Back before it got cold, I drove over to the Jellowstone Records house to interview Marcus Tenney and producer DJ Harrison of Tennison, who had recently released Crack Music on their bandcamp and a cd which RVA Magazine deemed as “essential listening” in the Winter 2015 issue. I caught their act at The Broadberry (opening for Detroit’s own Slum Village) and was blown away by their live performance and Tenney’s commanding stage presence.
It was everything I’d missed about hip-hop. Stuff I remembered from being a blonde kid from a small town riding in my mother’s Jeep, slyly sneaking Biggie and 2Pac into the vehicle’s CD player before she could object. I had to see what these guys were about. Where they stood, and who they were as people and musicians.
Marcus poured the three of us a glass each of Evan Williams and we sat at their kitchen table looking out the sliding glass door at the backyard, sipped and just had a conversation. Though it was an interview, it never felt like one. It was fluid and comfortable and real. Just a simple conversation by three dudes who love music. Get ready. Big Poppa is back, and this time the motherfucker is from Richmond, VA.
Ryan Kent: What is it that inspires your verses, do specific words pop into your mind that become the genesis of a rhyme? Is it the day to day struggle, kinda thing? Something from the past, present, or future? OR something tight you may have thought of on a whim and rolled with it because he was already rockin’ the beat?
Marcus Tenney: For me, the inspiration to write is an emotional thing. I have very strong imagery, so I look at something or I hear something or I get these real strong flashes of imagery, whether it happened or not. So whenever I write verses I have to hear the music first because then I can get those flashes of imagery and I can go off the emotions that I’m getting from this thing I’m seeing in my mind. It’s kind of hard to explain because I hear the music and it’s like a movie starts playing in my mind. And basically what I’m doing is describing that movie that my mind is generating.
RK: Do you find it harder to freestyle than to actually write?
MT: Yeah. It’s virtually impossible for me to do that. I’ve tried to work on it; I still try to work on it. I put the voice memo on in the car and when I’m in the car I’ve got mad CD’s of instrumentals so I just put them on in the car and I try to freestyle. Some stuff will pop up but it’s like a slow burn that’s going to take a long time, just like improvising, for me to get to a place where I feel like I can speak clearly. And it’s going to be the same road with that. So in ten years, hopefully I’ll be able to freestyle.
RK: Do you feel the same emotionally when playing the horn as you do with doing hip-hop? Is it easier for you to improvise with the sax or the trumpet as opposed to freestyling, or do you have to write your shit with the horns too?
MT: It’s much easier for me to improvise because I’ve been trained as a musician to be able to function like that with a horn. When I approach it, it feels great, because I’m trying approach that same – I’m trying to come to the same place but from a different angle. When I write those verses out I can always go back to that place. And it’s just as exciting as if it was the first time.
RK: When I saw you with NO BS! BRASS at The Broadberry on your birthday, there were a ton of people there and you were not feeling any pain at all, but you still maintained a commanding stage presence regardless of your state of mind. Then I saw you open up for Slum Village with Tennison and I watched you, clear-headed, drop some shit on a different level and from a completely different direction. Yet that stage presence was still there. And it was almost intense. There’s intensity with what you do with the BRASS, but this is something different. Is that something that just happens with you or has your stage presence been influenced by certain artists?
RK: Would those specific guys be ones that inspired you to get on stage or was it more specific hip-hop dudes?
MT: Specific hip-hop dudes for me, the hip-hop I grew up on was, like, Busta Rhymes, Biggie, of course; Tupac, um, who else – Jay-Z. All the…
RK: Main guys…
MT: Yeah. Gigantic. I have this thing that when I like a song I like to listen to it hundreds of times. It’s like a drug I’ve got to listen to over and over again. So as a kid, of course, I get Hard Knock Life Vol. 2 (Jay-Z). I’m listening to this record over and over and over. And as a kid I would try to figure out, ‘why is this so good?’ So I learned the lyrics to a point that everyone else hadn’t. So, now it’s like, so, when those songs come on at the bar, and I know that shit top to bottom. From all the music to all the words. I know the inflection, I know the tone of voice they using. Where their pitch is at so I can sound exactly like them. I can make it just as clear as they had it, you know what I mean. And that translated into music and then I started learning jazz music. As a jazz musician they teach you to mimic, that’s how you learn. You mimic the people that you’re listening to and then through that you kind of find yourself. Through that mixture of transcription and listening, soaking yourself in that environment you kind of find yourself in there.
