WIB Rap Radio Hour # 81 – Witness Interview by Thewordisbond.Com on Mixcloud

Daddy J and I interviewed hip-hop artist, Witness, a few years back. We recorded it live-to-air on DOPEfm radio and it turned out to be one of our most played interviews on our podcast site. To that end, I wanted to share it with all of The Word is Bond listeners / readers.

I am sure you will enjoy this show as much as I do.

Here’s a brief sample of what you will hear when you press play or download the radio show today . . .

Chase: “The one thing that is interesting about the album is that it is fairly short. It’s about 26 minutes long, I think. Ten tracks. But in the day and age where so many people are putting out huge albums with 21 tracks and long mix tapes with tons of guest appearances, there is something about a short album, such as yours, where it is just perfect. I didn’t even realize it until I wanted to write about it, so I decided to see what other people had said about it. They said, “Well, it’s short.”

And I’m like, “Who cares?” It’s slamming from beginning to end and in that way it kind of reminds me, I know that this is probably a crazy comparison, but it reminds me of Nas’ Illmatic that way.”

Witness: “Wow, thank you. That’s a huge compliment. Thank you.”

Chase: “It’s nice and short and to the point and beautiful. You know what I mean?”

Witness: “Yeah, there’s definitely a reason behind it. Growing up I dug all kinds of different music and I always respected the punk, kind of, hit-it-and-quit-it approach. There are very few emcees and very few producers that can carry themselves on a track for 5 or 6 minutes.

There is a standard of three verses and a chorus, and while it definitely has its place, I feel like there is no point in extending a song for an additional length of time if I feel that I’ve got the concept as much as I can possibly say about it, ya know? There’s no real reason to stretch it to four or five minutes when you can get the same point.

It is something that I want to do. I don’t think I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve found the correct backdrop for my own sound where I would want to do it now. It’s something that I definitely want to aim at. Shorten songs and having them with a shorter verse, I think, makes the whole flow of the album a little easier.”

Chase: “Yeah. I didn’t put my finger on that’s why I liked it so much. I downloaded it one day, kind of on a whim. Quite often, being in hip-hop radio, I go digging to see what I can find. I know some people think this is weird, but sometimes I will download something based solely on the cover art and the name. And that is why I downloaded yours.

This looks like it might be good. This looks like it might be a female MC. I was doing a whole show on Women in Hip-Hop. I put the CD in and I get this jazzy, laid-back kind of flow, and I was like, ‘Wow, I really like this.’ My girlfriend did too and that became one of the most bumped albums of last summer for us.”

Witness: “That’s real cool.”

Chase: “We definitely gotta play a track right now so people can hear what we are talking about. I have some favourites on here but I was wondering if you had a particular favourite that you like us to spin?”

Witness: “My favourite one off of that album, I’d definitely start off with ‘Watercolours.’ That has a sort of tone to it that fits the album and makes the other tracks pop some more.”

Chase: “Okay, we will spin that. Daddy J will drop that track. This is called ‘Watercolours’ off the ‘Everafter LP’ by Witness. Chase March is on the interview tip. Witness is on the phones. And we’ll be right back y’all.”

Press play to hear the entire interview.

And if you like what you’ve heard today, click on the artists links below and go cop some great music.

Thanks for listening and supporting great hip-hop music!