isaiah the toothtaker.

photo by dan zev

my homie serge runs a sick blog called beer and rap... and i been buggin' him to spit some shit up in here fer awhile now... he's more than delivered...
this is an interview he did for us with one of my favorite rappers doin' it right now, isaiah the toothtaker. covers every thing from where his name comes from to what happens when you hit a man in the face with a black jack. this shit is fuck-ing real.

it's a long interview... but more than worth the read...
here's a sample (click to hear audio).
" One of them I split his face in half and like his eyeball popped out. He had to have surgery to put his eyeball back in and that’s self defense still. II used a black jack that time but it was like yo, it was versus seven dudes so what if I had a black jack. I could have stabbed each of them in the face and it would have been self defense.

 They got me for fucking assault with a deadly weapon, temporary disfigurement, and another like high up assault charge. It was like yo that’s obviously self defense. And like all those motherfuckers even corroborated to say that it was self defense. They all kind of said they tried to jump me, but yet they hemmed me up. I got indited for that shit, caught a felony for it. And the same shit, just cause the cops fuck up police reports and write what ever the fuck they want, doesn’t matter if it’s somebodies life on the line."

his stories are sick, his music is sick.

read the whole interview after the jump. (seriously it's fucking uh-mazing)

"I spent an afternoon talking with Isaiah the Toothtaker who is a Tucson Arizona bred rapper who runs a tattoo shop in downtown Tucson, Staring Without Carrying, he’s a founder of Machina Muerta the underground megacrew and in general an enthusiast of violent rap music. Once you get an idea of his back story it’s not hard to see why his record sounds the way it sounds. His latest project, Illumanti Thug Mafia is a ultra violent fueled claim for his piece of the rap world. If you enjoy wounds and anger this is for you.

Why did you rap in the first place and how did that eventually evolve into Isaiah The Toothtaker?

Man as far as specifically why I started to rap I wouldn’t be able to know, I wouldn't be able to tell you because it was so long ago. I want to say like 15 or some shit, you know 14. I wanted to start rapping.. I think it had something to do with finding something to do with something that was interesting to me, something exciting and interesting. Once I started to kind of understand different aspects of people’s songs, their rhymes, I could break it down differently and that sort of opened it up for me. In to like wanting to try it and wanting to see how I could flip something in a similar way.

And then the challenge, It’s a competitive culture or like a competitive sort of fucking art or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Rapping by nature is braggadocio, rapping by nature you’re talking about how much iller you are, you know by just sort of like by standards, the foundation of it is sort of how more of a badass or how much iller or how much more skillful how many more cars or how many bitches you got more so than the next dude. So that was sort of cool. And then not really coming from shit, like coming from poverty type stuff. This was something that just by like talent I could have an edge up on some body. I could oust them or have something that was true to me that was a little bit better than somebody else. Just kind of finding the right place in the world type shit, youngster type shit. That’s how that kind of came out me starting into it.

But like going into taking on Toothtaker, um like when I decided to take on Toothtaker I was genuinely on a rant inside of my shop, I was at the shop and one of my employees was kind of hyping me up on it. Like I was mega hype on like Conan the Barbarian type shit. I was like “man Conan The Barbarian, he went from like being Conan The Barbarian to like Conan The Destroyer to Conan The Conqueror once he got like all of his spoils, once he actually conquered shit, once his legacy had developed, people knew about his as like a myth, like talking over the end credits or whatever about like how ill Conan The Barbarian was I was like “That’s the shit that like people need to aspire to be”

He was like you would be Isaiah The Toothtaker, and I first I was like yeah that’s kind of whatever tho, it was just too obvious, too blatant. I wasn’t like “instant rap name!” as soon as he fucking said it. It wasn’t like “oh this is gold you know” like I kind of brushed him off like whatever and he and I had falling out so it wasn’t even like something I outright took on, but another employee kind of started picking up on it and was like “yo that’s kind of tight, you should maybe fuck with it.” And so, you know, I put it on maybe one or two different things as maybe like a feature and then it sort of like got  a lot of attention for it. I wouldn’t say like more so, it wasn’t like once I was Isaiah Toothtaker it was like a reinvention of myself. I wasn’t rapping about something brand new. It wasn’t like something like “oh this is now my persona.” It was more like me giving a title to like my place in the village type shit, “ this is what it is I do.”