RK: Do you take that as a compliment when people compare you to B.I.G? When I listened to this {Crack Music} and saw you on stage, you are a big dude and you’ve got a big stage presence and big delivery, I mean, for me, you’ve been the only dude locally who can actually emulate that.
MT: Yeah. I do take it as a compliment. To me it’s kinda crazy because my voice does actually sound like that. My voice and my dad’s voice. I’m definitely not trying to not do anything, I’m just doing what I do and kinda put blinders on. It’s like, ‘Ok. I don’t wanna sound like this person or that person.’ I try not to get into all that. I try to just be like, ‘I wanna write this. I wanna do this.’ And if it goes too far in one direction, so be it. Then it’ll just be another thing that I have that sounds like this. I just try not to let that influence what I do.
RK: (to DJ Harrison)What inspired you to DJ and produce beats? How does it feel to be the “band” as opposed to being the frontman?
MT: He literally is the band.
DJ Harrison: Well, my dad was a radio DJ. So when I came up I had a bunch of records in the house and that’s kinda where my early, musical learning stages came from. Essentially I wanted to make music that mimics samples because there’s cats out here, like my homeboy Obliv, he’s a fuckin’ monster. So once I started getting the beat tapes and heard how you flip the samples I was like, “oh, man. I can’t do this.” I don’t want to do it without biting his shit. So, I learned how to record and just kind of do my thing in the studio as if it were chopping a sample. And from that it just came about because I knew Marcus in jazz school. We were both into the same hip-hop artists and what not so I started giving him beat tapes. We always kept saying, “We gotta do a project together. We gotta do a project together.” Then earlier this year I made a random batch of beats here at the house and I was like, “man, I think Marcus would like these.” And now we’re just kinda, building upon that.
RK: Are you all sick of each other yet?
MT & DJH: (laughs) Nah, nah, man. Not yet.
DJH: I’ve known Marcus for 12 years. I’ve known him since I was in high school. It’s crazy. But as far as being the, you know, whole frontman kinda guy. I don’t really necessarily pay attention to it. These are obviously the beats I’m making and me doing the whole queuing of everything and making the speakers bump, but everybody is there to see Marcus and that’s fine because I really want to do my best to support him and help him do what he can do the best that he can do it.
DJH: My personality, I never wanted to be the cat in the front anyway. I just kinda wanted to, you know, if cats hear about you they hear about you. I’m not really worried about that.
RK: Now it seems that everyone has their own agenda or something they want to do and it’s like, blah blah blah blah blah blah, instead of ‘hey man, we’re all in the same band together, we’re all on stage together, we all eat the same food together”, it’s like the “you gotta get yours before I gotta get mine” kinda shit and that shit has got to go. I can feel you on that and that’s a really good attitude to have and a positive way to be. Think about all the cats sitting there in their rooms and they live out in the suburbs and never really get to come out into the city and their chances of getting to do stuff are a lot slimmer because they’re not around the music and not around the people all of the time, and then we are given the opportunity to do that and either having a bad attitude about it or squandering it is insulting and disrespectful to the people who do not have the same opportunity. Same thing as the person who’s got incredible athletic skills and they don’t practice and they dick-off and next thing you know it’s 15 years later and they’re out of their prime and running a fuckin’ Fridays.
MT: It’s the same shit. Like I’m on that “team” vibe, for me. When I was growing up all those hip-hop cats, they did that shit. Like, I remember when DMX got popular and next thing you know, Ruff Ryders is in there. It’s like, ‘Oh, that’s the whole team.’ Turns out these people grew up with this cat and he was just the first one to pop. As soon as he popped, he was like, ‘Yo, let’s go. Everybody. Let’s get it. I’ve got enough money to get it now.’ Same thing with G-Unit. 50 popped and next thing you know the second record they was putting out was G-Unit’s first record. I’m a huge fan of G-Unit. Outkast popped off in Atlanta and next thing you know, Dungeon Family is on the Any Given Sunday soundtrack. Biggie popped off and then Junior M.A.F.I.A was there. Puff was all in there.
