Q&A With Rising Carson City, NV Based Hip Hop Artist Homage
Yo, my man Homage!!! Just want to say that your material is super dope, and your video “Ice Nine” definitely got me hooked! Tell me a little about yourself. Where area code your rep and how long have you been making Hip Hop?
Yo! Thanks man, I appreciate that. I rep the 775! Carson City, Nevada!! It’s the capital of Nevada, right next to Reno and Lake Tahoe. Come through, it’s dope. I’ve been rapping for six years or so but I didn’t start getting serious about recording songs until 2015. So let’s say I’ve been making Hip Hop for three years.
What influenced you to start becoming a Hip Hop artist?
What influenced me the most was my love for Hip Hop music. I’ve been a fan since I was a little kid so it made me want to try it myself. Another thing that had an impact on me was a poetry assignment I had to do for school one time. I wrote a poem and spit it like a rap verse to one of my friends who made beats and he said it was dope so that kinda inspired me to start writing raps.. Looking back I don’t know why he said that cuz my early shit was terrible but I was having fun with it so I trying till I got decent. Now, here we are.
Describe your music, and what separates you from other MCs?
My music is dope as fuck!! How else would I describe it? ahh just playin haha. It’s tough to describe your own music, man. But if I had to get technical with it I’d say I make multisyllabic rap songs over grimy boom bap beats. As far as subject matter goes I just talk about whatever I feel like. Nobody dictates what I’m doing so I have total creative freedom, which is how music should be. If I want to talk about killing wack MCs and banging random chicks then I do it. If I want to describe a secret conspiracy to control the world or whatever then I just do it. I try to keep it pretty authentic though, like I’m not gonna rap about being a millionaire and fuckin bitches in my mansion cuz I don’t really live that life. There’s no point in trying to act like someone you’re not. I think that separates me from a lot of MCs today. That and the fact that one time I hit a mountain lion while riding my bicycle. I flew over the handlebars, got all fucked up, could’ve died but it’s cool I got better. I don’t think any other MCs have done that and if you have then let’s battle for who’s more badass.
Who have you collaborated with? Who would you like to collab with in the near future?
I collab with Louie all the time so definitely him. I also did a song with a girl from my town named Stef Kulla, she sang the hook on “Keep Your Distance.” She’s dope you should check her out. I also did a song with this dude Libs from Reno and this rapper Lucas Gomez as well. There’s a lot of people I’d like to collab with! Vinnie Paz, J Cole, Joey Badass, Black Thought, Marlon Craft, Dizzy Wright, Hobo Johnson, RA the Rugged Man, Kool G Rap, Method Man, Czarface, DJ Premier, 50 Cent, Eminem, Willie Nelson, John Prine.. Shit I could name fifty people I’d like to collab with. I don’t got anything planned with other artists at the moment but who knows what’ll happen in the future.
Your definition of “Underground Hip Hop”?
I’d say underground hip hop is the good hip hop music that isn’t being promoted in the mainstream. It’s more lyrical and authentic than a lot of the mainstream hip hop. It seems like a lot of popular music that is backed up by major labels is meant to make people stupid as fuck or something. There’s still good mainstream music and good artists who’d be considered mainstream but there’s also a lot of artists who aren’t very good. Same with underground hip hop. There’s a lot of people who do it well and a lot of people who don’t do it so well.
Production wise, who are your influences? Who does your production? And who would you like to work with?
Some of the producers I’m influenced by are Dr. Dre, Necro, DJ Premier, RZA, and Stoupe. All their shit is crazy.. Pretty much all the stuff I’ve released so far has been produced by one dude, my friend Louie. He’s the same guy I showed the poem to and he told me to keep writing raps. I want to work with all the producers I mentioned before. They’re all legends in my book so it’d be an honor to work with any of them.
Any current or future projects you are promoting?
Yeah man I’ve been writing a shit ton of music so I definitely have some new stuff in the works. The second album doesn’t have a name yet but me and Louie are putting in work, trying make every song better than the last. We have a good amount of songs already recorded but we don’t have a release date or anything yet. Another thing I want to mention is my movie “Language Is Art.” It’s a full length documentary I released in November 2017 where I got over 600 people to say lines that I’ve written and everyone rhymes with each other. We talk about all kinds of things, stuff like war, chemtrails, mind control, water, spirituality, and so on. I filmed, directed, edited, narrated, and wrote the whole thing. It’s pretty awesome and I’m proud of that shit!! Check it out on my youtube channel Homage TV.
Can you give us a brief description of the creative process of “Inscrutable Malice”? Also/ tell us a little bit about the concept and idea behind your Album Cover Art.
The idea for the album came to me the first time I took acid. I had a really powerful experience and my mind was racing all night, the whole thing was very enlightening. Once I got home in the morning I was still kinda trippin. I turned on the TV and it was the old Moby Dick from 1956 playing. I turned it on at the part where someone asks Captain Ahab why he is going after Moby Dick and Ahab gives this long speech that fuckin blew my mind. He talks about an inscrutable malice that compels him to chase this big ass whale around the ocean and it was like this speech described all of life perfectly. Shout outs to Herman Melville and Gregory Peck, ya’ll are talented. Anyways, that’s what inspired the name of the album. Inscrutable means “impossible to understand or interpret” and malice means “ill will or malevolence.” So it’s like an indescribable anger that I’m trying my best to express through music. The cover for the album came from a collaboration I did with an artist named Chris Hattaway. I told him I wanted a picture of a guy standing in front of a bunch of crazy shit ripping his hair out. Skateboards, chemtrails, UFOs, cops shooting people, fat people on cell phones.. all that stuff. Chris is brilliant and he made that idea come to life.
Where can we find your music and info?
You can find all my stuff on my youtube channel “Homage TV” and you can follow me on Instagram @h0mage (that’s homage with a zero instead of an o) you can also contact me through my website homagehiphop.com and my music can also be found on soundcloud: Homage.
