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10/5/2010 It’s good to see you finally drop a new album. What inspired your latest Adult Situations? For a long time, I’ve been wanting to do what I wanted to do, like my own thing. When you’re an independent artist, there were certain things I just wanted to get off my chest. I started on this project in ’05, ’06, ’07. It was a long time ago. I had met Unagi and Jethroe and they wanted to record with me. You meet a lot of people who want to record with you and you can’t always work with everybody, but after a while they started giving me beats and I really liked what was going on there. We recorded some totally different records and then they asked me if I wanted to just do an album and they caught me at the right time. I liked their sound and I’m from the ‘70s and I like the funk and jazz sound. I like the look, the sound and the feel of it. Did that music bring out the classic Motion Man vibe? Of course. That’s the whole thing behind it. The tracks that they were giving me were making me feel like I wanted to talk about love in my life. The records that I’m talking about were basic shit that you would go through. I shouldn’t say “you” but things that I went through. You know how people sometimes think the prostitute really likes them? They’re just trying to make some money. On two of the records I was talking about that. I’m not saying I wouldn’t do anything with them, but they were trying to sell themselves to me and they were treating me like I was the ultimate guy. Was it easy to draw on your own experiences like that on Adult Situations? Yeah. Very easy. I was there! Still, not everyone can clearly break down what they experienced. Maybe you can help me on that. I just did it. I just did Motion. I was just me. I don’t really have writer’s block. I don’t really have that. I have what you call so much going on and I just have to sit down and do it. I was an MC and I wrote battle raps and that’s what I did for a long time. Later in my career I started giving my songs a title so I would know what I was talking about instead of trying to crush an MC. I would just ride from there. You throw a lot of witty lines into your songs. Do those come to you spontaneously or do you have to write those down as they come to you? Usually what I do is find time to write after I put the kids to bed. Sometimes I might not feel like writing a rap but I’ll just kick it. Sometimes all I need is the first line and to know where I’m headed and then I’ll just finish what I’m doing from there. What was the most fun you had recording when making Adult Situations? Probably the one I did with LC because we were kind of doing Masters of Illusion again because we were both on it and we wrote it there in the studio. We were both right there and we were both spitting lines and going back and forth and we started spitting about everybody with mustaches and we just went from there. It was like how I would do it with Kool Keith from Masters of Illusion. He would be at Kurt’s house saying some lyrics and it would inspire me and be funny. The songs that were most fun were the songs I did with LC because we did them together and we were smiling. I did every song at the studio. I would ask if we were recording that day and get the beats and just go. You make “Porno Mustache,” with your own pronunciation of it, sound so classy. Yeah. That’s my era! Where does the Ned Flanders’ mustache stand on the porno mustache scale? It’s just the look of it. It’s a half-umbrella. He’s got the ‘stache! Who’s got it better than Flanders? I don’t know. A lot of cats have it. Rick James. Billy Dee. It just goes with the whole aura with why you have a mustache and a tickler. You know what I’m talking about! Even Jeff Kent got love on that. Remember Jeff Kent was rocking the ‘stache! I’m a big Jim Rome guy and he used to always say he had a porno ‘stache. Even on Pablito’s Way you said you were a “clone like Jim Rome.” I’m a big Jungle guy. I’m a clone. I don’t call in though. I got nothing to say. People tell me all the time that I should call and I could win the Huge Call. Nah. You have to know where you fit in. I can just incorporate it into my show. You don’t want to go up against a hometown caller like Vic in NoCal? So you’re a clone! I’ve been listening to Rome for about 13 years. Vic in NoCal, if I put my mind to it, I could get after anybody on that show, but once you open that can of worms, you have to finish it. Then I have to focus all my time on being the huge caller. I think there’s a bigger calling for me in life than winning the huge call. I would rather make record and get a little paycheck and go on tour or something rather than having the huge call. I’m an actual clone though. I listen every day. I have to. I got addicted. As a 13 year Jungle vet, what’s been