Jam stuff started coming out hard that was when it cemented it for me. You know, Beasties and Cool J, and then later that whole era. But I just learned about it. I heard the music just from hearing the music and I just loved it. It wasn’t even a question for me.

I didn’t understand what hip-hop was. I didn’t know what that was, but I would ride the train every day and I would see graffiti all over the trains, and as I got a little bit older I’d started meeting people who wrote the graffiti. And then it would be like, “Oh, this is connected. The music and the graffiti are connected.” Then I’d see people dancing and I was like, “Oh, that’s part of it too.” You know, it was a natural thing for me, growing up. But I just did it just because I was a fan. I did it because I just liked the music. I mean, for 15 years I didn’t even write a word down, you know? I would just stand in front of the mirror and rap Run’s part, you know? And I would listen to the Fat Boys and I would listen to whatever, it wasn’t deep. It was just simply that I loved it and I kept doing it and we would joke around. As I got older, got to be a teenager, we’d spent most of my time when I should have been in school being high and drunk and listening to rap music, and just I started freestyling and started trying to write. Actually, I wrote my first one when I was ten. I’ve framed it on the wall because it is that good. But that was all in the style of the Beastie Boys. You know, at the time it was the Beastie Boys... Rest in peace, Adam Yauch, it was his anniversary yesterday.

But yeah, it was natural and there was no huge reason, no huge catharsis, it was just simply that I had fun doing it and for some reason I was the kind of guy who wanted to try to make it. I had a boom box and it was a tape deck boom box, you could record tape-to-tape, and we would make these things call pause tapes. A lot of people talk about them because in that era, there was a lot of producers who kind of come from the same era I do started that way. Which is basically you’re just making the tapes, you’re making blend tapes, and what you do is you pause the tape and rewind someone else’s record. Let’s say it’s “Peter Piper” or whatever from Run-D.M.C., and you’d just loop it by doing a pause and then record, play, and edit. So I’d do that and I got good at it, and people would bring songs to me and they’d ask me to remix them. And I’d do it, I’d chop it up and I’d chop shit up, and I’d make these for my friends, make these edits. And then I started recording over them, I started rapping over them, that’s really how it started. I mean, it was nothing too specific, it was just sort of this long, slow process of me having fun and wanting to get more and more into this. You know, I had heard it, and I had loved it. And now I was listening to it, then I started remixing, and then I just wanted to get deeper in, I just wanted to see how can I be a part of this, you know?

Jeff Mao

And what did your mom say when you just spent all the time doing this and not going to class?

El-P

What did she say? Well, I mean I got kicked out of couple of high schools by the time I was 15 and basically my mother said, “Either learn how to be the guy who doesn’t have a problem being in school, or what the fuck do you wanna do?” And I said, “I wanna be a rapper.” Which is what every white mother wants to hear. (Laughter)

And to her credit she was like, “OK, well, then you’re not gonna just be a rapper just like that, are you? You’re gonna have to learn.” And I said: “Well, I don’t know.” She said, “Go to this.” And there was this musical engineering school called the Center for the Media Arts in New York City. It’s not there anymore. It was on 26th and 7th, I believe, or 25th and 7th. And she said, “If you’re not going to school, you’re going here.” So I said, “Fine, fuck it!” And at 16 I went to musical engineering school, and all of a sudden I was in a facility that’s the approximation of this type of place. It’s just much less nice and I was around a bunch of 25-year-olds and bunch of 30-year-olds who were trying to become engineers or whatever the fuck. But that’s where I started. All of a sudden I was doing what I wanted to do. All of a sudden I was involved in the music everyday and I couldn’t turn back. I was like, “I can’t believe I’m doing this shit.“ You know? So, that’s where I started.

Jeff Mao

So how did you actually begin your recording career?

El-P

Career or just recording?

Jeff Mao

How did you make a record?

El-P

Well, I made a record through the school that I went to, the Center for the Media Arts. I met someone named Louis Ballentine, who is still a friend of mine from Hollis, Queens. He used to take me up to Hollis, Queens, because he’d take around the white boy that could rap, you know? He was like, “I’ve got this white boy. He can rap.” And he takes me up to Hollis, Queens, and from there we ended up hanging out with a bunch of people. Hollis, Queens, is where Run-D.M.C. comes from and where LL Cool J comes from. We were just hanging out with people out there and through him I met this guy Anttex, who had a record on Tuff City Records, which is a legendary shitty record label. (Laughter)

Jeff Mao

Be careful, you might just get sued for saying that.

El-P

Yeah. [They] put of kind of cool shit but it just was crazy label. And him and this guy who worked there, an accountant who worked there – which is insane for anybody who knows about Tuff City – started a little indie record label and the guy signed me or whatever. So that’s how it happened. And it was 1993 that I put out my first record through this little label that I had hooked up with through the guy while I knew him. That was the first record I ever put out, it was called Juvenile Technique, in 1993 and I was 17. And it was alright. (Chuckles) I don’t know, it was OK. I thought, “OK, so cool. So I am a rap star now, that’s good, that’s great.” And that wasn under the name Company Flow, I hadn’t met Jus yet, but between that and 1996 it was mostly just trying to learn how to rap better, trying to learn how to record better. Going up to radio shows and freestyling and getting my rep out there and just becoming involved in the culture that was happening in New York City of people who were unsigned.

