Hired Gun Kicks The Ballistics

Nov 28, 2007

Hired Gun Kicks The Ballistics · by R.H.S.

Hired Gun – Arrest The President
Hired Gun – Rappers Are In Danger

Hired Gun is an emcee from the deep, deep boon dox of Jersey, past Somerville even. Where the cell phones still don’t work and people refer to Morristown as “the big city.” Despite being from the other OTHER side of the tracks, I’ve been a fan of Hired Gun for some time now, impressed not only by his frenetic flows but also the manner in which creative vision and political consciousness permeates and strengthens every project he touches. The man is unhesitant to identify his musical creation as both a direct descendent of a heritage of protest and resistance and by logical extension, the future sound that heads need to hear.

In recent months, he’s impressed us OhWordians with his firebrand funk so much that he, along with Donny Goines, NYOIL, and Cause, will be headlining an OhWord/Sit Down Stand Up curated show on Thursday, December 6 at Pianos on Ludlow St, Manhattan, NYC. While browsing through his growing catalogue of solo joints and group endeavors, I am instantly reminded of rap circa 1990 – Hired Gun isn’t afraid to rhyme complex poetry at speeds mostly unattempted on the radio over funky jeep beats, steadily revamping the jewels of ’88 to drop science in a contemporary context. I sat down with the assassin himself at Morty’s delicatessen in North Brunswick for some choice knishes and Ballantine’s Ale and picked his brain for some insight into his own artistry and the status quo of rap.

OhWord: Where exactly are you from? Do they have running water yet? Where are you currently located? What got you into emceeing, besides a lack of cow-tipping talent?

Hired Gun: I originate from Hopatcong, New Jersey, a small rural northwest town near the Pennsylvania border, but have been a Brooklyn resident since 2000. I credit my older cousin who was from Newark, home of Redman, Queen Latifah and Naughty By Nature [Editors’s Note: those guys are mostly from Irvington, let’s be real], for exposing me to hip hop. Where I grew up it was the land of Hall and Oates, Hair Bands, and southern rock. I spent a lot of time in the summer and on weekends though hanging out with him at my Grandmother’s who lived in Hillside (an area around Newark). Listening to 98,7 Kiss with Red Alert and Chuck Chillout, and WBLS with Marley Marl in the late eighties really hooked me on hip hop.

The emceeing became a natural progression from hearing the music and following my cousin as he had grown up rhyming and battling kids in his school. I looked up to him, and identified more with Guru and Q-Tip then I ever really could with Bon Jovi or Eddie Van Halen. So my classmates picked up guitars to follow their heroes…I grabbed a mic to follow mine.

OW: Break down your rhyme writing process for us: your usual mood, muses and inspirations, beat selection, etc. Unless of course you’re one of these pompous super-genius types who claims to never write raps on paper, spare us that please.

HG: My writing process I think for some might be somewhat erratic. It always starts with the first line of the verse, sometimes it’s the last verse, sometimes it’s the first. It can take me days, weeks even months to finish a song. I frequent open mic and performance events where its largely freestyle driven, so at times lines that I can remember from something become the basis for a song.

I draw inspiration from history, other genres of music, poetry. My muses include the black power movement and the cultural stalwarts of that era, my woman, and Brooklyn itself. I see myself as similar to the Last Poets, a cultural correspondent on the happenings of today and specifically what is going on with Black people. My upbringing is not typical of a lot of Black kids in America so I have a different perspective.

OW: Besides kicking the troof to the inheritance-tax dodging Williamsburg youth, what projects are you currently working on now and in the near future?

HG: I’m in the beginning stages of putting together my own brand, Fersh Roots. The goal is for it to become the home of music that inspires me and shares my common vision and ideas. My first solo “The People’s Verses” will be completed this summer. In addition to this, my original fam, ESP has formed a live funk hip hop project, Frequency Activism, to which I’m a member…we have an album that is on the horizon; “Hip Hop in Strange Places”. Also there is a spin off project with one of the emcees, Stats and myself “Town Hall”. We have a project that should be ready sometime in the fall. Two other collaborations the Drop Squad (consisting of Core Rhythm of SpitMatix and Tranquill) and the Black Opz (my drum n bass project) are putting together separate releases that you’ll probably see early next year. I have a couple of guest appearances (peace to RZO and Zeb D’essence) coming up with other artists, but I’m not sure when they are getting released.

OW: Beyond impressing the bejesus out of a comely lass like Christina Milian, what is your ultimate goal as an emcee? Where do you want to go with all of this? Somewhere other than the East Hempstead Arby’s that employs Cut Monitor Milo and K-Solo, I hope?

HG: I want to make quality and inspirational music that can be heard and is known worldwide, and largely pay for itself. I’m realistic about music business and business as a whole, so the idea for me is for the music to pay for itself, not necessarily feed me. Success to me equates to being able to release a project realistically every other year, have outlets through the Internet and traditional radio to play my music and the opportunity to travel to perform it. I’m already doing some of that now, so the focus is to develop the business side more and expand it. I still believe the Internet and the digital age is the great equalizer and most importantly allows for a DIY artist such as myself to have a viable sustainable platform. It’s all about the quality of your product and the quality of the relationships you have with others artists, your audience and those outlets that can get your music heard.

OW: Name a rhyme you wished you had spit. Marley Marl’s “Funky Worm”-styled introduction on “The Symphony” doesn’t count.

HG: Does it have to be one? Ha ha. Times up-O.C., Pharoah Monche’s verse on “Stress”. There are so many.

OW: How do you feel about the current state of hip hop lyricism? Supposedly some d-bag in a pink suit claimed that hip-hop died last year from the comfort of his Bergen County mansion – care to comment?

HG: I think Hip Hop’s spirit can never die, but I definitely think the body is a corpse. What I mean by that is, for the better part of the last two generations now, Hip Hop has been the voice, and the reflection of Black people. It has told our story, and has given the world access into our physical, mental, and spiritual frame of mind. Its given people who otherwise would not be exposed to black or latino people a frame of reference. I don’t see what is being portrayed as “hip hop” telling our story any longer.

In this era creating music with creative concepts, and complex wordplay is not even looked favorably upon. How catchy is the hook? That’s it. How flashy is your image? That’s it. If Big Daddy Kane had just been his shiny suits and truck jewelry, no one would have cared. What’s needed to survive and have a reputation now has changed and with that change the very things that make hip hop such a strong cultural force are gone with it.

OW: Any last words for our [several dozen, mostly Scandinavian] site visitors?

HG: Yeah…wherever you see my name go check for it. www.freshrootsmusic.com. Stay true to your art and your expression, and recognize that music should be about music not the business and the bs politics behind it. Shouts to my SayWord Fam (also the company I am a part of and started with Farbeon, Rabbi Darkside, Art, and And I, www.saywordentertainment.com) ESP, Drop Squad and Black Opz.

Comments for "Hired Gun Kicks The Ballistics"

gotta love Jersey. respect!

— khal Nov 28, 09:36 AM
Ain’t no beats back in the Lake
Glad you made it out
FTS

— Jazzpoetic2 Nov 28, 12:22 PM
See, most interviews I read on the internets don’t have this: an interesting subject, a creative interviewer and agent b flipping graphics off Yo! MTV Rap cards. Ha! Hired Gun is serious business, and I’ve know this since the HHI Writer’s Guild. I’m going to try to make it to Downtown Manhattan for next Thursday.

— Jay B Nov 28, 01:52 PM
Actually, Agent B. ha dnothing to do with that graphic, I just took it from Hired Gun’s myspace site.

— R.H.S. Nov 28, 05:14 PM