Madchild

0:00I thought you were on warp tour. I thought that was happening. Well, I went, I'm still not allowed in America working on that. We can do on our end. I'm actually going to get on it tomorrow. I don't know if you want to talk about it or not. I don't know how to touch you. I don't really know what happened there. Do you want to talk about that or no? I feel like maybe putting it out there in the press might help the situation. Maybe it'll harm it. I don't know. Well, I did an open book. It was, I would say, the under-associated with voices in general.

1:21Like, you know, now instead of maybe not the best for me in general. I'm in negativity. And that seems in Venice Beach for a year and a half.

2:38And I live from that remandry. I do all this time and it had never been a problem. And then all of a sudden 20 years later, it gets brought to my attention. And I shouldn't be doing that. So there was a couple, couple other reasons. But it was pretty obvious to me if I was a member of a certain organization,

3:28which of course I am not and never was. Do you think there's a bias towards hip-hop? Because I've been talking to a lot of artists about this, just in terms of border crossing stuff. Like they'll single you out. And maybe I'm pushing on stuff that you don't want to talk about. And I get that. That's the case. No, yeah. I don't think that to be biased. Like, for instance, I have a lot of tats, obviously, a hip-hop guy. I don't think that I understand that they're allowed to be biased, but I do think that it's human nature still. So I think at the end of the day, to answer that question, you know, guys at the border and stuff are still human beings.

4:15And I think that even as much as we as human beings try not to be judgmental, I think that we all are a little bit to some point, but we try our best not to be right. Absolutely. And in there, you talked about changing your life around. It gets better. Let's get to the record, because that's what we're here to talk about. It gets better, obviously, about a rebirth, about a change in life. You want to talk about maybe crafting that? When did you have time to make this record? Because I just talked to prevail like two months ago when you guys were on the road. Yeah, I just, you know, that's one of the great things about sort of sobriety. And I like calling it just being normal because I think the word sobriety kind of scares people and it even scares me a little bit. So I kind of, you like to use the word normal, but sort of what I call being normal now just allows me a lot of time.

5:03And, you know, I'm a workaholic. So it's like people with addictive personalities can either be addicted to bad things or positive things, right? So it's supposed to be 2006 when I owned Balauk's records and had, you know, 11 employees and we were getting winning, you know, much music awards and Juneau's and Golden Platinum records and, you know, conquering the universe. It's okay to say that besides, of course, captain of the ship and my work at Fristen again, my work ethic is sort of work is my life again, besides my family.

5:52But it's, it's, it almost, I think, prevail was talking about you in Winnipeg, staying at DJ Joe Jones's and recording like 13 verses in three days or something like that. Yeah, and I don't do that every day. That was just sort of getting caught up on, on jobs that I had sort of people were waiting on. You know, it's kind of popular now with, with, in hip hop. I don't know how long it's gonna last for, but for kids all by versus off, off their favorite rappers. So I had sort of a line of kids waiting because we were on tour and I said, you know what, I'm just gonna prove to myself I can knock it out in this amount of time.

6:38So yeah, that we just buckled down with Rob and got those all done in those three days. That's interesting. So how does that work? Does the kid, you're calling them kids, does the kid send you a beat and say, Hey, we're looking for a verse does it give you a theme? Like, how do you, how do you lay down what that kid wants? And you just said, you speak what you speak and then hope the kid likes that kind of thing. And when I say kid, I just mean, I didn't mean it like kid. I just meant other artists. I know I just went with the word you went with. I got it. That's going to be. Usually they're younger than me. Right. So, you know, you know, do you want me to just beast out? You want me to just, you know, be ferocious with my lyricism or do you want to talk about a topic?

7:31So, you know, we'll usually quickly talk about that by email first. Or I'll, I do their verse first so I can sort of feed off what they do, but more usually they want that sort of racism that I do. That's usually what they're, they're hiring me for. Do you think that's what you're known for? What makes Matt Child Matt Child? I think that's what separates me from the rest of the heard. Something that's always been super important to me as a fan. I know that I've always been extremely disappointed in the path incredibly talented. They were when it came to word play and the it was their main strength was focusing on their word play.