Jeff Mao

Well, I mean, that record even got some support. Didn’t it get played on some of the shows? Did Stretch and Bob play “Juvenile Technique” a little bit?

El-P

Yeah, yeah, Stretch and Bobbito, which was a big part of my career and a lot of other people’s careers who are platinum now… yeah, they played it. They were the first people, some of the first people that played it and we kept that relationship going. Bobbito was really supportive, so was Stretch, and I just kept going back to them. When I started having new music they just had their door open for me.

Jeff Mao

So how did the unit of Company Flow that people are familiar with come into being then?

El-P

Me and Mr. Len, who was my DJ at the time, the DJ for Company Flow, we had already known each other and were hanging out. Jus actually was friends with the guy who started the label, and worked with the label, and then he quit the label to work with me on the music. So you know, it just happened. Not long after we did that first song, I kind of pulled him in.

Jeff Mao

So 1996 is when the original Funcrusher EP was released. Were you surprised by the reception?

El-P

I don’t know anymore. You kind of remember things the way you want to remember them as the person you are now. I want to be like, “Yes! We were surprised.” But I don’t know, I was pretty cocky back then. I might have thought I deserved it, you know? I might have been like, “Of course!” But you know, yeah, I think we were. I don’t think that we had any idea. We were surprised more as we went along. Because at the time, the internet really wasn’t playing a role in music or anything like that. You had no idea if people liked your music. You had no idea how many people liked your music, you had no idea who was listening to it. We started to get surprised when we were doing shows and there were lines around the block, and we were like, we had no idea – but we also thought the music was good. We expected people to like it just because we were cocky, and we were young, and we liked it, and we considered ourselves the ultimate hip-hop fans.

Jeff Mao

What was your mindset making Company Flow records when you guys started out as this unit?

El-P

I mean, it was just to prove ourselves. It was just to get in, it was just to make our mark. I wanted nothing more than to be a competitor and a player in the realm of music. You know, I had spent my years being a fan. I had spent my years learning and trying to perfect it, and no one heard my music. No one heard my demos. There was no “put it up and let everyone hear it” shit. It was like, if you wanted something to come out, you had to work on it to get it out to more than just your friends. And we wanted that. I wanted that more than anything. I just had a lot of attitude and so that was it man. I just wanted to show everyone that I was the nastiest, you know? In my head, it was like I wanted to prove that I could hang, and not only hang, but that I have something to contribute, you know?

Jeff Mao

But it wasn’t just that though. I’m saying, musically, what you were doing was different from the kind of traditional boom-bap that was coming out in the mid-90s?

El-P

And yet, people would call what we do now “traditional,” you know? It’s like, yeah, I guess so, but… it was, it was.

Jeff Mao

It was different.

El-P

Yeah, it was different. I don’t know how this applies to other people but hip-hop culture is interesting because there is a musical aspect, you know? There aren’t a lot of other cultures that have… Different producers in different cultures, I don’t think they have a similar history to hip-hop, because when you’re doing hip-hop music, you’re coming at it, at least we were, from the perspective of having an ideal about what hip-hop was. An ideal about how you were supposed to hold yourself, how you were supposed to contribute. And growing up, being an admirer of graffiti, that worked its way into our art.

In my mind, what I had learned was that it wasn’t about the safety or the guarantee of anything, it was about the risk, you know? It was about style, and you never wanted to sound like anyone else. You just didn’t want to sound like anyone else, you wanted to make sure that your shit didn’t sound like anything. But what we believed was that it wasn’t about sounding like things that were already proven, but it was about invoking things. We wanted it to be the most fucked up-sounding shit that made you feel the most hip-hop ever, you know? And we wanted it to feel like the purest hip-hop shit, but it also be completely unfamiliar. We wanted it to be ours, one hundred percent. So that’s kind of what we went for. That’s how it happened. And also, of course, you’re just sort of at a place, like, the sound has happened because of where I was in terms of my skill level. All the little mistakes and things I didn’t know allowed for something to sound weird.

Jeff Mao

And what was going on in hip-hop at the time, too, either as something to aspire to, or as a foil.

El-P

Well, yeah, as a foil for sure. I mean, for us, we felt the whole shit was a foil. We felt like we were chomping at the bit, like, “Fuck all of you.” You don’t keep that same mind state as you get older, you don’t keep it forever, but that was our mind state then.

Jeff Mao

OK, let’s play something from Company Flow.

(music: Company Flow – “8 Steps To Perfection”)

El-P

This is starting to feel like a This Is Your Life type of vibe.

