My first show was at a small hip hop jam in (I think) Albertslund. The person arranging it contacted me a few weeks before and asked my rap name was, so he could put it on the flyer, etc. Its such a dumb question, because of course it should have been so obvious, just to use my real name, or to take my last name or a nick name that was given to be – just ANY thing that was personal right?!… So I don’t know why, or how, or the reasons behind my first rap name which was…. (Drumroll please)… “SLAIN” – I honestly don’t remember where it came from, it was probably something about the old me being killed by the new persona – bla bla. Anyways, so that was me for about – 2 weeks “MC SLAIN” – ha ha… the funny part was that of course, I created the persona around the name and had to defend it for weeks (because of course it was a shitty name), and lone behold the night of the Jam, the flyer said “FLAME”. Tia teased me for sooo long after that (and actually I still get teased by her).
I was definitely not happy at the jam; I was REALLY embarrassed. But I had to focus, and get the show on point. Chisala was there with his group – I’m still pissed I can’t remember their name… Anyways, I think I was drunk, its so long ago that I really don’t remember anything about the show, but what I do remember was that it was show time, FLAME (me) had to go on the microphone for a HUGE audience of 40 people – ahahaha… the show was wack technically, I mean, I didn’t really have any songs, I think I just rapped over a face beat or 2, maybe a wu-tang instrumental. What was cool, was that I was on stage with so many people, me, tia, chisa, the two guys in his group, maybe 1-2 other people, it felt like some Wu-Tang shit… I was the general; the most charismatic on that stage, and everyone saw it. During this time I was deeply inspired by Wu-Tang, and being up there, doing a proper stage, maaaan – I was in heaven. I remember being so happy on stage, it was like my earlier performances at mantra, but bigger, better, more room to maneuver. I stepped off stage feeling like a new man. I don’t recall the rest of the evening, except that Tia and me missed the last train to get home.
When I finally got home, I was so pissed off about my name, that I didn’t know what to do – I knew I couldn’t go by “Slain” anymore, because that name was jinxed. Now at the time, I was also a huge DMX fan, and my name is Alex, so it just came to me – “A-L-X”… pronounced ey-el-ex… or spoken as Alex. I went through all the ways to flip it.. “X-L-A” (like ex-LA) cause I’ no longer reppin Los Angeles like I used to, or “A-LX” (LX is short for Lexus – a luxury car popular in the US, and one I desire!), I could also just go by “A”, or “A-L” or “X” it gave me a lot of freedom with rhyming my name, which is a really nice thing to have when writing rhymes. When I told everyone, they actually liked it, with the exception of Face who said it was too similar to DMX, but I didn’t care, it was my name, and from then on, I would be ALX.
Pille Mølle was becoming more and more dead, and I was fiending to record a real song. The quality at Pille Mølle was horrible, and I knew that, but I didn’t have the means to record with Pilfinger, since it was 125/hour… one day I asked him if I could get a cheaper price if I bought more hours, to which he said yes… and explained how it could work out. I won’t get into those details, but he gave me an offer I couldn’t pass up. 100 hours of studio time for 7000 kr. I had to get that money, but 7000 when I was 16-17 was like 500,000 to me now – it was the impossible to get. 1 I couldn’t borrow that kind of money from anyone, since everyone I knew was broke or didn’t care. 2 the bank wouldn’t loan 7000 to a kid with no job and no credit. But I had to get the money, by any means necessary. Now at the time my side hustles were all small, and meaningless, I mean, I wasn’t making money to stack – only money enough to eat, and smoke, and drink… and buying shit for Tia. So I started thinking “Bigger”. The first thing that I did was – actually, I won’t go into that, I changed my mind, lets just say I had to get 7000, and I had to get it fast – so I borrowed something from my dad, and I got that money within a week. I remember lying to Tia and telling her that I found an “investor”, I started lying to a lot of people to cover up where I was getting music investment money.
I went to Pilfinger’s and I paid him 7k cash that same week, and got my promise for 100 hours in the studio. You would think I would use that time wisely, record like 50 songs, but no. Every week, I would have a session with Pilfinger where we would sit, and talk, and discuss hiphop and rap in Denmark. He would tell me about his career in Rap, and his dreams and grinds, and we would politic for hours. Every once in a while I would jump in the booth and freestyle, or I would record a track – but it was nothing but learning for me. Those 100 hours gave me enough time to feel comfortable and become better, and more confident in a recording setting. Those 100 hours only gave me 1-2 tracks, but it gave me knowledge that I would need for the next years to come.