8:27It always was a huge disappointment to me when I was younger when they started watering down their lyrics or when they started not focusing on that as much or maybe changing their style because they thought it was going to make them more money. So, here I am faced with that same thing now and I'm trying to make sure the kid inside of me, in full of us out there for sure, but guys that really, really focus on on razor sharp lyrics and why I've been embraced the way that I have as an artist.

9:32As a lyricist, do you write down and really go over and cross out words here and there and do revision after revision until you feel the right thing or are you more of a stream of consciousness kind of writer. Now, I used to do exactly that. I used to take sort of a long time to get one verse done or two verses done. As I've evolved, make a decision. Am I am I going to focus on business again or am I going to focus on the arts or decide to focus on the art in half years. I went from doing exactly that verse and go back and revise and make it a listener.

10:26It's okay. The liturgy as well as quality really on a weekly or daily basis as far as blog leagues or. I'm going to focus on the studio every day now. I just simply can't do that because I am also focusing on business again. But I do try to go when I'm when I'm rolling and when I'm inspired I'm trying to go five nights a week. So I'll go to the studio for four or five hours five nights a week with Rob the Viking. Now as I've evolved, it just you simply have to be a little more free spirited a little bit more free. Free with your styles evolving and in some ways simplifying my word play is getting even more impressive to me because I keep finding that having done before which is not an easy easy task after, you know, a decade and a half music that I want to listen to because I found that's the best recipe is to make music that I want to listen to and to write lyrics that I want to impress myself with.

11:46And here so with that being said, it's more of a numbers game so I can go and do I can do a whole song and still be 98% happy or 95% happy with what I've done. And that that just have to be good enough now to be able to compete with the quantity that's out there because it's such an oversaturated world because the internet is so oversaturated. And if I was to just be such a, you know, maybe it would work to just focus on being a perfect artist and go over it and then only putting out an album every.

12:39So is that the plan lawn mower man's coming out in well August six in a couple weeks here and then super beast in the winter kind of thing. Yeah, I mean I have super I could have super beast ready for October 21st my birthday. And that would literally be three months later. And I would love to do that but of course I'm in school and members as well so I'm assuming that slot will go to the next school and members album. So you're going to be going back that's the plan is to go back and forth I guess for the next year or two years I mean as far as far out as you planned I guess. You mean the next five or six years that's okay. I don't know how far you plan ahead. That's a busy. No, I just mean we're going to keep going for that long. Right. Yeah, yeah, that is the plan and sure. Yeah.

13:26So it goes what you're saying kind of goes against and I figured you were just you know you weren't being serious in Tiger style when you say there's no one to impress and nothing to prove it still it still sounds like maybe there's no one to that you purposely want to impress except for yourself. There's still goals and still things that you still want to do in the hip hop game that you haven't done yet. Absolutely to impresses myself and what I say that what I mean by that is I literally and you literally doesn't matter to everyone's approval and the way that these kids talk on the internet man for hatred like I'm very fortunate.

14:21But what I have to remember is when I'm reading these YouTube comments is that these kids could be 11 or 12 years old with the computers at home like there's no, there should be a rule. There should be a law or a way that the government that that people's age has to come up on the comment so you get some kind of an idea of the person that's writing these things because if there is some kids aren't going to walk down the street and go Hey, you're for your you're you're soccer. You should go kill yourself or you know what? Why don't you go have sex with you?

15:08You know terrible things that they see on the internet kids don't walk down the street and say that. So why is it okay and I'm sorry I'm just going off an attention about something else from what your question was. But why is it okay for kids to say these terrible terrible things on the internet and why are we. I wonder why it's not being done about this. I know there's anti bullying because poor kids are committing suicide from terrible things people are saying on Facebook like the poor girl right that died here last year or this year. I'm sorry. I don't know the exact. Yeah, a few months ago. I know what you're talking about.

