Shabooty Interview Series: Tech N9ne

Shabooty Interview Series: Tech N9ne

I sat down with KC rapper, Tech N9ne at Rock The Bells. We didn’t break bread as much as we sat down and broke some metaphorical Taco Tico, Raul Ibanez in ’01 style (Kansas city references). Part Two VIDEO after the jump.

SHABOOTY: What is the background on the face paint?
TECH N9NE: The clown, man… I became a clown years ago man. Kansas City, Missouri used to have a myth about a killer clown that rolled around and kidnapped kids, but it was a myth, it was just something to scare people. The mysteriousness of it all, of how everyone was on their tip toes every time they came out of the classroom or school, it kinda drove everybody crazy man. And he drove a yellow van and this that and the other and I’ve always had a phobia of clowns when I was little because you never knew what was behind that painted on smile, whether it was fake…

Were you a fan of Stephen King’s IT?
Ah, totally man, after the years progressed, Penny-Wise became one of my favorite clowns you know what I’m sizzling? An alien clown, you feel me? I own that movie everywhere I lay my head, if I have five places I lay my head that means I have five copies of IT. I became what I feared, the clown, the mystique behind it. I don’t what people to really trip on my appearance or how I look, I want them to wonder, what the hell is that. It arouses suspicion, it makes them want to listen to a wild looking mo fo, ya know?

What city are you representing?
Kansas City, Missouri. Born and raised.

You ever been to Taco Tico or Tico Taco? [The delicacy Taco chain of the Midwest].
Yeah, I’ve been to Taco Tico before. You know what I’m saying? Damn, I ain’t heard that in a long time. They got some in Lawrence, Kansas.

Do you watch The Wire?
Yeah, every time we come here to Maryland, we play [Ram's Head] Live. And right were we park our buses looks just like The Wire, with all of the people hanging out right on the corner. It is The Wire, man. Yeah, I watch it like a mo fo, I mean I don’t get to watch it as much as I’d like, but I’ve seen it time and time again, and I dig it.

Do they call you Tech N9ne because your rhymes are fast like a tec-9 [gun] spits [bullets]?
When I first got my name that’s what it meant, and it’s like as years progressed and I got older and wiser man I noticed the way we spelled it was tech, sort for technique, the gun is TEC or TEK, and we spell it Tech, short for Technique, the number nine is the number for completion, so it means the complete technique of rhyme, technique number nine, tech n9ne.

You ever shoot a Tec-9?
Yes, I owned one, I had to sell it when I was like 24 I think I sold…I got it for my 21st birthday from my Aunt, so you know we was living crazy, when you get a gift like that for your 21st birthday. I used it a couple times, and I had to get it out of my hands, because when times got rough, because I was going to do something real stupid. So I sold it for $99 bucks to my brother’s friend. It was semi-automatic, it wasn’t fully automatic, though.

How can you still be considered indie, if you sell a million records?
Haha, I’m indie, I don’t have to pay nobody. I don’t have to pay a major label or get them no motherfucking percentage, me and my partner Travis O’Guin. we take it all and we put it into our other artists. We take our independent money our million sold and we put it all into [my new artist] Krizz Kaliko’s project and hire new people for his project, we do that, we keep putting it back into our company and into our artists man, and that’s how we stay afloat.

What’s your favorite record you’ve done?
My favorite record …Everready, I really love Everready… don’t get me wrong, I love Killer, a lotta things on Killer, just something about Everready, man it has Riot Maker, Come Gangsta, it has Running Out of Time, it has The Rain on there, it has My Wife, My Bitch, My Girl on there, it has so much on there, My World is on there, man.

What other indie hip-hop crews you run with?
We tour with a lot of ‘em, Kottonmouth Kings, that’s our brothers, we’ve toured with ICP before, but I don’t really run with no body but my homies – we’re in our own world.

You listen to Howard Stern?
Krizz Kaliko: I always liked Howard stern for years because he didn’t care about what people thought about what he said and that actually ended up making him famous, him sticking to his guns, I just admired that, that’s what I admired about Tech he’s the same way ya know what I’m saying. He’s never scared to say what’s going on in his life. Howard Stern they’ll start tripping with him, the front office of whatever network he was at and he’d go and tell the fans that. I adopted that philosophy from him and like Tech – I love Howard Stern, besides for the fact that he’s had the naked girls on there.

When did your first record drop?
Probably around 96′ our first single back when I was on Midwestside Records back home and we put out a single called Cloudy-eyed stroll, hat had a b-side of a song called Mitch Bade that blew up in KC and it lasted from 96′ all the way to up now …that buzz.

PART TWO – VIDEO:

Tech N9ne Interview – ROCK THE BELLS (Shabooty.com)

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