home : interviews : BLESTeNATION (04/07/10)

Captain Nemo interviews BlesteNation FLH: What did you do prior to being BLESTeNATION and how did you all meet? Werdplay: I was a bad kid. doing bad things. I ran around the streets like the typical troubled American kid, stealing cars, and getting into fights. The music really gave me an outlet. Various: I was in high school when me and Werdplay met and formed Blestenation, so I was just doing what an average American teenager was doing. Snorting heroin and running a prostitution ring. FAFU: I was making music and working in and around studios in New York when I met the guys. Before that I was DJing, making beats, and doing remixes to varying degrees on different projects and for different artists in Minneapolis, LA, and eventually New York. I did some touring with different acts before I started working with Blestenation but then once I met the guys I just got focused on that. FLH: What made you want to get into hip hop rather than any other genre of music? Various: I grew up in a musical household, but I quickly learned I had no patience to learn an instrument, so I decided to rap. Plus you can't make fun of someone with a horn solo. Werdplay: It was just there. Just like all the other music in my life. It was there for me to hear and I gravitated toward it because it had a sound I loved right off the bat. When I saw LL. Cool J and Run DMC out there I knew I wanted to be part of that shit. When Wu-Tang dropped “36 Chambers” I knew I wanted to take this little rapping shit I was playing with to the next level. FAFU: I'm into all genres of music. I don't consider this to be strictly hip-hop I use whatever influences I have at any given time and over my entire lifetime to shape the kind of music I make. I've also done drum and bass, rock, funk, and reggae music and I think that all of those influences are present with this project. FLH: Where do you draw inspiration from? Werdplay: Mostly life experience. Musically it's whatever I might be rocking at the time. If I’m listening to Neil Young for a week, I’m writing songs with that state of mind guiding me. Same for if I’m listening to Pharoahe Monch or Ghostface Killah or whoever else, but most of my inspiration is taken from things I actually experience in my life or other experiences people tell me about. I love to tell stories. FAFU: Life. love, heartache, pain, and reruns. Music. Bad Brains and Wu Tang. Cannabis Sativa. Igor Stravinsky. Traffic and the sounds of the city. I'm influenced by Vary and Werdz and anyone else who I'm around. Various: I draw inspiration from everyday life. Whatever is going on in my life really. I personally don't usually get to political. I just bust rap. FLH: What artists have you worked with and still want to work with? FAFU: We've done songs with Method Man, Maynard James Keenan, Ladytron, Travis Barker, Mic Geronimo, RA the Rugged Man, Kardinal Offishall, and members of Papa Roach, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Cool Kids, and Prince’s New Power Generation. I'd love to do a song with Peedi Crakk, Jack White, and Fiona Apple all on the same joint. Various: I think the illest collaboration would be Blestenation, Don Ho and Jim Morrison. We're still trying to get in contact with those guys, but they're being pretty difficult. The song is gonna be called "People are Strange in a Tiny Bubble City" FLH: What kind of tables do you use/What’s your setup at shows? FAFU: Depends on the show. CDJ1000's or Serato with 1200's. We're coming with some new new shit soon. Look out for some new additions to our live set soon. FLH: If you could freestyle battle against any other rappers in the game right now, who would you take on? Werdplay: This is a question for me like 8 years ago. I’m not a freestyle battle emcee. I’m a songwritter and performer and that’s what I’m best at, although I make hip-hop music I very much approach each song as if I’m writing a rock or pop song; there is a format. I probably wouldn’t wanna battle anyone just for the simple fact that I don’t feel it would get me any farther than I am right now as an artist and someone that spends all their time battling would probably eat me up. But at the same time those people could never create a song the way I do, so the scale is balanced and we all get to co-exist peacefully with success in the future. Various: I would take on the DJ from the group with that butterfly song. I know he probably doesn't rap, but I just think it would be fun to be able to make fun of him to his face for 60 seconds. FAFU: Me personally I'd like to battle Kesha. But I'd probably lose. FLH: For FAFU who would you pin yourself against for a battle at the turn-tables? FAFU: To be totally honest and down to earth I think I could take Brian Austin Green from the original Beverly Hills 90210. Nah for real I don't really battle like that or nothing I'm not trying to prove anything on that tip. I respect all the DJ's out there doing their thing. Big ups Werdplay: One time I seen Fafu straight up crush