Further adventures in Lazy Journalism…

My Favorite Interview Ever – Eyedea in 3 parts.

In 2008, I was assigned by my Metropop editor and major-label-publicist to cover this event – Sound Set, a massive hip hop festival put on by Rhymesayers, the originators and rulers of the Minnesota Hip Hop scene – in Minneapolis.  He needed some video/interviews done with Atmosphere, that he wanted to hand off to Buzznet… a site that trafficks Warped Tour/Hot Topic level music porn for 13-16 year olds.

He picked me because I’m from Minneapolis, and I was pretty connected to the Rhymesayers scene back in the day….as a fan, at least.

In 1998-99, if I wasn’t at Root Cellar, gobbling up gore-soaked Florida death metal records and obscure Swedish Death Metal, I was either at Synasthaesia, the MN Rave Scene record store/headquarters, or at Fifth Element.  Fifth Element was the record store where it all started for Minneapolis Hip Hop.  It was run by a a bunch of rap cats, and at any given time you could find Slug (of Atmosphere) in there with Mr. Dibbs, Eyedea, DJ Abilities, Brother Ali, Deejay Bird, and company.  If you were lucky you could catch them freestyling and bullshitting as they sold you some wild-ass obscure mixtape (that they had probably recorded themselves).

At that point, their crew/label, called “Rhymesayers”, had gained a little bit of local notoriety, playing small clubs and generally being awesome.  Slug (of Atmosphere) was the shit-talking ringleader.  Talented as hell, with a little bit of a rockstar complex…which is a nice way of saying “Dude could pull pussy from a TJ Maxx at 2 on a Tuesday”… he was clearly the first in line to “blow up”.

Then there was Eyedea.

If Slug was the wise-ass ringleader, then Eyedea was his smarter and more technically talented enforcer.  The sniper you bring in to get the job done.  Slug could rap, but Eyedea could freestyle.  To this day, I haven’t heard anyone as impressive as Eyedea in a battle.  Period.

That’s what defined Eyedea for a minute, his uncanny ability to actually let unwritten shit come out of his mouth with punch lines like he actually wrote the shit.  His albums with DJ Abilities (a DMC beast in his own right) were great as well, but at that time, he really rode on his amazing skill as a battle rapper/ emcee.  And rightfully so.  Eventually, after his inventive-yet-controlled album, “E&A” with Abilities came out on Epitaph in 2004, he kind of disappeared.  No one saw much of him.

Fast forward a billion years, through the crest of the wave (‘98-’99-’00), through major label deals, through world tours, through the cries of “sell out”, and through the eventual reckoning… to land in ‘08.  Rhymesayers had blown up.  Way up.  Atmosphere was selling tens of thousands of records, Brother Ali had just dropped the amazing and critically acclaimed The Undisputed Truth LP, P.O.S. and his Doomtree crew were already carrying the torch to a new generation, and Minneapolis was firmly planted as a true destination for great new Hip Hop.

Sound Set was their deserved hometown celebration.  Aesop Rock, Atmosphere, Eyedea and Abilities, P.O.S. and a variety of regional up-and-comers were set to perform.  I was set to do a story…like always, I was planning a massive peice – covering the scene from its roots on up to this massive spectacle in the Metrodome parking lot.

By the time I boarded my plane to get out there though, Buzznet decided they weren’t interested in hip-hop anymore.  “Emo and pop punk” I think were the EXACT words used.  So there would be no story.  I talked to my friends at Frank 151 and they were semi-interested, but it was clear there wasn’t going to be a full fledged article or feature coming out of my time at Sound Set.

Fuck it, I thought.  I still have a press pass, and a Rhymesayers press contact, so I’m going to hang out with Joey, drink some beers, get some interviews, check out some music, and maybe put something together for my own blog.

I interviewed Slug first and totally choked.  In my opinion, it was awful.  I have a video of it, and maybe one day I will get up the balls to post it.  My second interview was with Brother Ali, and it was great.  He was candid, nice, cool and forthcoming with me.  I really appreciated it and I will get a video up soon.  My final interview was supposed to be with Eyedea, who I hadn’t seen all day.  His mom was walking around, wearing a shirt that said “Eyedea is dead” (only she’d crossed out “dead” and wrote “alive”), and every time she’d pass me she would say with a smirk, “Michael will be ready to talk to you soon.”  Fine with me.

Eventually this scruffy dude in an orange cowboy shirt came up to me and said, “Alright, let’s do some damage”.  I had seen this dude around all day in the press/VIP area, but I never put two and two together.  It was Eyedea.  He was ready to talk.  What ensued was one of the coolest interview experiences of my life.

A few notes:

1.  The sound is bad because there was a massive stage right behind us.  If you turn it up though, its not so bad.

2.  It took me so long to get this together because a) I’m lazy and b) youtube wont let you upload 18 minute long videos so I had to wait until I got an external hard drive so I would have enough space to split it into three parts.

3.  I sound like an idiot.  Listen to him, not me.

4.  That maniacal laugh you hear every once in awhile is Joey, holding the camera.  His laugh rules and so does he.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3..until the tape ran out

That’s it…