Get Familiar: Self Portrait

Photography by Colette Kulig

Self Portrait are days away from dropping their second album, Primal Union. This is a classic rap lineup with a lead emcee, a rapper/producer and a real live DJ tearing it up onstage. The new album showcases features from some of the hardest working people in Vermont hip hop, like Anthill Collective maestro Eskae, who juggles a couple hundred hats any given month. He shares a cut with SkySplitter, a prolific producer and one hell of a recording engineer, too.

These lads are embedded, in other words, a central hub of the new hot shit, and a home team a lot of folks are rooting for.

Primal Union is a big step for the Self Portrait crew, but they've been on the rise for awhile because they stay busy. Last year they were featured on the latest A-Dog Day compilation, the kind of honor that doesn't come lightly. Ringtone rap might be making money now, but albums still matter, and Primal Union is a professional product.

I got to talk with two thirds of the team about their sordid past, their violent beefs, and the upcoming HBO documentary. Dig it.

Thirtyseven: How did your crew come together?

RICO JAMES: Me and Trono met in 2007 while living in Plattsburgh, NY. I had just graduated with an art degree and Trono was still attending the college at the time. We hit it off immediately and started designing a clothing company, and writing rhymes together. This was before I even started making beats. I ended up moving to the west coast for a few years, so we continued to create long distance. I started making beats while living out west, so it was only right that we jumped back into the music when I moved back east to Burlington.

I met DJ Kanga through a mutual friend here in town, and we clicked immediately through our shared love of hip hop. I was blown away when I saw him scratch the first time. Right after we hung out, I hit up Trono and told him we gotta link up with this dude and get to work. I was amazed that Kanga hadn't been snatched up yet by another group. Dude is an unbelievable DJ. I sent him some of our tunes, while simultaneously reaching out to some people trying to book a show. We booked our first show in Sept. of 2013, and have been rockin' together ever since.



Thirtyseven: Has your songwriting process changed over the years?

TRONO: The songwriting has changed as my style and Rico's style has changed. Rico has taken a lesser role in rhyming, but when he does, his flow is on point and his one liners are hilarious. He has come a long way building a confidence you can find in his verses.

I have tried to develop my skills by being more concise. My thoughts need to convey the point that I want while also becoming one with the beat. I allow - encourage - beats to take me over, to lead me down the path. Emotions and what the instrumental pulls out of you are what need to be put into words. I need to explore that however possible with pin point exactness when translated onto paper. Its a ever growing process, forcing me to learn myself and to learn from others.

RICO JAMES: The process for the group as a whole is pretty simple. My main focus is the beats. I make the beats for the crew, so we start by sending a batch of beats to Trono. He picks and chooses the ones he likes and can get into and starts writing. I give Trono complete freedom to write whatever he feels. He usually comes up with the concepts and I just step in lyrically wherever it is needed. Trono is the lyricist of the crew. He is the true writer. I like writing rhymes for fun, but he is the true talent with the pen. After we get our songs all layed out, we send rough mixes to Kanga to add his magic.

Thirtyseven: How did you wind up with such an awesome cover?

TRONO: We discovered the artist, Evan Book, through another VT hip hopper that goes by Mycelium MC. He put us on to his work and I knew it would be a perfect fit for our album art. We had the album name, Primal Union, picked out for about a year and knew that was going to be the next album name. We had the concept that we wanted, with the cavemen in a cave listening to records by a fire, have Trono eating another emcee, etc... We through it out to Evan Book, told him the basic idea, and he absolutely killed it. His style works perfectly with what we wanted and had imagined for the album. He is a super talented artist, and everybody should hit him up on FB and check out his work.

Thirtyseven: Approximately how rich and famous do you plan on becoming on Feb. 24th?

TRONO: As rich and famous as I was the day before.

RICO JAMES: I'm hoping for a crispy $20. Will hit those dollar bins hard.

Photography by Colette Kulig

"At All" - Face-One (is back)

This isn't part of the "Get Familiar" series since by now, we should be familiar with Face-One, one of Burlington's best and most distinctive exports. Since the Earegulars project, he's been in shamanic hermit mode, occasionally showing up to heckle me at shows but otherwise scarcely seen. That is about to change drastically. You have been warned.



