Q&A With Philadelphia’s TradeMark & Kafka
Wow. TradeMark & Kafka! We really enjoyed your latest album “Back 2 Back” , one of our main contributors BOOM even gave it and 8/10!! How long have you been making music together? What area code(s) do you guys rep!? And how did you get your emcee names?
Kafka: About 12 years now. Trademark and I started hanging out sophomore year of college at parties and learned quickly we both had a love for hip hop and became fast friends. I had turntables at the time and Trademark would come over and we’d kick freestyles. It just progressed from there to recording at a friend’s home studio and then deciding to become collaborators.
TradeMark: Yeah. Kafka and I started together in college – hosting parties, kicking freestyles, making recordings, handing out mixtapes, doing shows around campus. It all just kind of took off from there.
What area code(s) do you guys rep!?
Kafka: Philly – 215 all day.
TradeMark: Still rep Philly, no doubt – I was raised there and that’s always gonna be a reflection of who I am – but I’m actually living in Baltimore (410 / 443) these days. Moved down here about 5 years ago.
And how did you get your emcee names?
Kafka: Franz Kafka (the writer) was one of my favorite authors in school and still is. I just felt how his writing was dark and abstract – I think a lot of my rhymes and production vibe with that. It’s also a sort of homage to the author. He was unknown in his day, and wasn’t appreciated until generations later. I can appreciate that. He didn’t care about notoriety, I don’t either. Music is not my career so this is really for the love, the art-form, and because I enjoy doing it.
TradeMark: TradeMark was just a flip on my government name, with my initials being “TM.” I started using that name way back in high school when I first started messing around with rhymes, and I’ve switched the name up a bunch of times, tried doing different projects and whatnot, but I always come back to TradeMark. My fiance’s family calls me “TradeMark,” haha. It just stuck.
Us being a LA based BLOG, we don’t really know much about the Philadelphia underground Hip Hop scene!! To know there is an up and coming artists like yourselves reppin the PH, just goes to show the state is in good hands!!! Tell us about the scene out there, and how has your city influenced you’re in any way?
Kafka: The scene here is cool, a lot of talent and creativity. Philly artists like the Roots, Major Figgas and State Property were a huge influence on me growing up and I’m still a big big fan. Ab Liva from Major Figgas is a big influence, incredible MC, way underrated. Beanie Sigel, Freeway, Pauly Yamz, Rasheed and Ill Advised, High & Mighty, Jedi Mind Tricks, all Philly legends. Meek Mill is dope. Philadelphia Slick and Noesis, dudes are sick. South Philly Sheed. Ecomog. Joey Camp, a fuckin beast of an MC on the come up.
TradeMark: I haven’t been in Philly like that for a couple of years, but there is definitely a lot of talent there. All of the folks Kafka mentioned, we have worked with a good number of them. I used to do shows with Chill Moody, and he is somebody who has definitely built a name and a following for himself. We went to middle school together actually. Another buddy of mine from high school was in a group called the Catastrofiks, they put out a record in the mid-2000’s, and seeing their success at the local level was definitely an inspiration for me to get more serious about pursuing hip-hop. Philly is cool, but I also never really wanted to sound like anybody in Philly. I think from the beginning I always wanted to stand out and be different.
Lets face it, social media since 2015 has grown tremendously, especially IG!!! Tell us how is your IG grinds is looking, and how have you guys been able to keep up with the high demand on social media? Do you guys have a website??
Kafka: Not really. Soundcloud, youtube, facebook, that’s about it. I post something maybe once every 6 months. Trademark is a consummate showman and shameless self-promoter, I let him make noise for the both of us, haha.
TradeMark: https://www.shawnmicskills.com is my website. I stay up with the social media stuff, try to maintain a presence on IG (follow me @shawnmicskills), but I also think it’s important trying to maintain a balance. I wasted a lot of my 20’s sitting in front of a screen trying to get famous. I’m a little older and wiser now, and my priorities are different, so I try to keep perspective and not get lost online. There’s a world outside of our screens too that I like to enjoy.
Please breakdown the creative process to your latest album “ Back 2 Back” ”?