Jeff Mao

Well, you know, we try to keep it moving. But this in turn got you guys got a lot of exposure, this EP, and you wound up putting out the extended version through Rawkus. What are your reflections on that time now? I mean, I know you’ve been outspoken about it in the past, but do you still feel the same about that time, that era? I mean, people who came up during that time and were hip-hop fans, a lot of them idealised the Rawkus era. The mid-90s New York underground hip-hop era.

El-P

Yeah. I mean, I don’t feel the same. I think you’re probably referring to how I felt about Rawkus?

Jeff Mao

Well, I guess it’s two things. I mean, your thoughts on the era in general, but in addition to that your thoughts on Rawkus and your experience with them.

El-P

No, I mean, it was undoubtedly a special time. I think that there was a lot of energy. There were a lot of great artists that were putting records out. There was a lot of unexpected music coming out, it was great. I look back on it like, it’s my life, you know? It’s such a big part of my life and it means so much to what I do now in the sense that I was lucky to be there. I was lucky to be a part of it, I was lucky to have some success in that era. [It was] really my introduction to actually being a professional, to putting records out and having that be a real thing. So it was great. I look back on it with great reverence but I don’t look back that much. But when I’m asked I have nothing but positive feelings about it in general.

Even my perspective on Rawkus has softened. I mean, I was pissed off with Rawkus when I left, but then again, I was in my early twenties, you know? So it’s changed a little bit. I then went on to do my own record label for ten years and now I kind of get how hard it is. I don’t have the same fire and brimstone… (laughs) It’s like, you gotta be pretty important to get that angry guy these days. But yeah, I look back on it very thankful that I got to know some of the people that I got to know, and got to be around and see some amazing things, and at the same time I don’t idealize it. I mean, I’m always looking forward to the next thing. I’ve always kept. I’ve never felt like I did my job yet. I never felt like I was done. You know, there’s a carrot hanging in front of my face at all times and I’ve been pretty much just chasing it. And I guess I’m lucky to say that because there are some people [who] that’s where it flourished for them and then that period was also sort of the period at the end of their statement. But I was lucky enough to go on and do music and have people still let me do that. But it was great. It was a big deal.

Jeff Mao

Yeah. I mean, the thing about that, I feel, is it was thought of as a movement by so many different people. You know, history writes it as a movement, and yet there’s also something that comes along with that. It really split, in some ways, the audience into a real ’us-versus-them’ type of mentality that we kind of still deal with now.

El-P

A little bit still deal with.

Jeff Mao

A little bit.

El-P

I think it’s faded quite a bit, and I think a lot of that perception was... It wasn’t the artists, it wasn’t the rappers. It wasn’t Company Flow and Mos Def and Pharaohe Monch and Eminem and everybody who was involved in that. None of us were thinking in those terms. It happened to coincide very naturally with what [was going on]. You guys go to a hip-hop show, does that ever happen in here? No? You’re all just looking at me? Cool. Why am I here? Well, if you do go, it’s not very dangerous. It’s not very scary for you people. And it used to be, and it’s not really anymore.

So a lot of the artists that were making the music on Rawkus, myself included, we witnessed an audience change, just like everyone else did. And we weren’t familiar with it or used to it, but we kinda just took it as it came, and it was like, “Well, OK, we’ll take whoever shows up,” to a degree. I think what happened – and thank God I feel like it’s kind of dying now, if not dead, to some degree – was that, because of a confluence of different things, including the way that magazines were reacting to it, the types of press that were paying attention to the scene that would never usually pay attention to hip-hop, and whose readership were a different demographic than at hip-hop shows normally were, started really paying attention to it. All in all, what happened, there was a perceived change in audience… there was a change and an uncomfortable “us and them“ vibe grew out of that, I believe, and it was magnified by magazines.

Jeff Mao

Well, it’s a story that people latched onto. You’re thinking 1997, when Funcrusher comes out on Rawkus, it’s representing musically something that’s theoretically diametrically opposed to what was going on in hip-hop in 1997, which is the quote-unquote “shiny suit era.” You know?

El-P

Right.

Jeff Mao

So that’s an easy story to tell from a media perspective.

El-P

Right, and then you had these kids going, “Independent as fuck! Suck my dick, world!”

Jeff Mao

And that was your slogan from a 12“, which they championed.

El-P

Yeah. And that’s what I’m saying, that slogan was created at my kitchen table when we were drawing our album artwork, and I was just like, “We are independent as a motherfucker.” You know, it was more of just like a joke. Like, “Holy shit, we’re independent!” Like, I didn’t know you could be this independent! (Laughter) I reject all that. I always rejected it, I never felt comfortable with that. I don’t believe in the idea that there are subgenres and genres. When Company Flow came out we were written up in The Source. They just put us in The Source, because we were hip-hop. And then it changed and KRS-1 rapping over our instrumentals on Tony Touch mix tapes. It was like, Primo [DJ Premier] was playing our shit, and it was getting some Hot 97 spin.