I don’t remember how it happened, I don’t remember why – but I got in contact with Acorn (he goes by Sicknature now). I remember that one of the main reasons was to fuck with face – since Acorn was his Idol, but besides that I don’t really know. I do remember meeting him at some train station 30 minutes outside of CPH, going over to his house, and talking… a lot of talking… in fact, this would prove to be a really bad time and place for me to talk, since it would come back to haunt me for years and years. See at the time, I was 16, I was excited about being a rapper, I was competitive, and I didn’t know any better, instead of seeing others around me as friends and colleagues I saw them as competition and enemies. Acorn would ask me my opinion on different rappers, and I would more or less hate on everyone and boast about how much better I was. I didn’t really see the problem with it as the time, but there was a problem, a huge problem. Acorn was friends with a Rap-duo called N.O.B.L.E, and a rapper called Tjes Boogie. Both of them were friends with DJ J-Son whom I had a beef with on beforehand. And Acorn let me go on and on about them all… It was kind of like a set up, or that is how I saw it… This ended up coming right back to me, as Acorn then went and spoke to them all about how I was hating on them, and bla bla. The hiphop industry in Denmark is so small, everyone knows everyone, so it only took a few days for it to come right back around. Pilfinger knew, Mass knew – Nicky knew, it was crazy. It even popped up online on wack forums. This mixed up with my entire career, as Acorn more or less made it a huge sidetrack for my career, that I had to deal with everyone, now I had bigger beefs, with more people, this was also my first encounters with starting to get hated on by large groups of people. In Denmark if you say your better than someone, even if its true, you’re the ass. Jante Loven is what they call it; I call it forced humbleness. What it did do though was it upgraded me from being a no-body to all of a sudden having people talk about me, granted it wasn’t good talk, but bad talk is better than no talk… things went pretty fast from here. Of course I had to deal with N.O.B.L.E and Tjes at some point, but for now, it was just making me “known”. So in a weird way, I guess Acorn gossiping about my opinion to other people helped create my career.
It wasn’t long after this that I wrote my first song for a Noize beat, and I recorded it, this time at Merry Tee’s Showstopper’s Studio. This was a huge event for me. Showstopper’s was an expensive studio (I think I paid 200/hour). It was a DJ Noize session, so I had to impress. The song I wrote was called “Only 16” – I recorded the song, and Noize told me I didn’t have a flow, he also told me my voice was weak, and that my lyrics were “ok”. I was crushed after this session. I spent 3-4 hours in the studio, only to find out that my mentor thought I was shit. It’s a hard feeling to describe, I went home thinking I would stop making music, but I also wanted to prove Noize wrong, it’s funny because it was a matter of pride. I started working on my flow and on my voice from there on. I was however secretly loving the song, the quality was so nice, the exact thing I was missing at Pille Mølle.
Regarldess of Noize’s opinion, I showed the track to the guys at Pille Mølle, of course they hated on me, but that was to be expected, but the envy was there, and everyone knew I was going towards bigger things than a little production school in Ishøj… It was during this time that I was invited by a rapper called Meningitis to perform. The show was strange, it was in the middle of nowhere and there was only 10 people there, the significance of this show would be big, because Meningitis tried to battle me live. I don’t recall what happened but from there on he had a problem with me, and would later go on to record a diss record (in fact I don’t consider it a diss record since he didn’t say my name – and it wasn’t aimed directly at me) he took my name reversed it. I got really pissed off at the time and I started planning out how I would get back at him. But we will get back to this later.
I can’t recall when or how I left Pille Mølle, but I do know that I did stop, and that I didn’t remain in contact with Face anymore. At that point I was recording with Pilfinger, and I had access to Noize’s beats, and Pilfinger’s beats. I was meeting lots of people, I was becoming popular… and I guess I couldn’t use him for anything, and as a result, we stopped talking. I know this was harsh – and I wish that I would have stayed in touch with Face, but at the time I was self centered, and I couldn’t imagine being friends with someone if they didn’t do anything for me. I stopped talking to face, I left Pille Mølle and I started doing bigger things… and since then I have only seen Face once or twice…in fact its been years since I have seen him, maybe 7-8 years. I know he works with Madness4Real…so Face, if your reading this – Holla at me!
*SMALL SIDE STORY #2*
My dad besides being a heroin addict was a compulsive gambler. He suffers from ludomania, and is unable to control himself. I found this out when I first came to Denmark, I was so small back then 13-14 years old, I didn’t even really know what gambling was. He is also a compulsive liar, and would cover up his gambling. He would take me with him to the casinos – every day, I would just wait in the car. Sometimes he would be gone for 8-9 hours at a time, sometimes shorter…3-4 hours at a time. But I would be in the car, waiting… waiting… waiting… in the car I would start singing, or start talking – not really rap, more spoken word poetry and what not. My dad’s car (I think it was a 91 Mitsubishi Lancer) didn’t have a radio/CD, it had a tape player. I remember one day waiting in the car by Casino Copenhagen and I was going through the tapes he had in the dash board. Most of the tapes were Persian music, and I don’t like that at all – but I stumbled upon 1 tape that was different. It was the single “Baby got Back” by Sir Mix-a-lot. I couldn’t tell you how many times I heard that song. “Baby got Back” was the first rap song that I learned inside-out, it also had a b-side track… those 2 songs, I studied them, because I had no other options. I also started freestyling to it… This was the first time I started to move from writing poetry and spoken word to Rap.
