Interview with Alex Wiley “I actually dropped out of High School”

I feel like I could do an endless podcast with Alex Wiley, he has a pretty unique perspective on everything. In between recent studio sessions, he called into my show to chop it up and Premiere a brand new track ‘Japanese Car Mix’.

What’s Poppin?

Nothing much just on a Skateboard in a studio trying not to fall, everyday Rap stuff.

Are the Swegway’s popping over there?

Yeah, the Swegway is popping off of here, the motorized hoverboard type thing. I actually fell into a swimming pool on one in LA, and that was kind of a bad situation, but it was cool though it still felt like a bossy thing to do.

I’ve been blazing the ‘Feast’ joint for a minute, love it. For those that dont know, what was the concept behind it?

‘Feast’ is basically about coming into your own, it’s kinda like a battle cry for everyone who feels like their not eating, I’m just saying were finna’ feast, like ‘Don’t worry, were gonna feast’. Other than that its open to interpretation, its like a piece, you know you should listen to it and take from it what you want, that’s like the general consensus.

How did you get into Rhyming?

Man, I actually dropped out of High School, then my friend Kembe X started making music and I started going into the studio with him,we we’re making joke songs for Facebook for fun, then people started really enjoying them. It kinda just all spiralled from there, it was very natural grass roots thing. The amount of people listening to my music just started to grow progressively via the internet.

Any particular site that was popping of you?

It was Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook. It was everywhere, more like the City of Chicago, online through the Colleges.

Whats your favourite Hip-Hop site?

I’ve been a big fan of Illroots for a long time, I used to go on there even before I made music.

They’re for the kids right?

Yeah, Illroots is for the kids [laughs].

There’s a lot of great artists coming out of Chicago right now; obviously Mr West, Vic Mensa, Chance the Rapper, and yourself, it’s like the new New York right now. 

Yeah man, our scene is really really, really on the come up right now, I honestly cant even explain it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense why there’s so many people coming up from here, but there’s so much good music coming from Chicago right now, its actually very cool and humbling to be one of the notable people coming out of the city in this wave.
Even to where I’m at right now, I’m in the studio with a group called Hurt Everybody which you may be familiar with, they’re doing amazing things around the city, they’re getting the kids very very excited, genuine enthusiasm. We’re just in here chillin’, playing 2K while the beat is playing in the background, and I’m finna’ write to it, its just very organic.
This is how it’s supposed to be, its being run by the actual artists.

Whats the story with the new joint, ‘Japanese Car Mix’?

I’m really excited about this song, I’ve been sitting on it for a couple of weeks now, just waiting to drop it the right way, thank you for premiering it.
My Friend G.Money from California produced it, and then I had additional production from Carter Lang, he played some guitar and some synths and some stuff at the end. It was kinda like a group effort between the three of us.

Check out the full interview on 1xtra.

Catch Alex Wiley performing select UK shows in November.