So, I had the pleasure of sitting down for a conversation with HERNBEAN 5150 and DUCTTAPE JESUS before a fire cypher session. If you’re unfamiliar, they are both up-and-coming artists hailing from this city we all know and love, Richmond, VA. Upon returning home, everyone kept mentioning their names, raving day in and day out. So I had to see what the fuss was about. One of the homies sent me the music video for their single “Automatic,” which happened to be shot by my brother Sean King.
When I finally watched it, I realized, oh, I know these guys—they aren’t new at all; they’ve been at it for years. So if this is your first time hearing about them, I’m proud to be the guy to put the bug in your ear!
Without further ado, the conversation.
Alex Mercer: Word, so, Hernbean 5150, Ducttape Jesus, how are y’all? What’s up?
HERNBEAN: Oh, doing great, man. I’m feeling good, man.
Ducttape: Fresh off a flight—just came from Las Vegas. I won some, lost some, but it’s all right; that’s how it’s supposed to be. Real character-building stuff.
AM: I love that. So, I got back to the city recently, and everyone was singing your praises.
DUCTTAPE: We miss you, bro.
AM: I miss y’all too, man.
HERNBEAN: I was like, ay, hold on, I know this nigga.
AM: I just started writing for RVA MAG, but I do it under a moniker.
DUCTTAPE: What’s the moniker?
AM: My name, Alex Mercer. You know where that’s from?
DUCTTAPE: What’s that?
AM: You know the video game Prototype?
DUCTTAPE: I know it, but I don’t play it. It’s from there?
AM: Yeah, it’s the main character from Prototype.
HERNBEAN: That’s wild.
DUCTTAPE: That’s very smart too. If anything, you’re essentially the same as Daft Punk when they started making music. I imagine when they were really in their helmets during their whole run, they were the most famous niggas. And they could walk around without the helmets, and all the niggas in the grocery store and Kroger would just treat them normal. They could buy bell peppers and shit. You wouldn’t even know, like, “Oh, that’s the nigga from Daft Punk?”
AM: : It’s like, if you know, you know.
HERNBEAN: You’re Daft Punk, bro.
AM: I don’t want anything but to push good music to the forefront. You know what I mean? That’s my goal. But anyway, it’s about y’all today. So yeah, I came back to town, and niggas were like, “Oh yeah, Hernbean and Ducttape Jesus, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.” So I was like, alright, put me on. So the first track they put me onto was “Automatic,” and I was like, these guys look familiar.
DUCTTAPE: That was such a good track.
HERNBEAN: Hell yeah. “Automatic” was a beat I got from my homie Opals. I was in there just by myself, recording, just freestyling. Honestly, I was like, off the top, and then Ducttape heard it and came in and was like, “Yo, give me a second.”
DUCTTAPE: I laid that down, and yeah, shot a video with Sean King, and there it was. It’s been dope.
AM: Shout out to Sean King, too.
DUCTTAPE: We love Sean King, bro.
AM: He’s a fucking hero in the community, man. If you don’t know, now you know.
HERNBEAN: Now you fucking know.
DUCTTAPE: Sean King is an amazing artist, for a reason, bro. He has a vision; it’s a crystal-clear vision. Does a lot with very little. And that’s the sign of a great artist, in my opinion. Sean is nice.
AM: Yeah, Sean just loves this shit, bro. So, shout out to Sean King. But yeah, man, tell me more about “Automatic.” How’d you guys come up with it? Tell me a little more about the creation of it.
HERNBEAN: So I came up with “back at it,” because we’re always getting back in the booth. You know, it’s like, “Oh shit, back at it.” It’s that little catchphrase.
AM: Yeah, that’s hard.
HERNBEAN: Just freestyling, trying mad different flows and shit, and yeah, that’s what came about, like, “Automatic.” I wasn’t even really thinking; it was subconscious. That’s how I normally record all this stuff; it’s all stream of consciousness.
DUCTTAPE: It’s really something to see. Ninety-five to ninety-eight percent of Hern’s music is a freestyle. In-the-moment type of stuff, and watching that is like, “Oh shit.” A lot of people obviously punch in as well. I’m not like, “If you punch, you whack,” but watching someone whose thing is, “I make music to freestyle, stream of consciousness, and get these thoughts out,” then release CDs and drop every fucking other month is amazing. To watch that is like, damn, that’s an artiste.