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Pille Mølle was an odd school… it was broken into 2 parts, a farming section, and a music section – strange right?! The 2 sides did not mix at all, with the exception of Big Face’s girlfriend, who was on the farming side. But the sides never spoke, and we really hated on them. To “us” they were the ignorant farmers and we were the cool guys doing music… I guess it was just pointing out the obvious. Pille Mølle didn’t look like a school; in fact it was just a few buildings on a small farm. There were no animals; with the exception of a Giant pig we called “Missy” – (back then Missy Elliot was Real fat). The music team had 1 building, or should I say the upstairs of 1 building… Up on the 1st floor there were 4 rooms, and big hallway. Room 1 was face’s room, Room 2 was Nicky’s room, room 3 was Patrick (Patrick B) and Meningitis (some rapper) room, room 4 was… hmmm…now I’m unsure if there even was a room 4. Anyways. The first person that I connected with was of course Nicky, he was my homie – but on the beat-side he wasn’t ready yet. He didn’t fuck with a real program he was stuck on some small program called Mudplug or Modplug… But Face was, Face was kinda dope, and face and I would sit and look through beats all day, chillin. It was a strange relationship because I don’t think we liked each other, maybe we did – but we sure as hell annoyed each other… He had a very I guess “jantelov” view, so if I would boast – he would cut me down. At this point I was only in Denmark for 2-3 years, so I didn’t understand Danish culture, or Danish humor. I’m sure if Face and me chilled out today it would have been a totally different story. But there were lots of awkward moments, and strange misunderstandings. Anyways, in regards to productivity, there was nothing really happening, Face would make maybe 1 tops 2 really dope beats per week, and me, I would never write. And I would never record. So to make a long story short, nothing happened. Ever. For the most part, I would spend my days at Pille Mølle hanging out, not doing anything and talking shit. For me, it was all an escape from the drugs, from the abuse that was occurring at home, and at the same time giving me a means to leave. Now my plan of leaving home wasn’t really thought through, first of all, I had really bad habits, girls, smoking weed, smoking cigs, drinking, eating fast food for every meal, these were all draining my funds. Second of all, in order to get paid by Pille Mølle, I had to actually go to Pille Mølle – and that was not easy. Pille Mølle was a farm, in the countryside. There was a bus that drove the students from Ishøj station to Pille Mølle at 8-something in the morning… 8 something means that I would have to be up at latest 7… which was damn near impossible for me at the time. I needed to do something; I needed to make more money (this we will come back to later). When you miss the bus that takes you from Ishøj st to Pille Mølle, you were forced to take like 2 busses, and walk a fucking long way through farms and fields. Yet, I found with time that more and more I would be walking through those fields… my motivation was rock at bottom.
Tia and I were (at this time) so “in love” – and a big part of my focus was her. We did everything together, spent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week together. I don’t even think it was a week into me being at Pille Mølle til she joined as well. Having Tia at the school changed the scenario for me greatly, because we didn’t really have fun together, we “loved” each other – but she was too strict, with too many rules, too quick to get angry or start a fight. In order to balance this, a shift occurred in our relationship – I guess mostly on my part, but I started obsessing about music, and equally about obsessing about leaving Denmark and going back to the US. I don’t remember any time where Tia and I didn’t strictly talk about music – from that point on I would say 90% of our conversations revolved around that topic alone. Of course this wasn’t that bad for my music, as the focus on rap made me better, but it planted a seed, I will definitely come back to this point later.
One day when I came to Pille Mølle, Face and Nicky and all the guys were really excited – it seems that the day before (I was absent), a young rapper by the name of Chisala came to visit – and apparently he was dope. I was in that mind frame that everyone was competition, and that it was impossible for anyone to be better than me…its funny because at that point I had never recorded any song – with exception to that R&B feature that I mentioned earlier… Face was gassed and really excited about working with Chisala, so I said fuck it, and I decided I would meet him. I think it was a few days afterwards Chisa came by again – we said what up, and next thing I know we in a cipher, just me and chisa in a container freestyling. I don’t recall anyone in the container with us, maybe Face was there, but I don’t remember…what I do remember is that Chisa was better than me, and that really bothered me. Chisa was also in a group, I don’t remember what the name was, and they were up to big things. I wouldn’t say it was jealousy or envy, but I had to win, I had to be better. Chisa started hanging around Pille Mølle every once in a while, and I would use the time with him to battle, and freestyle and to get better – but it bothered the shit out of me that Face, and Nicky and the guys knew he was better. At about this time I had been rapping for about a year, I still didn’t have a “rap name” and I still never recorded a song. I was nervous. I could talk the talk sure… I could talk madd shit! Haha – but when it came to walking, I could barely crawl. I think its because it came to a point that everyone was just waiting for me – and in my mind, everyone was a hater wanting me to fail. It finally came to the point that I was in a corner, Face made a beat that I liked, everyone was there – everyone knew I had to record. So I had to.
I remember we were in the small room to the right on the upstairs floor. The microphone was a Shure SM57 the pop filter was a pair of women’s pantyhose. We went directly from the Mic into the computer – no preamp. The sound was wack – REALLY wack. My voice sounded thin, and small, I had no breath control, I had no understanding of recording, I didn’t know how to do an Adlib or a Dub. The beat Face made was a Mobb Deep inspired piano joint (Face had 2 inspirations, Acorn and Mobb Deep), slow – maybe 80 bpm. I made a story track out of it, I don’t remember too much from the lyrics just the first lines “It starts off with simple things, superficial things, materialistic things, diamond on gold rollies, fuck fine honeys 4 or 5 at a time…” – The track was okay I guess, it was called “Supreme Mobster”, actually it was really good if you consider that it was my first song, and that the equipment was straight garbage. I sat back and heard the song maybe 300 times – of course I had it on my MiniDisc Player (Bling!). I wasn’t happy with the song at the time. All I could hear was my errors, and how frail and weak my voice was. Even though everyone else thought the track was “good” – I was insecure about it. I sat back and took it all in, taking the time to just fade away, in my mind I though it would be at least a few months till I had to record again, but a few days later I was back in the same predicament.
