LEGRAND: "The Professional"

By Shamora Evans

S.T.I.L.L.: OKAY, YOU’VE BEEN ON THE PHILLY SCENE FOR A MINUTE NOW, BUT THERE’S ALWAYS SOMEONE WHO’S HEARING ABOUT PEOPLE LATE. SO, WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST ALBUM CALLED, AND WHAT MOTIVATED YOU TO DO THE ALBUM?

LEGRAND: My first album was called “Illusions of LeGrandeur” and, at the time, my primary purpose was to try and demonstrate that as an underground artist, you can still have underground fans, but still be that emcee that can songs that are universally accepted. That was the motivation for that album.

S.T.I.L.L.: YOU’RE GOING ON TOUR SOON; WHERE WILL YOU BE PERFORMING ON THE TOUR?

LeGRAND: Well, I’ll be performing at the “Kansai Music Conference”, and that’s in Osaka, Japan in September, and I’ll be in Osaka for about four or five days, then move on to Tokyo. The venues in Tokyo are not confirmed as of yet, but the representative is in Tokyo right now to negotiate. In October, I’ll be in India for about 10 days. I’ll have to return in mid-October to attend a wedding, and then I might be in the UK or France for the early part of November.

S.T.I.L.L.: NOW, YOUR CURRENT ALBUM, “THE PROFESSIONAL”, IS OFF THE CHAIN! TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT THE ALBUM AND THE PRODUCTION ON IT.

LEGRAND: From the production standpoint, I stayed with the team from the last album. “El-drex” has been making beats and doing his thing for some time now, and he’s actually living in Delaware now. But, I started out making the album trying to have, like, a fusion of music that incorporates the different languages that I speak, and then fitting those cultures' music into hip hop. And, it was going to be called “Mr. International” at first because I speak Hindi, Portuguese, Spanish, etc., but there was no way I could get this project out rhyming with a different language for each song. So, then I reached out to “Drex“, and “Drex” had beats for days. He’s kinda like “Pharrell” because he’ll come to me like, ‘Well, LeGrand, I think these four beats are hot. I think you should write to ‘em.’ And, when you do songs like “Mr. International”, and then do a song like “Pose”, that raises the bar for the rest of the album. So, once you do a song like “Pose”, it’s easier to have the confidence to do the rest of the album, and once we got in the studio and started doing hits, we just stopped after the 11 tracks because we didn’t want to put out too much.

S.T.I.L.L.: WELL, ONE OF THE TRACKS I LIKE ON THE NEW ALBUM IS, “LOVE IT ENOUGH”. THE TRACK HAS A REAL “STREET” APPEAL. WHAT WAS ON YOUR MIND WHEN YOU WENT IN THE STUDIO TO RECORD THAT TRACK?

LEGRAND: I’m glad you asked that…If you listen to the “Illusion…” album, there’s a song on there called “Music-ill”. And on that song, we had taken a real sample and asked my keyboardist, “Marcellus Waller a.k.a. Waller Wee”, to recreate a sample by playing the Fender Rhodes. Well, the “Music-ill” song was real soulful, so we got back together and did the same formula for “Love It Enough”. We really wanted somebody to sing on it, like a female voice on the hook, but the way the sample played it was good, and I actually had my daughter sing on the first four bars of the song. So, it was speaking to whether an artist really loves this hip hop thing, or otherwise is willing to just let it die.

S.T.I.L.L.: YOU ALSO DID A SONG ON THE ALBUM CALLED “THE PROFESSIONAL” WHERE “NITTY GRITTY” RHYMES WITH YOU. WHAT INSPIRED THE TWO OF YOU TO COLLABORATE ON THE SONG?

LEGRAND: Well, you know, “Grit” and I have been doing the rhyme thing together for a long time now. He’s on my last album, and we’ve done songs together for years. And, I actually brought him into the project, originally, just to have his perspective and his "ear", and he sat in on a couple of the sessions. Then, we heard that beat, and as I went in on my first 16, I looked at him and said, ‘You gotta spit 16 on this’. So, that night, we just wrote the verses, and he came back a couple days later, and we went in the studio…We might’ve done four takes, max, because we were so eager to spit the verses. We really wanted to give people a good eight bars in the beginning, and once we started rhyming, it was nonstop. It’s just that the formats for songs are so predictable, so we just went in and did something different to change that.

S.T.I.L.L.: ALRIGHT, SO YOU’VE OPENED FOR “BUSTA RHYMES” AND “DE LA SOUL”, AND YOU’RE WORKING ON A PROJECT WITH “MC LYTE”. WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE PROJECT?

