Sick Jacken Interview (November 12th 2014)

Sick Jacken is a veteran in the game. After being co-signed by B-Real he dropped the debut Psycho Realm album in 1997. Tragedy struck soon after when his brother and partner in rhyme Big Duke was shot and left paralysed. Since then Jacken has emerged as one of the illest and most well respected MC’s working today. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Jacken and put some questions to him. We touched on a lot of different points of his career so far, from discussing his classic project with DJ Muggs at length to his work with Cynic and the possibility of a true solo album.

Interview conducted by Pattch82 (pattch82@gmail.com)

Interview Date: November 12th 2014 

PATTCH82: What’s up Jack…

SICK JACKEN: Hey how you doing Chris? What’s going on bro?

P82: I’m good thanks and you?

JACK: I’m doing good man, I’m just here running through the day.

P82: Thanks for taking the time to speak with me…

JACK: Ahh man likewise, thanks for taking the time to do the interview bro.

P82: I wanted to focus some of the questions on the album that you did with DJ Muggs, Legend Of The Mask & The Assassin…

JACK: OK, yessir…

Apollo Brown Interview (October 27th 2014)

Apollo Brown is a producer with a rep. When you check out an Apollo Brown album you know what you are going to get: dusty samples, boom bap drums, dope beats.  He has already worked with a who’s who of top MC’s from O.C. and Guilty Simpson to Chino XL and Ghostface Killah. Now he has teamed up with west coast veteran Ras Kass for the collaboration album Blasphemy. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Apollo and put some questions to him about the new album as well as some of his previous projects.

Interview conducted by Pattch82 (pattch82@gmail.com)

Interview Date: October 27th 2014

PATTCH82: Thanks for taking the time to speak with me…

APOLLO BROWN: No doubt man, I’m just sitting here sorting out a few things.

P82: So first off, the Blasphemy album is due to drop officially tomorrow (Oct 28), can you tell me a bit about the album?

AB: Actually we dropped it five days early man so it’s been out since the 23rd.  It’s due officially in stores tomorrow definitely, you know the physical in stores everywhere. As far as iTunes and getting it online, it dropped, it’s out. So yeah it’s been out this week, it’s out.

P82: What kind of sound or feel were you aiming for with the album?

AB: Just like your typical Apollo Brown man, I try to get people feeling. I try to give people the most feeling I can give them because that’s the music I like. If it doesn’t have feeling then I don’t want anything to do with it.  The album has a political undertone, it has a religious undertone and it’s basically Ras Kass doing what Ras Kass does best and Apollo Brown doing what Apollo Brown does best, and the two coming together for the perfect marriage.  It’s a rollercoaster man, the album goes up and down and it gives you a bunch of different feelings but comes together very consistent. It’s raw hip-hop at its best man.

CZARFACE Interview with 7L and Esoteric

Here's an interview from last year that I conducted with 7L and Esoteric around the time that the CZARFACE project dropped.  It never actually got posted online as I was waiting to hear back from Deck about an interview but he never got back to me.  So, here's the interview with 7L and Eso...

Interview conducted by Pattch82 (pattch82@gmail.com)

Interview Date: March 28th 2013

PATTCH82: How did you guys hook up with Inspectah Deck…?  Was ‘Speaking Real Words’ back in 1999 the first time you had met…?

7L: Yeah that was definitely the first time we met, recording that in Brooklyn in 1999 or so. Our manager at the time worked at Loud Records and Deck was on the roster.

PATTCH82: You then hooked up again for the ‘12th Chamber’ track a few years ago.  Is that when talk of this CZARFACE collaboration started…?

7L: Yeah that’s when the conversations started for sure.