By Odeisel

Erk Tha Jerk hails from the land of the formerly hyphy, but never really fit into that bubble. While surrounded by the mean streets, the self proclaimed “Hood Nerd” took shelter in family and his music.  Now poised to enter a new stage of his career, Erk recently dropped an EP and is heading towards the release of new album Nerd’s Eye View. We recently sat down with Erk to talk about the music, technology, family and religion. Here’s what we got.

This interview is dedicated to the memory of my friend and Ill Community member Regina Crockett who went by the name Caligee. May she rest in eternal peace. She represented Richmond, CA to the fullest and was one of the very best people you could ever meet. R.I.P.

Planet Ill: Erk Tha Jerk. Where you from brother?

Erk Tha Jerk: Richmond California. By way of Oakland California. Bay Area

Planet Ill: It ain’t all smiles in the ‘Rich.

Erk Tha Jerk: Nah. I’m a happy dude, but it ain’t all smiles out there man.

Planet Ill: How did you end up in Oakland?

Erk Tha Jerk: My mom lived in Oakland, my dad lived in Richmond. I was back and forth a lot and I spent a lot of time in Oakland, going to school out there. Spent a lot of time in Richmond, so I pretty much stayed in Richmond from that time on. More than half my life was definitely Richmond.

Planet Ill: You think having your father in your life influenced the way you turned out?

Erk Tha Jerk: Definitely. He’s a real strong dude; he took care of all the bills. He did everything he needed to do, he always kept a house. He been in the same spot for about 25 years. Real stable dude; a lot of stability.

Planet Ill: When you grow up in an environment that’s a bit ratchet, what kept you centered, what kept you motivated to do something else?

Erk Tha Jerk: Definitely religion and God. Believing in God. Keeping those kinds of things first. I really didn’t get fascinated by the fast life. Fast money wasn’t a necessity for me it kinda more like a survival thing so I wasn’t too caught up in natural bullshit back then.

Planet Ill: Why do you think so many rappers are scared of God? Some mention Him even though they rap about things that have nothing to do with Him and others who are supposedly on the “right” side tend to shy away from Him. Should it be a matter of whether it’s “cool” or not to believe?

Erk Tha Jerk: I don’t think it should be cool or not I think  like if you believe in God, one of the first things I was taught was speak His name regardless of what other people feel, cause they’ll go back and here what you said and take heed to it somewhere throughout their life. Just believing in it, and putting it into my raps and my rhymes and different things like that, even if it’s small. At least half the album, there are God references in there. That’s the least I can do, being a rapper.

Planet Ill: What happens when the representatives of God step away from that light? Right now the whole Eddie Long situation is blowing up and people are distancing themselves from God and religion. What effect should that have on people when the messenger runs afoul of the message?

Erk Tha Jerk: For the people, I mean for mere, nobody’s perfect [ed note-this interview took place before Long’s mic dropping defense]. So if your faith is strong then that’s what you need to do, keep your faith strong. No matter what the messenger does, or what anybody else does that says they represent God whatever we all make mistakes; we all go through that but if you’re focused on God that’s pretty much all you should be worried about.

Everybody else is just a regular human being you can’t fault somebody for being human. That’s the first think I learned. People are just people, but God is always God, so as long as you concentrate on that, you should be good.

Planet Ill: In this industry there is a lot of wild shit and fantasy stuff that goes on. How do you avoid that? You have to be a part of the scene in order to move forward. But many of those things are bogus or “unhealthy.”

Erk Tha Jerk: Just try to keep a good head on your shoulders. It’s definitely difficult. Nothing but “wrongdoing” out there, the clubs the parties, the studio, everywhere you go. It’s only glorified because it’s the night life. Because you live it, people want it to be something that it’s not. People will see you and the kids WANT you to drive a fancy car.

They want you to buy it whether you can afford it or not. It all comes with the territory like being a movie star, you know what I mean? They don’t want to go to the movies and see a boring movie, they want to be entertained, and I see it kind of in the same light. It’s definitely hard to stay away from it but I try to stay balanced with it. With life, family and things that are important. Keep those things close and everything else will fall by the wayside.

Planet Ill: You call yourself the “Hood Nerd.” What’s the science behind that and how does that make you different from everything else that’s going on in Oakland and the Bay Area music scene?

Erk Tha Jerk: First, I call myself that almost as a poke at the word nerd and I use it a lot on my music. For one just because I wear glasses instead of contacts, people have that stigma, especially where I come from with things I did or what I didn’t do, I was automatically a nerd. I was a square, I was a nerd, I was just different things because I didn’t do what everybody else was doing.

