JB: Why were Mike Dece and Ruben kicked out of Raider Klan and what happened to cause that rift?

Ethelwulf:

First of all, Mike is like fucking fifteen or sixteen, I think he’s fifteen.  I like Mike and them, and I liked Mike and Ruben’s music before I was even in Raider Klan.  I still fuck with Metro Zu, and Lofty.  Lofty’s my guy I’ve got a song with Lofty.  So like I fuck with Metro Zu, and I fucked with Mike Dece and Ruben back when they were in the Klan.  What happened was, those niggas be doing fucking cocaine and shit.  Long story short, Purrp was just like I can’t have a fifteen year old kid in the Raider Klan on twitter talking about doing cocaine and shit, because that’s kind of like a bad look for us.  He didn’t want niggas thinking Raider Klan niggas are doing cocaine and crack and shit, because I don’t do that shit.  All of us just smoke weed.  Him and Ruben the only niggas doing coke and shit, all that crazy shit.  And Mike, he’s fifteen, he’s a kid, so he doesn’t give a fuck.  He ain’t mature enough to see that shit from a grown person’s point of view and shit.  So like he took it however he took it.  But you know, you can’t be in the Klan doing that shit.  Ruben just left the klan, he just stopped fuckin’ with the Klan.  And they teamed up and became the Propr Boyz and now they’re in Brazil somewhere.

JB: Yeah, how did they end up in Brazil?

Ethelwulf:

Mike Dece’s parents live in Brazil, that’s where he’s from.  His parents are like rich, well, they got money.  So like, he just went back to Brazil, that’s where he’s from, so he basically just went back home.  He got in the plane, because I remember they were putting the pictures on instragram and shit, like he was in the airport instagraming on his way to Brazil.  Because I was wondering the same thing.  I talked to one of my other Raider Klan brothers and he gave me the scoop on it, that’s how I found out.  That’s how I found out all that shit, because I was like “how the hell did they get to Brazil?” too. We just let them do what they do.  We don’t really say shit man.  I wasn’t even upset they left the Klan and I was still fuckin’ with them, but them fools just started talking down on the Klan on twitter and shit.  They just started saying reckless shit, and the first night I just let that shit slide.  Like Mike Dece was saying dumb shit and I just let that shit slide.  But then the next day he just kept going with the shit, so then eventually I was just like “Bruh, shut the fuck up.”  Because I like their music, you know I fuck with their music, but then they fucking went AWOL and shit.

(Source: hardwoodblacktop.com)

JB Ware: Lo-fi.  Describe why you chose to go the lo-fi route and moreso how you did that given today’s technology?

Ethelwulf:

We do that on purpose.  We don’t care about being lyrical, that’s not what’s important.  You know how it is when that beat gets into your body bruh and you feel that shit in your bones?  That’s the thing about old school music, they didn’t care about being lyrical.  They either told a story on the track or kept the vibe and kept you into it.  But nowadays you know it’s just punchlines.  That shit’s lame as fuck, fuck that shit, fuck being lyrical.  We gonna get on the beat, we gonna ride the beats, we going to make your bob your head. It’s impossible not to bob your head to a Raider Klan song.  We do it like that on purpose.  It’s funky, it’s lo-fi.  We don’t give a fuck about crisp clean sounds, we don’t give a damn about the mainstream.  We’re anti-mainstream, fuck the mainstream, we don’t need a fuckin’ hardass engineer.  I engineer all my own music, first of all.  I record my shit, I mix my shit, and I put my shit out.  I don’t need nobody touching my shit straight up.  Me and Chris Travis are the only ones I know for sure got our own shit in the crib.  But as far as everybody else, we just keep it grimy, it don’t matter who’s studio they go to or whatever like that, it’s going to be how they want it.  And 99.9% of the time, it’s gonna be grimy, straight like that.  I mean it ain’t like we’re recording dirt quality, it’s still clean, but it’s a phonky clean.  It just feels good.  That lo-fi is just what’s up.  Because that’s how it was back in the day.  You listen to some old Bone Thugs, or Gangsta Pat, or Gangsta Boo all them folks bro.  You can hear the dubs on the track, listening to Gangsta Pat.  You can hear the Dubs.  He might record his voice three times on top of each other just to get it to sound the way he wants it to sound.  Just keep it grimy, just to keep that shit phonkey.

(Source: hardwoodblacktop.com)

JB: How did you get involved in Raider Klan?

Yung Raw:

Me and Ethelwulf been making music together for a long time.  We been in the same school since Middle School.  We both listened to SpaceGhostPurrp probably a little bit over a year now.  We always not only liked his music, but appreciated how he was showing so much love and respect to Memphis, which was our town.  So we already had 90’s style music, a few songs that had that vibe, the Klan and everybody else was just backing up our music, so first they backed up Ethelwulf, and then they started checking out me and actually checking out Chris Travis’s music too, because we’re all from Memphis.  SpaceGhost got word and he was just down with what we were doing and asked us to join the Klan so we just got in that way.

(Source: hardwoodblacktop.com)

JB: How did you get involved in Raider Klan?

Chris Travis: 

I got involved, because I heard about SGP a long time ago.  I always listened to underground Memphis music, and before everything, I heard Purrp back in like late 2010.  So I was into it, because his music was tight and he got the Memphis sound and he’s from Miami.  And I was already rapping like that in the first place.  Purrp reached out to me and Ethelwulf and he heard our music and he fucked with it.  On twitter I sent him a youtube video for “Children of the Blunts” and he was like damn this is hard as fuck.  He asked us to join.  So now we’re Raider Klan Memphis.

(Source: hardwoodblacktop.com)

JB: How did you get involved in Raider Klan?

Ethelwulf:

2012, shortly after New Year’s like I got some studio equipment in the crib, and I started recording or whatever.  I was doing the old school stuff and I found this dude named Konflict OD and he had all them phonky beats.  And I was like damn, I could just snap so easily to all of them, like I didn’t even have try hard.  I did the Wolfgang Rodolphe and that was my first mixtape.  I did that in like two months.  To me that’s a classic tape right there, because all of the beats are produced by him and if you listen to it man that shit is just tight as fuck.  Before I dropped it, that “Trilla Nation,” song, I had a beat from Konflict and I did my verse on it, then I hit up Amber (London) on twitter, because she was the only Raider following me.  That was before Purrp was following me, before Key Nyata all them.  So me and Amber were actually the first to click.  She heard my verse on that beat and she liked it, so she hoped on it and did what she did.  That’s how “Trilla Nation” came.  That was the first song that I really did that I liked, and I wasn’t Klan yet, I wasn’t in the Raider Klan yet, I just had that one song with Amber.  She was in the Klan, but I wasn’t.  I was just doing mything.  Soon after that Key Nyata caught on to me and all that, and he was following me on twitter.  He would DM with me on twitter, you know just letting me know he liked my music and respected me and shit.  So we just got cool.  He was just like you should get tight with the Klan.  But I wasn’t even forcing and I didn’t even ask.  Long story short he put Purrp onto me shit, him and Amber put Purrp onto my shit, and he was fucking with it off top.  And he followed me and was like, ‘man I fuck with your music,’ straight like that.  And like really after that he just invited me into the Klan.

(Source: hardwoodblacktop.com)