Shawn Setaro
[Rapper and producer Quelle Chris recently sat down with hip-hop personality and SOHH correspondent Shawn Setaro on his popular “The Cipher” podcast. Listen to the full interview and check out five gems Quelle dropped during the Q&A.]
On the importance of having a distinctive rap voice:
“The voice is something, man. There’s only one person that can play the Guru, or there’s only one person that can play the Busta, only one person that can play the ODB. Someone else can come in and they might sound like this person or that person. But in hip-hop, that original voice is very, very important.”
On the importance of simplicity:
“I talk about the magic in the minimal. There’s a lot of times where I’ll do a song, and if you were to count all the words in a verse, it might only be five words. But I make those five words really work for sixteen bars.”
On not listening to his own music:
“It’s weird to say this, but I don’t really listen to even a lot of projects I’m involved in. The process of making it is me enjoying it. Once I’ve made it, I just let it be out there for people to enjoy. A lot of times, I don’t even go back and listen.”
On his creative process:
“A lot of my favorite songs, if I could give a visual of how I come about them, it’s like, let’s say I’m sitting in a small room with a bunny rabbit, and the bunny rabbit’s rolling around and doing cute stuff. Then when it does that real cute thing and I giggle, then I’m like, okay that’s it. That’s what I’m always looking for, that moment that makes me kind of chuckle.”
On maturing as an artist:
“I went through my phases where I was like, that’s wack if you’re doing this or that. But then you grow. You could either grow into a stubborn old man, or you could grow into the weird old guy with six arms and his brain is super-big and stuff. That’s what I want to grow into.”