I started finding more interest in wanting to take on, head on a lot of the stuff that’s been in my life or shit I’ve gone through.  For real Murs was always telling me that I should just talk about what the fuck I’ve been through but like shit in a way that it wouldn’t get nobody hemmed up or like incriminate me type shit. But he was definitely telling me I rap about some shit that was real life experience because there’s a grip of other cats that haven’t even done nothing that talk really greasy type shit. it was kind of a realization into that, and there is so much shit that has honestly worked against me and kind of like fucked me up because of this Toothtaker aspect of me because of this history that I have there is so much of this shit that is like held me back or like fucked me up or like cost me hella money for like fucking trails or whatever the hell it is that I was like “I’m going to start making this fucked up life start to benefit me now.” I do have something that I have over a lot of people where a lot of people’s stories aren’t as intricate or don’t have as many aspects to it and aren’t as violent. I should openly embrace that shit and show everybody that this is what’s up and put that shit on display and make it benefit me.

So that’s kind of like more how like Toothtaker as a moniker, a part of my name sorta came into it, and even just being Isaiah, it was more to just like show a separation from a persona rap name, you know. I didn’t want to have just like a rap name that was way different or wasn’t any part of a nickname I had growing up so I was like “yo I’m not gonna have a rap name or some sorta pseudonym I’m just gonna like go by Isaiah, fuck it” and it’s kinda basic in a way but that was sort of the point. It was to make a point but the more shit developed and older I grew Toothtaker seemed to be more like obviously the way to be

It seemed more like a state to claim, not like this is my persona that I’m presenting it’s just “I’m Isaiah” and with in just that short little name you get an idea of ok that’s what this dude is about. That’s what it seems like to me.

Yeah, I think a lot of people, it picked up some attention man . I even started seeing people’s rap names sorta change over or like these violent two titled names.

Another thing I wanted to ask you about, because your whole background and your problems that you’ve had with the law or whatever. I mean when I first heard about you it was mostly these stories of this dude who worked in this record store and was beating people up and it was like “who the fuck is this guy” It creates this myth about you and now it seems you’re more openly discussing at least what you can about it

How do you feel about this myth or legacy that you kind carry around and do you ever plan on putting more of that information out there for people who are interested in it?

Yeah like I definitely want to man, I even like spoke to my lawyer more recently about even writing a book or maybe even writing like a series of books and shit that would like go along a series of the types of fights that they were or the types of violence. Or even just kind of like an autobiography type book but definitely interested in making some of this shit available but it’s hard man because it’s like some shit that’s real super open about it and it’s a double edge sword. It’s kind of like before I might not necessarily have been the exact one to say it, you know like openly on like whatever the internets or some place that will cement it, you know what I mean.

So that’s kind of like how I think the mysticism happened about it or like openly say this kinda of shit about it. It also it brings on, if anything at all kind of comes up, like if I do even in self defense sock somebody up even just once or twice, like if I just punch somebody in like a defense and response or something like that. Some sort of scenario that would be so blatant mean defense and me not in guilt, not in instigation, that my history works against me. You know like in actual trial, court of law, and what the police, you know, it’s like already here locally I have a high profile with like certain areas of police. Like the downtown police and maybe like adjacent chapters of like you knows of police chapters and districts that are familiar with me and so if something comes up and someone starts  to describe someone along my lines I start to become one of the suspects or people to question type shit.

Just having like a high profile already sort of incriminates me. And then like to make it completely available; even if names were changed  and shit like that I would want to do it in a smart enough way to where I would make enough money from it or be something beneficial to like be a security as well. You know what I mean? It’s like open up all this kind of shit and like making it like... not necessarily vulnerable but maybe like available for people to attack, like from different standings for detectives or whatever the fuck else even. I would want to have a bit of money to fucking protect me when it came up for questioning and shit like that. That would be kind of something good. And you know you talk to a lawyer man and the lawyers don’t want you to say anything about nothing, you could be like yo what if I change this, what if I say that, and they are like “fuck that do not write a book, blah blah blah,” Like they don’t want you to do shit. My lawyer is truly looking out for me and he more or less is telling it to me right now because I’m currently still on probation and so he’s like “naw don’t do anything at all now that’s gonna bring any attention to you”

