Pitchfork

Hours after I talked to the Pack at South by Southwest, they performed shirtless on the roofs of cars parked in an Amtrak station parking lot during an after-hours Paperthinwalls.com party. Our meeting was a more low-key affair. Young Stunna, Young L, and Lil B (Lil Uno was napping) sat by their hotel pool, fully clothed, and talked about their careers up to this point: their hit ("Vans"), their currently-untitled album (planned for a summer release), and their relationships with hyphy, hip hop, and their mothers.

Pitchfork: What's the deal with your album? It was supposed to come out in February, right?

Young Stunna: Yeah, we actually released an EP [Skateboards 2 Scrapers], which was good at the time. We tried to get the best stuff that we could, and we keep working. We got the EP out for the fans.

Pitchfork: Are the songs from the EP going to be on the album?

Young Stunna: "Vans" should be on there. I'm about 80% sure. There's no reason "Vans" shouldn't be on there. From the EP? No. I mean, there might be.

Lil B: We want it to be fresh songs. We wanted to make the EP a separate album. That was the EP. Now it's time for the album, which is going to kill.

Pitchfork: Since the album comes out in the summer, are you trying to write any big summer jams? L, does the season factor into your beat-making at all?

Young L: Season doesn't really change anything for me, at least consciously. Maybe subconsciously we wanna make a summertime beat, but I don't think I write it to be a summertime beat or anything.

Pitchfork: The hyphy scene has started to blow up, but you guys don't seem to be totally a part of that, so I'm wondering what your relationship is to that scene.

Young Stunna: We grew up around it. That's our culture. At the same time, we come from diverse backgrounds, so you're not going to just hear "hyphy hyphy hyphy hyphy hyphy." You're going to hear this, this, this, this, this, and then some hyphy. So we're part of the hyphy movement, but we're not hyphy.

Pitchfork: So what's the other "this" that you bring to the hyphy movement? Other elements of hip hop?

Young L: We got our own style called "based music," which is really hard to explain to people. A lot of the music on our first couple of mixtapes was hyphy, but we came into our own style. I evolved into my own style of making beats, and then everybody else got their own type of lyrics.

Pitchfork: When making the beats, are there any producers that have influenced you?

Young L: There are producers that I really used to look up to, and I still do. Like, I used to really look up to Kanye West, DJ Smurf, [Scott] Storch, Cool and Dre, all that. I love all them, but I'm still gonna try to move in my own direction.

Pitchfork: What about you, Stunna? Lyrically, is there anyone you model yourself after?

Young Stunna: Man, I don't wanna model myself after anybody, 'cause I feel like that's one of the biggest problems with hip hop. Everyone who's relevant to the scene, they all know that hip hop repeats itself. What I'm trying to do is just bring me to the table. And I feel like I can speak on behalf of the Pack when I say we're just trying to bring us to the table.

Of course, I can't sit here and say I don't listen to nobody and I don't like nobody and I'm just doing me and it all comes from my head, because that wouldn't be right. We take influence from those people who have come before, but I can't just sit here and say "this person and this person and this person." Because me, I listened to a whole bunch of different types of music, because I literally couldn't go and buy a rap CD. I was listening to whatever I got my hands on.

Pitchfork: What kind of stuff?

Young Stunna: For a minute, I could only get my hands on rock stuff. That's all I could do, so it was a lot of Nirvana. It was a lot of Incubus, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Misfits, stuff like that. I was a big rock fan from about 7th to 8th grade. All I listened to was rock.

Pitchfork: What's your favorite Misfits song?

Young Stunna: They got a new one. I think it's called "Helena" or "Helen" or something like that, something with an "h." It's a girl's name.

Pitchfork: You mean My Chemical Romance? Because they have a song called "Helena".

Young Stunna: What are you talking about? I'm talking about the Misfits. I listen to the ringtone every day. [He's right. The post-Danzig Misfits did put out a song called "Helena" in 1999. -Ed.] When I find it, I'll tell you. We're just trying to be us, man. I mean, who knows what hip hop is? That's such a broad question: "What type of hip hop are you trying to make?"