Chisala, Tia and I were at Pille Mølle, Face did this Wu-Tangish sounding track. There was a vocal sample that said “this is dedicated” over and over again. It was dope – very Rza 1994 kinda sound. This time, I was nervous because Chisala was there, and Tia was there – so I HAD to be the illest. There was a lot of pressure… Tia went first – she was cool, it was my favorite shit from her, in retrospect. But at the time, we all hated on her. Tia’s style was complex. Lyrically it wasn’t possible to decipher – this was also Tia’s first song. Looking back I really wish that we had encouraged her to continue that style. Anyways, Chisala and I both put our verses down and it was no contest, Chisala was by far better – he killed it with the line “We got more people behind us than the population of China”… The song was called “This is Dedicated”, and that was that. For weeks after that, I had to hear both the songs, and to hear everyone tell me how much better Chisala was – and how much worse Tia was, the atmosphere of Pille Mølle was hateful in that way, no support, and no love – just a place to be. I remember having to constantly defend myself, defend Tia; at the same time Tia being mad that I said “fuck fine honeys 4 or 5 at a time”… Face obsessing about Acorn and constantly telling me he was the greatest of all time in Denmark – it was all just too much it wasn’t a nice place. I had more and more absence. I remember at some point Tia and me were sent to the “principle’s office” so they could give us a warning, but long before that point I had already quit. I was only there because I had no other options.
Because of time, some memories get blurry and time seems to smudge the pictures in my mind. I don’t remember how it happened, who hooked it up, how it occurred, but I got booked to perform at a venue shortly afterwards. This was my first real show – and I had no real material, like I mentioned before, I didn’t even have a rap name…
*SMALL SIDE STORY #1*
My first encounter with writing music was when I was 8-9 ish years old, I would always write – but that is the first time I really remember making a “song” with a verse part and chorus part. I didn’t listen to rap or hip hop – at the time I was into rock, Nirvana and the whole Seattle grunge sound period. My mom saved up bought me an electric guitar and I would play all the time. My songs were really down, it’s strange to think about me at 9 making songs about being alone. After a few months of having a guitar, our home was robbed and they stole my guitar among other things. My mom couldn’t get me another one, since she was a single mom, working and paying bills (it took like a year to save up for the 1st guitar). After my guitar was stolen, I continued to write, but my heart was no longer into it as I couldn’t make the music. It was at this time that I was introduced to this fat little Mexican kid who was into rap. He played me a track called “Regulate” by Warren G. And explained that with rap you didn’t even need a musical backtrack. I started listening to Rap (just a little) from there on…
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I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday when I called Tia, I definitely was not feeling the whole “female rapper” thing, as far as I was concerned the only real rappers were males (I wont share what I think about it now – haha). My less-than-enthusiastic approach to the idea must have shown off because I didn’t really sound too motivated when I called Tia. The conversation was pretty short, and we agreed that we would meet in town, close to Gammel Kongevej (since the studio was close by). – The plan was: Meet Tia, take her to Pilfinger’s studio, hear what she could do, entertain myself with her being wack, say “thanks but no thanks” and then leave… I was waiting by the studio for Tia, I remember she was late, and I was hungry, so I decided to order a pizza next door, while I was waiting I saw this thin, dark haired girl, tomboyish almost, wearing really baggy pants, and a sweater. She had big silver hoop earrings, and a bag – at first I didn’t think it was “Gucci-T” – but she came up to me, I was surprised because how would she know what I looked like. We exchanged hello’s and the entire meeting was quite awkward. We were both really quiet not saying much. I told her I had to get my Pizza, and the conversation got even more awkward. While walking to the studio she asked me about a rosary I had attached to my Motorola Flip phone – It was the baby Motorola star-tac (VERY pimp at the time!), I honestly don’t remember why I had a rosary on my phone, but it caught Tia’s attention. We will get back to the significance later. We went into the studio, Pilfinger was happy and positive as always. She was on that Wu-Tang tip back then, I didn’t really understand her lyrics, as they were very complex and difficult to decipher, but she was pretty, and she was nice, so I thought – fuck it, why not… And the rest I don’t remember, I do remember however, that the day got better, and Tia and me were cool after that session. I think afterwards we took a walk and had a long talk, maybe we went to a café, I could be wrong, because time takes it toll and memories become slurred. I do know, that after that day, Tia and I started talking and smsing all the time.
My homie Michele used to play basketball with a guy called Nicky, since Michele could see that I had new ambitions with music, he hooked me up with Nicky who also had ambitions of doing something in music. I met Nicky in Amager – we had a long talk, and chilled out by Amager Bio, he was a cool guy, one of the few people who was really cool and understood where I came from. Nicky also became one of my friends, and he introduced me properly to underground hiphop music. Before Nicky, the only underground stuff I heard was at Noize’s place (once every week/other week), and at Mass’s place (primarily non-phixion)… But Nicky, he made it his task to sit me down and play me EVERYTHING. And god bless you Nicky for doing that!… We would chill at his place in Nørrebro, it was the ground floor apartment of a project building (a loooong way from his pimped out Frederiksberg Alle apartment that he lives in now) – his room was simple, a couch, a bed, a computer, a soundsystem. He would sit me down and preach, and preach and preach that underground rap shit all the time. And his bible was his vinyl collection – and he wasn’t scared to show it off. From Necro to Rawkus to whitelabel unkown shit – Nicky had it all. The time I spent with Nicky brainwashed me to switch from commercialized rap – to raw uncut lyrics. I got so much inspiration from Nicky, that I couldn’t imagine what my career would have been without our friendship. One day Nicky introduced me to a Chicago rapper named MC Juice – J.U.I.C.E – J.U-ICE, however you say it, Juice blew my fucking mind… the record was called “Sincerely” – I forgot the B-side, which was also incredible. But hearing juice was like hearing Jay-Z for the first time, or hearing Pun spit “dead in the middle of little italy…” for the first time, he was quite honestly, the best rapper I never heard of. Juice would become a huge inspiration for me throughout my years in the game.
