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10/31/2005 Interview with Chace Infinite How are you doing Chace? I'm cool brother, I can't complain. I'm right here in sunny L.A., although it's dark right now. "Change" is finally out, looking at the project, how do you feel about the way it came out? I'm extremely happy with the way it came out. It took about three and a half years to get it done. I'm extremely happy that people can go get it now. Did you encounter any problems working on this album? There wasn't really any problems, more than a series of personal things that happened in me and Khalil's lives. We started a corporation with DJ Muggs, I had a daughter…a lot of things happened in between recording "Change." The title track, "Change," is a very powerful song, why did you want to start the album off with that? When we talked about doing the record "Change," the concept was to show the evolution of us as artists and building into the concept of "Change" deeper. So much shit happened since "The Self-Science." We went too war, Bush stole the election...I wanted to address it. We were going to do "Change" as an intro with three parts, three verses with three different beats. The first verse of "Change" I've had for almost two and a half years. The second verse I maybe wrote about a month or so before the album came out. The first verse I talk about what happened about looking for Bin Laden and all that, and the second verse sums things up. How long does it usually take you to write a song? It depends. Some songs take a little longer. Sometimes the songs come to me out of nowhere, where I can put two verses down, then come back and change stuff. I'm the type of artist that likes to lay something down and come back a week later and change things. Sometimes it can take three hours, other times two years (laughs). "2-Step" is a dope song, do you think that'll catch your core fans off-guard? Yeah, absolutely. Anybody that knows me will tell you that that song is a true representation of parts of my character. "2-Step" and "What You Need" are true representations of me. They deal with aspects of me personally. I go out, I'm social, I buld with motherfuckers. I think on the last record, "The Self-Science," even though it's a classic to me, I think it missed a little bit of personality. With "Change," I wanted to add personality, and that's why I wanted to do "2-Step." Do you ever feel the fans box you in as to what they expect from you? Not so much the fans as much as the industry. They'll put us in the same box as Talib Kweli, but I feel we're different. It is frustrating when you get pigeonholed. A lot of artists we get compared to, we don't fuck with. It's all good. We get pigeonholed a little bit, but I think with time they'll understand. "Live and Breathe" is a real deep song, what was your inspiration for that song? That is mostly based on a true story. I definitely have examples from my life to draw from in both situations, from a girl being in an abusive relationship to a dude getting too caught up in this Hip Hop shit. I know people that have been caught up in this, maybe not as severely as the cats in the story, but definitely caught up in it. What did you want to give people with "Live and Breathe?" That song is about sacrifice, and the sacrifices you choose to make to make your life easier and your quality of life better. The girl sacrificed so her mother and brother could be taken care of. The second verse, the dude wants to make money in the art that he loves, but he starts giving into some of the pressures of the industry and he lost his way. There's a million motherfuckers like that. I was able to draw from it and write a song with it. What was it like recording "King Kong" with Bun B? We did a that at 4:00 in the morning. He came out for the Wake Up Show album release party. We met there and went to the studio. He's a real cool brother. We were saying how we had to do some shit, and he said "it's nothing." After we rocked the show, we all went to the studio and knocked it out. It took him exactly 22 minutes from the time he came to the studio and kicked his verse. I timed it, it was incredible. He wrote all his shit from scratch right there and killed it. Kombo definitely came off on "Balance," what can you tell us about him? He's been on our first record on the song "Cash Craft." He's put out 12"'s, he's been around for awhile. He's just been going through his own personal trials and tribulations so he's never been able to put an album out. We have an album done with him where DJ Khalil produced about 70% of the tracks. We plan on putting that out one day because he's got some great material. Looking at the album, what's the most important message you want people to get? Change! The reason we do this shit is that hopefully our music will be a bridge to some type of self-examination. Hopefully in examining yourself, you'll make some type of change. I know that's what I use it for. Analyze the shit around you and try to make things better. I'm trying to improve my quality of life man, monetarily, health-wise, all that shit. Sometimes, in order to achieve things, you have to change. You can't keep doing the same things over and over again. What beats were you looking for on "Change?" I wasn't looking for any particular beats. Khalil will make about 20 beats, and out of those 20, there may be three or four that we'll use. It just kind of happens. He makes so much material because he's placing beats all the time. It's a feel that we have. We don't even communicate about it all the time. He'll make a beat and say, "I got some shit for us," and it fits. I don't ask for particular beats, it just sort of happens. Have you noticed a change in Khalil after he started working with Dre? I don't know, I wouldn't say a real change. He's just evolving as a producer in general. He's gotten better at playing keys. He's just becoming a better musician, but his sound hasn't changed. It'd probably be better to ask Khalil. On our last album, we used a lot of light jazz elements, but here it's more '70's avant-garde rock shit. He's definitely become more musical because he's able to play better than he was on the first album. On the album, you say you're going to "spit raps until you motherfuckers know my name." How much longer is it going to take for more people to catch on to Self-Scientific? Who knows man? I think about that shit all the time. I feel that we make important music and more people should know our name. Maybe if ?uestlove reads this, ?uestlove can you please put us on OkayPlayer? (laughs) Then everybody will love us right? That seems to be the key. Hopefully not too much longer. I want to get to the point where people respect it for what it is. I think we make some of the best music in Hip Hop, period. Underground, commercial, whatever. I do appreciate the fans we got now, but I want some of Jay-Z's fans to hear my shit because I really feel like they'll love it. You also said on "Tears" that you "love the respect but I can't get paid off that, I'm trying to get rich and give some of it back." Can you talk about that? My whole thing is that we love doing the art and music. I love creating songs. But at the end of the day, we live in a capitalist society and you need money to make change. Eventually, I want to succeed so I can make enough money so I can advocate some real change instead of just talking about shit. Until you get money, there's not a lot you can do. I don't want to be one of those artists that has all of these accolades and everybody loves, but I'm not able to make no real change because I don't have any money. It seems like the underground claims to love Hip Hop the most, yet they're the ones downloading the most albums off the internet… That's why I said "fans figure why pay if the music is free, but never mind what it's doing to me" Fuck that! It's crazy! (laughs) I'm an internet surfer now, that's the way the music has gone, especially with the type of music we do, the underground shit. All these kids are super-haters. Everybody hates everything. They're the "most Hip Hip-kids ever" but they don't want to buy anything. They want to go on HipHopGame and say "I heard it first!" That's crazy. In one sense, it's good, because it helps spread the music, but then the artists you love like a Buckshot, Little Brother, or Atmosphere, we may not be able to make the money we could because people download our shit. It's hard, we have to get some money man. Would you rather have sales than exposure at this point in your career? No, and I'm still doing shit for less than I know I should be getting. I know how the game is and we need that exposure. I'm not complaining by any stretch. I'm happy doing what I'm doing, but I know how it could be better. Who do you write for? A lot of my shit is written really to explain shit to myself. I think different people may draw different interpretations from it. Like "Free Will" is about a religious concept that I was explaining to myself. I don't know what I necessarily want people to take out of it, but if you do draw something out of it, I hope it's positive. How is a Self-Scientific song made? We usually start with a concept or a beat. I'll write a verse and a half and sit with it for about a week, then come back and finish it. Our material is pretty linear. If we have a song about a topic, we focus on it for all two or three verses. A lot of cats may have a title and then the lyrics don't go with the title. A lot of times, our shit is pretty direct and the title deals with the song. I start my shit, I lay it down to make sure I got the cadence right, then I go back and write more. I like to keep my cadences the same so people don't get too confused when they listen. It's bad enough that I'm saying all this shit. If I say it in too many different ways, then people definitely won't be able to follow it. I'll analyze what did, come back later, and finish the rest of the song. Going back to "The Self-Science," how do you feel listening to that today? I feel weird listening to "The Self-Science." To me, that's a great album. I love that album. I think that's the part when me and Khalil came into our own as artists, and now you can see our growth. "The Self-Science" is a really dope album to me. There hasn't been an album like that from the West Coast in a long time. Sometimes I forget about some of the songs like "Anguish." You reminded me of that shit the other day. "Cash Craft" with Kombo. There's songs on that album that I love but I don't ever listen to anymore, like "Dead Honest." Whenever we do a show and we do "Best Part," it reminds me that we have material that people love. We may not be selling crazy records, but we have fans that know that record front and back. Would you ever want to drop a project working with other producers? I don't know. I thought about doing a mixtape or something, but we're a duo. I don't think there's too many people doper than Khalil. That's just me though, I'm kind of bias. As of right now, I don't have any plans to do shit like that. To me, these are solo albums. I don't get no damn help on this. Kombo comes in and does a verse every now and then, but this is a solo album. Motherfuckers be calling me "Self-Scientific." Chace Infinite and DJ Khalil equal Self-Scientific. Self-Scientific is not my alias. I am not Self-Scientific, we are. How important is the chemistry between you and Khalil in making a cohesive album? Like other duos, we have that consistency. Regardless if you like every song equally, you can't deny that our work is really consistent. You can tell that we've spent a lot of time together and that our chemistry is really good over the years. It takes years and a lot of time. Some groups get so big they end up not talking with each other. Me and Khalil are like brothers, we may have a disagreement, but then it's like "whatever" and we're back to making music. I think what's most important to Self-Scientific is that we don't really stray too far outside from what we do. What are your responsibilities with Angeles Records? Muggs and Khalil handle the production aspect. Muggs is very adept at reading contracts. I handle a lot of things with our distributor, Fontana, as far as setting up things like overseas distribution and all that. I run the day-to-day shit. I have an assistant named Miranda. Muggs and Khalil make sure the projects come out sounding high-quality. We're all working together, trying to get this shit cracking. Where do you want to take Angeles Records? In five or ten years, we really want to build a consistent label. Not just a West Coast label, but something with real, good, quality music. We need to build up the brand and develop artists. I want to be a powerhouse. I want to fill the void left by Rawkus and Tommy Boy. Koch is doing a good job swallowing up some of those projects. I want to get into artist development. I want to be the cool boutique label that makes money. Now that "Change" is out, have you given thought to the next project? Yeah, we've already done about two or three tracks for it. It's called "Come in Peace, Prepare for War." Any idea when you want to put that out? I don't know. We're working on it now. We'll keep working on it. We just started promoting this record, so I want to give this record a little bit of time to breathe. And then it's time for "Come in Peace, Prepare for War." What do you want to say to everyone out there? Thank you all for supporting Self-Scientific. Go pick that "Change" up at your local retailer. Go pick up that DJ Muggs vs. GZA. Look out for Mitchey Slick coming in February, look out for DJ Warrior coming next August. Angeles Records is on the rise you bitches!

By Brian Kayser

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