Interview: Dana Coppafeel & SPEAK Easy Are Doing Their Own Thing

After releasing two singles and a video over the past six months, Milwaukee hip-hop emcees Dana Coppafeel & SPEAK Easy are finally releasing a collaborative effort, Uni-Fi Records Presents: Dana Coppafeel and SPEAK Easy on Uni-Fi Records. We had a chance to interview the duo and discuss several things including how the two became a group, the hip-hop scene in Milwaukee and their plans for the future.

The first thing I want to ask is how did you two come together?

Dana: Well, it’s pretty much like, from the scene. Me and Speak have been in the scene for quite awhile. We probably met in 2007, around that time, give or take.

Speak: Yeah.

Dana: I was in a group called The House Of M and I kinda met Speak just from them and the local scene. So we were just kind of acquaintances really. We were on an album together, but we never really worked together until later on and we were in the studio one time with a mutual friend and we just kinda hit it off and were talking. Then speak ended up on the same label as me and pretty much the label wanted us to link up together and work on an EP to promote the label, promote us and just combine forces. We both have a drive and we’re always trying to push ourselves to make a better product.

Speak: Word, word. That’s pretty much it.

Were there any issues with chemistry?

Speak: No, actually there wasn’t. That’s the funny thing, because when the outsiders started getting wind that we were gonna do a project together, the first thing we were getting was “Oh, I wonder how THAT shit is gonna happen! How are they gonna pull that off?” And the crazy thing is, through the mutual respect for each other just as men, we had no issues with chemistry as artists.

Dana: Yeah, even though we’re the opposite type of dudes. Speak is calm, collective and educated and I’m more like wild and crazy. The music that we tend to make or the topics we rap about are totally different. So it was kinda cool to just be able to be in a situation where you can reflect with what you’re doing through a person that has a different view, solely for the reason to make something better. There wasn’t ever really any conflict. I think the only conflict we ever had was when we worked on the song “Murder They Wrote,” because I didn’t want to rap over that beat.

Speak: Oh yeah! [laughs]

Dana: I was like “Nah, I don’t wanna do that.” Speak and Dima, the dude that runs the label, they were like “Let’s do this beat,” and I was really against it. It was funny, because there was a journalist there in the studio while we were working and she was the reason pretty much why I was like “Alright, let’s just go with it.” She was digging it, so it kinda just happened like that. I think that was the only real thing that we didn’t see eye to eye on, but it worked itself out naturally.

Speak: Pretty much, yeah.

Dana: There were no egos involved.

How long did it take you guys to finish the project?

Speak: We’d been working on it for almost a year, really nitpicking everything. We actually just took two weeks off maybe two or three weeks ago. Other than that, for a year straight…meeting at least once a week, working on the music. Just nitpicking it, until we get it right.

Dana: Yeah, we had maybe three songs together before we were like “Okay, let’s announce this.” We were already on the verge of making a video, which was the “One Of These Kids” video at the time when we let people know and made an official announcement about working on the project together. We kind of made sure that we set ourselves up to be able to be the masters of how we wanted to put it out there and make sure that it was going to be the best quality it could possibly be.

What producers did you guys work with on the project?

Dana: Well, the first beat was produced by Frank Dukes. He’s done stuff with Ghostface and countless others. We had a few beats from Frank Dukes, about three of them. We really liked that intro song and a local kid that’s on the come up, he came in the studio and helped us build that song by doing the singing and adding a lot of the progression to the instrumentation of the song to make it kinda build that way. A good friend of mine in Madison who’s produced a lot on the album, also plays guitar and he did a guitar solo for that. So we kind of pulled in different elements, in each song. A lot of it is all local. It’s pretty much in-camp. Da Ricanstrukta, then Dima the White Russian co-produced one with Da Ricanstrukta. There’s CameOne, another local kid that produced the “Wait” track. He provided the skeleton and Klassik and Da Ricanstrukta added on to the song and made that more instrumentation-heavy, to give it that Dilla feel…that old Slum Villiage kind of feel.

