Masta ace – how’s it going??
All good man
Whats up man? Thanks for calling in.
No problem
We’re here on CultureVI.com talking to Masta Ace. So – tell us how you got started in the music business?
I was lucky – I won a rap contest and first prize was 6 hours of studio time with Marley. First demo I did was with ’87 or ’88. I got a chance to be on that Marly “In Control” and that’s what set it off.
And then you took a break, right??
Yea, that was between ’90-’96. I was producing for people. I was kinda setting myself up to be more of a behind the scenes dude at that point. I got real discouraged with the game for a minute. I even started sending resumes out thinking I might just get a job as an exec, but, I did a tour in 2000 out in Europe and being out there, seeing the love – I didn’t know there was that many people still checking for me. I came back home, end of 2000, and decided I wanted to do another one.
Disposable Arts
Yup. When I went in the studio to do that album, in my mind, I wasn’t gonna do another album. This was gonna be my last hurrah. So I was gonna do it exactly how I wanted to do it. I was gonna make every song personal and do it for the love and forget anything anybody else might be saying. And then it took me around the world. It took me on the road. I started touring. I went all out with the live stage show. I felt like that might be it for me, so let me go out strong. You step into a club or festival, we’ve been doing major festivals, Splash Festival in Germany, Hip-Hop Kemp in Czech Republic, Hultsfred Festival in Sweden – and you’re talking about anywhere from 10,000-30,000 people wildin’ out.
Do you wish you came up now, with all the tools available to indie artists? The internet. Or do you prefer in the era you came up in?
I’m glad I came up in the era I came up in. Cus I’ll be honest – if I was twenty now, I’d probably be trying to make that next ringtone record. Disposable Arts probably wouldn’t have gotten made. That album was born out of maturity. Out of being in the business the amount of years I’ve been around. Just coming to a certain point in my career where I knew that it wasn’t gonna be this major, huge success story. But I was gonna make the most of it. I don’t wish I was twenty years younger. I still feel young.
With the way that other artists from your era get treated, how do you still make music that’s relevant?
I mean, I think it has a lot to do with me being a fan first. I’m into other rappers. I listen to a lot of hip-hop. I feed off of the young cats. Being around Wordsworth, Striklin. Those guys keep me going. Keep me energetic. They’re always exposing me to some new rapper or some new record. I just think that being a fan is the first step to it. And not just hating dudes just cus they new. A lot of dudes from my era, they just hate dudes just cus they knew like “oh, he’s garbage, everybody’s garbage”. And that’s just not the case. There’s a lot of talented cats out there, you just gotta seek it out. Pick the little pieces that’s hot and throw the rest away.
Well, how do you succeed in the music industry without selling a million records or having a number 1 single on Hot 97?
Well, first thing, you gotta lower your expectations. There’s other levels of making money while being an artist. You gotta find that level that works for you so can be making a living off it. It might not be the living that you see on MTV Cribs. I’ve never been that dude that needed to floss to the highest extreme. You realize that all that stuff goes away. It’s about living a regular life and being able to do the music that you enjoy doing while making a living doing it. Dudes got kids and families. There’s a lot of dudes I know who have been doing it as long as me and they still got their head in the clouds. They’re gonna stay in hiding and they don’t wanna get that day job or get that gig that’s bringing a little something in. They just gonna struggle and barely feed their family until that next break happens or until this next album drops or until this next song pops off. I’m not gonna stagnate and wait for this next big thing to pop off. I’m gonna do something on a level where I feel like it’s comfortable for me and I can make a living.
Where do you see most of your money come from?
It’s album sales, but not on a colossal level. In this business that I’m in, if you sell 30,000 records, you made a nice chunk of change. And you can get the attention and the respect of the distributors.
How has the internet and the digital age changed the way you do music?
It was hard for me to get into the digital stuff. I was one of the last ones going down with the ship, with the analog and the 2-inch reel. But if I don’t adapt, then I become one of those dinosaurs. One of those dudes that can’t get with the times.
Now, how does it make you feel when other artists borrow your style and, in some cases, have more commercial success than you do – using your style?? Does that bother you?
I mean, I may have influenced cats, but I don’t think anyone took my style. I don’t know that I have a style. To me, I’m influenced by dudes too. We all feed off of each other. Maybe somebody may have approached a record the way they think I might have approached a record, but in terms of flow and cadence, I think I’m different on every record. You hear so many different approaches in terms of how I flow song to song. So I don’t know anything about anyone taking my style cus I borrow off dudes and then I turn it into my own thing. Maybe dudes might have a similar voice or voice inflections might be similar but that stuff doesn’t bother me cus we all borrow from each other. I’m sure that just as quickly as they would say I influenced them in some way, I’d say they influenced me as well.
Who’s the one person that you wanna work with that you haven’t worked with yet?
Probably Premo. It’s a long time coming. We’ve been friends a long time and we haven’t actually connected, so I would say him.
eMC - How did four great artists get together for the first time and record such a cohesive album?
In a certain way, we’ve been doing it for a long time – just not the record making part. When I went on tour in 2001, I took Striklin, I took Punch, I took Words, all on tour in Europe with me. And since then, I’ve brought some combination of all of those guys out on the road with me. Most nights, we got up and did freestyles together. So it’s been that connection of us being together and rhyming together that lead to the cohesiveness of the album. We’ve been putting it down for a minute now.
So – anything else coming from eMC in the upcoming year?
I wanna just mention the project with Ed OG coming out next year.
And when are we gonna get that?
Next quarter.
Dope – anything else?
Wordsworth coming soon. 1st quarter. And eMC coming 2nd quarter right after Ed OG.
No Masta Ace autotune album in the works??
I think you can answer that question (laughs)
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Ace. Hope to talk to you again soon.
No doubt man.