Photo courtesy of Squeegie Oblong
Staten Island emcee Squeegie Oblong and Hometeam producer Chuck Chan have joined forces for a new album called “Upset Antagonists.” The joint venture between Hometeam Records and New Shaolin Ent. is tailor made for fans of underground Hip-Hop.
Upset Antagonists is 14-track album produced entirely by Chuck Chan. The album features appearances by Supreme Cerebral, Jamil Honesty, The Bad Seed, Indigo Phoenyx, Spoda, King Author, Doza The Drum Dealer, Primo Jab, P.Genz, Zagnif Nori, and LEX Nyre.
The Real Hip-Hop chatted with Squeegie Oblong about the dangers of influencers critiquing music, his favorite Chappelle’s Show skits, working with Chuck Chan, and their new album, Upset Antagonists.
TRHH: Why’d you title the new album Upset Antagonists?
Squeegie Oblong: Shit, to be 100 with you, man, I wanted to do a play on words of like the Madvillain-Madvillainy album. I was talking to the brother Chuck Chan and I was like, “Yo, I want to give it the title but I don’t want to be on some “Madvillain” or use the words Villain or Mad in any kind of situation. What would be another way to flip it?” He’s like, “Yo, I got it, Upset Antagonists.” I was like, “Yo, not for nothing, that shit sounds hot,” and I just stuck with the title after that then.
TRHH: How’d you hook up with Chuck Chan?
Squeegie Oblong: Well, just to make a long story short, we did a joint together with G Fam Black, maybe about a couple years ago. I want to stay around September of last year he was hitting me up like, “Yo, I got some beats. If you want to work with something, you want to check out something, I’ll send you some beats, or whatever.” He sent me a pack of like six beats then after that everything else was just magic being made from there [laughs].
TRHH: Upset Antagonists has kind of a loose feel with some unconventional beats. Did you choose those types of beats on purpose or…
Squeegie Oblong: Yeah.
TRHH: Okay. Why?
Squeegie Oblong: I mean, everything stopped. Chuck has a reminiscent sound to his shit, sort of like Madlib, a little bit like Dilla, but he’s his own character. So, with the sound he was providing me all this shit just works perfect with what I would like to do. At the moment in time it was just records being thrown in the air, but after the title came into play it was like, nah, we gotta have that vibe. Like real gritty, still kind of dirty, filter, not too much on the hype shit.
I still wanted it to be a conventional boom bap album without necessarily being the complete grimy, dark, drug dealer manifesto kind of sound where people feel skittish with the Hip-Hop shit. Boom bap, that shit goes all around and don’t just go with the grimy shoot ‘em out type shit and the slow 75 BPM. So, I just wanted to maintain and keep that kind of fragrance and style to the shit.
TRHH: There is a Chappelle’s Show theme on Upset Antagonists. Were you just binge-watching Chappelle’s Show when you were recording the project?
Squeegie Oblong: Nah. Not for nothing though, you kind of caught the theme on the head. It’s a lot of Chappelle’s Show skits added to there, but I tried to keep that whole Comedy Central late-night sitcom TV kind of vibe to that shit. The Chappelle’s Show played a part because I just love the fucking Chappelle’s Show on some real shit. Everything worked, especially with The Player Hater’s Ball. Now “The Player Hater’s Ball” was definitely more Chappelle’s Show based with that record because the beat itself just sound like some type of shit that ran with it.
I just finished watching the clip of Ice-T giving the introduction to the Player Hater’s Ball as I was sitting down with the beat I was like, “Nah, that shit all works and coincides.” I was really trying to do like that sitcom kind of vibe. One thing I’ll say in the remnants of DOOM, DOOM used to have a lot of different Hanna-Barbera cartoons, skits and shit. I just wanted to keep it like, “Yo, we gonna keep this comedy shit, put some funny shit to it, add a little sprinkle of that cartoon shit a little bit, too, but we’re gonna keep this shit funny.