15:54Okay. You know, so of course everybody gets together for anti bullying thing. But I mean, why is something actually not being done like this is a huge problem. Everyone has an iPhone. Everyone has a computer. They're not going away like this is the way things are now human beings. We should be ashamed of ourselves. I wonder if it's just because it's still a fairly new thing. I mean the cyber bullying things only two, three years really since Twitter started is what I'm guessing and thinking right now. So I wonder if it is in motion, it's just, you know, you know how Congress or whatever we have in Canada parliament is takes forever to get anything done. So maybe maybe the wheels are just starting to spin as people start to speak up hopefully.

16:43Hopefully, yeah, because I can take it. I know who I am. And, and honestly, I'm super, super fortunate and super, super lucky that I'm usually just getting prop. Okay, I'm usually getting props on the internet and people are usually top same great things. But, you know, it still stings when you get those comments once in a while and I go on to other people's pages and I see how much shit these kids talk and how much they talk to each other. And so quick to say, Oh, go kill yourself and go do this and go do that. It's just like, man, I hope it's a pay attention to it.

17:32And this is what surprise generation of kids is so much better than the generate than, you know, a decade ago. Much more conscious about the environment. They're so open minded about gay gay people and everybody being equal and, and, you know, not being homophobic. Like there's so much positivity with this new generation that I'm super surprised that we're having this problem with the internet because it's like the generation I came from thought being a gangster was cool.

18:19These kids don't think that's cool anymore. They think that stuff is lame. Like this is great. And these are all positive changes for the world. But that's why I'm surprised. That leads me to two directions. I want to go and I don't know where I want to go with it. But I think I'm going to go into battling because because it's kind of the same thing. I mean, you're still putting people down in a battle, right? But it's more of a tongue and cheek way. I don't know where my question is in this, but you're talking about bullying and battling is kind of a form of that in a way. And I know it's not, but I'm just trying to go with some sort of that. I think you're going to keep it popular right now.

19:06That's what all the kids are watching. And all that it is is making fun of your opponent. Okay, to talk as much smack as you want and talk as much shit as you want. And maybe, maybe I'm just taking the whole thing to heavy on my heart and maybe all these kids can just take it and maybe everybody's used to it being talking shit. Obviously that girl that committed suicide wasn't. Well, the internet's different. I think going into a battle, you know, you know what you're putting yourself into, right? Obviously. Yeah, but I'm saying for the million viewers, yeah, the battle. Oh, I think that could be like part of the thing of why I like, oh, and on the light side of things, they're right.

20:03It is entertainment and it is a battle and to do that and that come up with funny things to say to each other on the internet. And so on the lighter side of things, that's a really good point. I don't know if you noticed, but I battled dirt back there on King of the Dot. And that was kind of one of the things that sort of helped career again when I was just focusing on career. Yeah, that's why I bring it up. Yeah, exactly. Right. But even in that battle, I don't know if you noticed in time and it was great. It was a real challenge and it's exactly I wanted to challenge myself.

20:48It was fantastic. But if you noticed in that battle, I didn't do a whole doing people that you could win a battle with with lyrical wordplay and stuff. And I believe that if I had if I ever did it again, which I probably will now that I would be more confident in the first and second round. And I think that those verses would have come off better. Because if you actually listen to what I'm saying, the word plays with actually how I had hoped to do it. Then in the first order, make some jokes about them because I realized that was the only way I was going to win luck.

21:38I had written and memorized for reversal. It was fortunate that I did that. But I believe that you can have a balance and I hope to see that this battling evolved more into actually skinless of lyricism and and raise sharp lines. I hope to see it go more in that direction with words that rhyme. I think that that's going to get tired eventually. And I hope that the culture of battle wrapping evolves from that because otherwise it's going to personally, I think eventually it's going to get boring just seeing people make fun of each other only.

