We managed to nab a couple minutes on the phone with NYC beat-maker Sporting Life, one of the men behind underground hip-hop duo Ratking. He’s had a colossal year touring their debut album So It Goes, which has earned equal acclaim from fans and critics alike.
He’ll be joining MC’s Wiki and Hak on their tour of Australia with Laneway Festival at the Future Classic Stage presented by the Red Bull Music Academy and their own headline shows in a couple of weeks. We thought it’d be a good idea to hear the dude’s thoughts on touring, hip-hop and making music in ‘The City’. Here’s how it went down:
LWA: Hey Sport, thanks for taking the time for the interview! Much appreciated.
Sporting Life: Ay, no problem man.
When do you guys arrive in Australia? Will it be your first time?
We get there on the 23rd of January…and yeah it will be all three of our first times in lovely Aus land.
What’s on the sightseeing agenda? Any hardcore tourist plans?
No – more looking to make some friends and meet some people to see what they think we should see, as opposed to going the touristy-route.
Do you think you’ll get much time for the studio while your here or you’ll be more focused on the tour itself?
Yeah, I think we’re gonna be able to meet some cool producers. I was talking to somebody over there and they said a lot of cool producers are gonna be playing at Laneway so hopefully we can hook up with some of them and see if we can get some time in with them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzdb4gEaF6E
Good to hear! I want to take a minute to speak about the album. ‘So It Goes’ has been really well received critically and you guys are gaining some serious popularity. What was the writing and producing process like on that album?
Well it kind of happened over like a years time, with a lot the songs we were playing them live before they were ever recorded. So it was just a process of getting the original idea’s down and adding some verses here and there. Then we’d play it out live over a month and kind of read the crowd and form it together so when we finally got in the studio we already had a lot of the verses down pat. From there it would be a lot of tweaking, adding to the stencils of the beats I had already made and growing them over time. Then began the close work with Young Guru who’s a really good engineer – which was a really informative thing to do. Overall it was a really cool learning experience; learning to put an album together from start to finish which something you’re usually on the outside looking in on for most of your life.
Well the finished product is dope and definitely something you can be proud of.
Since you released it in April you’ve been touring it pretty hectically. From everything we’ve heard the three of you are pretty good mates. What’s it like on tour as the Ratking trio?
It’s pretty fun ya know. Everybody, even if its your own brother, if you tour for long enough you’d, you know, wanna push them down the stairs a bit haha, you know what I mean?So there’s ups and downs but definitely for the most part we all know what we’re here for, and we try to stay focused on making something live that is truly memorable which is really what directs most of our actions on tour.
Your eclectic sample choice, wide collaborations and broad styles have been well noted, but if you could only choose a few of your biggest musical influences, what would you say they are?
As far as my production goes, probably Kanye West or Dipset and Animal Collective… We all have a lot of different influences, also not just limited to music. Like I would also say a lot of Tarantino or Scorsese films, stuff like that has led to a lot of our planning and aesthetic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAWzCmkJqpc
NYC clearly has a big place in your music, be it in Wiki and Hak’s lyrics or embedded in your sound. Why do you think hip-hop and your music in particular is so heavily influenced by your geography?
It’s kind of like the air you breathe, the food you eat. I mean, like, you’re eating and breathing the place every single day, so I think it would slip in, even if you didn’t make it conscious thing. Also, on top of that, New York is like its own name brand – people from New York wear t-shirts that just say ‘New York’ like it’s a Nike Swoosh. Also the fact that we live here means we’re part of this world with so much history, with so many artists and great musicians that have walked the streets. Out of this rich history you can piece together something that’s unique to yourself out of the tapestry that has come before you.
The boys have been known to talk about social issues in NYC like gentrification and the stop-and-frisk laws, so I want to know, particularly with recent issues at hand, do you think it’s important for you guys to be socially aware in your lyrics? Or does that just come from speaking about the city around you?
I definitely think there’s a place to be socially aware in our music, but that comes more out of just trying to be more of a thoughtful, sensitive person in life and a social consciousness is a natural outcome of that. So it doesn’t necessarily mean making songs about war protests and stuff like that, but just a natural level of consciousness that comes from living in New York City and having your eyes and ears open.
Laneway always promises to be a great event, what are your expectations for the tour?
I’m just excited for the heat. I’m really just trying to not wear a shirt the entire time haha, well that’s what’s going through my mind I don’t know whether it will actually be like that.
If that’s what you’re looking for an Aussie summer will be perfect. Where to after Australia? What does the future hold for Ratking?
Well we have a tour with Trash Talk in the works, but further in the future we have some really cool mixes ahead. In our immediate future we want to improve our individual output, so sonically we can be a lot more crisp and powerful… and focus on trying to make more beautiful music and be more sonically powerful live. We want to be more honest musically in the hope that it makes it easier for us to keep producing.
Ratking Tour Dates:
MON 26 JAN, AUCKLAND – LANEWAY FESTIVAL
THU 29 JAN, SYDNEY – THE BASEMENT
SAT 31 JAN, BRISBANE – LANEWAY FESTIVAL
SUN 1 FEB, SYDNEY – LANEWAY FESTIVAL
THU 5 FEB, MELBOURNE – DING DONG LOUNGE
FRI 6 FEB, ADELAIDE – LANEWAY FESTIVAL
SAT 7 FEB, MELBOURNE – LANEWAY FESTIVAL
SUN 8 FEB, FREMANTLE – LANEWAY FESTIVAL