Meanwhile all this was happening me and Tia got closer, we eventually started flirting, flirting turned to us becoming a couple. Now Tia was my first real “girlfriend”, I wasn’t interested in monogamous relationships before this… But it was strange, and it always was, as we were rapping together and we were a couple. But I’m sure this will come up later as well… We eventually cut Koffi out of the arrangement, a decision that made him upset for sometime afterwards. But I was so taken by Tia that I forgot my priorities. Tia and I started going to all kinds of clubs together, and meeting different people. We would always be freestyling at Souls, or Kraznapolzky… at this time I believe Mantra closed down (R.I.P) – I was searching for a place to show off my skills. Since I was only 16 at the time, it was going to be hard getting into any club. Souls and Kras were both shitty places to party (Souls closed down, and Kras is STILL a shitty place).
Being alone, I wasn’t paid – but I was never broke, I had the ends to provide for myself perfectly, but now that Tia was in the picture, I realized (and rather quickly), that I needed to make more money. She wanted things, and had been used to certain things – I wont go into detail, but when your 16 and you have like a 150kr a day budget – a steady girlfriend ain’t profitable. One day while talking to Nicky, he invited me to a place called “Pille Mølle” it was a production skole in Ishøj, or as he put it “a place we can chill, get paid to go to, and there is free lunch!” – I went out there, and was far from impressed. It was a bunch of fucking rednecks for the most part. Pig-farmers in the middle of the countryside. So wack! – their idea of “studio gear” was a pc a 4 track mixer and a sm57 mic… but – Nicky did have a point, I would get paid, I would have lunch for free, and I could more or less chill all day long. I also bet a guy there called Big Face (PAUSE – we called him that cause he had a big-ass head… no disrespect, dude just had a huge face), anyways, big face was dope with the beats, and we clicked. There were some other people at the school whom I liked as well; overall, I think it was a bunch of cool guys. I went home that day in a bit hurry to tell my dad the good news that I found a school to go to. When I told him the news, with a big smile on my face, he told me I was wasting my time, he yelled at me and used the occasion as an excuse to get high. I was sitting on my bed listening to Juice when I took out the application form to Pille Mølle and filled it out. I also made another important decision that day. I was gonna leave.
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The reaction from friends and family was far from enthusiastic when I told them that I wanted to be a rapper. Most of them either told me it was impossible, or that I didn’t have what it takes – and at the time, I guess they were right. But never kill a dream before you have the chance to realize it!! – I guess people just assumed it was a pipe dream, a small thought, something that would start quick and end quicker…Life continued in the same fashion, I was rapping at Mantra every Thursday, Friday and Saturday, going to the gym, dealing with my problems by not dealing with them at all…and of course just hanging out and getting high and drunk with the homies all day. Me and Koffi were hanging out sometimes outside the club and we started talking that maybe we should hook up a group and start rapping together. Though I didn’t really give it much thought. One day at the gym I happened to bump into a guy called Morten – we get into a conversation about hiphop – I told him I MC, he told me he produces, so next thing I knew I was at his crib banging beats… I was set back a little at the time because his productions were unlike anything I was really used to – those real classic jazzy underground beats, I was a bit intimidated because I didn’t really understand the approach to that kind of music – and Morten wasn’t really interested in working with me, because he figured that out. We did however have some nice Brazilian food and a long conversation about the “Boulevard Connection” and crazy stories that happened with them, and his cousin “Mr. Malchau. I never heard of either of them, but it sounded dope. I asked Morten if he could hook me up with them. I guess he could sense that the “Boulevard Connection” was on a whole nother level so he gave me Malchau’s number. A week later or so I went to Malchau’s place to meet him – And I did, and it was cool, but we didn’t click. I don’t think he liked me, maybe I was too enthusiastic and was annoying him – nonetheless I didn’t really keep in touch.
I think it was that same night or a few nights after I was watching MTV and heard this track that I really liked called “Gz a G” by Tash (The Liks), It was dope – I went around the city the next day trying to find the CD-Maxi, and couldn’t find it, I went to the typical spots, FONA, Axel music…etc – at one point someone in Axel Music told me I should try Streetdance, I went there but they didn’t have it – they guy in there told me I should try the Boulevard Connection store down the street. I got really excited since Morten told me so much about them. I walked in there trying to be as cool as possible – figuring out how I could “meet” them and do music. I was insecure because I didn’t have nice clothing, I didn’t really look like a rapper – or what I thought a rapper should look like. I ended up walking in while there was an argument, between DJ Typhoon, and Streetmass, Mass was like 19-20 years old, I don’t remember what it was about, but I remember Mass being mad as shit – and the whole situation was awkward. Since they were having their words, no one was helping me, so a tall guy approached me and asked if I needed anything, I told him I was looking for the Tash Record, and he told me they didn’t have it. We ended up have a small conversation on our way out since we were both leaving the store at the same time. He was giving me directions to another shop. Then he asked me where I was from, and I said Cali, he asked me what it is I did, and I told him I was a rapper. I guess he got curious, because the conversation just switched to some hiphop politics, and just talking about music in Denmark. As we walked towards rådhuspladsen, I told him that I needed beats, he told me he just started producing… So we decided we would hook up later. I asked him what his artist name was, and he replied “DJ Noize”… Now at that point I never heard of Noize, I didn’t know what the DMC was – or DJ battles or anything like that, I just knew that Noize was really cool, and that he was willing to help me out. I don’t know if Noize meant hook up later – like during the week, or the same day so I called him a few hours after we met, I was excited, I wanted to hook up asap to peep some beats – it was the overzealous kid in me J Noize was cool though, and after a quick talk, he invited me to come hang out at his radio show on something called “P3”… I never heard of it – so I was like cool, thinking it was some small indie station (haha). I got to DR a few hours later. Noize, Streetmass, and a guy called Context was there – next thing I know, I’m live on air freestyling with them – not knowing what the fuck I was saying, I got so nervous, and scared after Noize explaine P3 was national radio, and that like a million people would hear me! I really wish I could get a copy of that show – cause God knows I must have been horrible! – But a funny thing happened, after the show was over, and we were all chillin, I felt a part of something, and that things were moving. Even though I was standing still, this was a movement. A huge contrast from my life at home, it felt nice to feel like something was happening. At home there nothing, no change, nothing happy, nothing good.
