Following the Misadventures of the Social Club Misfits Through Music

RESPECT. recently conducted an interview with the Florida native Christian rap group, Social Club Misfits. The interview went into details about their journey to success thus far, their recently released album, and other details about their experience in the music industry. Read the interview below.

RESPECT.: How did you two connect to develop the group Social Club?

SCM: Oh! You know what it is, I think that our biggest thing were we wanted to do a dope project with two dope guys. At this point, it’s almost like made by misfits for misfits. So, I feel like we’re discovering every single day who our audience is and what people need right now, not really what we want. People need something that’s refreshing and positive; and music is good with good taste and good vibes. That’s what we’re committed to right now. You know, the album came out and did really good- 1.7 million streams in a week. We’re the number one Christian album, hip-hop album. We’re on the charts right after J. Cole, so it was a really good week.

RESPECT.: Yes and that album released not too long ago. That was just in January. Congratulations to you guys. So, what influenced y’all to add the name ‘misfit’ to your group cause I know the group name started off as The Social Club, correct? Then, y’all added to it.

SCM(Fern): Yeah, it was a little technical glitch I wanna say because at the end of the day there are so many. When you google Social Club there’s just so many different ones. You’ve got hotels, lounges, you got other bands that are called Social Club, clothing brands. So we wanted to find the best way to solidify ourselves from that, but keeping the same brand. You know, it was a legal thing. So we added misfit so we could just have our own little space; when you look for us, it’ll just be us that pops up and we can get right to it. There’s like over one hundred and ten bands named social club.

SCM (Marty): And it was like, alright our fans are trying to find us, but instead they’re finding a hard-rock album with like skeletons. They’re like son we didn’t know you did Emo. Misfits is what we represent so that’s why we added that to our name.

RESPECT.: Okay, that’s cool. So what was the Christian album that you listened to growing up? What was your first inspiration?

SCM (Fern): Oh man listen, DC Talk, Carman, Stephen Wiley. I go back in the day with it. I’m into culture forreal with it, but Carman though! He was like the Justin Bieber at that point. He was selling out Amphitheaters before other mainstream artists were. He was wearing Doc Martins, hahaha

RESPECT.: hahaha

SCM (Marty): It’s funny cause I think my first one was also DC Talk. Then the second one was like KJ-52. And it’s funny cause one side is like rock and pop and the other is like hip-hop. It’s funny cause I always thought to myself that that was my person experience, you know, that type of music. And it wasn’t bad. Like It’s funny to coming back and now we hanging with these guys.

RESPECT.: I bet that is cool to do. My favorite song by you guys was actually the intro to Misfits 2, and it is actually titled “Misfit” as well, by Pastor Chris Durso.

SCM: You love Chris Durso? What was that?

RESPECT.: Yes, the intro for Misfit 2 was so dope.

SCM (Fern): At the end of the day, one of our first, great mentors that we got to meet was Chris Durso. It was actually the Misfit book Marty got to read the misfit book and was putting me on to it and when we first started moving our stuff earlier on in our career one day we were blessed to perform at the Vous in Miami, which is Rich Wilkerson Jr’s church at the time, and uh Rich Wilkerson Sr. at the time. And we were performing there and Chris Durso was watching a live stream and he tweeted it. He tweeted at us and was like, “hey who are these guys it’s legit misfit” and I texted Marty during the church service. Hey kids don’t text during church, but I texted Marty during church and I was like, “yo, Chris is checking it out. Check it out man!” And like it was such an amazing feeling to see somebody in the same vision in the same body recognizing what we were trying to do and ever since that day we’ve been great family and stuff like that so.

RESPECT.: Well since 2014, when I actually heard that intro, the line that has always stuck with me is, “people will always over promise what they are willing to do.” How has that been proven to you? That people will definitely over promise what they’re willing to do?

