Polite Conversations w/ Shape (of things to come!)

When I first heard Shape something about him caught my ear and I haven't stopped listening since. One of my favorite emcees in NJ and I suggest you listen to him. Thanks for letting me keep your conspiracy book!!!!

This man has a lot to say and I appreciate his total honesty on what he thinks about Barack Obama because I share that same doubts on all politcians.

Next beer is on me, Shape!



Are you still in charge of Division East Records?

No. Division East Records is currently being run by Dave Dowd and GDP. So myspace artists can stop hitting me up about it, please!


How would you describe your style to audiences that never heard of your music?

Oh lets see now, how about neo-grunge, psychedelia relying on heavy hitting punch lines and clever witticisms to convey deeper, clouded and more preposterously pretensious underlying themes of political discontent, spiritual and existential angst and severe problems with relationships and commitment. Oh, and drinking and drugs.


You produce as well. What do you use?

I use the MPC2000XL as the centerpiece to my studio and also use the Ensoniq ASR-88, which is a way too big and way too heavy version of the ASR-10. I flirt with the Reason software here and there and the bulk of my sequencing is done in Protools. Recently I've been utilizing a lot of live instruments, a groovebox and an army of dinky toy keyboards I've borrowed and found in thrift stores. I've also been getting a lot of use from this sweet Barbie Piano I found on big trash night. It's pink.


How's the new album sounding compared to Raised Near the Power Lines?

The new album has been a long time coming, but considering Raised Near the Powerlines was recorded over a period of two years, that's nothing new. There's actually enough material for about five new albums but about 90 percent of that has been confined to the vaults. I've been really experimenting with my style over that last year so you can expect to hear a more crafted, much darker and way more musical sounding project. The tentative title for the follow up is Dios de los Muertos and that should be coming out late 2009. Also, be ready to hear some side projects coming out before that. I've got a project I'm finishing up that is all outside production, a few collaborative projects and I'm going to be doing a small hand printed hundred copy release of my electroacoustic singer/ songwriter stuff. Oh, and a whole album I'm working on that is just me playing my new Barbie Piano.


What's it like having a local following and trying to find broader
exposure out in music?

I've been really lucky to have had a lot of support from a lot of people. Knowing that people are coming out to see me feels good, cause it means I have a lot of friends, which means that I am now popular, which is sort of making up for all those years in public school. That's right class of 2001, people like me, I get respect, girls are into me and find me smart and attractive and want to copulate with me. In your fucking face! Who wears glasses now?

As far as trying to find broader exposure, well that would mean
becoming even more popular which would really show everyone what's what, so I am definitely aiming to do that. I think I'm gonna be a pretty big deal in a couple of years if I can keep fueling my ambitions with vengeful self-validation! I'm in it to win it, America.

I love the Glass House video and that's my jam! I was really glad you
performed it last
Saturday at the Axis Lounge. What were your inspirations behind it?

I've always been real fascinated by imagery that is related to voodoo and the occult and when I got a chance to make the video for glasses houses, I knew I wanted a grainy gritty and oft while creepy feeling to it. I don't know if a lot of the imagery was specific to anything in particular or more just drawing on a kind of lucid subconscious area of symbolism. I watch a lot of David Lynch stuff and was really into the show Carnival on HBO and I love dressing up in costumes, so I think a lot of those influences ended up being displayed in there. My boys Pistol Pete and Zagnuts filmed the video and it got pretty crazy at times, for instance, when I'm rapping at the carnival, I'm really rapping at the carnival. I was going along to a boom box and what you cant see in the video is that as we are doing this take for take, I have hundreds of parents and little kids walking by and sometimes just stopping to watch not really sure what to make of the whole scene. It got a little awkward and it was sometimes really hard to keep a straight face and look serious when small children are pointing at you and the security is slowly making their way over. The worst part was doing the filming on the merry go round, cause I was the only adult riding it and I was in a suit and had two guys with a camera filming me while I'm surrounded by very very young people making faces each time I come around. One guy whose daughter was riding on a nearby horse was visibly disturbed. Plus, I was on mushrooms and meth.

Ok, I have to ask this, but we all know how most people feel about
McCain-Palin. I want to know your thoughts on Obama since our
generation gears more towards him.

