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To conclude the interviews we had the time to make on our Singaporean tour (back in november 2005) we met up with MC Garuda, one of Singapore's rising emcee hopes. We met up with Garuda (who was briefly introduced on our website earlier on the DJ Koflow interview) at the studio in Boat Quay, Singapore that he had set up for his newly founded record label Golden Triangle Records. Since this interview is a bit old already some of the projects mentioned could be complete already but we hope you enjoy reading anyway. Culture Universal Worldwide Introduction Interview Vol. 3 - Garuda (Singapore) Questions & Interview by : Jesse Viinikainen (jesseviinikainen@yahoo.com) Photographer : Helen Kaur (helenkaur@hotmail.com) © Culture Universal (crew@cultureuniversal.com) |
Garuda : My name is MC Garuda and currently I’m moonlighting as a hypeman with DJ Koflow in Liquid Room (a club in Singapore) and I’m a student too in Laselle studying music, getting my diploma. At the same time I’m doing distribution for 96 anti-clockwise apparel and I just set up a recording studio and a label, my own imprint called Golden Triangle and the whole thing has now been going on for a month and a half, so its all good. |
Garuda : My earliest memory is when I was 12 years old and I picked up a cassette tape from Kris Kross and while i was listening to these two boys rapping it started to fascinate me. From there I kept digging into stuff from LL Cool J, and a whole lot of early and late 90s rappers and listening to their songs, and the music moved me, and the stories behind the music. They put their stories out there and i like listening to other people’s stories. That’s how I got into hip-hop. Jesse : What were your first steps in becoming an MC, how did you break into the whole rapping thing and how did you first start performing? Garuda : My first show I think was in 1997, in this club called Phuture, it’s in Zouk (the most famous club in Singapore). The event was called Quietstorm and I was with 4 other guys, so we had a set, just a showcase. After the b-boy showcase was our emceeing showcase. So that was my first show, didn’t turn out that well but at least I got a feel of it you know, i mean how it’s going to be up there doing your thing, facing people. From there onwards I kept doing this more seriously, and now what I’m doing is more of the emceeing, basically it’s about music, getting to know the music on a deeper level. |
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Garuda : Um.. I think about 2 or 3, it was quite a long time ago. it was just a spontaneous song, a track that we did for a day or two then came up with a nice hook. That’s it, because it was my first performance. Jesse : When you first started, did you ever think of representing the other elements of hip-hop or was emceeing always what inspired you the most? Garuda : No because the thing is I like to tell stories, I like to hear stories, I like to play with words, I like to communicate to people, so that’s what I love doing. That’s the best form of communication which is to speak to someone with words, let people hear your stories and experiences. |
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Jesse : Who are some of the people that have inspired you along the way? Garuda : Well when I was younger the first one was LL Cool J, I was watching this re-run of American music awards on MTV back then and I think he was performing ‘Mama said knock you out’ on stage doing his thing. I liked listening to what LL Cool J spoke about during his time. From there I switched to Biggie, Biggie’s stories were quite dark, very grimy. After that I picked up Nas and slowly I picked up Tupac and Jay-Z. After these 4 emcees, I listened to emcees that were more underground with more wordplay and better stories. I’m not saying they’re better but they represent a different style of emceeing. Then i digged out a lot of emcees from European countries like Looptroop, and Asian emcees like Too Phat, and some people from Indonesia … they have different stories to tell because they are from different parts of the world. So with all these stories coming from different parts of the world is how I get to know the world in a way. |
Garuda : I think its what they talk about. They can talk about the cliché stuff, like what major artists from the US are talking about or they can be real to themselves. It’s either you talk about yourself and you let other people listen to you or you talk about what people want to listen. I think that’s the only thing which makes it harder for locals to emerge from the shadows, for me I rather have both to balance it out. Because people also like to hear fantasy stuff. Most of the songs you listen out there are probably just trying to create some nice fantasy for people to hear but whether they're true or not nobody knows except the people who make them. |
Jesse : What would best describe your own contribution to the local hip-hop scene, what do you wish to accomplish with your music ? Garuda : I’m going to keep it real and I’m going to elevate our fantasy, I’m not trying to contradict myself but the best thing is to balance myself and the songs I’m going to do whether it reflects me or if it reflects what people want to hear. I’ll try to mix it all up. Everyone will be thinking what is this dude up to? I like to put the question mark in people. If people want to ask it means they want to know, so I’m going to put out tracks that you guys might be surprised about, stuff that might not sound like "me". So yea I’m going to keep it short for now and you guys have to listen and buy my stuff in the future and then you guys will know. |
