ECID Interview with Brady O'Rourke at DUnation.com
July 31, 2006
Biograffiti
by Brady O'Rourke
Music scene, meet Ecid. 'Ya see here's the thing; he's been recording and doing the music thing for awhile, but at age twenty three and on the release of his third solo album, this New Brighton native feels he has finally put together a complete, thorough, and more importantly personal album.
Ecid, who currently runs Fill in the Breaks, uses the label as a benchmark from which to measure the personal and musical changes that he has gone through. "While I was making the new record, I did a lot of contemplating. I came up with Substance Abuse when I was like 19," said Ecid. The label, a collection from the former Substance Abuse crew composed of, according to Ecid, "…pretty much the same people [as before]; we just kind of grew up." Ecid, who grew up in New Brighton and attended Spring Lake Park High School, later graduated from IPR in 2003, around the same time that he started making beats for the Substance Abuse Crew. "I'm a sample-based producer; I dig for the weirdest shit I can find, the stuff I haven't heard. I'm real finicky about it, and I get pissed if I ever sample something that someone else has," he later continued, saying "I go for organic and abrasive, and I do it all."
While he got his start in production in 2003, the rapper/producer has been writing and recording since freshman year in high school, when two of his friends bought a cheap microphone and started recording. "Being as ambitious as I am, I took the mic[rophone] from them and just started recording shit at my house," said Ecid. After meeting up with Impulse and reconnecting with childhood friend David Mars at Fifth Element open mic sessions several years back, Ecid got his start with managing a collective of artists, which later transitioned into the current Fill in the Breaks roster. When coming up with the name, Ecid thought "…it [the name Fill in the Breaks] was too hip-hop at first. I wanted a name that kind of left it open so that in five years if I'm like 'electronic Goth-hop,' that's the shit, then we can do other things, not just hip-hop."
Musically, Ecid combined his rapping and production skills to produce his first two solo albums, a Sector 7-G album, and the N-E-S album "The Anarchy Smiles," though he doesn't feel that his talent and grind paid off until recently. "I always like to say to people that I've been writing and rapping for damn near ten years, but, I didn't really take it serious until like three years ago, and didn't really get good, in my mind, until like two years ago," Ecid. "We met Eyedea at the same time. And he helped me and Impulse grow a lot. We recorded Living Stereo at his house, so we just learned an insane amount from him." Though armed with musical talent and desire, Ecid still wasn't satisfied.
Enter "Biograffitti." It's a complex blend of several things; personal tales, darkness and art. Music's somewhere in there too, if not only to work as a vehicle to carry Ecid's emotional brand of hip-hop. "It's artistic and it's hip-hop, so that's where the graffiti comes into it. I like what graffiti stands for. It's like they call 'this' graffiti and this is bad, but then other things are considered art. Whatever," said Ecid. "Right after 'Living Stereo' I just went full fledged into it," said Ecid. But what caused the personal transformation of Ecid? The answer to that can be found somewhere in between the blurry realms of deep personal realization and finding a way to voice those realizations. "When I was a teenager," Ecid remembers, "and I was still trying to find myself as a rapper, and I was like fifteen, I started selling weed because I thought that it would give me street cred[ibility]. It's bullshit."
Part of that transition also came from changing what resided in the CD player, from gangster rap to underground backpacker rap. "I found Company Flow and El-P's 'Funcrusher Plus,' and that changed my life. You just hear it and you're like 'what the fuck is this?' And it made me go, 'oh, I can be myself now.' There was all this other shit, and I thought I had to be a gangster rapper for someone to like me."
As for the gangster, cash, hoes lifestyle, you won't find a trace of it at Ecid's New Brighton apartment, nor in his approach to music. "You shouldn't be ashamed of living off of your talent, I'll go sell CD's outside of a mall if I have to," said Ecid. Ecid also hopes to put together a tour for the album, hopefully a week-long run with Hecatomb's Capaciti at the end of August. This will be the first row of shows for the Fill in the Breaks front man, though he has done one show trips as far away as Arizona. "This last round, I made money. I sold enough merch[andise] and everything where I made money, then the car that we took down shit out on us and we had to fly back, so my profit was gone," said Ecid. On the horizon for Fill in the Breaks lies the difficult task of branding the label, as well as putting out releases from Jordan Miche and Saturday Morning Soundtrack.
Musically "Biograffitti" accomplishes many things, and will be properly christened at the release party on August 29th at the Dinkytowner. You might even find the man behind the record lurking around while he's not on stage. "I like after shows after doing my set trying to sell CDs to people. Sometimes it's a challenge, but I like the whole grind of it. I like it all. It's frustrating, it pisses you off, it takes a lot of time, it drags you down, but it's worth it, to me at least. Because I have that ultimate goal."
"I make songs to express what I'm thinking at the time," said Ecid. And while the Ecid of 2006 will no doubt continue to change personally in the future, but the tracks on his new album show no sign of him hiding behind a façade or prepackaged image. "It's the first time where I felt that I was truly myself. And I think it comes through," said Ecid.