VTHH: Is "At All" part of a larger project on the way or are you still on hiatus?

Face-One: Off hiatus.

At All, Searching, and Not in Season all have a particular place. At All is from a highly experimental and really dark album entitled “A Way to Nothing” I am working on with the likes of TAP; a dub step, electronic, former metal drummer, and metal band frontman from Texas. It's got enough darkly vibes and tonality to make Aleister Crowley roll in his grave. It could also double as the theme music for Sex Magick rituals.

Searching is from Apart From the Others, a project that I have had a hiatus on amid the chaos that is my life. That album just needs to be finished being recorded but due to the electric seas of complexity I tend to cyclically surf it's been on halt. That project is with the redheaded, alien, super producer known as skysplitterink aka Zack Crawford aka face let me get a smoke cause I smoke but never buy a pack. That project is utterly ridiculous and features the likes of brutally honest, prolyphic from strange famous, Zack DuPont (one of Vermonter most brilliant guitar players), nuda veritas (formerly vt but now in boston) , Corbett (black light music) who has credits for Saigon just blaze styles p and the list goes on and on, an lastly Zack Crawford and myself. Rapping... actually rapping... Sounds crazy right?

Not in season was a response to a particular transition point I recently dealt with. The heavy seas of life inspired that one. It features humble and yeah that is what it was and what it shall be. Without this medium that being music and words I don't know how the hell I’d make it through most days.

VTHH: What got you into rap to begin with? How does one arrive at such a distinctive style of production, composition and delivery?

Face-One: Man, what gets anyone into anything outside of fascination, and curiosity? I’ve always been drawn to music & poetry so it just kind of worked out. The style of production definitely shaped itself when I was posted in a bed with my mouth wired shut. Finding different ways to talk I guess. The words ever evolving and growing just like me.

VTHH: What are your favorite venues in BTV these days?

Face-One: Venues… I don't go to many shows really. That scene gets old real quick for me, its a lot of conversations I don't go out to have, and lots of random shit. If I'm going out I’d much rather go to a bar like the needs, the OP, or someplace just as loud or quiet, where I can be but don't really have to be there you know. Detachment is key some days. So is socializing. I find a balance.

VTHH: What albums do you currently keep in rotation? (Do people still listen to albums?)

Face-One: Thom Yorke-Tomorrows Modern Boxes
Damon Albarn-Everyday Robots
Andrew Bird-The Mysterious Production of Eggs
Flying Lotus-Until the Quiet Comes, and that new one You’re Dead
Caetano Veloso-Transa
Thundercat
Run The Jewels 1 & 2
Stan Getz
Astrud Gilberto
Salt-N-Peppa
Breakup Music (not to plug you but theres some gems on there)
Earegulars - The Seed
& lastly some Action Bronson

Get Familiar: Locko

Locko has been building a following in Brattleboro off big loud party bangers for awhile now, and as part of our ongoing tour of Vermont rap, we catch up with the 23 year old entrepreneur...

Thirtyseven: Was there any hip hop going on in Brattleboro while you were in high school?

Locko: While I was in high school there a good amount of hip hop around me. I always hung around the older kids and this is where I really started to get more serious about music. A few of us started a hip hop group that lasted a few years.

Thirtyseven: Do you feel like Vermont has opportunities for rappers, or have you mostly had to look outside the state?

Locko: There are not very many outlets for Hip Hop artists in Vermont that I know of, at least in my town. However, there is a lot of local support for it, with the radio stations and venues for performances. I have looked elsewhere for most of my opportunities, though. I record all of my songs in Boston, I have my songs mixed and mastered in Los Angeles, and my management is out of Denver.



Thirtyseven: What was your experience like working with Ben Porway for the "Ain't Gotta Leave" video? Is there anything you'd do differently on your next video shoot?

Locko: Actually, the video I did with Ben Porway was for my first single "Going Down Tonight" But the experience was good, as it always is working with Ben Porway, from videos to photo shoots everything went fairly smooth...well, as smooth as it can for a party video. It was a blast, everyone had a good time.

