Interview With B Horowitz: RG Verified Blogger
B Horowitz is a famous blogger, member of the Rap Genius Blog Family, and name partner of Silicon Valley pimp VC firm Andreesen Horowitz.
The New York Times recently dickrided Ben for quoting hip-hop like the Talmud and relating it to Silicon Valley business and investment strategies.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Maboo: We’re taping this and transcribing it
Ben: You know, Rap Genius let me down the other day, you know that song Cashing Out?
Maboo: By which rapper?
Ben: By Cash Out? LOL The lyrics are in there — but I can’t understand. It’s one of those rap songs where I understand very little of it, but there’s a line I totally don’t understand and Rap Genius didn’t help me.
Maboo: We have to get Cash Out a verified account! Where is he from?
Ben: I don’t know where he’s from, but he says:
Maboo: Pigeons is bricks, isn’t it?
Ben: What does he mean by they are jumping out the kitchen
Maboo: He’s cooking it up, selling bricks…this is just conjecture
Maboo: So Ben: are you down to get a verified account on Rap Genius?
Ben: Sure, let’s do this.
Maboo: What would be a good text of yours to throw up for you to explain?
Ben: Well it’s tricky cause I’m not a rapper…
Maboo: I’m actually sitting here with the head of our poetry project. We gonna do all of text, I was hoping you could send us a dope blog post you could give 2nd-level insite into.
Ben: Analyze myself like the rappers.
Maboo: You can make videos — maybe we could do a rap together..
Ben: I don’t know about a rap, but fasho.
Maboo: So what got you into rap?
Ben: I was probably in junior high when Rapper’s Delight came out. The song that threw me into rap was Hard Times by Run-D.M.C.. My boy Sonny McCree put 18’’ subwoofers in his Fiat , he had em in his living room cause he hadn’t gotten them in there and we listened to it on the woofer, and you felt the bass go into your heart.
Then I went to school in New York from ‘84 to ‘88 — that was the birth of the key original guys — Rakim, Run-D.M.C., Beanie, LL Cool J, Marley Marl, the original guys, so that was pretty tight. There were 2 DJs: Cool DJ Red Alert and Chuck Chillout who had radio shows where they’d play the newest stuff. You’d hear their renditions of songs — Slick Rick, Doug E Fresh, I must’ve listened to those songs 4,000 times in 3,000 different ways..
Maboo: Back in the day were there discussions over lyrics or was it based on the beats?
Ben: Until Run-D.M.C. they were rapping over existing records. Sugar Hill Gang rapped over the Sheikh record, Grandmaster Flash sampled albums by other guys, then it went to a drum machine: Run DMC started with a drum machine. Pretty simple early on, just samples and beats. A lot of stuff was recorded on 8-tracks, so not very complicated, that was the state of the art. The big change in rap music was with Dr. Dre and N.W.A, he got a lot more advanced, like how the Beatles were to rock n roll. Before that it was all about the rhymes cause the music wasn’t that advanced.
Maboo: Are you a hip-hop head only or what other genres are you into? RG dudes love electronic music.
Ben: Rock n Roll, R&B, I’m a big Prince fan, he’s getting old now.. I listen to a lot of things, but mostly hip-hop.
Maboo: What do yo uthink about explaining non-rap lyrics? A lot of people say there’s less to take apart in other genres.
Ben: In other kinds, you don’t have the language. Rap Genius fits rap because the language itself evolves. To someone who doesn’t know rap, rap is a foreign language, so the translation is interesting on a basic level. Other genres are in basic English. There’s a lot of stuff — like Ozzy Osborne’s Mr Crowley, who the Hell is Mr. Crowley?
Maboo: We try not to provide rap “translations” either, the explanations are meant for hip-hop heads.
Ben: You do a good job of being respectful of that, but the language evolves so fast that you even a hip-hop fan can quickly fall behind. What the rapper means is a bigger question.
Maboo: There’s the issue of allusions too — what do you think of other genres tho? Do you think breaking down your blog posts will be an interesting project? Famous poetry? The Bible?
Ben: The Rap Genius version of the Old Testament is the Talmud, no doubt. So there is a Rap Genius for the Bible — if you read Genesis, a lot of the stuff we say is not there, it comes from the Rap Genius interpretation. For my own blog, I think explaining the connections between the hip-hop lyrics and notes would be good, people who listen to hip-hop usually get the connections which is why hip-hop fans love my blog, but people on the other side often have trouble understanding the hip-hop lyric itself.
Maboo: btw I’m feeling you on Talmud being the OG Rap Genius. The original name was Rap Exegesis, and we debated changing it to Rap Talmud — I think the domain might’ve been taken!
Ben, I know you’re busy, but let’s get you a verified account set up. Nas’ is all set up, we need you on here. Are you near a computer? Go to Rap Genius, “create an account” is at the top-right, for verified account we suggest the username be the hip-hop name, like Nas’ is Nas
Ben: I’ll be B Horowitz
Maboo: Dope, we’ll post some of your classic posts and get a verified account set up.
Maboo: OK, last question: Top 5 rappers you wanna see verified on Rap Genius
Ben: Weezy, Yeezy.. you’ve already got Nas on there.. you mean all-time, or.. ?
Maboo: Maybe with some attention to techno-competence.
Ben: You have to put Rakim in that list
Maboo: Ooh Rakim! Does he tweet?
Ben: He’ll pop in on people’s timelines now and again… I gotta put in a plug for Game.. so hard to choose
Maboo: You know Game is known for his name-drops, I call him the Joan Didion of Rap.
Ben: Oh, he goes with the name-drops — drops so many names sometimes I have no idea who he’s talking about.
Maboo: I can’t believe he hasn’t given you a shout-out yet!
Ben: My name’s not that good to rhyme on..
Maboo: I would think the classic match-up is “ballin at the Ritz”..
Ben: I think you should get Lupe Fiasco on there too..
Maboo: I was on a panel with him, he said he’ll get one when Nas gets one, now Nas has one I’m tweeting him every day, I’mma tell him Ben Horowitz has a verified account now he’s gotta get on this!