RK: Then you got Busta and the Flipmode Squad.
MT: And then they popped off. To me, that is the vibe because it all comes from a place of darkness and emotional turmoil, constantly, every day. That’s why hip-hop is all about getting high and getting drunk and partying because what else – what else are we gonna do? You could get shot at any moment. Your mom is sick. Your dad is M.I.A. You got two kids, but not enough money to feed them. Kid wants a big wheel, you can’t afford it. There isn’t any opportunity. Just gun and liquor stores. So it’s like, “Hell yeah, I will take a hit from that blunt and I will take another drink, thank you. We’re gonna party and make ourselves feel better. So, you try to put that shit into music. All the bad shit that’s happened to me. All the good shit that’s happened to me. You just put all of that into a place. You channel it, and focus it, and point it towards something.
DJH: You can look at all the groups, as far as the cats bringing their team on. They all went through the same thing. You can hear that when listening to they music. They put everything in it. Like Elvis. He put everything into it.
RK: What do you think about the current state of hip-hop? What do you think the future holds for it? Is there going to be a future? Is it going to evolve if that’s not what it is already doing? Or do you think it’s going to slowly go the way of the mammoth? If you listen to the shit we grew up with, that’s not what’s going on now.
MT: No. It isn’t.
RK: I listen to shit that comes out now and I’m like, ‘I don’t want to listen to this.’ I’d just rather go listen to the old shit. I mean, maybe that’s how our parents felt.
DJH: I think there’s two sides to the whole thing. I mean, there’s the radio aspect of music. I think the reason that it got the way it is was because of the – well, it’s not solely because of this – I don’t know, it seems like people being lazy with new forms of technology. So what happens is, like you have all of this technology available which means people don’t have to work as hard. People don’t have to think as hard. Everything is at their fingertips. We’re kinda like some of the last people in the age that didn’t grow up with a computer. Like everybody born in the 90’s had a computer or had a cellphone. So now, not to say that everybody is – there’s an evolution of people being dumbed down but more like one of those things where people aren’t gonna want to go sift through all the music that’s out there because whatever is presented to them, it’s like, “oh, if my friends like this then I’m gonna like this.” Then not search for something they actually like. So the whole taste factor is dumbed down in a way, ya know. So when you listen to the radio and it’s catchy and the beats knocking, everybody’s got a guilty pleasure for trap. I’m just throwing it out there. But you had to go back and listen to music that actually has substance and understand why this is why I’m drawn to this and this is why I’m drawn to this and this is why I don’t like this. But that aspect of music is gone. People are kinda finding what they actually like, so I don’t know how long the actual commercial, radio status is actually gonna work which brings me to the underground aspect of it. So the underground is really, really on the rise because people are kinda getting tired of the same thing on the radio. So, they are trying to seek for more knowledge; digging for a different meaning within their music, so I think that is a great thing. Even if you look at major things like SoundCloud and BandCamp and some of the labels are starting to have a huge say in that, only because, nobody is paying attention to their commercial B.S., so they’re kinda trying to do anything they can to hold all the underground cats – like, me for instance. My fuckin’ SoundCloud got deleted and it’s like, I can’t ever have another one.
RK: You said they deleted it?
DJH: I apparently got hemmed up for doing remixes, which, I took acapellas from records or wherever, like freestanding rap acapellas and made my own remixes. And keep in mind, these are my own remixes. Like, I’m playing drums and I like sampling myself, like old tracks I did years ago and matching them with the shit. And I got popped for it and they said I can never start a profile again. So, that’s kinda the thing where I’m talking about, they’re trying to get the guys who are actually doing the great shit and getting the likes and the plays and the notoriety, whether it be SoundCloud or musical figures looking down and trying to help them out, but I feel like there’s a fight between them and the bigger label trying to keep out the underground because they know the underground is gonna prevail. And they’re doing everything they can, so they’re like, “if we can’t stop it, then we’re gonna be part of it, somehow. And we’re not even gonna ask, we’re just gonna go be part of it. Because we can do that.”
