Raheem Jarbo

Yo YTC! Just listened to Neals and I can highly recommend it as the best stuff i've ever heard from you, which is a huge compliment! I appreciate how you constantly keep it creative and new on each release.

my question is one that people ask me a lot: what's your writing process? Do you write to a beat only when inspired, or just jot down ideas all year?

also what's your favorite verse you ever wrote? one you look back on like "yooo I murdered this!"

hope to rock another show with you sometime homie. <3

yo K! I got a question. Where's my beat for that secret project!?!?!

hey there! I appreciate that, the freestyles are always a fun time. The best/worst have been:

1) when a girl took off her bra in the middle of the show (through her sleeves) and held it up, that stunned me for a sec and 2) in Portland, when a girl held up a bong at a show and I said something like "I hope this doesn't get you arrested," and afterward, the security guard grabbed her, and might have kicked her out.

Now I tell people not to hold up anything that'll get you in trouble :)

I remember the My Buddy! awesome.

What up Paco! maaaan there aren't too many that are totally safe for the internet - But if i can do one with names omitted to protect the innocent, I've actually been on a tour once upon a time where almost every show went badly or was planned so poorly that we had no crowds, no promotion, and some were cancelled when we got there -- but we held it together and literally re-booked the entire tour while on the road, and salvaged it pretty well, while forging some rock solid friendships, when at the beginning it looked pretty grim. great question!

I had gotten extremely frustrated with the administration, and at the same time, my music had gotten fairly popular (I have Reddit to thank for the Black Materia Explosion). So I kept setting goals like, "If i make X this month, I'll quit.. if I get booked X times next month, I'll quit... I had taken too many days off to go to music events, and I felt like it was time... I just decided to take the plunge.

well, pretty much anyone in the NPC Collective

1993-94 in hip hop made me want to be a rapper. so many classic moments... from Wu Tang to Biggie to Tribe Called Quest to Snoop and Dr. Dre to Gangstarr... all releasing classic albums. I got caught up in the rush and started writing my own rhymes with my homies on the stoop. we were called "The Firm." we weren't that great but we tried hard.

The Capcom story is a long one, but fun to tell. I made an album called "Mega Ran" in 2007 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Mega Man. it got kind of successful on the net, and then I got a myspace message from a Capcom rep asking me about it. He was nice though and told me they loved it and played in the offices. Comic Con was the next month, so they decided to invite me out to play and sign autographs. Later a movie called "Second Skin" wanted to use "Grow Up" from that album in the movie, and told me they needed a license from Capcom. Their lawyer hit Capcom and the next thing I know, I got an email titled "Capcom's Blessing for Mega Ran comes Through." I have that message starred in my inbox. I'll never forget it. Capcom was super cool for not only encouraging me to keep creating, but assisting with promotions and stuff.

What up!!

The worst thing is time management, which has plagued me since college. but now that there's no schedule, no bell ringing every 45 mins to keep me on track, I wind up spending too much time on things, or not enough time on other things. My homie Wax says it best in his new record "We Can't All Be Heroes." when 'writing raps' becomes part of a to-do-list, it's hard to be as excited about it.

Writers Block is easy, I just read books or watch Adventure Time usually, and something will come to me.

Random, aka Marshall Evan Stone. the Marvel Comics character, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_(comics) - he's a shape shifter and I felt like I could do that with my music.

door hinge

:)