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Garuda : Everything has to have a balance because you could have a commercial full length album but if what you do is the same as what the States already has then art-wise it's not that nice. Like what I said earlier, I will have a balance of everything in there. I will have a little bit of ethnic sounding beats, I might rap in my mother tongue (Malay) and I might have other Asian emcees rap in their own mother tongue on it. So I have to really balance everything out, I could have a really commericial sounding track in there and on the next track people are gonna be asking like "hey how come this dude is doing some ethnic stuff" so I have to play it out like that. |
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Garuda : Well I did plan, planning is probably like 20%, and the 80% is just fuck it just do it. Things are better off when you don’t plan much. I'm not saying planning is not good, planning is good but if you plan in too much detail, sometimes you get so agitated when things are not done when you want them to be. For me it's probably 20% planning. Jesse : What would make you happy of your accomplishments as an artist even if it's for a moment ? Where would you like to be in the so called hip-hop game in the future ? Garuda : Well I don’t want there to be that kind of moment where I’ll be happy for 1 second and then the next few hours i'm like shit im not doing anything! I might just stop rapping, I might just put the stop to emceeing somewhere in my 30s and I might just go into producing after that because nobody wants to listen to some old guy. Have to keep up with the times, be an all-rounder, you have to know everything to move on and mix it all up. At the end of the day looks like a lot of emcees are not rapping anymore and instead they have started to produce or they have their own labels now. So that’s what im planning too. |
Garuda : I don’t like the word posers because I think they just don’t know the culture deep enough before they go out there. It's not about who has more knowledge or who has less of it. If you look down on people who have less knowledge you become the poser so to speak. If you have more knowledge then instead of judging others you can use it to teach or educate or share it to those with less of it. So the best thing for me is to be myself and to everybody, be yourself out there, that’s keeping it real. |
Garuda : I think what’s missing right now is… the reality is that hip-hop is about to fade off in a couple of years and I can bet on that. It’s like part of the cycle in the music industry and the in-thing right now is the whole indie music thing, that post punk disco sound is in. Hip-hop has taken a step back. What I could say is that hip-hop will probably be big like in the late 90s probably in 10 years. The music industry works like a cycle, everything is like a fashion trend. Hip-hop will be somewhere high again maybe in 10-15 years from now. Jesse : What's the first things that come to mind from the words hip-hop and recycle ? Garuda : I think it’s been recycled in the mainstream from day one. Everything you hear from all the artists now has been the same thing that you heard 15 years ago pretty much. The whole thing just fits in differently for a different generation. Garuda : I’m not sure because even though I’ve listened to the stuff from different continents I’m not sure yet about how to judge it. But one thing is for sure I love it, I love the stuff from all these continents. |
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Garuda : I think that’s not a problem i think the main thing us people in the new school have to learn is that you have to pay your dues before you go out there. |
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Garuda : I get inspired by those asians who get big by not the color of their skin but through hip-hop by being themselves. Because it’s hard, very hard, because people are still thinking that Asia is a backwater continent but as a matter of fact it’s not how it seems to those people. I admire most of the hip-hop artists from Asia that make it through their music and through their stories and how they manage to move from an underground act to a major label act. I know Asian emcees who have a hip-hop business of their own, who have hip-hop as their source of income. So that inspires me. Jesse : What kind of mentality gives you energy when you feel like things are going wrong ? Garuda : This is all a gamble, nobody can know what will happen if they don’t try. You fail what you don’t know. So for me all this is like i'm taking an example from other sources and learning from it and adding my own flavor to it. Everything is a risk so you have to try a lot of different things to make it happen. |
Garuda : There’s nothing wrong with the music or the culture, it's more like there's something wrong with the media portrayal of it. Hip-hop is a good marketing tool for the youth so they just use it and they don’t return the profit to the people themselves. It's one of the most appealing cultures in the 21st century or as a matter of fact i think it’s the most appealing culture for the youth so they just use it as a marketing tool to promote their products for young people. |
