Exclusive Interview

What were your earliest memories of music, and when did hip-hop first become part of your life? I literally cannot remember a time when music was not a part of my life. My mother was always singing and playing music around the house; everything from dancehall to soul to funk to house music. Even to this day, if you say a random word or phrase, I am liable to break into song that correlates with whatever you just said. I inherited this trait from my mother! I can't remember if it was my 7th or 8th birthday, but she bought me an MP3 player and loaded it with Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits. I absolutely loved that MP3 player; I still have it. It had an audio recorder on it too, so I would go to the library and make recordings of my favorite VGM soundtracks (remember, this was long before everybody and their mama had an iPhone with Apple Music and Spotify), which I often was mocked for because it wasn't "real music". As far as Hip-Hop, I came up listening to old school and conscious Hip-Hop; KRS-ONE in particular was in heavy rotation throughout my childhood. It was so ubiquitous that I can't even pinpoint a time when I was first introduced to it.

Before music became serious, what were you like as a kid, and what dreams or interests did you have back then? Quiet, studious and serious. For the most part, you could pretty much always find me ducked off in some corner with a book or working on some sort of creative project (not much has changed on that front). My mother always tells me that I was very serious, even from the time I was a baby. To be frank, I cannot recall my childhood personality in vivid detail. For one, no one has an unbiased view of themself, therefore their analyses will always be somewhat inaccurate. Secondly, due to severe trauma that I have experienced, the past is like a patchwork; some sections I remember in vivid detail, but much of it is hazy and staticky. But one thing I will always remember is the feeling that somehow or another, everybody had been handed some kind of manual or booklet, but someone had forgotten to give me mine. Back then, I loved soccer, conservationism and flags. My mother homeschooled me and was generally very intentional about how she raised me, so most popular television was off limits to me. But I could watch all the Animal Planet I wanted! I ain't gonna hold you, Meerkat Manor was the jam. I loved Jeff Corwin and Steve Irwin, especially Steve. His dynamic personality and obvious love for the animals he worked with made me want to be an animal conservationist when I grew up. I still have a huge soft spot for animals (especially cats) They tend to be a great deal more compassionate than humans are. Moreover, I believe the way you treat an innocent and defenseless animal reveals a whole lot about your character. I also had a deep love for flags that practically bordered on obsession. I found books that had flags in them, and I painstakingly drew the flags of all the countries of the world on construction paper and carefully hung them up on my walls. In hindsight, this should have been a dead giveaway to the fact that I have Autism Spectrum Disorder, but such as it is, I unfortunately did not get a diagnosis until 2022. In any case, I wanted to grow up and become a vexillologist. Not much has come of that, but I still do think flags are pretty darn neat. In fact, in 2024 I designed a flag of my own, the Sacred Name Of Jehovah Flag. Of course I deeply loved video games and video game music; my GameCube was probably my most prized possession. When it was irreparably damaged by a short circuit during a bad thunderstorm, I was crushed. But my mother bought me a DS, so that made up for it. 

Atlanta has a wide range of neighborhoods and influences. How did the environment you grew up in shape your worldview and your approach to music? To be honest, I grew up in so many different cities and neighbourhoods that my answer, if it were to be exhaustive, would have to be multifaceted. During the course of my childhood, I lived in Kingsland, Decatur, Conyers, Macon (twice), and Jonesboro, and that's just what I can remember. We moved constantly, which I hated. In any case, I loved living in Metro Atlanta. It is a very strange place, and I am a very strange person. There are artists, airheads, bikers, chefs, poets, pushers, pretty girls, hippies, hustlers, hoteps, rockers, lunatics and activists (sometimes all at the same time!), and no one really bats an eye. You can just be yourself, whoever that may be, and it's okay. I never really considered it before now, but it probably influenced my worldview more than I realized. The people that most people consider "weird" (and therefore slander and isolate) are the ones I seem to understand and gravitate towards. Everyone has a story, and everybody wants respect and mercy, but is hesitant to give it. It's very amusing to me that we live in a "don't judge" culture, but many of us are not only judgmental but too lazy to gather all the facts about a person or situation, so instead we go off of what other people say. Musically, I'd say that being around all the poets and artists that I grew up around (due to my mother being a highly respected spoken word artist) influenced my subject matter if not my sonic palette. People talked about all manner of things in their poems, but societal issues, especially those plaguing the black community, were always a revolving topic. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I suppose this coalesced in my subconscious, until the time was right, and influenced me to talk about societal issues in my music.

Describe your sound in one sentence for someone hearing you for the first time. Vintage and fresh at the same time, like a song you heard years ago and have been searching for ever since.

What is your approach when creating a new song? The process really depends on the individual song, and then what type of project it is being made for. Sometimes I start with a song title and a concept; sometimes the concept may come with a few lyrics, and from there I have to create an appropriate instrumental. Other times, a melody may come to my head, or I may come across a sample that I'd like to flip, and I have to come up with a concept that fits it. As far as the instrumental portion, I'd say 75% of the time, I start with my melody or sample, then fit my drums around it. The other 25% of the time, I have a really dope drum break that I'd like to use, and I'm coming up with a melody or sample as an excuse to have something to put over it. In any case, the key to a dope MC Zappa beat is the drums. Drum breaks are the foundation of Bit-Hop. Remember, you can have a beautifully decorated house, but if your foundation is jacked up, it means nothing. With a lot of the joints I've been working on lately, some of them I've created merely on a whim, which is almost unheard of for me. These are very special tracks called Thoughts (or Dreams), and they are somewhere between instrumental and vocal. I absolutely love working on Thoughts because they aren't intended to be rapped over, which means that I am not inhibited by the bounds of a 16-bar verse. Consequently, I'd say that some of them are better than my regular instrumentals.