Thirtyseven: What have you got cooking for 2014 projects?

Locko: I have big plans for 2014 I plan on releasing my debut mixtape along with at least 6 more videos with songs from the tape, Expect to see some notable feature names as well as production credits on that and if things fall into place a very notorious Dj host.Expect to see some more press on me this year Magazine features etc.

Get Familiar: Mertz of Present Rhymes

Thirtyseven: Is Present Rhymes on hiatus in 2013?

Mertz: For those that don't know, Present Rhymes is the group I started making music with. My 3 best friends & I began experimenting in the worlds of music production & writing lyrics back in 2002. One of our original members left the group before we even released our first project in 2011. Since our debut album, Livin' The Mission, the group has been less productive than I had hoped.

Now, more than ever, I am completely focused on making music. I never thought I would be a solo artist, I always had the group mentality from the very beginning. But, over the years, it's become clear to me that if I really want to turn music making into my life's work, I have to make that commitment by myself. I can't let anyone else's actions dictate my success. This realization has been a really hard thing for me to deal with. Ultimately though, I just want to make music, so that's what I'm doing.

The truth is, I don't know what the deal with Present Rhymes is. We didn't break up & I certainly never said I was leaving the group to go solo. We just got to a point where we were all living in the same house & spending a lot of time not working on music together. We have a lot of really good songs written that our fans haven't ever heard, but as a group, we lack the motivation to really put in the effort it takes to make those songs great.

Now, my mind is focused on building a fan base as a solo artist.

Thirtyseven: How has your approach to songwriting and production changed since your early releases like the Rise Above It EP?

Mertz: For my new album, The Good in The Bad, I gravitated back towards original production & away from sampling. I produced 5 out of the 10 songs on the album & only 1 of my beats is sample based. Production-wise, for this project I put a major focus on the drums & the overall dynamics of the instrumentals. In the past, I would write most of my lyrics before the beat was finished. Then, I would end up copying large sections of the beat & pasting them to make the beat longer, & I think this approach led me to making songs that felt very repetitive.

On my new project, I tried to make my instrumentals stand on their own before I wrote lyrics to them. I also made a conscious effort to stay away from the all too easy verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus classic rap song structure. I think this approach enables me to keep the listener's attention more because they're presented with something different than they might be expecting. I've also focused a lot of my energy on creating more realistic sounding, harder hitting drums.

On the songwriting side of things, I utilized the talents of other producers for the first time on this project. Nastee, SXMPLELIFE & SkySplitterInk contributed production to the album, all of whom I met while living in BVT. Using other people's beats has let me focus more on my lyrics. I did a lot more storytelling than I have in the past. One criticism that has always stuck with me was from my first release, when Dan Bolles said that I am much more effective when I "show" than when I "tell". I like the approach of storytelling because I think it's fun to make a point without coming right out & saying it. To me, it feels like the storytelling aspect to lyricism has been scarce as of late, & by telling more stories, I'm able to keep things more interesting for the listener while still saying something of substance.

Thirtyseven: What was your introduction to Vermont's hip hop scene?

Mertz: The first CD that I had that was local Hip-Hop was Burnt MD's Burnt Underground Radio. It was a compilation that featured a lot of local talent on it, introducing me to The Loyalists, Wombaticus Rex, Sin, The Aztext & Fattie B. I was young at the time & I remember it blew my mind to find out that there were artists living in the same city as me who were making this music. From there I became a huge fan of The Loyalists in particular, & began paying more attention to the local scene.

As a performer, it all started on that 3-inch elevated platform in the corner at Manhattan's Pizza. I started performing at Andy Lugo's open mic in 2009 when I put out my first project. That's where I really found out what it was like to perform my music for people. Lugo help me immensely by coaching me & giving me tips, but mostly, by believing in me.

