MC Esoteric looks back on his first solo endeavor, “Egoclapper,” 15 years later.
Seamus “Esoteric” Ryan is a ridiculously prolific artist. He’s been a hip-hop workhorse for over a quarter of a century and has left a startling amount of really dope projects in his wake. Given the amount of material that the Boston native records and releases, his quantity to quality ratio is stunningly immaculate.
Esoteric is likely best known as one half of 7L & Esoteric, a duo the helped gain recognition for the incredibly strong Boston scene during late ’90s/early ’00. In an era for “underground” hip-hop best known for banging independent 12”s, they recorded and released creative, well-constructed full-length albums. Furthermore, Esoteric earned more shine as a member of expansive prominent collectives like Army of the Pharoahs, The Demigodz, and the East Coast Avengers. With these projects, he collaborated with like-minded artists to record hip-hop with a decidedly anti-authoritarian streak.
For the last decade or so, Esoteric has re-established himself as one half of Czarface, his group with Wu-Tang Clan’s Inspektah Deck. The pair, assisted by 7L, has stayed exceptionally active through the 2010s and early ’20s, releasing eight full-lengths thus far, and recording projects with such revered artists as Ghostface Killah and MF DOOM.
Personally, I’ve always found the rarely examined mid to late ’00s portion of Esoteric’s career one the most interesting. The period in question began with 7L & Esoteric’s A New Dope (2006), where the duo eschewed the “boom-bap” style they’d been known for, and recorded material influenced into Electro and mid 1960s prog rock. Esoteric then took a hiatus from the duo, recording a string of solo and instrumental albums. These included Esoteric Vs. Japan (2008), where he rhymed exclusively over Japanese music and media, and Saving Seamus Ryan (2009), a high-concept endeavor ultimately dedicated to finding his place in hip-hop and expressing his love for his dog.
But Esoteric’s solo career began with Egoclapper, the first release on his Fly Casual imprint. Hitting shelves 15 years ago, it’s a raw and occasionally free-flowing endeavor. The lyrical content was mostly freestyle-type raps, featuring abundant references to the pop culture (both obscure and otherwise) that he consumed throughout his life. It also featured Eso’s first deep plunge into beat-making. While he produced a few tracks on A New Dope, most of Egoclapper’s tracks are spawned from Esoteric hands. He does get occasional assists from skilled beat-smiths like 7L, Raydar Ellis, DC the Midi Alien, and the legendary 45 King.
Esoteric sounds like he’s having a blast throughout Egoclapper. Tracks like “Watch the Pro,” “Mind on Fire,” and “Street Sigma” (featuring the Lo-Life’s Rack-Lo) feature the right balance of fun and lyrical aggression. The rugged “Zombie Combat” twists and turns in unexpected ways, while “Typhoons In Japan” and “Really Fly” are just straight gritty and sinister hip-hop.
“Boston Garden Rap” is three-man fast break on record, as Esoteric is joined on the mic by Raydar Ellis and Jawn P. The latter is a member of the Top Choice Clique, a Boston-based crew that released material in the late ’80s and early ’90s, before the Boston scene received the attention it deserved. Even the interludes are entertaining; they range from sonic collages taken from 1970s cartoons and commercials, to an extended phone message from his late father reading the song titles from The Chosen Ones Enter The Lord album.
Esoteric also excels over production other than his own. “Frank Miller, Tank Killer,” credited to 45 King, feels every bit of late 1980s hip-hop vintage as the tracks that inspired it. “First of a New Breed,” produced by Raydar Ellis, is the most traditionally structured track on the album, and throwback to the early ’00s era of 7L and Esoteric.
Esoteric took some time to answer some of my questions about Egoclapper and this era of his career. He speaks expansively on what it meant to go solo, how he grew as an emcee and beat-maker while recording the album, his experiences running a record label, and his favorite track on The Chosen Ones album.
Jesse Ducker: What made you decide to start your solo career with this album?
