Eyedea made a name for himself by working hard. As a young emcee, he was touted as the next best freestyle battle rapper, won a televised KRS-One hosted battle and generated a buzz after winning several competitions and releasing critically acclaimed underground albums as a solo artist (The Many Faces of Oliver Hart) and as a member of Eyedea & Abilities (First Born, E&A). He was also one of the most prominent figures within Minnesota’s indie powerhouse Rhymesayers Entertainment. Things have changed, but a lot has remained the same.

Today, Eyedea is a busy man. How can he not be busy with a brand new Eyedea & Abilities album, an Oliver Hart double disc, a new Carbon Carousel LP and a full blown run of a poetry book on the way? Well, even with that kind of schedule, he’s managed to find time to sit down with DX's Underground Report to speak on life, changes, his various groups and why freestyle battling isn’t “artistic enough” for him.

HipHopDX: People have not heard much from Eyedea & Abilities for quite some time. What have you both been up to, together and separately since the E&A album?
Eyedea: Separately, I know Max [DJ Abilities] has been working hard on his set as just a solo turntablist. He’s actually been touring and he’s actually been touring for the past three years. I started two different bands. One is kind of an all improvised, free-jazz, freestyle thing, performance art thing called Face Candy. And, another one is a Rock band called Carbon Carousel.

DX: Let’s talk about that for a minute. How has that allowed you to expand your horizons creatively in a different way than E&A?
E: Well, particularly with Carbon Carousel, I don’t rap so I don’t have to fit a million words in a song, you know? I get to paint more of a sketch as opposed to painting a very detailed picture with my words. I really like that because I like the idea of the audience or the listener…Well, it’s like they almost have to create the song with you as they’re listening. They write it with you. In that way, also, I can tell stories without them being as personal, you know?

DX: What about with Face Candy? How is that different from E&A?
E: We get to improvise. We don’t focus on playing in time, in tune or in anything. It’s just free music and that’s different from anything else I do. There’s nothing. We don’t rehearse. We don’t even have discussions about our music, really. We just walk on the stage and start making noise.

DX: What is your writing style like? For instance, do you freestyle and just hit the booth? Do you write it out and edit for a long time? How does that process work?
E: I pretty much write really quickly these days. Now, I know so much about what I don’t want to have coming out of my mouth, once I have an idea for something, I tend to write it down really fast. Also, I don’t want it to be over thought so I just write it as fast as I can.

DX: Was it different before?
E: It was a little different before. I was younger, so it would take me longer to shape my ideas into something that was good.

DX: You talk about your youth. You got a lot of recognition at a pretty young age. What do you think allowed for that to happen at such a young age?
E: I think I was lucky in a lot of ways because I had people around me that were interested in putting out my music. I was ambitious. I was always into working hard, even when I was seven years old. So, I worked hard fast and I also loved music and art. So, the more you like something, the more you do it. The more you do it, the better you get at it. With the whole underground Hip Hop thing and the internet…I don’t even know how to analyze the culture as far as how my voice actually got heard, [laughs] but, it did apparently.

DX: Since you guys have been on Rhymesayers for awhile, since it began, what are the biggest changes you have seen? What can you attribute as the main reasons for the success of the label?
E: Like I said, it’s all about a bunch of hard workers. I don’t really know much about the industry. I know that Rhymesayers has slowly become a…just a good business and they work with artists that work hard. It’s an art driven label and it’s based around the groups that release records within the label. It’s a free institution in that sense. You can become as successful as you want because they have all of the tools. But, they’re not going to make you do anything.

DX: Looking back at all of the accolades you have received, what would you say has been your biggest accomplishment?
E: I don’t really know. It’s probably been things that don’t have to do with music. It’s probably been learning stuff about myself, learning to be kind and empathize and understand the human condition on a deeper level. That’s always what I’m striving for even more than I’m striving to be a great artist. I want to understand more about how to be happy. Continued on page 2 »