Beneath the Cloaks: An Interview with The Doppelgangaz

So you two rarely trade bars. Is that just not your style?

EP: Everybody asks us that. It just feels forced to get on the mic and lay it down, then he lays it down, then I lay it down. It’s not like we have to do two verse songs, but I feel like we’re effective in that nature. And I don’t like to drag songs either. Both of us aren’t really cool with the fact of having a song just going on for the sake of going on.

MoF: I don’t even like to drag – every year my testicles get lower to the ground – I don’t even like to drag those.

EP: But on “Fall Thru” at the end we added like a small third verse, so we did like 4 bars or 2 bars each.

MoF: And again, we’re not against it.

EP: It’s just got to be right. Right now we get in our comfort zones where we write and get focused and songs come together like this. I don’t know if right now we want to challenge that just for the sake of it. If it happens, it happens. We’ve tried it before and then we were like, “Nah, cut it.” So we’ve tried it, definitely.

You just want it to be the best.

EP: Yeah, it just needs to represent the way we want it.

What are the biggest improvements you’ve made since putting out your first EP?

EP: So much. Just general control of a track, figuring out how to really give a song’s identity. The mixing! The mixing was pretty bad back then. Some people like it but I can hear the problematic parts. Nobody’s ever complained by our shit, but me and Matt just nitpick all the way.

MoF: I think that we’re confident people and sometimes your aloofness might not transfer over. Sometimes you meet an artist who’s mad jokey and loosey goosey and you hear their music and it’s dead ass serious. Not that we ourselves were dead ass serious, but I feel like we’re aloof and our personality shines through the music more now than it did before. We were so embarrassed of ourselves back then.

EP: There’s an idea of what a rapper should be and sometimes people get caught up in it, but really it should be the biggest self-expression. So we definitely just try to –

MoF: – Let it fly.

When I listen to your music I honestly can’t really connect your style to anything else. What do you guys listen to?

MoF: Honestly, I’m happy that you say that.

Yeah, it’s refreshing! I listen to it and it feels just totally new.

MoF: That’s beautiful, man. With us, we like to listen to everything. I think that’s what it stems from. If I hop into someone’s car, I’m not the type of dude to say, “Turn that shit off! Put this on! I ain’t listenin’ to that!” I really don’t care. I like songs from all genres, so you don’t get the sense of us aiming to sound like a certain era or sound. We listen to everything. So if we’re working on some shit and it sounds hot, we can let someone else classify it. We just know that this shit is sounding good and it’s coming together nice and we want to mess with it. That’s how we operate. Some people sit down and say, “Yo I want to sound like” –

Old Juvenile?

MoF: – “Old Juvenile.” So they sit down, try get that Mannie Fresh scratch and get the same sound going. I feel like that doesn’t really let the artist or producer shine through, so we just like to express ourselves and go in with nothing in mind.

EP: When you go in off of just feeling and you have nothing else on your mind you just start doing something based on being energized or inspired. I feel like that’s the true essence of who you are. So we go in there with no ideas and let the song come together.

MoF: And we’re not about that put yourself in a steel box type shit either. I don’t know why anybody would make it known that they have to do a certain thing. Think about how rap in general just started off being samples and pieces from every other genres. I don’t see how you living in a certain territory means that you have to sound like one thing when we live in an age where everybody is connected. You should be influenced by everything. You shouldn’t be living in a bubble where you just listen to one type of music. That’s just not how I operate.

EP: Especially these dudes in rap who wanna box rap in. It’s supposed to be the rebellious music –

MoF: – These dudes are conservative as fuck round here! These dudes sound really conservative out here! Rap is supposed to be the genre where you don’t give a fuck. I think rap and reggae is the wildest genres. It’s supposed to be whatever.

EP: Everybody wants to box it in and say you can’t do this and you can’t do that because you’re from here –

MoF: – That sounds like some old parent shit!

And it just doesn’t sound like rap. Rap’s pioneers used to go into their parents’ old vinyl collections and just take whatever.

EP: It’s supposed to be stuff from all over the place, whatever you can get your hands on. Whatever I want to do to put something cool together, I’mma do it. And now people want to say, “Well you can’t do this.” That’s not rap.

MoF: We just keep it open; we’re open to different sounds, noises, genres, music, everything.

What have you been listening to lately?

EP: I just got that Ty Dolla $ign EP. DJ Mustard’s tracks are just cool man. I like that he just goes the super simplistic route and I like that he has his own sound. I almost hear dance elements in the synths he chooses. I know there’s other weird things we listen to that aren’t even hip-hop.

Yeah, that’s really what I was asking. I want to know about it all.

EP: Yeah, aside from rap, man, I don’t even know.

You guys are producers as well as rappers so I wonder, “Where’d they get this sound?”

MoF: We like to just get some cheap shit or just some shit that makes us laugh and be like yo, this shit is crazy. For example, “Doppel Gospel” – that shit just sounded beautiful. That shit just gets us hype. It’s just something that you don’t really come across.

EP: Going into dollar bins at record stores is one of the coolest ways to get like weird –

MoF: Yeah, when it comes to getting records to mess with a lot of times people –

EP: – Say, “Let’s go to the soul section.”

MoF: Yeah, the records that are disregarded are the ones to look to because people skip them because it’s not a known thing or a known sound. Some of these shits, I don’t even know what genre they are.

EP: Yeah, “Holla x2” is some Israeli shit. That’s another thing though. We actually listen to the records we buy.

So when was Peace Kehd recorded?

MoF: June? Maybe like May 2013?

EP: We definitely worked on it during the summer and it wrapped about two months ago maybe?

MoF: So early summer to early winter.

What movie would it be the soundtrack to?

MoF: It would have to be a movie with a lot of different feels. You know how a movie might be like an inspirational movie, the whole thing? I feel like it would have to be a movie with multiple feelings in it. Like one part might be information, the other part might be ridiculous, another part might be dramatic.

EP: Yeah, something that has ups and downs and both comedic and serious elements. I can’t think of one though.

Maybe it doesn’t exist yet. Maybe someone will have to hear this album and make that movie.

MoF: Actually, I’mma just say RIP to Philip Seymour Hoffman and go with Happiness.

EP: Yeah, that’s a good one. It’s a sick and disturbing movie.

What songs of yours would you think is most deserving of a Grammy.

MoF: If we just go off response, I’mma have to go with “Suppository.” Just because I know that there’s a panel and shit and if the panel represents the people, I’ll have to say “Suppository.” That song is one people really love always request. That song really propelled us.

EP: “I think “KnowntchooTahLie” could do some damage too, man. It could appeal to a lot of people and I think it has good song structure. It’s put together cleanly, so why not?