In a way it feels like this probation kind trying to keep it super lowkey but yeah definitely want to make it available to people because the details and the reality. There are stories that I’ve forgotten that are retardly insane just by like the actuality of them and like somebody else would like bring it up and be like “yo remember when you did this and this happened and this” You know like they start giving me like their witness accounts and it’s like even more crazy that they saw it so that’s even how it affected them, so not only to just hear some shit I might of even forgot just like because it was so constant and so regular that the way that something I’m easily able to forget has such a profound effect on somebody else and have them come up and want to tell me about how insane this thing was to them to witness type shit. Even years later or whatever else so like I understand that it does affect people and there is an interest for it. I want to make it available for that because it should you know. I mean like fuck I’ve been through it, caused all this trouble, I need to find something beneficial from it, the same way, make that shit make me money, you know.

It’s been that fucked up and now I’m not a fucked up piece of shit like I should like make something good out of it. If I can stride though all that poverty, violence, and trouble and all these like tribuls and shit that like I should kind of figure a way to turn it into something positive and beneficial. Positive but not like turning it into some community worker type shit, but like in a way where it’s positively increasing monetary funds for me. I’m not against community work but like I ain’t trying to save any body’s children.

The history with Tucson Police Department is just, like outside of just being a harassed kid, being somebody who they constantly fucked with. Whether it’s been like police or whether it’s been trouble for whatever reason man I’m magnetized to this negative attention. Even before having a whole lot of tattoos I was harassed by the cops. Maybe it could have been the places and the areas I was living or grew up through, certain people I was around during the time they kind of came through. It could have been all these different factors man but like one went to the next. I always had a negative attention from them, just magnetized just like fucking really fucked up way rapport with them. And you know nobody likes cops, nobody wants a cop that has control over whether or not you become indited. A cop doesn’t understand all aspects of the law or any laws entirely. Even tho they got to learn the definitions of numbers and like what that number stands for. Some numbers have duality, some charges could be three different things, and they write you up on just that one and it gets sorted out in the indictment.

Basically a cop can write what ever the fuck they want man and as a human being they are even granted this huge leniency of being allowed mistakes. So like a cop can write something as basic as a change of color, like I had a yellow jacket and a witness can describe someone in a red jacket and the cop puts down a yellow jacket just by accident like say he was next to me and his slip of mind put that down on paper. That indites me and that can fuck me over, so just by that having the experience to them and their sort of disposition of fucking me over I was already like fuck them. Definitely like shooting my father in the head 8 times and shooting him in the chest 8 times is a big way to be like fuck them forever. For real for real, it’s be one thing man there are different circumstances to like what happened.

What happened with your father?

It was Sunday and he was having troubles with his neighbors; it was a shitty apartment complex type shit. I guess like he had had ongoing troubles with them, he was a dope addict and shit so like ex drug addict type shit, current drug addict, through different stages and stuff. Troubles with these other peoples and something happened where they claimed he pulled the gun out and started firing it openly. Or just kind of wilding out. That what was claimed when the cops where called.

When the cops came through they surrounded the apartment complex and shined lights on his spot and told him to exit. Then when he exited he had a gun on his hip and then when they told him to take the gun off of his hip they claimed that he pointed it at them, but it’s kind of suspect like why would a police officer want somebody who is armed to even pull their weapon out? why would they want them arm themselves at all? Whether it was like to pull it out and put it on the ground why wouldn’t they just want them to put their hands on their head and like spread out and then come and take it themselves. So it’s real funny style the way that kind of went and then they claimed that he aimed it at them. But even with that, it’s ok but they shot him so many times that they were shooting him when he was on the ground. 8 times in the head, 8 times in the chest so it’s like you shot him 16 times and they were still shooting when he was on the ground. You know they were killing him, they were trying to kill him type shit. That’s a little bit more extreme, you know what I mean? The details could be slided and even though I’m not there they tried to say it was potential suicide by cop, they tried to say they felt like their lives were in danger and all this type of shit but it’s pretty excessive no matter what.

