People always tell me it’s hard to be heard coming from this city, but this is the third largest city in the country.

To be real with you, I don’t settle in the frame of mind of being a Chicago MC. Don’t get me wrong, I was born and raised here, got much love and this is my foundation, this is where I’m from, I’ll never forget that. But I think a lot of cats have a real localized mentality here. But don’t get me wrong, I think it’s real fuckin’ difficult. I say a lot of it being difficult has to do with there being no real sense of a collective here and no sense of unity. You do shit and try to make moves and essentially it's progression for the city. It's not just progression for yourself, but it's progression for the city and muthafuckas give you the cold eye. Know what I'm sayin'? It's tough. I just got back from the Zion I tour with Lyrics Born and the Lifesavas, and we had been rockin' everywhere man. Everywhere. The show was killin' it everywhere. And we had just done Indiana the night before we came back to Chicago and everybody was like "Yo we going to your city tomorrow man. It's gonna be live right?" And I was like, "I hope." Yo man, it was a disappointment. It definitely was. It's a tough place. It's a very tough place. If people do come out, they're not eager to show a lot of love. That's coming from me, but I think most local artists would share the same sentiment.

What did you grow up listening to?

A whole range man. NWA, Biz Markie, KRS, Public Enemy, Kurtis Blow, shit man, I listened to, dude I was impressionable. At that point in time, pretty much there wasn’t too many people that I wasn’t listening to. I could sit here and write a list of 50 people I came up on.

Who is hitting in Chicago right now?

Twista’s doing it. Holding it down real well. All Natural and Cap D and all those cats doing it well. Qwel, Kenny Keys and those cats. Molemen. My man Longshot, he’s actually doing a record with the Molemen right now. J.U.I.C.E., much respect for that cat. There’s a ton of cats doing it.

We’ve released the “Move” EP. That was like 5 joints. We did the “Wylin’ Out” single with Mos Def. Right after that we did “Certified,” it’s another song I did with RJD2. I got three things in stores now. But everything I’ve done it’s nothing like what’s on my record. My album is a conceptual album and I don’t feel that anything I’ve put out is ultra conceptual. It’s called “One A.M.” and it’s coming out on Chocolate Industries. Production by Madlib, RJD2, Prefuse 73 and guest appearances by Vast Aire from Cannibal Ox, Jean Grae, and Lyrics Born from Quannum crew. It’s “One A.M.” You know like it’s not one song played over 13 times, I go a lot of different places on it man from heavy rock feeling tracks to softer like jazz oriented tracks to more like boom bap traditional hip-hop tracks. We travel a lot or terrain on it.

Who is Chocolate Industries?

Chocolate Industries is in Chicago now but it's from Miami originally. Seven, that's my man, essentially that is Chocolate, we met through a mutual friend who had told Seven a lot about me and just clicked. Even beyond the music realm. That's my guy. It just ended up working out. He released Push Button Objects. I was the only hip-hop MC on the label, but now he's got Vast from Cannibal Ox. And Coral, Via Tania, she's really dope, he just put out her record. He just did the “Urban Renewal Project” compilation with various artists on it. What I like about the label is he doesn't have any boundaries in terms of what he appreciates. If it's good to him he'll put it out no matter what genre it's in.