We continued from last week’s interview to talk to Tech N9ne about his verses for Krizz Kaliko’s Kickin’ & Screamin’.

Perhaps the most overlooked verse could be his contribution to “Can’t Be The Only One” . While it may not show the technical flourishes of Tech N9ne as much as “Kill Shit” or “Spaz”, it is one of his most poignant contributions to Krizz’s landmark album.

Read below and hear what Tech has to say about his relationship with music, the one thing that has never let him down…

Last verse might get overlooked because it’s not as technical or showing out but “Can’t Be The Only One” was cool because it felt more direct. What is that song mean to you?

It pissed me off because the beat is off beat and I stay on beat. I am the rhythm guy and I was fighting to stay on beat to that song so when I listened to it I was like “Ah!” But people liked it so I’m like “Okay if you like it I love it” but the way Seven had that beat going, it doesn’t sound like it’s quantized. I’m a quantized rapper but I can do anything and “Can’t Be The Only One” lets you know. (Starts rapping beginning of verse) It’s still wordplay and everything and that’s Tech N9ne. I can’t not do it.

I wanted to get on there because being on the road for so many years and people telling you they love you when they only see you once a year, it never made sense to me. I just really wanted to get that out. That’s my stance on it.

It sounded like you were talking to somebody.

Yeah I was. I was. It’s hard for me to grasp. I know I’m a nice guy. I know I’m a fun guy when I’m around but it’s hard for me to grasp that…well…now when I’m trying to start figure out my music, finally, that people know me through my music, that they know me before they meet me, it’s starting to make a little bit more sense but when they say they’ll marry you and they only see you once or twice a year it just doesn’t register. That cannot be true. When you’re gone for a whole year you’d think somebody’s living their life and when you get back they’re like “No, nobody’s touched me. I don’t want anybody else” it just never really registered to me. I’m like “Please” and if it ain’t somebody then it should have been. I know that I’m a loving guy and it might be easy to be attached to me at times but that song just gave me the platform to really say it like “Come on boo. I can’t be the only one. I can’t be the only one.”

There’s only so much you can really provide I suppose as far as personal attention, which any woman is going to want.

Yeah. I pay a lot of attention to any woman that’s dating me and any woman that loves me knows that when I love, I love hard and that’s how easy it is to be connected to somebody like me but you gotta see me more than once a year to say “Okay, that’s my boyfriend”.

There’s a Keith Richards quote where he says “I love music all the time. I love my wife most of the time.”

Yeahhh! That’s so my life. That’s so Stevie Stone’s life. We agree on that – that music is first all the time. Music has been there. Women have come and gone. Music has been there when I’m down and out and ready to die. K.O.D.… music was there to help me through it. You know what I’m saying? You’ve got some women that’ll be there trying to help you through it but you know, eventually they go away. It’s a hurtful thing when you’ve got love but music…oh my God, it never goes away. It never turns on you. It saved my life. It never turns on me. Why wouldn’t I love it like this? When I went on Twitter and said “Out of all the drugs I’ve ever done in my life, performing live is by far the best drug” and some fucking idiot got on there and say “Ughhhh you’re doing druuugs, I don’t respect you!” and I said “Fuck you, you got me fucked up.” I’ve been clean for five years. It’s music. That’s what I said. It pissed me off because I was saying something positive like something like music is my drug now, I don’t need no other substance and he still fucking whipped me on Twitter like “You’re old. You’re 72…stop.” and I said “That’s a good one. Keep it coming dog, that’s funny.” It let me know that he just wanted me to talk to him.

Everybody in Strangeland knows I create love whenever there’s hate I go straight to it. People are like “Why do you ever respond to hateful messages when we love you?” I’m like “I know. I created this love. I love this love.” That’s the positive energy. When I want positive energy, I go to Twitter! That’s where I go! When there’s all this negative shit on my phone, I go to fucking Twitter to feel better. Because when there’s somebody there, talking crazy, I hone in on it. I don’t even know how I got on that subject.

Music being your wife.

Music, yeah, yeah. And those motherfuckers on there understand what’s going on with my music. I used to go to The Siccness all the time to see where the hate was going to be. I think of The Siccness every once in awhile like “Damn I gotta go to The Siccness” and see when something comes out. I ain’t been on there in a minute but I go there to see what the haters are going to say because sometimes the music is so good that the siccness is not hating. I thought the hate was going to be big on the siccness for Klusterfuk but I was wrong.

– Interview conducted by Jeff Nelson, Strange Music Blog Editor @JeffreyPNelson

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• Is there anything you hold as dear to you as Tech N9ne does to music?
• What do you think of his perspective?

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