Hip-Hop Wired: What was the inspiration behind “SideNote: SideHoe?”
ForteBowie: Man, it’s kind of rare that I do a track that I didn’t to the beat. My boy Ron Shawn made that beat. He sent that beat to me a while ago, and I just fell in love with it. It’s rare for me to do a beat that somebody else did. I usually do my own production.
I don’t know. I guess that day it just was on me to rap on something else. I just felt like rapping, and that’s kind of what came out.
HHW: Was that song a leftover joint from Vice Haus?
ForteBowie: Oh nah. I recorded it recently; I think probably in December. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, and then the whole 2DopeBoyz thing came about, so I was like, “Hey man, I’ll give you this record I just did, because I really liked it.”
Sometimes I record records, and I just keep them, because I feel like I have to wait until I’m doing another project or whatever. I feel like it was just the right time to give the that.
HHW: Speaking on the idea of timing, how do you decide if and when you’ll do a project?
ForteBowie: It’s a life thing, man. Life determines everything for my music. You feel me? I kind of really can’t make music about anything esle but my life, because that’s what I know. Whenever I feel like I’m going into a new phase in my life, or I’m growing up, or it’s just a lot of things that’s going on that I need to talk about, that’s when it’s like, “Ok, it’s time to put all this together, and make a cohesive project to give it to the people.”
HHW: Cool. So if your life begets your music, why’d you make Vice Haus?
ForteBowie: Oh man. I think at that time, the whole Trinidad [Jame$] thing was happening and people were paying attention because of, you know, my feature on that record and producing that record. I think I had just a bunch of music I was holding on to, and just some new ideas. I was like, “Man, I haven’t given anybody new music in like a year.” I dropped a project in 2011, and I didn’t drop anything all the way until 2013. It was about time.
I dropped the EP in February, and then toured with Trinidad. I saw a lot of things, did a lot of things. Then come August — I think its was like June or July actually — I had a lot more music, and I was probably going to do a different project, but I felt it was a lot of music on the EP that was overlooked that was great to me. I was like, “Let’s just bring that to all to this next project, and just call it the deluxe edition with more songs.”
