On Counches With Marques Martin
What made you choose this couch?
I chose this couch because I slept on it a little bit a while back. Also, it’s just where we all hang out Me, Bob and Tom we watch movies and TV here.
Who are those people to you?
Bob and Tom
Yeah.
They are family, I meet them two or three years ago. I believe in 2016, and they took me in when I was homeless. I had a friend who was paying rent down here, who was living with them. Me, Bob and Tom stayed friends and whenever they would go out, I would cat sit for them. We developed a relationship and they helped me through graduation, I can’t really repay them [laughs]
So why the other chair
Well, I didn’t sleep on that one, but usually, when we do watch stuff this is where I sit now. So like I never really ate on this one but over there I would have ice cream and wine and stuff.
What’s the last thing you watched on this couch?
Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. And over there I watched Swiss Army Man, you ever saw that movie before?
It’s a strange movie!
Yeah, they all thought it was weird, it’s pretty deep, it’s poetic in away.
While you were sleeping in this space, what pushed you to create your music?
Umm… what pushed forward it was nice to have my own room, just be able to have that privacy and living in New York you don’t get privacy. So, any ideas I had in my head I wouldn’t feel embarrassed to express them. Aside from space the people Bob and Tom they are more experienced so I kind of picked up on their habits, like spending even work ethic. Tom worked as a city planner so he had experience hiring people, so he would explain the standards that they were expecting. Same with Bob he is very compassionate and that shows me how to give back. They do a lot for their community and just in general for people that they believe in. So I’ve just been learning. They are creative smart people.
Do you think that the environment that you are in generated the music that you create now?
Yeah for sure, you’re a product of your environment. I was this kid with divorced parents, spent a lot of time on my own, and went to a small Christian high school with only five kids.
That’s small, that’s just a room
My old school from 7thto 12thgrade was only 15 kids.
You knew everybody, and everybody knew all your business all the time.
Yeah, but it was Christian.
So there was no business
[laughs] pretty much, it wasn’t the best representation of a Christian school. The people who were in it did not represent the Christian faith well.
Do you think that Christians are hypocritical of themselves?
Yes, of course, exactly. I’m not the most religious person but I do know that growing up in that I would read the bible and I would see what they’re doing, oh you’re not doing what’s in here, you’re doing whatever you want and you’re sinning. And they are saying that they are the leader of this church.
It always seems like having a certain power over someone else. It’s strange.
You can say a group of people, let’s say jocks, you can say that they are all supposed to act like this, maybe that word doesn’t represent each person. Even “hipster” the word hipster used to be kind of endearing a little bit. But if you call someone a hipster now it means, this guy is annoying. But a hipster was someone who was just wearing something no one else was wearing, but now you’re just a guy with a handlebar mustache. That plays along with Christianity, the people don’t represent what it means, those people are usually the loudest ones, the homophobic and racist kind, my school was homophobic and racist.
How do you evoke that consciousness in your music?
I started doing music because I know I had something to say. The message that I want to show was a different perspective. Not just lyrically but sonically, I can show you that music doesn’t have to sound like this, it doesn’t have to have these same loops and rhythms, doesn’t have to have the high hats, snaps, and snares. You can use anything, any sound from any culture from any sound library. Anything can be a sound. Even if it’s the most obscure thing, and things that you don’t think should be sounds, like clashing baseline and having whaling guitars. I want to show people the relationship between audio and visual, the same thing as being a director, I see all those things kind of the same. Like a movie being shot is your beat, the lyrics are the characters interacting with each other, those are their lines. I feel like that is something that I’m trying to show.
When you’re talking about the collection of sounds, how does that affect you as the producer of your tracks?
As a producer, I don’t feel like hip hop is still not as sophisticated or as well thought or even well-sequenced like Rock music, anything outside of hip hop aside from techno. Anything that can be produced without pro tools, it sounds more human. When you listen to Queen or the Beetle’s or whoever, there is one section here and there is another here, there are progressions throughout.
They are telling a story through one song; sometimes hip hop can be one-note.
Yeah, it’s a little straight forward and a little too literal. Sometimes it’s taken to literally, you can rap about shooting people, you can be whatever character you want. I feel like it shouldn’t be taken as this literal thing, Hip Hop shouldn’t be so literal, and we need more representation of the non-literal. I can tell a story about someone I’m not or never even meet, also sonically I want to make it more adventurous. I don’t want to just want to jump right into that experimental realm, people call me experimental and I don’t know why. I guess I can see it in a very basic way.
People call something experimental when they hear a sound that can be a voice but isn’t exactly, and speaking to the part of taking things literally I was trying to understand the line in your song “Dinner Date”, you say “Told my girl if she vote for (The wall) We don't gotta get a fuckin' divorce…” what was the impetus for that line?
Well, I’m not saying I am a trump supporter, I’m more independent, I’m just saying no matter what you believe in that should be my judgment on your character, that’s all that meant. The point is more so about comparing trump to batman, two billionaires…I also don’t like spelling out everything about my music because people might have their interpretation. I just want to make that clear that I don’t like Trump, but I can’t sit here and say that I am a major Bernie Sanders supporter.
For the longest time, Trump has had a major impact on Hip Hop, a lot of rappers have named dropped him as someone who they idolized finically. At this turning point where he is the person in charge…
Now everyone hates him. I get him; this guy an idiot…
You’re just stating that you are willing to hear the other person side
Yeah, I also believe in freedom of choice I think that’s a big point of it. A lot of people are asking for equality, but I also think that freedom of choice should also be a thing that you recognize too. Equality yes, but also freedom of choice.
There is a point in which people try to make themselves feel like the bigger person, but they are just going along with everyone else is saying. But you are saying this that this a point of you being bipartisan in a scene, it gives you a way to speak to more people and not just the people who are riding with you.
Someone was talking to me about this song, and they were telling me what they thought, they kept going with the lyrics and you’re saying freedom of choice, hipster girl with the armpit hair. This guy took it to the next level, he was like “I was thinking about feminism, and you could be a feminist and not have armpit hair.” It was a little silly, but I see where you’re going with it.
Getting back to the couch we are sitting on, you’re always at different points in your life how would you reflect on it.
If I saw this couch a year from now, depending on where I’m at, I’ll be able to look back and think about the memories of my New York family. It wouldn’t relate to music as much but to my character and myself and having that unity with the people I was closets to your neighbor it would probably be more relevant to that than music. I’ll be able to think about how I grew as a person and not so much my music.