22:29Of course, that will always be that will always be a part of it. You have to be able to make funny your opponent and make the other people laugh and and conquer your opponent by dominating them and being, you know, showing their way. Showing their weaknesses and showing your strengths, but you can I think you can do it with with having a certain percentage making fun of the other person or whatever or making jokes being being a stand up comedian with words that rhymes like I say. And then do the rest by just outright. I like it. For the top of out be boy your opponent or how graffiti about wrap your opponent.

23:14So it's not like I'm coming up with a new concept and just trying to help. I don't want to take up too much of your time, but I do want to talk about Underground King just to just a topic for a second because he just premiered the video. We are I know but I don't want to take I mean I know you're a busy guy you got I'm sure you got to go drop some verses somewhere something today. I got that in 20 minutes. We're good for 20 minutes. Alright, so so Underground King video. I really dig the and then I know I dig the tomb but I also dig because Hater love it's one of my favorite songs ever and you've slowed down 50 cent the hook at the end where where did that idea come from hip hop I just it was my idea.

24:03I'm charged. Yeah. But Underground King is what I thought the name of the song should be and then I that you know same with me that first 50 cent album or his first major release. Yeah, get Richard died trying his albums of all time. I'm really not interested if anybody does disagrees with me. It's just albums ever made and it was one of the most impile you might have gone in a negative turn, but it was still incredible. You know, it's not about the gangster culture. It's because of that record too. It's exactly because of that. And it is exactly the whole thing exploded exactly

24:51because of that record. But hey, still credit where credit is due and what an incredible album. And man, it was a lot of fun to listen to that. I just actually, believe it or not, bought a brand new copy of that from Future Shop yesterday. Huh. So yeah, I just, the one thing I would probably call myself on blast right now is even though I'm an underground rapper, career is done, hopefully I'll go down to history as one of the guys that really stayed teeing underground rapper. But, you know, I had a couple of ums in the row, but I love 50s.

25:40Like his older stuff, you know, and I love it when he still does a great song. I love this music and I love listening to that music. Of course I love the coconut store and Jedi mind tricks and my friends, dilated peoples and slain and all the underground great joy, both types of hip hop. And I'm just being honest, you know what I mean? So my fans are probably like, oh my God, I can't believe it. Saddy, like straight, incredibly talented. And I'm proud of these Canadians. I am not gonna try to emulate his style, which was the point of my line in that song.

26:26And I just tweeted about it yesterday. I was like, by the way, for anybody listening to the new song Underground King because it just came a week ago, I wasn't in any way shape or form dissing Drake or Mac Miller. I was simply stating that Festival MCs, as soon as they become popular, you'll see here a whole bunch of rappers emulate that exact style, which is, of course, and obviously happened with Drake. So that was all I was saying there. But, you know, I think the guy is incredibly talented. What is an Underground rapper now? I mean, I know what it was, since I'm talking to you and you're talking about it, I get what it was 10 years ago, but now with the internet and file sharing and everything available at everyone's fingertips

27:13at the click of a button, is Underground Rapping different? It's someone who's not a millionaire, no. I was a millionaire, so I'm just kidding. Yeah. That he's part of the Underground scene. I think that, and when you acknowledge that you're an Underground rapper, you're acknowledging and you're acknowledging your responsibility to, and to me, yes, the preying back packed after being a back

28:00gonna keep close to my heart, because it was during a time that was very exciting for me. 93 Tell Infinity was also one of the top 10 best hip hop albums ever made by Souls of Mischief. I'm personal friends with some of the guys in Souls of Mischief, and I've done music with Dell and casual and the whole hieroglyphics crew. And, you know, maybe they're not at the forefronts like they were, but there is a time they were untouchable. And that was a big part of my life. The whole hieroglyphics crew for prevail. It was the whole freestyle fellowship crew. And even from the East Coast groups, like leaders in the new school, tribe called Quest, De La Soul, Operation Gap from even that too.

