Shirt: Interview

Introductions are unnecessary when it comes to the versatile New York rapper "Shirt" who has consistently released quality hip hop tracks with creative visuals to accompany them.
Scroll below to read about his views on today's culture of hip hop and his famous stunt of faking a New York Times article.













Where did your rapper name originate from? 

Like 5-6 years ago I was designing clothes.  The name Shirt is just cool to me.  Something clean and maybe memorable.

With being from New York how has that inspired and altered your sound?  

Growing up in New York you're just primed to be more open-minded musically I think.  Friends, my brothers, girls I dated, everyone was into dope, different shit that rubbed off on me.  Listening to music in headphones on the train, writing to beats that way for so long.  You can't escape the energy all around you.   But I love all this new shit that comes out constantly too.  I don't think it has much to do with the city now unless it does.  Like it doesn't have to.  Now everybody making music is listening to things from all over the world and being influenced.  So you're getting all this interesting work.  My favorite dirty rap beats right now come from Britain.

One of your music videos titled 24 Frames references a wide selection of films. Who are your favorite directors and in any way have they inspired your music? 

Can never think straight when asked this shit.  Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry, Woodie Allen, Scorcese off top.  Lots of people.  It's hard to watch a great thing, film or documentary, talk or interview, and not be inspired.  That doesn't really happen.  I'm the guy writing certain lines down, pausing a movie and taking screen shots for reference.  I'm serious about my inspiration.  I make sure and put it to work.

In your opinion who in New York is currently keeping the true culture of hip hop alive?

I don't tell someone they're not allowed to like something because they didn't always like it.  Or it's not what they originally knew or came from.  Like who can say what to anyone out here?  Who the fuck are you?  That shit is all weird to me.  Someone can't learn to love something even more and with even more care for it than someone whose maybe loved it all along?  That's just not a real point to me.  I'd say the people truly keeping Hip-Hop culture alive everywhere are the people who love the music and the artists, and support where they can.  If you're only playing songs ironically or to live some real life meme, you have problems.  If you're playing the music as you live and breathe and go through things, you're keeping the culture alive.  It's simple.

What are your plans for the remainder of 2014? 

Presentation is so ill to me.  So fun.  There's a lot of new exciting work coming.

One of my favorite songs from you is titled "Life and Art" can you explain the story behind that song and what was happening during your life that led you to create it? 

The music by Bonobo took me there.  Darvin played it for me.  I think my brother played it for him first.  I had this article cut out from the Times on my desk my guys were written about where the headline read "Breathing Life, and Art."  So that's where I started.  Sometimes I write really fast and later on I'll stand back and try and figure out what it all means.  That record became about how hard it is to balance living life and making art.  Living as an artist.  Living knowing what you go through is gonna come out of you through your work at some point.  Foolishly thinking you can try to separate the two and realizing yeah, no.  The fears about not making it, not being a success like you want to be yet.   

In what ways are you trying to make people view rap/hip hop?

If you love it already there's nothing really to say.  You get it.  When someone makes ignorant comments to me about how rappers only do this or say that I basically go crazy on them.  I get really defensive.  I might not be a fan of someone because I like what I like but it doesn't change the fact that  these guys are telling you what's really going on with them and communities they come from.  Deep shit too.  I don't think there's another genre of anything that does it as expertly and beautiful and can communicate to that many people worldwide.  I've thought about language playing such a big part in the confusion at times.  Raps might as well be Chinese to some people.  Then just the curses and wild shit sticks out and you think you know what's being said.  You don't.  Country singers talk about their bitches and guns too.  

Was one of your main purposes of releasing the RAP project to help the genre and lifestyle to be seen in a different viewpoint?

The main purpose was to continue telling my story through this artform I've let completely change my life.  If you listen and get things from it you didn't get before from a rapper, that's amazing.  I'm not doing things in the raps that I wouldn't do in other parts of my life.  I'm the guy thinking differently about things than most people, looking at stuff from different angles, devouring art.  All of that goes into the music. 

How did you get the idea to create the fake New York Times website and article?
 http://www.nytimes.la/2014/shirt/

I've always loved disrupting things and causing an entrance.  I want to break, man.  Get my story out with some style.  I looked at the Times article like a new work of mine.  A new medium I hadn't played with yet.  It's not gonna just be music you get from me.  It never has been.  I probably also wanted to set a precedent.  I'm not wired to create from a follow the leader position.  Rappers put songs on blogs and stand in front of cars in their videos and that's how they promote.  I'm too interested in amazing artists and risk takers to make my own work and do things in a basic, safe way.  

What reaction did you receive after people discovered the article was fake?

I've no doubt that if you're a person who's into people breaking the monotony of every single thing around us, and you heard about what I did, you loved it.  I wanna say straight up if you thought it was super ill what I did, you know what the fuck you're talking about.  If you thought what I did was corny, you're corny.  People are so scared.  They're scared for themselves, for people around them, people they don't even know.  I get it.  Some thought I was crazy, some think I'm a genius.  I'll let you tell it.

What is your prediction of how hip hop will be viewed 10 years from now? 

I think it'll get weirder and then chill and get weirder again and then chill.  I think a better time span to ask about would be like 40-50 years from now.  What then?  Who knows.  I have a feeling classic will remain classic.

Any last words you'd like to say to the readers? 

I hope your day's been alright.  Days are up and down so either way it'll be ok if you get through it.

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/shirt/rap-album
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SHIRTNYC
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC14X-J5USGbK-w8mOHUoTFg
24 Frames Music Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eyl5nUYWoBE

Download RAP: sendspace.com/file/26mwr2