The Femcee: Boog Brown

Arasia: I’m a bit ignorant to this so why don’t you tell me about how you came into this game?

Boog Brown: In 2004, I graduated from college and I was in this group called the Poetry Society at Eastern Michigan University. And a part of that group was [some of my guys] and a couple of my homegirls. I’d always be at my house cooking and having drinks and they’d come through and smoke, chill out, and you know, get into a cipher or a freestyle session. I wanted to be a part of my home boys’ crew so I made myself a part of that. From there, we would cipher up all the time. I enjoyed listening but I was always scared to jump in. And around the poetry circuit, we would go around…there was a poetry group at U of M when I was around that area and we would all link up. My homegirl, Lauren Whitehead, was [is] an ill writer and ill poet. She would freestyle and I always thought that it was ill so I wanted to try so I would jump in. A lot of times, I was wack so I kind of honed my skills and craft and once I started to get really involved in it, I hollered at my girl Invincible and she put some tips out there for me. She’d throw me words and I would freestyle those words. We went on a trip to NY…I was driving and she kept throwing me words and I kept speeding because I was so excited. I felt like I was killing that shit. In hindsight, I probably wasn’t but you know, whatever. But it just started on some freestyle ciphers…wanting to be a part of the cipher. From there I was like, I could do this. I had a lot of friends that were in the music industry so when I wrote my first rap, I shared it with them and they were like you got it. You just gotta know you got it. You gotta really believe you got it and if you don’t believe it, no one will ever believe it. So I put out a mixtape called Extended Play. The rhymes were probably dope but no one ever heard this. (Laughing) Well, I can’t say no one heard it. Maybe a couple of people. In fact, KT, 14 KT recorded most of that project if not all. And I had beats on there from Houseshoes, Marv Won, Ta’Raach...I had these ill producers that believed in me.

Arasia: Whoa…that’s a dope lineup.

Boog Brown: I know right. It was pretty dope. I had Majestik Legend too. He gave me a beat on there too.

Arasia: So what happened with that?

Boog Brown: Well, if only I had the skills to hold up to the beats. (Laughing). You know what I mean? The beats were good. The skill, not so much. I was, still really fresh…wet behind the ears so when I moved to Atlanta, I wasn’t thinking about rapping. I enjoyed freestyling but I was really trying to find a job. So one day I was like maybe I should take this shit seriously. And fast forward to me meetingIllastrate. I heard his joints on MySpace and I was like damn, I want to work with you so when I started to work with him, I would get in the studio and I was still scared to record and not confident behind the microphone…still not confident with having somebody in the room when I recorded. He would always be like nah that’s cool but you can do better. So he would delete it [and say] do that over. Helping me to get my chops up. That’s basically how it started. Very humble beginnings.

Arasia: So with the EP, they just sent you the beats and you rhymed over them compared to Illastrate, who actually coached you?

Boog Brown: Yeah, that’s exactly what it was. With the first one, it was like training. It was like conditioning myself to get there. And then when I got with Illastrate, it was more focused training. This is the pre-race. Now I’m in the race

Arasia: So with you having such an impressive lineup with your first EP,  have you thought about revisiting that old project now that your chops are up?

Boog Brown: Yeah definitely. It’s just getting those files back. (Laughing). KT actually did a joint, which is now “Growth.” I wrote that verse to a KT beat and then I put them over a Illastrate beat and then they ended up being on an Apollo beat and then back over a KT beat for the remix album. I want to say that is how it went down. Crazy… [but] I’ve taken some of those verses from that Extended Play project and used them on different projects.

Arasia: Really? So we just didn’t know?

Boog Brown: Oh yeah. (Laughing). Yeah, I knew.

Arasia: So how did you connect with Mello Music Group?

Boog Brown: Mike from MMG reached out to me about just liking the music I was doing with Illastrate. From there, he said he wanted to do a project with me and Apollo Brown. So I met Apollo on Twitter and it just kind of went from there.

Arasia: Oh wow, so you met Apollo on Twitter?

Boog Brown: Yeah.