Esoteric: Everybody starts somewhere, this was just my direction at the time, wanting to make a project I didn’t really have to seek others’ opinion on. With “7L & Esoteric,” we both had to be happy with everything we put out. With this, I was just able to make my own decisions and pull the trigger where I was content. 7L was really killing it DJing and making edits, and that’s where his focus was after getting out of our Babygrande deal.
I definitely wanted to keep making music, and this was what came of it. A “First thought best thought” record. Many freestyling off the head raps, and then fine-tuning the beats. The production was more the focus than the lyrics, but I had fun with the lyrics because I was making this more for myself and anyone who wanted to come along. Referencing “droid etchings in the well of souls” wasn’t going to be for everyone. I was tinkering with beats all the time while making A New Dope, and mid-tempo things that I came up with, like “Street Stigma” or “Really Fly” that wouldn’t fit on the more uptempo A New Dope found their place here.
JD: What would you say the theme of Egoclapper is?
Esoteric: Just freewheeling, fast and loose hip-hop. Egoclapper was the prototype for the Czarface model in a way. The character on the cover was “Egoclapper.” It was just a word I made up while just freestyling, I think I was saying something about clapping a desert eagle, which is ridiculous, but it sounded like Egoclapper, like I’m clapping and killing your ego. I thought it was a cool idea for the name of the character on the cover, which was me in Cobra Infantry fatigues, plus I liked the fact that it was my own word, something that didn’t exist until I put it out there, like Czarface.
JD: How did you approach Egoclapper differently than a 7L & Esoteric album?
Esoteric: Well, on most 7L & Eso albums (excluding A New Dope) we were in a studio with an engineer, where 7L will lay down the beats, and the engineer would be present and recording me. And you kind of have to adapt to that environment and the personality of the engineer and sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s counterproductive. With Egoclapper, I recorded myself at my apartment, with beats that I made and few others from friends. But [there was] no engineer, no outside voices or input. That opened up a lot for me.
JD: Did you set out to make a solo album that would sound different than you did as part of duo?
Esoteric: Not intentionally no. The first three 7L & Esoteric albums, on the production side anyway, were primarily, not all, but a lot, characterized by samples from rare library records or foreign OSTs. [It was] back when you had to get out in the stores and warehouses and record shows. You had to travel and fish through crates, ya know? So 7L was intent on being original and unearthing samples nobody knew about, and we loved that aesthetic. Now with Egoclapper, I was trying to use samples nobody had touched before too, but I was taking most of them from VHS tapes and bootleg DVDs, probably focusing on cartoons and television shows to cull from.
JD: You did some production on A New Dope. When did you start producing?
Esoteric: I probably started dabbling in production around 2004ish, after DC2: Bars of Death. Celph Titled had spent a week at my apartment in Boston and helped me get equipment and showed me the way to record my own vocals and engineer my own session. And on top of that, how to use particular programs to chop samples and edit drums. From there, I caught the bug and fell in love with producing and controlling what I laid down. Producing tracks on A New Dope was truly me just experimenting and finding inspiration in tempos that were unique to us at that time. We were definitely sick of the formula we were known for, and A New Dope helped snap us out of it. It was a lot of fun for us to make and breathed some fresh air into us and the scene.
JD: What are some of your stand-out memories creating Egoclapper?
Esoteric: Working on the cover with KARMA, who was a massive help in getting it out to the masses and giving it some visual appeal. When I think of recording that album, I think of mainly recording at home, completely alone and experimenting, and enjoying that method of laying vocals. Oh, and taking breaks roaming around the city with my new dog Logan. Logan becoming part of our lives was big for me on a lot of levels in terms of maturation and seeing the world outside of music, the important stuff that I had ignored ’til then; he was the best. I wish I had more memories from the sessions, but when you’re working on an album for yourself, by yourself, buried in a room full of sneakers and dog hair, there isn’t much to reflect on other than sitting in front of that monitor, editing, and triggering and recording. I definitely liked sitting there though.
JD: Is that Logan on the bonus track after “Spidey Jail Break”? Was that the first time he appeared on one of your albums?
Esoteric: Yes, that’s Logan… I’m fairly certain that would be his first appearance His barks are through the entire Czarface catalog too.
