MR. RAP SUPREME posted by O.W.

This might be of interest to folks: I recently interviewed Jeff "Chairman" Mao of ego trip fame on the eve of the new Miss Rap Supreme show on VH1 (just two weeks in and already with more beef than a Costco butchery).

Surprisingly, despite his high profile as a journalist/writer and DJ/collector, I found relatively few other interviews out there on the interweb and so my conversation with Jeff covered a broad range of topics in terms of his own personal history as well as professional insights on everything from hip-hop to music criticism to what makes compelling reality television. It's a long interview but I think it makes for a good read (biased as I am).

If you're ever in New York, be sure to roll through APT on Saturday night to see Mao and his friends spin.

As a Soul Sides bonus, here's one of the songs that Mao mentions in the interview, "Tribute to Obabi" from the Last Poets...a tune he heard being spun at the Soul Kitchen party in NY back in the 1990s that made him realize that people will actually dance to music like this.

The Last Poets: Tribute to Obabi
From Chastisment (Douglas, 1972)