Exclusive Interview: Wildabeast

We here at The Stratos Blog bring to you the first of many exclusive interviews. We plan on having the exclusive interviews be the trademark of the site. First up, we have Wildabeast the hood hippie from Harlem. He's part of Notherground Music and was a member of the Rawkus 50. Just recently he dropped an amazing mixtape Wildahead Portibeast where he tears into Portishead music with amazing rhymes. Check it out as we chat it up with the beast.

TSB: How did you get the name Wildabeast? Is your name Will?
Wildabeast: Yes my name is Will. I got the name Wildabeast from my boy Vic. Me and my friends were having a cypher in my room and Vic hadn't heard me rhyme for a while. When it was my turn to go I spit for like 48 bars and he said "Wow Will, you're a beast." So I took the name and ran with it.
TSB: How long does it take you to make a song in the studio?
Wildabeast: Depends, sometimes I'll have a rhyme ready to go to on his beats or I'll just format a rhyme to a beat when we do it like that it's pretty quick, about an hour. Most of the time he'll just make a beat from scratch. I'll give him feedback on what I think the beat should sound like, and I'll formulate my rhyme while he does that, and through the process we'll come up with a hook. That can take anywhere from one to three hours. On a good night we can do 3 songs.
TSB: By "him" you must mean 6th Sense. I know you two do a lot of work together. What's it like working with 6th?
Wildabeast: I love working with 6th. He's a dope ass MC and he is very musical as well. It's easy because we know each other so well. Sonically he knows what kind of beats I like but he also makes me go out the box.
TSB: What made you decide to do the Wildahead Portibeast project?
Wildabeast: Well 6th and I were in the studio just listening to music. I put on a Portishead track and just started freestylin, joking around. You see I've been doing that to Portishead since high school. 6th looked at me and said "why don't we loop this up and you rock to it?" I was kind of hesitant at first because I WORSHIP Portishead, but I said "fuck it." By doing this, hopefully I can open up a whole new audience to them. I also did the whole project because they hadn't put out any new material in over 10 years. The crazy thing is towards the end of the project I found out they were making a new album. I like to think I inspired them to make one.
TSB: It's like you said in your video breakdown, it's synchronicity. Were there any Portishead songs you wished you could touch, but didn't?
Wildabeast: Yeah the track titled "Roads." It's one of the best songs I've ever heard. The musical composition and vocals are amazing. I had to leave that one alone.
TSB: Tell us the craziest story you have in regards to listening to Portishead music.
Wildabeast: Wow there are so many. Well I remember this one time I had about 12 of my boys cramped into my small room. We were tripping out off shrooms, most of them for the 1st time. A couple of them started feeling uncomfortable so I threw on some Portishead, sparked up some good herbs, and the vibes totally shifted back to good. Good music + good herbs = great times.
TSB: Wow that sounds crazy. Wish I could've been there. Any new projects? Videos?
Wildabeast: Yeah a bunch of new stuff. First of all my man Jelani's album is done. It's called "Wait You Can Rap." This dude is no joke. His album will be available for FREE download very soon. I got a video coming out for the title track off my Rawkus 50 album "Many Levels." My boy Adam Hall did it and it's gonna be crazy. Definitely not your typical rap video. I'm gonna put out a mix cd called "Extra Levels" in conjunction with the video. It's gonna have new material as well as songs that didn't make it onto the album. 6th and I are also putting out a duo album called "Both Nice." We're gonna put a mix called "Been Nice" before dropping the album, which will contain material from the vault. That's everything but we are always working on new stuff so there might me a couple of surprises.
TSB: Wow. That all sounds incredible. Can't wait to check out all that stuff, you can be sure that we here at The Stratos Blog will cover it all! I want to thank you for taking the time out to do this interview. Know that you are the first of many! One last question to take us out... If you could have one superpower, it would be....?
Wildabeast: I would want the ability to smack the shit out of everyone in the world simultaneously so everyone could wake up and see what is going on. Yeah that would be a great super power.