DJ EFN: What up, I'm DJ EFN and we're in
The Green Room with Monster Energy Music
and right now I have the pleasure of being with Royce Da 5'9".
Royce: My brother
E: What's going on?
R: How you doing sir?
E: and we're gonna talk
about what's going on this whole weekend
what he's been doing and a lot more so
stay tuned
R: thank you for coming
E: Now we celebrating something real special right now
"The Allegory" I learned a lot of my
vocabulary from hip-hop
R: well at least you pronounced it right
E: so we're here, we in Detroit with you.
You're doing the album rollout
What's this weekend been like, this whole
week?
R: super busy, just doing a whole lot of just
interviews
being extremely vocal I did a...well it
was supposed to be a listening party and
somehow it turned into a performance by
me so we did that
E: the people want what the people want!
R: man I think Kino wanted this (laughter)
so I ended up performing
(background voice) make some noise for Royce Da 5'9"!
(crowd cheering)
E: so talk to us like, how much of
Detroit is always in your music?
R: it birthed my desire to always be technical like our whole like generation circa '95
as soon as I got out of high school I
went up to the hip hop shop for the
first time I saying Marshall, Elzhi, Proof, they were rapping on a level that
I hadn't even seen or heard there was
something about that that generation of
us where we just all shared the same desire to push the pen, I started rapping
just rapping other people's raps extremely well
E: like who? Give me a couple examples...
R: E-40 "Bring The Yellow Tape."
E-40 Bring The Yellow Tape - I can say
exactly like E-40, any Redman song, RasKass "Nature Of The Threat." The bigger
the vocabulary the better. Our
whole generation from Proof to D12
to Slum Village, myself, Obie Trice...everybody that used to be at The Hip Hop Shop
got a record deal every single
person every single person and prior to
our generation there was no such thing
as
a Detroit artist that was on a national level
E: hip hop artists?
R: yes, hip hop artists, yes.
So when Marshall got his deal everybody started getting deals.
Fan: right now we are at the Garden Theater, Detroit
literally the heart of the city right here on Woodward
out here support Royce Da 5'9"
you see the lines? I'm from Conant Gardens, actually I grew up with Dilla. I still
talk to 'Ma dukes.' But it's crazy just to
see like Royce' progression man, I
remember like 'Rock City Royce' you know
'Rhinestone Royce' you know what I'm sayin'
but to see where he at now it's insane
and I'm proud of him, so we had to come out
support for the city.
Fan: it's always special to see somebody that went off and made
it you know represented 'D' the whole time
they went off and did they thing and
coming back and you always got to come
out and support that.
Fan: you know it makes it special tonight
because you know this his hometown
this his city you know be putting out something',
a new project I'm quite sure is real
special to him 'cause this the first one that
he produced himself.
R: I'm excited about it because it's produced 100% by myself
(crowd cheers)
R: it's my first time diving into production
E: How did you get to the place where you felt "I could produce my entire project"?
R: I never actually got to that place you know I started uh...just kind of
messing around it started out with the MPC
I sat on FaceTime with DJ Premier
for like two hours and he walked me through it
E: that must be nice (laughs)
R: well I'm not bragging or anything you
asked (laughs) nah I'm just kidding
How many of y'all out there familiar with DJ Premier?
(crowd cheers)
Come here with your camera
on the count of three I want y'all to say
"we love you Preem"
1...2...3...
Crowd: "We love you Preem"
R: yeah so I talked to him for like two hours
he walked me through how to use it
So I gained a basic understanding on how to
you know at least like program drums
E: is this right here? right here, this is
where you're producing? in this spot right here?
R: yeah I use this now yeah, I produce here
and then I cut vocals over there on that
side so this that's the Pro Tools side and
this is the Logic side
yeah Logic is good for me the reason why
it was good for me is because I learned
Pro Tools first because I'm a rapper
E: right, and where are you
on samples? Like your sample game is crazy on this album
R: Thank you man, thank you I'm a
rabbit hole connoisseur you know I'm
saying like I'm a rabbit hole kind of guy or go on YouTube and I'm five hours
straight just finding samples looking
for samples calling people my DJ is like
always got new shit you know I mean I can always get him to send me stuff it's
just it's just another reason for me to
practice you know and I love to practice
E: I also noticed the way you sequence the
beats is not like, the normal you know
you got verse, hook, verse, hook, like yours
was a little bit more creative did you
did that come from someone, someone inspire that? Was that just you, was that
the rapper in you saying "I would like
to hear a beat like this I want to come
in without a drum pattern here and this and that"?
