Del The Funky Homosapien

It’s been nearly two decades in the game for Del The Funky Homosapien and a lot has changed. Early on, his relationship with Ice Cube (cousin) helped open doors and even ignited a “bidding war” for his services before he’d even done a thing. Yet after time and experience, Del’s doing just fine on his own and changing his style up to diversify his music and abilities in this ever-changing music industry.

Recently, Del’s studied music theory and is expanding his musical palette to hopefully include movie soundtrack pieces and other such ventures. But more than anything, it’s his latest, Funk Man, which he’s giving away for free that’s generating a buzz. It’s the latest in a slew of releases since last year from the Oakland native that displays a burst of creativity other artists would kill for. Del recently sat down to tell us about the new album, where this energy comes from and how he learned to hold his tongue.

SSv: After a period of silence, what’s been the energy for so many new releases and projects over the last 18 months or so?

Del The Funky Homosapien: Well, the energy behind it has always been there. I’ve always been like that. I’ve always done a lot of music, and the only time I didn’t get to do that is when I was making 11th Hour. That was partially due to the fact that I was studying music theory and the other part was due to negative people in my life. They were basically holding me back from doing what I had to do, not completely but enough to where I couldn’t get anything done on time. So working against a force like that… once you’re free, it’s like lifting weights or something. Once you’re doing that, you can lift little weights and it’s nothing. That’s how it is now. I have a lot more energy now. I also know music theory now so it’s easier to do stuff.

SSv: Besides music theory training, does it just come easier to you now?

Del: Oh, yeah. I actually know what I’m doing now. All the worry about ‘will people think it’s good?’ I don’t even think that anymore. I’m not even concerned about that. I know what people consider music for the most part. Now the difficulty lies in me learning how to be more accepting as far as leaving things the way they sometimes. As an artist, I always want to pile stuff on. I always want to put more on it, but you don’t have to do that. You can sometimes just leave it the way that it is.

SSv: How do you know when to let go? Does the song tell you?

Del: Yeah the song tells you pretty much what’s required for the song to be done. Then you can pretty much say that you’re done. But it’s all different. You have to use your ear, too. Sometimes things just sound better when it’s not as crowded. Typically, if you have a lot of rhythms going at once, you might want to pull some stuff out. It’s too much to concentrate one. Then again, that’s not always true. They can be working together and interweaving between each other or can you cut some here and put it back in later and just arrange it. It’s different for every song.

SSv: Was there one song on the new album that was the hardest to let it go and let it be where it is?

Del: No, because only the things I wanted to go on the album went on there. No more and no less. Along the way there were other songs that I thought were cool at first, but after I was making more beats, I realized they had to go. They weren’t representative of where I’m at, you know?

SSv: To go back a second, what does that negative energy or people do to the artistic side of you during that time away?

Del: Well, for me, I just keep it funky. So it keeps me funky, I guess. If you have nothing to deal with in your life, some people would say you don’t have a story to tell. I definitely have more than enough stories to tell with the people I’ve dealt with. I could write forever. [Laughs]

That’s just the way I look at it. Some people might tell you that you haven’t dealt with anything if you’re from the suburbs, but everyone deals with something in their own way. Everyone has their own struggles, so who am I to say yours is lesser than mine or whatever. Of course, I don’t know if everyone will find it interesting to listen to or not, so now I strain it a bit more – running it through the strainer. I don’t put just anything out anymore. I take a little bit more input from people. I try to see what people want to listen to along with what I want to put out.

SSv: When it comes to that internal strainer, what exactly does that entail? How do you self-edit?

Del: Well, I don’t really edit myself. I just decide what I’m gonna put out and what I’m not. I might be hella upset one day and I’m writing. I might be talkin’ all kinds of stuff. Then I might decide that’s not how I want to portray myself to the public. I used to just put whatever out there and not care. Then I’d just have to deal with it later on when people were asking me questions about it. I’d have to say, ‘No, I don’t really feel that way. I was just trippin’ at the time.’ It caused me trouble a lot, so I realized I had to step back and look at how I want to portray myself.