SCM: You know what it is? It’s almost like we live in a generation that wants you to satisfy everybody. They over promise. And they always say with capital that we under promise but over deliver. We’re in a generation that over promise and under deliver, you know. They promise you the world, but don’t give you that. For us it’s interesting cause people will let you down eventually. You know, family, or your husband, your wife, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your brother- they’re always gonna let you down. But the tone that we have on that song is that we serve a God who can meet you at the promise, or the expectation that he gives you. Like, he doesn’t just say things to say them. You know the bible, and what is says, we feel like its almost like he promises you life in abundance and stuff like that and so it’s almost like, it’s almost like an ode. Like listen, God got you! People will let you down, but God won’t. I think that’s our tone as well, like, you know, take the pressure off us as human being and start saying “I need something that’s bigger than me; bigger than myself” and that’s when God comes into play and says, “hey, I’ll take the burden off you” and that’s kind of like what we pride ourselves on. Everybody has a human experience, right, everybody has a life with emotions. Every person wakes up and deals with a whole new set of problems, and has goals. And our music is meant to do life with people and to, you know, be an addition to whatever you do. We’re not taking over your life, we’re not controlling it, we’re just here to inspire, to encourage, to help and give that push that you need to make you feel like “wow this is actually inspiring me or motivating me to be better” and interact with people. As human beings be better. That’s the tone we’ve been saying all day today during an interview like, “as a human how are you? How’s your soul as a human? Rather than just saying you’re Christian, are you a good person? Are you a jerk? You know, like, as a human being there’s a lot of stuff. Like you can bring your jerky-ness into your walk with God, and that puts people off; that sets people off. So, as a human, are you, you know, what are you doing? So we actually wanna motivate and inspire a generation to understand that they can be themselves; they don’t have to hide, you know.

RESPECT.: Totally understand. So they recent release of The Misadventures of Fern and Marty don’t seem too different from any other releases, but do you think that flow has changed much since 2014’s Misfit 2? Or did y’all intend for the flow to change?

SCM: You mean the flow or the message? Cause the message is never going to change. Regardless of where the trends may lead, whatever fashions are dictating, whichever way the winds are blowing, at the end of the day, it’s still always going to be misfits, its still going to be Christ in it all day, focused. You know at the end of the day the flow may change, the music may differ, but the message will always stay the same. Misfits are here forever

RESPECT.: That’s what I like to hear. My favorite song off The Misadventures of Fern and Marty is definitely “Love 4 Real”

SCM: ouuuu I knew you were going to say that

RESPECT.: hahaha is there a muse or inspirer for the song? Cause it is amazing

SCM: The funny thing about that is a lot of people say, “oh that’s like a Jamaican, or like an island song” but actually what people don’t know, and this is actually the first time I’ve said this, but actually the guy that’s singing on it is Nigerian. He’s from Nigeria and their patois, their slang is much different. similar to someone who’s from an island. You know, we’re from Florida. First born in Puerto Rico and we’re from an island. So we know how the Haitians and Jamaicans talk, but like, we wanted to do something different. You know like, Drake has the One Dance that was like the island vibe. We wanted to do something like a Nigerian’s vibe and no one has done it. It sounds similar but it’s either like you know it or you don’t, you know.

RESPECT.: Right. That was clever.. So the Nigerian vibe is the direction you intended for the song to go in.

SCM: Yeah, I mean regardless, no matter what’s going on, we’re always going to put our own special twist to it, you know what I’m saying. We’re never going to follow the trends, we’re always going to go ahead and set them, you know what I’m saying. So, good friend of ours, Daranola, is a talented dude and we just make some magic, man.

RESPECT.: I know that you stated that everything you put out is intended to, umm, motivate people and be inspired. What message did you hope for the listeners to get from your latest music? Because you have a lot of followers and all of them aren’t Christians