AM: That’s hard.
DUCTTAPE: That’s so tight to me, and reminiscent of Lil B in the sense of, again, freestyle type of stuff. He picks the ones that are one collective stream of consciousness and makes a project. It’s really cool to see. It’s like watching a live and just being like, “Damn, this thing is awesome.”
HERNBEAN: Thanks, dawg.
AM: I was surprised too when we started to cypher, and Hern started spitting. I was like, oh shit, that’s it, that’s the flow. Then it clicked that he freestyles everything. It became real apparent to me real quick, so I thought that was cool.
HERNBEAN: But that definitely comes from a lot of writing. I remember being at VCU; I had a little bin of just writtens. I’d just write—even try to write structured songs. Just write, throw it in a bin, and stack it up.
AM: That’s awesome. What happened to the bin?
HERNBEAN: Oh, I actually dropped out and lost all of my papers, I guess. I don’t know.
AM: We’ve all got lost notebooks. I’ve got notes on my phone—you know, everyone writes on their notes; it’s at least 450 notes.
HERNBEAN: It’s practice, it feels good.
DUCTTAPE: We talking about practice? *AI voice*
AM: Practice? We talking about practice?
DUCTTAPE: Not a game?
AM: Practice, we talking about practice.
HERNBEAN: It’s making material, just listening back to yourself a lot, too. Like learning how you want to be heard on the mic, and just spending a lot of time. Finding your tone. Find your tone type shit.
AM: What about you, Ducttape Jesus? How do you feel like your writing process goes?
DUCTTAPE: I love to write. I love writing just in general. I like really scenic stuff. I like watching movies, and I was writing short stories and stuff before I was writing raps, just in general. Like, just making someone see something clearly with words. It really fueled me, like the idea and playing with that. I like to play with people’s sense of imagery, and it’s not what you say; it’s what you don’t say. It makes people think of something. Roc Marciano’s really good at that. He says very little, but it makes you think of something else. He’s like, “My outfit look like a house pet,” and I was like, oh, shit. You’re getting this idea, this movie, *Casino*.
AM: It’s like he’s leaving you the space to let your mind create the bar.
DUCTTAPE: Yeah, and honestly, that part right there, that’s how you connect with the listener. Letting them create the interpretation of what you’re saying. You’re not laying the whole story down. So writing from the standpoint of what I don’t say is really fun for me. And I like to create this sort of imagery of the little places I’m at emotionally with my friends or relationships that I have with people. Just getting my feelings out through these little scenarios and situations and shit.
AM: I dig that.
DUCTTAPE: It makes me feel really, really good and helps *me* out, honestly.
AM: You feel like it’s therapy?
DUCTTAPE: 100%, I need to do this. It really helps me out. And writing it down does help sort out your feelings.
AM: Yeah, I feel that. Because the pen doesn’t lie, you can depend on it. Especially as a hip-hop artist, it’s like, you gotta keep your sword very sharp. It’s something you do every day. And you gotta be willing to suck too. Just write a lot, mess up, you know, toss shit away. Whatever “mess up” even means sometimes. I call it beating my head. I’m gonna go in the studio six out of seven days, at least, right? And maybe two or one—or sometimes none—of the days out of that week, I’m gonna get something and be like, yeah, that’s it. But you’re fishing, and whether it’s making you money, or not, if people are listening, or they’re not, if anybody cares, it doesn’t matter.
HERNBEAN: There’s people that literally put the time in with their craft, trying to sharpen their sword, literally trying to make a song a day or at least write a day or journal. I’ll make a beat, I’ll make a mix, I’ll paint. I’m gonna watch a movie, something. You know, just do something creative. Or when you’re cleaning your room, you’re listening to some music, studying the game, listening to Wu-Tang or, you know, some older hip-hop, or even newer stuff like Future, Lucki, whatever it is.
AM: Just finding sounds that inspire you.
DUCTTAPE: Exactly. I like to make fucking things. I really enjoy collaborating, creating, and making these things. Putting it out like, “That was tight as hell, let’s make another thing.”
