Posted 06/08/05 by Ryan, [Tell a friend]

Artist: Interview conducted by, Alex Contact:IcontheMicking.com Interview posted June 8th, 2005 iCON the Mic King has been on the scene for a minute now, and takes a break from his busy schedule to give us some incite. iCon speaks about his battling past, the difference in freestyle and writting, his touring(good/bad), and much more.

What's up, iCON?
Ain't sh** Alex, just taking a day off for once. I just got back from Salt Lake City, Utah this morning on a red eye flight after showing more of the midwest that I'm a true Jedi Knight. Other than that just working on my new projects, trying to feed the truthseekers this year. EARLY!

You mentioned on your webblog that the Texas tour a month or so ago wasn't the greatest. What exactly went wrong with that?
Well my boy and fellow Fallen Angelz member Awar just released an album called "Glory Days" with no label backing him and no distribution and I make it a priority to look out for my people so I set up some shows for him. The whole run was full of fugazi nights..one promoter straight canceled a show on us and didn't tell anyone. Matter fact, I'ma put him on blast, this kid Lindsay aka "Deeps" canceled our Dallas show and didn't tell me or my booking agent in advance so we bought plane tickets and all this to Dallas from El Paso to make it to the show on time and we get there and heads are telling me it's canceled. In the end that situation got handled, but I would suggest that no one book anything with him...he has a history of being shady. Other than that a lot of the shows had bad turnouts and just bad planning and things like that. For instance we got to one venue and the soundman was like "I have no cords to hook your turntables into the system --- why don't YOU have them?!" I don't know how much the readers know about doing shows, but of all the shows I've done in my career I've never showed up to a venue where my DJ needed to provide chords to hook his equipment into the house system. However on the upside of things I got to connect with a lot of the fans, make some new ones, get Awar some much deserved shine and chill with my Ground Opening family. So it was still worth it.

How were the recent June shows?
The June run just ended. It was Dos Noun and myself and we just did ur midwestern dates. In some ways it was better than June in other ways it was worse. It was a lot of riding the devil's chariot (greyhound) with the bottom feeders of society. A couple of the shows the people weren't too responsive but we still gave it our all regardless. Dos got sick early in the game but we still pushed through and left a lasting impression on new and old fans and all the promoters are eager to help us out by bringing us out again so in that regard it was a success. I can't really complain, I did what I love to do and stepped off with some luchini.

From someone who's shared a stage with other icons from Jay-Z to KRS-ONe, what is the one thing that makes or breaks your performance?
It's really the crowd. if they're not into it, I'm not into it. However sometimes even if the crowd wants to be lazy or indignant I can convince myself that it's live and keep my energy up and it eventually wins them over. It doesn't even have to be a lot of people. There's been times that I've made 20 people sound like 200 people and they keep their hands in the air and I capture their starry-eyed attention for the whole set. That's enough for me to have fun with it. People think that there are these set magical things you do as an MC to always "Move the Crowd" and I'll tell you as a highly energetic emcee who has rocked hundreds of shows that's not the case, the crowd is either gonna feel your sh** or not, sometimes it is not in your control at all. There are few things that I have experienced in my life so far better than having a room filled to capacity where a crowd is responding to your every lyric, movement, and command. So that really is the deciding factor of whether the show is gonna be tight or not because I'm practiced and experienced I'm gonna come with the heat regardless.

Straight out of the rumor mill, I've heard accounts that you're blood related to PackFM and have beef with him? How much of this is true?
PackFM is my cousin. Any alleged "beef" or disagreements you may have heard about would be a family issue and would be dealt with as such.

How hard has the transition been from battle champ to strictly song writing?
Not hard at all. I made music for years before I started battling. I wouldn't say I had it mastered by then but I had a great idea of how it was supposed to be done. I always understood the dichotomy between the leniency allowed when freestyling and the scrutiny that comes when writing. The freestyle rapper that can't make songs is the dude that tries to say the same type of corny sh** he says live...on records... I'm very meticulous with my words so I naturally apply much more effort when writing, if anything the question should be "was it hard for you to dumb down your content so you could win battles?"

What's your opinion of people who compare you to MosDef and Common?
I've never heard that before, but I guess it makes sense since they both did time as my favorite rapper when I was still trying to figure out what my style was. Their influence, though residual, is definitely still there and I have nothing but respect for anyone who's opinion allows me to join that pantheon of emcees. I don't think I sound like them at all though I think a more fitting comparison would be to Pharoahe Monch.

In your biography, we learn you're a college dropout. What was your field of study, and why didn't you stay in?
I was a computer science major. Let me preface this by saying I had been teaching myself various computer programming languages since 7th grade and I'd make my little games and it was fun. Then I got to college it became more academic and I'd do these internships with these seriously stressed out Dilbert types with wild hair and annoying accents and it just stopped being fun. I realized I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a cubicle counting down the days until carpal tunnel set in; I want to travel the world and spread the gospel.

What's the most important thing you learned durring your collegian experience?
Most of the ins and outs of women and that your best friend will turn into your worst enemy for the right price.

Do you recommend leaving education to follow your dreams?
I recommend that everyone take a systematic approach to achieving their dreams. If leaving education behind is what you need to do to make it work then so be it. However I believe education is very important and no one should use their dream as a scapegoat to not finish school. At the same time a lot of people are in school because they don't know what they want to with their lives or they don't know how to accomplish it or they need some sort of validation. I know exactly what I want to do, how to get there, and I don't need validation. In my field of study there isn't anything I couldn't pick up a book and teach myself. I have a proclivity for all things computers and if I ever felt as though music isn't going to work it wouldn't take much for me to get a position or go back and finish my degree. Before I left school I was at a point where I was going half-ass at both my degree and my passion and my father told me I should just go hard on one or the other.

