The Gar Interview

The Gar Interview

Bless for passing thru and doing an interview. Please tell the people your names and where you from?

No problem man, we’re called the Gar (meaning The Family in Cantonese) and we’re a three man crew coming from Stoke-on-Trent which is up in the midlands.

What releases have you had out to date?

This mixtape ‘Stoke-No city For Old Boys’ is the first official release from The Gar and is pretty much a collection of all of our new vibes, along with some of our older stuff that we thought would let people in on the journey.

What’s your favourite part of making rap music?

For us its got to be a toss up between the creating of the actual lyrics and tracks or the performing. There’s a certain buzz that you get from it that you can’t get anywhere else.

What do you think you bring to the rap world?

As a collective we bringing back that authentic sounding Hip Hop that you used to hear. There’s three of us in the group and we all bring different skills to the table. We got Bobby J who’s got a crazy original flow and lyrics you’re only gonna find here. Then we have Dirty D who’s vocab and wordplay is up there with the best of them. Then Benny Blaze who’s got a forever changing style and technique when flowing, its something you do have to check out for yourself because its not like anything that your hearing at the moment.

If you was not involved in music what do you think you would be doing?

For us music is everything. I can’t really think of an answer to that. Life without music is pretty unimaginable so I honestly couldn’t say.

Let’s talk about your current project. When’s it out? Can you tell who is involved?

The current project ‘Stoke-No City For Old Boys’ is out now you can download it from datpiff.com, iTunes and Amazon. Its all written and performed by ourselves and mixed & hosted by Tricksta from UK runnings. We’ve used a mixture of beats, some original and some old school bangers that we just love to flow on. The original beats are provided mainly by Ash Wilcox who’s a good friend of ours from around these ways. Tricksta provided us with a track as well ‘The Way We Be’ and we also had a couple of tracks from Desert Rhino from Tru Fam records. Next time we’re hoping to get a few more original beats on the mixtape just to show the true extent of what we can provide.

What type of music do you listen to mostly?

Apart from that original Hip Hop vibe we mentioned earlier, we listen to just about anything as long as its got soul to it with some real meaning its good to us. We've got a lot of Reggae in the collection, soul, Jazz, things like that really.

Where would you like to see yourself 5 years from now?

Five years from now we hopefully gonna be at least a couple of albums deep. A couple of good albums too. Albums that everyone appreciates and want to just keep hearing.

What have you been most proud of in your career so far?

We’ve been lucky enough to have recently joined a project called the U-Turn. Its basically a collection of independent artists from the UK and overseas all put together by Godfrey Fletcher and legendary producer Herb Middleton. Herb’s done us our own track as well for the U-Turn album which is an honour because he’s worked with some of the greats like Biggie, Nas and Mary J to name a few.

If you could pick one producer to work with in the world who would it be and why?

Thats a hard question because there’s so many top producers. We could sit here all day and we’d just keep thinking of new ones that we would prefer. If I would have to just say one though off the top of my head it would be DJ premier. His sampling and feel to his beats is unreal and has been for well over a decade.

What’s your opinion on the current state of the charts?

Music in the charts at the moment isn’t all too great. There’s the odd tune that comes out that’s ok but what’s happened to the Lauren Hills, the 2pacs, the Big Puns, there’s nothing extraordinary anymore. We’re hopefully gonna put a stop to that.

How do you view Hip-Hop right about now?

Hip Hop at the moment seems to be at a stand still. All of the artists that are big are the same ones that were big in the 90’s, Jay-Z, Nas, Wu-Tang, Eminem, Lil Wayne. Don’t get me wrong they got skills but no one seems to be breaking through that just makes you stop and want to listen. I do like the rise in the UK though it seems to be getting more established now, we’ve still got a long way to go yet though.

Would you like to see yourself in the top ten?

If it was with a track made completely by ourselves with no compromise to our style or beliefs then of course, because that would just mean that people were genuinely feeling our vibe. It’s just when people sell themselves out to get to that position that agers us because its the complete opposite of what music is supposed to be about.

What is your opinion on the current UK music scene?

The UK has currently got some massive artists with some really good vibes. Its just a shame that most of the top talent isn’t the stuff that they broadcast on the radio and so you have to really search to find that quality UK material. When you do find it though it matches anything from anywhere else in the world.

What’s next for you as an artist?

You should be seeing us soon in the U-Turn project. There’s a single coming out with a video so look out for that. We’re also already working on a second mixtape and in the future looking towards an album. Watch this space for all that future fire!

Okay before you go please tell us how we can get your music and how people can get in touch with you.

Ok the webpage is http://www.wearethegar.co.uk/
Other addresses you can reach us on are;
www.facebook.com - We Are The Gar
www.reverbnation.com/wearethegar

You can download tracks straight from these pages.