Jeff Mao

It’s a pretty special moment.

El-P

Yeah. This is what was supposed to happen, this is what we thought. We were like, “Oh, we’re on Hot 97. OK, cool. So we’re about to blow up.” But I always have rejected, I never really liked the subgenre breakdown, the divide, the idea of that. And I spent a long time trying to just ignore that and just do [it] for me.

Jeff Mao

Yeah.

El-P

For me, it was just like, “Look, you guys squabble amongst yourselves as to what it means. I’m just doing this music, like I’m a ten-year-old kid who wants to be a rapper.“

Jeff Mao

That baggage has got to be frustrating, because you had to deal with it for a while. Even through your solo work, people will have an image of what El-P is about.

El-P

Yeah.

Jeff Mao

And they’ll say, well, Company Flow, “independent as fuck,” this and that, and thus you cannot listen to a record on commercial radio and enjoy it.

El-P

Right. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me, “I don’t like Jay-Z.” It’s like, “Cool. That’s cool. Then why do I have all of these records then?“ But whatever man, at the end of the day, it seems to have kind of faded a little bit, because people know me at this point. For me personally, just speaking from myself, I’m much more complicated than that. I was never that. Even at the time I was like, on the one hand I hear you, on the other hand, man, this is what I want to do, I’m just happy if anyone shows up.

I think we all kind of fucked ourselves a little bit by thinking about that a little bit too much. Now, I’ve been around for a while and I feel like that’s dissipated. I think it’s legitimately dissipated, because I think that there are no real lines anymore. Everyone’s working with everyone else, everyone’s listening to everyone else, and it doesn’t really work that well, to break shit down into [categories].

And that’s where you get records, like me and Mike are great records for that, where it’s like, “Well, what can you say about this? Is this one side or the other?“ Even when I did the Cannibal Ox record back in the day that’s how I felt, where I was like, “What can you say about this? Here are two kids from Harlem, and we’re making a record.” This is music. Fans aren’t mailing it directly to white people. “Give me your list of every white person in New York. Send it directly to them. Tell them to come to the show.” But it was a big part of the conversation for a long time, and I always kind of stayed out of the conversation. ‘Cause I was just like, “You know what? I don’t really care, I don’t really need it, I have this thing I’m doing.” And that’s all.

Jeff Mao

You mentioned having a little more perspective from doing your own label for a number of years and seeing how difficult that was. What was involved with that? What else did you learn from that process?

El-P

Never start a record label. (Laughter) If you gave me a million dollars, literally, right now, I would not start a record label. But I learned a lot, you know, I learned a lot. I’m still learning. I’m really glad I did it, it was great for a long time. The biggest thing that I’ve learned is that you have to never let a creation of yours, an idea of yours, a plan of yours become something against your own will. I mean, you can think an idea is what you want, and it can work for you at the time, but you have to listen to who you are, to where you’re at. You’re not doing anybody a service if all of a sudden you’ve created something that you’re not as interested in.

For me, it was a big, important and difficult decision to stop doing that record label when I realized I wasn’t in love with it anymore. I didn’t enjoy the process, I had my eye on other shit, and I felt like, well, better to rip the Band-Aid off now, take a little flak and disappoint some people, than to ultimately string them along and really fuck with them. You know? And I guess that was the thing, that was the process. The process was always knowing when to allow yourself to change. And not having this idea that because you dug your heels in on this one thing, at one point, that you have to follow through no matter what.

I mean, we are all making music here so that we don’t have to do anything that we don’t want to. Like, that’s literally the point. If you’re here for any other reason then I don’t relate to you. I do music because I don’t ever want to work a job, never want to do that. Don’t want to be told what to do, I don’t want to be told what to say or think, I don’t want to ask permission to have fun. I don’t want to ask permission to be fucked up. Or apologise for it. And that’s the thing that I think you have to remember, you know? We go from music to big plans. The plans are great and everything, but just remember that they’ll only exist because of the music. Those only exist because you want to do music. And when you get confused about the plan, just remember that that was secondary. Just remember that wasn’t what it was about. It was the thing that drove you to make music that you have to tap into to again, and I’ve had to re-tap into that a few times in my life. It’s an interesting lesson to remember, not even learn but to really have driven home later, you know?

Jeff Mao

On the notes for Fantastic Damage, your first solo LP, you list all the equipment you were using at the time. Why did you do that specifically?

El-P

Because I barely was using anything (laughs). You know what it is? I was a record collector. Like any good hip-hop producer, you collect records and you look at them and you read the instruments that are on them. One of the ways that you collect a record is if you look and you go, “Oh, Moog!” You know? You just look for all the things that you learn that you like. You know, you see a harmonica, you avoid the record (laughs). It’s very simple. So that was my homage to record collectors. I wanted people to see that and to imagine it because that’s how I used to do it. You know, it was crazy to me that people were playing things, and they were listed and it was cool. And then when it came time to make my records, I was like, I’m just gonna say “rap record.” You know, it wasn’t made, it just happened. And also it was cocky because I was like, “I’m making this and I only have, like, one piece of equipment.”