Arasia: So that’s how the whole idea of the Brown Study came to be.

Boog Brown: Yeah, I want to say so because initially, I thought it was going to be me, Kev Brown, and Apollo. That’s what was talked about and what was said. So I thought it would be dope. It was initially like UPS like, “What can brown do for you?”  kind of thing. The lawsuits that could have been inferred from that. (Laughing). But that is how the whole song “UPS” came to be. I was like, what could UPS stand for…it could stand for so many things so I was like, let me put it in a rhyme.

Arasia: Let’s talk about the lyrics on Brown Study. We’ve spoken about this before but it is extremely personal lyrically. Was this your most personal project and if so, was it difficult for you to speak about those moments on wax?

Boog Brown: Well, it definitely speaks to who I was at the time I was writing and working on that album. That was late 2009 early 2010. It was very, very personal at the time. I was still trying to find myself as an emcee. Still trying to find myself as a person down here in Atlanta. Kind of establishing my place as an artist. There were still a lot of personal demons I had to deal with so it wasn’t difficult for me to write this. It was just more of my own personal diary or journal so I could just get a lot of personal shit off my chest. And that’s what music is or even just writing period since writing was a way for me to express myself without having to feel the recourse of my words. So it wasn’t difficult. For me, it seemed kind of redundant. So I was glad I was able to do it and get it off. A lot of the songs have very similar themes and that was the one thing that was a little, I don’t know for me.

Arasia: And that leads me to my next question. Unfortunately, we live in an era now where any little thing you say…almost like the Hip Hop court of law where anything you say or do will be used against you. So how do know where to draw that line?

Boog Brown: I don’t really concern myself with that. I can’t focus on the parameters that other people put on me. Or put on the work that I do. You know if someone wants to flip it and use it against me then okay. That’s what it is but I’m a human being and before I’m a machine or whatever to whomever [that] wants to put me in a box, I have to be true to myself and truly feel what I’m going to say. So I can’t really concern myself with somebody wanting to flip something and use it against me. I don’t really think about it like that.

Arasia: Is that what you were referencing when you said in “Play The Game,” “Save your scrutiny, I’m a human being.” Actually that’s an interesting song to me so can you talk about that a little more in depth?

Boog Brown: Sure. I dated a few artists because you know when you are in an industry like [this] and you are around people that you work with or want to work with, all this brilliance, it’s natural for a person to be attracted to different people. So in Detroit and Atlanta, I had relationships with some of the people I worked with so people would…I would hear the, “Oh, she’s just messing with so and so for beats or he is just messing with her because she raps or it was that level of is that a using relationship?” Are they using each other kind of thing. And it’s like, that’s fine for you to naturally come to that conclusion [but] you will see our relationship was more than that. We learned from each other, we built each other up, and that was beneficial for both of us. And when we were done, we were done. It wasn’t like I was using you for this that and the third. So when you are a woman and make music and someone says, “Let’s work, let’s get together and let’s do this,”  it’s masked in lets work but it’s really let me get you to the studio and get you high and [get] some drinks so maybe I can make a move kind of thing. So a lot of guys are like well she messed with so and so, so maybe she will mess with me instead of on some real genuine I really appreciate what you do, let’s work. So that’s what I was referencing. The fact that people will make up whatever they want in their mind to justify why they think something is happening.

Arasia: That is what I thought you were speaking about. Often times, when a woman comes into this game no matter if she is a journalist, a rapper, a producer, whatever, there is so much invested in what she does in her outside life away from her art and craft. We look at it with men too but with women, it’s on a greater scale. But they forget that when you are an artist coming up, creative people attract each other so we all are hanging amongst one another and shit happens.

Boog Brown: Yeah!

Arasia: You can be in the studio for 12-13 hours at a time and something can come out of that. I dated a guy in this industry also so I understand. There is a certain lifestyle that comes with this game and people don’t understand that. Your phone ringing at two in the morning or you having to be away for a while, some people don’t get that so you often times look for someone that understands and can adapt to that life.

Boog Brown: Exactly. You are totally not even looking at it in that way but it kind of sometimes develops like that and it’s not fair for people to put it in a box and just scrutinize it.

