Ahmi, Me and Chopstix - Release Interview

So for anyone planning a hang-out session this week, do I have the fucking gift-of-all-time for you today :)

The one and only Nenjah Nycist, lead vocalist for the shaolin hip-hop group Rising Sun All-Stars, has teamed up with the reclusive trip-hop warrior Ahmi and brought us a fierce exploration of a record; it's called Ahmi, Me and Chopstix and as a collaborative work this EP brings quite a satchel of diversity along with it's switched up beats and solid lyricism; you can download the record below the interview for free (or be really cool and throw them some bread for it...) To be honest we were sort of blown away as this record seemed to have come out of nowhere, so we went off into the wild to find Ahmi and have him explain some of the background as to how this record came about:

Sup Ahmi! So how long have you guys been making music together?

Hey what's up, I met Nenjah around last February during an intermission at one of the Rising Sun performances at Rhythm and Brews. My cousin Rah Zah Ade (dope lyrical emcee) and I had been drinking so we came up with the idea to meet the band, some more drinks, some conversations on music, calling my cousin on stage to spit and a beat-listening session later we decided we'd try to work together.

So, what's up with Chopstix? Is it a pseudonym or a tag, or what?

The name and theme of the EP came about while Nenjah and I were actually hanging out and eating sushi one night. We had some tracks laying around that we recorded over some of my older and very new beats and started thinking well we might have something here. Some re-recording and editing later Chopstix was born.

You ever spin a set together?

Nenjah and I have yet to spin a set but that's definitely in the plans. Still have other stuff no one's heard yet.

A lot of these tracks seem to be pulling influences from vastly different directions; which artists did you guys find yourselves listening to the most when you were making this record?

I can't speak for Nenjah but I remember were both diggin the new Big Kritt that had just dropped over the summer during, and I was listening to a lot of xxyyxx, Joey Badass, Giraffage, and Kendrick Lamar.

If you had to pick a track that "sounded like stuff you guys used to make" the most and a track that sounds completely new for you guys, which would those two be?

A track that sounds like our older stuff would definitely be No Country...I was way more of a traditional hip hop beat maker back then when I made that beat and the theme of the song is familiar...REVOLUTION!!! From all the absurd norms of current society, greed, robotic group-think, and the other abuses we're gifted with from society. A song that I'd say was very new for both of us was Mona Lisa...I actually hadn't been making trip-hop beats before the summer, but once I started it felt right and luckily I had recently ran into a rapper that was down to rap over stuff like that.

Alright, time for the dirt, what's an annoying habit one of you guys would have during recording?

It's funny he's called Nenjah but I know I would disappear a lot during the making of this...it's a classic bad habit of an introvert and I know I can be a huge bit of a recluse at times, but shout to him for putting up with it.

So say it's a lazy afternoon and you guys are gonna go chill; Northshore? or South?

Definitely Northshore...that goes without saying, we just need to decide on what spot.

So, real talk...
Say the earth would enter some sort of nuclear apocalypse, and between the symbolic Chopstix, Nenjah and yourself one of you would be absolutely in the wrong place at the wrong time and get obliterated, one of you would mutate into a ferocious pile of slime and radiation, and one of you would escape on the last shuttle with the remnants of humanity... So, whose which?

I have shit for luck so I can definitely see myself being in the absolute wrong place at all the wrong times. I'm assuming Nenjah would then try to escape the city in Gaiden fashion but the irradiated fog I imagine would be a bit much for anyone so he'd probably go out the mutated way, and I'd pray to the Universe that Chopstix made it; I think other worldly and dimensionally beings have been waiting on such a thing for a while...they told me that one time over a 5th of Haitian Barbancourt rum...I think...