Jeff Mao

Right, there was only one piece, one sampler.

El-P

Yeah, an Ensoniq EPS-16+ and a fuckin’ turntable. Yeah.

Jeff Mao

And that’s what you were using back from the beginning, right? At that time?

El-P

Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Mao

What about now? How has it augmented and progressed?

El-P

It’s gone way further than that, definitely. Uh, obviously. I think that you can hear it in the way that I do music. You know, as I’ve gone along and learned more about music and been more involved in music, you constantly want more. I guarantee that everyone in here is probably a gearhead to some degree, or at least on the verge of it. It’s a new toy. When you fall in love with something you want every weapon at your disposal, and you want to learn it. So I’ve gone much further with what I do now, to the point where the EPS-16+ isn’t even really the biggest part of my… “Oh, keep it real!” Fuck, man. It isn’t really a big part of what I do, to be honest (laughs).

Jeff Mao

Well, I mean, as you evolve, you aspire to do different things.

El-P

Exactly.

Jeff Mao

Those tools have to change as well.

El-P

Exactly.

Jeff Mao

Was there a moment where there was a kind of a sonic jump for you at any point that you noticed? Beyond your own stuff between Fantastic Damage...

El-P

Yeah. I think the Cannibal Ox record was like an idea realized. I’d started to move into more melodic stuff. You know, Company Flow shit was just raw. There wasn’t really too much melody involved. Not even really much composition. Sometimes we would just rap for 80 bars and say something at the end and that was the song, which was what it was. But yeah, as I got more and more into it, Cannibal Ox was probably the turning point.

Well, really “Little Johnny From The Hospital” was the first time I started really changing. And that led to how I started to sound on Cannibal Ox production-wise, and how I started to sound towards Fantastic Damage. I was the first, no one was really doing… Like, hip-hop groups weren’t doing instrumental albums. Well, Rawkus wasn’t exactly happy about shit when I was like, “Here’s our next record. There’s no raps on it.” It was kind of unheard of at the time. I mean, there had been instrumental records, but not from a group that’s a rap group, you know? But that was the first time I ever had to make beats where all of a sudden didn’t have words. I didn’t have the ability to say what was happening in the music. I had to actually make the music sound like something. I had to make it sound like it had a structure and make it sound like it changed and that there was a point to it. I think that that sort of opened me up a bit and sent me in a direction towards where I am now. I’m very far away from where I was in terms of what I think I understand about music.

Jeff Mao

What memories can you share about making of that Cold Vein album? I mean, this is kind of one of these projects, early on in the Def Jux catalogue and the history of the label, that really set the tone in some ways for a lot of things that came after. But also, I think it’s just one of these things that really is a defining record of that decade. Probably increased in stature by the fact that you guys never followed it up. But what are your memories of that process and what it was like?

El-P

It was good. I mean, basically they moved into my crib. I had an apartment in Brooklyn and they moved in, and we spent a year just living together, being friends, and trying to make music. That record came about because I was just traumatized from Company Flow. Basically, Company Flow broke up and I thought that Company Flow was gonna be my whole life. I thought that was like, “OK, Company Flow, we’ll just do this forever, and that’s cool.” And that didn’t work out. I really wanted to make music, and I didn’t wanna make an El-P solo record, I wasn’t ready for that yet in my head. I was not thinking in those terms. And I just heard these guys and they were amazing. You know, I heard them on a mixtape, that was this group called Atom’s Family, and Vordul and Vast were just incredible, you know? These voices, they were weird but great, and really raw and really relatable. I’d known them and they had opened up a few times for Company Flow [in] different places as Atom’s Family, and I approached them and I said, “Do you guys wanna form a group? If you do, I’d love to produce it and put it out.” And that’s how it happened, you know? I just really felt passionate about those guys and I just really felt that they had something. I wanted to pour myself into a project that had nothing to do with me and that’s how it happened. We just sort of went headlong and it was good timing.

Jeff Mao

I think you’ve said at one point, about the making of that record, and your production, that you were going for moments of beauty as well as sorrow. Is that accurate to you still, in terms of how you hear it?

El-P

That’s accurate in terms of how I hear it, back on my whole relationship with Cannibal Ox and the whole thing. Moments of beauty and sorrow. (Laughs) And you know, that’s just the truth. But yeah, they had a real sorrowful and beautiful perspective. I mean, these guys were talking about being pigeons, and what it felt like to be this dirty, abused bird that could fly (laughs). I just thought that there was a real poetry and beauty to what they were saying and the way that they were approaching really relatable shit, New York shit. Being in the same places that a lot of other people who have made records are in, but they weren’t excited about it, they weren’t sad, they were just alive, you know? And that really meant something to me when I was listening to it and I thought it would mean something to other people, and I wanted to help encourage that coming out.

