Eternia of Eternia & Moss Interview

[Lunatic]

http://raptalk.net/website/content/view/2447/54/



Raptalk.Net spoke to female MC Eternia regarding her new collaborative effort album “At Last” with producer Moss, dropping tomorrow, June 29th. “At Last” is powered by guest appearances from Joell Ortiz, Rah Digga, Lady of Rage, Termanology; Reef the Lost Cauze and many more. With a true hop hip feel, the album was entirely produced by Moss and features a sonically consistent sound throughout.

Eternia goes into detail with Raptalk on many different topics that surround the album, as well as Canadian hip hop as a whole, being a female in a male driven genre and more.

Enjoy.

Read Full Interview:
http://raptalk.net/website/content/view/2447/54/

[Lunatic]

Raptalk.Net: We are right here with Eternia of Eternia and Moss! “At Last” drops tomorrow, Tuesday June 29th. The first thing we want you to do Eternia is to compare this album to your previous work.

Eternia: That’s tough because there all my babies in different ways. “At Last” is definitely the most sonically consistent record out of all my material. If you like one song, you’ll like them all. And I think that’s obvious because it’s one producer throughout the whole record. This is the first time I’ve done an entire album with just one producer. You would assume it’s more sonically consistent for that reason. It has that “I’ve arrived” sound. In the past, people knew I could rap but now it’s like okay, this is what Eternia sounds like; this is her style and genre. Now you can picture a genre and vibe when you picture Eternia. That’s important and I don’t think I’ve done it previous to this.

Raptalk.Net: I like that. I’m sure the people definitely enjoy the idea of being one artist and one producer. Where you going for an old school mentality with that?

Eternia: I guess indirectly. We definitely respect Gangstarr, CL Smooth & Pete Rock and all that. We didn’t do intentionally though. Moss saw he perform and he knew he wanted to do an album with me. After that we were like yeah, we want this to be a classic record. We did it unintentionally for sure.

Raptalk.Net: Get your promo on and tell the readers about the single you’re currently pushing.

Eternia: We’ve dropped about 5-6 tracks actually in the last few months leading up to the release.

Raptalk.Net: Yeah, and they’ve been all over the internet.

Eternia: Yeah, so I’m not sure which single to talk about. Just this week we dropped “The Half” which is the first solo track we’ve leaked. It’s just me and it’s very personal. It’s a half-sibling anthem AKA your daddy is my daddy (laughs). Before that, we dropped “The BBQ” remix with Jean Grae and Tiye. Before that, the original [The BBQ] with Rah Digga and Rage [Lady of Rage]. We also dropped the music video with Termanology and Reef [The Lost Cause] “At Last.” And before that, “It’s Funny” featuring Joell [Ortiz]. We’ve been hitting them heavy for the last eight weeks for sure.

Raptalk.Net: Some of the names you just mentioned, Rah Digga and Rage are some legendary female MC’s. What made you want to work with them?

Eternia: I obviously listened to them when I was in high school. They were some of the artists I looked up to. They were incredible. I was in the studio with Rah Digga and she is definitely someone I admire. I wasn’t in the studio with Rage. But honestly to answer your question, Moss looked at me in the studio one day and asked me to name my dream list of collaborations. I listed a number of names and those were names that were on it. That’s the short form version.

Raptalk.Net: Other guests, Joell Ortiz, Termanology and so on. Are there any other names appearing on the project you’d like to name off?

Eternia: It’s all on the track listing. Reef the Lost Cause, Maestro Fresh, Tona from Canada, obviously Rah Digga and Rage, Joell Ortiz and so on. I know I’m gonna’ forget people and get in trouble (laughs).  Ras Kass is on a remix.

Raptalk.Net: On the track with Rah Digga and Rage, that puts a younger female MC such as you next to some legendary female MC’s. Do you think you held your own?

Eternia: I’m probably the least objective person to answer that question.

Raptalk.Net: I haven’t heard that track yet, but I’m a big fan of Rage. I thought that was really cool that you worked with her.

Eternia: Yeah, you should listen to it and let me tell you what you think. I would like to think I held my own but once again, I’m not objective at all.

