Remember when
I told you about that guy on ebay who added a clean digital transfer cd with every OG cassette you were purchasing from him?
Here's another item I bought from him, Tommy V's first album under the Imprints moniker.
Now I don't usually repost stuff that's
already posted somewhere else but this one got a way better sound that the previous one floating at 56kbps.
Also, it just made me remember that I interviewed TV a few years ago (13 years actually) for WCI, through emails. I edited a good portion of it and kept the most informative parts. Hope you'll enjoy.
The Sedative
Nicky Cruz Blues ft. Awol One & Destrukt310
Hard To Cope ft. Hedgehog & Nonaim
Four Walls Of Alcohol ft. Blu & Sesher
Staples In My Veins ft. Slopoke
Vibe Killers ft. Rational
Everyday ft. Circus, Awol One & Hedgehog
Hamster Wheel ft. Nonaim
What's Goin' On?
Whattayawant4nuthin? (Remix) ft. Awol One
Recess
Welcome Mat ft. Mers & Nonaim
Seat Of Confinement ft. Nonaim
Pile Of Shhh ft. Chump Change Charlie & Hedgehog
Smile My Friends ft. Hedgehog & Nori
My Better Half ft. Nicole & Joseph
Healing Process ft. Adj.
Staircases ft. Nonaim
Scatterbrain ft. Chama, Nonaim & Progress
Pain In The Butt Outro ft. Esteban & Hedgehog
---
Tommy V / 2003 Interview for Westcoastindies
Can you tell us about your childhood? Where did you grow up?
Ok well me and my lil' brother Antonio were born at Queen of Angels Hospital in LA, my mother (RIP) was from Montana and my father is from Mexico. When we were youngsters my mom wanted to leave LA (Mid-Wilshire area) and move back to Kalispell, Montana, where she was from. So there we were in good ol' Montana, soon after my parents got divorced, pops went back to LA and moms stayed in Montana.
From then on I lived back n' forth from Montana to California, my pops then moved back to Mexico so a few times I went to live in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico.. I've also lived in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle...
How about your beginnings in hip hop? What was the LA scene looking like at that time?
Back in the 5th grade I started getting into Hip-Hop, I had a friend named Chris aka Killa C and we used to make up raps about random nonsense and breakdance for school plays and stuff, we were always doing music related things.
Then later on in my teen-age years I met my homie Steven Gomez aka Destruct 310 (RIP). One day in Montana I saw these 2 Mexican cats wearing LA hats (Mario and Steven), this was a rare thing in Montana which is mostly white people, so I approached them and asked where they were from, it turned out they had just moved from Whittier, California, that was the city where my dad lived at the time, so it was dope to meet some heads from LA and we became best friends.
We started our crew "Imprints". Destruct was a good musician who could play drums, keys, and also he was dope at beatboxing, we use to battle each other, he was really witty and good at bagging on people, then his brother Mario aka Slopoke used to rhyme too, then there was DJ Shroom who was their cousin that was a DJ. So we used to take the Amtrak back and forth from Montana to LA.
While living in Whittier around 1995 I became friends with Awol One, me and Destruct had an apartment in Uptown Whittier with his big sister Angie (who sang on "Ma' Despacio" on Quarter Life Crisis). We used to hop on the bus down Whittier Blvd. and go to Awols house with records and drum machines etc.. We would make beats and freestyle and whatnot. One of the beats that we made together came out on Quarter Life Crisis.
About this time there was an event called "The Brainfish" that happened every full moon at a warehouse in Santa Fe Springs, this is where you could find Awol on the mic, I remember Circus used to be there with really long dreaded hair, then there was the Endangered Element crew who I used to battle but later on we became homies thru Awol, also this tagging crew known as LSD used to hang out there. I never went to the Good Life or Project Blowed back then.
Around this time my mother was diagnosed with brain cancer, this was a wack time in my family's life, she lost her battle with cancer in 1996. Then tragically a year after Destruct was killed in a head on collision. This was devastating because he was so young and full of life, if he was still here you would definitely know of him in the LA underground. He was my best friend and I carry on his legacy through my music, along with my mothers..
I'm not really a full time rapper because I don't really consider myself to be a very good rapper, but I am a full time musician, everyday I work on music in one way or another. We had an old Hammond Organ in our house when I was a kid and my mom used to play everyday, she knew how to read music.
I never learned how to read the notes but I always took interest. Now I carry around a pocket recorder that I use to capture melodies in my head, then I try to bring them to life later on in the studio... But for the most part Hip-Hop was my introduction to the music world and that's how I started off in music. Our 1st song was recorded in 1994 with Destruct, but that tape has since been lost..
You used to call yourself "Imprints", now Tommy V... Why that change?
Well "Imprints" was our name back before we even recorded songs and just freestyled amongst each other. After Destruct passed on the vision kind of died, but I still carry the name for his sake and probably always will, "Tommy V." is a name that is just a breakdown of my real name which is Thomas Valencia...
Can you talk about your Fresh Produce album?
Yeah well I got tired of sampling music and wanted to make my own music. I began hanging out with more music type heads like my homie Devin17 who plays all kinds of instruments, then you got the homies from "Anonymous Inc" who play out all their music so all of this was inspiring and influential to me.
I was living with Xololanxinxo and 2Mex at the time that "Fresh Produce" was recorded, Xolo has a big collection of instruments and I began picking up guitars and messing with keyboards, trying to play flutes, clarinets, horns, whatever I could get my hands on. I got more pleasure out of making an original song from the ground up as opposed to sampling..
What's your process to make a song?
As far as music goes, usually a melody pops in my head, then I record it to my pocket recorder. This melody might be words or a phrase or might just be sounds. Then I go to the guitar or piano and try to bring it to life, or sometimes just messing around with some instruments a nice line will surface and will turn into a song. I usually have a concept that I'd like to work with, then it's just a matter of time to see if it fits with a certain piece of music or vice versa...
I like short story writing, so sometimes you'll hear little stories in my songs...
I know you were part of The Evil Cow Burger album with Awol. Can you talk about these sessions?
Well Awol used to live on Colima in Whittier, he had a 4-track, a sampler, some 1200's and a bunch of crates of records and this old Shure SM-58 mic. We recorded those songs in his room, nothing like some gritty 4 track recording! Ask him and Circus about the time I was recording and I had this really bad sun burn, I was breaking out in cold sweats!
