Ugly Duckling

Ugly Duckling heeft een album uit. En dan zijn ze ook nog in Nederland. Dus HIJS heeft een interview en nu willen we toch wel meer weten over de ketting van Young Einstein en waarom noemen ze zich nou Ugly Duckling??

How did you meet?
Andy: Uhm. About, I would say seven, eight years ago we all met each other. We‘re all from Long Beach California. And we were all working in a fast food restaurant called "Meat Shake". We all loved hiphop music. Around that time g-funk music like snoop doggy dog got really big. So we wanted to do something different. So we joined up together.

When did you get the idea to start Ugly Duckling?
Andy: We were the only three guys that we knew who really wanted to the style of hiphop we wanted to do, so we involved into a group.

Who inspired you to start hiphopping?
Young Einstein: For myself. The biggest inspiration would be like DeLaSoul. The groups that would sample like a lot more jazz and stuff. Andy: Around that time same time as all that gangster music was breaking. A lot of good groups like Diamond D, Beatnuts, A Tribe Called Quest and Gangstarr coming out record. We used to listen to al that stuff, so.

Why did you call yourselves ugly duckling?
Andy: It goes back to being different than all the gangster groups in Long Beach. Just making a statement about: we didn’t fit in, we didn‘t belong to that and didn’t want to be part of that.

When you started gangstafunk was flooding the scene, and you came with another style.How hard was it to get your respect in the scene?
Andy: It was hard. When we started out we werent very good. So, it took us a long time to learn how to make songs and to get tied as a group. And like 1996-1997 we really started getting decent with our music. And we put out a record called Fresh Mode, a single. We started to get some notice at that time. It took a while for us to get our thing together.

Didn’t you ever think to get out of California because there was a lot of gangsta funk in that place. And maybe you should try it in another place in America?
Andy: Well, I mean gangster music is popular everywhere in America. And there is a good hiphopscene in California as well. It‘s just, there are different scenes. We we’re really exited to get over to Europe. To play over here that was one of our goals in the start. Cause we thought the people would be receptive to what we do.

Can you make a living with hiphop?
Andy: We make a modest living. But, we had work pretty hard to do it. We really had to tour a lot, really had to scrap and scrape to get by. But you can make an okay living if you working really hard. But that kinda goes for everything.

What are/were you expecting in the Netherlands?
Andy: We don‘t expect anybody in the Netherlands to like us. We’re always interested in the culture. And we figure we need to visit more and more to make people like us.

And what is your first impression so far?
Andy: The thing is that the people who are in the hiphopscene are very passionate and very good. But it‘s a small scene still, it’s growing. You get a lot of people who don‘t know very much about hiphop music and that sort of crowd. But it’s kind of fun and it‘s interesting and the people are very nice They’re openminded too, which is good.

Is it true you started with $3.50?
Andy: Well, when we got together we were living with our parents and scraping by and that sort of thing. So eventually we all got jobs and start working and saving our money to go to the studio. Puttin out our first record. Everything we did was selfsupportitive and funded by us for a good, I would say, five six years before we ever start dealing with a record label. We quiete started with less than that.

Is there an artist who you would like to work with?
Andy: We‘re still working on our own style and trying to get better and better as a group. We don’t think to much about working with other people. We‘d rather try to improve as a group and develop on.

Is there something coming up, in the near future?
Andy: Yeah, we’re gonna start working on our next record, hopefully in a couple of weeks. Maybe by late summer time or fall next year we could have a record out.

If you look at todays hiphop scene, who do you like most?
Andy: Who would you say?
Young Einstein: Right now? People Under The Stairs, Jurassic 5 I like a lot.

You did a lot of performances with Jurrasic 5. How did you like working with them?
Young Einstein: Kenny did a remix for us for Eye on the Goldchain. I don‘t mind doing shows with them. But we don’t really wanna have any collaborations right now.

Dizzy lag het hele interview te slapen, dus die heb ik later na het optreden aangesproken, helaas had ik toen geen recordertje bij de hand dus heb ik zijn woorden gewoon samengevat. Ik vroeg hem wat ie van het optreden en het publiek vond? Hij vond het optreden geslaagd, maar het publiek begon pas halverwege de show in te komen wat ie jammer vond. Hoe zat het nou met die gouden ketting van Young Einstein? Young Einstein bezit een echt volledig gouden ketting, maar gezien de veiligheid nemen we tijdens de tour een 14-karaat ketting mee. Hij bezit trouwens meerdere van die gouden kettingen. Op jullie site staat benadrukt dat jullie zo cool zijn. Waarom zijn jullie zo cool? Dat is een grote grap. Iedereen ligt altijd te praten dat ze zo cool zijn. Maar wij zijn helemaal niet cool, we zijn gewone mensen net ieder ander dat proberen we daarmee duidelijk te maken. Ik heb gehoord dat jullie nog ergens een bijdrage aan zouden leveren op een ceedee klopt dit? Jah, we zijn met een aantal mensen waaronder People under the Stairs bezig aan een verzamelaar. We komen gewoon bepaalde dagen bij elkaar en slaan dan aan het opnemen en hopen dan dater iets leuks uitkomt. Als het goed is zal ie begin volgend jaar uitkomen.

Geplaatst door bowie op 31 december 2001