Words: ChasenPaper
Photos: Jan Ferrer
Visuals: Wayland Chew

Curt@!ns is all charm and moxie. Want evidence? Two minutes and fifty seven seconds into his song, “The Dope Supremacy” he slings the rhyme. “See me/ I’m what ya’ll coulda been/ young rebel/ I’m what Nas coulda been/” Don’t be put off. It’s not hard to tell that his impertinence for the icon stems from hunger and frustration and not from disrespect. It’s baggage he shoulders from having to deal with a major label system that shuns truly original artists like himself for followers of trends. So much so that Curt@!ns took a brief break from the industry and moved from Brooklyn out to sunny L.A to work two jobs and re-energize. Gladly he’s back and in a profound way.

Today was a series of firsts for Curt@!ns. This afternoon he saw a rhyme of his appear in XXL magazine’s verse of the month. A huge deal for any artists brought up in hip hop culture. On a geographic tip, it is also his first time ever visiting and performing in San Francisco. Like a whirlwind the young and ambitious Curt@!ns and his crew blew through 5024SF’s Haight street gallery for a quickstrike interview. All smiles and pounds, with his spirits high he cheesed for the camera then took a seat and leaned in for this interview.

You call yourself Curt@!ns which is a pretty audatious name. Who’s it curtains for?

Curt@!ns: Every every every body! It’s Curt@!ns. It’s a wrap.

So after you there’s no one else?

Curt@!ns: There’s going to be stuff left. It just not going to be good. (laughs)

So how did the name Curt@!ns come to being?

Curt@!ns: Basically it means the show stopper. Just some young cockyness.

The songs you have videos for are distinctly un-formulaic. Most of them are just verses. What was the idea behind doing that?

Curt@!ns: I just wanted to bring it back to the rapping. There is too much “coolness” going on in the music, and it’s very formula based. I wanted to cut two records where there was no hook. Nothing fancy, nothing smooth. Just hard rapping for 48 bars. I think I got my point accross. The videos just added glossiness. Most people just paid attention to the visuals and eventually they caught on to the raps.

Those videos had some slick visuals. It seems that it is essential for an emcee to have a visual component that hooks people and reels them in these days would you agree?

Curt@!ns: Yeah, I think being visual is imperative for any artist trying to get they stuff out. It’s not like back in 40’s and 50’s where all you had was radio. Where people were like, “Ok that’s a hit” because they heard it all the time. These days people don’t listen to music no more! They look at music. So i think being visual in general, weather it be a blog, performing and posting videos, or taking pictures and putting them up on Twitpic.com and posting it on Twitter. People gotta see you to understand your whole movement, and and it can only be done visually. I felt that doing music videos for my songs was a better way to get the music heard, but everything has to have a visual.

Speaking of people being too “cool” these days. Do you feel like the hype formula being pushed through the internet is resulting in the fact that we have more artists out now then ever but hip hop still kind of sucks

Curt@!ns: Yes…the internet makes it possible for everyone to be a “star” or “artist”. There is this mass influx of artists that are like, “My sneakers are newer and cooler that yours!” “No wait, mine are older than yours. So I’m cooler!” It’s too much of the same thing and it confuses listeners because people are being bombarded with garbage. But I think the recession we’re in now is forcing consumers to put an end to that overload. A recession seperates great product from bad product because only great product is going to last through this hard economic time. Record companies aren’t going to put out music that there is no market for. A couple years ago if you had a hot single, oh, your album was coming out! And becuase of that single people would buy it. Now it’s like, if you have a hot single, cool…now you have to make three more. You have to make an album that people care about. This recession is going to change the scope of how people create.

On the track “Night of the Living Dope” you have a line that goes. “I birthed your style/I’m the ovulator.” I just thought that was really interesting because you took a hip hop cliché and made it dope again by hitting people with vocabulary that’s almost never used. Who says “ovulator”? Is that an method you bring to all your rhymes?

Curt@!ns: Education…nothings new under the sun. It’s just that alot of stuff isn’t said cleverly. I usually find ways to slip those type of words in. But it’s usually in the context of something ignorant. So it didn’t go over your head and instead you say, “Yo, what does that mean?” I speak to people in their language but at the same time I slip them something new.

Dope meng, let the people know whats new from you that they should look out for.

Curt@!ns: “Great Adventures of Dope Boy C” which is out. “Dope For President” is my new mixtape coming out. First single, “Black Folks” is out now and it’s been making it’s waves. The video’s dropping shortly. We just got verse of the month in XXL. Which is a big a deal because XXL is a magazine I’ve read since I was a kid. It’s in the edition with Eminem on the cover on stands right now. All the times I’ve been in XXL actually Eminem has been on the cover, I don’t know what that means.

It means you’re in good company.

Curt@!ns: Oh man, I stay in good company.