Essence – Q&A Interview

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

Born in Dallas, TX just moved to Phoenix, AZ last year for a job, and further networking. I’ve been writing since 5th grade, started with poetry, then spoken word, and got real big into battling.. It just all sort of merged into song writing.

What influences you in making Hip Hop?

Maybe at first it had a little to do with the neighborhood I grew up in, that was the thing.. I wanted to impress my friends. Now? I just want to impress myself and maintain that drive to make every song better than the last.

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

I consider my music to be both esoteric and diverse, meaning that you can’t hear it and hate it, “just because it’s rap” ..The content in every song is not always for everyone, but it’s fresh, and always evolving.

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

The most known collab I’ve ever done is a song with Hard Target, other than that mostly just locals.. Surf, Juice, EZMoney, E-Man.. I’ll collab with just about anyone who has the drive and creativity to make it happen, other than that I guess just the normal people for exposure.. Drake, Eminem, Busta.. Some less mainstream ones I think would be really awesome is Wax or Atmosphere.

Your definition of “Underground Hip Hop”?

I think it can be loosely defined as artists who don’t necessarily appeal to the masses, or just simply haven’t been found yet. For analogies sake, I consider underground to be the staffing agency of the music business, but in a more self-made fashion. You pick from the options you have along the way and go with it, if you’re consistently good at your job, you get noticed and hired on full-time.

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

Hands down Forty is probably one of the most immaculate producers right now, but my favorite producers have always been the same over time with additions along the way.. Kanye, Dre, Pharell, Timbaland.. Currently I work with a young cat going to production school called JAG, he’s got some pretty tight stuff. We’ll see how the tape turns out.

Any current or future projects you are promoting?

As previously mentioned I recently started working with a new producer who I’ll be working on an entire tape with.. Name and date to be determined, for now I just drop singles once a month or so

Can you give us a brief description of the creative process of “Pipeline To Stardom”? Also/ tell us a little bit about the concept and idea behind your Album/Mixtape Cover Art.

Part of putting yourself out there as an Artist is building a foundation, sometimes planning and putting together a mixtape or song can be so tedious I’d imagine myself wearing a hard hat trying to build it up. I like to translate it as, using pipelines, solid lines (my lyrics) to build way up to the stars (fame) from the ground up… Of course I never had money to make that visual come to life for an album cover, so I used a picture that I drew on my hand in the Army one day when I was bored… It seemed appropriate at the time

Where can we find your music?

Soundcloud.com/EssenceTV – Facebook.com/FreshAsEssTwitter.com/FreshAsEss – Twitter.com/FreshAsEss

Any Shout Outs?

Nah, they know who they are!