You’re a mean one, Mr. Grynch
“I walk in and they’re doing “My Posses on Broadway’ I was like what the fuck.”
Said Grynch about seeing Sir Mix-A-Lot performing with Macklemore during sound check prior to a sold out crowd at the Showbox in Seattle. Grynch had the opportunity to perform during the night and said it’s probably the favorite show he’s been a part of.
Grynch is one of the leaders in a local hip hop scene that has the city of Seattle buzzing.
“It’s real exciting. That’s the word that I think describes it.” Grynch said, “Folks are just really staying on top of their shit right now. It’s something that has been building for awhile. It’s come in waves but I think now more than ever, there’s that certain energy. The fans are really pumped right now.”
The King of Ballard, Grynch released a free EP called Timeless yesterday exclusively available at www.djbooth.net. For those still unfamiliar, he’s best known for a track he did about his car.
V O L V O, My Volvo
“That was just weird man,” he said. “I was with one of my homegirls, and we were driving around one day and she said I should write a song about my car. I was just kind of like ‘eh, its been done’ and didn’t really think much about it. But then on the Kanye Graduation album I heard ‘Tank on empty, whipping my mama’s Volvo,’ and thought it’d be kind of funny to chop and screw that shit.”
He said he originally had Sabzi in mind to make a beat for the track.
“As I was writing him the e-mail, Ill Pill sent me the beat that we ended up using,” he said with a laugh. “I wrote the verses literally like an hour before I went to the studio to record it. It just kind of came together and randomly. It took on a life of its own. It’s kind of a gift and a curse, because now I’m the VOLVO guy, but at the same time I’m like fuck it, why not.”
The song has also been recognized by the car manufacturer, but further plans to use the song as promotion for the company have not yet been put into action.
“They put it up on their blog. I have some communication with some of the area reps around here. Nothing ever came of it but you never know. I’d love to have a song on a commercial.”
The video, created by Gray Matter Productions, currently has close to 400,000 plays on YouTube. The song shows up on the first page of a video search for “VOLVO”, which is impressive for a rapper who has not yet received a lot of national attention (minus being mentioned on the cover of Billboard Magazine).
“The video took it to the next level. That was my first real music video for a solo song.” He said, “It was a trip just seeing how much creating the visual does for a song. I’m not necessarily the type of person that needs a visual to appreciate a song, but that’s not the case for a lot of folks. People’s attention span is so short these days that they’ll need that extra something to create a solid connection. It’s interesting. It kind of opened my eyes.”
Think I could only rap about rapping in my Volvo
The EP is a great addition to his catalog. Grynch at time’s raps about rapping, and he’s proud of it. One year ago, almost exactly, he put out The Rapping About Rapping Mixtape on 2dopeboyz.com.
He has this thing he does in his rhymes where he will take a break from his verse to play a word game with someone’s name.
That when the homie called/You know my homie Sol/ you heard his name you know he’s raw
Thats the homies, they called Top Shelf/ Later on we taking shots dealt straight from the Top Shelf
Its dope. I enjoy it.
The EP has 5 tracks produced by Jester, one by D-Sane and a remix of Volvo by Sabzi.
Jester, real name Jessie Judd, studies audio engineering at Shoreline Community College. He’s also produced for artists such as Scribes and is working on a mixtape with Language Arts that will be available this summer.
Reach them on twitter at @grynch206 and @jester206