From there, I became tight with a few other local artists who performed at the open mics & we began putting on shows of our own. The crew that I really came up in the local scene with was Aleck Woog, Somewhere In The Solution, Habit, B Honest, The Lynguistic Civilians & a few others. After that I got the rest of Present Rhymes into doing live performances & we started doing a lot of shows with acts like Funkwagon, A-Dog & Nastee, Burnt MD & opening up for some people I never imagined.

Thirtyseven: How was your experience moving several states away and starting from scratch? Has the RI scene been receptive to your sound?

Mertz: The decision to move away from BVT was made because we were working on the Present Rhymes album, but it was too hard to make a collective effort without being together. When we first moved to Providence, we spent the majority of our time in the studio finishing the album, but we were still booking shows in VT & making trips up to perform.

Our group dynamic was on point because of how much we were rehearsing together, & we were getting really good responses when we played live. We didn't really put an emphasis on playing live in RI tho, because after we finished up our album, we went right back to work in the studio writing new songs.

I will say, of the shows that we have done in RI, we definitely bring a different sound to the table. Providence is a bigger city than BVT (duh) & so with that comes a higher regard for mainstream culture & music. A lot of the local artists I have seen in RI seem to strive for more of a mainstream sound, which isn't really my style. I like to make songs that are based in my reality & express the way I think & feel about different aspects of life.

Most of the time, when I play live in RI, I get a pretty good response. There are fans here that are receptive to my style, but I haven't put enough emphasis on playing live here to establish a local fan base.

I think the best move for someone like me is to link up with the local artists in the area who are like-minded. There are a lot of artists out here who are making very good music & who have very supportive local fans. I think a lot of them would be well received by VT Hip-Hop fans. Ultimately, I feel like you can find fans everywhere who will appreciate your music, it's just about finding them.

You can catch Mertz at Ri-Ra's on November 16th with the Lynguistic Civilians for their "Tossin' Turkeys Tour" -- which is awesome.

Get Familiar: ILLu

Thirtyseven: What was your introduction to Vermont's hip hop scene?

ILLu: Dave Grippo was my middle school music teacher and seeing his funk band perform at our assemblies with a DJ and Rapper was the first time I realized hip hop was made in Vermont and around Burlington.

Thirtyseven: What is your production process these days?

ILLu: My production process starts when I dig through the crates to find a sample. I'm a big record collector. I record the sample into my MPC, chop it up and rearrange it. Find some drums and do the same to them. After the beat is finished I mix it down into Reaper, add some effects and some finishing touches. At that point I usually consider the beat done and move on to the next.



Thirtyseven: How did you link up with Jenke Arts and how has your experience been so far?

ILLu: I linked up with Jenke by chance really. I brought my MPC to Radio Bean's open mic and performed a (very poorly written) song and scratched some vocal samples over a couple of my beats. Mavstar just happened to be there that night and before I got off the stage he asked if he could freestyle and I said absolutely. Word must've got to Tommy Alexander at Jenke and he asked if I could supply him with some beats for the next Set Up City record and though Tommy I met MC Rajnii, J Kaine, Humble, and Knowble.

Thirtyseven: Do you feel like its harder for producers to make a name in a small scene like Burlington than it would be for rappers?

ILLu: I don't think it's any easier for emcees in Burlington because the population is so small it's hard to build a fan base. But producers have to rely on word of mouth more often then not because they don't have the same avenues to express their art form. Where a rapper can go to an open mic and showcase their skills, a producer doesn't really have that. Especially if they don't DJ.

Thirtyseven: What are your favorite venues in Vermont?

ILLu: Manhattan's Pizza is one of my favorite local venues because it is so diverse in its music, especially their openness towards hip hop with the help of their open mic's and Andy Lugo.

Thirtyseven: Aside from adding a couple hundred thousand young people with disposable income, is there anything you would like to see change in the BTV hip hop scene?

ILLu: I would like to see a Burlington version of the Rock The Bells shows where every one comes together to put on a show, have fun, and showcase their skills.

Thirtyseven: What are your goals for 2014?

ILLu: Goals for 2014 include seeing the beats I've given to local rappers released for everyone to hear. Also would like to link up with a rapper to release a project similar to what the Alchemist has been doing with Action Bronson, Prodigy and Boldy James.