Jesse : Where do you see singaporean hip-hop in 5 years from now ? Garuda : I think in 5 years... I can’t possible think what’s going to happen in the next 5 years unless I start to study it now and then in 5 years I can tell you what’s going to happen in the next 5 years or something. Jesse : Where can people buy the stuff coming out from Singapore, any advice on that ? Garuda : It’s already been on sale at the local HMV though I guess there wouldn’t be much left of hip-hop releases from Singapore in their shelves right now. Probably most of them are still trying to have their cds re-sold in the region around Singapore or probably even further because Singapore is only a very small market tool for the CDs to have any kind of circulation. |
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Garuda : I would say people like Davey D, you can check out daveyd.com. He’s always putting out politics of hip-hop, what’s happening, arguments and all. It's very good for general awareness, more than just the beautiful side of the culture. That’s what I love reading about and that's what i love to know about. You know it's not just about the beautiful side of hip-hop that the media is portraying. For me the stuff has to be more on a social awareness basis. You can use that as a tool to make things better. So I give my shoutouts to all that kind of hip-hop leaders like Public Enemy, Chuck D, even Tupac and people like Nas and Jay Z. All these dudes in my opinion already know what’s gonna happen in the future and they already told us. This is what I love reading about, rappers who have a clear mind, they can predict things that are going to happen to in the near future and we are going to change the community with that for the better. |
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Garuda : Yea true. Jesse : Who are the local people you would credit and give shoutouts to ? Garuda : Probably the first time I got my show was through this guy called Obi-Wan. He actually sparked me off with a chance to have my first appearance so from there I found out I couldn’t stop. If he didn’t pick me up and give me chance to perform, I would still be a regular guy though i still am a regular guy pretty much but hip-hop-wise he's the one who sparked me off. Also i give credit to other guys like Andy Gusmarro who’s been with me from those days. Without him I couldn't be doing all this too. And the boys from my old group Asianize, I’ve gone through thick and thin with them. All these guys they really pushed me a lot and experienced a lot with me. |
Garuda : Someone baked brownies for me and brought it to Liquid Room! Shit that was really scary! Jesse : Talking about fans, do you have an ideal crowd that you would like to see at your shows, what would they be like ? Garuda : I want to have people from 5 year old kids to 70 year old men coming to my show. I don’t want to just have some kids or teenagers listening to me, I want everyone who has been through good and bad times to hear out my stories. All kind of people, different races different ages. The crowd, the audience would be like stunned, i'd like them to just keep quiet and just concentrate on looking at me. Which I find better than a crowd that doesn’t really know what I’m talking about or the type that will just talk to the person next to them and not really listen to what we’re doing. So I would rather have a crowd sitting down in deep concentration listening to me rather than a loud party crowd. Garuda : I think the smallest crowd, there’s this spoken word event where friends and families gather to listen to your poems or whatever art stuff that you’re reciting. That’s the smallest crowd, only like 20 or 30 plus people. Jesse : What would you say has been the highlight of your career so far ? Garuda : I think one of the highlights would be when we had this huge crowd in Pattaya, Thailand with DJ Koflow and another one would be the one we did for the Singapore hip-hop fest back in 2002. We were surprised to see a lot of people singing to our own songs. |
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Garuda : I think it's very normal for a regular person to just find stuff from States instead of digging stuff from the other parts of the world. People nowadays want to have an easy access to everything and when it comes to american hip-hop it's always easy to access it thanks to MTV and the like and so american hip-hop is everywhere. Anything that is easy to access for the regular listener is what they're gonna listen. |
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Garuda : It’s about halfway there but I still need to add more creative stuff to it. Like I said it’s going to be something like a shock when it's releasedt. Because it’s going to be like a different perspective towards things. More of a storyteller kind of view. That’s it. Jesse : As one our traditions we asked one of the previous artists that we interviewed to ask you 3 questions and DJ Rattle wanted to know if your house was on fire which 3 records would you save? I would save Nas - Disciple, Jay Z’s first single which was signed to me by Rob Swift from the X-ecutioners. Last one would be the first single from Aaliyah, At Your Best (You Are Love). Soothing stuff. |
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I like stuff from Blur, the british group. I like stuff from Radiohead too. Any old funk and soul stuff like Iron Babies or Isaac Hayes and the post new jack swing like Jodeci. The last one, what’s your favourite shoe brand? Right now im digging any kind of shoes, I used to dig nike, now I dig reebok. Any shoutouts or fuck yous or shameless advertising? You guys better watch out for Golden Triangle because this is the only stuff from South East Asia that you guys should be digging into because it's going to be different. |
Keep on reading a lot of hip-hop websites because this is good stuff and you might not hear all this on MTV or cable, so dig your net. Cultureuniversal.com, dig it! |
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