Arasia: People put things in boxes to help them understand it better. That box gives it a limit so the mind doesn’t have to expand outside of what is in that box.

Boog Brown: Yeah, oh yeah, it’s like, let me break this down [and] make it easier to swallow and easier to rip apart instead of giving it what it deserves.

Arasia: Yeah girl, we will have to talk more about that later! (Laughing).

Boog Brown: (Laughing) Oh yeah cause a lot of people thought I was referencing Apollo in that song but I met Apollo on Twitter and have met him in person like maybe twice. It’s crazy. It didn’t even have anything to do with Apollo; he just made the beat. The beat was made before I even thought about getting on it.

Arasia: Speaking of beats, their was a lot of emphasis put on the production, which was some of Apollo’s greatest work in my opinion. And I hear a lot of people focus on the production more so than the lyrics. Do you feel that the lyrics and the stories got lost within the production?

Boog Brown: No, not really. I felt like and this may be disputed but I felt like I was able to match the lyrics with the beats pretty well so I don’t feel like the lyrics were lost. I think a lot of people, when they hear a female emcee, they just listen to the beat. They don’t give it the opportunity to listen to the lyrics because they are thinking it’s going to be another female talking some ole female shit. So I feel like a lot of people dismiss it but once they get beyond that listening for the beat and listening to the lyrics, I think they understand the lyrics. They get it and I think they get what I was trying to do with it. What we were trying to do with it. I think it was a very well put together album and I think I held my own along with Apollo’s production.

Arasia: You definitely did that! So what made you decide to do a remix album?

Boog Brown: Cause everyone put so much emphasis on the production so it was like maybe we should change the production up a little bit so you could catch the lyrics a little bit more. It was  [revisiting] a project I thought was dope that maybe needed a little more light to get a little more exposure. It was to help to promote the original, the remix, and me as an artist. I don’t want to just be a local artist. I want to tour, so if this is going to help put the project out in a different light and to also make people curious about the original, this is what we need to do so we all win on this accord.

Arasia: And that’s usually how it is too. Some fans may hear the remix album first and be inclined to go back and check for the original. Now, I want you to name a song from your mixtape Grind Season and Brown Study that both truly summed up where you were and speak on how you’ve changed since their recording.

Boog Brown: For Brown Study, I’ll say “Friends Like These.”

Arasia: I love that song by the way.

Boog Brown: Thank you…that’s me being angry. Angry, angry, angry!

Arasia: And it’s real as fuck.

Boog Brown: And you feel me too?!

Arasia: YES!

Boog Brown: I was just talking to a good friend of mine and you know, people can’t do anything to you that you don’t allow them to do to you so anything I allow somebody to do to me and get me all worked up and riled up, that’s my bad. That’s on me. So instead of lashing out at these people, I should be lashing out at what I’ve allowed someone to do to me. Or what I allowed someone to take from me. So, just growing up and seeing. A person can only change on their own and you can’t be mad at a person for being who they are. If you accept it, you are responsible for removing yourself. My boyfriend told me the other day, I was going through some stuff, and he was like maybe you need to let it go [because] you go through this all the time. So it’s been a lesson I‘ve been learning the last couple of days because shit, I was totally involved and angry, still angry. I’m not saying I learned it and I’m miraculously different but  it’s definitely something worth learning and recognizing. I hope to not foresee ever having to write a song like that again.

Arasia: That’s the beautiful part of life. We were given a choice. And it’s a hard thing to learn because naturally, we are much more inclined to forgive than we think we are but it’s kind of like, if you go to Burger King and get mad that they don’t have a Big Mac, well then guess what…

(Both laughing)

Arasia: Why the hell are you going to Burger King looking for a Big Mac? So if you know someone is an asshole, you have to look at yourself and say am I going to keep dealing with this? Wasn’t it Albert Einstein who said, “If you keep doing the same thing and expecting different results, it’s a sign of insanity.”