As a battle cat, what was your favorite line used against you in a battle?
I never really paid attention to that many of the rappers I battled while they rapped. Most of them said the same sh**. I liked when Alaska said "You're bout as hard as Bob Dole with no viagra...CROWD LAUGHTER." and he pointed at the crowd and they were applauding then they applauded more. That was tight. This cat H-Bomb said some sh** about rearranging the letters in my name and flipping me like a COIN. I thought that was tight but nobody got it. Perfecto battled me with a verse that had mostly CON words in it. That was tight too. Other than that I don't remember any real good lines where I went "damn that was tight."

Have you recieved any major label attention? What would be an ideal situation for you?
Yeah in 2000 I was approached by a major label but I was on my "independent as fu**" kick back then and I wouldn't return their calls. In 2002 another major label wanted to sign 4 emcees from my crew as a group, by then I was down but 2 of us weren't with it so the window of opportunity closed. My ideal situation would be like what Ludacris or T.I. came into the game with. They sold X-amount of copies to garner major label attention so that gave them more bargaining power from the gate. I'd rather be dealing with the joint-venture instead of the bullsh** standard deal.

One of our aspiring interviewers, Visero wanted to know, "Do you think you're making a big inpact on all of the Underground Hip-Hop or just the backpackers? And what will it take to reach the rest of your potential audience?"
Music is funny, you never know who is going to like yours or who it's going to impact. A lot of the times I'll play a song for someone and think they won't understand it or feel my style at all and they turn around and tell me they really felt it. So I honestly don't know who I'm making an impact on. I don't look at it as the "Underground Hip-Hop" or "Backpacker" markets, the only way to survive this era of oversaturation is to forge your own market. That is what I'm attempting to do so I just make my music and do my shows and whoever likes it likes it. If i had to make an educated guess I'd say my average fan is either someone who is very much into the early new millenium battle scene or search's for obscure Indie rap...so yeah backpackers I guess. But if you did a Venn-Diagram of my fans with say....Little Brother I don't think there would be a lot in the middle. Whereas if you did one of mine with say Ghostface I think there'd be a lot.

For readers who've never heard your music, how would you describe an iCON record?
An iCON record can be a wormhole that transports you to another dimension or it can just be a movie for the blind. I bring the bangin' beats and intricate thought-provoking rhymes, it's up to you to bring your imagination. I'd say my music is the cross-pollination of Organized Konfusion, WuTang, and the Lyricist Lounge era.

Do you have any plans to go back into the battling curcuit, even as a guest star or judge?
It's not something I seek out but I'm definitely willing to judge or host worthwhile battles. Last year I was a judge for Scribble Jam and a host for the preliminary battle. It was a lot of fun. I kicked two wack rappers out in the prelims. I'm also a judge for the 32 Deadly Masters battle in Ft Wayne this year. So it's something I'm open to. As far as battling I'm not so sure about that because I don't have that fire/will to win anymore. I just don't care. This year the prize for Scribble Jam is $10,000 and I really tried to will myself to do it but I couldn't find it in me to give a fu** about winning a battle. I just want to make dope music and travel the world performing.

Many artists like to make a fuss about their upbringing as inspiration to their art. What did your childhood/adolesence add to who you are today?
That's not something I've focused much on in my music up to now; at least not directly. My childhood just made my worldview less limited than the average rapper. Most rappers never leave their city. Sh**, I went to Disney World and Disney Land, holler! hahahah. What I'm really saying is I was exposed to a lot of culture and both of my parents are Ivy League graduates so education was always important. I was always encouraged to know more and my creative spark was always nurtured. I'm stubborn and I was raised with enough vision to see what I need to do in life to get me where I'm going.

What can we, the fans, do to support your work?
First I want to thank all the fans who have supported me thus far because you guys keep me afloat both financially and creatively. I'm definitely an emcee for the fans. Like where most rappers will re-use an old verse I make it my mission to write something new instead for that one fan who is out there scouring P2P networks for every track I ever spit on. What I need the fans to do more than anything at this point is to spread the virus. A lot of the time when I do shows someone will come up to me and say "Oh so you're iCON? I'd heard the name so many times but never actually heard anything..." It's as if the road is paved but the people don't wanna get in their cars. So I need the fans to spread the word about me. Go head and burn your favorite songs of mine and give em to some of your friends with my website written on it. When I do a show in your area make sure and come out and bring a couple friends that never heard of me. Also pick up my current releases at your local record store and if they don't have them ask them to order it. Right now "Intricate Spectrum" EP is available on Beyond Space Entertainment so that's what your local store needs to cop for you. I'm down to do whatever it takes but I need heads to meet me half way.

That's about all there is this time... do you have any last words or shout-outs?
For those of you who are just finding out about me right now...go to IcontheMicking.com so you can hear something. Other than that, I just want to thank everyone and everything that has gotten me to this point and I want to thank everyone and everything that will get me where I'm going in advance. I also want to thank myself for staying persistent because: "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and Determination alone are omnipotent." --Calvin Coolidge

Aiight. Thanks a lot, iCON.
Thank you Alex for helping to turn the blind eyes back toward the light of thousand suns. One.

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