[RH Interview] Conspirator
Conspirator is a band of chance, really. The project came together when The Disco Biscuits' Marc Brownstein and keyboardist Aron Magner as a way to explore the burgeoning and seemingly endless world that was electronic music, back in 2005 after Sam Altman left DB at that time. Allowing for a more free electronic experience, the pair established the side gig as a way to add and remove musicians at a whim to create a range of sounds. The duo has been playing regularly with Chris Michetti of RAQ, and KJ Sawka of Pendulum and last year released the head-thumping EP Unleashed before heading out on a slew of national headlining dates under the banner of "The Dynasty Tour." The crew rolls through Chicago's Concord Music Hall as they continue to roll through the polar vortex as the musical journey they started years ago takes them from coast to coast throughout this year. I recently got to catch up with Brownstein while the band was just getting out on tour, check out or conversation on the later pages.
Chance The Rapper: "Interlude (That's Love)" Live
Back in November, Chance The Rapper took a few days off of his headlining "Social Experiment" tour to play a pair of sold out shows at The Riviera in his hometown of Chicago. The dates, sandwiched around Thanksgiving were a milestone in the young artist's career, a full year almost to the day since he had first played his first sold out show at The Metro in support of his upcoming Acid Rap tape that eventually launched him into rarified air. The performances at The Riv were a quintessentially hometown experience that oozed Chicago from the get-go with Stunt Taylor opening things up with a run through of his street banger "Fe Fe on the Block" before turning the show over to Chance and his band, made up of Donnie Trumpet, Nate Fox, Greg Landfair and the tour's Music Director Peter CottonTale who re-arranged the tracks from Acid Rap to fit subtly into a live atmosphere. 2013 was the craziest year to date of young Chancelor Bennett's life, and he wrapped it up appropriately, as you can see in the video below, shot by Bryan Lamb (FragDFilms) and myself at the first show. It's a little late, but these days who can get enough Chance?
[RH Interview] Giftz
Photography by ACJ Photos
Chicago is a rough city. Since the advent of "drill", GBE and Chief Keef, the stories of the city's streets have been told primarily by artists that painted pictures of death and destruction and little else. Enter: Giftz, the gritty hip-hop artist from Chicago's south side that has woven poetic lyricism and a cognitive thought process into a burgeoning career that has his hometown and all its good and bad wrapped up in it. Since releasing his 2013 mixtape Position of Power Giftz has gone about, well, establishing a position of power for himself amongst an increasingly populated sea of artists elevating from the Second City. Despite his self-described affection for gangsta rap aesthetics, Giftz is able to seamlessly move around the city, spending time at Leaders with Save Money or Treated Crew at Jugrnaut. Giftz made a leap in 2013 which has allowed him to make the leap of establishing a following outside the 312 area code. With his eye on a headlining show before the end of the year to hit 2014 running, he says all he's trying to do now is stay out of trouble. I had the chance to catch up with Giftz a couple week ago to talk about his recent rise in the hip-hop game and what he has coming next. Check out his latest song, "Statement," on the next page, and our conversation over the following pages.
[RH First Look] Justin Rose
Justin Rose does a little bit of everything. The 23 year old from New York City started off rapping before gravitating to what he calls the "addicting" process of crafting beats. I met him this past year at SXSW while hanging out at the Illmore after-party, wondering how I was still awake. Since then we have kept in touch as Rose has spread his forward-thinking production across his scene and city, linking up with the likes of NYC up and comer Kris Kasanova which garnered him a track on Peter Rosenberg's curated mixtape earlier this Summer, as well as doing in-house production for Nakim. When I met him on the front end of 2013 there were still a lot of question marks around both of our futures. Nearly a year later, Rose has found himself bouncing around the vibrant and bubbling New York scene that have many bloggers across the country learning how to spell the word 'Renaissance'. The growth and uprise of that scene in New York is due in large part to progressive, hungry and cross-platform artists like Rose who are eager to find a way to push the music and culture forward without apology. I was able to catch up with Rose over the phone recently as he was leaving the studio from working on his debut project, RoseWaVve Vol.1. to talk about what the year has been like, what he's been up to and where things are headed for the young crafter. In exchange, he sent over this video for his track, "PARTY4ME", which we are premiering here on Ruby Hornet. Give the video a watch below and get to know Justin Rose.