Speak: Then of course Mammyth.

Dana: Yeah, Mammyth did the “Stay Focused” track and did the guitar on the last track, “Take A Ride.” So it was pretty much all in-house, I would say. We had a lot of beats from a lot of different producers, but those beats held together and worked right.

You mentioned the “One Of These Kids” video, it seemed like you guys had a lot of fun with that. Whose concept was that?

Speak: That was the director Xavier Ruffin. We sent him the track and he started vibing with it and then he came back like “Yo, this is what we’re gonna do.” He was the mastermind behind it and he was definitely making sure we had fun with it.

Dana: “One Of These Kids” was just great. It was a two day process of shooting at different times, but there were a lot of people around that just made it fun. A lot of jokes, it was a great time. We kind of worked with Xavier in the past, because he also worked on a video when we did something with Action Bronson and Riff Raff. I did, actually. It’s called “Hot Shots (Part Deux),” we worked with him on there and the animation stuff he did for that, we kind of wanted the same feel. I think we sent him a few songs and we actually wanted to do “This Is Us” as the first video and Xavier was like “Naw, let’s do THIS one as the first video. This one is more playful. This is gonna be what it’s gonna be.” It was a good experience to work with him and have him behind the camera and also having him do the animation and putting it all together.

Do you have plans for any more videos?

Speak: Definitely. I think we have two in the chamber for sure. We’re ironing out the details for the third one already.

Dana: Yeah, we’re working on one for “Wait,” which we partially shot already and we’re working on one for “The City” with STYD.

“Wait” is the romantic joint, right?

Dana: Yeah, the romantic joint. That song was good to make. For the video, I think we’re going to do a date night thing, right?

Speak: Yeah, yeah. We’re definitely going to be hanging out with the love interests. Making it happen like THAT.

Dana: Some bowling and some photo booths, just having fun with it once again. That’s the other thing that’s cool about me and Speak, we take it seriously, but not to the extent where we’re not trying to have fun with it. We know that a lot is stacked against us because we’re out of Milwaukee. Here in this city, it’s easy to get a name up so we didn’t really expect much, so everything kind of had to be fun just to give off the vibe that it’s authentic.

Speak: At this point as a whole, we have nothing to lose. We just want to let it be known that the talent is there and we can compete with anybody on any scale.

Dana: And our business is there, but the real main thing is that the love is there. We really love doing this and have fun doing it. Of course it’s a business, but we tend to forget about that and just focus on what really needs to happen and that is fun. Because we look back at it like, a few years ago…we weren’t doing these videos, we couldn’t get this animation or have our stuff out like that. We really concentrated and focused to make these things happen. Damn right it’s fun, because our dreams are coming to fruition.

You mentioned “The City.” On the song there seems to be a lot of camaraderie between all the artists on the scene, is that an accurate depiction?

Speak: Oh hell yeah. That’s kind of who we are and what we do. When we work with somebody, we dig who they are as a person. So, with STYD it was just like “Yo, let’s go ahead and rock out.” I’ve worked with them on several different tracks before. Actually, I’ll probably be on their new project that they’ll be dropping soon. The chemistry piece was kind of automatic.

Dana: At the same time, the same people that we’re working with are on the same playing field as us as far as taking the music serious and trying to do something with it. Putting money into it, investing in themselves and trying to make some moves. It all works together. We’re all trying to benefit on each other, making smart moves. So we try to put each other in certain places, just to overall benefit.

Speak: We all can win.

Dana: Exactly. You look at our city and it’s a big urban city, but there’s Chicago, you’ve got Detroit, you’ve got Minneapolis…

Speak: You can sum it up and say “[We’re] slept on.” It’s all good though, because we’re coming.

You each have your own song on the project. Was that something that was planned or was it a case of not liking a particular beat or something else?

