Space Age Hustle

A Conversation With: Supa Villain

Hailing from the absolute bottom of the map (Gulfport, Mississippi), Supa Villain is one of the most complete artists out right now, as he applies a Kanye-esque dedication to the role of “rapping producer.” After gaining notoriety for his production work on a series of Rich Boy mixtapes (2008’s Bigger Than the Mayor, 2009’s Pacc Man and Kool-Aid, Kush, and Convertibles, as well as this year’s 12 Diamonds and the just-released Gold Kilo$), Villain decided to lend his voice to the signature production work, resulting in two incredibly good, but terribly overlooked mixtapes, 2010’s Antwan Swisher, and this year’s VillRizon Wireless, proving his rhymes can be as deft and personal as his production. 

Able to work within a wide variety of sounds — from trunk-rattling crunk and synth-driven trance rap to, well, tracks that sound like massive piano ballads — Villain revealed to Space Age Hustle the story of how he came up in the rap game, what influenced his unique brand of southern funk, and how more than ten years in the business has turned him into one of the most unique and refreshing artists to come out of the South. 

Space Age Hustle: How did you come up with the name Supa Villain?

Supa Villain: (laughter) Aw man, everybody really don’t know I been doin this rap thing since like 6^th grade. You know, everybody around me was trying to come down on me for trying to do it, so I was like “Damn, I guess I’m the bad guy. I’m a supervillain.” And I guess it stuck with me ever since.

SAH:  So you always talk about video games in your raps too, and you have the name Supa Villain; do you play a lot of video games?

SV:  Yeah when I get my free time I can’t deny that; hell yeah I be playin’ video games. Tell everybody that if they on XBOX360 my name is HeavySaqz, that’s me.

SAH: You also use a lot of video game samples, or sounds that sound a lot like video games in your shit. That old-school Nintendo, 8-bit sort of stuff. Do you do that on purpose? It’s part of your unique sound.

SV: Yeah you know I play video games and people try to be innovative with certain stuff, but they need to look right under they nose at what’s already been here, and I just take that music and try to create something new with it.

SAH: Do you use a lot of samples, or is it a lot of original recordings? Like with your synths and pianos, are you sampling that from somewhere, or are you laying that down yourself in a studio?

SV:  Yeah, a lot of stuff of mine is already original, but you know, you take somebody’s old music, you can’t deny how it sounds…how soulful it is, and then, working with Rich [Boy], he loves that type of stuff so…boom.

SAH: That comes off a lot on his shit. On that one track (“All I Know”) it samples that piano so good, and then on the VillRizon Wireless track “God of War 2K11”. It’s a lot of piano, and you don’t even really get a beat. It doesn’t knock heavy, but it still works so well.

SV: Yeah, you know, people expect a certain sound from a certain area, and you know since I’m all the way down here in Mississippi, they probably expect a heavy bass, Three 6 Mafia type sound.

SAH: Especially with Lex Luger now too.

SV: Yeah.

SAH: Your tracks have a very unique sound to them, in the way they have a lot of space in them. It’s different like you said, for other stuff coming out the South. Is there any reason for that?

SV: Yeah, just trying to be different. And really, on a production basis, my mom’s always told me about how my father was in a band and all this type stuff, and then growing up in school, I played in band, so being reinforced with all types of melodies, and harmonies, and notes, and this type stuff, it just stuck with me, and it didn’t do nothing but make me better at what I do.

SAH: So what’s your process for when you’re making a track?

SV: As far as me recording vocals and all that?

SAH: Yeah the whole thing.

SV: Honestly, I just be in the studio, and it’s just a vibe I get. Especially, when I smoke one, boom, I start making the track. It’s like if I went and played a round of golf, you know, you’d get that country club sound (laughs), like when we made [Rich Boy’s mixtape] Kool-Aid, Kush, and Convertibles I was out there shooting the video with them, and that’s what it felt like.

It’s all off of how I do and then when it comes to me, especially like a hook or something, if I’m singing on it, that’s what I do. I go right in the booth and record it.

SAH: So then it’s all one session when you come up with the beat, the melody, the hook…?

SV: Yeah, I don’t like…actually I hate doing multiple sessions for one track. I HATE that. When it comes to me I’m finna do it right there, and whoever ends up on the track ends up on it. I’m not waitin or nothing (laughter).

SAH: You said you started rapping in 6^th grade; when did you start producing?

SV: 8^th grade.

SAH: Okay.

SV: And I’m gonna tell you, it took me a while to get to where I am now. But I started making beats because I couldn’t afford them when I was a kid, you know. I said, “Fuck it.”

SAH: Yeah in the “Shot Call” video I remember you told that story about playing back the No Limit instrumentals on tape till you had it long enough.

SV: Yep, and on that note, [Master] P and No Limit and all that is why I started doin this shit.

SAH: Oh yeah?

SV: Yeah definitely, especially because I’m from Gulfport, that’s nothing but an hour away from New Orleans. So Master P from down the street, he doin everything I wanted to do, by himself, and making money…okay, I’m finna do it.

SAH: So No Limit was an influence. How does being from Mississippi influence you? Is being from Mississippi different from being from anywhere else in the south?

SV: Yep, cause automatically we overlooked, underrated, and looked at as slow and all this type shit. And on top of that, on another note, it seems like when people from Mississippi get success, they don’t even represent from where they from. And it’s not to diss nobody, because, hell, do you, but you know everybody know that like Oprah, and Snoop, Soulja Boy, and David Banner…I’m not telling them they need to come down here and save everybody. No, fuck that. But it’s like they haven’t put it on they back like they should, so I put it on my heart, to show everybody.