That kind harbingers some fucked up resentment towards them, for sure fuck them but then what got really fucking weird is that like even after that shit happened they put my name down, I don’t know if it’s protocol or some shit, but they put my name down as somebody who is high aggression, like to have contact with them would be in high opposition to them. I forget the specific term that they had but I saw it on the computer once when they hemmed me up and I asked “what the fuck is this shit” Of course they didn’t tell me but I saw the description of my bio and that’s fucked up.

But like even before he got killed and afterwards I was working for a hells angel and I was kind of known for running a gang down here, shit like that. A street like fighting, kind of a street crew type shit, so they were already familiar with me to some degree and then that shit happened and it put me up a little higher. Then they kind of did some dirt to my boss at the time and they hemmed him up so he was locked up. There just like a bunch of series of events man, it was just extreme situations that brought me up on the radar. They had like a grudge, they wanted to get me out of there.

I remember I got stabbed in the head one time and I forget it was like 7-11 times or some shit. I got stabbed in the head a grip of times. I was fighting these two dudes in front of a bunch of people. And one of my friends pulled one off and I was fighting this big ass dude 6 foot 5” motherfucker and I’m 5’ 10”. This dude starts stabbing me in the head and I end up fucking him up and I curbed him. I broke his his face apart, like the bones in his face had shattered apart. It was in front of a restaurant where there like huge windows like crazy amounts of witnesses all around. I guess like the dude went into a coma and was possibly gonna die or some shit. His friend was saying I had brass knuckles which wasn’t true, it was just me dolo. I was being stabbed in the fucking head, I had all these crazy stab wounds in my head and shit just bleeding out.

Like two days after that shit 8 different police, 3 cars, couple different motorcycle cops, like closed down an entire bar and detained everybody, one by one style. They tried to get a statement from them, asking if they knew me by my first and last name. It was some crazy shit, then I ended up finding out, there wasn’t even an attempt to locate me. Nobody even pressed charges against me at that time. Like they were just looking to investigate or question me so then when I ended up speaking to the cops for a second when they hemmed me up after the fact. The dude was like “I got 12 different  witnesses, do you want to go to jail or tell me your side of the story.” I was like “fool, you got 12 different witnesses then you know what the fuck happened, you shouldn’t even be speaking to me about it.” Fuck speaking to cops, but it was a matter of like look at my fucking head, like two dudes, got stabbed in the head a bunch of times, I ended up beating one of them up, that’s what the fuck happened. It was as simple as that.

From there he ended up telling me, this is from the cop himself, “we all know who the fuck you are” This is years ago, this is like 8 years ago. “We all know who the fuck you are, we’re sick of your shit, we all know what the fuck you’re about.” Sick of my shit? Who is we? He says “all of us, TPD downtown” I was just like fuck that, I’m just trying to support my family, I’m making an honest living. If you’re mad at me for getting into fair fights, like fair fist fights or whatever the fuck else ,that’s a trip. Here I get stabbed in my head and I’m fighting two dudes, I fuck one up, you’re shutting down bars asking for me by name, telling people to watch out for me. That’s like defamation of character, you’re trying to fuck my rep up. My issue with them is not good.

My recent shit happened when I was on tour. I was on tour and my wife at the time was telling me that there was detectives, sometimes two a day following her car for almost a week. She didn’t have nothing to do with nothing. They harass, they harass me, they harass my family, they try to do as much as they can to fuck me over. Even with the charges that really got me kind of fucked super duty tuff it was like the same shit man. I was fighting 7 dudes, fighting 7 dudes, one of em had socked a girl that was a friend of mine and a friend of mine was telling me to break it up. I didn’t know exact details right at the very moment but then like I kind of separated them from getting jumped by a bunch of other friends but I got like these 4 guys out at the parking lot and they met up with some of their homies who where like next to their cars already so about seven of them and a couple girls in addition. I ended fighting 4 out of the 7 and the other three after the fact broke out. One of them I split his face in half and like his eyeball popped out. He had to have surgery to put his eyeball back in and that’s self defense still. II used a black jack that time but it was like yo, it was versus seven dudes so what if I had a black jack. I could have stabbed each of them in the face and it would have been self defense.