28:47Tell Infinity, De La Soul was a bit earlier with their first record. I think it was late 80s, correct? Sounds right. 89, I think. Yeah, 3 feet high and rising or whatever. That whole era, everybody was still outshining each other with this on it.

29:34There was nothing watered down. So being an underground rapper, to me, is not watering down your music. An underground rapper is not saying, like I know the formula. I can go and make a bunch of songs for the radio, but I know that I would be selling myself out and lying to myself and lying to my fans. But being an underground rapper out of it gets better, is now we are getting on. It's something I did with all,

30:21so I put this, the ability is intact when I made that song. There was no, where I said I'm going to make this song for business reasons. Underground rappers don't make music for business reasons. That's a pretty good way to sum it up. Talking about it gets better, the choir, when did that come into play? Because that's the hook, right? The kids or whatever that, the gang vocals. Yeah, how far along into writing that song did you say, this is what it needs? And it was already done. All I had to do is sit down and write out of me and relate it, and it was a done deal.

31:07So I have to thank Chin, who's an incredible producer from BC, someone we should all be very proud of. He's done for Khalil. He works on, he did Pink's last single. He just got a Grammy, and he's from Vancouver. You know, I wanted to make some big records, but I knew I could make records with substance. I knew I could react to the table, and he would help design something that was a bigger sound. So it was incredible. And then of course with Sophia Denai,

31:52who sings also wrote that chorus. I believe it was them together that had the rest of the people that were in the rally now. So we do something called five questions. Everyone I ever interviewed gets five good questions, one word answers, and what I love about hip hop artists is I get to add a sixth question. Okay. So we start road or studio? Minds like, what do I enjoy? Just I have to answer. Yeah. What do you, what do you prefer? Road or studio? That's a good one, right?

32:41You got time. You can think about it. Okay. I can say both. You can say both. I'll be a little slightly disappointed if you say both, but you can say both. Well, because it depends. It truly depends. Well, today, what you name the two favorite things that I love to do. So right now I'm itching to get back on the road, because I've been home for two months, which I will be on the road August 15th for two months across Canada. 40 shows on the long map. More a man tour. Little plug there. Yeah. That was good. Yeah. But, you know, just do it and just finish your song, man.

33:28There's no, there's no high like that in the world. So you just name the two things that I love most besides my family. So am I talk? That was, that was a good answer. I'll print that. That was good. That like that. Lennon, Lennon or McCartney? Wow. All right. Parker Biggie. Biggie. When you. Oh, she's, oh, Park though. It's so cool too. But yeah, I said Biggie. I got to go with Biggie. Yeah. When you hear. Okay. No, go ahead.

34:14Music Biggie for me hat has a listener. I had all Biggie's albums to talk as a, as a legend as a persona was larger than life and incredible. And seems to have the same ethic you did. Like he was in the studio basically consistently. The originator of that concept. Mm hmm. When you hear a song what usually hits you first lyrics, melody or rhythm. Then but I'm first thing is going to be the rhythm before the melody or the lyrics.

35:01Always. Cool. If no one, if someone has not listened to Mad Child before, what song do they start with? I'm going with, I'll go with Devil's Reject. Cool. And in one word, Mad Child. That's a good one. Thanks man. I appreciate this. I'm glad we finally got to do this. It makes me happy. Me too. I appreciate it. These are great questions. I feel like we were just having a conversation. Those are my favorite kind of interviews. Nice man. Thank you.

35:47Hope you got what you wanted and I really appreciate your patience and appreciate your interest in wanting to do this. It means a lot. Yes. Yeah. It's all good. I'll tweet you the link when it's up in a couple of weeks. Well, I guess the week of August 6th. Yeah. We'll get it at what blasted everywhere and put it. Sweet. Well enjoy the rest of your day, Mad Child. Thank you very much. Thanks brother. Keep my number if there's anything I can ever do or come into town and do in the show or whatever. It'd be great to meet you sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Next time in Toronto we'll hook up. Okay. Thank you. All right. Bye.