By Odeisel
In this part two of our interview with rapper Torae, we take a look at global Hip-Hop and the difference between fans in America and Hip-Hop fans overseas. Torae talks about the need for balance in Hip-Hop without hate for the mainstream. He talks about homelessness and what he loves and hates about Hip-Hop music and culture and ultimately how he’d like to be remembered when this is all over. Sit back, relax and enjoy the Definitive Torae: Volume Two.
Planet Ill: On tour, you mentioned Germany. When you’re in these different places and you see these cultures react to Hip-Hop how do you compare it to back home?
Torae: It’s amazing man! It’s amazing to see how far Hip-Hop travels and not just the music, the culture. When you see these guys, wearing styles that you created in the hood, created in prisons, and you know just happened in the Bronx. It’s so crazy to see that in Cologne. Dudes with a baggy pair of jeans on and a cool t shirt and they hat to the side. That started in my backyard so to see it travel through different time zones and generations and different places in amazing. But I feel like the culture and definitely the sound of the music, at least for what I do, is more respected overseas.
They still hold on to not just the golden era artists, but that sound; that feel. They want to feel that warmth in the music. They want to feel that bang. They not with all the tin can sounds and all the super synth. They ain’t rapping about a bunch of nothing. Even though they may not understand each and every lyric that we speak in English. They don’t speak the language. They still understand it enough to know you spitting some bullshit.
That’s one of the things that I love in touring overseas. I’m very fortunate that I’ve been over there a few times, I’m actually about to head back, and I get a chance to really rock for people that enjoy what I do as opposed to over here, where there’s a handful or they come few and far between. They’re older. Over there you get 18 year olds still coming out to the shows. You get the hot chicks. Over here a lot fo times the Hip-Hop chicks are not really not. You want the hot chicks. Not all of them, some of them is hot but for the most part, the hot chicks is at the Drake show. If you go to Eastern Europe, the hot chicks is at the Kweli show or the Torae show, whoever. That’s a part of the difference in rocking over here and rocking over there.
Planet Ill: If you could rhyme, and make anybody in the world do whatever you wanted to in that rhyme if they heard you, who would you rap to and what would you rap about?
Torae: Man…
Planet Ill: If you was the Pied Piper of rhyme and you got on that microphone and you could make any one person do anything. Who would it be and what would you make them do?
Torae: Wow. That threw me. I gotta think about what type of change that I would really want. Hmm. I would probably rap about something like homelessness. I would make a song about homelessness and try to end homelessness around the world. That’s where I would go with it. It wouldn’t be anything superficial because winter is coming and every year I always feel so bad. When I’m traveling when I’m running around doing a show, I come out the venue and I hop in a car I get out the car to the crib and I’m cold, I think about the people that… they out there. To me that’s disheartening because nobody deserves that.
As a human being you want to see everybody taken care of especially in them harsh winter months people living in the streets and they’re dying of hypothermia; they dying malnourished. Things like that blow my mind because you have people that are multi-billionaires in the world and you got people that can’t afford a meal. And obviously it’s life and it’s the circumstances and all these different variables that effect your existence but at the end of the day, it’s inhumane.
It kind of breaks my heart when I see that and I know that it’s out there so that would probably be high on my agenda. Now who I would rap to? I don’t know if that’s something that would go to the President, or whoever you believe in Who you Higher Power is, is it something that would go to them, but whoever was in control of taking care of that. I guess I would have to take that to the Commander-In-Chief. The high and mighty. But that’s really just here. I want to end it worldwide so I would have to take it up a notch.
Planet ill: Give me three things that you hate about this music and three things you love about it. The music and the culture.
