Life Of A Teenage Champion, the 3rd major beat tape released by Thelonious Martin this year, is now available for download here: Life Of A Teenage Champion
In anticipation of the release of this beat tape, Thelonious Martin was interviewed by Erik Ross of It's An Infinite Cycle. You can read an excerpt from the interview below, or check out Erik's blog, where it is also posted. Keep your eye out for the review of this beat tape, done by yours truly, Jay Stay Played, hopefully this weekend. . . if I can get my lazy fuckin' act together. . . That is all.
Interview: Erik Ross x Thelonious Martin
You share a name with with one of the world’s most prolific pianists. How was this name chosen?
As a child my mother and father surrounded me with music, my mother went to a DAS EFX concert while she was pregnant with me and I attended an Outkast concert with her while she was at Florida A&M I was only two. My father has always been around music from managing Dj Mark Fulla Flava and even producer Xtreme. He always played music when I was little and it started with jazz, ranging from Miles Davis, Idris Muhammad, and of course Thelonious Monk. I moved from my pops to live with my mom at the age of 5 so revisiting this calming era with father is the way i pay homage with my name.
You live in Montclair, NJ, but in the summer, you stay in Chicago. Are these two cities active influences on your beats?
Being back in Chicago every summer I got to listen to the No I.D.’s and Kanye’s early, like you would think that Chicago is such a large place, but my auntie went to middle school with him. Yet I can’t sit here and say my influences are just Chicago and Montclair based though.
Speaking of influences, which artists influence your work?
It’s really funny because listening to Kanye West didn’t make me jump out of my seat and say I want to make beats, it was more of the Just Blaze’s and No I.D.’s. The hip hop I grew up on was the 90’s east coast Bad Boy and Wu Tang so you can def hear that within my sounds. But as I grew older I found Dilla and 9th Wonder, it was like finding new religions that people were hiding from me. 9th Wonder is my idol and that is probably the one producer that I say I emulate.
How did you start and learn to make beats?
I started making beats like 7th grade, I was in a rap group with a couple of friends and my friend Matt was the one who made the beats. I always gravitated towards how he did it and funny enough by watching him I sat back and learned how to use the computer programs and what not. That became the spark for the influence to make beats, then by setting out to figure out how to do what I wanted I watched documentaries, endless amounts of Youtube videos and tutorials, and hard work. I purchased my laptop in the spring of 2008 and since then beats have been made.
To read the rest of this interview, check this shit out: It's An Infinite Cycle Interviews... Thelonious
