One week has passed since major electronic producer Diplo took our Mad City by storm, and now that everyone has had time to clean themselves up, we bring to you The Daily Cardinal’s interview with openers Chiddy Bang, the Philadelphia duo who set the stage for a memorable Tuesday.
Noah “Xaphoon Jones” Beresin (beats) and Chidera “Chiddy” Anamege (rhymes) compose the two-man team, whose songs like “Truth,” “Opposite of Adults” and “Mind Your Manners” have garnered much acclaim for their catchy samples and quick lyricisms.
Yet, of all the samples Beresin makes and Anamege chooses from, only about 20 percent see the light of day on an album.
“It’s like I’m just generating this big pool of information and Chiddy chooses ones he feels have potential in them,” said Beresin. “The other 80 percent just kind of sit on the hard drive and chill. I have them for when I release my EP—Goblin Island, coming soon.
We could not tell how serious Beresin was about this solo album, being that he made a point to name-drop it multiple times, but it does bring up that Beresin has a solo career outside of Chiddy Bang. So how is working solo different than having another voice in the mix?
“Well I wouldn’t have any kind of power on my own if it wasn’t for this duo,” Beresin said, slipping into a moment of earnestness. “The fact that I kind of like, people take me seriously outside of this as a DJ and as a producer, is because of the duo so, that’s why the focus for me has been the album.”
By “the album,” he is of course talking about Breakfast, their latest effort, which came out in February of this year. Beresin’s aforementioned sample tracks of everything from Ellie Goulding to Walk The Moon set the backdrop for a catchy, 12-song LP, but drawing from the material of so many additional artists leaves one wondering what kind of connection Chiddy Bang has with these inspirations.
“A lot of the artists that we sample we do have a relationship with,” Beresin said. “Like basically our friend Derek [Davies] who owns the label Neon Gold Records … kind of just gives us samples from artists who are on their label. Like when they put out the Passion Pit samples they gave us the parts to ‘Better Things.’ Derek has been a big influence.”
Both Beresin and Anamege, in a quick back-and-forth banter, insisted the Internet has greatly influenced their work as well.
“We got signed off of our mixtape,” Anamege explained.
“Yeah, so we always have a connection to free music,” Beresin continued, “so that’s something that we attribute to Internet stuff. And it will rise and fall as we watch it, but free music is something that we’re committed to.”
“It’s important to get back to the roots of the shit, which is putting out mixtapes.”
“The Internet just happens to be the best way to do that.”
The Internet also helped Anamege win a Guinness World Record for Longest Freestyle Rap and Longest Marathon Rapping Record. Fans used Twitter to send him topics during his 9-hour-plus freestyle.
This is a difficult enough task, but during this marathon session he was allowed three-second pauses to grab water, which consequently necessitated bathroom breaks.
“I had to pee,” Anamege laughed. “My manager came in and he was like ‘Yo, you gotta keep rapping, you’re not rapping enough,’ and I’m like ‘Damn man, I’m pissing.’ So it was kind of tough in the bathroom but I only went like twice.”
“I was DJing and I didn’t get a break,” Beresin pseudo complained.
Bathroom breaks aside, the duo appear to be on the rise. So now that Breakfast has dropped, what kind of fun looms on the horizon?
“When you eat breakfast, you know that there are still two more meals in the day,” Beresin hinted. “You don’t just… you know that there’s more to come. We might [mix things up and] go dinner and then go… well, we don’t even know. We might put on wigs and do metal, just a guitar solo [album].”
Whatever the genre, it seems fans have more to look forward to from Chiddy Bang. Keep your ears alert for word of their summer headlining tour, coming soon.