AM: On that note, do you ever feel like you write your life into fruition? Like actual creation? I don’t wanna use the cliché “manifestation.”
DUCTTAPE: Rapping is like… you’re rapping like a spell, almost, you know what I’m saying?
AM: Nah, that’s a thing, bro. Do y’all ever write lines or songs just kind of talking in the moment, and then maybe two, three months down the road, realize it’s your reality? Has that happened to you before? Or even a month, or a year?
DUCTTAPE: This has happened to me a lot of times. Something flows and it sounds nice, but I don’t fully know what I’m saying. It sounds like mumbo jumbo in the moment, but it feels so right in the moment, it feels so good. Three, four months later, something’s gonna happen to me, and I’m like, that’s what that was. That’s what that meant, I swear to God. If I talk more about it, I’ma sound insane. So I’ma just say that and leave it alone. That’s what I’ma just tell y’all all the time. These are the things I wanna show, right? ‘Cause I go through that scary much. It’s like, yo, I listen to my old shit and literally feel like I’m talking to myself.
AM: You have time to reflect, go back, and it’s like, oh, my subconscious is loud as hell.
DUCTTAPE: It’s full subconscious, you in the avatar world.
HERNBEAN: You in the avatar state. When the earth, wind, fire, the air, the rocks, all that, you in that mode with the bars.
DUCTTAPE: You’re just seeing the world, the room spinning around, it’s like he’s floating with the air on his head.
AM: It’s what we call a vibe. I like the word “feel” better. ‘Cause it’s like, I’ve written a song and then I’m like, alright, this is hard, but I ain’t got time right now. I’m gonna record it tomorrow. And me doing that destroys the song, right? Like, it’s like, I got to capture this feel. Right then and there. Right now.
DUCTTAPE: Right then and there. You have to. I’m very much on that sort of time. It’s like, if we’re freestyling and then it’s like, hold up, we gotta stop. Everyone start writing, then we’re doing this one right here.
AM: Alright, let’s reel it back in. How y’all feel about the Richmond rap scene right now? What are some of the highlights, some of the artists y’all listen to, some of the spaces you guys like to be at?
HERNBEAN: Oh, for me, definitely the RVA Boombox and the Camel. As far as producers, I like Profound 79. Rappers, our homie Ty Sairobee, Ross Grell, the whole Gritty City Camp. I feel like the community’s real strong right now, everyone is always bigging each other up, whether it’s the young guys, the OGs, or whether they’re in the middle, whatever. Everyone just seems to get along, in my opinion… Not in my opinion, everyone just gets along. I had a good time at the Ant The Symbol show at the Boombox a little bit ago. It was just vibes all around, man, just real tight-knit. Everyone’s just supportive of each other, and they kind of see the bigger thing, which is, you know, just helping Richmond, Virginia. It’s not just all about you all the time, you know?
AM: 100%.
HERNBEAN: Let your mans do his thing, and then, you know, whatever.
AM: How about you, Ducttape?
DUCTTAPE: It’s very smooth, and I like that. No one sounds like each other. I be in my own bubble as well, too. I like listening to Flexico, I like Flexico a lot. And Radio B… Skillz did the shoutout at Drink Champs, that’s fire as fuck. And they don’t sound like what I make at all. And that’s tight as hell. Even me and Hern don’t sound like each other. There’s no Richmond “sound” type of thing. Memphis has a sound, Texas has a sound, all these other folks have a sound, but I can’t really think of a Richmond sound. Everything from Fly Anakin to Baby Sosa is different. Black Cray, Nettspend…
AM: How do y’all feel about the music scene in Virginia as a whole right now? You know, we got a lot of artists starting to take off from nearby, like Netspend, Shaboozey, Tommy Richman. You know, a lot of these cats are nearby, and then we also have our legends in the city, like Mad Skillz. And I always feel like Virginia was an incubator for a lot of different styles, not just hip-hop, but a lot of different genres. A lot of pretty big bands come from or around Virginia. So, with that being said, how do you feel about it? What will it look like for Virginia to be on the map musically, being that we don’t have a defined sound?
