Cee-Won X – Q&A Interview

Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from? How long have you been making Hip Hop?

Peace, I’m Cee-Won X of the Sons of the Tongue Posse. Born and raised in Houston, TX. I got my start in this culture in 2008 as a B-Boy. So i was originally a breaker, battled my way up and then eventually moved to different elements. I sing, play guitar and rock the turntables as well.

What influences you in making Hip Hop?

Man so many things. That’s such a simple question but for me there’s so many levels to it. Everything influences me and sometimes I get inspiration from the most random places, not even just music. I’m heavily influenced by a lot of post-hardcore music, bands like Dance Gavin Dance and The Fall of Troy, I enjoy the complex and sometimes chaotic song structures. Also Punk bands like Refused and even more popular stuff like blink-182. The Smiths influenced my last project in particular. Rage Against the Machine has been a major influence on a lot of my work. Public Enemy, Native Tongues, KRS One all have influenced me and continue to influence me. I’m heavily influenced by people, it’s not always about music and artists. Malcolm X and Bruce Lee have had and continue to have a major impact on me. A lot of what I do is influenced by things going on around me, things going on around the world, things I have issues with. Art is a reflection of you and you are a product of your environment to sometimes a major extent, so there’s just so many levels to influence. Women are a big influence. Women are important, I pay attention to a lot of whats going on in feminist circles. That stuff is as real as it gets and it influences a lot of what I do musically and in my day-to-day life.

Describe your music, and what separates you from other MCs?

Describing my own music is not always easy for me to do, I’ve had so many times where ill meet someone and hand em a demo tape or ask em to look my music up and the first thing they ask me is “what kind of music do you do?” or “What’s your music like?” and I always have to think real hard about it before I answer them. I usually just tell people I make Political Rap music. I try to steer clear from the term “Real Hip Hop” but many people would call what I do “Real Hip Hop” and sometimes I do just tell people that’s what I make. At the same time it’s not so simple, I think its pretty clear there’s a lot going on in my music. I also try not to box myself in. I just wanna call it Rap to keep things simple…maybe Alternative Rap. Not sure what else to call it, My job is to create and represent properly so I’ll let other people debate about things like that. I feel like there’s a few things that separate me from other emcees, I sing, dance, DJ and play guitar so not only do I have more than one element of the culture covered, I also do some things maybe a lot of cats don’t. Id also say my voice separates me, my voice is very distinct. Its strong and loud.

Who have you collaborated with? Who would you like to collab with in the near future?

I’ve mainly just worked with my brothers from Sons of the Tongue but im starting to do stuff with other peoples. This last project I did had a real true school sister by the name of Jroz featured on “Refoundation” and that was a big deal for me cause she been representing for years and years. That was an honor to be on the same track as her. Same goes for Mana, she’s on my song “Recognize”. Really liked what she did on that track. I’d like to work with a lot of artists. My hero is Q-Tip, itd be a dream to work with him. De La Soul, Chuck D, Slick Rick, Zack De La Rocha, Lupe Fiasco, Kanye, Talib Kweli, Common, Immortal Technique, anybody from the Native Tongues because they were who made me really wanna Rap. I wanna do some work with Black Eyed Peas, Will.I.am has always been one of my favorite emcees and producers, would love to work with Incubus. I really wanna work with Vel the Wonder from LA, she is an amazing artist. I could see us doing an EP, our styles would blend real well.

Your definition of “Underground Hip Hop”?

My definition of just “Hip Hop” is a culture, not a genre of music. The culture I’ve spent the last 7 years of my life in is not what I see represented in mainstream television, radio, etc. The culture I know can be seen alive and well today at Jams where DeeJays are playing James Brown records and B-Boys and B-Girls are cyphering and battling. So to answer this question, Hip Hop alone by definition is underground. There are worlds that many so-called “emcees” today know nothing about.

Production wise, who are your influences? Who does your production?  And who would you like to work with?

Ahh I’m hard to please with beats. I love the greats, Dilla, Premo, Pete Rock, etc.
Lately most of my production is from a brother simply named Shepard. Real cool cat. He makes some of the best beats ive ever heard. Me and the team are steering more towards in-house production though. Id like to work with Thes One from People Under the Stairs, I love his beats. Will.I.am from Black Eyed Peas is on my top 5, to have a record produced by him would be dope. Gotta work with Pete Rock and Premo. I wanna work with Kanye, easily one of the greatest producers of all time. Q-Tip’s production is massive. Gotta work with Q-Tip.

Any current or future projects you are promoting?

Right now I’m mainly pushing “The Excursion II: A Poet In the Land of Cruel Intentions”, saying a lot went into that project is an understatement. I’m always working on something though, be on the look out for a Remix EP titled “White Lies” which is remixes from The Excursion 2, and a solo EP called “Return of the B-Boy”. The next major release will likely be a crew project with Sons of the Tongue. Were gonna be releasing our debut LP titled “The Shape of Rap to Come” and I’m real excited about that one. Other than that I’m working on a side project but I don’t wanna release too much info on that one yet.

Can you give us a brief description of the creative process of “The Excursion II: A Poet In the Land of Cruel Intentions”? Also/ tell us a little bit about the concept and idea behind your Album/Mixtape Cover Art.

Excursion 2 was big for me in many ways, the creation of that record was long and taxing. It began in 2013 and up to that point I was doing a lot of iffy recordings with the crew. I consider all that earlier work before Excursion 2 just demos. Some of that stuff was really poor quality but we all start somewhere you know? That being said, The Excursion 2 felt like my big debut. There was a lot of pressure to make a great record, was sort of homeless and sleeping on couches and floors, I wasn’t eating right, felt like a lot of people who was supposed to have my back didn’t have my back, I didn’t know what was going on and I didn’t know what I was gonna do. Was hard to cope with what was going on around me, it was just a mess. All I knew was if I made a great record and got the chance to say everything I wanted to say and if I had the right people on board that it would be a step in the right direction. Someone important to me had died and I was going through a lot so there was this overwheamling feeling of loss looming over my shoulder, it was hard to write and it took me awhile. I didn’t want to rush it, life at the time felt very rushed, everything was on this time limit in my head and I fought to make sure the creative process was the one thing going on in my life that was not rushed. This record was kind of experimental, im playing guitar and bass on it in some places, doing all the turntable work and there’s some pretty solid vocal work. There’s a human element to the sound of the record, I didn’t want things to be too perfect. It wasn’t so simple as “ok lets rap” I drew a lot of inspiration from three albums in particular for this record. Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”, Black Eyed Peas’ “Bridging the Gap” and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”. A lot of Police brutality was happening and all over Social Media, it’s not new but it hit me because it was suddenly an everyday topic, I would go online and it was a new hashtag everyday. I was angry and I was looking at the world differently, that really effected my writing. I wanted to make a record that would take you some place else. Dark Side of the Moon does that to people. I was trying to make Rap’s Dark Side of the Moon. I don’t think I accomplished my goal but I feel real proud of what I did. The cover art is actually a painting done by an artist named Arnela Beslagic, she painted it and I fell in love with it. I wanted it to be the face for the sound, something you could use to identify the music. If you see the cover of A Tribe Called Quest’s “The Low End Theory” you know its Low End instantly, I wanted that and I felt her painting would accomplish that.

Where can we find your music and info?

You can find my work at ceewonx.bandcamp.com and soundcloud.com/sonsofthetongue

Any Shout Outs?

Yea big shout out to everyone who supports what I do, big shout to KRS One “Rap is something you do, Hip Hop is something you live”