You've been quite active in the past year, with your new album Vermillion being released in addition to touring. Give everyone an update on this past year for you.
This past year saw both 'The Station Agent' instrumental album and
'Vermilion' released as well as a japan only release collaboration
between Ron Contour, which is an old alias of mine and Japanese
producer Atsushi Numata. I've been working on some other collabs as
well and trying to get some touring, which is challenging considering
I do not have a booking agent at this time. Thats a whole nother bag of
worms to talk about right there. I don't even have a manager. I do that
myself and with the help of URBNET, god bless them, shits been cool
though.
In a recent interview DL Incognito suggested that the Canadian hip hop
scene is about 20 years behind the US hip hop scene. Would you agree
with that statement?
Haha..he said that? I don't know what planet he's been traversing to say
something like that, but to each his own opinion. 20 years behind, huh?
Wow.. thats a long time. The way I see it is Canada is at par with
what's been up elsewhere. Its just that canada seems to have a tendency
to ignore a lot of underground talent these days and just chase the
"hot" or pop scene. Who knows though, I don't really keep up too
closely on things like that, nor do I care too deeply. Canada does
whatever.

Word has it that you spent some time in California when you were first
starting out. Would you ever consider coming back to the states?
I'm always in california, on and off now for the last 18 years or so. Cali loves me, haha, you say
"coming back to the states" man, I'm always there, much love all over
America. I'm a dual rap citizen.

In addition to your role as an MC you also handle quite a bit of
production. What inspires your production work and what equipment do
you use the most?
Yeah, I do all my beats. As far as inspiration, its pretty much all I like to
do, raps just come after, beats are first. I live and eat and sleep
beats. Sometimes I listen to The Carpenters and get inspired, other
times its Ornette Coleman or Les mc Cann or the Beach Boys.

The RZA got a lot of attention when he started scoring films; most notably Kill Bill Vol. 1. With your background as a producer is this a direction that you are trying to go in?
Hell ya, I would do scoring. I would start with some indie student films
obviously and get my foot in the door. It would be a challenge but im
up for it. Students get ahold of me, you assholes. I'm ready to make
moves and musicify your lil' films n ting. Big up to RZA anyhow. word.

You have an extensive history with Swollen Members. What were the factors that ultimately led to you parting ways with them?
Swollen, word to them, good cats. I did that stuff for a few years with them, we got long history
but ultimately they knew I liked rolling solo the best. So I left,
simple as that, peace to the Members.

One of the standout tracks from 2005's The Desired Effect was "More Soup" featuring MF Doom. What was it like working with Doom? Do you plan on doing more tracks with him in the future?
It wasn't like anything working with doom. I gave him some money, he
rapped, he rapped for money and it was a good rap. I mean, he was down
to do it, he liked my rap, it was whatever, I'm sure he would say the
same. I toured with him and still never met him. I could really give a
flying fig newton about that either. I don't like people very much on a
personal level. I like his music though. I doubt I'll ever do anything
with him again. If the oportunity came up and we vibed on a mutual
level, sure, but other than that Its whatever, haha.

The running theme in the music business these days seems to be declining
sales, non-recoupable advances and digital downloads. Having been in
the game for over a decade what are you biggest challenges today versus
five or more years ago?
Well it sure is more of a challenge now in some ways, people don't buy
albums, art becomes disposable and these fucks just want to download a
ringtone. What a stupid world. People get dumber every day, numb
actually, and buy in to anything the radio or tv feeds them. But who
cares, I'll survive, I love music and its all I want to do, therefore,
I will always drop albums. I hustle and grind hard to make something
that I feel is beautiful, lack of gratitude has permeated the music
scene.

Describe a typical "day in the life" for you.
I don't do much, just wake up, have coffee, go skateboard, go home make
beats, chill with my girlpiece, make some more beats, fuck around on
the net, download some porn clips, record digging is always a good
time. I don't really sell drugs and such, I grew out of that a longtime
ago, rappers pretend to do that all the time. Its jokes. I just do
music, its an all day affair.

If someone found your iPod, what are some of the songs they would find on the "Top 25 Most Played" playlist?
I don't have an iPod, I don't want one. I'm perfectly happy with my walkman, and I don't even
use that a whole lot. In my CD player though there is a lot of stuff,
right now its a lot of High Llamas, The Carpenters, Panda Bear from the
Animal Collective, Deerhoof, Jungle Brothers' raw delux album, Monade,
Lootpack.

What new projects do you have in the works for the coming year? This
year I have a couple new projects coming out on URBNET Records, one of
which is an album called "Carrots and Eggs", its gonna be fucking
amazing. Prepare yourself for absolute boredom. I have another Japan
only album called "Clap Trap" coming on Octave Records. I did a project
with this cat named Evil, its called Zebra. Doing some beats for folks
like The Pharcyde, working with A Plus from Souls of Mischief, Del too
most likely. Big up to Heiro. I', doing some more special free mini
albums for download on my myspace, www.
myspace.com/mokaonly and selling beats.

What artists these days do you feel are taking hip hop in the right direction?
No artists are taking anything in the "right direction". they are just
doing whatever.and sometimes just 'doing whatevr' is the best thing
one can do. take it in the direction that you sincerely feel you
outta.. do what you truly want.. not what THEY twant. fuck them..I
think that IM taking it to great places under the rocks,sewer and
slime. im like a one man das efx... it sickens me how beautifully
disgusting my music is to me. frank zappa has helped me in many ways
but its whatevr.
Thank yous/Shout outs
Hmm...I don't really have many of those, I'm not down with anybody. I mean
really I'm not, aside from the peeps i mentioned. Shouts would have to
go to Darryl Rodway at URBNET for believeing in my craziness and
allowing me to soil the name of the URBNET label with my boring
backpacker fuckery. Thank you for interviewing me. I'm sure it was a
real insightful walk in the park. I think it was whatever. Moka Only
aka TORCH.