Sup Yall, same thing with the San Quinn interview that I posted up, in our last issue of Xplosive Magazine, we did a City 2 City feature on KC and one of the stories was Tech N9ne, but in the C2C feature we can't make the interviews real long, but man me and Tech got on the phone and chopped it up about everything u could think of, so here's the Raw and UnCut Interview, no edits, nothing, This was written sometime in April, so some of it might be dated but there is a LOT of info I know people want to know about, check it out....Story by: C-4
TECH N9NE UnCut Raw Interview
In my humble opinion Tech N9ne is one of the most underrated artists in this music game, and I say artist, not rapper because he is truly a crafty individual. He has worked with just about everybody you can think of in this industry from 2Pac to Eminem, Roger Troutman, RZA, D12, Yukmouth, MC Ren, KRS One, Spice 1, QDIII, Jurassic 5, Brotha Lynch Hung, C-Bo, and many others, and has toured with the likes of Jay Z, 311, The Neptunes, Kurupt, and the Luniz. And with all this he is still not in the position of some of the rap powerhouses in the industry. I caught up with him on the phone at Strange Music headquarters to find out why. He was nice enough to grant us this interview on his daughter’s birthday.
I first asked him to describe his style because it is a little different from the typical rap star. “Putting all the backwards rappin’ and the fast rappin,’ the wordplay all together, you get ambidextrous, and that means left to right either way, left hand right hand, up or down, Tech N9ne is everything in one. Everything you’re used to hearing and everything you’ve never heard before is the best way I can describe it. I’m not afraid to take chances. If I’m on stage and you’re not yelling about something I’m doing then I gotta do something to dazzle them.”
He wrote his first rhyme back in 1985 so he’s been doing this for 17 years, professionally since ’90 when he met DJ Icy Roc with Nnutt Howze which consisted of Tech, Icy Roc, Dino Mack, and Agony. Some interesting explanations behind his name. “9 is the number of completion, 9 months completes the pregnancy, cats have 9 lives, 3+6 is 9, 360 degrees is a complete circle.” He says a lot of things about him arouse suspicion, like the barcode cross which is really just a lowercase T and a 9, it means property of 6688846993 is the code for Nnutt Howze on the phone, the communication device ‘cause that taught me how to think different. Strange Music’s logo is a snake and a bat, but people try to say it’s representing S&M.
Tech has worked with a lot of West Coast artists, this first started when he moved out to California in 1997 with Don Juan with QDIII (Quincy Jones III.) “Pops (Quincy Jones) signed me to the label, Qwest Records. And when you know Quincy Jones, you know everybody. QDIII was working on the Luniz ‘Lunitik Muzik,’ they came by and heard me bust and wanted me to be a part of the Regime, so I have been ever since. Much love to Yukmouth, I met a lot of people through him, C-Bo, Outlawz, Dru Down. I new Lynch years ago, they were gone try to sign me to Black Market a long time ago, I had went on tour with him and 40. Quincy, QDIII is how I got hooked up on the West side.”
Here’s what he had to say about his newest album “Absolute Power.” “It’s a result of ‘Anghellic,’ ‘cause that brought a lot of shows with the likes of Outkast, Moby, & Cypress Hill. It brought us a lot of happiness but it also brought us a lot of sadness because JCor went bankrupt on us. That was my autobiography, so when they went bankrupt I had to go in and do another album. Doing all the shows showed me that I had ‘Absolute Power,’ which is the ability to move a sea of people through my music, through song. ‘Anghellic’ was my inside life, ‘Absolute Power’ is my outside life. In the studio, in the strip club with b*tches, interacting with fans, falling out with friends over money. It’s another rollercoaster ride. ‘Anghellic’ was all my past pain, ‘Absolute Power’ is what’s going on now. That was really my first time putting out something totally new, current, even ‘Anghellic’ had some old stuff on it.”
