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Q-Unique - On Vengeance

by David Knight / Published November 11‚ 2006 at 4:59am

Q-Unique - part of the Lord Finesse tour of Australia in November 2006 - chats about personal and musical issues.
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New Yorker Q-Unique said he exorcised a lot of demons with his deeply personal solo debut Vengeance Is Mine. Now the former member of The Arsonists and the Rock Steady Crew, who is coming to Australia as part of Zulu Nation SupaJam with Roc Raida and Lord Finesse, is working on a follow-up, which includes the unlikely collaborator Fieldy from Korn. Heavyweight spoke to Q-Unique about where he can take his rhymes after letting it all out on Vengeance Is Mine and what the hell those Fieldy collabs are going to sound like.

On Vengeance Is Mine Q-Unique was convinced by friend and Uncle Howie label boss Ill Bill to show the real Q-Unique – the scumbag, the pervert and the tortured soul. He did that, as tales from his past including the harrowing Father’s Day, which was about a young Q-Unique plotting to murder his father in order to free his family, touched many people through his brutal honesty. After cleansing his soul with these tales it was put to Q-Unique where he could take his rhymes.

“The new album is going to be a lot more conceptual than the first one,” explains Q-Unique. “I mean the first one had a lot more personal stuff… had a lot of concept to it but I think that this one I’m feeling like I’m going to step a bit further away from the braggadocio style that I would put in-between songs. Only because I feel like after a while, for me personally, as an artist I feel like songs with substance have a more lasting appeal to people than just talking about how incredible I am, you know?”

But the brutally honest stories from his life will still be heard. “Well there are still a lot of stories to tell to be honest with you,” he says. “I mean when I revealed what I revealed you got to understand there’s a lot more, a lot more to tell where that comes from, you know?” It was put to him where he would be if he didn’t have hip hop as an outlet to exorcise those demons. “I think without hip hop there was two ways this could have ended either I would have been a criminal in jail or dead. I was definitely not going in the right direction, so who knows man.”

Someone who was a fan of Q-Unique’s solo debut was Korn’s bass player Fieldy. “He and I had got together after he heard Vengence… and was he was I guess overwhelmed by where I was coming from lyrically on there,” remembers Q-Unique. “He had me fly down to LA and I chilled out at the mansion and we just started working on the music and we made a friendship, you know what I mean?

“I don’t know how to describe it yet because people tend to say rock/rap and all of a sudden you’re thinking about Linkin Park or Limp Bizkit and I don’t sound like those guys and that’s their style - it definitely doesn’t sound like that. So, I can’t really put a finger on what it sounds like. I know it definitely has a hip hop element to it.”

This time around Q-Unique won’t be releasing his album on Ill Bill’s label Uncle Howie. But he says that he and Ill Bill are still tight. “Me and Bill are going to be brothers forever man that goes without saying,” he says. “He and I have known each other for a long time but I think that this time around I’m looking for something a little bigger in a sense of just for my own career. I’ve been doing this for a very long time for people that have been following me from The Arsonists and before that and all the way unto now, and when you get to this point its just like any other job. I would assume that’s what you look at it as – employment. And you’re like so okay how can I get myself promoted and get myself a raise, you know? So, I’m just like anyone else you want to look to the top and figure out how I’m going to get there. I mean Bill himself is dealing with a major label now. So, it’s time for us to get our grown man on.”

And the Brooklyn-based rapper says it is an honour for him to be coming out to Australia with Roc Raida and Lord Finesse as part of Zulu Nation where he will be giving the heads a Q-Unique history lesson. “I mean its just like the people that are bringing me are acknowledging the fact that I’m the man amongst the rest of the men. To go out there and represent exactly what an MCs supposed to do on stage amongst legends like Lord Finesse and Roc Raida … I want to go out there and give everybody a piece of everything. You’re going to have the fans there ‘I remember The Arsonists stuff, I remember the stuff you did with Non Phixion’. So, you want to give them that because we’re all going to hang out for that one moment in time and who knows when I’ll be back again, so slam it when I’m there, you know?”

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