JD: What was the bonus track’s name?
Esoteric: The bonus track we called “For JK.”
JD: What tracks are you especially satisfied with how they came out? Do you have a “favorite” song on the album?
Esoteric: I don’t, but as far as the ones I produced, I like “Mind on Fire,” “Egoclapper,” and “Spidey Jail Break.” Also “Really Fly” because that was one of the first beats I had ever made, and it was finally seeing the light of day.
JD: How did you get to work with 45 King for “Frank Miller Tank Killer”?
Esoteric: 45 King was having some of his releases distributed through Traffic Entertainment and mentioned to Matt at Traffic that he was trying to get his production out to newer artists. I was already playing with stuff he made, that already existed: looping it up, chopping it up, etc. With him being such a legend to me, dating back to the ’80s, I was super excited. I recorded to what you hear, and we played the final for him and he cleared it. It was that simple. If I was in the studio with him for recording, I don’t think I’d have recorded that “Frank Miller” chorus and I’d have been making a much bigger deal of this track and its conception. It was more of a remote thing where I took what he made and laid my vocals on top. He was cool with it!
JD: “First of a New Breed” has a different “feel,” musically and thematically than the other songs on the album. What was the inspiration behind that song?
Esoteric: Well, I believe that was a “state of the industry” mixed with typical wordplay type of song, commenting on everything wrong with music then, something that was really easy to write about. It was definitely a lot more structured than the other songs, and Raydar Ellis produced it, which gave it a different sound for sure. But I still loved it and wanted it on the project. And yeah, the music didn’t come from an old lo-fi cartoon so in hindsight it may not have matched with the rest of the LP.
JD: What was your reaction when you first heard the phone message that you play on “Eso’s Father Finds the Chosen Ones”?
Esoteric: Just internal laughter, because he’d leave me messages like that all the time, he’d find one of my records from collection and just have fun with the song titles. This was just one I happened to save. He had a great sense of humor and never took himself seriously, he was an English teacher and needed a sense of humor to deal with the high school kids he taught. In fact, the only time he was ever serious was when he was trying to carve me into a better basketball player, which in effect made me an emcee.
JD: If you don’t mind me asking, how did your father coaching you to be a better basketball player make you a better emcee?
Esoteric: My father would make sure I was in environments that would improve my game, from the very early stages of my life, and those environments would tend to have hip-hop blasting courtside. I wound up falling in love with hip-hop through those experiences.
JD: What your favorite song on that Chosen Ones album?
Esoteric: Probably “Don’t Play Me Close.” The group had two heavy hitters, DJ Doc Rodriguez, and Lord Shafiyq, who had this cut “My Mic is on Fire” a few years before that, where he dropped references to Human Torch’s “Flame on!” and Thor’s hammer over a Bob James sample. Some of my favorite things. Both artists in The Chosen Ones had an influence on me in some of their outside work, as you know DJ Doc played a pivotal role in a lot of big records from that era.
JD: Was “Typhoons in Japan” a thematic preview for Esoteric vs. Japan?
Esoteric: That’s exactly what it was: the beginning of digging into samples from Japan for me. That was one of the records on this album that was “first thought / best thought” and just some off the head freestyling mixed in with some written stuff. I had said something like “That’s like seeing Jesus deep in hell, or DOOM on TRL / You on that same ol’ (SAMO) shit like Jean Michel,” which was playing with Basquiat’s SAMO tag. Nobody knew what I was talking about, but I was really studying Basquiat’s art and lifestyle during A New Dope, in like 2005. The New Dope cover was a boxing motif inspired by the art from one of his exhibits with Warhol. And you’ve seen hundreds of people flip that art since, but as far as I know we were the first. Circa 2005, before Jay-Z really made the already iconic Basquiat a common reference in rap lyrics.
JD: What was it like working with Jawn P of Top Choice Clique on “Boston Garden Rap”?