R: I always arrange any project I got anything to do with
it always ends up being my job unless I'm
working with Marshall or DJ Premier.
When I work with them two, they arrange, or we meet halfway
well me and Preem me halfway. Me and
Marshall don't meet anywhere since
he's just like "This is the arrangement, I'm telling you I'm OCD!"
you know I'm saying so, I didn't want it to
be like anything
I didn't want it to be like anything that exists know it right now.
E: it's its own thing like for sure it's very
creative, even down to the skits.
R: yeah I just wanted it to be like um because my last album I had like a lot of conceptual
songs I had like a lot of stories and I
knew prior to making that album exactly
what I wanted to do. With this album, I
didn't even know I was making an album I
just started messing with beats and one
thing led to another and I looked up and
I had a couple songs and I agreed to do
an EP which is four songs and I couldn't
figure out how to get four songs to
exist with each other and it feels like
a complete thought so I kept adding to it and next thing you know like I
started having a direction in my mind
and one thing led to another I looked up
and I was too far into the process to not produce it myself.
E: but by the way that sounds, it would seem
that you're just doing it in the moment
and just getting it out of your system but it's the projects, and this one
specifically, sounds very well thought-out
yeah like conceptually like tell me if
I'm wrong this is what I got off a first
listen. I felt like the same vibe off
of listening to Public Enemy, dead prez,
and 4:44 all in one project
R: yeah I mean that's good company, thank
you man
I mean up I don't want to sound
dismissive when I say "getting it out," but
I do want to come off a little bit dismissive when I say "that's it, I don't
care after that," like no
validation seeking that's a very
dangerous thing, it's a dangerous place to be mentally, as a creative
I mean so that's the only time
I get a little bit dismissive with the
way that I talk about it. I talk about the
art like it's you know
like it's like it's kind of disposable
at that point because I mean in a way it
kind of is
I feel like every artist...how many artists
we got out there?
(crowd cheering)
Ok well let me tell you something artists
I always say this: the success is a
journey but the art is a destination
it's a place that you need to get to...right?
You need to find out your
self-definition, what defines you, find out
what that is and express that in the
most unapologetic way possible.
If you can get to that place, then
it's just easy from there. The only time
the art gets hard and it becomes
stressful is when you allow too many
people into the ecosystem you know I'm
saying, and then you start making
decisions based off of "okay so I got to
be on the charts, or I got to be, I got to
have something that's gonna be playing
on the radio and I got to have something..."
it's just like bro, I guarantee
'Thriller' didn't get big like that.
E: Oh for sure
Nobody's sitting in no boardroom
you know, writing on little post-it, sticky
post-its about how to sell 'Thriller.'
It's just 'Thriller' you know I mean and it's
that's what classic music does to you is
there is no explanation
it's just understood it don't need to be
said...it's 'Thriller.'
E: what's past this album, like, are you even
seeing that far?
Is it chillin' not doing music
for a minute waiting to see how you know
what it feels like to do something else?
R: one of my passions just it to, I want to
produce full albums, for other people
I want to produce an album where I don't have
to write the raps
E: who you want to produce for, like ideally?
R: I would love to produce for somebody who people
wouldn't think I would be able to.
I think I can do anything man, because...
E: even outside of hip-hop?
R: yeah, well, why not?
Because I feel like hip-hop is just like if
something that's taken over the world you
know I mean like...I've just seen like a country
and western artist
not, not Lil Nas X...but country and western
artists
performing like a rapper
E: no hip-hop has permeated everything
R: yeah, it's like, we took over everything...we
took over the world, so, I mean as
long as I don't have to like know how to
like know theory, or read music, or you know
I mean like do some extreme like Orchestra'd
out beat...I feel like I could do it!
E: well Royce, thank you for having us
in Detroit. You got some Miami boys freezing
out here, but it's been an honor to be here
and talk to you about the album. The album
is amazing. 
R: Thank you man, thank you.
E: Shout out to Monster Energy for having
us both here as well.
R: yes yes, always, always love man, love
and respect
E: appreciate you man
R: legend, for sure
E: appreciate the work you do
R: thank you man