Speak: How it originally happened, it was one day I heard this track that Coppa made. We work so hard and we never really stop making music. So, he let me hear this track and it was the “Stay Focused” track and I was like “Dude, this is fuckin bananas” and he’s like “Yeah, it’s just some shit I’ve been working on.” I’m like “What do you mean just some shit you’ve been working on? This needs to be on the EP.” I kinda strong-armed his song, because this shit is dope. So then we kept talking in different sessions and stuff and then we thought “Well, fuck it. Speak why don’t you do a different song as well.” So we could get that different flavor on the album too.

Dana: Speak is also pretty much a solo artist himself. I’ve always been in groups bouncing around, just because I feel like I work better in that dynamic. But every now and then I get the chance to work on songs where the beat just makes me vibe. I was feeling the song and that’s why I played it for Speak, but I never really thought about putting it on the EP because I didn’t think it was gonna match the vibe that the EP has. Speak was like “Don’t worry, we can fix that because I can do a solo song that can bridge that.” It worked out and it was a smart decision at the end of the day.

You both did your solo songs and then came back together to close the EP out.

Dana: I like the last song. I love them all actually, just because they’re all different vibes and because of how they flow. They give you a glimpse of who we are and what we’re about. When we made it, we knew that the outro song was going to be the outro song, no matter what was going to go before it. And we knew the intro song was going to be the intro song, off the jump. Everything else just fit where we thought it would fit.

Do you guys have any other projects lined up or is this the last one?

Speak: We’ve got a lot of stuff poppin’ off. The benefit of being who we are as far as hard working artists is that we never really stop working. I think the thing that’s been our greatest asset is that we let the music be and the projects kind of take form themselves. We’re not putting any bookmarks or parameters on it. We just keep working and then all of a sudden it’s like “We need to sit down and talk about these songs because we’ve got something here.”

Dana: At the same time too, we want to give more life to the EP. Especially in this day and age, music kind of comes and goes real quick. Your biggest day is the day you release it, then a week after people kind of forget about it. We wanted to strategically plan to not have that happen. We wanted to build a nice buzz, you know make an announcement six months before and then have the release party. So we plan to give this more life, that’s why we have more videos that are being worked on and we’re kind of holding off. We just don’t want to have it run the mill because we feel strong about what we’re making and at the same time it gives time to just stay in the studio. We’re always meeting and working on music at least once a week. We also just won a single deal with Loyalty Digital Corp out of New York. We’re putting together an A-side and a B-side for them too. Moods & Vibes and Real McKoy are the producers. We’re working on that and trying to piece that together which hopefully will give us more buzz and we can keep pushing something that’s brand new. We’ve definitely got some stuff in the chamber and at the same time we’re evolving our styles, learning from each other and just trying to kill shit.

Tell me something you want people to take away from your project after they listen to it.

Speak: I would like to call it real or open-ended music. We were very open minded when we did this project. If you listen to it with an open ear, I’m pretty sure that you’ll enjoy yourself.

Dana: I just wanna shoot and stab stuff, to be honest.

Speak: [laughs]

Dana: Straight up. I just want people to know that I’m gonna get my props and I deserve my respect and the music is going to reflect that. I’m not trying to be cocky or anything like that. It’s just how I feel about it at this point. It feels good and why shouldn’t I feel that way? That’s what some of those songs are about. I just want people to realize that if you have a quality project, it’s going to shine regardless. That’s all. I just want people to know that it’s real lyrics, real songs and just beats that people can feel. That’s what we have to provide.

Exactly, if you don’t think it’s any good then you can’t expect anyone else to think so either.

Both: Right

Dana: It’s hard to get to that place. We’ve all worked on music and got to a point where we were like “Yeah, this is it” and then the next one is like “Yeah, this is it.” This one feels like the diving board, like we’re getting ready to jump into the pool. This is the spring right here, I feel. We worked hard for it and hope the music can reflect that and give the people some insight [as to] why.