Savant

1. Savant, you’ve been around making dope music for a while already. Why is it taking so long for you to get an album out?

For a long time, I really didn’t have the desire to release my own project. I was content to supply feature verses for other artists, spit on beat jacks and just be a “MySpace emcee”. It wasn’t until some of my collab partners (Dee Jackson, Three60 the Universal Ruler & Cutta, specifically) started asking and egging me on about a solo project that I began to seriously consider the prospect of making it happen. I’m also a perfectionist in the worst way, man. I feel that it’s imperative that one takes their time on things, especially when dealing with anything of the creative nature. It’s a gift and a curse for obvious reasons.

2. Can you tell me a bit about RAREBREED and how that fits in with your solo career?

RAREBREED essentially plays the same musical role that Black Star plays to Mos and Kweli. Some other similar examples, for clarity’s sake, are Felt (Murs & Slug), and Bad Meets Evil (Royce & Em). Basically, it’s a hip hop “alliance” as opposed an actual tandem (i.e. OutKast, Organized Konfusion, and Little Brother). The “alliance” consists of my younger brother (Joey Downtown- http://myspace.com/joeyofrare) and me and while we do plan on eventually releasing a collaborative project, for now he’ll be appearing on all of my solo projects supplying guest verses and vice versa.

3. How did you manage to get on a track with Louis Logic? It’s a dope track. Is it going to be on your upcoming album?

Thanks for lending an ear to it. The credit for that collaboration goes exclusively to LMNZ (pronounced “Elements”), as he was the one that laced the instrumental, chose the topic and chose the participants. I think he rocked a show with Logic at some point or another and from there their creative relationship kind of blossomed. It won’t be on any of my projects, but it will be on his compilation that he’s got in the works.

4. Is there an emcee that you consider to be your greatest influence?

Mos Def is unequivocally my greatest influence. His solo debut “Black on Both Sides” literally changed my life in the sense that it provided undeniable evidence to me that there was indeed a substantial amount of depth to hip hop music. Sure, there were several before him that made music in the same vein (Rakim, and the like), but none of them save Rakim had Mos’s verbal fluidity, and most of what I discovered about hip hop was actually done so retroactively from “Black on Both Sides”.

5. What do you do for a day job?

I’m an editorial assistant at a publishing firm in Tucson, AZ. Im also a full time student and a trumpet player in the National Guard.

6. “Perfect Profession” is a great track. Have you won your father over? Are your parents fans of your music?

Thanks again. I think I’ve won my father over in the sense that he finally has evidence that I’m not “perpetuating ignorant rapper stuff” (that’s a direct quote) so he can no longer use that as an excuse to not listen to what I’m doing. Having said that, I don’t think he’ll buy my albums. While he likes a lot of the sonic backdrops that I use and he likes it when I sing hooks and/or bridges, and he gets elated whenever he hears me playing trumpet on a track, the idea of rapping has never sat well with his ears. Ditto for my mom. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that they’re fans of my vision… just not the final product. That’s more than enough for me.

7. Do you have a formula or a method that you use when writing your verses?

A formula, no. But I guess I have a method. If I’m writing to an instrumental, and I’m not just on some cypher idish, I try to commit to a topic beforehand. After that, I pretty much allow the beatsmiths’s work to mold the structure, cadence and flow of the verse. Although I ultimately want my lyrics to stand out above the instrumental, I want my voice and whatever flow the backdrop calls for to somewhat blend so that they both sound like additional elements of the instrumental.

8. Can you tell me about your experiences performing live? Do you do many shows?

I haven’t done many live shows since moving to Tucson because school is demanding a little more than it has in the past. I’ve performed most notably in Chicago, Birmingham, Boston, Atlanta, Houston and Seattle, and while the majority of the shows were just emcee/DJ shows, three were with live band backing. Those were by far the most fun and most challenging ones. On three other occasions, I actually included trumpet playing in the set and that seemed to go over well, also. Little known fact: I intentionally shy away from songs that require my singing (i.e. “Bottom to the Top” and “’Til Death Do Us Part) because I really don’t have much control of my singing at that volume.

9. What’s your favourite track from your catalogue?

“The Lyricist” because that’s where everything began. Very few artists record and actually LIKE the first song that they ever wrote. I did , I do and it still knocks.

10. Where do you hope to be, as far as your hiphop career, in five years time?

Let’s see… Two mixtapes, two EPs, one full length solo album, and one collaborative album deep. Everything that comes with that would be gravy.