The next day I went to Noize’s crib in Valby to peep some beats. Noize is was real chilled out guy, he didn’t smoke, his crib was nice, really clean and spotless – everything was so organized and in place, a 180 degree switch from what I was used to. He had this real mature and responsible attitude with me – every time I was with him it was like he was my mentor, I guess since my father was so fucked up – I looked to Noize almost as a father figure. I dunno if he knew it or not. I also told Noize about my living situation, and my dad, and he could feel my pain, and empathize with me… Anyways Noize just bought the MPC2000 at the time, I remember it looked damn near unused, it still took him a while to open something up, and to navigate the small screen – but he played a few beats and I was really picky choosing a bunch, then coming back saying I couldn’t find the right one – etc –etc… but he was patient. To my defense on being picky, Noize was also horrible on the beats back then – but those were literally his first beats! While we were chilling he would tell me about all the stories of NYC, being on tour, especially the tour with Supernatural, The Boulevard Connection. He would play me all kinds of classic rap songs, and the newest underground rap songs. I remember a long conversation one day when Noize told me I didn’t have a flow – and I was baffled by the realization that I didn’t quite grasp the concept of flow, after like 1-2 hours, Noize explained it to be the best way he could, and told me I should listen to a lot of Gangstarr and Roscoe from Cali Agents. He also introduced me to Non-Phixion, I think it was the “I shot Regan” 12”, I fell in love with that shit… Bu Noize spoke so much about Supernat at the time and freestyling, and battles, that I started getting into that mindset. I asked him if I could battle someone. Noize told me I should battle Streetmass.
Now – I’m positive now that Noize meant that as a joke. I didn’t understand it at the time, I thought Noize was serious. So I started to prepare for my battle with Streetmass. In my mind I battled Mass a hundred times, my plan was to call him out and catch him off guard and serve him in front of everyone, thus proving I’m an iller MC. I was hanging out with Noize one day, I think at the store – I don’t recall, and Mass came in. We got into a conversation. While we were talking I was trying to figure out a way to challenge him to a battle, in the middle of the talk Mass asked me if I liked Non-Phixion – to which I said “Hell yeah!” – he asked me if I wanted to go hang out at his place to listen to some records. He was really sincere and genuine, I decided to delay the challenging thing for now… Mass had an apartment in Frederiksberg at the time – we got some beers, some food, and just zoned out talking about lots of stuff. He was telling me about Non-Phixion and touring and rap, we clicked on a different level, it was just immediate. I never made a friend in that way before. They say “real recognize real” – on my way out, Mass gave me some records, and the Non-Phixion “Green Tape”, and that was the start of a beautiful friendship. I got embarrassed thinking I wanted to battle him, and felt stupid. I hung out with Mass almost every other day after that, I guess we were both alone in many ways, and we complimented each other. We were in very similar places in our life, and we supported each other’s dreams and ambitions. Mass started taking me around places introducing me to people, producers, studios, rappers – he was (and still is) my big homie watching out for me. I really appreciated his help and God knows I needed it. Mass took me to a studio one day called Showstoppers, right next to Showstoppers was a smaller studio called Busybody – It was there that I met Anders Due-Bøje aka Merry Tee, and Pilfinger. I couldn’t afford Showstoppers at the time (it was 200kr an hour), but I could afford Pilfinger’s studio – that was 100kr an hour. So I booked some time, Pilfinger was a really nice guy, struggling to come up and making underground Danish hiphop – he wasn’t very good as an engineer back then, but he had passion and loved doing it. He was also really cool with payment and would always round the hour down, and let me pay a little here and a little there. If I didn’t have beats, Pilfinger would let me rhyme on his – free of charge, or make me one on the spot. This was the studio where I laid down the fundamentals for my career; it was my training center to get my skillz beefed up.
