It's a chilly afternoon some time between 9th February-21st February. StillAtIt, dressed in all black, sits across the table impatiently waiting for me figure out how to work this tape recorder so we can get the interview started. In the midst of this confusing chaos, I take a sip out of my coffee cup, then I remember that I don't like coffee and put it back down. StillAtIt, becoming more frustrated, leans forward, and presses the "play" bu*ton. To my amazement, it starts working. Who knew it was that simple?
We present to you - the handsome StillAtIt! ScopeY: Okay, just to get the most important question out of the way first; be honest - how excited are you about me interviewing you? Surely this must be better than a new Kanye West album.
StillAtIt : Look, I'm letting you interview me and I won't listen to TLOP or whatever the album is called till March 8th - that's how much more excited I am.
ScopeY: Your excitement is on point. Speaking of which, what made you fall in love with hip hop (or music in general) in the first place?
StillAtIt: The first rap song I a**ociate myself with is Nas' "I Can," but the love for the genre grew a bit later on. I got into hip hop with NBA 2k13, it has a great soundtrack put together by Jay Z. The second I heard "The World is Yours" I was all over it, found Illmatic (cliché) and that's how the journey officially started.
ScopeY: I lowkey feel sorry for you that you weren't old enough to experience the G-Unit era, but that's not a bad place to start. It looks like Nas' "I Can" actually did inspire the kids. Now, into more philosophical questions; if you could change anything you wanted about your life, what would you change and why?
StillAtIt: Now that you've mentioned G-Unit, I'm so sad I never got to feel the power of an act/group in hip-hop, except maybe TPAB.
I like to believe you can actually change anything about your life. Ironically, I'd like to change that from just a belief into an action - I spend way too much time pa**ively changing stuff, that's why I took this one-month pause
ScopeY: Living in the era of TPAB is quite the blessing, isn't it? But great response. This is quite inspiring. The readers are going to love this. Be prepared for your inbox being filled with fans letting you know how you've changed their life.
Since you've mentioned the break, let's talk about it. You're probably going to be the only user with an active interview who's not actually going to be around for the event. Would you mind elaborating on this? Is this a power move? Are you making a statement? Do you wanna dip for a bit to make people miss you so that we'll appreciate your greatness more when you make your great return? This is what's boggling everyone's mind. We want answers!
StillAtIt: I was thinking about a MSG retirement concert, but they decided to pick Kanye over me smh. And his PR told me I could buy two tickets, insane!
But yeah least of all this move is about Genius, as I've mentioned I'm also taking a big break from my daily habits and music that may actually make me appreciate music more - so I might unwillingly make people miss Still...
ScopeY: Absurd! That's some next level disrespect. I wouldn't blame you if you made a diss track.
Speaking of ego: as everyone should be fully aware of by now, you're my Editor. I'm probably almost as proud of this fact as you are. This can make our interview more personal in many ways. However, considering that I've practically raised you, what made you want to abandon me to run and get Modded by Tyrant? What's he got that I lack? I've had nightmares about this, and would like to have some sort of closure.
StillAtIt: Nah, I won't diss Kanye because he doesn't respond to disses and I'm not really active on Twitter..
Yeah, I actually thought about that a couple of days ago. My work with Steven (s/o Steven) and you had laid a foundation good enough to propel me into one of the top editors. However, Tyrant's experience with handling big projects matched with my presence on those songs and I guess we just clicked. Can't wait to interview Michael, man...
A counter-question, though - why'd you let him steal me if you love me so much?
ScopeY: Woah woah, slow down. This is my interview. I'm asking the questions here. You have no right to spin this on me. I'm pretty sure that's like against the ethics of interviews or whatever. (Okay, don't tell this to anyone, but Tyrant is the ruler of the kangaroos and sent me a scary message when I brought up the idea of modding you. It was basically him standing in the middle of a pack of kangaroos with a note saying "don't get in my way." Have you ever seen a kangaroo, man? They're vicious. They don't give a sh**, they'll knock you out for staring. Maybe I was cowardly and missed a golden opportunity, but got dammit, I was not prepared to die at the hands of Tyrant's kangaroo squad. No shame.)
Uhmmm, I think maybe we should release some tension now... Soo.. What are your honest thoughts on Kev-CUE?
StillAtIt: Man, I grew apart from Kev a bit... We had a really cool period once, but it's a bit of my inactivity, a bit of his, and a bit of "people change." Glad I got to know him better than an average Genius user! He has a bit of the tribal mentality, but we all do at the end of the day - that didn't stand in our way even though our tribes are "at war." [Editor's note: StillAtIt requested to remove the many mentions of "a bit," but for authenticity's sake, we're leaving it in.]
ScopeY: Wow. Do I smell beef? That's one for the tabloids. Let's hope TMZ doesn't pick this up. This also reminds me of Nas & Damian Marley's "Tribal War."
While we're on the topic of war, imagine this -- what if one day, let's say, the fruits of the world get so sick of how humans keep messing with their DNA, that they decide to genetically modify themselves to become huge and wage war at the human population -- what would that look like? How could we stop them? I personally wouldn't want a giant lemon to squirt in my eyes, I'd go blind forever. I wouldn't be able to see the white background anymore!
StillAtIt: I know some people who'd be happy to not see the white background ever again... But y'know, the a**umption we're the superior race could k** us in the end - don't play around with fruit DNA!
Though I gotta enjoy the thought of fruit modifying human DNA. Do vegetables count here?
ScopeY: Vegetables can count here as well, yes, if their inclusion would have any impact on your response.
StillAtIt: I don't eat vegetables, like, at all. Please don't throw your rage at me, veggies ;-;
ScopeY: We can agree on that. My parents always tryna get me to eat veggies, but I don't like them at all. The only vegetable I care about are potatoes. And if giant potatoes waged war against me I'd let them do whatever they want.
