WREKONIZE BEFORE HE WAS WREKONIZE

So when’s the first time Wrekonize grabbed a mic?

An actual physical mic?

You know what I mean…

Yeah just trippin. Well I was like nine years old was when I first started writing poetry and songs. And I started writing hip hop songs when I was eleven. I read in The Source that Prodigy had a composition book that he carried with him everywhere. I thought that was a dope idea so I started doing that as well. So every time I had a chance I’d be writing in there.

If not Prodigy, who did you get your first hip hop influences from?

Actually, first and foremost, Guru and Gangstarr as a group simply for the fact of their longevity. They still have the same style and formula to this day and they don’t change it up or soften their style. I also like Aesop and El-P on the abstract hip hop tip. For a time I looked up to Slug because he was so honest and didn’t try to change anything of who he was. He just went out there and did himself and people just started accepting him and made his style his own. Basically I learned that I could come out there and not have to flavor anything up; just give people my personal opinion. And to those who don’t like it, then they just don’t.

Word. Now over the course of time, do any of the battles (prior to MTV) that you were a part of have a place in your memory as being the one where you had your most stand out performance(s)?

I liked the way Anonyms-1 and Elusive did the USBC battle. And no offense, the Roc-A-Fella trophy is definitely hot, but there’s nothing like that USBC title belt. That was one of the better battles. Along with Mouth Of The South, which was the first time that a lot of the “bigger” name Miami cats got to see what I was all about. Also that day was the day that me and Serum tagged teamed in the finals and that was straight classic. That night was actually the start of a good partnership battle-wise between me and Serum.

THIS, THAT AND THE THIRD…

I see that you also have a hand in production, which you lended on your group’s (the Illiterats) Infestations LP. Have you been making beats for as long as you’ve been rhyming and deejaying?

Well not really. Its just that at the time, in my neighborhood in Hollywood, kids from around the block would be trying to be selling me beats for like and I bought like two beats. Now that I look back the beats were mad wack but I took them because I was dying to get an original beat. But then I started messing around with Acid (the program) on the computer. I liked the beats a lot, but I felt that there were still things that I was not able to do. You need a lot of patience to master that program. So eventually I moved into working with the MPC and I’ve had it ever since.

Do you make beats to serve as a brief ‘break’ from writing?

I mean when I try to write over someone else’s beat…it works, and I like doing that. But I like make the beat myself sometimes because I feel more in tuned with my writing. I like starting from scratch and then writing on the spot and then tweaking the beat with the rhymes as I go. Honestly though, since I started working with Nick Fury, my production has kind of been put on hold because I been focused on writing to his stuff. But I definitely do want to make production part of everything that I do. I have actually made beats for Serum and Soloman, [my group] the Illiterats, Source and Punchanello.

So if that’s not enough, you also have skill as a deejay under your belt? Did you originally starting getting into hip hop as a deejay?

Yeah. Before I was really writing a lot, I got a set of turntables. They were crappy, but it took me so long to get them. It was one of those DJ Starter kits. It took me so long saving up the money for it. I even use to put two boom-boxes together and make pause tapes with no tempo changes, just straight like that. But I actually put out two mixtapes in high school: Double Standards and Wrekonize Vinyl Warrior. They sold good too. I sold a lot of tapes at school. And that was before the whole burning CD’s thing was popular. I sold actual “tapes”. I would put my own freestyles on there.

RECOGNIZE THE EMCEE

In your opinion, out of all your songs that you recorded, which were your more innovative ones?

It’d have to be my first joint I ever recorded called “Droppin’ A Poem”. My delivery was weak but the punchlines and the ideas were sharp. When I first started rhyming I was all about punchlines and lyrics but I didn’t worry about my flow. I wasn’t trying to play with my flow. But now that I have been focusing on perfecting my flow, I lost a little of the sharpness of my lines. I like the concepts I had before line-wise. I did a old joint also called “Face of Death” which was a first-person perspective of death. The grim reaper type thing. The job to collecting lives on a spiritual point of view to actually BE death. I want to try and bring the off-the-wall concepts back and incorporate it with the more polished flow. But the hardest thing that I have had to ever come across is combining the two.