Raptalk.Net: I like that. It’s obviously been a long awaited album. What was the reasoning for some of the delays?

Eternia: The biggest reason was the fact that I was living between Toronto and New York, going back and forth to those two places. We recorded everything in person together in the studio. We didn’t want to do any emailing back and forth. Basically, the recording would only commence when I was Toronto and that would only happen a few times a year. Three or four times I would come to Toronto, sometimes less, that’s when we would record. That’s probably one of the main reasons.

Raptalk.Net: I’m sure it feels good to have it out June 29th, it all worked out in the end.

Eternia: Praise God! I didn’t even know if I was gonna’ make it to this day or if we would. There has been a lot of behind the scenes stuff that just made it that much more difficult to release. And now we’re here! I’m breathing a sigh of relief and saying “At Last”! (laughs).

Raptalk.Net: (Laughs) it’s the perfect title!

Eternia: Yes, In so many ways. I love it! I find myself saying it all the time in conversation just because. When “It’s Called Life” came out, my album before this one, I would find myself doing the same thing. “It’s called life, get over it” oops, that’s my album (laughs).

Raptalk.Net: Exactly. We’ve touched on it a little bit, but I want you to go into more detail in terms of what people can expect from the album, besides the fact it’s your most sonically consistent project thus far.

Eternia: I think people will get surprised with how personal we get. The reason I say surprised is because all of our singles have been very boom bap, hip hop and collab driven. It’s been very hard and aggressive. The stuff we haven’t leaked minus “The Half” is very personal and raw. It’s probably the most personal I’ve got. There are a lot of life stories on this record. It’s definitely not just look at me, I can rap. There is a lot of big content and concepts that people will relate to. That’s why I want people to listen to the whole album front to back. It’s a sonic journey and it needs to be listened to in its entirety. I just think it would be sad if people base an opinion on anything other than the whole record.

Raptalk.Net: I know its your baby and like you said, there are a lot of different things, some boom bap songs and some personal content spread throughout the album which you have yet to leak besides “The Half.” Although it is your baby, do you have a favorite track off the record?

Eternia: That’s a great question. If I had to pick a favorite, and it may change depending on my mood, but recently it’s “The Half” which I leaked this week. This has been one of my favorites for a number of reasons. It’s funny, a story that people can relate to, it’s personal and has a different beat and flow than pretty much all of my previous work off the rest of my albums. The beat and flow on “The Half” is very unique. For all those reasons, I don’t know, nobody else I know has done a half-sibling anthem. It means a lot to me.

Raptalk.Net: It’s definitely unique. I’m glad we’ve got a chance to touch on the album a lot, but I do want to touch on some other things. For example, you were born in Ottawa before moving to Toronto. What’s the hip hop scene like?

Eternia: I spent the first decade of my life in Ottawa. I wasn’t really in the hip hop scene at that age yet (laughs).

Raptalk.Net: At 10 years old, I can’t imagine you out there rapping (laughs).

Eternia: I will say that I went back to Ottawa for one year when I was a teenager. That was a long time ago and I’m sure there have been changes to its hip hop scene since then.

Raptalk.Net: You moved to Toronto

Eternia: I’ve moved around my whole life but I’ve been in the Toronto area for over a decade now.

Raptalk.Net: In addition to that, describe the difficulties of simply trying to make it in hip hop as a female MC. A lot of people paint a perfect picture like fair treatment exists, but we all know it doesn’t.

Eternia: It’s hard to tackle an invisible problem, one that you don’t see. It’s not even acknowledged or diagnosed as such. I think that’s the issue with sexism in society in general; especially in hip hop. There are things that would make people really upset such as a racial slur. A racial slur is really obvious and gets people on edge instantly. It gets people talking and outraged. I feel like when people talk about women, especially women in hip hop, it doesn’t even surprise or outrage people. It’s not something that gets people’s backs up, it’s not even something that people notice. And it can be extremely derogatory. That’s the first problem. You can’t tackle a problem that most people don’t believe exists.

