I think a generation ago they would have called it nonsensical. [laughs] How do you feel about it? Because we’re talking about words. Words mean a lot to you. In terms of me as a consumer, participating in your art, the audience … what I can draw from or what I can tell from listening to your music, especially with the Full Frontal Incumbent—it’s a tongue-twister! I can’t say it five times—but in terms of Full Frontal Incumbent, there’s an emphasis on words. Where does that come from? Or rather I should say: why in 2016 is that important to you? To draw a line from what I just said, I think constant content … News streams and all these words and images coming onto us, subliminal marketing—that’s a tactic used by the companies that we buy everything from. I think to discount the impact of words in music—to try and negate that—is just impossible. Also personally, I just find words fascinating. And language, it’s my most natural medium, probably. Especially with English— English is such an arbitrary, exquisite corpse of a language. There’s so many ways you can make a verb an adjective, even if it’s not in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. You can change and reconfigure things, or you know, maybe you can’t technically, but especially with a form like rap, I see it as a sandbox. I don’t know how else to qualify it. I used to be into a lot of different styles of writing; I used to try and enjamb words, like ‘igneous rockstars,’ and now I’m more into words on a more punny level. Like in ‘MSRP (the Untimely Ballad Of A Coatrack).’ Oh yeah. ‘Waltzing insider trades. Left right serf ball,’ which is the first line. It’s not an enjambment like that, which has a new word from that configuration, you know, like ‘igneous rockstars.’ It’s more like ‘insider trades’, you know, suggesting the movement of feet, ‘waltzing insider trades’, moving back and forth between this language of commerce and the commerce of relationships and emotions. That’s perfect. We’re talking about the idea of the multi-disciplinary artist, which you’d consider yourself to be? You’re describing movement within words, literally and metaphorically. It’s kind of like the people who can, like, describe colors and sounds… Oh, synesthesia. That’s interesting. For me writing is a lot of catch and release, in the sense that I’ll get on a chain of words, and they’ll just come, and I’ll write them almost on a level of subconsciousness—just write them and not really think about what they mean, but know that there’s a connection going between them. What’s the editing process like? The editing process? Well… Is there an editing process? Yeah, yeah. I generally write everything out on paper, and then… Why do that? [laughs] I don’t know, I like writing. It’s a good feeling to me. I do that as well. Again, you’re talking about the literal part of it—literally talking about the feeling of writing, but also the feeling of learning.
The feeling of just having some stuff pass through your hand. So the editing process is writing. I would’ve even brought one of my books of notes and stuff, but you know … there’ll be sections of kind of collaged pieces, and that’s especially the case when I write something maybe in free verse that’s maybe more literary. It’s like patchwork, and things have little tangents—lines connecting words that should be inserted here. Then when I type it up, that’s the first level of editing. Especially when it comes to music, if it’s sung or spoken or has a rap cadence to it, then I go in and I see if I can obliterate … if certain prepositions are non-essential in certain things. Actually, it’s funny—I had a phase when I first started out really writing music where I wouldn’t use the word ‘I.’ I just didn’t like it. I was like, ‘I wanna be the guy who talks about “I” without saying “I”.’ And that gradually laid the foundations getting to the essential words, especially when you’re doing something that people can follow musically—they don’t have to follow the exact meaning. They can just ... well, waltz! [laughs] Waltz between the essential words, and if you wanna stick in an ‘in’ or ‘about’ or a definite article, using those strategically, then, and not being like, ‘I have to say “I am the...”’ You can say like ‘am’ something. De La had a song like that—‘I Am I Be.’ Oh yeah, yeah, yeah! I was just thinking of that the other day. It’s like the destruction of self, or the idea of destruction of self. It’s definitely interesting. There’s that cliche that’s not really that cliché: as an artist I am my toughest critic. I think generally pretty much everyone who makes art is that. And I think that’s a very literal way of trying to identify yourself in some way. I don’t know if it’s some type of trying to absolve yourself from being identified in some way. It’s good that you said that in terms of identity because even within this project, you create a lot of characters. Yeah! I’m glad you caught that. You shape out a universe, which I’d say parallels like Parliament-Funkadelic, how they created this entire mythology. Yeah, Chocolate Davis and Langstónia. So we have Langstónia as the land, and I am the vassal to the estate of the Lord Chocolate Davis, and, you know, my regular consorts and kind of advisory board involves Tercero Washington—kind of like the smooth executive operator, you know—Muckraker Jones, who’s the Operator of Rakes—he digs a little deeper)—Calculus Johnson is the Minister of Abstraction ... I think those three. And Resident Hairbrain, Prophecy of Mad Scribe. We know he gets a little more hairbrained. If you look at me, literally, things get that way, too. I think it’s just important to do that, and obviously Rhys Langston is kind of the projector—the megaphone. I think it’s important to do that. For one thing, I’ve always been into fantasy and high fantasy and RPGs and stuff—no shame at all in saying that. Shout-out to Warcraft. Yeah, shout-out to Warcraft. I got a tattoo of fucking Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind right here—it’s kind of crazy. Oh wow! You weren’t kidding! INTERVIEW