They got me for fucking assault with a deadly weapon, temporary disfigurement, and another like high up assault charge. It was like yo that’s obviously self defense. And like all those motherfuckers even corroborated to say that it was self defense. They all kind of said they tried to jump me, but yet they hemmed me up. I got indited for that shit, caught a felony for it. And the same shit, just cause the cops fuck up police reports and write what ever the fuck they want, doesn’t matter if it’s somebodies life on the line. They just don’t like me so they would  rather see me go to prison years upon years upon years. Even in the way that they stuck these different charges on me it was like they gave me a misdemeanor assault charge, 3 felony assault charges and then when i got out on pretrial for the felony charge they stuck me with another multiple felony charge. That shit would have kept me in county jail for like a fucking year in a half awaiting trails. They tried to fuck me over man because they knew it would have been more difficult for me to raise tens of thousands of dollars to pay off a lawyer to fucking stay off of that shit. Come the end of all this shit, I think I’ve paid over 50 thousand dollars in legal fees. It’s insane, so fuck the police. I got a true grudges with them.

So tell me about the name of the new record, Illuminati Thug Mafia?

It’s kinda like the unseen terrible, you know what I mean. All these things have a negative mythology to them. At the same time these organizations, you know that none of us completely know, have their own culture individually. You hear Illuminati, you hear thug, you hear mafia you kind of dismissed it instantly, or at least a degree where you prepare what the the fuck you're gonna hear. You already prepare yourself to already not believe it, take it with a grain of salt. In a way combine all three of those and it kind of like it’s some real super power, the ultimate fucking ridiculousness. Like something that you could possible believe would be true in a way but it’s like so ridiculous that you embrace it. Kind of some shit that you accept possibly exists, has like a negative connotation, has like an authority with it, you kind of accept that they control certain things but you would’ve never figured how. Or you would not even bother in what ways or what is affected by it. But then like as soon as you turn those three into one, these three elements, these three cultures, these three terms into one name you sort of like embrace it in terms of like ridiculous. In that sense of like playing words and changing terms of certain things. You can change something that has all that too it into something that is almost playful in a way. it takes away it’s authority, it becomes acceptable, you can kind of like accept that it’s sort of bullshit and even in some ways it is bullshit. Even in the reality of all these things it is bullshit. Politically it can go into each reason why because it’s dense enough to be like “this is bullshit for this” but it’s all kind of bullshit you know? It’s all sort of like built up, it’s not reality. Nobody completely exists in those things man. Each one of that sorta of things can potentially destroy who ever the fuck is involved with them in different ways.

So that’s kind of like why I came up with the term because it was just like to me changing something that had that kind of mythology to into something that people would expect and in a sense too it’s kind of like creating it’s own form for people who are gonna bother to listen to my music. It’s like taking that title from those sort of mythology and giving it to who the fuck ever wants to use it because it’s so ridiculous by name that anyone can grab on to it and nobody is going to question it. I

t’s kind of like funny how here these things that people don’t really question as is, you turn it into something more ridiculous and it really becomes dismissive. That’s sort of like how in some ways people regard maybe some of my music or how I look or whatever the fuck else. These elements to what I do, people dismiss. Like I won’t get the same accolades as if it was somebody else. For whatever the fuck reason it is, well multiple reasons that they are, it was a way to sort of empower that dismissive element to myself,  to my music, these things about my life by like just turning it to the top level extreme and all for giving it to people. Like I made them like you can join the fuck up because it’s like “yo turns something that doesn’t belong to you and make it yours, turn something that is dismissive into something that like you can title or describe” So the whole thing kind of about it is like a challenge, to some degree the challenge of myself, a challenge to perceptions of everything that I deal with, even authority or whatever the fuck else. This constant battling with why the fuck we enter these different elements.

A lot of the themes of witchcraft [in the record], it’s talking about how it switches languages and shit like that. Here is some record executive who eventually got all these charges later in his life for real horrible shit like child molestation and shit like that. Leads to the conspiracy that maybe  he was saying some real shit and they fucked him over and gave him like the worst kind of like sentencing. It’s possible man for the police to fuck somebody over, but you don’t want to accept it so we live in this sort of reality of awareness but then unaccepting or dealing. We’ll deal with it in an unaccepting way, nothing could be changed, nothing could be exposed or nothing could be decided after it’s been said type shit or by who ever the fuck has been saying it.