Boog Brown: Yup, that’s exactly who said that!  So you are like nope, I’m not doing this any more. I was just feeling like a lot of my friends were on some, “You aren’t around…where you at? You think this music shit is going to work for you?” I haven’t spoken to you in a minute.” A lot of people were on that. A lot of them were like, “I don’t want you to get caught up in this and lose sight of reality. I don’t want you to set yourself up for failure and be hurt.”

Arasia: Wowzers.

Boog Brown: Some were even like,” You are straight but do you really think you are about to be Lil Kimor be on MTV or BET?” And I’m like maybe those aren’t my goals [and] maybe I just want to make dope music and tour and eat. And be able to do the things I want to do and have a healthy and happy life off the music I make. I know it can be done. I look at J-Live and he has all this stuff happening for him but he is in and out of town, every couple of months, and handling his business and taking care of his responsibilities and still making music and enjoying the fruits of his labor and I’m proud. I don’t want much more than that.     Interview by Arasia Magnetic   Posted by Ghost Dogg

What is the meaning of your name?

Well, it’s a name that was given to me. In college my best friend Kamilah Holder started to call me L-Boogie and soon it was just shortened to Boog. I added the Brown after another friend D “Wood” Barnes said Boog Brown would be a dope stage name. I agreed and so, here I am.

Where were you born and raised?

I was born at Hutzel Hospital in Detroit Michigan. I was raised in Highland Park, Detroit and Oak Park MI so I was able to see the good the bad and the ugly parts of the area. When I was very young, Highland Park and Detroit had some of the most beautiful houses and structures I’d ever seen. The neighbors still cared a little and would tell your mother if you were actin an ass. It was beautiful to me, still is in some areas and sometimes I can still feel that loving spirit.

When and how did you become involved in Hip hop culture?

I became involved with Hip Hop seriously after purchasing ATLiens (outKast), Only Built for Cuban Links (Raekwon), and It Was Written (Nas) from then on I was a fan. I see hip hop as poetry. A way and voice when there is only darkness. Its a bright light.

What brought you to Atlanta?

Honestly?? The lack of money and jobs in Detroit brought me to ATL. I needed something new to feel, look at and do. Something fresh, a rebirth of sorts. ATL was the perfect canvas to paint this new chapter in my life.

What are your goals and what affect do you hope to have with your role as an Emcee?

Well, as an Emcee I want to create dope music. Timeless music. Be honest enough and open enough to touch and change peoples lives and minds. I really just want to stimulate growth on all levels.

We conducted your photo shoot and pre-interview in your lovely and very urban home, can you tell us why this is the best place to make a portrait of BoogBrown?

Its the place I feel the most comfortable. With all of the extra things I’m doing these days, being at home is a blessing. Its my sanctuary. There are no restrictions or barriers.

You expressed a strong feeling of freedom and chose intimate and raw shots for yourself, can you speak on this freedom?

I think once you decide to become a performer, an element of your freedom is automatically forfeited if you allow it to be. I am not willing to submit to that concept. I am a walking contradiction, a multi deminsional being who changes and grows everyday.Once we remove that type of freedom from our thought process and everyday life we suffer on so many levels. This is why its so important to remain honest, and free.

I couldn’t help but notice a list of Ancient Egyptian Scriptures hung on your wall, explain how these are helpful words of guidance….

The 42 Laws of Maat hold the wisdom of living a powerful and fufilled life. I am striving to stay on the path, I have them on my wall as a constant reminder to check myself. No one else should have to.

Can you share with us some of your spirituality and where you are on your path?

I believe that God resides in all things good, bad and ugly. I am on the path to be the best person I can be and be of good service. Live in the light of love and grow, nurturing those around me.

You are currently working on a mixtape, can you tell us about your inspirations, who you are working with and when we might expect this work of art to be available?

Im working with a lot of mega talented artists and producers but I’ll let it be a suprise! Should be available soon, very soon…

Feel free to share with us any additional thoughts, feelings and philosophies, bestow upon us some of your wisdom….

I am still growing so the wisdom I present is to keep yourself open to change and if you dont already know the power of love, learn about it!! Peace

 Apollo Brown & Boog Brown U.P.S video