Me: First off I just want to thank you for taking the time to do this.
Xc: No problem man, it's a good look for me too.
Me: Yea man, we're building up the blog,getting a lot more views since last time you were on. Anyway lets get right into it: First off just give me a little background about yourself, like where you were born and raised and how you got into music.
Xc: I'm from Detroit, born and raised in Detroit, and I got into music because of my brother, and he raps, and stuff like that, and I used to listen to everything he listened to, to people I'm ashamed to say like Ma$e and people like that, then once I got 12 or 13 he listened to a lot of Jay-Z and Eminem so I was a "rap nerd" and as I started getting older I started enjoying those guys for my own reasons and Jay-Z mostly because ya know some people think of him as billionaire mogul Jay-Z but the first song I fell in love with from Jay-Z was the song, Blueprint, on the Blueprint album ya know, and it just comes on, "Mama loves me, pop left me" and I was like 14 years old and the only reason why you'd listen to The Blueprint was because of "Renegade" and one time Renegade ran too long and that song came on so I was just listening to it and I was like "man, that's what I want to do" and as I got older I just fell in love with the Lupe Fiascos of the world, Joe Budden, then guys like T.I, Fabolous and all.
Me: I can definitely relate, my brother introduced me to most everything growing up so I know what you mean. Now lets get on to your upcoming album, what is the title of it, and when is the expected release date?
Xc: It's called Tune Up and as far as release date goes, I want end of July, early August. It's called "Tune Up" because as an artist, especially with G.O.N.E even my friends say that's the type of music they want all the time, and as an artist I feel like I should be able to let you know what goes on everyday in my life and I should display that through the music, so with Tune Up it's like 20, 21, 22 tracks so far, that's too much for me but that's how much we got so far, and I wanted to give you (the listener) everything, I wanted to give you from the rapping, to the motivational music, to the radio friendly music, just all of it on the first one, (referring to his first album G.O.N.E) because as a fan of certain rappers like J Cole, Kendrick Lamar, I've listened to them for so long, I feel like some of the fans get upset when they hear "Workout" because they feel like its just for the industry, and on the other end of the spectrum from the Ludacris and those guys people hear continuous radio friendly music that when they try to tell a story people say ahh its fake it's not real.
Me: I definitely understand that. Now G.O.N.E was a free download will Tune Up also be a free download?
Xc: This one's going to be free, but G.O.N.E was actually just a spur of the moment. We had beats laying around, and I was working on Tune Up since before G.O.N.E and it was just a spur of the moment, like I was getting dope beats from guys, and I started writing songs spur of the moment, to motivate the people around me, and with G.O.N.E, we did that in 2 and a half, 3 weeks and just rushed.
Me: That's crazy! G.O.N.E is one of my favorite albums on my ipod right now.
Xc: I can't listen to it anymore, I mean I love "Forever" because it brings me back to that moment and it's just a positive vibe, and it brings me back to my friends as I was recording and it talks about past relationships, and that story I told in "Forever" actually happened a few days before I recorded it, and I came out the booth and they were like "We were just talking about that the other day." and "Live From the Bottom" is just...
Me: Actually, I have a few questions I wanted to ask about your song "Live From the Bottom" and "Live From the Bottom" was one of the realest songs I've ever heard, and my question is, are the people mentioned in this song real? If not how do you even come up with that? Because that is one of the most genius songs I've ever heard!
Xc: Thank you, I appreciate that a lot. The last guy mentioned in the song was more real, because he was based on a person I know, and some stuff like the grandma raised him, that's not true. None of the stories in that song are "real" but they're based on people I know with situations I've seen and actually "Live From the Bottom" started out as a song on Tune Up and a verse just starts with it ya know "Reporting live from the bottom" and I thought it'd be dope if I made a song like that and that song was also rushed. Actually we're working on, part 2, I got the beat the other day, so we'll see.
Me: I'll be looking forward to that. How has your music progressed since G.O.N.E?
Xc: My writing process is different. Leading into G.O.N.E all my songs were structured a certain way, and when your new, you get a lot of opinions from everybody ya know like "make songs like this, make songs like that, hooks are supposed to sound like this, 16 bars hook, 16 bars hook, 12 bars hook, 12 bars hook." So what I did after recording G.O.N.E was I just listened to a lot of music, a lot of older music, not just because it's old, but because it was just some of my favorite albums. I listened to Eminem, Blueprint, Black Album, and when I listened to Kanye's first 3 albums, I noticed Kanye doesn't do a lot of 16...hook, 16...hook he just goes! So as a rapper I wanted to do more of that, I wanted just to make a good song where if the verses stop, then it stops and if not, then it keeps going. I just kinda want to "be me" on records.....
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