We Goin' IN » Torae

Torae Interview

seven3zero — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:00:18 +0000

You finished 2011 with a bang, dropping your debut solo album For the Record. How’s 2012 treating you so far?

Oh, man, the year’s going great. We closed out the year with the release and we’re just kind of rolling that same momentum and energy into 2012. We have a lot of videos to shoot and songs to promote. I just came back from Europe. I’m going to get back on the road and really keep pushing. This is a special project to me and I know the shelf-life of a project these days isn’t that long but you can expect to hear stuff on this to midway through the year.

It seems as though a lot of work went into For the Record, so it makes sense to push it as far as you can. Do you feel a lot of music is disposable today and fans don’t enjoy projects as opposed to always looking for the next one?

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. I think you hit it right on the head with the disposable part. Everybody has Pro Tools now and everybody has a Macbook and everybody has a mic. It’s so easy to create music and it also loses its value when you give it away freely. I don’t want to say I’m a throwback but I put a lot into my project and I want to get a lot out of it. When I put my mind into making an album I really want to push it to the limit. This is one of those projects I plan on working and I’m trying to get it to as many people as possible.

Do you think this is the hardest you’ve ever worked on an album?

I try to put a lot into each one of my releases. I guess it was easier with Double Barrel because I was working with just one producer, Marco Polo. On this one I had to travel to North Carolina to get up with 9^th [Wonder]. I had to get up with Pete and Preem and they have hectic schedules and get to VA to get with Nottz. I definitely put a lot of miles on the car but the creative process is the same. I try to work with like-minded people who are interested in working with me but the creative process is the same. Really, it was a lot of travel, which was different with this one because I didn’t want to shoot back and forth emails and sending files. I really wanted to get in there and play records for people and try to brainstorm and come up with the best possible music. That was really the big difference with this record. I didn’t work with just one producer so I had to run around a little bit more.

Looking at this as your solo debut album, how important was it to limit the guest appearances?

Limiting the guests was just a conscious decision I made. It’s my official debut and I wanted to show that I could put together an album on my own and that I could hold it down on my own and have people just focus on Torae the MC. By limiting the guest features, as far as MCs, I felt they could just focus on what I was bringing to the table instead of focusing on the features. On my first mixtape and Double Barrel, I worked with a lot of my favorites on that, as far as MCs. People heard me on there and I’ve been on projects with a lot of my favs. This time around, I just wanted to showcase what I do and I didn’t really want to share that Pete Rock beat with anybody or that DJ Premier beat with anybody. I wanted to get out there and do my own thing.

You’ve worked with DJ Premier a few times now. What’s it like getting a beat from Preem?

The process is pretty much the same with all three records. We went down to HeadQCourterz while the beat was playing and just caught a vibe and went where the beat was taking me. I didn’t do a lot of revision and rewriting. I like to go back and see what I can fix and lines that I can maybe say something different. Usually with Preem, with his process, he likes to do a lot of punch-in. If it’s one line he wants you to hit over, he’ll kind of direct you. He’s a producer in that aspect in that he produces the record and the vocals as well. But I think every song on that album I put the same amount of effort into as far as making sure the lyrics were right, the hook was right, the mix was right. “For the Record” was actually one of the easier ones. I went back on a couple of other ones but this one, I knew exactly what I wanted to say on the beat, Preem came with the cuts, and it was a go.

You’re shouting out Rony Seikley and Jeru Da Damaja, which was pretty cool.

Yeah, man. I definitely pull my lyrics just from life and life experiences. Whatever comes to mind, really. It’s definitely just me just going. I just go in and on that record, I didn’t want to be too preachy. I just wanted to spit. I was just spitting, just saying witty stuff and catchy lines that people would latch onto. That’s just where I went with it. Not too much thought process, just going in.

You must have been playing some old NBA Jam when you wrote that.

I’m just an NBA fan. Everybody who knows me knows I love basketball. And it’s no diss to Rony Seikley, but he just wasn’t Rony Seikley.

He did better in real life than in the NBA.

Word up. Yeah, Big Ron, Big Rony Seikley.

Are you happy with the response to For the Record so far?

Yeah. Anytime you get a chance to put a project out and have people appreciate it and have it get critical acclaim, I feel like that’s a success in itself. And definitely with the climate and with how the music is now, you don’t have to buy anything and people don’t have to spend money on a project if they don’t want to. Whether I sell one, or 1,000, or 100,000, it’s a success because anybody who bought into the project did it because they wanted to, not because they had to because it’s readily available on the internet. I appreciate every sale. And I put it out myself. There wasn’t a lot of red tape in between everything. I definitely get a lot of the proceeds coming back so it’ll be financially successful anyway because of the way I set my system up.

Do album sales bother you?

Well, it’s not a bother, per se. As an artist, I always feel like any project I put out could do better than it did,. But I’m also a realist and I’m aware of the climate in music and I’m aware that I don’t really have a super-big promotional push and I’m not on a label that’s going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to push a record the way I feel it has to be pushed. I haven’t really looked at the sales. I look at the Twitter and the Facebook and the impact the records are having on the people and that, in itself, is enough for me. It’s a different ballgame. I’m not playing with the same type of advantages that other artists have but I’m taking advantage of what I have and I feel I’m doing all right for myself.

