Interview: The Emaculit 1

The Emaculit 1 has been in the HipHop game for over a decade dropping mixtapes, doing guest appearances, and performing live. His group Hurchu was nominated for a Sammie Award (Sacramento’s version of the Grammy’s for local artists) in 2007.  His latest mixtape “Life Experience: The Mixtape” is the prelude to his first solo effort “Life Experience: Part 1” which will drop later this summer. I sat down with him in his home studio in North Highlands, CA. to discuss his upcoming projects. After playing me a few tracks off the new album and drinking a few brews we decided to get down to business.

 
Although I have been a fan for years, many of our readers may not know you. So tell me, where are you from?
I’m from Sacramento [CA]. Been here most of my life.

I thought we were in North Highlands?
We are but it's still Sac. I've lived all over this place so I consider the whole city my home.

Whats the HipHop scene like out here?
There isn’t one. I mean there is but there are only a few clubs that will allow a live hip hop performance unless there is a full band involved. That’s why I stopped performing and just stuck with the mixtape game.

The last mixtape was FatRip X-Periment Volume #4, can we expect more from this series?
Oh ya, that’s not going anywhere but forward man. Volume 5 is almost done now, we’ve been working on it the last few months. It’s gonna be the best one too. It’s a milestone cause were officially in triple digits for mixtape tracks now.

Triple digits?
Right. The first 4 each had 25 songs minus intros and outros. This one will be the same so were officially over 100 tracks now; there’s no turning back.

100 songs? That is a milestone, congrats! Most mainstream rappers will never reach that mark. Why do you think that is?  How did you do it?
Cause a lot of mainstream cat’s ain’t hungry no more or they’re in it for the wrong reasons. But me? I’m not in it for the money, I’m in it for my sanity and the love of the art-form. Were just “making knockers out our garages can’t nothing stop us, 100 songs deep and we’re just getting started so watch us, cause we’re that team to beat, beast on the beat and the peace will cease, believe the weak species gonna be deceased if they fuck with these” you know what I’m saying?

Nice! Is that on Volume 5?
Yep.

So you said you’re in it for your sanity, what does that mean?
I don’t make music for anyone but myself. Every time I sit down to write it’s like a journal entry of what I’m dealing with at that moment. I’m just trying to put down my own thoughts and feelings, nothing else. I’m good for keeping that kind of stuff bottled up and doing that will make you crazy.

I hear you. So what’s up with this solo album? Why’s it taken you so long to get it done?
Man I’ve been working on this project for like 8 years. It’s just a lack of money and you know, life keeps happening to me so it just keeps getting pushed to the back burner. The crazy thing is that I’m still using a lot of the material that I wrote 8 years ago and it’s still relevant. The only problem is that between the old and the new I had too much material, that’s why I decided to break it in 2 pieces. Part 1 and Part 2. Each album will have 10 tracks and each one is kind of like a parallel of the other in regards to content.

Wait a minute, why only 10 tracks each?
First of all there is no filler tracks; I only record songs that I feel strongly about. Secondly, considering most new albums that I hear have less than 5 good songs and the rest IS filler, I feel giving 10 quality tracks is almost like dropping a double album. (Chuckles). Could I save 3 songs and put the rest on one disc? Yes, but that would be depreciating the value of my music. I just hope the fans can support the cause.

I agree that 10 good songs is the equivalent of a double album. What do you mean by “depreciate the value” of your music?
I saw this interview with Busta [Rhymes] that made a lot of sense to me. He was talking about how the value of music is being depreciated with online MP3 sales. He asked, Why is it that a 30 second ringtone is $2.99 but the whole song is only $0.99? That made a lot of sense to me. So I feel as an effort to reverse this the best this to do is put less tracks of higher quality on each album and sell it for the same price.

Makes sense to me. Switching gears, what’s up with Hurchu? There was a track on the FatRip X-Periment Volume 4 that makes me think you guys broke up.
We could never break up because we were never a group. That’s why we called it an Alliance. We were all just individual solo artists collaborating together toward the same goal. It seems like over the years life happened to a lot of people, including me,  and priority's had to change. I still talk to almost everyone and Erratic is my right hand man. He hasn’t gone anywhere. We still get together almost weekly to work on Volume 5 and the new Hurchu project.

When can we expect those?
Volume 5 will be out later this year. The Hurchu project is realistically a couple years out still just due to time and money restraints. But if I can make some bread off my project I will dump that into the Hurchu album. Ain't nobody getting rich off the shit. We’re just trying to make enough money off of one album to put out the next. And if not then it will be like 5 years between releases. Regardless the music will get made, mixtapes will come out every year. It’s unavoidable. That’s our passion. That’s how we keep our sanity. Like I said before I make music for me. Other people being able to relate and wanting a copy of it is just a bonus.

Check out the free mixtapes page for links to FatRip X-Periment Volume 4 and Life Experience: The Mixtape