Esoteric: This was definitely one of the highlights of the record for me. He was such a big inspiration for me to even be emceeing or creating hip-hop in general. You had to have a real set of balls to get out and rock mics when things in Boston and beyond were not safe and not for everyone, and during the Top Choice Clique era, Jawn P was one of those guys that wouldn’t be denied. Him and Force were out there touring with national acts and fighting it out amongst bloodthirsty local talent in the mid-’80s. It was not a game then, not a fashion show; you had to show and prove or get shit on.
JD: You talked about how a lot of the verses on the album came from freestyling and “first thought, best thought?” How did your approach to rhyming change and progress in general from the early 7L & Esoteric days to the time of you recording the solo albums?
Esoteric: My approach changed because my environment changed: I grew into a guy that didn’t write his lyrics down anyway. Sometimes in earlier 7L & Eso days I would be there with a pen and a pad and things didn’t go as smoothly as just recording stream of thought ideas and rhymes you had banging around in your brain already. Engineering your own sessions allows you to get as experimental as you want.
JD: At the end of the album, you say, “Saving Seamus Ryan is coming soon!” (or something to that effect) What caused it to be further delayed?
Esoteric: I would say inspiration to make Esoteric vs. Japan instead because topically it was a lot more loose and playful. Also Saving Seamus Ryan took time, so it was cooking then too, but if you listen to the finished product intently, it was a megaton of sampling and writing legwork in the concept and execution. People make it a point to tell me they realize what went into that record and it means a lot, but I had to get Japan off my plate before dropping it!
JD: You put out Egoclapper and your subsequent solo projects on your own Fly Casual imprint. What were the difficulties of running a label at the time? Did recording a project and running a label simultaneously pose difficulties? If so, what type of difficulties?
Esoteric: I think from my standpoint now looking back, it was more fun than anything else. Having a sense of controlling your own destiny and doing exactly what you want. We were coming off a deal with Babygrande, and having to answer to them at points, and that didn’t feel too good. This stuff was a nice break from that. KARMA helped tremendously with the day-to-day of art direction, merchandise, manufacturing and distributing the CDs. We were just doing CDs at the time, and he was motivated to make the packaging of these Fly Casual joints look extra fly and was smart and experienced enough to know where to cut corners and pull triggers to make them appear like serious money was dumped into the packaging. Truly the overall support that he showed me let me know there was at least one other person out there that thought this stuff was worth making and releasing and selling. That was super valuable and served as the blueprint for future releases. The Fly Casual label was both of ours. I get the glory, but I couldn’t do it without KARMA.
JD: You were also working with Army of the Pharaohs and East Coast Avengers around this time. Were there difficulties managing different projects simultaneously?
Esoteric: I don’t really recall them being difficulties because I was doing what I love. I was happy to have my hands in that many things at once and have the time and energy to execute on them.
JD: Since you shipped it as a bonus album with some orders of Egoclapper, I wanted to ask about Pterodactyl Tubeway. When did you decide to do a whole album using Gary Numan’s music?
Esoteric: That was made alongside A New Dope and given away for free. I was really enjoying a lot of the left of center, experimental stuff, almost sticking my middle finger up at the boom-bap purist scene that had its holes and hypocrisy for certain. The funny thing is most of the samples I was finding around then were hovering around 115–125 BPM, so I was just adapting my rapping to fit them, since I couldn’t chop them into something that I was more comfortable rhyming on, and what grew from that was this.
JD: Where do you rank Egoclapper in your solo discography?
Esoteric: I think I’m more focused on pushing ahead and what’s next rather than looking at what I did, so I never thought to rank them. I never listen to our old stuff, ever. It puts me in a weird spot where I’ll just focus on the flaws. Nostalgia is absolutely a valuable part of my creative process when coming up with content and lyrics, but when it’s reflecting on my recordings and releases, I avoid it like the plague. I’d say looking back, I had equal fun recording Egoclapper and Eso vs. Japan, and the results of which record is better is in the ears of the listeners. The album after them, Saving Seamus Ryan, definitely had the most work go into that though. Those were like on-the-job training sessions for that.
Please note: This interview has been edited from the original transcript for length and clarity.