[RH Interview] The Tontons at Fun Fun Fun Fest
Photography by Niraj Mehdiratta
Bands, in large part, reflect the scenes from which they come. This sentiment rings true for indie band The Tontons, who helped to open this weekend's Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, Texas with a pair of sets opening for Kurt Vile on Thursday night and another on Friday, as well as dropping their new video "Veida" on the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog. The trip to Texas' capital for the 8th annual music, comedy and action sports fest wasn't a long one for the four-piece act from Houston, although it was the first time playing the three day end to festival season.
Together for nearly eight years now, The Tontons are indicative of a slow-moving yet supportive Houston music scene where dues are paid before garnering the city's full support. To hear Asli and the gang describe it, breaking through to the next level in their hometown is a little different than other places in the country. The Tontons, a hodgepodge of styles, interests and musical abilities, are hard to put a finger on, precisely, but that's how they like it. Their music could most closely be described as indie pop, but they have a co-sign from Houston hip-hop legend Bun B, who introduces them at shows and they're toying with the idea of adding some metal components to some songs after hanging around FFF's Black stage Saturday.
Things are really coming together for The Tontons as they prepare to release their next album in the spring and ready for a wild 2014. Having been around for awhile and earned their stripes in their hometown though, they are ready to make things happen on their own terms. I had a chance to catch the group backstage at Fun Fun Fun and sat down for a quick chat, read what they had to say about playing the festival for the first time, being different and drinking too much Red Bull.
Hardwell named No. 1 DJ
Hardwell rose up the ranks over the past year through incessant marketing, a radio show and a live set that is a highlight at every festival and lineup to become the world's number one DJ, according to DJ Mag. Ranked last year at number six, the dutch sensation hit the top spot in 2013 against stark competition from the likes of Avicii and Armiin Van Buren. I had the chance to catch him while covering Electric Daisy Carnival in Joliet this past May, check out the interview below via The Frontliner.
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[Album] The O'My's: "A Humble Masterpiece"
The O'My's have been a mainstay around the Chicago music scene for six years now. In that time they have done everything from shows to hip-hop production, and last Friday celebrated their latest album, A Humble Masterpiece, at a raucous release party at Subterranean and today on Ruby Hornet and iTunes. The core duo of Maceo Haymes and Nick Hennessy provide the backbone for the cross-genre group that blends the sounds better than anyone in the Midwest. I was able to catch up with Maceo for a few questions the other night, read more and listen to the full stream of the album below.
Jake: Tell me about putting together A Humble Masterpiece?
Maceo: The album was recorded over a year and some months, some of which is recorded with Blended Babies, a good portion was recorded at our own house. It was a pretty interesting process we went through a lot of different phases of what we were trying to do and deciding if we wanted to do a certain sound and then just saying fuck it and make it and figure out what songs, so as of right now we still have like eight songs that are already recorded.
Jake: Does that mean we can expect another release soon?
Maceo: More so we just have them. We're just sitting on tons of fucking music, not a bad thing. It's kind of hard, it's like sitting on your hands.
Jake: Is it a quality control thing or just waiting?
Maceo: It's less about quality control. All the other songs are songs that I think are great but they didn't make it to the album because once we got the thirty-some odd songs we had to work with and then cut down, especially when putting together an album, you try to put together a sort of cohesive element or sound. That was mostly the reason for putting those eleven songs on the album and now we're figuring out what to do with the other ones. Mostly because we just want to get them out, you know? I'm not afraid that that was all of our creative juices, I just want to put it out so it's relevant, relevant to me personally. Just get it done and then I can move on.
Jake: Tell me about the production side of things with The O'My's.
Maceo: We've been doing production, we collaborate with a lot of different groups in the city, a lot of rappers and all different sorts of musicians, singers. For us it just made sense. To A: collaborate with them, but also because we make our own music and it's all live instruments and we have a sort of sound, producing for them has been interesting. We sort of stepped away from calling it The O'My's on the production side, just because it's terribly confusing, like 'these guys make rap music too?' It's been cool, the summer especially was really fucking awesome because we have a home studio and that's where we record everything and so the amount of talented people that were coming in from all around the city was a really cool thing to be a part of, I felt blessed to be a part of that.