TRHH: What’s your favorite Chappelle’s Show skit?
Squeegie Oblong: Me personally, I got two. I got the shit with Clayton Bigsby — the black white supremacist, and then the Prince episode. I love the Prince episode, that’s one of my favorite episodes.
TRHH: On the song “Viktor Vaughn” you say “Hip-Hop was dead before the Nas campaign.” Explain that line.
Squeegie Oblong: Basically, in my personal opinion we seen the collapse in Hip-Hop way before the Nas campaign. Like right after the Master P time going into the early portions of the Cash Money Records era you started to see the flashy, you started to see more of the southern kind of style records to their shit. So, it was already going down that path. The music in itself the way it was set up it was already in that kind of vibe.
The Puff Daddy shiny suit era was kind of like fading out, but all that shit was still in play. The Nelly era started coming in and Nelly started doing his shit, and then Hov went from doing the street shit to going corporate. So, you started seeing the decline of Hip-Hop way before Nas said Hip-Hop was dead. Shit, I think once “Laffy Taffy” came in that was kind of like the nail in the coffin.
TRHH: I remember Ludacris saying Hip-Hop ain’t dead it just moved to the South.
Squeegie Oblong: Yeah, yeah it did, but we can’t just blame the South because now that’s around that time where all regions are starting to make South kind of sounding style music. West Coast always been on the vibe and how they do shit, but that’s like right after the “Lean Back” Fat Joe was doing the “Make it Rain” and “Get it Poppin’” and everybody was doing a lot of remixes trying to emulate the South’s style. It was a cross regional thing — the South did have an impact on a lot of shit, but I don’t think the South was on some shit that they killed. It did move down to the South, but I think emulating the South style is what killed that shit.
TRHH: On the song “Big Ego’s” you touch on influencers that critique music. We’re all fans of music, whether we make it or not. Where is the line? When can a fan of music that isn’t an active participant state their opinion?
Squeegie Oblong: I mean it’s a two-way street — I could go with that. First off, I feel it’s one thing to be a fan and have an opinion because you’re familiar with the work, you understand the artist. When you understand the artist that you’re listening to for you to give your critique and feel how you feel, I mean, it’s valid, because you’re a fan. You’re an avid listener, you’re somebody who’s been contributing to what this artist is putting together. If you’re somebody that’s just taking it for a fly by night review, like you’re not familiar with who you’re interviewing, you don’t know nothing about the artist at all, you’re not even familiar with the music that you’re listening to, you just know that it came across your desk, it’s probably a hot topic of the day and somebody said to check it out or it’s been in the conversation of underground Hip-Hop albums of the week so you’re like, “I’m just going to check it just to check it,” that’s where that shit gets funky.
Also, the second part of the street is, I look at it like this, to feel how you feel with one thing and having an opinion to it is one thing, but when you take your opinion and then make it reality and try to force it on people in the world, that’s a whole ‘nother story, too. I can’t be mad at you that you don’t like it, but shit, don’t fuck up my vibes and have my shit looking poor trying to downgrade what you don’t understand. There’s dudes that put out phenomenal work besides me and sometimes they do get shitty credit for the art that they put together — something that they felt was a personal piece to them. You can’t really rate a persona piece. If I put something in the universe that I feel it resonates with me hard body and you don’t like it, alright, you ain’t gotta like it, but you don’t completely shit on it like it don’t matter.
Because somewhere in the universe that shit matters to somebody, maybe not you, but somebody else. And for people who are not familiar and you’re just ragging the artists out they’re not even going to get a chance to get a new listener, because by the time they go with your cred they feel like your word holds weight. And in this new era influencers, content creators, they all hold a little more power than artists and creatives in a sense, because their word is their word. It’s like the food critic, so, it’s a blurred line with me. I don’t really like when people critique it. I mean, I do understand you have to have a rating system, you gotta put it out, but shit, don’t shit on my shit because you don’t understand it.