Young L: It's a question of "do I even make hip hop anymore?" I don't know if I make hip hop.

Pitchfork: Are there people you see making hip hop that you just don't relate to?

Young L: I don't know. I think Jay-Z is making hip hop. Nas is making hip hop.

Young Stunna: The O.G.s!

Young L: Yeah, the O.G.s are making hip hop. Music is music. Some music you like, some music you don't like. Some music connects different people, so music is music. That's all I say. I don't even put a category on it. All that is just prefab.

Lil B: Music really comes from the soul, and game-changing music, music that really changes the industry really comes from-- I really can't explain it 'cause I think so hard. The music that we make is so far away from the average hip hop or the average rap or whatever, because it's just not us to be the average or to do the average shit. Even when we were rapping about clothes or dancing, it was always [about] perfecting it to the maximum and taking it to a whole other level.

Pitchfork: L, you were in college. Are you still there?

Young L: I could still go back to school if I wanted to, but right now I've got a lot of stuff going on.

Pitchfork: Are you all on hiatus from school?

Young Stunna: Uno and B go to school.

Pitchfork: Where do you go to school?

Lil B: We actually go to school for young performers. We have our own little teacher. They don't come to the house. We actually go to the tutor.

Pitchfork: Before you had written "Vans", were you all in public high school?

Lil B: Oh yeah.

Pitchfork: Did people know you did this when you were in school?

Young Stunna: Yeah, see, I always rapped, but skating was more important to me. Rapping was always something I did for fun. My older brother made beats, and my mom did spoken word. My little brother even came out with an album before I was even in the Pack, so it was always around. But I think people really started realizing that we did it when we came together as a collective group, and we put out little mix CDs at the high schools.

The first time we ever made a mix CD, it wasn't in our head to put something out and get signed. The responses were good, and so we kept doing it. And it eventually came to us, "Oh, you know what? We got some talent. We might as well take it to the next level and try and get signed." Then everything fell in [place] for us. It wasn't like a big mission. It was literally-- we were selling CDs at the mall. We were going to every high school after school in the Bay Area radius. So we would just go passing out CDs, and it just took off for us.

Pitchfork: How many high school kids were doing this kind of stuff?

Young Stunna: We started that.

Pitchfork: Are there tons of people doing it now?

Lil B: Now everybody's biting our style, biting the beats, biting our raps, biting our subjects, biting the Vans, biting everything.

Young Stunna: There's a word. Me, Uno, Lil B, and Young L have been saying this word for a minute. We say, "Oh, you're based." "Based" is like, "You're out of it. You don't know what you're doing. You're acting stupid. You're based." Like, say I sit there, and I touch a stove when it obviously says it's on. "You're based." We took that, and we ran with it. We made it into something good, and we started calling the style of music we did "based." Now everybody's saying they're based. It might sound like we're bragging, but I got so many people on MySpace-- their top name is "Based." Based, based, based.

Young L: Me and B got this thing going on called "SS." It stands for "stripes and stars," and it stands for "so solid." It's just some shit we got [tattooed] on our hands. And there was somebody trying to be my friend on MySpace, and his name was "SS Based Boy". He's trying to bang SS, and that's our thing. My little brothers are in that, too. So that's like family stuff, and they're trying to take it from me.

Pitchfork: Isn't it flattering to have so many people emulating you, though? I can understand "SS" being a family thing, but nonetheless...

Young Stunna: It makes me mad when people call it their own. There are groups in the Bay Area, and they conveniently have four people and talk about Vans and what we're rapping [about]. Thing is, us wearing Vans and skating and having that kind of urban style led to people talking about, "Oh we're punk rock." I know some people who would really get mad. You're talking about punk rock, and you don't know what punk rock is. I don't like it.