I also have to think what people want to hear. I might write a song about scratching my feet or something, but nobody wants to hear that, you know? [Laughs] That’s not interesting enough for a lot of people, so I just try to keep it relevant within people’s lives not just my life.

SSv: When it comes to giving the new album away, are you seeing the fruits of what you thought?

Del: I didn’t really have any expectations. To tell you the truth, I try to keep them low. You can’t expect too much. What I get I get, and what I don’t, I try not to trip off of it. But I just wanted to see. I just wanted to see what it would do if I did that. I thought that could be a good thing to say to people, ‘Hey, we’re not all out here just trying to get your money. There are still real artists out there doing it whether you’ll buy it or not.’ I just wanted to prove that to people.

I also wanted to give people a chance with no constraints or biases to check out my album. I really wanted them to let it sink in and see what they think about it, because I think it’s good. I put a lot of work into it that I think is top quality. I want you to listen to it without having to pay for it. I just want to give it you instead of having to buy it or download it or anything. So you’re already feeling good at that point about it. Hopefully, you go home and listen to it with an open ear.

You have to do stuff like this. It is a crucial time. It’s almost over, know what I’m saying? So I want to put my bid in now to let people know I’m not playing. A lot of people are really fine with being mediocre. They think that’s tight.

SSv: When you say you wanted to see, what are you seeing?

Del: The fans love it. They do. A lot of them don’t understand that it’s really free, no matter how many times I say it on stage or talk about it. People don’t get it. They come to the merch section and ask, ‘Is it really free?’ It’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s what I’ve been sayin’ about 15 times on stage.’ They don’t get it. It seems unreal. It’s like what’s the catch. I’m not trying to do anything though. In fact, I’m paying for all of this myself. I’m paying for the video, the ads, all the pressing and whatever.

SSv: You’ve been at this for a long time, and so I’m wondering what’s exciting to you now within hip-hop culture?

Del: To tell you the truth, I don’t get excited too often. There’s a few groups I’m hearing that are pretty tight, but for the most part, it’s damn near over. A lot of people just got greedy from the record execs to the audience… as soon as people saw you could make millions off of it, then the whole game changed. Even for me, I had to start considering stuff I never was considering just to stay in the game until I learned music theory. Once I learned that, I didn’t have to worry about, because now I wasn’t constrained to rap music. If it plays out tomorrow, who cares. Of course, that’s my art so I love it. But I don’t have to be dependent on that. I can do other things if I want to do.

SSv: You say there are few artists remaining, so what comprises an artist in your view?

Del: An artist is somebody who does it for the art of it. They elevated that to the form. Say it’s drawing pictures… they’re not just doodling, then, if they’re a real artist. They’re elevating the status of that to art. Anybody can just pick up a pencil and doodle something, but artists raise that up. Martial arts is raising fighting and defense to an art form. So it’s better than mediocre. But some people realize that they can just do a certain amount, make their money and get away with just doing that. And they’re okay with that. They just say, ‘Kiss my ass. I got a mansion. I could care less.’ But I knew that it was going to fall apart. People ain’t stupid. They thought people were stupid for so long and I knew that was going to happen.

SSv: So how are people responding to your efforts to go deeper?

Del: I think people knew all along what I was really about, but I just wanted to remind them. People haven’t really heard me in a while, so they don’t know how far I’ve come. People don’t know what I can do musically. Even these albums just show a taste. A lot of the music I make doesn’t even come out because I can’t rap over it. It’s not a rap beat, but it’s more a composition. I feel funny trying to rap over it. I haven’t anybody really open to sing over it. And instrumentals don’t really sell. So I’m trying to pitch commercials and movies and stuff like that for my music now. That’s what I’m trying to do now.

Related posts:

1. Del The Funky HomoSapien-Get It Right Now

Tagged as: Hip-hop, Oakland, Rap

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