eMC

Since formation in circa 2006, eMC have experienced worldwide acclaim amongst Hip Hop fans with a tight but talented roster of experienced emcees. The group released their debut album The Show in 2008, and was praised for their refreshing lyricism and clean cut stories.

At the end of last year, Masta Ace, Wordsworth, and Stricklin travelled Europe for The Green Room Tour, hitting up cities across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Poland, Sweden and the UK. Following the release of The Turning Point EP last May, the three rappers have began work on their next full-length project, The Tonite Show. After a performance in Nottingham, we caught up with the crew to find out more about eMC and what they’ll be bringing to the scene in 2015.

So how’s the tour been going so far?

Ace: So far the tour’s been going really well, we’ve done three cities in Germany so far, and then we came over to England, three cities here, and now we’re heading to Switzerland tomorrow. The turnouts have been great, and people are just loving the energy that we bring to the show.

When you originally formed eMC, did you set out to make a mark on Hip Hop?

Strick: We definitely wanted to make a mark and separate ourselves from the pack. We pride ourselves in being very creative with lyric writing and the topics that we choose for our songs, and also being part of Masta Ace’s golden book catalogue. We wanted to put music out that had a meaning behind it and make the album easier and more fun to listen to by putting in skits and tying everything together, and have the songs and everything connect like a movie or a documentary, you might say. So yeah, we did make a conscious effort to set ourselves apart from everything else that was going on.

Did it take a little time to gel together or was everybody on the same page from the start?

Wordsworth: It pretty much works the same way all the time when we’re doing stuff together, y’know. We get a whole bunch of beats and kinda weed out the weak stuff that we don’t like, and then put together vocals on stuff- it goes kinda like a merry-go-round. We’re on the same page as far as finding what we think we all like. So it’s not like we’re not on the same page as far as making the music, it’s more about trial and error.

You guys have touched upon personal topics in songs such as ‘U Let Me Grow’ and ‘The Turning Point’- Do you think some artists could take a more conscious and reflective approach to the way they make music?

Ace: I think there’s a lot of artists out there that take an open and introspective approach, there’s a lot of artists that have personal records. Even somebody like Lil Wayne, who you might think of as a commercial artist, even he’s made records that are real personal, and gives you an insight to what his life was like growing up. I think that’s really part of the creative process, and maybe more of those songs should be commercially available for the masses to hear, but real fans go out and find those songs and play them.

Was the Hip Hop scene big in Milwaukee when you were growing up and how did it shape your career path?

Stricklin: Growing up in Milwaukee was kind of rough. The Hip Hop scene is minimal, we don’t have the record labels and the companies, and all the things you need to further your career. So, I made a lot of trips to Chicago, a lot of trips out to the West Coast, LA, and also to New York. I had a friend of mine who got drafted by the New York Jets, so it’s kinda like my entry into the game was passing off a demo tape to him and his lawyer, who turned it over to another attorney in New York and kinda got my career going on the East Coast. It was kind of a disadvantage being born where I was born, but y’know it’s a gift and a curse. I like it because we’re kind of like a melting pot of different styles of music, so, y’know we got the East Coast vibe, we got the West Coast vibe, we got the down-south vibe and it’s all mixed together in the Midwest. So, I kinda look at it as a gift and a curse sometimes.

Have you ever considered taking your writing abilities outside of Hip Hop into other industries?

Wordswoth: Yeah I’ve done some kids stuff. I did a Dino 5 album, Spongebob, I got something else coming out with Dreamworks in a couple months. So, I try to do everything, man. Whatever deals with writing, if I get called to do it, I’m able to do it which is cool, I gotta know all the formats pretty much. Yeah, I’m always working on doing different stuff, man, always.

Ace, have you had any thoughts about the concept and creative path of your upcoming solo album?

Masta Ace: It’s gonna take you back to my four years of high school. What life was like for me in my neighbourhood. Commuting from the projects, the hood, all the way out to where I went to high school at, which was a white neighbourhood called Sheepshead Bay. And, all of the stuff that went on in Brooklyn and around my life during that time from about thirteen to about sixteen, seventeen years old. Ima take you back there- the album is writing itself, literally writing itself, and I’m just having a good time coming up with these songs and these ideas and I’m already thinking about what the skits are gonna be. It’s gonna be pretty fun- it’s gonna be fun for me. Ima make it fun for me. I feel like if I like it, then it’s gonna be a’ight.

How come you guys decided to get together and form a group in the first place?

Stricklin: It was actually the fans who put the idea in our head. We did a song for A Long Hot Summer called Four Brothers and it didn’t make the album. We put it out on the Scribble Jam mixtape just to see what would happen, and the fans loved it and they were the ones who actually said ‘Hey you guys should form a group.. chemistry is dope’. But it took a while, I mean we had been touring with Ace since 2001, and that was like 2005 when we that put out on Scribble Jam. So, it took four years of being around each other, a couple of tours- the Long Hot Summer tour, the Disposable Arts tour to get that chemistry together where we felt comfortable enough to take the fans up on it and form this group- eMC.

Do you think Hip Hop could use it’s own turning point?

Wordsworth: Yeah, I think that there’s a lot of turning points that occur in Hip Hop. If you’re a fan of, depending on who the artist is, such as Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q, the whole TDE, I think that’s a turning point for that age and the people in Hip Hop which is big- and Joey Bada$$ has his own thing with Pro Era. So there’s turning points that are always occurring, you just have to pay attention to them and hopefully be able to implement whatever you do into the culture to also provide another turning point. So really providing within those turning points extra lanes that people can go, and different routes, but there’s always some turning points going on with new artists coming out.

What can we look out for in the future from eMC?

Masta Ace: We’re working on the new eMC album which is called The Tonite Show. That’ll be coming top of this year, somewhere around there. We’re developing the skits, and the songs are all pretty much done, we just gotta make a few changes, a few adjustments. But that’s the next thing that’s dropping- the Tonite Show by eMC. Really The Turning Point was just to let people know that we were back out, that we were ready to go again and to see if we can get that chemistry back. But now, we’re ready to put this album out. We’re excited about it- that’s the next project and that’s the next release the fans need to be ready for, y’know. When this album drops I feel like we’re gonna be coming right back to the UK real soon.

The Tonite Show is set for release on May 5th, and will feature a handful of artists including Xzibit and B-Real. The album will follow a day in the lives of the artists as they prepare to join Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show. They hope to one day make this concept a reality, and are asking for their fans’ support to help them make it happen. Check out their mission statement at http://emccrew.tumblr.com/mission and support their aim by using #eMCDateWithJimmy.

You can find links to their latest videos on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/theemccrew?fref=ts and stay updated with the group on Twitter @emccrew.