SCM (Fern): You know what, I think that we want to communicate this album especially, you know it’s called the misadventures because in life there is no such thing as going from point A to point B; it’s never that easy. You know, you have a dream you want to accomplish, and it sounds easy to say, “alright, well I want to take this dream and I want to live it out in a way that provides for me and my family. It doesn’t just go from… you don’t just do it automatically; it takes work. You know, sometimes your dream changes and you want to do it, then the next day I’m not into anymore. And so this album really kind of focuses on the detours that make you who you are. You know like, I always say this about me, like, I just got married recently, and I, I , I dated girls that were… I dated girls that weren’t the ones for me. So I didn’t go from point A to point B, point B being my wife. You know, not the first girl. I had to go through B, C, D, E, and F to find the right one for me, and I think that it’s really cool, uhh, to embrace those detours that make you and shape your character and sometimes the detours come like a speed bump and just hit you and you just fall. The thing is you get back up and keep going. You know, you keep fighting and keep living your life. When you stop living, you stop doing that, that’s when you’re going to bump, that’s when you’re going to fail. And so it’s important to like, keep living the dreams that you have and no one else have. No one else is like you; you’re unique as a person, and so we really want to communicate that with this album. It’s like, these detours, they make you who you are, and I think that’s cool to embrace. Like, there are situations where, you know, they make life fun and interesting.

RESPECT.: I totally agree with you on that. As an artist, I’m sure you have a playlist. Do you have any of your own songs on your favorite playlist?

SCM: We, actually every week we get together and try to generate some sort of playlist; some of them are private, some of them online. Um, we’d go ahead and pick a topic, and say, “hey what’s your favorite song about this or that?” um, but we’ve been blessed to be on some dope solo playlists. Um, through Capitol, and um, we’ve been on some other dope playlists, but right now I kind of just… do I have a personal playlist? Is that what you want to know?

RESPECT.: Yeah, if you’re on your personal one

SCM (fern): Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, I don’t have a playlist, but Social Club as a whole has one. We put some of our special songs that we love on there. But for the most part, you’d be surprised to see what those playlists look like from songs the 70’s, um, Tony Orlando x Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘round the Ole Oak Tree. You’ll see some weird songs like that. Some old Arturo Sandoval. Some old non-hip-hop stuff. And you’d be surprised by what the hip-hop dudes listen to. But you know what, at the end of the day playlists have been so cool for us, and as such a blessing with streaming where you know album sales have been different from what they used to be. So, playlists has been very crucial to us. I think that answers that.SCM (Marty); We make songs that we can listen to. We like the songs that we can listen to ourselves. You know, like a lot of artists make music, and then they don’t listen to their own music. Like, we make music and our music is intended to challenge each other, like as humans. Like challenge me or Fern, or as a group to make better music. But it would be crazy to say, “we make all this cool music; we have so many songs, and we don’t like, like it, or put it on our playlists.” so, I definitely would say is like, what song that is really on my playlist for me personally is the song “Time 4 That” on the new album. I love that song! And it kind of inspires me, and I just want to like, I kind of want to keep going down the lane the way that I rapped on it. I kind of sing/rapped. And we challenged each other, and I think that it’s cool to enjoy your own music and if you make music and you don’t enjoy it, then you might want to go back and be like, “hey…” I don’t know, but you know haha

RESPECT.: Right haha so, in closing, what piece of advice would you give to the next up and coming Christian artist?

SCM (Fern): I would definitely say to them, “at the end of the day, just know that a lot of your favorite artists didn’t blow up over night. Just know that there’s patience to it. umm, there’s going to be rough nights, and there’s going to be good nights. You’re going to write a masterpiece one night, and you’re going to wrinkle up the piece of paper the next night. But listen, if it’s for you the calling will be strong. If it’s for you, you’ll know and you’ll wake up everyday not wanting to stop trying to find it. If it’s for you, God will confirm it in your life through the places you go, the people you meet, uhh, situations that you get involved in. So, I would recommend to just stay focus, continue to pray to God and allow Him to lead them in the direction that they should walk, should that be their calling, you know what I’m saying. So, I just…. Stay with God, you know. That’s what happened to me. At the end of the day, I fell off my calling cause I chose to stop listening to God, but once I stooped back in, even though it was through jail, om, I understood what my purpose was, and then I was able to fulfill my calling

RESPECT.: Well, it’s never too late. And only God can judge you, of course. But I wish both of you guys the best with your career and I know the tour is coming up starting in February. Your first stop is Houston, Texas

SCM: Right. Thank you so much