A lot of dudes don’t notice the things that come out of their mouth are marginalizing or discriminatory. That’s not all dudes of course. I hate to paint a broad stroke. But yes, what I basically mean to say is, there are lots of little details and unsettled things in terms of what I see as a woman in hip hop. There are so many to list but also very suddle so it’s hard to list or explain unless your there and you witness it. Once again, it’s hard to attack until people actually acknowledge that there is a problem in the first place.

Raptalk.Net: That’s a great answer. The next thing, on top of all that, describe how hard it is to make as a hip hop artist from Canada. I know a lot of people might read that and think of Drake, but that’s more recent and up until now, it hasn’t always been like that.

Eternia: You’re right. Before, it was kind of like people didn’t want to say they were from Canada (laughs).

Raptalk.Net: And now it’s like “I’m from where Drake is from!

Eternia: [Not representing your hometown] that works against us and here’s why, if you don’t rep where your from, you go to USA and you’ll get judged based on being another American rapper. We all know that it’s way oversaturated in USA. It actually works in my favor to say I’m from Toronto and yes I spit like this. And even before Drake, that worked in my favor. I would say that and people would reply “wow I never knew Toronto had that going on” and I show them that we do.

For me, I’ve always been very proud to be from here and I’ve basically lived in New York for the last five years and I still get announced from “Toronto, Canada” when I get announced on stage at shows. That’s every time I perform and it’s important to me. I think we’ve always had the talent here, we just had an identity crisis and we didn’t like to promote ourselves. Some of us did, I don’t want to generalize. But it was one of those things where we didn’t want to proudly say it and on top of that, I think Canadians in general don’t like to speak about their craft. They just want people to appreciate the craft.

It’s hard for us to talk ourselves up a lot. I’ve learned that from people that know how to sell themselves. In Canada, we don’t really sell our self. We’re just like “listen to the music.” There’s a whole bunch of reasons but with all that said, I think it’s finally coming full circle. Hopefully Toronto will be the new centre of all things hip hop like LA, New York or Atlanta. I think Toronto is basically the buzz right now for sure.

Raptalk.Net: That’s a great answer. You’re obviously running around promoting the album and what not. Tell our readers about some spots you’ll be hitting. Where can they check you out?

Eternia: We just finished a whole bunch of shows this week actually. We just had a release/listening party in Toronto. We’re doing the Marco Polo showcase Saturday night. Marco Polo just got the cover of IMagazine with Rich Kidd, Moss and everybody else. It’s pretty cool for Toronto producers to get the cover of a magazine. I’m doing that [Marco Polo showcase] and then I’m doing an in-store signing on the day of release which is June 29th at Fat Beats. I’ll be there signing and all that.

On July 9th, I’m doing the Brooklyn meets Toronto manifesto show for the Brooklyn hip hop fest. The Brooklyn hip hop fest and manifesto are coming together to do a showcase called Brooklyn meets Toronto and that’s pretty cool. There’s always more shows coming. I’m going to Europe at the end of July for the Splash Festival in Germany which is a huge festival. There are always shows popping up.

Raptalk.Net: It sometimes comes off as cliché, but I want you to tell the readers from the heart why they should go cop “At Last” June 29th when it drops.

Eternia: They have to listen to the album for them to form an opinion. I would suggest for them to just listen to the album and then if they like it, cop it. You can also definitely base your opinion on the singles. If you like any of them, you will love the album. I would say hop online, type in Eternia and Moss on Google, listen to one of our many leaked tracks and if you like it, cop the album on June 29th because it is all that caliber of music.

Interview: There you go people, that’s how you know she knows it’s a great album! She’s encouraging you to go listen to it online and if you like it, go buy it.

Eternia: Exactly, that means a lot. I know people will love it. The reaction I’ve been getting when the press has been reviewing the album has been surprising. There surprised that it’s so dope is what I mean. I don’t think they thought it was going to suck, there just surprised it’s as dope as it is. They say “wow, I had no idea” and I’m like “yeah, but we did.” (laughs). We knew what we were doing! Y’all might not know, but we knew!

Interview: Well no doubt Eternia. I wish you the best of luck with the record and I appreciate your time. Do you have any last words before I let you go?

Eternia: Thank you for interviewing me. I appreciate it.