That was the whole point of doing Def Jux. I never thought that Def Jux was the solution to music. I wanted to contribute something other than… I wanted to give a balance, I wanted something else to be out there, and I thought there was room for that. In my mind, I thought that was needed, because I was basing everything off of what I wanted out of music. And I need everything, I need it all. I need shit to dance to, I need shit to relax to, that you don’t even listen to the lyrics and you just hang out, and I needed shit that was gonna upset me, and I needed shit that was gonna make me get angry or get sad or something. I think that those guys made something really special because they’re special people who have a very sensitive and real perspective, but that was not otherly. It wasn’t someone else, it wasn’t outside of hip-hop, and that’s everything that I’ve always been about. I always believed in that. I really believe that the reactions – and going back a little bit when we were talking about – I believe that we are our own worst enemies sometimes, in a way that we tell ourselves what our music is. We tell ourselves what it should be. But how long has anyone being doing this? Like, you don’t even know. I remember those guys getting upset because the perception was almost like people weren’t listening to the music. There were people who just picked up on an idea and rejected it. They didn’t actually listen to the [music]. I look back on that record and that experience fondly, really fondly, and I’m glad that I was allowed to be a part of it.

Jeff Mao

One of the things you’ve done through your solo records as a storyteller is adopt different voices. Different personas or different characters tell a story, but what is your goal in doing that, in terms of not just telling a story, but relating a point? Are these characters people that are meant to represent you some way fully, or are they just ideas that you have that are out there, that you just want to speak through that particular voice?

El-P

I think both. I mean, you’re never fully who you are on the record. No rapper is who he is, and if he is, then that’s a different story. But I mean, no artist is what they paint, you know, but the painting doesn’t exist without them. It’s impossible for it to exist without them. The characters are always me, but it’s just emanating from me. Ideas that I have that I’m working out, and things that I’m interested in that come from a real place, that come from a place of my life, my mind, my heart, but I’m not married to that. I don’t have to be it, you know? I don’t believe that a record has to be you. I believe a record has to be your record. It has to be your idea. It all emanates from you, there’s nothing that is not allowed, and that sometimes is the hardest thing to remember. When you’re making music, the hardest shit sometimes, it’s hard to drive home in your head that I could do anything right now. There’s literally nothing that I can’t do right now, except as limited by my talent, or my ability to wrap my head around it.

And that’s hard, it’s a hard thing to keep remembering and keep reminding yourself. And whenever I get to a point where I forget that, I just think about Camu and what he did before he died. Because when Camu was sick, and this was a rapper, I mean, Camu was the nastiest rapper on the planet, and I’m not just saying that because that was my boy and he’s gone. Like, he is in my opinion one of the best rappers ever to live, and he was singing. He sang, you know? He started singing, and it was like, he just did whatever the fuck he wanted, and this was a guy who was dying, and it was like, “Alright, so the dude who’s dying is not giving a flying fuck and making this insane music.” I just remember that every time. And so the characters are not always me, you know? A lot of times they’re way more fucked up then I am, and I’m pretty fucked up, but I’m not that fucked up.

These things are just ways for me to just go and examine all the shit that if I didn’t have this art, if I didn’t have this outlet, the way that my mind is and the way that I’ve always been, if I didn’t have the outlet, it would just be much worse for everybody. It would be bad, I’d be naked with a brick in my hand, you know? Now I’m just naked sometimes. I’m sorry, that was uncomfortable. So no, I don’t have any rule about that. I guess, you talk about different shit that I’ve done, like something like “Stepfather Factory” is obviously directed out of my childhood, you know? Those are the types of songs I started writing a little bit later where it was a new way to approach it. A new way to talk about shit where I didn’t have to say, “Oh hey, by the way, I watched my mother almost get beaten to death.” I didn’t have to say that, I could have it a character and come up with an idea, and maybe it’s just because that’s easier for me. Maybe it’s easier for me to talk about shit that way.

Jeff Mao

But you already told that story too. You know, in a very direct way.

El-P

That’s right, that’s right. I did, I did, and that was my first attempt at saying anything about myself, ever, you know? Like, in music. That was the first time that I had ever been like, hey… the rest of it was just like, “I’m the best.” And then there was that song. And that just came, and that just changed me, I think. It changed me.

Jeff Mao

I want to open it up for any questions that anybody might have for El-P. Do we have a mic?

El-P

I don’t like the looks of this guy.

Jeff Mao

He’s up to no good.

Audience Member

Ah yes, simple question. Just like, I wanted to know what your process is when you sit to write songs.