There's a saying that the people get the government they deserve. And if the last eight years could serve as any indication of the karmic retributions brought upon by the populace of the United States in electing George W. Bush to office in 2001, and judging by the severity of the blooded post-apocalyptic political landscape we find ourselves in today, I'd guess the majority of our nation's voting population must be a morose motorcycle gang of blood thirsty mother rapers, pedophiles and cold callous degenerates living so deeply and darkly entwined in the cavernous sewers of their own morality and Right Wing fervor, to have conjured from their electorate system the one monster in flesh that could adequately represent them to the world at large. That being said, John McCain must not pass through those tarnished gates of the White House by any means and under orders of the blood of
a revolution, so help me god, I will personally arm and excite if the day comes when these neo-con bastards loose another of their Christian hell spawn into the Executive branch of this good country. For the safety all things biological on this floating rock, rich white men must not be allowed near Washington with pens or writing utensils of any kind for a period no shorter than forty years! But I digress…

Many in our country today have been watching with keen awareness an election cycle that has been playing out like some doomed and harrowing carnival sideshow of political mischievous and rhetoric, lorded over by men who wear on their face masks of our sins and dark secrets, like bright and colorful clowns only children are wise enough to fear. We should know well enough, not to trust any man who seeks power. So I do not trust Senator Barack Obama. The man is after all; a politician. And while he is obviously the only choice for presidential office in 2008, something about the man nags and eats away at me in uncomfortable ways. I worry that something unseen lurks beneath the charisma and charm of the man who stands behind a podium and calls for some vague and undefined "Change," as if the word itself, merely uttered aloud before an audience would take on a power of its own device, with the strength to break down the walls of over sixty years of political ineptitude and deceit, rebuilding in its place a utopian tomorrow aglow in the warmth of liberal promise. I watch as my peers are hypnotized by this elusive promise like one who has already seen and been hardened by the political wars. I know that many of the young voters with Obama fever are coming into this
election with knowledge of voting that has been reared by media spectacles like American Idol and Survivor and may not recognize politics for the dirty game it is. I defy them to explain to me in detail the position and platforms that constitute this "change" we rally behind. This is the same nominee after all who has "changed" his tone several times dramatically since being elected by the Democratic elite.

I felt a wave of mistrust umbrella me when Senator Obama lent his vote to George Bush to continue his fascist policies of unwarranted wiretappings that target, not terrorists and state enemies, but everyday civilians like you or me. And I felt betrayed when, after months of calling for immediate retreat from the madhouse that is Iraq, he turned to the wind and began to speak of timelines and preparations for the building of more forces in the Middle East. Then my emotions turned to abject paranoia when I learned of his clandestine and shrouded meeting at this years Bilderberg convention.

History will make its own conclusions of Barack Obama as he will certainly be the next president of the United States of America. But I still believe any man allowed to follow a path as treacherous and dark as that of the road to the Oval Office, is a man to watch with two eyes at all times. I think Barack Obama is a man who would never play a small pink piano.

There are so many dope emcees out there and they get slept on. What
are your top 5?

Haha, I thought about doing it, and I'm going to do it.

1. The Man From Somewhere Else
2. Daniel Joseph
3. G. Wallace
4. GDP
5. Everyone else in New Jersey.

6. Mr. Gorgeous

And where the hell is G. Wallace?

G. Wallace is a man of mystery. To understand where G. Wallace is, I think you have to understand what G. Wallace is. I'm not sure if I understand that yet. But I think he was last seen in Savannah.

What does NJ mean to you?

Jersey is where I live and the place I want escape from, if only long enough to return in time to die on its soil. Probably the most unique state in the union and by leaps and bounds the most diverse. Having spend most of my natural life growing up here has been an absolute pleasure. New Jersey is the ultimate underground. If you don't live here you think it sucks without ever realizing that it is actually you who suck, to whom I say good day sir.


And what does Shape want to tell us??????????

The American government is lying to you, don't trust them! Ladies, my myspace is conveniently myspaced at www.myspace.com/shapeone! I'm a cool down to earth cat and I'd love to get a drink with any of the people who are into my music as long as they are buying! My album is available for FREE on my myspace if you can figure out how to use the nimbit online store, which is actually pretty easy and I urge you to go get it and burn copies for everyone you know! I got new shit coming out soon!

Big ups to TMFSE, G. Wallace, Pisto, Max-Jerome, Larry Hobson, GDP, Rewmec, Bullymouth, Ax Throwers, Division East, unicorns, Anitek, F6, Animal Crackas, Pryme Pro, Rotten Garden, Shah, Poet, um, um, DJ Prime, Fashion Taschijan, J-Stamps, Atbash Cipher, Allen, Grandpa, shit, um, that one dude, Carson and Michelle and Bri, everyone who comes out to the shows, Barack Obama, Tommy Halligan, Big ups to everyone. Oh yeah and huge ups to SHEENA SHE on the CHAINSAWS AND JELLY SANDWICH TIP! Good looks! Sorry I wrote so much.