During all this I got a phonecall from Koffi, telling me he had some exciting news – we linked up and started to talk, we were chillin at Scala – back when Scala had shops in it, and he was telling me about a female MC that he met, and that he thought I should check out, I was really unimpressed at the time, shunning the idea that a female could rap at all… But Koffi was gassed, telling me that we could form a group, and that she was ill. I finally agreed and said I would call her. He gave me her number and I called “Gucci T” aka MC Tia…
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This blog wont last forever – Nope!…I don’t intend to be a rapper turned blogger, or to peruse a life online – you can find a thousand other places for that. I’m going to use this blog, for the next month or 2 to say my peace, share the last pieces of ALX and then gracefully take my bow and walk off stage. “Confessions of a rapper” will be 10-15 parts (I think?!), and I will go through it all, the last ten years of my life and my career in detail. I wont hold back anything, you will get it all here. I don’t care if 1 person reads this, or if 1000000 people read this, I’m gonna be selfish. This blog is for me, the full circle of my career. I want to speak my peace, lay the beefs to rest, reminisce about who I was, how I became who I am, and then use this process of writing to let go of it all, and to have peace. When “Confessions of a Rapper” is finished – then I will be gone, and you will never ever hear ALX on a new song, you will not see me on any stage, when you approach me, I will be Alex, cause ALX will be put to rest. I need this space, because letting go is painful. Ending my career is one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but at the same time, one of the milestones in my life. I will try to be as honest and open as possible, because of the drugs, and drinking a lot of the memories are slurred visions. You will also see parts of other people’s careers – for better or worse, I will tell it all as I remember it. I hope that other artists will not hold a grudge because I am sharing my memories with you, and I hope that everyone knows that “we good” – I hate on no man (or woman), and I wish everyone good health, blessings, and all the success in the world.
Confessions of a Rapper PART 1
I remember back in the day – around like 98-99, all I ever dreamed of doing was rapping for a living. I was banging Big Pun’ Capital Punishment, durag on, attitude was like “fuck you all”… I was rocking the Fubu jeans and the Marc Ecko sweater, couple of gold chains and bracelets, pinky rings, timberland boots (I kept em clean tho!). The celly was the motorola star-tac followed by a Nokia 8210…late 90’s was the shiiiiit…. I was a highschool drop out, smoking weed and drinking all day everyday – who cared? I used to live at home with my dad back then, a small 50m2 apartment on Enghavevej (no.156 to be exact!), yellow walls, dark, no shower, barley a kitchen, small cocktail bar refrigerator stocked with 3 things, eggs, canned tomatoes. and bread. My mom was gone, and my dad was high as shit…Heroin has a distinctive smell, coke being cooked on a spoon does too, both bring me right back to that small ass room in Enghavevej where those dreams were created. I didn’t have a bed – I had this black 80’s futonish looking couch thing – that was held together by duck tape. Not to mention my wack as fuck sound system, no-brand amp-Lp player with a radio and CD player – hooked up to 1 speaker (it was a monster speaker tho!)… My crown jewel of course was my sony mini disc player which i had hooked up via phono!…I was so alone. At that point I was living in Denmark for only 2-3 years, I didn’t know anyone, could speak danish, never went out, and if I did I did it alone. Hiphop was there for me. She was ugly, she was raw, she was harsh – she was my life, just in a musical form. The gritty beats and samples, the violence, the anger within the lyrics – it spoke to me – I FELT IT! Real or commercial rap spoke to me directly, It was my form of therapy dealing with the struggle of being the son of a junkie, dealing with the guilt of becoming a junkie myself, and with trying to comprehend the choices that I was making. Within this world I found my salvation, because a 16 year old kid who is high as shit with no “real” plans is shunned by society, but you give that kid a microphone then the tables turn. All of a sudden, i no longer had to be alone in that room, I could share what was happening – and no matter how brutal or disgusting, or how cocky and how obscene – you are accepted and loved, and love was what i needed. and the love that I got is what I took home with me to deal with the fact that in reality my life was breaking down. My career started like so many other careers, a need, and a dream. I remember being in class (Nørre G – in Husum) drunk spitting freestyle or writing lyrics. I was a big eminem fan back then too, and a lot of my concepts, and flow was directly taken from him. None the less, I was having fun with it, and using it to speak about what I interpreted as the truth, and how I saw my surroundings. At some point I remember making a song about the school – in retrospect it was very innocent in the lines of “Fuck the math teacher cause he’s a bitch, the school sucks, blablabla…” of course it was obscene and personal, and I mentioned names, and made threats etc, but it was all a joke. My good friend Nick (R.I.P) thought it was funny and shared it with some of my classmates, who were also all laughing and it was fun. We decided we would print out 1000 copies and share it with everyone just because…well… I dunno, fuck that school – HAHA… so we did that, I don’t know what my alias was at the time, I think it was something like “The Naughty Rhymer” – also in homage to eminem. Everyone thought it was funny, except the staff – whom found out it was me who had written it. During chemistry class I was called into a meeting. I’ll never forget the principle – she was this fat ugly woman, kinda looked like Jabba the hut, with glasses and chain smoked. I remember she told me she saw the song, and that because of the threats and overall agenda that she found it means to kick me out of school. I don’t really remember mush else, I was already high, next thing i knew I was in some bodega next to the school having my drink of choice – JD on the rocks, and then I woke up at home (have no idea how I got there) in a pool of vomit. I told my dad I got kicked out, he didn’t really care, I think he screamed at me for 10 minutes, and then used it as an excuse to smoke heroin. I didn’t care either. “Fuck the world” as I would say back then. after some weeks at home, I knew I had to do something, because I couldn’t stand being around my dad and his goons all day long – so I enrolled myself in a school north of Copenhagen called NGG, they had an english