I could have two or three guns in my backpack but they wouldn’t know. I was a square dude so I would always keep it like that. And I’d rather be that. But the hood side of course is from Richmond; from Oakland. Being from all these places where it wasn’t a lot of positive things going on. I’m from there, I grew up there, that’s all I know, that’s all the places I live. So there’s a side of me that wakes up and feels like survival and hunger and you gotta strive and be something better, and the nerd side that does feel like technology is dope and things like that that I get into that some people might not get involved in, so I try to merge the two.

Planet Ill: Do you think that’s a backwards mentality for people not to embrace what’s next? Technology is not something you can choose not to believe in. It IS. It exists; it’s here. Is that crazy for people to not want to at least understand how it works even if they’re not going to fully embrace it?

Erk Tha Jerk: To me it’s definitely backwards, I mean you gotta use it to your advantage, there’s hones, there’s cameras, there’s the Internet.  I mean we’re close to Silicon Valley, California I mean this is exactly what we do. We come from the technology age, 3-D, all that type of shit. Youtubes and MySpaces are all located there. Take those things and use it to our advantage. But there are some people who kinda want to do it the old way and who are kinda stuck in the past. They don’t want to evolve.

Planet Ill: You’re a self-produced artist. How does that technology filter in to how you produce?

Erk Tha Jerk: Anything I do is laptop and internet. I’m looking for a sample, go on the internet, pull it down, upload that beat, mail it to somebody. It’s nothing but technology, it’s not like it was 10 or 15 years ago, making music is simpler.

Planet Ill: Do you prefer to be in the booth with somebody if it’s a collaboration or would you rather email the track to them and get it back with the verse on it?

Erk Tha Jerk: Depends on who it is but for the most part I like to be 100% around the process. I’m a control freak for lack of a better word. I just gotta be around for the creation and see what people are doing with the music because you get somebody and the song comes back, it’s terrible, it’s kinda like my fault because I gave the music to them and didn’t have an input on it.

Planet Ill: How has the Bay’s sound progressed over the last few years? You’ve always had an indie bubble that isn’t aligned with the mainstream.  But that sound hasn’t remained stagnant. What has been some of the changes in recent years?

Erk Tha Jerk: After the Hyphy thing died people kinda took it more serious to make more mainstream acceptable type music. They kinda stopped “playing” in my opinion. I think that they saw it wasn’t gonna work to be a gimmick or to be a super indie or super grimy or super whatever. SO eventually you have to grow up, everybody has to grow up. Not necessarily put on a suit and give us a song and dance, but you do have to make more mature music the older you get. You can’t be 35 and continue to make music for 15 year olds. It doesn’t really crossover well to the masses

Planet Ill: You’d LIKE to think that, but we got a lot of 35 year olds making music for 15 year olds.

Erk Tha Jerk: You do but the people that have longevity in the game, The Outkasts, the Jay-Z’s the Eminems they make mature music for mature audiences and the kids still recept (sic) to it well and they sell millions. I’d rather be on that side of the game.

Planet Ill: Now on the contrary do you think being inside that bubble has allowed your sound to move? If you look at Atlanta or New York, their sound hasn’t moved much in the last few years and they have been retreading a lot of production. Has that bubble out West protected you from that stagnancy?

Erk Tha Jerk: In a way. I kinda feel like that bubble keeps other artists like myself from the Bay, we kinda almost don’t belong in that bubble as well. We’re kinda free roaming artists looking for our own bubble to create our own type of music but we do embrace everything West Coast. We listen to everything, our radio plays everything, East Coast, West Coast, South. All different kinds of music we like. So we try to create our own bubble; our own lane.

Planet Ill: What’s the perfect mistake?

Erk Tha Jerk: It’s the Hood Nerd; it’s being perfectly flawed. It’s like God made us all how we’re supposed to be. And even when people perceive you to be something you’re not, or something differently, you’re still what you’re supposed to be, perfectly.

Planet Ill: What’s the proudest you’ve ever been of your music?

Erk Tha Jerk: The proudest I’ve ever been is when my single, the “Right Here” single hit number one in the Bay Area. For me and the Bay Area to see that it wasn’t a gimmick or a weird thing that happened, it was the music. They requested it and they took it to the top. That was a proud moment for me.

Planet Ill: You hear people looking for the last days, the end of the world, etc. Would you like to be around for the last day? If you were around and you knew it was coming, what would you do on that last day?

Erk Tha Jerk: Pray. That’s it. I don’t know if I would want to be around, but if I knew it was coming, I’d just pray. Be with the kids and the family; people I really love and who love me. Just pray, sit around and chill. Talk about good times with my folks and pray.

Planet Ill: What does family mean to you?

Erk Tha Jerk: Everything. Everything. Wanting to get back to how family used to be. You know when we were kids, a lot of kids have changed, there’s no more weekend barbecues and things like it used to be so my goal is to get family back where it used to be, especially my family.

Planet Ill: Anything else you’d like to leave to the readers?

Erk Tha Jerk: November 9^th, cop that album Nerd’s Eye View and see if the hype is real.