Jake: Do you feel as though being in Chicago, eventually working with hip hop is inevitable?
Maceo: I don't think it's inevitable for everybody. It depends on the type of music you make and also the community you're a part of or connected to. Like, me and Nicholas are both super hip hop heads since the beginning, since before I sang or did any of that stuff. I've always been involved in hip hop, whether it was break dancing, DJ'ing, producing Nick threw graffiti. So in terms of who we're friends with in the scene, we're definitely way more close with the hip-hop community Lots of the live music scene in Chicago, we definitely have connections there but our roots are in hip-hop, at least community-wise.
Jake: What's next for The O'My's now that the album is out in the world.
Maceo: Next is gigging. Now that the album is done we're going to do a couple shows in the city but also go out east and west coasts. We've got a little East coast tour at the beginning of December and then probably West coast beginning of the year. Just gonna gig around with the album. The past year we've been gigging, but our focus hasn't been on performing, it's been on mostly just recording. Live shows are an integral part of our sound. What made the release show so fun for us was being able to play all these songs that we'd recorded with the band because most of the recordings, the band wasn't all there at the time. Different members of the band had different relationships with the album. It's cool to transfer that sound and make it something live. The project then takes on a whole other life, which is a lot of fun.
[Sunday Coffee Sipper] Kanye, Kimmel & Fame
Last Wednesday Kanye West made an appearance on the Late Night with Jimmy Kimmel to address the feud between the artist and talk show host that rose from a skit with children impersonating West's replies to questions in a BBC interview with Zane Lowe.
The interaction was farm from what most fans who followed the back and forth between the pair would have expected, especially after West's personal-attack laden Twitter rant in which he repeatedly questioned Kimmel's ability to pull good looking women. Instead, the two had an interesting talk about the status of being a celebrity in today's 24-hour news cycle, shedding light further not only on how West views himself, but also on what it's like being among the biggest stars in the country and just wanting some privacy.
In the interview, West likened being a celebrity in America to being an "animal in a zoo," fodder for people to stop, point and stare and then move on to the next exhibit. It's certainly true that the pedestal on which many celebrities are placed on have a string attached, the expectation to entertain at all times. To be sure, West, arguably the biggest music artist in the world, lives his life squarely in the public eye. Marrying Kim Kardashian and popping up on episodes of her family's disdainful reality series isn't exactly subtle or private. Regardless, it shouldn't be a chore or an event for these stars to be able to live their lives.
The conversation soon segued to Kanye's personality, with Kimmel and West reminiscing on a recent wedding for a friend of Kimmel's that both attended. Eventually, Kanye was Kanye and announced that he was, in fact, a genius, explaining his reasoning behind the world and somewhat chastising the public for reacting in a negative way to his declaration of artistic prowess. Not the most surprising thing from an artist who released an album named *Yeezus* with a song named "I Am a God", it makes sense that if he truly believes himself as such, and is seemingly told it is true regularly, that he should be allowed to express that sentiment. Kimmel, for his part, credited Kanye as someone he sees as being a genuinely good person, but also conceded that West may bring it on himself a bit. This is true. There have been few stars bigger than West who have spoken with such a loud and seemingly honest voice in the pop culture lexicon.
One weird point of the interview was West describing his love of "cool things" on the heels of a statement about making people's lives easier. Mentioning that he spent his first two telemarketing checks on a pair of Gucci slippers, West alluded to helping the world by making these cool things more readily available. The Internet seems to be doing a good job of that, not to mention the fact that the city West is from, Chicago, faces myriad problems that could use some fixing.
Kanye West is a lot of things, but one thing he will always be good for is a little bit of controversy. With no one to stir the pot, there is little chance of forward movement. Kanye is the wood spoon, occasionally swooping in to mix things up, add a wrinkle to what's happening, in turn keeping things fresh as he continues to push what exactly that is. During their talk, 'Ye said himself, "I'm not running for office, I'm here to make good music and make people feel good when they hear my music." This is true. West shouldn't necessarily be held to a higher standard because of what he does, or his positioning in society. At the end of the day he is simply an honest, multi-layered human being with a larger-than-life stage from which to spout his thoughts. West wrapped the talk perfectly, saying "You're gonna love me, or you're gonna hate me, but I'm going to be me." Indeed Kanye, indeed.
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