noiseymusic:

We Got Kitty Pryde to Interview Hopsin, Her Least Favorite Rapper

I pride myself on my eternal optimism. The only condition to my permanently positive attitude is the need for a scapegoat; I can turn basically any frown upside-down as long as I have one solitary being to blame all the frowns on. I’m not sure why I chose Hopsin to play Rap Game Satan for the past year, but ever since I hit like 10,000 followers on Twitter I’ve been trying to cultivate a very public rap beef between us, and he’s been infuriatingly unresponsive to every dis. Not a single tweet, never a head-nod; when I saw him live in Orlando (a show where he was booed, dropped by a crowd of bros during a crowdsurfing attempt, and eventually arrested) he didn’t even glance a corny anime-club eyeball my way. On my birthday, I had the opportunity to interview him over the phone. I knew it could go one of two ways—either he would call me out for being needlessly bitchy online, or he would have no idea who I was and give me the opportunity to trick him into saying something really stupid. I read and researched. I knew exactly what he’d say. I anticipated feeling really good about myself after the entire ordeal. I was gonna go out for dumplings afterward. Instead, I was forced to do what my Sunday school teacher called “soul-searching.” Because it turns out that Hopsin is actually really nice.

[Thought Commentary in Italics]

Noisey: Hi Hopsin, it’s Kitty Pryde from Noisey. [I got all clammy at the prospect of actually saying his name out loud.]
What’s up Katie, how you doing? 

[I smiled. He had no idea who I am.]

I just have a few questions to ask you. I think you’re really really interesting. [Diss. I tried.]
Thanks!

First of all, where did you get your rap name? How did you think of it?[I prayed he would give me the same answer he’d given so many hip hop magazines- “I am the hip-“HOP” “SIN”-ister — That’s where my name came from.”  In reality, Hopson is his actual last name, and he made up that corny line. This was my first call-out plan.]
It’s my last name; my rap name is my last name. Keeping it simple, I just figured cause it has the word hop in it, and hip-hop…so it has a nice little ring to it, so I just stuck with Hopsin.

Th….that’s cool….it reminds me of….bunnies….do you ever think about that? [Obviously, I wasn’t prepared to hear the truth. In a state of confusion and panic, my mind went straight to bunnies. Not surprising.]
Bunnies. [laughs] I hop around a lot as well so it works to my benefit…sorry if you can’t hear me; theres a lot of wind over here.

No it’s ok, I do this a lot. I also just wanted to ask you how you started rapping? [No, I’ve never done this, ever. I also don’t care how you started rapping, but I didn’t know what to ask next and this is the question that every dumb blog interviewer asks me right off the bat. I hoped for a long boring story that would leave me time to plan.]
It was back in 2000, 2001, I was just making a lot of parody songs, parodies of songs that were already out on the radio and stuff. I would watch MAD TV and Saturday Night Live and just do what they did. I actually developed lyrical skill over time, and I just started writing originals, and it was a lot of fun so I just decided it was something I wanted to do with my life and I just started doing it, back in high school.

[That’s when it hit me- he was trolling me. He knew exactly who I was, and he was going to give answers mirroring my own from every interview I’d ever done. He was plotting something more evil than I could have ever dreamt up on my own, and I had no idea what it was. My heart sank…my hate-magnet was beating me at my own game.]

How old were you? How old are you now, actually? [If he answered “13,” “15,” or, “Don’t worry about it”….that’s how I would know for sure.]
I’m 27. When I started it was 13 years ago; I was 14.

So you’ve devoted half your life to the game?
Yeah I have.

That’s admirable. [It was. I was half impressed, half ashamed for being impressed. I thought about punching myself in the face, but I was surrounded by VICE writers, so I knew it would show up online somewhere. You have to think about these things.]
I love it though, it’s fun.

Do you ever get in arguments? I know you had that whole Odd Future thing but I’m not talking about that, I’m just talking about anybody else that you have beef with? [I plucked petals from an imaginary daisy. He hates me….he hates me not….he hates me…]
Nah, not really. I don’t have any beef with any rapper.

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