TRHH: Man, it reminds me of that Jay-Z rhyme, what did he say? “How you rate music that thugs with nothing relate to it/I help them see their way through it, not you.”
Squeegie Oblong: That’s the “Renegade” record yeah, yeah.
TRHH: It’s definitely subjective. It’s funny, remember when The Source was legitimate?
Squeegie Oblong: The 5-mic system. That shit meant a lot!
TRHH: It meant a lot, but they low-balled a lot of great albums. Albums like The Chronic and Doggystyle and a lot of other great albums didn’t get bad ratings, but they didn’t get great ratings either. It’s always kind of been that way. I guess it depends on how the how the writer is viewed maybe, I don’t know. There’s always going to be people with opinions, man.
Squeegie Oblong: Oh, hell yeah. You can’t stop that. Opinions are like assholes, everybody got one and they all poop shit. You can’t stop that. In my personal opinion, how I grew up in order for you to have an opinion or say so to anything you must at least invest some time in it to understand what’s going on. Even with food, you might not like tuna but at least your people try to tell you at least try it before you knock it. And if it’s not your thing, then it’s not your thing.
TRHH: On the song “Beebop’s Seed” you say “My cousin called me a loser ‘cause I’m still rapping.” In what context was this said? Like, how are you a loser for rapping and what kind of shit is that to say to family?
Squeegie Oblong: [Laughs] I really don’t want to indulge all my personal shit, but something went like completely left in the family situation. And not knowing the full spectrum of it, I had an instigating cousin — she couldn’t mind her business. With her I think it was just a situation of trying to be defensive but not realizing in order for you to talk shit about somebody and say certain things, you actually have to have some type of progression in life. You have to be doing something. When I wrote that line all bullshit aside, I’m trying to be as honest as I can, the text message was ‘I was loser, I’m a fake ass Dr. Dre, I think I’m going somewhere but I’m going nowhere.’ And the reply that I had was just simply, “I’ll be that, but what the fuck are you doing?”
Age is around your corner — clock is ticking. I’m living my life, so you can’t tell me shit about what I’m doing because I done took chances that none of you motherfuckers will. So, I say what I say, I do my job, all in all that goes with anybody trying to stay shit and criticize you for what you do, but nobody’s perfect, number one. And number two, it’s usually out of jealousy because they couldn’t do it on the level that you did it, or they don’t have the intelligence to try to pursue the things that you do. Everybody’s just stuck in that one dimension of the Matrix. Hey, more power to her. I mean, I don’t fuck with her, but more power to her. I hope she succeeds in this life, however she does. Just don’t worry about me and mine – we fine.
TRHH: Who is the Upset Antagonists album made for?
Squeegie Oblong: It was made for me, but if you gonna put it like that, I mean when I say me I like certain sounds and styles to my shit. Like I think of my shit in the realms of like Redman and DOOM and dudes of that nature where they’re lyrically nice, they know how to say wild shit, and they just like having fun with it. That project to me was like more on the fun-based side. The energy of it was real playful. It’s still grimy as fuck, but if you really listen to it and play it in its entirety it has a playfulness to it. I just wanted to have fun. It was my first year about to turn 40 and I was out here trying to be the best I could at the age and status that I’m holding right now.
I just wanna have some fucking fun. It ain’t even about who got the hottest record out or who’s making moves. That record is just having fun — that shit is Hip-Hop — Hip-Hop. Diversity, even with the scaring the hoes themes to the record [laughs]. It ain’t gotta be all about the simplicity of the bars, it doesn’t have to be a factor if it’s truthful or if it’s “cappin’ in his rap” as the youth say. It’s just more so about hearing lyrical skill. Somebody just showing off the talent and showing you I could really fucking rap. And that’s what it was to me, I just wanted to rap.
Purchase: Chuck Chan x Squeegie Oblong – Upset Antagonists