Torae: The politics is disgusting. I try to rhyme more reality based so that the generation that is listening to me has a better understanding of the behind the scenes nonsense that goes on. There’s a lot of nepostism, there’s a lot of favoritism; everybody’s not on the up and up. So definitely the politics of the game is something that disgusts me. I hate the fact that there is such a lack of talent in the mainstream. Because I feel like this underground scene is so fresh . there’s so many dope emcees out there, so many ill songs being made that if given the choice I think people would want to hear it. I’m not mad at a Lil Wayne, I’m not mad at a Drake or a Wale or Rick Ross, but at the same time just give out some of that balance.
Give them [the people] some content; some subject matter. Give the people something on the national airwaves that they can feed their minds with a little bit. Just the one-sidedness of mainstream music is crazy because I know people that aren’t in the culture like I’m in the culture so they don’t know about this whole other subculture of music out there that’s just as dope and that they would love if they got the opportunity to hear. When Tyler was on the BET Awards, my home girl was tweeting like, “Who the hell is this Tyler person, I never heard of him.” And I was like that’s because you get all your music from the radio. You not on the internet.
People got life shit; they got jobs they got kids they got food or what have you and they’re just not privy to all the information I was like getting all your music form the radio is like getting all your knowledge from sitting in your classroom as a kid. If everything you learned was from first to twelfth grade, it would be a whole shitload of things that you didn’t know because they are just not teaching everything. I try to, i liken it to that. I was like if you never read any other book outside of your school curriculum, you’re a like a third of a person there is so much more out there. And I think the same thing goes for the music. If you just listening to Hot97 or watching BET to get your musical feel then there’s a big void cause there’s a lot of stuff that you’re missing.
Planet Ill: Now give me something that you love.
Torae: I love the people. I love the crowds I love the people that get into the music I love the people that listen to lyrics and take it as serious as the artist when they were making it because I write life shit. I don’t write about big cars that I ain’t never rode in and places that I’ve never been. That’s not me, that’s not my reality. So I try to write more my reality and aspiration. And I love the people that just get it. People who listen to the lyrics and who catch all the wittiness and the double entendres.
People that just connect with me in a whole different place via the music because I try to stick a little bit in there, weave a little bit in there. You maybe gotta peel off a layer and when the people get it, that just lets me know that’s what’s up. You know I can’t write form a place that I’m not. I can’t write from a mind state that’s not my own mind so when people get it, I feel like they connect to me. That’s the person I can sit down and have a drink with. That s a person I can sit down and have a conversation with because they would get where I was coming from.
I love connecting with like-minded people via the music. I love performing; I love that instant gratification they being on stage, hands up, looking out in the audience, with people mouthing your lyrics. I say three lines I take a line off, they catch that line. There’s no better feeling, I call it playing tennis. When I’m on stage playing tennis with the audience there’s really no better feeling than that.
Planet Ill: What do you want your career to mean to everybody when it’s over?
Torae: When it’s all said and done I want people to say, “Yo Tor gave a damn about the culture.” It’s more than just me rapping for money; it’s more than me rapping so I can travel an get free shit and be cool. I really care. I’m one of the one’s that I love it. I’m genuine with it. I have a radio show on Sirius XM me and DJ Clips where we break new records and bring new artists up and put them on a national platform. I A&R for an independent label and digital distribution company and I try to help cats that may have a song or two and don’t know how to get it on iTunes and they don’t know what steps t take. I try to be that bridge; bridge that gap. So it’s more than me just being an emcee and saying slick shit. I give a fuck about the culture is all aspects. I want to be remembered as somebody who cared. Like a student and became a teacher and never changed and never was about no bullshit. I just gave a shit about the culture and anyway that he could get involved and pitch in, he was ‘bout it. That’s me. I’m not too cool to stand in the audience and put my hand up. Whenever they say put your hands up, I’mma put my hands up. I’m not too cool for that. I’m not too cool to whip out my camera and say, “Yo, let me get this flick Grandamster Caz. I’m not too cool for that. I’m just happy to be here. At the end of the day, that’s all I ever wanted. And now that I feel like I’m right on the cusp of some great things I couldn’t be more ecstatic. And that’s who Torae is.
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