Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire exposed at Pop Montreal

Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire

Perhaps you’ve noticed a hulking, often bare-chested menace in an Expos cap and custom grill with 100 pounds of necklace (which include a gigantic evil eye and ankh cross) lurking around the Internet, guzzling 40s and celebrating the fleshy part of the female thigh.

That would be none other than Brooklyn’s Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire — a rapper in a league of his own, to be sure, but one who embraces east coast hip hop’s time-tested tradition of pissing on the tracks and laughin’ at the third rail.

Cavorting with the likes of El-P, Danny Brown and Das Racist (all of whom are featured on the eXquire-curated 2011 indie posse cut “The Last Huzzah”), the rapper is as much Def Jam as Def Jux, his over-the-top image in tune with a rugged finesse on the mic.

He called me from Brooklyn last Friday, on a 4 p.m. breakfast “date,” ahead of his first-ever local appearance, at Pop Montreal tomorrow. And I never expected to hear Nelly’s name used in a cogent analysis of the modern music industry.

Darcy MacDonald: Thanks for calling in the middle of a date! Where are you and what are you eating?
Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire: We eatin’ breakfast right now — scrambled eggs with cheese, hash browns, pancakes and sausages, and she got… turkey bacon, right? (a female says, “Uh-huh” in the background.)

DM: One of the things that first caught Montreal’s attention when “Huzzah” came out was the Montreal Expos fitted you were rockin’ in that vid.
eX: Oh shit, yeah man! Yeah yeah yeah! Well, my name is eX, and that’s like my hat, like Expos, eXqo! Same thing. I got a buncha those, I always wear Expos hats. That’s my lil’ thing.

DM: We love them shits up here. At first I thought you were a local rapper I never heard of.
eX: Nah, I’m from Brooklyn, baby! What’s happenin’ Montreal? I like Montreal.

DM: Have you ever been up here to visit?
eX: I been in Canada but this is gonna be my first time in Montreal. I played Vancouver, I played Toronto, I played Ottawa.

DM: The video you put out last week, “Positions of Passion,” that’s like, the most soul-felt strip club video I’ve ever seen!
eX: You know, that’s not a strip club, though!

DM: It’s not?
eX: Hell no! (laughs) It’s super not a strip club! Actually, that’s my man’s basement at his crib!

DM: I know you’ve got mixtapes out and whatnot, and now you’re working with a major. Can you tell me a bit about that move?
eX: It’s beautiful man, I love bein’ on a major label! It’s really nice. They treat me nice, they’re really excited about what I do, you know what I mean? My EP comes out Oct. 30 on Universal, it’s called Power & Passion. I got production from El-P, SpaceghostPurp, all kindsa people. It’s tight.

DM: I heard you say something in another interview, and it’s something I’ve been hearing from other contemporary rappers: labels seem to be letting rappers come in and just be themselves, more and more. Do you think that at the artist development level, the labels are thinking more with the times?
eX: You know what I think it is, more so (chewing) – sorry, I’m eatin’ pancakes, my bad. What I think it is now, it’s the Internet era. And you got people defining themselves before they get deals. You’re not gonna change what’s already working.

Before, we was in the demo-deal era, where a dude might come in and he’s a pretty dude. They be like “Oh, he’s pretty!” Like Nelly, for instance. Nelly wasn’t the Nelly that we know when he got a record deal. You nahmean? That dude used to be like, a lyricist! He used to rap! A lotta people don’t know that, that like, Nelly was a rapper rapper, he was a battle rapper.

But then, he was like a pretty boy, so they were like “You know what? You know what?  You’re pretty. We’re gonna make you this, like, Pretty-Nelly nigga.”

Now, let’s say you get on for being a lyricist, they’re gonna sell the lyricist. So that’s why we got a different era where everybody’s able to come in and do what they do. There’s really no box to put you in, ’cause the labels really just don’t know what works anymore. They’re just like, fuck it, whatever the kids like online, I’m signin’ it just as it is. So you know, we’re kinda fortunate in that way, at this time.

DM: It’s crazy how that really seems to be manifesting itself in hip hop. When kids are used to working for free and majors come along… I don’t wanna give them too much credit, but whereas you would think they might just try to take advantage of that, it sounds like they actually offer development deals that make sense now.
eX: I mean, they still sign you and they just want what you do to blow up, pretty much. They want you to go from what you did two years ago at 50,000, to 10 million, with the same product, you know what I’m sayin’? They’re basically there to facilitate, that’s how I look at my label. I don’t really deal with them like that, they just know what I do and that when I get ready to do shit, I just call ’em, let ’em know “this is what I wanna do,” and get it done! So I like being on a label. I love it, actually!

DM: You get to book some cool studios?
eX: Well, I did the El-P record at El-P’s house! That’s my first single actually, it comes out in like two weeks. But most of the album, I did it almost up near Canada! I did it in Westcott, New York, upstate. I did the whole thing in a cabin, on the farm n’ shit! Nice, nice, nice things goin’ on up there.

DM: Sick. You hear about a lotta bands that go and do that — what made you wanna do it? Just the opportunity, or was it something deeper?
eX: Well, I’m not from like, a small place. I’m from Brooklyn. It’s kinda crazy to just… my life, when I’m home, is crazy, you nahmean? I like to be away from all that. I like to tour more than I like to be home, because it’s just crazy now. Before it was easy, but like, now I’m on TV and got a certain level of fame, so it’s like, I can’t concentrate here. When it’s time to be creative, I like to leave and just be isolated, turn my phone off and work on my music. So I have to kinda get outta here. I don’t even have a choice in the matter, honestly.

DM: It’ll be cool to hear the project and know that it was recorded in such a different place than Brooklyn.
eX: Yeah yeah yeah! But it’ll really be Brooklyn ’cause I’m there, and I carry the borough everywhere I go!

Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire plays Pop Montreal alongside DAM-FUNK, les Anticipateurs and Yacht Club at Mission Santa Cruz (60 Rachel W.) on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 9 p.m., free