Rapper/producer yU is probably best known as one third of D.C. rap supergroup Diamond District with X.O. and Oddisee, but he’s been toiling for years in Washington’s underground scene. He also stakes membership in the Remainz Crew and the 1978ers, a production team formed with fellow beatmaker Slimkat78. Last year saw the free release of y’s Before Taxes, a 16 track album comprised of leftovers from his official solo debut The Earn. That Before Taxes is so consistent and cohesive despite being compiled from b-sides stands as testament to yU’s forceful, agile rhyming and exceptional ear for beats.
In anticipation of The Earn’s release later this year, the rapper born Michael F. Willingham reveals his back story, his influences and illuminates the state of D.C.’s hip hop scene. —Aaron Matthews
What was your first experience with hip-hop?
My moms was into hip-hop. I remember seeing Breakin’, Beat Street at the movie theatre. Her music collection, she had the first Tribe album, Pete Rock and CL Smooth’s Mecca & The Soul Brother. My first stepbrother used to perform at talent shows. He would call the radio station and rhyme, freestyle or whatever. Actually that was the first time I actually seen somebody doing it. He put me onto “Showtime at the Apollo,” the latest show I’d ever seen come on. EPMD was on there with DJ Scratch and he was doing tricks and stuff.
When did you decide to start rapping?
I was a fan until about ’95, 96. Around that time, I found some other people with similar taste in music and we used to rhyme over other peoples’ songs if we liked the beat. ‘Cause we didn’t really know nobody who could make beats for us. We would make tapes of ourselves rhyming over their songs. After a while, people started to see what we were doing and they started to offer beats.
The first real recording we did, it was a jazz band at our school and they were trying to get into hip-hop. They heard us rhyming and asked us if we could do a show with them. That kept branching off, ‘til I got older. I was a younger generation, my brother and Pete’s brother [check later], and their older brothers were in a group. After a while, word started to get round that we were rhyming and it finally got to our older brothers. They said, “We heard some of y’all stuff, why don’t you be a part of the older generation?”, their group was called the Remainz. It was on from there. This is between about ‘96 and ‘97.
Can you give me a little history of the Remainz crew?
The Remainz crew got together around ’94. At the time they were called Knights of the Rhyme Table [not to be confused with these white rappers from Sacramento]. They did their first show opening for MC Lyte in Washington, D.C in ‘94. They were so many people and they were all going in different directions so they split up. Half of them were called The Blue Room and the other half was called the Remainz. Like the remains of the Knights of the Rhyme Table.
We did little shows, but the first thing that came out was the album, The Healing by Urban Ave 31. It was the Remainz, W. Ellington Felton and Raheem DeVaughn. Mostly people we were performing with at a club called Bar None. That project is what got Raheem seen by Jive Records. The Healing is probably one of the only things you can find now.
Let’s talk about Before Taxes [a free album yU released online last year].
I’ve been recording for an album called The Earn which is coming out later this year, and I had a whole lot of songs left over that I still wanted to put out. I ran all my ideas through Slimkat78 [yU’s partner in production team the 1978ers], we have similar taste in music. Before Taxes came about as a 20 minute mix, the first 20 minutes or so, maybe 6 songs I blended together. I started recording these songs about 3-4 years ago.
Tell me about a few songs from the album.
“Thought About It” – At the time [I wrote that] a lot of people were hyped about rappers who put songs together, almost like a freestyle and getting excited, saying “He didn’t write that!” My point was, he didn’t write it, he freestyled it. But did he think about it? Where was the purpose in it? I wanted to make a song highlighting artists that put thought into what they’re saying.
“Almost Time” – This is a true story. Kev Brown had a show opening up for EPMD at the 9:30 Club, and he called me up to see if I could come up and do a verse, if I was free. We met up the night before, went over everything, decided who was going to do what. My man IQ came up and did a little verse. And it hit me when I heard the beat: it just sounded like that night. So I painted a picture of how that show came about.
“Memory” – My man ERC starts the song off. That’s actually the first group I was in before the Remainz, called the Untold Truth. He was the first person I rhymed with. His verse was talking about high school, people. Memories. My verse was talking about how I’ve grown from then ‘til now, how we’re still family and giving thanks. I chopped Billy Paul’s “War of the Gods.” Somewhere in the song he says something about memories, so I tried to keep it in the same context.
“Native” – That was actually a beat Slimkat made in 2000. I had a conversation with my grandma about where [my family] traces back to and she told me we trace back to the Blackfoot Indians. In the process of finding out more information, I would write the song. It’s looking at life from the perspective of people who had to go through that. Like I said in the verse, I guess that race of people is not one that is controlled by money as much.
How did you and Oddisee meet and create Diamond Distrct?
