Rapsody rhymes, exudes confidence on the stage

Q: So 9th Wonder is teaching at Duke and Harvard. Do you foresee yourself teaching in the future?

A: I thought about it. I love kids, but it’s nothing I ever saw myself doing as a career. I thought if I didn’t do music I’d want to do something with music, but it’d be marketing music or something. Maybe it’s a possibility, if I could take my expertise and things I’ve learned, and hopefully have a long career and hopefully pass that along to someone else I think that would be dope. I can see myself doing it like it’s a possibility. I don’t know though, anything’s possible.

Q: Do you see yourself taking someone under your wing like 9th has done with you?

A: Yeah, definitely. I try to do it now. I can’t go and sign somebody because I feel like I’m still learning and I haven’t mastered everything yet and I’m not even in a position in my career, I need to take care of myself and make sure I get there first before I bring somebody else along, but people ask me for advice all the time on Twitter, or I’ll be out in North Carolina and somebody will ask for advice and if I know it, I’ll try to share it and pass it on. Jay passed it to 9th and 9th passed it to me, so it’s my job to pass it on to somebody else. I hope they do the same just to keep it going.

Q: What advice do you want to share with young female emcees out there?

A: I would say one, whether you’re female or male to be patient, but especially with females, don’t label yourself as a female emcee. Don’t separate yourself and put yourself in that box. You’re no different from the guys, and once you conquer that and really start to focus on the craft of it and making good music, it’s a little easier. One, focus on the music, don’t focus on your gender or having to come out and have to prove something, just let your foundation be good music. Then it goes into patience, it’ll take time to get to where you wanna be, especially if you wanna do it the right way and have a lasting career. Anything that comes fast is gonna go as fast. So you wanna take the time to build your foundation and fan base, people that are gonna be with your forever no matter what you do. Ask them to take time. Listen to people that have been there. Talk less and listen more. That’s how you learn the most. And work on your craft, if you want to make it your life, you have to literally make it a life, you have to wake up and go to sleep knowing it. So that’s the advice that he’s given me and I’ve learned just watching him, even to this day, I’ve been in the game over 10 years, he has a Grammy, he’s worked with Jay, Mary, Erykah Badu, Murs, Jean Grae, everybody and anybody and he still wakes up at 9 o’clock in the morning and goes to bed at 3 or 4 in the morning, working on his craft and making beats. So that goes to show, you have to work at it and that’s my advice.

Q: What’s coming up next for you?

A: I’m working on the EP now with another artists who I’ll name later, but it’s gonna be called “Play Cousins” and I’m gonna be starting on a sophomore album soon, to be released next year sometime. I think “The Idea of Beautiful” has a good shelf life so I wanna push that and a Kooley High album album is gonna be out in 2013, 9th’s gonna executive produce that, so those are the three projects I have coming up. So I’ve got a lot of work to do.

Emily Berkey, music reporter

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