LEGRAND: Well, I had reached out to “MC Lyte” by email while I was touring in California, and her response was ‘When I’m in L.A., let’s see if we can link up’. And we were supposed to link up that Friday, but somehow it didn’t happen. But, if she called me tomorrow and said ‘Can you come to L.A. to work on something?’, I’d be on the plane. (Laughs) She’s definitely an artist that I admire.

S.T.I.L.L.: WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH WITH THIS ALBUM?

LEGRAND: It’s funny you asked that because there’s a lot of things that I’d like to accomplish with this album. The bigger things are to crush the stereotypes of what rappers are supposed to look and sound like. I say that because, basically, it should be all about the music and not what the artist looks like. You know, ‘how do they dress, etc.’, and there are a lot of artists out there that are not being heard because they don’t look like “Lil Wayne”, or “Soulja boy”, so they get overlooked. And, I’m a strong believer in, no matter what you look like, if you got some hot stuff to say that I wanna hear, I’m gonna buy it! You can’t pigeon-hole rappers to all be the same because if you do that, you are stifling the growth of hip hop. The other thing is to bring some of the professionalism back because that’s one of the things that I’ve been struggling with. It’s like, you have to work so hard to get on, but some of the people that hold that industry card are some of the most unprofessional people in the world. So, I think the only way we can handle that is to be more professional ourselves in our dealings with these people, whether they are or not. I’m not perfect, but I’m saying just to bring some professionalism back to the game. I mean, we’re in a recession, and you’re asking people to spend their money, and you want them to be like, ‘I wish I had spent 15 dollars for this instead of five dollars because the show was good, the music was good, and it was worth the money’. And the final big thing was to come out with an album that my kids can listen to, which was my biggest challenge because a lot of fans expect you to ‘keep it real’. But real talk, if I can’t play the album in my own house, that’s a problem, and I don’t want my music to be turned down by a radio station, or somewhere, because I curse too much, etc. There’s enough things that could get in the way than for me to have to contend with that, too. If you want to get the real, check for Legrand on "The Rise of the Professional" online reality show at www.internetrecords.tv.

S.T.I.L.L.: WITH WHAT LABEL ARE YOU, AND HOW DID YOU GET CONNECTED WITH THE COMPANY?

LEGRAND: “Internet Records” is who I’m with right now. “The Professional” was originally started independently and funded by myself. So, in an effort to help promote the album, I reached out to “Internet Records” because they were having a “Who’s the Next ‘Best Rapper’” contest, and it was supposed to be a 12-week long contest, but after the first four weeks, they just said there’s no reason to continue this contest because you’re already smashing the competition. And, I gotta tell you, honestly, I’ve never had a real comfortable feeling working with label executives as I did with them. They told me what they want to do, started working on a marketing plan, and they were very professional. And, that’s what you want. Like, before I was wearing like 12 different hats, but now I’m with a label that’s really willing to make me the forefront of the label, and that’s what I need to feel comfortable turning the power over to them. They’ve assured me that I’m a primary focus for the label, so I kinda feel like “Jigga” would feel in a meeting with Def Jam…That’s how I feel about “Internet Records”.

S.T.I.L.L.: WHEN YOU RECORD AN ALBUM, WHAT KEY ELEMENTS DO YOU CONSIDER WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR MARKET/AUDIENCE?

LEGRAND: You know, every album you learn more about your fans and yourself, as an artist. When I first thought about making another album, I thought about how I had my fans emailing me and telling me what type of topics they wanted me to talk about. But, what I found is that a lot of the fans don’t feel comfortable about their judgment, so they would say, ‘You don’t need us to tell you what’s good. You know what’s good’. So, once I got to that point, I said, “You know what? I’m just gonna talk about what I wanna talk about”, and a lot of my motivation came from President Obama’s election as I started thinking about his campaign for ‘change’. So, as I started doing it, I said, ‘Well, it’s not too many emcees that can rap in different languages, so why not do it? And, at the end of the day, I said I was gonna give the fans an album as professional as I can…Now, when it comes to music elements, for me, it starts with a sample, a rhythm, or a loop, and then I can move on it. Like, okay, now I gotta make sure the drums knock, I’ll get “Marty Johnson” to play bass, and “Marcellus” on the keyboard. It’s about getting all the right people to come together on the track. And then once I come up with a theme, it’s done.

S.T.I.L.L.: IF FANS, OR BUSINESS CONTACTS, WANT TO REACH YOU OR KEEP UP WITH YOU, HOW CAN THEY DO SO?

LEGRAND: Well, for fans, the easiest way for fans to get at me is by emailing at legrand@rcn.com. That email goes to my phone, which is with me at all times. They can hit me through the website at http://www.reverbnation.com/legrand, or Christopher Ross on Facebook. For business contacts, they can contact Bilkulbukwas@gmail.com. And for PR, they can contact Chris Weaver at Christopher.Weaver@internetrecords.biz.