SAH: So you’re a big Mississippi representer, but you ended up linking up with Rich Boy, who’s from Alabama. I know Gulfport is real close to Mobile, how did that partnership come around?

SV: (laughter) Well you know, a long time ago, me and my partner at the time, Al Myte, we had did a song called “Got Purp?”, and I had sampled Rich off of “Throw Some D’s”, as the hook, and we was just chillin- I do videos too, I direct myself, and edit- but at the time I was just trying to get good at it, so I was like “Fuck it, we just gonna stand in the driveway, and shoot a video to this, and see how it come out in edit.” So we put it on Youtube, and it stayed on Youtube for a year, year and a half, and then I got an inbox message from Myspace, and he (Rich Boy) was telling me “I like this shit, you need to come meet up with me”, so I met up with him, got me a lawyer, and it’s been on ever since.

SAH: What were you doing before you linked up with Rich Boy? I think I heard you were in a group or something before?

SV: Oh yeah (laughter)…WAYYY back- this story long as hell- I was signed by some local cats out here in 2000, and even in ’99, and we had reached some success or whatever, and in each one of those groups it was me and Al Myte, see that’s why our chemistry was so strong together, because we grew up together, and I was in a group called 4^th Down, that was back in 2003. And you know, once you realize you good at something, you can’t let nothing or nobody hold you back from where you trying to go.

SAH: So, I haven’t heard from Al Myte recently, what’s up with him these days?

SV: I can’t tell you, I don’t know.

SAH: You guys just not working together anymore?

SV: It’s no beef or nothing like that, you know, he gotta do him and I gotta do me. But you know, I’ma tell you like this, I’m a workaholic, I’ma work to this last breath, for real, and I live my life in the studio. It’s so much music that me and him and mixtapes we got together I could just drop, but it’s about timing and all that.

SAH: So who are you listening to right now? Anyone out you’d like to work with?

SV: Who I would like to work with?

SAH: Yeah.

SV: Probably…Gucci. I got some tracks Greg Street supposed to be giving me from Waka Flocka. Yeah, I just like a lot of people with just…drive. I’ll do something  with anybody, know what I mean? As long as they bout they business. But as far as who I just listen to, on the regular, it’s just StackHouse Music, and Gucci, and Boosie here and there. Oh! And someone else I forgot who I’d really like to work with is Gunplay. They sleeping on him in a lot of ways, I think but yeah…Gunplay. Triple Cs.

SAH: So you wanna work with these dudes, and I haven’t heard much of your stuff outside of your work with Rich Boy and your solo stuff, have you produced much for other dudes?

SV: Yeah, I got a couple tracks I did for (OJ da) Juiceman, actually a lot of work, and I don’t know what he did with them, but I got a track called “Long Time Coming” I did with him, and he got a track with Trap Boyz I did, uh, you know, it’s really just on them releasing the projects, because I’ve heard the tracks they’ve done. Shoutout to Trae the Truth, Shawty Lo, Yo Gotti, Travis Porter, I’m finna send some stuff to them. Everybody on my back about everything, trying to shoopshoopshoop but yeah, you know, come on with me!

SAH: So you worked with all those dudes, but it’s just a matter of them releasing the stuff?

SV: Yeah you know, some of these folks are new, like Travis Porter so yeah, it’s just a matter of time before they start popping up. And then I’ma pull a Kanye on ‘em (laughter).

SAH: Yeah you got that sort of rapper/producer thing Kanye does now, are you trying to get more known as a producer or a solo artist?

SV: You know…I don’t know. Cause I know, regardless of whatever take off for me, I’ma let the other one shine. I have to. If I blow up as a rapper first, I’ll be damned if my projects don’t have my work on em…vice versa.

SAH: So Antwan Swisher, VillRizon Wireless all came out in the last year, you got anything new coming up?

SV: Yeah me and my boy Critic just dropped a mixtape called Purp and Burnie: Carrera Shades and Horse Laid, it’s already on DatPiff we just put it out. And I got my new one I’m working on, which nobody even heard about yet, and it’s called Emmit VILL: From Frowns 2 Crowns.

SAH: And that’s your next solo?

SV: Yeah.

SAH: When do you think that’ll be coming out?

SV: Maybe…end of the summer maybe? And there’s other stuff I got in the works. You know I’m working on a little movie, not no Paramount Pictures, but I’m trying to stretch my video production work.

SAH: So like a feature film thing?

SV: Uh huh. You know, everybody go left, I try to go right.

SAH: Well that’s the end of my questions, anything else you wanna add?

SV: You know, I gotta make sure I pump my boy DJ Dirty Money, that’s my DJ, that’s my road dog. The one that makes everything locked up. The music sounds good, but there’s something about the way he put it together. StackHouse Enterprises, it’s me, my boy Critic, B. Ray, Hot Boy Ron, my sister Kim Scott, Frank Dog. We just working, I appreciate all the love I’m getting from everybody you know just tell them to be looking for them, I’m comin straight with this tattoo glowin in they face.

SAH: Thanks for your time man, I really appreciate it. 

Check out the Gulfport artist’s production chops on Rich Boy’s new mixtape, Gold Kilo$, and make sure to download Purp and Burnie: Carrera Shades and Horse Laid, with fellow StackHouse Entertainment artist, Critic, to hear the Villain’s skills on mic, as well.

-Flex