What’s your plans for 2012?

Definitely just continuing to push the album. I’ll be shooting a couple of videos and I’m also going to do a couple of remixes with my favorite MCs, because I did the album without any features. We got the vinyl release coming in February. We’re definitely going to push it. I got out to Europe and I would definitely like to get out to Asia to rock and do a domestic run. Expect to hear a lot about For the Record in the next couple of months because it’s just the tip of the iceberg as far as where we are with it. I wanted to make sure I got it out and now it’s time to promote it and push it out to as many people as possible.

@itstorae

Torae on Facebook

For The Record Torae+Premier=Dopeness

JPizzle — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:42:31 +0000

Torae’s debut LP, “For The Record,” is now available, featuring production from DJ Premier, 9th Wonder, Khrysis, Marco Polo, !llmind, Pete Rock, Diamond D, Buckwild, Nottz, Large Professor, Fatin (and Torae as well). Support the real!

Torae “For The Record” (Produced by DJ Premier)

Constipation No Match for Torae

seven3zero — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:23:33 +0000

Props to Torae for not giving up. We’ve all had those days when it just seemed as though no matter how hard you pushed, that poop was just not gonna come out. Torae has the perseverance, though, to see a good dump all the way through. And for that, we here at WeGoinIN salute you.

Duck Down Finally Releases Alternate Covers for Torae and Marco Polo’s Double Barrel

seven3zero — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:50:58 +0000

Due to the recent controversy over Marco Polo not smiling on his own damn cover, Duck Down has responded by releasing the alternate versions of the cover that got cut at the last minute.

Says Dru Ha, CEO of Duck Down, “Marco Polo is a bit of an enigma. He has a lot of different styles and looks and we just threw darts at the possible covers and whatever my ba-bro hit, we used. Boom.”

It should also be noted that Dru made it a point to emphasize that he did not say “baby bro,” which is nowhere near as cool as “ba-bro.” Both terms are street slang for younger male sibling.

At long last, here are the alternate covers for Double Barrel that show Marco’s diversity and rugged good looks:

Marco Polo Explains Mean Mug, Has Not Been Tested Yet

seven3zero — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:37:26 +0000

In an exclusive interview with WeGoinIN, Marco Polo addressed the biggest issue in hip-hop last week – the fact that he could be tested for not smiling on the cover of his collab album with Tor, Double Barrel. Marco granted us exclusive access to ask him any questions we wanted about this hot topic. Why? ‘Cause we go IN!

Why did you not smile on the cover of Double Barrel?

I didn’t smile on the cover because I was constipated that day.

Have you been tested yet for not smiling, especially since you chose such a violent name for an album and you’re white?

I have not been tested, hopefully that doesn’t become and issue. I’m not a tough guy AT ALL and never claimed to be.

When is the last time you were tested, not counting in the classroom?

Last time I was tested was in high school. Had 2 fights, lost 1 and won 1.

Is it okay for white guys in hip-hop to smile?

Smiling is cool but this album was serious business!

You know where to go for your exclusives!

Marco Polo ‘Bout To Get Tested For Looking Mean…Watch Your Back, You Chain-Smoking Canadian

seven3zero — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:47:34 +0000

It’s hard out here for a producer, especially one who refuses to smile for an album cover. I was actually about to buy the official copy of Torae and Marco Polo’s collaborative effort Double Barrel until I saw the cover. Torae was looking kind of dazed mean as usual, but then in the background it looked like some scrawny, confused white guy snuck into the picture. Upon second glance I noticed that it was my buddy. Marco? Polo! I don’t know why he won’t punctuate his name like that. Anyway, I hastily put the album back on the shelf and walked out of the store (actually I really just closed out of iTunes, because stores don’t really sell CDs anymore, do they?) And Marco’s mean-mugging cost him more than just my purchase. Check out the haps on Twitter:

dilla4ever: @Torae dude it just looks off..atleast put him in the back with some turntables u got white boy posing hard and title is called HARD BODY

After Tor corrects him that the album title is actually Double Barrel, dude says it’s about to get even worse for Marco on account of him not smiling.

dilla4ever: @Torae CORRECTION “DOUBLE BARREL” AND THAT”S WORSE…PEOPLE MMIGHT TEST EM TO SEE IF HES BOUT THAT AND HES WHITE!

dilla4ever, have you ever been tested on spelling and grammar? I’m no expert, but I do know that the word “might” only has one “m,” not two. It’s not like “llama,” which is what Marco might be tested with because he’s white and not smiling. Do all of us white people have to smile or risk getting beat up?

Great use of the BIG letters there too. When it was all them small letters, I completely disagreed with you. But when the letters got all big and stuff, I totally understood where you were going and was able to see that you crafted a flawless, waterproof argument. Thanks!

And don’t sweat it, Marco. We don’t smile either and we protect our non-smiling brothers, even if they are the pariahs of society due to all the second-hand smoke they force on defenseless children just trying to live.

Oh, and here are Torae’s responses. We’re not sure on who responded where, so we’re just gonna put all of Tor’s words together. Start from the bottom and work your way up. That’s what she said.