A lot of the themes of  the record are along those lines, challenging shit, like challenging why somebody would think that and make you something that’s kind of fucked up seem a little more brilliant. Something that’s suppose to be so regarded disproving it or proving it, these back and forth themes through out the rest of the record

And that also makes its rap record

how did the record come together?

The Murs song we recorded together, everything else was sent on the internet type shit. Through emails and worked out like that. It was like a hand and hand, like describing what the fuck it was and I felt confident that they would able to handle what it was I gave them to be able to do it and knock it the fuck out and make it a cohesive sound.

A lot of people aren’t thinking of tucson as a place making a lot of stuff, why is there this small scene of like You, Zackey Force Funk, CrimeKillz ,ect?

It’s weird, I don’t know. I wouldn’t say like dead up like there is not really a scene. If you came through here you would see less shows from everybody. I don’t perform at all practically in town. Like I might perform 3 times in town a year. As far as like what is the scene, there might be like 40 dudes who have some raps but I don’t participate in it. It was kind of like a different scene than what was before. Before when I started coming in, I was kind of fronted on so then after a while I was like well fuck yall. Yall want to start fronting on me then I’m gonna start fucking you up. Then it became obvious, shit was getting real serious in the street and then it was like oh we’re not gonna front on him and they made a little bit of room for me.

It wasn’t as developed enough to really have a matter, even now there is not even so much of a scene. I want to say that like yeah to some degree it’s obvious that I’ve had some influence on [Zackey Force Funk and CrimeKillz], as you saw sort of like a progression of some of their music. I think it’s just also like what is, it’s like minded kind of folk. These are really talented people type shit. We’ve always known each other, it was sensible to me to bring them into it and make them more a part of this, Machina Muerte shit than to just do this side by side sorta stride. I would be able to up them and kind of like put them in a different light. It would also bring more a little more attention as a city.

Some people are like this is Tucson, zackey, crimekillz and toothtaker. It’s like these people in town don’t embrace shit. I got a feature in LA weekly before I was ever mentioned in the Tucson weekly and Tuscon weekly is hella scrub compared to it. It’s just a weird spot man. I knew there was a little more strength in numbers to it and what we were doing was already close enough. I was already working with them and stuff. So I just started involving them more into what we were doing and it started to show in a way sort of like full circle. It all started to come out in a way like with alphapup and more features and like such and such works with them. Our network kind of shows where everything works

As far as like the scene goes there really isn’t a scene as far as anybody who else has been able to be noteworthy or like people start to notice it’s more like them and I. And that’s gonna hurt people’s feelings but I don’t give a fuck. Just straight up and down outside of this city it’s just them and I who have been able to progress outside of it.

 It’s not like crimekillz is like a champion of this scene in anyway. They are just their own independent, same thing with Zackey, he owns his. He’s his own, he’s bigger than that, he’s himself. Same shit with me, I exist outside of what would be a scene here and it’s fortunate that it worked out in a way that Machina started to gain it’s speed now as it’s own group that it benefits everyone at this point for all of us to be in this group.

I want to ask about Machina Muerte, Machina is now like the new underground supergroup. Is Machina looking to make a super group record? be a label? what are you plans for it?

Well as it started to develop, I still feel like it’s still in it’s earlier stages. We’re still inducting members into it. It’s still like in it’s young incubation type shit. It can still have more members to it. I don’t know man, I think a lot of members want us to have like a group record but honestly I don’t think that’s gonna happen anytime soon. I don’t think a group record is like the focus to it. We’re not trying to be like the weathermen or slaughterhouse. We’re not trying to be any of that shit. It’s less like a collective rap group, it’s more like a collective rap crew kind of shit.

So like more of a more a network of everyone kind of helping everyone else out with like a common ideology of what you guys are trying to do?