Do you work with different producers? As a matter of course, no. On very special occasions? Yes. All of my main projects are self-produced, but from time to time, I take a break from being behind the boards, hop on the mic and let somebody else handle production, but these things only occur for dedicated albums. Now, on Hindsight, the EP that I released in 2020, I brought in several producers. In fact, the idea for that EP stemmed from when I visited my family in Yonkers. My uncle Infinite showed me some ill joints he had cooked, and he let me have them. From there, I just decided to bring in a few other producers to round things out, namely Hakeem Shakur and TH3 aka Tarzyytfet. Much respect and thanks to them. Two other producers that I have a whole lot of respect for are N0l3m and Zenati. N0l3m has helped me out immensely with my latest LP, "Critical Times" and other projects. He and I will be collaborating on an LP within the next few years. Zenati and I also have an LP in the works. In fact, my song "Candy Love" that I put out a few years ago was supposed to be a promotional single for it, but I did that completely backwards.

What’s been the biggest challenge in your journey as an artist? Promotion. Marketing. Getting myself known. To be sure, it's easy to ensure that things come up when people look for you, but the challenge is encouraging people TO look for you. But then again, it's really been a case of me not applying myself. Business and logistics is a huge bore to me; I'd much rather handle the artistic aspect. But until I get to where I want to be, I simply have to build myself from the ground up. Almost no matter what you do or who you deal with in life, as far as major things go, you're going to be selling yourself to some degree. When you go in for a job interview, you're pitching the reasons why they would benefit from taking you on. When you start a business, you're trying to convince people why they should let you do something for them. When you date, you are pitching the reasons why the benefits of sharing a life with you would outweigh the benefits of staying alone. Music promotion is no different. 

Do you perform live often? No. In fact, to date I have only performed live once. It was at a coffee shop, and it was nearly a decade ago. But if it's God's will, I would like to rock the stage more often.

What themes or messages do you consistently find yourself returning to in your music? Lyrically, you always hear me speak of hypocrisy, injustice, and the upliftment of the downtrodden. That, and how I demolish wack MCs. I used to write a lot more goofy and lighthearted songs back when I first started, but the more I saw and experienced, the more serious I became. I do want to start writing material that's a little more lighthearted, though. Satire and parody are a big part of my music as well. I am a Key & Peele fiend, and I also love Chappelle's Show and In Living Color. To me, the world is equal parts comedy and tragedy, yet the tragedy provides half of the comedy. Everyone takes themselves far too seriously, and is very inconsistent about the principles they claim to stand on, which is a topic that you hear me discuss in my music. For example, both political parties engage in daily bouts of "but, but, you did the same thing too!". It is exceedingly clear that neither of them possess any actual morals or love for people, but instead weaponize the *idea* in order to "own" the other side. When I watch a political debate, I see a bunch of overgrown toddlers in suits. Then, you have people following and cheering on politicians as if they are athletes or actors (which i suppose in a way they are!), and knowing they will not fulfill their promises, yet continuing to pledge allegiance to them. If you cannot see the comedy in that, I don't know what to see. To me, the world is a great big joke, and a large part of the reason for that is because everyone takes themselves far too seriously. I suppose working on the Thoughts has been a way to blow off steam and showcase my more whimsical side, because I can just be silly and have songs with names like "Girls Wit Da Boom", "The Philly Imposter", "Warlord Roach Attacks!!", "The Hardest Autist" etc.

What can we expect from you this year and beyond? My fans will be eating good this year! I looked at my Apple Music catalog about a week ago and realized that I haven't dropped in four years! So I'll be more than making up for it this year. First off, there's my brand new single "Why?", which will be dropping on February 1st, 2026. As the title suggests, the song is about a series of hard-hitting questions that are intended to make people think critically (and make a change if necessary!) Then my LP "Critical Times", which "Why?" is from, is expected to release by the end of either Q1 or Q2. Critical Times is not for the faint of heart at all. The purpose of this album is to call unbelievers to repentance, and to encourage anybody who claims Christ to examine their faith and be serious about loving God and their neighbors. I am also proud to announce that "Mind Your Business!!", the sequel to 2021's "Do You Mind?!", will be dropping in the later part of this year, with a two-track single to promote it. "Do You Mind?!" was the world's first Bit-Hop instrumental album, but it also had an optional subplot that most people don't know about. You could see it as a young married couple getting into an argument ("Your Fault"), then being aggressively solicited by a gang of rogue IRS agents ("The Taxman Cometh!!"), getting into a deadly shootout with the tax collectors ("More Bullets"), then the husband taking his wife shopping ("Take Me To The Mall"), or you could just see it as an assortment of 13 random Bit-Hop beats. I took the same approach to "Mind Your Business!!", but turned it up to 11. There are tracks on there that'll make you straight up laugh, then there are tracks that may bring a tear to your eye, and then of course you have plenty of joints for the hardcore hip-hop heads. It's just as much an experience as it is an album.

That is all I can reveal for the time being, but suffice it to say there's plenty to look forward to! 

http://realmczappa.com