Kafka: Our first official album we did together, “the Revival”, I entirely produced, and Trademark and I traded verses, and had a lot of guest appearances. It was a really fun project and turned out awesome. But this time around, we said let’s keep it in-house. Trademark is as sick a producer as he is MC, so I suggested this time we take turns on the beats and the rhymes. Back 2 back, as in bar for bar, beat for beat. This concept goes back to the “JayLib” album Jay Dee and MadLib 10+ years ago. So we said fuck it and started e-mailing each other beats, and got to the point where we had a full album worth of material. We recorded/mixed everything over the course of a few weekends. Trademark did the album art. We wanted it to look like a comic book cover, and he nailed it. Project was totally DIY which I think is one of the best parts about it.
TradeMark: Yeah Kafka pretty much covered it. We had been trying to do a proper album together for over 10 years. The first one we did in 2007 never got released, and the Revival project we did in 2013 was really dope (check it out on Spotify), but it evolved into more of a compilation, collaborative kind of thing with some of our local MC buddies in Philly. Which is great, but we knew we had a proper TradeMark & Kafka album in us that the world needed to hear.
How often do you guys perform live?? Any indie DIY tours in the works?
Kafka: When I was younger I enjoyed doing shows more, but now that I’m older I’d rather just put the music out and let it speak for itself.
TradeMark: Same. I got burned out on doing shows. I was either doing shows for a promoter, who would end up fucking me, or trying to promote shows on my own, and then the artists I booked would try to fuck me, lol. Ended up being too much headache and hassle either way. I would get on stage again if the right opportunity came along, but I’m not dealing with nonsense at my age, haha.
How do you feel about the whole XAN & LEAN trend these kids nowadays are on!!!..LOL??? Be honest, do you guys use some of that stuff??..LOL
Kafka: I’m too old for that shit… and can’t spare the brain cells. I gotta wake up for work in the morning.
TradeMark: Nah, haha. I still get busy, but “xan & lean” isn’t really my twist. I’m more into consciousness expanding these days, I feel like that shit is pretty much the exact opposite.
What you guys got cooking next? Any special for the new year 2018!!??
Kafka: A lot actually… Trademark and I are in he midst of a grueling 10 week beat battle being hosted on Facebook//Youtube, check that out, a lot of heat coming. Once that’s done I’m starting on a project with my lady Lizzy who is an incredible singer- it’s going to be a hip-hop/r&b project, I’m really looking forward to that. And I think this summer, I’ll have to convince the homie Trademark to get started on a Back 2 Back Pt. 2… After all that I may finally drop my solo project which I’ve been working on for several years now….
TradeMark: I’ve got an EP in the works right now with my man Hank McCoy, super talented Philly producer. That one is gonna have like a reggae/dub sort of feel. Back 2 Back 2 with Kafka seems like an inevitability, haha. I’ve also got a project in the works down here in Baltimore with a buddy of mine who comes from a punk rock/ska background. We don’t know what it’s gonna be yet, but I always like taking on new challenges and exploring different sounds in my music.
Where do see yourselves in 2018? (2023)?
Kafka: Having fun making beats, writing rhymes, pushing hip hop forward while appreciating its history.
TradeMark: Hopefully I’ll be happy in my life, still making music, trying to keep “classic” hip-hop alive in whatever small way that I can… I’ll probably look back on where I was at this point in my life and laugh about how stupid and clueless I was, haha. At least that’s how it should be, right?
Where can fans find your music? Drop all links!!
Kafka:
https://www.facebook.com/kafka215/
www.soundcloud.com/franzkafkamusic
TradeMark:
Check out https://www.shawnmicskills.com – my social media (Fb, Twitter, IG), YouTube, Spotify, etc. is all there. But I’ll put them here too.
https://www.facebook.com/shawnmicskills
https://www.instagram.com/shawnmicskills
https://twitter.com/thetrademarkexp
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxXP594MJuDmf2BKPA_oAkw
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0OPovcfJqOzEIEHdIEI4nc
https://thetrademarkexperience.bandcamp.com
Any new shout outs?
Kafka: Shout out to Trademark. Had a lot of fun doing this project with him and can’t wait for what’s in store. To my lovely lady, who puts up with me staring at my computer doing beats for hours on end and for the endless encouragement. Shout out to our friend and engineer Micah who crafted and perfected the sound for “Back 2 Back”. He also put up with our collective psychosis recording this album and for that we thank you. Hit up http://www.micahforsyth.com. To the homies Esquire and Joey Camp. To my family and friends who motivate me and support my music.
TradeMark: Shout out to Kafka, of course. Been there with me since Day 1. I definitely want to thank my family, my fiance, my friends, my fans who have kept up with me all these years. I don’t have a big following, but I have a loyal group of people who keep pushing me forward in music and in life. That’s all I can ask for.
