Interview: Black Mikey & San Diego Rap History, pt. 2
In this installment, Black Mikey (aka C-Wax, Kid Loose, Mikey C.K., and Black Michael) continues to speak on the San Diego rap scene as well as his unique role in it. We also hear from both Mikey and Mr. Ridley about their new collaboration album, Killafornia Infection. If you missed it, check out part 1 of this Black Mikey interview here.
SDRaps.com: You’re one of the only rappers in San Diego that can tow the line between the gangsta world and the underground world. How do you do that?
Black Mikey: Because hip-hop has always been in me, homie. Regardless of the neighborhood I was raised in, we were always b-boys first. Even if we were in khakis and stars and gangbanging in our hood, we always met up and congregated at the park where that cardboard was laid down, that box was slapping that 2-3 break by Chuck Chillout or something like that. Everybody was doing the windmills and nickels and the halos and footwork and that uprock and we was all doing it. It’s in us. And it’s in me to be more than just my geographical location. Just like Orko and Anti-Citizens are emcees and griots, so am I. So I can be on both sides because I am both sides. It’s a lot of other emcees out there that won’t say it but they are both sides as well. My boy Damu is both sides. He emcees his ass off. It’s a lot of us that they say is just gangsta. If you listen to the albums, you’ll see we are more than just gangsta rappers. ……
It just really made me want to set myself aside in being a different transmitter. I transmit a different message but it’s the same message that my Anti-Citizens transmit, Orko Eloheim transmits. But see, Orko Eloheim has been around many times before. He was Orko the Sycotik Alien. Then he was also Young Orko from Boot Without A Sole, before Masters of the Universe. Orko was also on Break Mine Off Records. Everything ties in. Orko was on the same label I was on, ’89, ’90, ’91, ’92.
SDRaps.com: That’s how you guys first met?
Black Mikey: Oh nah, Orko’s my cousin. A lot of people didn’t know that though. We’ve been doing this music thing. We saw them–they were doing another thing. They were walking around with the lunch pails, with the dreadlocks and they was doing the Leaders of the New School-type thing. On some real hip-hop. And we dug that because it was pure. So we told them, “C’mon, y’all coming with us.” Gangsta Ern was really bout it, like “Nah, we gonna get that. We not gonna just stagnate ourselves to this particular type of rap.” And if anybody actually knew anything about my boy Gangsta Ern, he was already spitting, putting the flags down and tying the flags together. That was the whole purpose of the Black Mikey-Gangsta Ern-Damu-South Central Cartel show. Was tying the red and blue flags together. Because at the time, it was about the time of the ’92 riots. The LA Riots. It was right around the same time.
SDRaps.com: So the first thing you actually released was the “Exorcism” single in 1995. Did you release anything else after that?
Black Mikey: Yeah, I dropped another single called “We Drop Bombs,” the song “Gimme,” and another song with a dude named Big Maine, it was called “Pacific Coast Niggaz.” That was another song that was monumental because it was also one of the first Blood and Crip songs put out that the dudes from LA–DJ Pooh mixed that song and they were trying to get Big Maine to be part of the LA Zoo and it was lot of stuff going on at that time with that. But me and Big Maine ended up getting signed to Skyline Records together. So we dealt with each other again around the same time I dropped the “Rubber Rooms” video. Matter of fact, Big Maine is still around to this day so shouts out to my boy because we’re gonna have to eventually do another song.
Shit, it’s a trip running through that because I gotta run there, run back here, run there, run back here. You can almost get trapped back there. And I had some experiences that made me want to do some shit to some people that I ain’t gonna speak on. Because the music business will do that shit to you. Some of these fucking vampire-ass industries will take the fun out of it for you. These labels, these executives will latch onto your vices and control you through them. And get as much music out of you as they can. And they’ll see more money than you all the time. Because they use that as a payola scheme. And if they control you with your habit, they’ll never have to pay you. They just keep you high. That’s why I’m more of an independent pusher nowadays. If I was to deal with a major label–and you can quote me on this–it would have to be distribution, joint venture-type shit. Or I mean, we could pretty much do it ourselves ……
SDRaps.com: Do you think the San Diego scene was more unified back in the ’90s?
Black Mikey: In some ways, yeah. In some ways, no. Because in the ’90s, it was a lot more gangbanging going on than it is now. A lot more people have grown up and seen that they had more in common than they had differences and been like, “I ain’t gonna trip that gang shit with you no more.”
Now, I think there’s a lot more unity and there’s gonna be a lot more unity because through [Mr.] Ridley, I’ve been doing songs with Pedalay the Boss, Young Foe, and people that I wouldn’t normally do songs with. And by them unifying with me, they’re already unified with the people I come from because that’s just how my people get down. It’s gonna add more force to the push. That way their fans become our fans, our fans become their fans. Right now, it’ll trip you out but if you slide through my hood, it’s nothing for you to hear some Anti-Citizens. It’s nothing for you to hear some Jimmy Powers now. Because through me, they’ve met them and now they can hear that, “Hey homie, get a bar of this, this is dope.” Next thing you know, the whole neighborhood is slapping it or the whole Southeast is slapping it. Now that artist got just that much more pub. And he’s bigged up that much more in his own city. And it’s lot more things we need to be speaking on, especially in our times we living in. But that’s whole ‘nother can of whup-ass and I’ma leave it alone.
SDRaps.com: You’ve made songs like “Exorcism” where you’ve definitely displayed a horror rap vibe. Where did you get that from?