El-P

These days, I wake up around eight o’clock, make coffee, roll a joint. Sit in front of my computer. Play a beat, smoke. That’s about an hour. I don’t write anything down. Usually, just scroll through the internet a little bit. (Laughter) Get up, go outside, get another coffee, maybe a bagel if I’m feeling, you know, saucy. (Laughter)

But, you know, basically at this point, it’s like, I spend all day walking around writing bullshit down. Anything that occurs to me, I just write it down in my phone or whatever the fuck. But there’s no writing for me unless I’m sitting in front of music. It just doesn’t happen like that and there’s no real writing. Music and producing and rapping to me are now one hundred percent integrated. I’m not writing something and then trying to find music for it. It’s definitely the opposite.

These days, I’ve been really trying to go with cadence. A lot of times I’ll hum a cadence to myself, or I’ll even just listen to the song and record a cadence into the phone, even just mumbling. (Mumbles an example) Because a lot of times the hardest thing is not the word, the hardest thing is capturing the feel of the thing. And to me, what I’ve learned is a lot of times my first instinct is the best instinct. But the problem is that you’re not writing… Your first instinct is rhythmic, you know, your first instinct is this. Your first instinct is not conceptual, and it’s not literate. SoI do what I can to record the rhythmic of an idea because I know that’s the thing that can slip away really easily. And I’ll come back to it and I’ll listen to the rhythm and I’ll try to hear. From there I will pull words out sometimes. You know, I hear words in the pattern. And then, of course, you deviate or whatever. That’s something I’ve learned in the last, like, I would say four years.

Audience Member

Word.

El-P

Respect.

Jeff Mao

Rakim said he did something like that as well. Who else has a question for El-P?

El-P

You fuckin’ suck, come on. (Laughter)

Audience Member

Hi.

El-P

Hey, man.

Audience Member

I don’t know if that’s the latest of your work, but one of the things I’ve noticed is not just hip-hop, but a lot of rock or even – I don’t want to say metal, but like noisy stuff in it. You’ve only mentioned your hip-hop thing, what’s the other...? I mean, is it like listening to radio? Or do you like all [music]?

El-P

Well, I mean, I’ll put it to you this way. When you’re a hip-hop producer you probably have more records than anybody else in the world. Because you were collecting records to try and find samples. You know?

Audience Member

Oh, a broad spectrum and stuff, yeah.

El-P

So, you know, the influences that come… we listen to more different types of genres of music than any other type of producer. I believe this. And we know more about it, we have references for it in our head. You know, I’m influenced by a shit ton. I don’t think it’s really healthy to be influenced just by the music that’s in your genre. I think that’s homogenous and it just ends up having these sort of predictable results, you know? All you are doing is faking reference. And I’ve done a lot of work with a lot of rock bands records and stuff. I’ve done a lot of other types of records, you know? I’ve worked with people like Beck and Mars Volta and Trent Reznor. I’ve gotten a chance to do a lot of different shit. I think it’s because that element does kind of come out in what I do. People hear it from different genres in music. People hear something that they identify with what it is that they do. But I really think it’s just because I have no criteria. It’s like everything, I’m just constantly grabbing. I used to sample records, now I sample inspiration. I sample ideas, I sample things I remember, you know? I sample feelings, you know? I’m trying to capture something in my way that I hear on a record that I love. I like to think that I’ve got a pretty wide scope.

Audience Member

Mixing it all up.

El-P

Yeah, but that’s what hip-hop is, man. I mean, period.

Audience Member

Yeah, but [there’s] definitely a lot of aggression in that thing. You can get that whole aggressiveness in some of the songs.

El-P

Certainly, the songs we played were pretty one-note, like...

Audience Member

Yeah, kind of like the first one, yeah.

El-P

Like, just punch you in the face. Yeah, I’ve got other types of songs too (laughs).

Audience Member

No, no.

El-P

I don’t know what they are. (Both laughing) But I’m pretty sure I have other types of songs. But yeah, I hope it shines through. I mean, I think that I’ve always been like that. That’s just always been me. I personally have always pulled from everything I’ve ever liked, and I never really had a criteria as to what I liked because I couldn’t. When you’re a kid you just like shit, you don’t have an identity yet. You’re not like a teenager where you’re like “I am this guy.” It’s just never happened for me too much with that.

Audience Member

Thank you.

Jeff Mao

Next?

Audience Member

Hey. Thanks for being here. I just wanted to know, I don’t even know if you’d remember but after you made “T.O.J.” [from Fantastic Damage] and wrote it, was it based on anything, or do you remember how you felt after writing it? Did you realize what you had made?

El-P

Wait, what did I make? (laughs)

Audience Member

Uh, a pretty good track.

El-P

Oh, yeah. I think ‘cause I realized it. I was like, “Yeah, that’s a pretty good track.” (Laughter) It was written for a woman, it was a love letter. It was definitely just a direct love letter to somebody that it didn’t work out with. I had a very complicated, fucking, heartbreaking relationship with someone who I am still very close with now. I think one of the reasons why we’re still close is because I wrote that song and I sent it to her. You know, it’s interesting in those situations when you’re writing something that [comes from the heart], I mean, no bullshit man. Writing something down like that, getting something recorded, that’s the other thing. It’s kinda over, you know? If you’re hurt, or if you’re pissed, or if you’ve got something you don’t understand, if you can get that down and out, you kind of contained it. You’ve put it in a cage and you own it now and it’s there and it exists and it will always be there if you want to feel that again, or go to it again, but you don’t have to carry it around anymore. You’ve taken it and you’re putting it somewhere and it has a home now and that home is not in you all the time.