your favorite moment? There’s been a lot. I loved when he was playing the O.J. calls from the interview where O.J. was acting like he couldn’t hear, like when the caller said, “Hey O.J., what was better, you rushing for over 2,000 yards or you cutting two people’s heads off?” It’s not funny but in the context of the show it’s hilarious. And then the other guy said, “Hey, didn’t you play for the 49ers?” He even said, “Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Oje, can you hear me, Juice? You played for the 49ers, right? Did you kill Bill Walsh?” That shit is not funny but in the context of Rome’s show, it’s hilarious. I fell out when I heard that! That shit was stupid. The whole thing was why are you putting O.J. on an interview and you’re expecting people to call in and not say things like that? I don’t know how they expected the interview to go. That’s what’s funny about it. What did you expect? I’m just glad dude’s around because it makes my day easier. No doubt. You brought out D. WYZE from B.U.M.S. I didn’t know he was still doing it. I was talking to Sway’s brother. I got his email and I hit him up and I asked him if he still spit. I saw him a couple of times in Oakland and he was cutting hair for a minute and then he moved to Compton or something. I told him I was going to send him beats and the “Tell Me What You Want” track, that was the one. We met up and recorded the song there. We just vibed on it and did it, man. I love that track. When I recorded that track, I was 80% done with the album and I had maybe one or two more tracks to do. When I got the album, I started listening to the album again and I still loved that one. I did “Pouring Mo’ Champagne” so long ago, I stopped listening to it and when I threw the album on, I remembered how dope that record was! Pouring you mo’ champagne! (laughs) What was it like working with Unagi and Jethroe on Adult Situations? How they work, most of the songs are samples and Jethroe usually does most of the drums and Unagi decides what loop he would like to use. It’s pretty easy because they’re fans of mine and I became fans of them so once I got a beat that I liked, it wasn’t really very hard. It wasn’t like a back and forth thing. I did records with Mike Shinoda and what we were trying to accomplish, he sent me back to the drawing board. But that’s me. If you listen to my records, I go all over the board because that’s what I do. I don’t want to be the guy with the guidelines. I just want to do what I want. Now that I’m a little bit older in the game, I’m not a little kid. Sometimes I might do a straight-forward record and I still have the Masters of Illusion in me where I might want to come out and tell somebody why they suck. But working with them was easy. The thing is, when I record and when I write, the stuff that I write, I usually write some stuff that I laugh at. It’s comedy to me. When I’m laughing at it and then the producers are laughing at it, you know, we’re all good. It might not even be what I’m actually saying or how I said it, but if I got everybody laughing at it, then it’s all good. Are you happy with how Adult Situations came out? Yes. Yes. When I first heard it, I felt like when I first heard it…I worked with KutMasta Kurt for so long that I basically recorded in his bathroom and his stuff sounded better than other people’s studios. We was in the bathroom and he had a comforter over the shower and we were going in there killing it and Kurt had it sounding like it was in a major studio. I didn’t think it would sound right with this but when I looked at the album cover and how it sounds, that’s what we were trying to accomplish. It brought out everything and it was perfect. How’s Kool Keith been doing? I talked to Keith maybe four or five months ago. I haven’t talked to him. I think he’s back in New York. But he’s Kool Keith, man. He’s the icon. He’s the guy. Me and Keith, we’ll always be good. Will there ever be another Masters of Illusion record? We’re supposed to. Everybody used to blow me up and ask me when we would do it and then I had to get at Kurt and ask why we couldn’t do this and then after being in the game, I realized that we all have our own things going on and I had to come to the realization that even I couldn’t do shit because I was busy. If I can’t do it because I’m busy, how is everybody else going to have the time? If you got some money you want to put up, then it’ll get done real fast! I can promise an interview when you make it happen. Does that work? Sheeit. I appreciate that. It’s something we should probably get done, but as of right now, I’m in the Bay. Kurt’s in, I don’t know, Europe, and Keith’s in New York or wherever he’s at. That's not really a project I want to do where we send our verses back and forth. That’s one of those projects we did so well. We’re all different