Strange Music just re-released ‘Anghellic’ because of what happened with JCor. “We had to, we had the perfect set up. We had billboards, everything. We were supposed to shoot our video when we found out JCor was making bad business decisions and investing too much in other artists. We outsold everyone on the label in our first week. When they saw that, they should have jumped behind us like ‘let’s go.’ I’m thankful to have 9 lives in this sh*t.”
TECH N9NE UnCut Raw Interview
In my humble opinion Tech N9ne is one of the most underrated artists in this music game, and I say artist, not rapper because he is truly a crafty individual. He has worked with just about everybody you can think of in this industry from 2Pac to Eminem, Roger Troutman, RZA, D12, Yukmouth, MC Ren, KRS One, Spice 1, QDIII, Jurassic 5, Brotha Lynch Hung, C-Bo, and many others, and has toured with the likes of Jay Z, 311, The Neptunes, Kurupt, and the Luniz. And with all this he is still not in the position of some of the rap powerhouses in the industry. I caught up with him on the phone at Strange Music headquarters to find out why. He was nice enough to grant us this interview on his daughter’s birthday.
I first asked him to describe his style because it is a little different from the typical rap star. “Putting all the backwards rappin’ and the fast rappin,’ the wordplay all together, you get ambidextrous, and that means left to right either way, left hand right hand, up or down, Tech N9ne is everything in one. Everything you’re used to hearing and everything you’ve never heard before is the best way I can describe it. I’m not afraid to take chances. If I’m on stage and you’re not yelling about something I’m doing then I gotta do something to dazzle them.”
He wrote his first rhyme back in 1985 so he’s been doing this for 17 years, professionally since ’90 when he met DJ Icy Roc with Nnutt Howze which consisted of Tech, Icy Roc, Dino Mack, and Agony. Some interesting explanations behind his name. “9 is the number of completion, 9 months completes the pregnancy, cats have 9 lives, 3+6 is 9, 360 degrees is a complete circle.” He says a lot of things about him arouse suspicion, like the barcode cross which is really just a lowercase T and a 9, it means property of 6688846993 is the code for Nnutt Howze on the phone, the communication device ‘cause that taught me how to think different. Strange Music’s logo is a snake and a bat, but people try to say it’s representing S&M.
Tech has worked with a lot of West Coast artists, this first started when he moved out to California in 1997 with Don Juan with QDIII (Quincy Jones III.) “Pops (Quincy Jones) signed me to the label, Qwest Records. And when you know Quincy Jones, you know everybody. QDIII was working on the Luniz ‘Lunitik Muzik,’ they came by and heard me bust and wanted me to be a part of the Regime, so I have been ever since. Much love to Yukmouth, I met a lot of people through him, C-Bo, Outlawz, Dru Down. I new Lynch years ago, they were gone try to sign me to Black Market a long time ago, I had went on tour with him and 40. Quincy, QDIII is how I got hooked up on the West side.”
Here’s what he had to say about his newest album “Absolute Power.” “It’s a result of ‘Anghellic,’ ‘cause that brought a lot of shows with the likes of Outkast, Moby, & Cypress Hill. It brought us a lot of happiness but it also brought us a lot of sadness because JCor went bankrupt on us. That was my autobiography, so when they went bankrupt I had to go in and do another album. Doing all the shows showed me that I had ‘Absolute Power,’ which is the ability to move a sea of people through my music, through song. ‘Anghellic’ was my inside life, ‘Absolute Power’ is my outside life. In the studio, in the strip club with b*tches, interacting with fans, falling out with friends over money. It’s another rollercoaster ride. ‘Anghellic’ was all my past pain, ‘Absolute Power’ is what’s going on now. That was really my first time putting out something totally new, current, even ‘Anghellic’ had some old stuff on it.”
Strange Music just re-released ‘Anghellic’ because of what happened with JCor. “We had to, we had the perfect set up. We had billboards, everything. We were supposed to shoot our video when we found out JCor was making bad business decisions and investing too much in other artists. We outsold everyone on the label in our first week. When they saw that, they should have jumped behind us like ‘let’s go.’ I’m thankful to have 9 lives in this sh*t.”