Exactly, it’s really functional as a label cause everybody sort of understands that what it is. It’s not like you’re going to be this certain character of our rap group and you’re going to come in and you’re gonna do most of the hooks. It’s not like everybody has a place for that, it’s more of a network, more of a click type shit, it’s more based to develop as a label. It’s definitely that more than anything else. It could happen, honest to god it could, but it just certain things would have to be right. It would have to fit because there are so many ways that it could come out wrong. Especially since everybody who is involved is practically an infant artist as is, for them to come in and work together that it could fumble up left to right. There’s hella members in it that still have some time to grow their own as artist or are still growing. Even myself man, so we all have our growth and development that we’re making. I don’t know right at the very moment that a group record would be the most beneficial. Even if people really want it, if it’s not beneficial it wouldn’t do anything.

It’s kind of like showing people that this network you can kind of expect , you know and like as a label right now we’re just trying to show what kind of things are being done, what’s been done and putting that stuff out right now. I really start to see a more spread apart release schedule for the next year to come. Right now it’s just a matter of proving everything we’ve been able to do and our work ethic right now. it’s just showing everybody like ok you want to edge out or you want to block this shit but we’re gonna flood it so you’re gonna have to fight that. I think after the fact we’re gonna start spreading them apart. Not each and everything so far has been executive produced by Mestizo and I so I think that he and I are gonna have like a much heavier hand in a way in that the record is going to be made and what specifically is gonna be on each release here after. Really here after this year. So it’s kind of like we’re allowing everybody their own sort of independence so like if they have some shit they’ve been working on we’re letting that finalize but then afterwards for as long as it’s a Machina Muerte release he and I are gonna executive produce the records themselves.

I want to ask you about your group with Mestizo, Humansuit, and what are the plans for that?

We plan on recording that kind of soon, I think that the soonest that we could honestly get together on it would be mid to late April but possibly may. It’s like we definitely, that’s are next plan. He has an album that’s in the works right now, so he might finish that up over the next couple months but then really between he and I, I know for him and for myself that’s our next focus for any record. I’m not working on an independent record right now. I’m just doing loose guest spots and shit right now. Really our next focus is gonna be the Humansuit record, it might come out this year, it might be end of the year, but then it also might be beginning of the year record next year. It’s something that’s gonna happen real real soon, it’s something that we’re getting into, we’re prepping.

You’ve been putting out a ton of content, be it illuminati thug mafia, yiggy, werdemup podcast, a tumblr that floods everyday, your twitter, the videos, there is a constant drive of content. How do you maintain that?

I just have it in me, I have the ethic in me. Like I’m sick right now because I worked myself sick. Like lately I’ve been handling a lot of duties for the record label and shit. Between that and doing what I been doing this weekend I just crashed and burned, I shit out.  I wasn’t even able to leave my bed yesterday from working myself sick. It’s a matter of I haven’t really been scrapping, as I’ve been on probation. I have 8 years hanging over my head, 8 years maximum prison sentence type shit. So it’s like to finally getting sentenced the judge who shouldn’t have even let me have 3 years probation, she should have just put me up for 3 to 5 as a minimum. When I was sentenced I was just expecting to go for 3 straight up. I was like “I’m going to prison for 3 years.” so when she gave me three years probation it was like a miracle. And my lawyer told me “yo if you fuck up on this guarantee she’s gonna put you up for like one of the maximum amounts, she’s gonna be pissed dude.” I think it’s just like a manner of focusing in on that, just doing all that shit.

And i’s  just how my brain works, I get an idea and I’m just able to execute it. I have resources, I have a network, I’m able to create. I’ve worked long and hard enough to be able to edit a video, I’ve learned my knowledge of a video editting program. I’m proficient at final cut. I have people who help me with design work and shit like that. I give them what the fuck I need type shit. I have employees in various ways. I have different people who help me bring some of these things to fruition. A good 90% of it I’m just capable of doing myself. It’s what I do to keep myself fucking busy in some ways.