But at the same time, I love it, because it means I'm inspiring somebody. I'm inspiring something positive. At least they're not going to shoot a gun in somebody's face. At least they're just trying to make some music. If I can give somebody inspiration like that, then I'm all for that. But at the same time, the only way you're ever going to last is if you do your own thing.

Pitchfork: Do your parents listen to your music?

Lil B: Yeah, I don't let my mom listen to the cuss words though.

Pitchfork: Does she know you say them?

Lil B: Yeah.

Pitchfork: What does she think about that?

Lil B: It's like, what the fuck, I like it. I mean, some of our content can get pretty...

Pitchfork: Uh, yeah [laughs].

Lil B: "Candy"!

Young Stunna: My mom cared, but at the same time, she was happy that I wasn't out doing something else. I could have been doing anything. She knew it was dirty kinds of rhymes, but she was just glad that I had a group of friends that was dedicated to me and that I was dedicated to, that I had an actual craft. I was good at school 'til about eighth grade, then eighth grade just got boring to me. So I started slumping in school, but it was always okay for me to be a little bit bad in school as long as I showed my mom another interest and progression in something else. She said, "If you're going to be doing that, make sure you come in here with at least C+s, nothing under a C+. Then you can do your music head-on if you want to, but don't say you're doing music if you ain't got a CD to give me." My mom was like, "You're making music? Let me hear it." She wouldn't get mad at me about it. She just wanted to see the progress. She wanted to see that the nights I was out with the Pack-- "I'm making music"-- she wanted to see the music I was making.

Pitchfork: Do you ever run stuff by your parents? Will they tell you if you've improved or they're not particularly feeling something?

Young Stunna: Yeah, my mom does that. She critiques it, 'cause she started to know our style. She started really listening, not listening like, "this is my son talking," but trying to listen as if it were on the radio. So she critiques. She'll say, "You know, on that verse, you wasn't hard."

Pitchfork: Do you let your mom listen to the cuss words?

Young Stunna: Yeah. My mom's been through so much in her own life. There's not too much I can do to shock her.

Pitchfork: How did you all meet?

Lil B: I met L in high school, and L already knew Stunna. And then Stunna introduced everybody to Uno.

Pitchfork: Stunna, how did you know Uno?

Young Stunna: I met Uno through a pair of shoes.

Pitchfork: What do you mean?

Young Stunna: I had on some gold [Air Force] Ones, black and gold Ones. And he had a pair of all-white Ones, but low-tops. I was just like, "I'll trade you." That was that. We would just trade shoes. I'd go, "You can have your shoes for a week, and let me have those for a week." We hung out with different crowds too, so it was kind of like I had new stuff, but I didn't have new stuff, 'cause it was Uno's.

Pitchfork: Speaking of shoes, have you talked to anyone at the Vans company since the song came out?

Young Stunna: Multiple times, man. The thing is, I think they've got a strong base of dealers and a crowd they've had for a long time, and I think they feel like if they mess with us, they could potentially lose that. But they've shown us a little bit of love. They definitely could have gotten behind us and pushed it, but it is what it is. And we thank them for what they've done for us.

Young L: Me and B and the Pack, we represent a jewelry line called High Line Jewelry, and we're trying to promote it.

Pitchfork: When did you start that?

Young L: We just know a couple people in the jewelry business, and they started up a little store in the Bay Area, so we've been going there to get our jewelry. It's a good place. Good people.

Pitchfork: So now that you have a little bit of money and connections like the one with High Line, is there any chance we're going to hear, say, the "Gucci" single? Or are you going to keep wearing Vans?

Lil B: I'm gonna be wearing Vans forever. I can't even find any other shoes that are comfortable to me.

Pack tour dates:

05-02 San Francisco, CA – Slim's
05-03 Orangevale, CA - The Boardwalk
05-04 Fullerton, CA - The Alley
05-05 San Diego, CA - Soma
05-06 Los Angeles, CA - Knitting Factory