With a reputation for delivering some of the most memorable hooks and killer verses on Strange Music albums, Kansas City’s Irv Da Phenom has become a heavy fan favorite over the years. From Tech N9ne to Krizz Kaliko, Irv has worked with nearly everyone on Strange Music and has gone on to appear on several national tours.

As frequent collaborators, Irv Da Phenom and Big Scoob have managed to produce an impressive streak of hit records. For No Filter, Irv Da Phenom once again partnered up with Big Scoob to record the introspective and sincere “If You Only Knew”. Just before the release of No Filter, we caught up with Irv Da Phenom and asked him to share some insight on the project and on Big Scoob’s whereabouts. Just like Scoob’s latest project, Irv spoke from the heart and left no room for filters.

How did “If You Only Knew” come about?

First of all that’s the big homie. Every time we do music we come out with something real. I like what we do because it just comes out like – you can feel it. So, he just came to me and was like, “Hey man, let’s do another record.” It’s not really like we go in and try to make a certain thing, just do you first. I just wrote the hook and the verses all came together real dope. I really don’t know how it happened, I’m trying to figure it out right now. I mean, me and Scoob get in the studio, we just do what we do and it comes out dope.

Why do you think the two of you have such great chemistry on records?

When you do music and with this music, there’s a certain fakeness and a certain like Hollywood type of energy that exists within the music industry. Underground, mainstream, whatever. To me personally, I’m not the type of person that likes to feed into that and I don’t like people who do. Scoob is really like that, that’s why I think he called it No Filter. He doesn’t play any little games for the cameras. What you see on camera is what you get off camera. He really speaks how he feels on a lot of stuff. I think that’s common ground for both of us. Whenever we make music, it’s real music that speaks from the heart. The first song that we worked on was for one of my projects in ’09, the song was called “How I Feel”. Basically every time me and Scoob get together on something, we just talk about how we feel.

It sounds like there were a lot of personal experiences that went into the song, is that fair to say?

It’s just basically the struggle of coming from not having anything to trying to make something and make a way for yourself, but not only for yourself, for those around you, for your family. Doing music isn’t really a path that society looks at as a real option. You’re suppose to go to college, get a job, get married, and have kids. I just kind of popped up out of nowhere and was like, “Oh, I’m gonna go do music.” I got a lot riding on it. Not only do I have to prove to my parents that I made the right decision and everybody around me, I gotta take care of myself and be an example for my little brother and everything else. It’s more than just I’m rapping to be famous and get a lot of girls and have a chain and a car. It’s like if you only knew why we really do what we do. What goes on behind the studio and the videos and all of that.

I have to ask, where is Big Scoob?

Big Scoob is back in the cut. I can’t be giving Scoob’s location out all willy nilly. I’m sure he’s with his family kicking it or whatever. He’s with his fam.

Fans who want to check out more from Irv Da Phenom can visit www.IrvDaPhenom.com and be on the look out for his latest project, All Nighter Mixtape. You can also catch him on tour with Glasses Malone and Potluck this fall, click here for tour dates.

Click here to pre-order No Filter.

-Victor Sandoval, Assistant Editor Strange Music

Follow Victor on Twitter: @VicMSandoval