Define Wrekonize…

An entertainer. I like to entertain. The difference between me and the Wrekonize-personality is that there is a lot of fire within “Wrekonize”. Commercial-wise I want to bring back the fact that hip hop music is entertainment and it doesn’t have to be like the mafia all the time. Everyone has to act so hardcore. I think a lot of people forgot that its suppose to be fun. It was fun to watch somebody rock a mic and they didn’t have to look like they were able to kill everybody in the room. People respected emcees for that and not for having something like 20 bodyguards, you know?

THE FURIOUS INFESTATIONS BEGIN

So whats up with your group, the Illiterats?

That’s family to me. I like working with them because they teach me things continuously. We’re still pushing Iliterats. But Goblin and H20 are going to step back and do the Mighty Mouth debut project. But after that we plan to work on the next Illiterats project with more time and effort put into it. The last project Infestations (which you can buy RIGHT HERE ON THE305.COM) was done in three days and the response ahs been incredible. But the next one will have a variety of production from myself, Plex, possibly Nick Fury, Dro and everybody that’s down with the Illiterats. I do want to have a hand in the production because my production gave the first album it’s sound. But I definitely want to make some monumental shit for the second album. It’ll probably be put out through Guerilla ARC. Anyways, stop reading this interview and go get the album…CLICK RIGHT HERE! [Laughs]

So now, Wrekonize as a solo artist is managed under the same manager [Alfonso] that helped pave the way for Orlando hip hop group Smilez-N-Southstar? It’s a unique deal that you have worked out where you also have Nick Fury handling the major span of the production…can you speak a little about how you linked up with both of them?

Me, Nick and Alfonso form Street Shield crew and company Alfonso is handling all the management and Nick is doing the production. So with Nick’s production and Alfonso's know-how, we should be able to handle a lot of things industry-wise. But, I was already working with Nick Fury for my project. Nick and Alfonso were cool from back in the day since they did the Mundi Dialect project. So since then they always wanted to work together. So after Alfonso started doing his thing with Smilez-N-Southstar, he wanted to look for a Miami artist. So he came to Nick and told him that he wanted to break someone out of Miami. Nick showed Alfonso who he was working with and he ended up liking my music. So we all met up together and discussed things over. I liked Alfonso’s approach because he wanted to big up Miami and bring up the scene here.

THE NEW YORK EXPERIENCE - MTV MC BATTLE 2 New York, NY…

the city that never sleeps. Break it down…

We got there [to New York] Wednesday and two hours after landing in New York they already had us walking around Central Park, Trump Towers doing the shots for the profile package. That was mad fun. Then later that night, we meet up with the producers of the show and they kind of gave us the do’s and don’ts and what to do and not to do at the actual battle. They showed us the tapes from the previous MTV Battle and pointed out what they don’t want happening again and improve on. Thursday, we just chilled. Friday was a rehearsal for the crew and the camera people. That was like six or seven hours of waiting and waiting. Saturday we were up at 5:45 in the morning and we had to be there early. We had to wait around and they locked us up in this green room while Jay-Z was taping his performance. So when 2 o’ clock came around it was time. Overall the producers learned a lot from doing the last show, so they were more confident that this show was going to be more fun and a lot better. They knew how to pick the competition. And MTV took real good care of us. I was more nervous in Miami than I was in New York. But the battle was two hours and it felt like 10 minutes.

But it was all live. We were even waiting during commercial breaks and everything. It was nerve wrecking. I was like “Damn, they made these cats were shiny robes?”. I saw that…

No Comment. [Laughs]

What do you think you might carry with you from the whole experience?

