By Odeisel

Every so often, we hear a track and get interested in who the new guy is.  Because we support indies, that occurrence isn’t as rare as you would think. When I heard Sean Born and Hasaan Mackey on “The Bullshit” a couple weeks ago I was compelled to see what the young dude was coming from. So I hit his people up and what materialized is what you will read below. Sean Born is clearly a child from the 90s era and his low key sensibilities speak to the keep it real spirit of the era.  The interview provides a look into who he is, what kind of music he makes and why you should give a damn about him. Enjoy. No bullshit.

Planet Ill: Why do you rap?

Sean Born: I ask myself that all the fucking time, but the plain fact of it is, I want to create. Creating is something that is near and dear to me you can put your own little flavor; your little spin on things. That’s the only reason why I do it.

Planet Ill: Thor’s got a hammer, Superman has the yellow sun, what’s within you that powers the raps that you write? What inspires you?

Sean Born: Just life. Just life and stories; telling other people’s stories. Everything has been told before; all we’re doing is rehashing it.

Planet Ill: You’re down with Mellow Music group.

Sean Born: Yeah we’re putting the project tout soon.

Planet Ill: They have a lot of artists with that similar flavor. What goes behind making the project and why did you choose Mellow Music?

Sean Born: Me and [Kevin ]Brown always wanted to do a project together. I’ve known Kev for over ten years. Probably over 12 years. And we always said we were going to do a project but we never got together and started nothing for real. Finally about 2009 all the stars aligned and we was gone do a joint together. We had to find a good sound and we just rocked.

Planet Ill: They say there’s a piece of an actor in every role they play, whether it’s a hero or a villain. What part of you comes through in the rhymes you write?

Sean Born: The most of me you hear on my project sis the introspective aspect. Looking at yourself, if you know what I mean? I tend to do that a lot. Writing, most likely is therapy for a lot of people; it’s real personal. And if other people can dig it, more power to them.

Planet Ill: When you’re looking yourself in the mirror and you’re seeing the flaws and other things that may not be so pretty, what goes into the decision to put that on the paper?

Sean Born: I think you’re omitting shit if you don’t put everything. I’m not a fan of just picking and choosing. I try to take the broad stroke approach instead of just trying to zero in on specific, I mean I might do it for specific songs or themes or skits or whatever but as a project  I look to do the broad strokes.

Planet Ill: What was your favorite subject in school?

Sean Born: I know it wasn’t math! It was probably recess or basketball. I liked art. Art was cool.

Planet Ill: If you had to pick the top five players of all time, who would your starting five be?

Sean Born: We gone do some manipulating on the real. Point guard, we’re gonna do Magic. Two guard, we’re going Jordan. At the three, were going Oscar Robertson. At the four, I think I’mma go with, see I want to go with Moses Malone, and then throw Wilt Chamberlain at the five, but I think I’mma go Bill Russell at the four and for real I’mma go with Shaq at the five.

Planet Ill: Everybody defends their era. Everybody who grew up in the 90’s swears by it and they seem to forget all the wack shit as well. But now you’re in 2012 and there’s a lot of heat coming out. Do you think it’s time for the people from your generation to put an end to the dominance by some of those 90’s mainstays?

Sean Born: I think everything builds off of everything else. The dope niggas that’s out now, they owe a lot to the people before them. I don’t think it’s no “this stops here and this starts there.” I think generationally you might hear like we got our era they got their era like they stuff is for them and our stuff is from us but it’s going to continue with motion. Kurtis Blow begat Run DMC. Run DMC begat LL Cool J. It’s all interconnected.

Planet Ill: What was the album that brought you into this life?

Sean Born: Cuban Linx probably. I mean Illmatic is probably my favorite album, I think it had an effect on me before I was in the music, doing music myself. But I think listening to Rae… I wrote my first joint to “Criminology.” And that was line in ’95 and shit. I gotta choose that. That’s a big album. And it has a lot of influence on Behind the Scale, too. The whole vibe on there.  I was a huge Wu fan. Real big on Wu.

Planet Ill: So what do you think about the allegations about the FBO following ODB and all that?

Sean Born: yeah I read that. That don’t surprise me. You know that whole Hip-Hop squad shit. I think that’s all in the same. They just letting shit out now.

Planet Ill: I guess the Wu-Tang Clan actually AIN’T nothing to fuck with!

Sean Born: [Laughs]

Planet Ill: tell us about your new projects. Tell us what you have coming up in 2012.

Sean Born: We got Behind The Scale coming out February 14^th, it’s going to be out on iTunes we gonna have it out on wax, have it out on  any type of medium  you want. We’re even going to have tapes and shit. We coming out with the cassette tapes

Planet Ill: With the hiss

Sean Born: I got a mixtape too; I got a mixtape coming out I ain’t put a date on it yet but we finishing it up now. I’mma drop it before the album, we going hard.

Planet Ill: What kind of songs do you have and what progressions do you go through on the album?

Sean Born: It’s definitely a cohesive album.  It’s a piece that you have to listen straight out straight through. If you hear the songs individually, they’re not meant as hits. They may not make as much sense as they do put together. It’s a nice themed album; I don’t want to give out too much. I’d rather you go out check it out. It’s a sample based album; a 90s themed album. Just trying to bring it back to the shit we grew up on.

Planet Ill: Any last words for the fans out there or music listeners in general?

Sean Born: Peace to Low Budget, I got my man Ken Starr from Low Budget, Kev Brown. Peace to my man Chamber, Hasaan Mackey. Can’t name everybody. yU, peace to the brother yU.

Planet Ill: Yeah we interviewed him back in 2010; we been up on yU.

Sean Born: Shout to Oddisee and them> Watch out for Esso. Watch out for Diamond District, they’re dropping a joint later this year. Oddisee got a solo coming out. Brown got a lot of shit coming out soon so yeah it’s a lot of shit coming out.

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