DUCTTAPE: I think we’re already there. I feel like we are now. I feel like we’re already there, you know what I’m saying? If you want to think about the biggest artists or a different sound, you just obviously pay homage to Timbaland, Pharrell, Missy. And if you know about what those people did for music, and you know they came from the exact same area or the same state, then you know.
The Virginia thing has always been the off-kilter. Look at how Pharrell’s videos look, how the Neptunes’ stuff sounds, how N.E.R.D sounded. Look at how Missy’s videos looked with Timbaland’s shit, how it even looked and sounded. It’s always been the off-kilter. The Virginia sound is like this… a smidge off, you know what I’m saying? And it wangs, too, you know what I’m saying? I feel like I have that in me. It’s almost a small chip on the shoulder. But you know, the people around me are dumb nice like that. Even the Clipse, Fam-Lay, Roscoe P. It was like, “Yo, you can’t tell me shit. People around me are so nice, and you never heard no one rap like these niggas.”
HERNBEAN: And I know my friends are that good, and I’m that good to provide them those beats. That’s how I feel about the best. And then we live in Virginia, and that’s how I feel about the circle that I have around me. Ty, Snootie, you know what I’m saying? To the Lil Stixxx, to Sap, to Boo. I feel so thankful and blessed to be around such talented, different artists. And that’s Virginia to me.
DUCTTAPE: Tommy Richman, Shaboozey, and Netspend. Name three more different niggas in the world. Name three more different genres… That’s Virginia.
HERNBEAN: We got a Lil Ugly Mane too.
DUCTTAPE: They couldn’t make a song together if they tried to. That’s why it’s tight.
HERNBEAN: Mutant Academy, too?
AM: Facts. So we’ll get to the hallmark questions everyone loves to hear from their favorite artists. So, Hernbean, I’m going to start with you. What are your goals for your music and your career? What things mean success for you?
HERNBEAN: Success for me, man, really. I just want to one day be able to support myself fully off my music. But then, at the same time, there’s nothing wrong with having a regular job. Nothing wrong with that at all. One of my favorite rappers, Ka, he’s a fireman. I work at the YMCA. Like, literally, working a job is totally fine.
But then there are people that are able to make a living off of being a creative. That’s great as well. Yeah, that would be my goal. Then, also, just to keep dropping bodies of work. I want to always just… like, Ducttape knows me, I always drop little singles on SoundCloud, streaming, wherever I listen to music. But then I also just want to be known for making bodies of work. Literally, in length, like 20 minutes to an hour. I don’t think anyone in our times wants to listen to a two-hour album. It would just be funny to go out here, you know, and make a real nice body of work. I feel like I’ve made a few, or some in the past; I just want to keep making something.
DUCTTAPE: I want to very organically, naturally create a body—a couple of tracks that felt right to me—and it turned out that when I put them together, they sound good together, and it’s a body of work. Yeah, plus, not thinking about it too much.
AM: Yeah, whatever you like at the time. That too, because it’s like you’re capturing that moment sometimes, you know, or that period of time, whether it was a week, a year, two years, whatever it is.
DUCTTAPE: Mm-hmm.
AM: So, yeah. 100%, capturing time.
DUCTTAPE: But everything that Hern just said, in full, yeah, I couldn’t have said it better. And I believe in the things that I’m doing; it’s gonna send me to where I’m supposed to be, where I’m trying to be. Man, it is just so lit to do this, bro. Like, the process of things, it’s like me enjoying my life is more important than an accolade.
Right now, we’re doing an interview, I’m getting interviewed by somebody that I’ve known before for RVA Mag, from the things that I’ve done in this room—the same room that you’re interviewing us in. I’ll keep following this North Star, wherever the fuck it may lead. That’s it. And my next album is gonna be called Chrome Witch.
AM: Alright, guys, it’s been real talking to y’all. I hope you guys had fun. I thought it was a cool experience. Y’all got any final remarks for the people?
HERNBEAN: I’m working on an album that’s gonna be called While On Call 2, so it’s a sequel to While On Call.
AM: And for the readers, make sure to peep Automatic.
HERNBEAN: On all platforms!
Interview and photos by Alex Mercer