DJ Tanner in a battle in front of a full house. FLH: What can you tell me about The Musick? Werdplay: The Musick is a film directed and produced by some talented people hailing out of Minnesota. I had spent some time out there or a few months last year and happened to run into some people who not only took to my work ethic, drive and determination, but ended up writing a movie with me in mind as they went about it. I feel very lucky to have been called upon to star in a film only a year or so into just getting my feet wet in the acting game. I think it could turn out well for us with this one. FLH: Does it mirror your life in music in any way? Werdplay: Not at all. The character "deep" is fronting in the beginning. He is a "fake" rapper of some sorts. He also kills people; I’m not fake and I don’t kill people. FLH: What can you tell us about the upcoming Underground Musick Festival: Soundsick? Various: Soundsick is gonna be dope!!! Blestenation will be performing. We got Potluck rocking. Bizzare from D12. I’ll be drunk and a good time will be had by all. Werdplay: That Blestenation will be tearing that shit down fasho!!!! April 23rd grab that album! FLH: Do you have any stories from the New York hip hop scene you think the Juggalos would enjoy? FAFU: Yeah but due to the current no-snitching policy that is active county-wide in the tri-state I'm not at leisure to talk about all that. Ask me at a show I'll tell you about the time Method Man tried to get me to smoke dust during a Mary J Blige session and Busta Rhymes came in and smacked Heavy D. Oh wait did that really happen? Werdplay: This one time in band camp... Various: Can't think of a story. I'm sure two will be fine. FLH: What brought you to Sub Noize? Werdplay: I think what finally brought us to Sub Noize was going through the pain and suffering of being signed to a major label that even though the people involved in the project might have had some belief in it, ultimately could and wouldn’t make the effort to BUILD and artist up to what they could potentially be by investing time and money into them. The bigger guys want the sure thing right away with that catchy hook they can use and throw you away after ya done. Sub Noize wants you on their team bustin ya ass and building a fanbase so that when ya old enough to call it quits you have built a solid body of work that you and them can be proud of and...ummmm...hopefully have made a significant amount of money off of. Various: We've been in contact with the guys from Sub Noize a long time. I feel like the fans they present their artists to are our type of fans. We see the sense of community involved with KMK and the Juggalos and those are our type of people. FAFU: Sub Noize is a great label. They let us do what we wanted on the album and they put on dope shows. We've dealt with other labels in the past but they always seemed to be on some other shit trying to second guess what the consumer wants to hear. Fuck all that we make music the way we make music and if people like it cool if they don't then they can leave it alone. No need to force anything cause when the shit loses that creative spirit it loses everything. And then nobody wants to hear it so you're wasting your time. FLH: What can we expect from MBugout City? Various: Mbugout City is a record we've been working on for a long time. You can expect great beats, sick musicianship, and ill lyrics. It's an album I think we're all really proud of and I know people are gonna love. Werdplay: A huge no holds barred, no bullshit album of song after song no middle skit crap...nothing to distract you from the arena rap group that is here bringing you nothing but good hard big rap music for the streetwise and whoever else that might come across it; its huge. FAFU: Bro I don't even know how to answer that one. Go on iTunes and preview the shit. It is what it is. Big Beats. Loud shit. Dope Lyrics. It's Blestenation raw. Some writer who thought we were gonna be the next big thing coined the term "arena rap". I don't know it's just music to me. FLH: And finally, what can we expect from BLESTeNATION in the coming years? Various: You can expect to see us touring through your town and you can expect to constantly get new music and videos and whatever else our knuckleneck minds end up throwing at you. Werdplay: You can expect us to tour, make music release it and keep you happy if we already do. You can expect us to never release anything not up to our standards as artists, which I’m pretty sure matches YOUR standards as artists for us. Expect loyalty from a group that cares about what their fans want and just so happen to be lucky enough to be able to totally relate with what our fans are going through in their own lives....Ups, downs, good, bad, drugs, sobriety (or the effort to stay sober for that matter) love, heartache....all that shit is what we stand for and what we discuss in our music. FAFU: Videos, songs, shows. Website: BLESTeNATION.com Myspace.com/BLESTeNATION

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