MT: They do that, man. I think that shit was too hot and I think, probably, Jay-Z heard that remix if it was up there, or one of those cats heard that shit and somebody’s producer got mad. They said, “Get that shit off of there.” Sometimes the shit is too hot. Like with No BS! We were supposed to open up for Chicago.
RK: And Chicago said, no?
MT: Yeah. Their manager called Reggie (Pace, trombone) and said “Yeah man, they don’t want a horn band that good to open up.” And it’s like, sometimes your shit is just too hot and that’s what happened with this undeniable.
RK: I mean, Chicago was “the horn band”, dude. My parents had the Chicago Transit Authority album, all the way through the Greatest Hits album. Peter Cetera was their original singer and he left and they were still buying their records. Chicago was “the horn band” of the 70’s and 80’s. That and Tower of Power. So to have “the horn band” of the 70’s and 80’s tell you to piss off because you’re too good, that’s got to feel great.
MT: And at the time, we may or may not have been good enough but they felt like–
DJH: Intimidated.
DJH: That kinda takes it back to the point you were bringing up about the whole Eddie Van Halen and Michael Jordan aspect, where it’s like, you got the cats who spent all their time coming up talking about and wishing they could go do it and then you got the cats who did their whole…Gladwellian? {Malcolm Gladwell} The whole 10,000 hours thing.
RK: Oh, where they say if you do something for 10,000 hours then you’re a master at it.
DJH: Yeah, so it’s like Eddie Van Halen definitely came up and spent time on that guitar every day. It was a discipline for him. He carved that time out to do it. Same thing with Michael Jordan, man.
RK: To tell you the truth, when I got this ( Tennison’s album, Crack Music) and saw your set at The Broadberry, man, honestly for me that’s the most excited about hip-hop and rap music since – I don’t know Marcus, it’s been a long time.
DJH: (laughs)
RK: I think the last thing I was really stoked about was a Saul Williams record from, ah shit man, it might’ve been five years ago, Niggy Tardust, which was produced by Trent Reznor, so it was different. I mean it wasn’t really hip-hop but it was still conceived in that same breeding ground of rhymes and poetry and beats, ya know.
DJH: It had that same depth.
RK: Just with you guys, it reminded me of back when I was in the car with my mother listening to Ready To Die (Notorious BIG). I was a boy. I hadn’t heard Juicy yet. I hadn’t heard Warning, yet. I’d only heard Big Poppa, but it was just the innocence of being blown away by something that it was like a cloak. I had that the first time I heard Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden and Pantera, all my favorite bands back then. So, it was really cool to experience that live on a local level, something that just punched me in the jaw, to where I just stand there for a moment to look at who just hit me.
MT: It’s that command forcing you to listen without any – it’s like a beautiful woman {who} walks in the room.
RK: And you can’t stop looking at her.
MT: Yeah, it’s just like everybody (is looking). Like if it’s a cute girl who walks in, a couple cats will check her out, but if somebody like, whoever the flyest girl right now in the world is, she walks in the room everybody is gonna be like, “Damn.”
RK: Final question. If and when you put the mic down. If and when you stop making beats for good, what do you want to have accomplished as a fan, as an artist, and as a human being?
MT: For me, I want, I literally just want the world to hear the music. I know it’s good. I know it’s good and we are never gonna stop working so it’s going to become undeniable. But that’s what I want, I want people to listen to the music. I put my mind in that shit and I put my whole life into that shit. Same thing with improvising. I put my whole shit into that too but there ain’t any words attached to that, so it’s a little bit different. But with the rapping, you can put the shit you didn’t tell your mother in there. And I’m trying to do that because that’s the shit people want to – people like to feel like they’re not alone in the world and when you do that, when you listen to records, that’s what music does. That’s where the feeling aspect comes in. I was listening to Kendrick Lamar and he’s talking about, “my knees getting weak and my gun might blow, but we gonna be alright.” You just gotta keep marching. Keep going, ya know.