speaking section, and some of my friends were already there, so I thought why not?! Problem was that the school was a good hour away from home, but fuck it, It gave me the chance to do something. I spent the last 6 months of my 10 grade just hanging out, freestyling, smoking weed, and fucking my school up, I think I finished 10th grade with an average of 2 (out of 7)… But I got better at freestyling, so it was all worth it!. I started to freestyle in the first place because I couldn’t find beats, and I didn’t have money for a studio (or even know how to find a studio) but also because I could speak without having to justify myself – I could just let go… It was really fun, getting in cypher, having my homies bug out when I would spit a crazy line (Big shout to Hatim, Trent, and Michele!) – it was just fun. Michele’s neighbor worked at Universal Music, and he would come by and give me some encouraging words, and then one day he asked if I would be interested in going to the studio. This for me was just fucking crazy, I said a big YES, and the week after I’m on Nyhavn in some studio making a song – or at least I thought I was. We got there, and the guy had absolutely no fucking idea how to make a hippo beat – period. So it ended with me not making a song, but the experience alone got me madd gassed on the idea of making a record. I was at a club spitting a freestyle, I’m pretty sure it was Krasnaplozky – and I met a girl called Harriet (she goes by the name of Harry). She told me herself and 2 other girls were making a group, and they needed a rapper and asked if I would be interested. She started kicking game about how they were going to get signed to BMG, and that their producer had a lot of connections. I agreed and we exchanged numbers, and met a week later at her producers place – a small apartment in Amager, he was a nice guy, I don’t remember his name… but he gave me the track, I wrote it on the spot, and recorded it right there on shamelessly wack gear. I was so surprised when I heard my voice for the first time. It was horrible, I thought I sounded like a chipmunk or something – but at the same time I was really happy that I got to record, and I started getting hungry for more. The girl group was garbage, didn’t have the look and couldn’t sing so there was no hope for it to begin with so nothing ever happened with them – the producer ended up being one half of bombay rockers. I started going to this gym in amasser right behind Njalsgade (I should have continued – hahaha) and I met this guy, big dude – can’t recall his name. He was cool, and he gave me a flyer for a club I never heard of called Mantra. He told me I should go, cause it was poppin, unfortunately I couldn’t do that cause I was 16. But he told me, it wouldn’t be a problem – cause he was the bouncer. That was a thursday, and I remember calling up my homies but no one could go, so I went alone friday night to Mantra to find out what was good. That night I met a few people, I met a rapper called Koffi (1/2 of lyrical nuts), a rapper called Ken Bhangi, a DJ called J-Son (now DJ Whut), and I reconnected with a promoter called Moses Malone (whom I knew from Nørre G when he was a student). This was my first time at a real club – and it blew my fucking mind… I got so high, and so drunk, and had kicked it the whole night with different people. Me, Koffi and Ken would be in the corner, with 3-4 other guys just freestyling and rapping the whole night. It was all good – I remember walking home from Enghave station at 5:00, damn near skipping! I called up my homies and from that point on, it was on! – Every thursday, friday and saturday we would be in Mantra living it up! – This was the classic r&b scene – all the classic hits came out at this time, DMX was hot… Life and Times Vol. 3 was hot… I was bugging out. Every once in a while, DJ J-Son would let me, Ken, Koffi, and anyone else who was down at the time jump on the microphone and spit bars… I swore I only went there for that reason alone. I’ll always remember this one time, and I think this was the real turning point for me. Mantra was unusually packed – shit was crazy, maybe 30-40% more than it could hold, on account there was a wedding party at the same time. Moses came up to me and told me if I wanted I could perform, which was dope, because usually the only time we would spit was when the club wasn’t poppin. I got on the small stage and was getting ready, 2 bouncers came in to clear the stage and hold people back because it was so packed, I don’t remember if it was J-Son or not, but someone gave me the mic, and the instrumental started to bang, I dunno what I said, I dunno if it was good – but I killed it that night, there I was 16 years old, in a packed night club surrounded by bitches rapping – and people were loving it. At some point 2 chicks got up on stage and started to grind on me and people were giving me drinks on stage and the bouncer was throwing people off stage – it was just crazy, so hectic, so much love, shit was beautiful. I stepped off stage with a high I never experienced before, and had people coming up to me all night giving me props and love. I had a few bitches come through and give me their numbers, different rappers, shit was crazy. I went home at 6:00… I walked all the way home, from Tivoli (where mantra was) to Enghavevej… The sky was so blue, the sun was coming out, different orange and yellow tones reflecting from the clouds – I felt so happy. That’s all I can really say to describe that moment, I was truly happy. This was one of the few good memories I will always hold dear to me. I realized on my walk home that there was really nothing in the world I wanted more than music. It was me falling in love…
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This is the first blog entry for DUBCNN (DK) as well… so big shout to Mehdi, Bobby, Hefty, Peter, and everyone else at the DUBCNN – who have proved so far to be the only true media outlet for hiphop music in Denmark, I’m gonna use this blog to share thoughts and reflections about my own career, and the state of hiphop in Denmark and hiphop in general…
ALX is in the building…
its funny cause in the last 4 days, i’ve had – nearly 30,000 hits on www.alxhiphop.com – tons of fans downloading the album – I’m getting emails, and myspace messages, facebook messages and even donations – yet main stream danish music “media” (and I use the term VERY loosely) wont cover this release, not even in their news update. I’ve long been a critic of these outlets, because they are bias and more or less just put on their homies, and their affiliates. I got lots of examples, and in a minute I’m gonna start airing their dirty laundry. But lets get 1 thing straight, A movement is occurring within the music industry. Fans dictate. But lets re-visit this topic in 2-3 weeks from now.
Holla back!
ALX
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