And so I think I felt relief, to be honest. Getting something out like that where it’s like a true translation of what you feel, it’s tough and it’s mostly scary to even do it, because you start thinking about people listening to it. So I think you’re like, “Whoa, people are gonna hear this,” but you gotta keep the audience out of the process. The audience does not exist when you make music. It just cannot. You’re the audience and so I think I probably felt a great deal of relief.

Audience Member

I would imagine that’s how you felt when you did “Last Good Sleep” [from Funcrusher Plus] as well.

El-P

Yeah, I did “Last Good Sleep,” I played it for my mom. She fuckin’ cried and I hugged her and was like, “It’s over,” and it was. I mean, “Last Good Sleep,” the whole thing was not just a concept. I was having nightmares. For years and years and years I had these real nightmares, and I would even go so far as to think I saw my ex-stepfather on the street and chase him down subway platforms and through subways trying to catch him, and it just not be him and shit like that, you know? I was a little fucked up, and so that song, that was the first time I had experienced that. Once I caught on to that trick I was like, “This is something I can do,” you know?

Jeff Mao

Who else?

Audience Member

Hi there.

El-P

Hey, how you doing?

Audience Member

Nice to meet you. For my tastes, I really like experimental hip-hop, and Anti-Pop Consortium was huge for me back then. Lately, maybe Samiyam and Brainfeeder stuff, and the kids at Odd Future, it’s so refreshing. And I just want to know your thoughts about it, how is hip-hop developing and what do you think it will be in a few years? I don’t know, just some thoughts.

El-P

First of all, it’s probably just going to be telepathic, that’s what I’m guessing. Ten years [from now], all battles will be filmed just two people standing in a room looking at each other. (Laughter) But, I mean, Anti-Pop Consortium, you mentioned them, those are my boys. Like, I came up with them. We’re from the exact same [thing], you know?

I mean, I love everything, man. I love good music. I don’t define myself as liking experimental stuff. It’s fine if you do, because you’re putting a name to it. That’s cool. But for me, I just like records. Anyone can come up with a record that I like. Anyone can surprise me. I’m open to it, you know? I want to hear something that makes me turn my head, something that makes me excited about music. So honestly, I am like super amped when anybody comes out that’s doing something exciting and has that energy. That’s how I felt when Odd Future came out, I was totally amped about that. That’s important, man, we all need that, you know? We always need that dose, we need the balance. We need people who come out who are not really paying attention to what every[body says], that are being their own voice. So, I feel the same way. I just don’t have anything, any one specific thing that I look for anymore, you know?

Jeff Mao

Yeah. Touching on the point that we spoke on earlier in terms of audience expectation, or being pigeonholed into being representing one style versus another, A$AP Yams tweeted out sometime last year about how kids who were buying Def Jux albums or who are Company Flow fans are not buying A$AP Rocky records, and you responded, “I’m in Company Flow and I’m a fan,” you know? So it is something that comes up still.

El-P

Yeah, and I think that we all deal with it in our own way and we all, as a community, grapple with it. Identity, the way that you look at yourself versus, you know… a lot of people compare the way that they are looked at and the way other people are looked at, or their perception of the way other people are looked at. And you know, there’s no sweeping it under the rug, those conversations still happen. I mean, my point [in] saying that to him was maybe actually to reassure him. (Laughs)

It’s like, look man, I understand you feel that way, but if it makes any difference, the guy that is in the group that you’re saying people don’t listen to [A$AP] listens to you. So I believe wholeheartedly in the healing of those types of ideas. I don’t think that those types of ideas do anyone… It’s like everyone should definitely do them and definitely be out for them and try and be making their point and their statement, but you might be surprised. One thing I’ve learned: you never know who is into your shit. You never know who listens to your shit. You have no idea. You meet people and you maybe hated their band. You meet some people and you talk shit about them because you didn’t like their music. You hated their shit, and not even in your genre, you meet like some rock band and you remember back to being like, “Eh, look at that asshole.“ And then you meet them and they’re the coolest motherfucker in the world and they like your music, and all of a sudden you’re like, “Maybe I’m the asshole and maybe I shouldn’t be thinking about this so much?” I’ve have one too many experiences like that to say shit publicly, to be too critical, or to be too vocal about anything at this point, music related. Except for things that I feel I have no connection to whatsoever, you know?

Jeff Mao

Anybody else? Going once.

El-P

A whole lot of thoughts in this head.

Jeff Mao

Alright, well there’s nothing left to say except thanks to El-P for joining us.

El-P

Thank you.