“It’s like okay, we’re probably not going to be rich or be on VH1 Hip Hop Honors in 10 years, might as well do and say exactly what you want to while you have a medium,” says Von Pea of Tanya Morgan. The Brooklynatti trio continues to do just that with group and solo projects taking different themes, and directions. There was the group’s critically acclaimed 2009 release, Brooklynatti, followed by Donwill’s solo disc, Don Cusack In High Fidelity in which Don put himself in Jon Cusack’s shoes and cast himself in the cult favorite from the late 90’s. Von and Don teamed up again for another “do what you feel” release in The Sandwich Shop, a free 99 release that witnesses the duo making full songs out of Jimmy Fallon setbreaks in which The Roots jammed out and called them “sandwiches”.
The EP was released last week, and I had the chance to speak with Von about the project, why it’s only a 2/3 type of things, as well as his forthcoming solo record cleverly titled Pea’s Gotta Have It.
RubyHornet: How many sandwiches were consumed during the making of this project? What’s the comparison in sandwich taste and style between you and Donwill?
Von Pea: haha…we did 5 of them the first day, then ended up scrapping one and doing something different. The “Spaintro” track was just talking at one point but we decided to try to rap to it. The trick was recording myself mumbling along to the beat then replacing the mumbling with words haha. There’s no sandwiches we used that didn’t make it though. When Spec Boogie heard about us doing this project he wanted to use the track he’s on, but we weren’t using it so we turned that into his interlude, and we were going to use the Chicago joint but the project was already “smooth” enough as it is. I don’t understand the second question haha… Donwill is the pickiest eater you’ll ever meet though! He eats plain dry ass sandwiches.
RubyHornet: For those in your area, what are the best sandwich shops?
Von Pea: Thats a good question. You can get a pretty good sub sandwich from The Farmer In The Deli Bodega in Fort Greene Brooklyn. There’s also a spot in Brooklyn Heights; a bagel shop slash deli that makes the best heroes/hoagies/subs/whatever you want to call them. I eat those more than regular sandwiches.
RubyHornet: What’s been the feedback like, how are your fans digesting the project?
Von Pea: I see @replies on twitter from people saying they like it. I don’t read a whole lot of comments, but the comments I did see were mostly positive. You know what though, for whatever reason I wasn’t worried about people liking it as much as I worried about all our fans knowing about it. We sold y’all fitted caps, shirts, boxes, all kinds of s**t last year, so now that there’s a free project, I want everybody to get it.
RubyHornet: This is another project from the TM crew, and you guys continue to produce group and solo projects. It seems to speak to an artist’s need to continually create and continually service their fanbase. What’s your take on that relationship and dropping new stuff regularly? Is it even possible to oversaturate in these times of here today gone later that day?
Von Pea: MAN…the funny part is there is a schedule conflict behind the scenes right now. I was supposed to put out a mixtape of all the guest spots I did in the past year called So Motivational. This was back in February. I didn’t drop it because Donwill’s album “DCIHF” came out the next month. I got bored of my mixtape so I ended up doing new songs for it and I was going to put it out last month…THEN this Sandwich Shop idea came up so I had to take the new So Motivational mixtape and hold onto it longer haha… Ilyas is halfway done with a project he’s working on too, but I’m hoping to have my solo mixtape out by the end of June or for July 4th. It’s absolutely a lot of music to digest, but it happened due to a burst of inspiration and they say the best music comes from that. I’ve been thinking about just shelving it (only because of the possibility of over saturation) but it’s a lot of good stuff that will never come out otherwise. My official solo album (Pea’s Gotta Have It) hits stores in September, after that I’m not putting out anything else for a long time!
RubyHornet: What was the process like in creating this album, and how did it relate to your other projects? Was this kind of a get in where you fit in type of thing as Don says on the intro, “said that it’s coming and I won’t be liar, just got a find a few more words and some time to record them.”
Von Pea: I know why he said that, because we had to finish it up! haha! It’s something we did for fun, but it was beginning to take too long to finish. Understandably toward the end a lot of things started happening in his life so it wasn’t the biggest priority. I was like “yo we have to finish this free s**t! hurry up!” I know I got on his nerves toward the end.
RubyHornet: Tanya Morgan is a trio, for those wondering, did Illyas just not want to get down in full on this? Why just you and Don on this one?
Von Pea: You know what, I know why people expect all 3 of us on it, but we saw it like a bbd/new edition or wu massacre/wu tang thing. It was an idea we thought was cool, and wanted to knock it out real quick just to hear raps over these beats. The first thing I thought when we had the idea was “I’m not gonna drag Ilyas into this and have him wasting rhymes just so we can hear it.” He was thrown off by it too at first. They do Ilwil mixtapes without me. I’m going to produce a bunch of songs for Ilyas soon.
RubyHornet: The music comes from The Roots “sandwiches” they did for The Jimmy Fallon show. I know ?uestlove was the honorary mayor of Brooklynatti, did you talk to him at all about this project, or get his blessing so to speak?
Von Pea: Quest did a track for us that might end up on the next Tanya Morgan album if he says we can use it. I think it’s called “Burning up”… You know we just wrote the “questlove song” on the session (haha), I don’t know if he heard the sandwiches yet, but I do know he said he wanted to help out on the next album. Hopefully that happens!
RubyHornet: “The One With Illyas” starts with “for years we were stuck on making a first impression, today’s the second, no stressing.” Can you elaborate on that a little bit, it also seems to speak on the themes you guys talked about when did our Closed Session song, “Posted”. You all seem to be more comfortable and more secure with where you are. Does that comfort tweak the creative process, or even the lack of stress change how you navigate the music biz?
Von Pea: That’s me just being tired of always having to be so introductory with everything. Not that it’s been years and years, but since 2006 we’ve been introducing ourselves and answering certain questions over and over, its almost a Groundhog’s Day kind of thing. I won’t speak for everyone, but for me it’s not so much comfortable as it is accepting of where we are. Its like okay, we’re probably not going to be rich or be on VH1 Hip Hop Honors in 10 years, might as well do and say exactly what you want to while you have a medium. It’s been a certain mindstate, almost…waiting for the chance to really go in. But waiting for what?
RubyHornet: On “Cheesesteak” you say, “the torch, I’m receiving it. Hand that down, I’ll make y’all proud.” Who do you see as handing you guys the torch, and what’s been the growth like for you guys to feel like, ‘yeah, I’m ready to get that torch, and make you guys proud. I might not have been ready before, but I am now.’?
Von Pea: We get a lot of love from people we grew up looking up to. Posdnuos from De La, Ali Shaheed from Tribe, the whole Hieroglyphics, Questlove and Black Thought, Talib Kweli, J Live, Dres of Black Sheep, Jazzy Jeff, and so on. Ali Shaheed went as far as to call us legends in the making. HE is a legend! More than the torch line the “make yall proud” line is direct results of these people being proud of us already. I wouldn’t have ever said that if I couldn’t believe it.
RubyHornet: Lastly, give us some insight into what’s next for TM both as a group and individually?
Von Pea: My album “Pea’s Gotta Have It” comes out September 7th, and that’s the only concrete date or title we have right now. Ilyas is working on a project called “Live From Ohio” and the next Tanya Morgan album will be ready early next year. Brooklynati is the album we have been trying to make since we started, so now that we did it we have to go somewhere else. It’s going to be fun to see what that means, I just hope we stay true to ourselves in the process. we’re starting on that right now.