So if you were a superhero what would be your superhero name? I don't think the name "Still-A-Tit" would strike fear in your enemies.
StillAtIt: I catch a lot of heat irl for "Still-A-Tit," one of the reasons I changed my artist page on Genius from "Still" to "Not." But to argue it doesn't strike fear? "Oh god, I wonder why he's still a tit, what did he do to other bad guys to earn the name!" Think again, potato man.
But I mean, I'd surely change it - you wouldn't want the news to print that name (gotta think about the kids). "Guy" would be nice, or something basic. Lets the people relate and strive for big things. Come to think about it, I could hop on the "government name" bandwagon and just go with Vuk. Depends on my powers...
ScopeY: Good point. So what would be your powers?
StillAtIt: Full time control sounds like the awesomest thing ever. It'd post a bit of challenge, and still make stuff always possible. What's better than going back in past, finding out what caused someone to act wrong, learn other stuff while doing it and eventually making everything work out fine? It wouldn't be easy, but I'd have no real limitation and thus succeed.
Not aging included.
Imagine ways of manipulating crops and stuff, helping fruits, veggies and humans live in peace...
ScopeY: Oh nice. You just brought the whole thing full circle. Great thinking.
Speaking of circles, where do you see yourself going from here now that you've become a Moderator? What is the next thing you'd like accomplish / get involved in?
StillAtIt: Of course, getting hired by Genius would be the best scenario lol. Regardless, I'm not leaving the site as long as I'm seriously listening to music. It's been just over 12 months since I had joined the community and it's literally so big for me I consider it a life chapter. Met a lot of knowledgeable people, learned a sh**load of stuff about music and whatnot, shared laughs... Every day starts and ends with a Genius checkup, and I don't see that stopping, regardless of my annotating frequency
I'll still be dropping gems occasionally, don't get it confused
ScopeY: #GeniusGoals
What's a fun/cool fact about you that not many people know?
StillAtIt: I was on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" for kids back when I was 11 or 12. Got to the 8th question and I made the stupidest possible mistake.
The question was how many digits does the decade system have and I mistook "digits" for "numbers," going with "D: Infinite."
ScopeY: ha! That's cla**ic. Wish I could see a video of that.
Where do you see hip hop going in 5-10 years?
StillAtIt: The next 5-10 years are what some (including me) have started calling the new golden age. 2015 was amazing and I hope that's where it starts. The diversity is mindblowing, and I believe we're just scratching the surface. Kendrick's supposed to enter his prime along with most of the guys mentioned on "Control," and then there's Raury, Chance (I'm excited af), Vic, Frank Ocean, Mez, Lupe, the older guard like Jay Z and Nas... And probably 3 or 4 big guys who we're yet to hear of. Certainly going upwards, buckle up hip-hop fans!
ScopeY: Excellent stuff. We're in for a treat.
If you could choose any person in history, fictional or real, living or dead, who would you want to be the world leader and why?
StillAtIt: Well, depends on what you take as "world" - if we're as egoistic as we are as humans we'd take world = humanity, but it's a lot broader...
For world = humanity:
The first thing we as humanity gotta improve on is our mindstate, and catching up to the technological advancements we've had psychologically. Having a bit of a rational, science-esque approach to life is where we need to start and there's no one better to come to than Elon Musk. He knows what he wants, he motivates people to do stuff, and he achieves/is achieving stuff that has you like "damn why didn't anyone think of that earlier." The guy went as far as starting a f**ing school because his kids were school-ready and that's probably working out really, really great for them. After he's gone, if all 5 of his kids become half of what he is we'd have 2.5 Elons in 20-30 years and from there it'd just grow exponentially. We'll all have Teslas, take Hyperloops, some of us will live on Mars, and hopefully we'll also take some of Elon's secret sauce. (I highly suggest reading the entire Musk series on WaitButWhy)
Dissecting this further down I kinda just want all the humanity to think for themselves, and be themselves. How would we turn out if we had no bad influences in our youth? So basically a world leader would go against those principles, because that's taking someone else's knowledge/views. But hey, having the best role model>>>any other role model, and if we gotta have one it may as well be him
For world = the entire universe. Fart from Rick and Morty season 2 episode 2, but that'd be against my carbon-based self...
ScopeY: Oh wow. I genuinely did not expect the answer to be that thorough. I am honestly stumped and have no idea how to continue from here. There's no way for me to deliver after that. It's like having to rap after Kendrick on "Control." I have no other option but to do something lighthearted so our minds don't blow up from too much smartness.
If we met IRL what would be the first thing you'd say or do?
StillAtIt: Well, Serbian customs say we should shake hands really strong, put the left hand on eachother shoulder and kiss three times. That should be followed by a manly hug, and since we both have respectable beards I'm sure we'd do it nicely.
That's what I'm supposed to do, and it'd be a nice way to k** the awkwardness right away (or build it up!). Let's say it doesn't count though - I'm dying to hear Ali's talking voice man... How about sharing a bite?
ScopeY: That's going to be an interesting meeting. But we have kissing customs in Turkey as well so nothing I'm not already used to. So much stuff we could talk about. Gotta make it happen in one lifetime. And I'll add a video annotation of me talking on this page if that would make you happy. Also wow, first name basis. That's respect.
However, we're unfortunately running out of time and have to wrap this up. I'd like to say that this has been a fun interview, and I've enjoyed it quite a bit. Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself at well. Do you have any last words to share with the people?
StillAtIt: One love, can't wait to hear from y'all in a couple of weeks!!!
This was fun af, can't wait to be the interviewer with Michael.
ScopeY: Since I like to have the last word:
Word.