The Long Island native known as Aesop Rock (a.k.a Ian Bavitz) may not be the most popular MC on the underground hip-hop scene. But he’s inarguably among its most distinctive artists, matching intelligent lyrics packed with historical, mythological and pop culture references against backing beats clearly designed to challenge hip-hop’s increasingly stagnant status quo. Perhaps that’s why Nike approached him to record the latest installment in their Original Run CD series, which is designed to provide the soundtrack for a pulse-pounding workout. We recently caught up with Ace Rock as he put the finishing touches on his next CD, None Shall Pass, to talk about his influences, his critics and his experiences working with corporate America.

Tell me a little bit about your earliest connections with hip-hop. When did you first fall in love with the genre?
My earliest connections with hip-hop were listening to the Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill and Run-DMC’s Raising Hell. One day my mother said she needed to “borrow’ those two tapes from me. I was so young, I thought it was cool­– maybe she liked rap. Needless to say, I never got the tapes back. She wasn’t a fan of cursing. Anyway, the second I knew my mom hated it I loved it even more.

Who were some of the artists who originally made you want to try your hand at MCing?
I always liked how explosive someone like KRS-One was. He really let you know that he was taking control of the next three to four minutes of your life with each song. Being from Long Island, I also checked EPMD a lot, and really liked the rawness of their stuff. I always thought Slick Rick’s rhymes were more timeless than anybody in the whole game, to this day. So I guess it was a bunch of people.

Talk to me about the origins of your unique style. Did it take a while for you to go from mimicking your rap idols to creating your own sound?
I dunno, it's hard to pinpoint an exact place. I definitely started by mimicking others. I would steal the entire pattern from like an Erick Sermon rhyme or a Q-Tip rhyme and just write different lyrics in. That was way early, but doing things like that helped me grasp what one can do with syllables and placing words on a beat. Eventually I just kept going with that. The thing I think I fell in love with more than anything is exploring how different words sound next to each other. I'm not concerned with how they read off paper, but sometimes if you pick a string of words in a row, the rhymes and alliterations and everything combine to make a sentence that really grips you, or pops out over a normal sentence just cuz of where all the individual sounds in the sentence fall. I started really choosing my wording carefully, and seeing what I could do to make a punchline really punch, or a grouping really stand out, just based on how it is delivered. Continued on page 2 »