A Couple Rounds of Double Barrel | Amalgam Digital Blog

A Couple Rounds of “Double Barrel” Artist: Marco Polo & Torae Interviewer: JENNY SOK

A Couple Rounds of “Double Barrel”

Marco Polo & Torae Interview with Jenny Sok 06-11-2009

AmalgamDigital.com: Your music is mainly what hardcore hip hop has been waiting for, what sets your music aside from others in the hip hop industry?

Torae: I think we just want to branch off and do something that wasn’t what was going on, you know what’s current in the mainstream, in the videos or on the radio. Everywhere you look there’s a lot of carbon copy stuff, not a lot of authenticity and not a lot of originality. We were raised on hip-hop stuff and just are cut from a different type of cloth and nobody was really putting that out. Marc and I were like, “We have to make this album. It’s the time, it’s the place, it’s what we want to do and it’s what we do anyways,  so let’s just get it to the people.” That was how “Double Barrel” was pretty much born.

AmalgamDigital.com: How long was the process of making “Double Barrel”?

Torae and Marco Polo: When we recorded the album, it was over a year and a half process. We were doing tours in between; we were gone to Europe for a month, Canada and had some other things going on as well but overall, top to bottom banging it out that’s how long it took.

AmalgamDigital.com: “Double Barrel” itself has a lot of violent content, are those written from experience?

Torae: Yeah I mean everything outright is real, I think it’s more so a lot of parallels and similes and what’s going on in the music and in the world. It definitely can be taken real literally but if you kind of get into it a little bit more you see that I’m kind of doing a lot of comparison to a lot of things so it’s not as violent as it is aggressive. It’s just hard and it is definitely a street record but by all means it’s not just blatant ridiculous gun rap for no reason.

AmalgamDigital.com: Torae you are one of the games illest lyricists, what inspired you to write these lyrics?

Torae: I’m the games illest lyricists huh? (laughing)  Like I said I write from experience, about what I see and about what’s going on. That’s the only thing I can do, that’s what inspires me just like real life experiences, just like what’s going on. Definitely when I see a lack of “IT”, of just real shit it just takes me up a notch. It really makes me want to express what I feel like the game is missing and lacking and just draw from real shit and real experiences.

AmalgamDigital.com: Marco Polo, you have previously stated that you were getting tired of rappers not rapping anymore, what do you mean by that and how did people react to that statement?

Marco Polo: What I meant by that comment is not so much the lyrics and the content it was more about the energy. I come from the school of hip-hop and it’s that excitement on a track where a rapper is putting that energy and aggression on a track to get you. I felt like a lot of the newer artist that were hearing weren’t doing that anymore, it was more like the laid back Jay-Z influence kind of whisper. I’m using the word swag even though I hate it, but more swag and less energy and excitement. It definitely missed that vibe on a hip-hop record so when we did this album I kind of suggested to Torae that we only take the energy up on this record and going that direction. No one has reacted negatively to that statement. I think a lot of people agreed with me, I m definitely feeling where we took it with this record and how Tore is attacking these tracks. It’s exciting, it’s kind of new but it’s not really new. It’s kind of like the way it always should have been.

AmalgamDigital.com: Your music is inspired by more of an old school sound. Are you trying to bring the “Golden Era” back?

Marco Polo: Me and Torae are definitely not trying to bring anything back with this record. We definitely are inspired by that era and we use that to kind of influence where we’re going with it but with a new twist and with our stamp and our creativeness that makes it different. We’re not trying to revive that era. We love it, but were trying to take it forward while paying homage to that era.

AmalgamDigital.com: The both of you are doing very big things underground, do you guys have any desire to become main-stream at all?

Torae: If by mainstream you mean make the music available to more people and have it out on a broader spectrum then definitely. As an artist you always want your music out to as many people as possible, but if that means you have to make a certain type of music or cater to a certain type of people then obviously that’s not what we want to do. If people are willing to accept the music that we make on the grounds that we make it then by all means we want everybody to hear it. We think it’s an incredible market.

AmalgamDigital.com: Torae, on your last interview with AmalgamDigital.com, we asked if you will be touring for the “Double Barrel” album and you said it hasn’t been finalized yet, do you have any updates on the tour?

Torae: We’re still putting the last piece together for the European one, that’s in the process. Marc and I have a lot of big shows coming up in New York and as well as Canada. We don’t have a full tour put together yet but were doing the biggest hip-hop festival in the city, the Brooklyn hip-hop festival, this month in on the 20th. We’re going up to Canada to do a show there. We actually have a lot of big things coming and were still trying to finalize everything for the Torae and Marco Polo “Double Barrel” Tour as well.

AmalgamDigital.com: With the way the music industry is going, what advice do you have for aspiring artists who are struggling to get their name out there?

Marco Polo: People are really looking for originality these days. If you go on the radio right now you’ll be hearing a lot of people doing what the last person did. They just want to hear something different and original; it will definitely give you an edge. Just stay true to yourself. When you’re making music that you’re forcing for the wrong reason, people catch on to that really quickly. So if you just kind of stay true to what you love to do, for example with me and Torae making this record, we weren’t trying to do anything for anyone else. We just did a record that we wanted to hear as fans of music and what we love to do and the response have been great because it feels authentic. It feels natural when you hear the “Double Barrel” record. We didn’t try to take it anywhere we just did what we love as fans of hip hop. So stay true to yourself and I think that will definitely sets you apart from everybody else.

AmalgamDigital.com: Are you guys working on anything individually?

Torae: We still continue to work on creating stuff but right now the main focus is the “Double Barrel” album. The album is out a little over a week we so definitely want to give people a chance to discover it, get into it, and love it. We want to put as much time promoting it as we did recording it to make sure it is the album that it is. We’re both definitely working and writing for the next project but right now our main focus is Marco Polo and Torae “Double Barrel” album.

AmalgamDigital.com: Will there be any more collaborative projects with our other artists in the future?

Torae and Marco Polo: Peedi!!! We want Peedi, get Peedi!!! We would love Peedi Crakk to be in our next album, make it happen.

AmalgamDigital.com: If you were trapped on a deserted island what 3 albums would you have to have with you?

Torae and Marco Polo: Aww Man Marco you’re so good at answering that question. Three records to bring…..
Stevie Wonder “Innervisions”, Genius/GZA “Liquid Swords”, and the Beach Boys “Pet Sounds”.

Tags: Interviews, Marco Polo, Torae

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 12:16 PM and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.