Interview with rapper Indigo Ali

Amanda Stevens: If you weren't doing rapping, what would you be doing?

Indigo Ali: Something with art.

A.S: And what would that something be? Are we talking the visual or the poetic?

I.A: Both, no limits.

A.S: So your flow reminds me of Lupe Fiasco meets a more classic act like Pharcyde. What do you have to say about those two artists and who do you look to for inspiration, musically?

I.A: Man, for a while in my freshman year of college Lupe was the only emcee commercially that I was seriously listening to. A lot of his music changed my life so if you hear a lil bit of him in me it's not even intentional. He's was that big of an impact on me I guess. Also the Pharcyde is dope as helll too. I recently got a chance to see them live at All Points West and they were stellar. Super creative dudes. Some other people I look up too in music are the whole Wu, Nas, Q-Tip Jay Elec, Kanye, Hov, Slug, and of course the mighty Mos Def who is one of my favorites ever.

A.S: You mention Kanye West as in inspiration so I have to go here for a second. What do you think about the two personae of Kanye West? The two personae being that of the gifted emcee and of the over opinionated media whore.

I.A: Yeezy is a genius musically, I respect his good taste. His new blog is so prentious but I can't lie; I go there all the time. He reminds me of like Andy Warhol or something. When he does these huge stunts in the media its almost like pop art, hes dope to me

A.S: Now getting more to you as an artist, I happen to know Indigo Ali isn't your real name. Where did it come from and were there ever any other names thought of before hand?

I.A: Yeah, my slave name is Jamie Mahoney l2kfc(laughing to keep from crying.) I'm totally kidding by the way, anyway, Indigo comes from my studies in meditation and ascension. Indigo is the chakra color of the minds third eye. Me being huge into esoteric teachings, the color seemed to be perfect for the energy I'm releasing. I've had so many other names, one of the bigger aliases was Hugh Flynt. LOL My rhymes literally used to be about fast life fantasies, when people asked me what that meant, I always said "I want to be a playboy hustler", hahah how embarassing looking back, still made some dope music though.

A.S: Can you tell me a little about how you craft your songs? Is it more of a freestyle akin to Jay-Z or are we a pen and paper in the lab type like Tupac.

I.A: I'm definately a writer when it comes to rap lyrics. Singing is always like this weird channeling process where I'm humming like a mad man till I get something that sounds right. In the past I would usually lock myself in my room sometimes for days(anyone that knows me can vouch for this)with no distractions and play a beat over and over with a movie on silent,a good amount of herb, a book open, and my laptop as my pad to jot ideas, flows, and lyrics down. But lately I've been just going in the studio with a pad and doing all the writing there.

A.S: Which track on your EP do you think is, lyrically your best track? And can you please elaborate on the writing process behind that track as the inspiration of it.

I.A: Lyrically the standout track to me is Click, Lars or Express the Motif(the other half of M.A.E) had a beat ready to go with no baseline. What captured me the most about the beat was the clicking noises in it. Thats when the light bulb switched on and it literally clicked that we should call the track click. With this song I was trying to capture the initial confusion that comes with receiving knowledge on a higher spiritual plain. That the concepts seem so distance yet as you grow in this knowledge of self things began to flow like the MC and you realize that it all connects, so i wrote two verses the first verse with a lower dynamic in voice, the second with a higher dynamic and a 2part harmony for a bridge that i did my rainman channeling technique on lol, then me and express layed a baseline down and it was a rap from there

A.S: I've been told you have a sick live show. You got any crazy stories about gigs and what venue do you like the most? Is there a venue you would call your base of operations?

I.A: For me playing the Nokia Theater times square with all the homies from trustatement.com was crazy. That was the day when all hell froze over in NYC last year, huge winter storm. I got my cousins from Cali with me who have barely seen snow absolutely covered in it. We walked to the venue cause I'm a cheap dumb ass who gets annoyed that people just don't walk the 8 blocks or 9 from MSG to Times Square. One of the obviously worst decision I ever made. I was gut wrenchingly nervous that we weren't gonna have a good turnout but we had so many people out there showing love it was dope. The familiar faces put me right at ease and we shut shit down. The two places I love playing the most are Sullivan Hall in the downtown NYC area just cause they always have the vocals sounding crispy in there. And this lil bar in my college town called The General Clinton Pub. Recently me, Lars, and our band M.A.E and The Machine Gun Funk have been doing some really fun gigs over there. We always get a good crowd response too.

A.S: Nothing is better than a cheesy sign of question so thats how we're going to do this. Its a two parter. What emcee would be your dream collaboration? And what emcee would you want to battle? Do you think you'd win?

I.A: I hope to someday work with this chillwave artist Toro Y Moi. To me he's got one of the freshest sounds in music. I'd love to do some buried vocals over his synthy lo-fi electronic instrumentals. As far as battling, I WOULD DUST ALL THESE NIGGAS OFF. JK. I'm not really into battling. Although, watching hilarious battles is one of my favorite pastimes.

A.S: Any parting words?

I.A: Well myself, Lars and all the good folks at trustatement.com are gonna be at BB Kings NYC this Saturday, May 8th, opening for Badfish and the only place where you should get your tickets is at trustatement.com. Also the More EP is available for free download it here . Go get No Slices by the homey Ayinde. You can find the link on trustatement.com. Really incredible mixtape that I had the pleasure of being a part of. Plus look out for the M.A.E self titled album coming out this summer!