Far from living up to his name defined by bad temperament and everlasting grudge holding (refer to Sesame Street’s Oscar the Grouch), the Bay-Area-born rapper seems an acute optimist and easily one of the most promising talents in Hip Hop today. Aside from his attractive west coast swag, his straight-forward approach and his ability to relate to listeners everywhere from the dirty south to the stuck-up north, The Grouch retains his loyal fans while adding new ones to his roster and no better time like the present as his solo album, Show You the World [click to read], releases on the same day as the Living Legends' LP, The Gathering. He is innovative, he is confident and he is part of the new wave of rappers who are leading away from the braggadocio bullshit and using the mic to actually say something. HipHopDX gets anything-but-cranky with California’s promise to discuss his latest album, his admiration for his wife and daughter, and how he ended up running his truck on soybean oil.

HipHopDX: Are you satisfied with the feedback of Show You the World?
The Grouch: Oh yeah, I’m getting some good feedback; I feel good about it.

DX: What’s the best response you’ve heard so far?
TG: I don’t know if there’s one best thing. A lot of people are saying that it’s my best album. I don’t know, I just seen the number of comments, they’ve all been positive; there’s only a couple of negative comments…I know people really like the artwork too.

DX: Tell ‘em "Simple is the new cool (young fool)/Sober is the new drunk/Pregnant’s the new skinny." What did you want to get across with “Breath”?
TG: It’s just saying, “Come on now, grow up a little bit. All the silly stuff is…,” and I don’t mean you can’t have fun and be young; and I’m not saying I’m an old man or anything like that but I’m just saying there’s a time – and I feel the time is right now – to look at life and be a little more serious about what’s going on around us. And partying and getting drunk and all that stuff is something that I’ve gone through and I feel like it’s not the best route to take. And I don’t mean that selfishly because I’ve done it and I’m not trying to tell anybody that they shouldn’t take that route, but in my opinion, it’s just not the best route. Having a daughter and that whole “Pregnant’s the new skinny” one too just opens my eyes to what life is really about.

DX: Much of your confidence came through on Show You the World – confidence as a human being and a man as also. You refer to your wife proudly, as well as your daughter (who is also on the album cover). Generally, rappers depict a very negative picture of women and children are at the same time left out of rhymes. Why do you think that is?
TG: All the braggadocio in Hip Hop and just rapping about how cool you are, I think that that was cool for the first ten years or fifteen years of Hip Hop, and now personally I think it’s time to move on to something else - some more important issues. And the way the women are treated in Hip Hop and other forms of music, is not really cool. I don’t see the sense in it. So, it’s like, people are too cool to acknowledge their children. I think that stuff is stupid.

DX: Positive lyrics have a similar impact on the listener. Do your fans approach you and tell you how your music affects them?
TG: Definitely. I get a lot of stories from fans about, “I was going through hard times, I was slipping into drugs…One of my relatives passed away and somebody brought your CD to me and it pulled me out of a depressed…and I felt like there was reason to study music or there was some hope out there.” I get that kind of stuff a lot. And it makes me very proud. And it’s one of the most accomplishing feelings that I have as an artist. Also, I can’t lie there’s been songs that we’ve made that I feel are irresponsible songs that are more leaning toward partying and having fun and drinking alcohol – and I saw adverse reactions of the crowd that was listening to our music. I noticed there were a lot more people drinking in the crowd. I’m not saying you can’t drink responsibly or you can’t ever mention alcohol in a rap – I just wanted to tighten up what I was rapping about and make sure that I’m sending a positive message, ‘cause there’s no reason for me to be sending anything else but that and I feel that I’m back on track as far as everything goes.

DX: Living Legends released The Gathering LP this month, which is receiving great reviews. Two success stories for you this year and it’s only April. Where does the inspiration come from?
TG: We’ve been making independent Hip Hop music for like 10-plus years now, and when we started it was like a lot of people used to make demos and tried to get signed to major labels. And we were taking our demos and calling them albums and selling them as finished albums on the street. We had a lot of material and that’s how I learned: being a creative person who is always working on new material and constantly putting it out. We got a lot of criticism for putting out stuff that wasn’t studio finished in the beginning; and we built a big fan base off of it also. I always felt like it’s very good to stay busy with your art, stay focused on what you’re doing as an artist and make sure you’re always releasing things. And there was a while there that I felt like I wasn’t releasing enough stuff so I just wanted to bring it back to kind of where we started with frequent releases. The two projects coming out on the same day was a statement of that. We still make a lot of music and here’s proof that we’re still being creative with this. Continued on page 4 »