It’s also like my interests, I want to see it done. I’m not afraid to get my hands into it. It’s more like you know simple shit, although for a while almost to like the beginning of the year I was doing like 15 posts on tumblr for everyday for months upon months. It was just because like yo it popped  in my head, like what’s really hot to me is girls who smoke cigarettes so I feel like yo i’m just gonna find a bunch of women who smoke cigarettes that are hot then I’ll post that shit up. Or yo all these different songs are hella tight, you know what I mean, just into that stuff. I don’t know I think it varies so wide because all these aspects of my life have been so dense you know. It’s been so like so so much for so so long that like I don’t know I have so much to expel and I don’t have a release for it so that’s like why I’m on twitter so much. If I don’t get those little thoughts out then they like clog up and it’s not like in a good way even.

Some people would be like oh you should save that shit and you should write about it but it’s like no, not fucking really man cause like a lot of this shit is just like useless sort of blurbs or just like shit that’s going through my head or sometimes I get on little tangents of stuff and I just need to exit. I just need to have shit released. The same stuff aight, I have all that stuff released through these social networks and I’m able to bounce to that shit but then at the same time like my work ethic man I get an idea and I’m just able of executing a video or recording some music or whatever the fuck it is. I kind of planned it to some degree. I have sort of an expectation to just like stomp it out on people. Just to show them because I think that there are certain fools that feel themselves, that think that they really got this shit together or think that they are gonna like out do us because they might have a wider platform and more people are listening to them right now. They feel like they can just kinda run with shit but to me it’s just to prove that this is what I’m capable of and twice to three times better than what motherfuckers are trying to do.

Did you direct the Baby video?

Yeah,well a lot of the videos that we do they are loose enough that so far a lot of them have been sort of performance based videos. But it’s to kind of bring it in, each one is kind of segueing into the next. Like the next video that we release is gonna like....you’ll understand how that ties into the baby video to some degree and then the baby video makes sense after the intruder video to some degree. But definitely like I have a couple people who are willing to do the filming for me and I just kind of like tell them what sort of the basis for what we’re gonna be doing and what I want to kind of get across. And then as their filming it if I see something or I want to do something I’ll tell them but I like to keep it loose. I also know what it is that they do so I kind of know what to expect of certain people I got filming for me. A lot of the stuff comes through in the edits, I feel that the direction comes through more in the editing of it.  I have a heavy hand in all that shit.

What can people can people expect to see coming soon from you and Machina Muerte?

We got the Crimekillz Humansuit remix release that Mike Gao did, a free download. Space Cadalak with Ron and InnaSpace, that’s a full length with a couple Machina members on it. He also has the battle of LA mc battle that he did and he’s got his video. The faith no more video, potentially another lush one video, then Kap Kallous has another video. Then the 29th of March is gonna be Kap Kallous’ full length, after that April 5th is gonna be Luckyiam’s record. After that I think we’re gonna do Rheteric Rameriz is gonna have like a maxi single, so 3 songs with a couple instrumentals to it. Then Mike Gao’s also going to have a maxi single that is probably gonna have Zacky on it and then a couple other joints. Then the Mestizo and Mainframe record whether it’s a full length or an ep will be out shortly around this time too so that’s that. I think that in additional, hopefully by mid April I’ll have a video finished by Ricky Shabbazz of the Boom Bap Boys crew that should be out. Like every two weeks there is going to be a release from Machina up until the end of may.

Do you have plans for physical copies of releases?

We plan to have physical copies but we kind of want to kick it off digital and see what kind of arenas we want to operate in. Like right now for physical stuff it’s really good for hand to hand or mailorder type shit. Like if someone orders right off the site, but then at that point I think we want to develop more special packages, more individual special copies. But that kind of stuff, the more limited special edition stuff, and like a lot more merch is gonna start hitting by the end of the year. I have worked to start getting some new era Machina Muerte hats in soon and the tshirt shit is gonna happen by the end of the month. A lot of shit like that, like a lot of merch start flooding out by summer time. Hopefully some physical packages with these limited like situations like colored vinyl shit like that, hopefully by the end of the year.  But it has to kind of be a market, I think so far it’s really been showing people what it is that we have and sorta seeing their interest and sparking their attention so right now our focus is to do that and make it available digitally. Since a lot of our activity is focused digitally we’ll make our product digitally too."

interview and transcription by: sergio

i will buy everything he puts out... and you should too.

www.werdemup.com
www.twitter.com/werdemup
www.machinamuerte.com

isaiah toothtaker- baby mp3