now. I don’t know if we should do a Masters of Illusion crew. Maybe we should do a project together and call it something different. You might get the criticism for it not being as good as it was 10 years ago. You get older and it’s not always the same stuff. Back when I was doing Masters of Illusion, I was listening to Rome and the radio. Now I’m just listening to Rome. Now with my daughter’s birthday party today, it’s going to be Maze and Frankie Beverly and the Black Eyed Peas. She wants to see the Jonas Brothers. Would you ever go to a Jonas Brothers concert to be a good dad? She’s still young. My oldest daughter went to a Black Eyed Peas concert. I got her the tickets online. I didn’t get no special hook-up. I don’t know. She’s a product of her environment. That’s what she sees and that’s what she’s around. A concert though, it’s probably something I wouldn’t go to but when you’re a father and you have little girls, you’re worried about everybody so I might be there just in case something ain’t right or something don’t feel right, then I don’t have my family there dealing with something where if I was there, they wouldn’t have to deal with. But normally, hell nah I ain’t going. They can go and I can get my free time and do nothing, which I love. I’m the greatest fan of doing nothing. People say you gotta do something. Nah. I can sit down and play Madden and do nothing. I’m a big football guy and I can play Madden and that’s where I write my raps. Especially in the offseason, Madden is the closest thing to a real football game. Do you like Madden ’11? That’s something I haven’t gotten totally into yet. My Playstation heated up and I was lucky because I never had to pay the $799 when they first came out. I was sloppy with it and I would just leave it on and come back two or three days later and it was burning up. But I have the new Madden, I just need to go get a new PS3. Maybe I’ll do that today or tomorrow. It’s always good though. Sometimes they change where a button is, but once you get into the game, you’re good. They’re not going to mess with this game, man. That’s why it’s so huge. People can complain about it. But the biggest change I noticed is that they can call the plays for you and they script the first plays. Other than that, that’s not even a big deal. It’s still Madden, you feel me? Definitely. Do you have any other projects you’ve been working on? I have an album and it’s called the Foreign Globester. It’s an album I did with the Rondo Brothers. I was recording with a cat named Sean from Hatebreed, this hardcore band. I met Sean in London and he’s from Connecticut and he was talking about doing some hip-hop stuff. He ended up coming out to the Bay and we recorded our stuff, which is another EP I need to put out. We recorded it at the Rondo Brothers’ studio. I met these guys and they were really cool and they asked me if I was interested in doing commercials. They did some shit with the NFL Network for Ochocinco, which is where he got his name, from their commercial. I ended up doing a commercial for Palm Central and Santa Claus got fat and then skinny and I was kicking Run-D.M.C. lyrics behind it. Then we ended up recording an album together and they wanted to call it the Foreign Globester album. They said they wanted to record some songs and get some other people on the album. It would be me, Diamond Jim and Brandon the Bastard Prince and Motion Man. It’s actually a band I’m in. We have live drums, bass, guitar and it’s off the hook. I’m performing with an actual band. I love this album the same way I love Adult Situations. You have to grow the kids aren’t listening. They want to do the Dougie. I just grew and I’m happy with everything that I’m doing right now. So we won’t have to wait this long for another album from you, will we? Nah. I have the album with Sean Martin from Hatebreed. I started recording with Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park. We don’t have a complete project but we started working on it and I stopped mentioning it because I don’t know if it will manifest. And I have another album I’m doing with Jerry D. the Hermit. We did all these songs, let’s pick the best ones and let’s give the people some more music. I get emails from fans about how they’re bumping certain songs and they have no idea I have all of these albums out. I keep it progressive. I’m still moving. I can’t complain about my life. I love it. I’ve been able to do it. I went from a real shy dude who didn’t like his voice to a guy who toured all over the world. God blessed me. I can’t really sit back and be mad. Would I have loved to have had that career with multi-millions? Yes, but I have a beautiful family and guys like you who want to talk to me. I keep it moving.

By Brian Kayser @ seven3zero

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