Black Mikey: It’s not even horror rap. The reason why I chose “Exorcism” is because, at that time, I felt like the industry was possessed by wackness. It was a time where hip-hop was making a transition. It was going from the Poor Righteous Teachers, the Boogie Down Productions, the AZ’s, the X-Clans, and things of that nature to the Cash Money’s, the Death Rows–You know, everybody has their era just like Down South is got hip-hop locked right now. You don’t hear too much coming from the East Coast or the West Coast. Until now. We gonna do our thang ……
SDRaps.com: You mentioned Poor Righteous Teachers a few times. Were they a big influence on you?
Black Mikey: Yeah, I like the PRT, I like Rakim, KRS-One off top. I like Public Enemy. EPMD. But not only them–I’ll name some emcees that you guys never heard of like Soulful Ernie or the Mighty Key Gang. These are dudes that grew up in my neighborhood. They used to rap when I was a kid. And I used to look up to them. People like a dude named King Tim III, he used to be in a band called the Fatback Band. It was a lot of controversy at that time saying that that was the rap that really started hip-hop. And in all actuality, it was.
But I can name a few other songs with raps that came out before that. Like Blowfly’s “Rap Dirty.” You know what I’m talking about? And you can quote me on that. Y’all go check your history. Get that. Blowfly “Rap Dirty.” It’s on the Twisted World of Blowfly album. And if you wanna find out some rap origins and get your rap bars up, check out a dude called Super Rhymes. Or Jimmy Spicer. He has another song called “Dollar Bill Rap.” I can talk y’all back to some songs that you might not have heard but that formulated and paved the way for the shit that’s going on right now.
SDRaps.com: This was all before “Rapper’s Delight” even, right?
Black Mikey: Nah, this was in the same era. King Tim III–I can say that it was either ’77 or ’78 that King Tim III came out as well. But “Rapper’s Delight” came out actual, factual radio blow-up: 1978. And nobody expected it. But even before the Sugar Hill Gang, it was people like Spoonie Gee, Super Wolf, The Sequence. A lot of them started coming out after “Rapper’s Delight” blew up and gave fuel to the Sugarhill Records label. Then they started putting out a lot of rap music. Then a lot of rappers started coming out.
SDRaps.com: Did you hear all this from military people coming through San Diego?
Black Mikey: Nah, I pretty much grew up in the era. And I witnessed “Rapper’s Delight” debuting on radio on the way to school in the car with my mom. So I can speak this and know it’s actual fact because it’s apart of my upbringing. It’s apart of my growth, it’s apart of my DNA now, it’s apart of who I am. A lot of these songs were songs that were like a soundtrack to my life. Now what I spit is gonna be a soundtrack to someone else’s. And what we all spit, what we play is the soundtrack to other people’s lives.
SDRaps.com: You said you were into music even before rap. What were you into?
Black Mikey: I play pretty much three instruments and I can’t read or write music. Anything I hear, I can play. Give me a second and I’ll play it. But I can also do that from the soul because I can hear melodies in my head constantly. I started playing around with production and right now, I’m just mediocre. But …… it’s fun. I’m not doing it to say that I’m gonna be the next best producer on Earth. It’s just something to do. And sometimes an emcee knows what he wants to rap to. This guy right here though [Mr. Ridley] is the best guy at pretty much so far knowing what goes on inside my head and extracting the soundtrack to it.
SDRaps.com: How’d you guys first decide to make this album together?
Mr. Ridley: We just linked and were like, “Yeah yeah yeah, we should do some shit together.” We started doing these tracks and were like, “What’re we gonna do with these tracks?” And we were like, “Well, why don’t we just do a record?” And it was like, “Alright, well, let’s think about it.” And we just did more tracks and more tracks and more tracks. Next thing you know we’re like, “Well, I guess we have a record. Might as well put it out.” And it’s dope.
Black Mikey: Not to mention all the feedback we was getting about it.
Mr. Ridley: Yeah, it’s not like from the gate we were like, “Yeah, we’re gonna make a record and it’s gonna be dope.” It was like, “Well, let’s just see what happens.” I had to definitely think about the production that I was gonna do for it. It wasn’t like, “Yeah I came with it. I got beats for Black Mikey.” It was like, Fuck. I would do batches where he was like, “Ehhhhhhh.” But eventually we got to a point where it was like I had a consistent amount of beats and we were coming through with it. It just matched the style and the swagger of what we’re trying to do. And the record came out and it was like, even just based on what you heard, it’s not …… it’s not very reminiscent of a lot of shit you heard right now. It has influence obviously but it’s definitely like a culmination of a bunch of different styles going into it. With the production and the rhymes too. It’s definitely interesting.
SDRaps.com: It definitely surprised me. It didn’t sound like any of the Anti-Citizens stuff I’ve heard. Anyway, you got the album with Ridley. You just released the Smash, Blackula, Smash mixtape. What else is in the future?
Black Mikey: I still got Anticipate The Smash in the wings. It was some things being negotiated with one called Mitchy Slick and the Wrongkind Records label. It’s still being negotiated so I’m not gonna speak anything about it. Shouts out to the whole Wrongkind Crew too, klak klak. It’s a number of things going on. I got the Soowoop Radio mixtape I’m about to do. It’s gonna be a number of emcees on it from “the B-team” naturally. Since they wanted this gangster rap, I’ma give it to them par excellence. And I’ma get together some of my grimies from all up and down the coast, all over the United States pretty much. And that’ll be coming out probably in the next few months. I got the 28 Days Later mixtape that’s gonna be the prelude before the Killafornia Infection with me and Mr. Ridley. And 9 times out of 10, that’s gonna be hosted by Mr. Ridley. So that’s gonna be the 28 Days Later mixtape, that’ll be coming soon. We ain’t actually gonna give you a date on the Killafornia Infection, that’s just TBA. And I’m just doing songs, doing a lot of songs with a lot of different emcees.
Again if you missed it, check out part 1 of this Black Mikey interview here.
Reading be fun though:
