You’ve obviously established a presence in the game that’s unprecedented, especially for a Kansas City artist. How were you able to take over the game and get to the position you’re at right now? Kansas City doesn’t have a lot of opportunities when it comes to music. We ain’t got no Sony Midwest. We ain’t got no Def Jam Midwest. I had to blow it up here ‘cause that’s where it starts, at home. From here, all the DJs and clubs were finding out about Tech N9ne. Next thing you know, I’m on the radio and it spread. It spread to Cali through Quincy Jones. From Quincy Jones and QD3, it spread to everybody. It put me on the Gang Related soundtrack, Tupac’s movie. That’s how a lot of people got to know about me, and being on the Wake Up show with Sway and King Tech. I’m just a veteran in the game with everything, being on Yukmouth’s albums, the Thugged Out: The Albulation and so on, being everywhere at once. That’s how you probably heard my music, through all the connections we made through me being a politician, going state to state, city to city, shaking hands and kissing babies – just like how Master P did it. Nobody knew Master P when he first came to Kansas City, but he was doing little hole-in-the-wall clubs, getting the people to know his name. That’s exactly what we do. We’ll go to Oregon; we don’t care where the show is. I remember when I first did a show in San Diego. It was like 7 people in the crowd. Now we’re selling out whatever [venues] we do there. Being a politician is how you branch out from your town. I’ve been in this since I wrote my first rhyme in 1985. I’m proud to be where I’m at right now, at the top of my game. With Kansas City as a whole, you’ve been able to do your thing but a lot of your predecessors or people that followed you haven’t been able to establish themselves like you have. Why do you think that is? Kansas City on the Hip Hop scene is huge. You got a lot of cats that hit the road too. Rich the Factor hits the road; The Popper hits the road. It’s a lot of others. I guess they just gotta hit a lot more places. We’ll go everywhere. We done did a show up in Lawson, in the middle of a field, standing on a cooler, yadidamean? We did raves. It’s about being a politician so you gotta do it to the fullest. Not saying that my dudes don’t do it to the fullest, but nobody does it like us. But they can go with me whenever they want ‘cause I got love for all my cats. But if you’re really trying to be the President of Rap like I’ve been trying to be for a long time, you got to be in the running. We’ve been doing this independently, but we’re trying to get my name known globally. I’m trying to be the number 1 politician. Listen to the music. Come to a show and see if I’m bluffing. We’ve been humble for a long time. A lot of people love what we do and how we do business, but this new album I got called Killer, it kinda put a chip on my shoulder because I wish the industry was more about good music instead of payola. Me and Travis O’Guin use our own money. We ain’t got $20,000 to give to some DJ to play our stuff 24-7. I wish it was more about the quality and content, as opposed to the money. I understand everybody’s gotta get paid and everybody’s palms gotta get greased, but if it was about how good I was, I’d be a billionaire. We’re gonna bang it into they heads to where they gotta see me. They’re gonna have to see me when they come to the show, when they start hearing more DJs playing me. MTV and BET are gon’ have to see me. It’s written in the wind ‘cause this is raw. You’ll hear a lot of rappers say, “This is raw, this is real,” but naw, this ain’t real, this is right. Some of your past label situations in the past haven’t worked out well. How is Fontana/Universal distribution working out so far? We finally got with a partner [Fontana] that pays us on time. All me and Travis’ past partners like Mark Stephens Cerami – fuck him very much for running with our money – we’re suing them as we speak, yadidamean? Jay Faires at JCOR – fuck him very much. He ran with our money also. I know where they live, but in this business you can’t go in their homes and hem them up because you’ll be in jail for life. You gotta pay money to get your money back. It’s crazy. But with Fontana, we were able to get tour buses and buy Benzes. Travis just bought a Maybach. It’s a wonderful thing. We’ve only done two albums with Fontana and with that, we’re already seeing shit. All those albums I did in the past like Anghellic, Absolute Power, Vintage Tech, Anghellic Reparation, and our DVD Tech N9ne Experience, my fans are still buying those and we don’t get no money from that. It’s all at Sony. I guess that would bring the Killer out in you. Is that where your album title is derived from? Usually when you talk to Tech N9ne, there’s a deep meaning behind something, but simplicity is the key on this one. Killer is simply saying – and this is rock & roll terminology – this music is all killer, no filler. Now to go along with what you asked, I wish I could be a killer and get my money from these
muthafuckas with a pistol. We’d love to do it Kansas City style but we have to be “professional” ‘cause we have children. What’s the concept behind your snake and bat chain? Nobody would ever think of that but Tech N9ne. The snake and the bat are nocturnal creatures. A lot of people who see it think I’m a devil worshiper. What the hell is a devil? Anybody ever had any proof? You ever seen a ghost? I ain’t never seen nothing supernatural so I question a lot of people when they talk about Satan and super-natural beings. They thought this [symbol] meant sadomasochism – S&M. This is an S and an M, but it stands for Strange Music. I got the name Strange back when I was with Quincy Jones. I did this deal with Windswept Publishing and they wanted to know the name of my publishing company. I wanted to call it EGN Arts – that’s Strange spelled backwards. So when I hooked up with Travis O’Guin in the late 90’s, he said, “I want to start this label and split everything 50/50.” I said, “Yeah, let’s do it. I wanna call it Strange Music.” He liked it. I was a big Jim Morrison fan. The Doors had a song (singing) “People are strange…when you’re strange, faces come out in the rain…” I loved it. It was kinda creepy, like dark circus sounding music. I was really into that. They used to call me the Black Jim Morrison. That’s where Strange Music came from – the snake and the bat. Is that also how you would describe your sound? Strange. Totally. When you listen to a Tech N9ne song, you know it’s Tech N9ne. It’s distinctive. It’s all about pitch. A lot of people don’t know pitch. A lot of rappers are monotone. The way I say my name “Tech N9ne!” (with emphasis), it’s exciting. It’s strange. My rhymes are like that. It’s a little bit to the left and I love it. I love being special. If you had caught me a couple of years ago, I had red spikes in my hair. You’d still see it today if I knew how to take care of dyed hair. But I’m a black dude so I don’t really know nothing about that. I was on a lot of drugs back then – a lot of ecstasy, shrooms, GHB. I was killing myself slowly and contributing to genocide back in the day. I came out of that, but I would never take back what that gave me, that wild Tech N9ne with the red spiked hair. But it started falling out so I had to cut it all off and start over. I’m going to grow it all the way down my back. It’s gonna be beautiful. Compared to how you started back in ’85, how has your career compared to what you anticipated? What did you envision when you first started? I remember an interview Jim Carrey did after that Batman movie where he played The Riddler. They asked him if was surprised to get $25 million. And he said, “No. I’ve been planning this all my life.” I’m similar. When I first set out to do this Tech N9ne thing, I knew that I wanted my stuff to be for the world. So naw, we ain’t there yet. We’re getting there. We haven’t exceeded our limit when it comes to fans. There’s more to be taken. I always expected for everybody to be involved, so you can imagine how I felt when they called me to Denmark last year to perform for 60,000 people with Kanye [West], Tool, Guns and Roses, and George Clinton & the P-Funk All-Stars, doing it big. You can imagine how I felt when I went to Australia with The Luniz, Dru Down, and Kurupt, doing it big. That’s what I’ve been planning since I started; just to get my music to the rest of the world. When I got a cat calling me from Turkey wanting me on a song, thank God for the internet, baby. No, I’m not surprised at what’s happened. I’m thankful for what’s happened, but it hasn’t happened like it needs to for the entire world to know my story. What’s so special and important about my story? I am everything you are. I’m human. My ups and downs, my happiness, my sadness, my fuck-ups, that’s what we all have in common. That’s what I want to get to the rest of the world. When people talk about Tech N9ne retiring one day, what thoughts cross your mind? I’m doing Killer like it’s my last album. I’m saying everything I always wanted to say but held back. My mama taught me if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all, but I’ve been humble all my life. I’ve been the nice guy and always got the short end of the stick. But now, it’s looking way brighter. What me and Travis built in the years we’ve had Strange Music, it’s turning into something humongous. I can’t quit until my mission is done, when you see me everywhere, when I can’t go to Japan without them mobbing me. If I can walk in the mall and these bitches don’t melt, that means my job’s not over. You feel me? I’m not done. I’m trying to get to where my babies’ babies are well-off. Russell Simmons said he likes seeing these young cats come up from the ghetto and now they have rich kids. I feel him. That’s what I’m reaching for. //
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