This is the first time that I started to really get comfortable in front of the camera. I got off the plane and I was dreading to do the profiles because I know I am mad difficult when taking pictures. But when we got out there I was mad comfortable and I just didn’t care. When it came down to it, I didn’t fear the cameras. I was under control and my comfort level has risen in the public eye.

What if you had to go against Blind Fury?

I was really hoping you didn’t have to go through that. It was kind of ironic, but I was at the edge of my seat rooting for Swan in the semi-finals hoping you got him and not Blind Fury. Me and Swann had originally thought about it before in rehearsals and we agreed that if we went in against Blind Fury, that we wouldn’t use any lines against him being blind. One of the emcees had to battle him in the practice and he kept hitting Blind Fury hard with the blind jokes. And the thing about it was that nobody in the production crew or staff was laughing. It was crickets. So me and Swann pictures that if we would do that on national television the audience will give Blind Fury the sympathy vote. So Swann ended up against him and did farely well and only hit him with one line.

Yeah that “rob you blind” line was dope. But let me ask you, did you originally expect to run into Swann in the finals?

Since the first day we got there, we were just keeping our eyes open to help us in the actual battle. I think we were so focused on being prepared for everything else that we didn’t prepare for battling each other. That’s why I think the final round was both of our weakest rounds. When we finally got up there it was such a surprise and I think both of our weakest rounds were against each other. But now after the fact, I have a whole gang load of work. Now that we don’t have the major support that we thought we might have, we have to go to work just like how I was even before all of this. Now we got to output a lot of stuff so that we don’t wait too long before taking advantage of the exposure.

Speaking of exposure, I know for a fact that you’ve been getting stopped in the streets with this newfound fame…anything interesting happen yet?

Nothing too crazy yet, but you got people like waiters at restaurants and people in Bloomingdales congratulating me. Even in New York. I got stopped a good number of times in the streets. And in the subway some girl came up to me and was like “weren’tyou on BET, you won it all right?” I told her that it was MTV not BET, but you know what I mean. It was dope that people in a city that I don’t live in stop you after seeing you on television.

Sorry to change topics but it just occurred to me that you were on TRL at the exact same time that Jessica Alba was…did you get to meet her?

I actually didn’t. I got to meet Bernie Mac though. [Laughs]

Allrighty then, back to business. But seriously, you’re the reigning champ at MTV and you have 25,000 dollars of MTV’s cash, but everybody’s question is…did you sign to Roc-A-Fella Records?

They came and gave us daps and Dame Dash handed us a mixtape and that was the last time I saw him. If a label wants to support an artists, the label will show interests and reach out for the artists. It looks like they may have the misconceptions that me or even Swann can’t make music. So they kind of brushed us off. They just walked away from us. It looked like they really weren’t concerned. So fuck it we will make records with somebody else. The idea to have to chase a label down top support you is crazy. Because if a label wants to sign an artist, the label will sign an artist. Seriously, it’s like hunting down a parent that doesn’t want to take care of you.

WREK GOT NEXT

Now with this token of exposure, what’s next? What do you plan to do in the immediate future?

I plan to not change the formula. We had that focus from the start. Regardless of what MTV did for me, I was still going to be making the same records with the same formula that I was always making. This being so that the labels do not have to baby us. So that they know the name and see that we already have products making money out there. So the label that does accept us; they won’t have to do a lot of work with the music making process. Their work will be more towards the promotion and not the artist development.

So let’s hear it…last words and shout outs…

They’re going to take me back to battle Reign Man in New Years Eve on MTV. So look out for that. Shout outs to Street Shield, the Illiterats, the Guerilla ARC crew and CHP. Its not that “now” Miami is starting to pull up but the commercial limelight is pulling down here so that when the opportunity comes, we’re all ready to go down here since we’ve been doing it for so long.

Peace.

REQUEST “BREATHE” BY WREKONIZE ON 103.5 THE BEAT OR FROM YOUR LOCAL HIP-HOP RADIO STATION