Asheru actually introduced [me to him]. My partner Mr. Hu went on tour with the Foreign Exchange. Slimkat78, DJ RBI, Mr. Human and I had a house from 2005-2006 and we put together a group called the El’s that played music for hip-hop artists, one of them was Asheru. Asheru had an event and that was the first time [the band] performed. During that, Slimkat, DJ Roddy Rod and Oddisee did a kind of beat expedition and all of them were playing beats. Everybody had somebody rhyme on their beats. I was representing Slimkat on his beats. That was the first time I met a lot of [the D.C. underground scene], Roddy Rod, Oddisee. I got to talking with Oddisee because we use the same equipment to make beats and I was asking him questions. After the performance, we talked some more and he said, “You should come through, maybe work on something.” After a couple songs, [we saw] the combination was good, he was easy to work with. He was the only beatmaker I knew with ideas. When he’d make a beat, he’d already have an idea of the chorus and he’d give it to you like ‘you can take it or leave it, but that’s what I hear’. I was surprised that somebody was telling me how to put it, but I respected it. I didn’t actually take his advice! [laughs] We did a song called “Searchin” [off Oddisee’s 102 from 2008]. That was around the same time I met XO, at an open mike night. I would come and take beats and everybody would tell me about XO. I finally got a chance to meet the person everyone was talking about and it was cool.
So XO came through the house I share with Slimkat. I wasn’t even there but Slimkat played beats of mine and his and [XO] picked a few to use for his mixtape. I had a rack of beats on his first two tapes, The Takeover Pt. 1 & Pt. 2. Oddisee would have me bring my crew to his house to put some beats down. Oddisee would show me how to use Pro Tools. One day we was like, I wanna hear how we sound, us three, on this one joint. And the song [“Gully”] ended up being on Foot In The Door. One day Oddisee called me up and said, “Yeah man, I like how easy it was to put that song together. I want to do a tour together, but the only way we can do that is if we put a whole album together. And as soon as I get back, that’s what we’re going to work towards.” And that’s what In The Ruff was.
How does the process for recording solo work differ from recording as a group?
It’s the easiness. [In a group], you don’t have to do as much, you just gotta hold your end down. It’s kinda like cheating for real, ‘cause when you do your own thing, you have to handle all of that. Especially when you make your own beats. We all have respect for each other’s work. Like when Oddisee sent me his verse from “I Mean Business,” it became a bit of a friendly competition.
Take me through the process of making a beat.
I chop breaks, drum breaks and see if I can come up with a different rhythm than the original. I play around with keys and chop samples until it works. Anything you hear from me, it usually doesn’t work the first time. I mess around with [the beat] for a while until it just lets you know, “Yeah, that’s it”.
Early on I played in the D.C. Youth Orchestra, and I always had ideas on how I would do it if I were to put something together. In the early days of trying to make beats, I didn’t even know how to program drums! So I would make songs and beat-box the whole way through, then come back and play the guitar or kalimba or whatever I had over it. Then I put a song to it and played it for Slimkat and he said, “This is tight, what do you think of me putting some drums to it?” Eventually he taught me how to use a drum machine and how to sample. At the time, I was using the Roland MS-1 with about 24 seconds of sampling time, a little basic but it had its advantages. It all comes from not having much but knowing how to stretch what you got.
What are your influences?
Native Tongues…Though actually, I‘d say all forms of it, for real. I went through it all. I grew up on hip-hop, so I went through all the 5 Percenters, Wu-Tang, Spice 1, Casual. Not too much missed my ears and anything that did, I’m catching up to it now. It goes further than hip-hop too, good music is good music. It’s all feeling. Knowing how to make people feel a certain way.
It seems like D.C. hip hop has only recently begun attracting attention on an international level. Where is D.C. at now?
What you’re hearing on a wide scale is about 15 to 20% of what’s going on. A lot of the greats from [D.C.] have been playing for a long time. And a lot of them were stubborn when it came down to certain advantages. A lot of them were slow to [adapt to computers], don’t really want to get online, to blogs and all that. But I guess that people are finally growing up. A lot of our music scene is really coming together now. Like Asheru, he’s been touring and putting albums out for a long time. I would see him at [D.C. hip hop club] Bar None and stuff. But for a while, certain artists weren’t dealing with the younger generation. They had talent but didn’t know what to do business-wise. But the reason you’re seeing more work come from our area is a lot of those folks now are interacting and spreading the wealth. Personally, I’m definitely trying to get with the young people now. They ask me stuff and I help them.
There’s a surge right now but I think a lot more projects need to come out. People need to put their [material] together and actually say that it’s an album. A lot of people think they put their albums out but…I could be in my car and throw a CD out the window, and say I put an album out. Something people can readily access. Not even saying that they have to buy it. Just that other people have it, getting a write-up on it. Small steps but they have to be taken.
Download:
ZIP: yU – Before Taxes (Left-Click)
MP3: yU – “Brainwash (ft. Grap Luva, Finale and OP Swamp 81)”
