Fools’ gold

>> Joining the effort to make rap music fun
again, Philadelphia’s Plastic Little deliver a big bounty of bounce and buffoonery. The Mirror got
the 411 on horse cock and hip hop’s headaches,
out-Vice-ing Vice and love from ?uestlove

FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY:
Jayson Musson (L) and Plastic Little

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

As both the bling-obsessed mainstream and backpacking underground of hip hop have gotten far too serious for anyone’s good, it’s a gift from the gods above when an act like Philadelphia’s Plastic Little pops up. On last year’s debut full-length She’s Mature (the cover of which mimics the Smiths’ single “This Charming Man”), the dizzyingly dense lyrics are bursting with inspired idiocy and artfully executed, utterly un-P.C. obnoxiousness, slathered over deliriously dope and decidedly danceable production, plus assists from Diplo, Spank Rock, DJ Lowbudget, MFDoom and, on the flagship track “Crambodia,” Ghostface Killah.

What’s quickly clear is that foolishness expressed this intricately and articulately can only spring from genuinely savvy fellas, with book-learnin’ and all. No surprise then that Plastic Little’s conceptual powerhouse Jayson Musson, aka MC PackofRats, comes from an art-school background, where he was already critiquing the pop and politics of hip hop and beyond with ruthless eloquence and savage sarcasm. Never at a loss for words, Musson gave the Mirror the who, the why and the what-the-fuck about Plastic Little, via e-mail.

Mirror: Tell us a bit about yourself and the other dudes in Plastic Little—what your respective roles are, and what it is that makes each of you the special, unique, wonderful human beings that you are.

Jayson Musson: Well, I’ll start with Michael Stern, aka SQUID. He’s our resident beatmaker and he made about 95 per cent of She’s Mature. He’s the guy that most girls gravitate toward, because of his dreamy eyes and chiselled Nordic physique. He loves buying candy. Then there’s Jon Folmar, aka Jon Thousand. He’s our white MC that sounds black. Hands down, Jon is the lyricist of the group. He’s incredibly talented as an MC, even by those archaic backpacker standards of what it means to be a good MC and a not-too-shabby producer. He made the beat for “Crambodia,” along with King Honey, and for “Bumrush That Set.”

Then there’s Kurt Hunte, aka Mr. Bombadillo, aka No Body’s Child—he’s our resident diva and fantastic rapper. He once punched someone in the face during one of our shows. We’ve been friends since we were 10. Then there’s me, Jayson Musson, aka PackofRats. I consider myself more of a concept guy. I rap, but I like coming up with hooks and larger concepts. I put the pop in hip hop—well, there isn’t really pop in hip hop, but you know what I mean. I’m the Berry Gordy of rap! Then there’s our DJ, DJ Si Young. He’s an amazing producer who acts as our live DJ and will be contributing production for our next album. Si Young wears sunglasses at all times of the day.

M: You guys seem to be an honest, open-minded, well-adjusted bunch as regards the myriad permutations and expressions of human sexuality. Just out of curiosity, is there any sexual act that you find too distasteful to address in your lyrics?

JM: I wouldn’t want to get fucked by a horse. Horse penises are like legs of a sturdy stool. They’d destroy a proper man’s anus and interior. And I also speak on behalf of all of Plastic Little in saying that we don’t enjoy licking butt or dirty vagina.

M: Apparently, you guys did a show in a park for a crowd composed of no small numbers of preschoolers. I guess you probably had the decency to tone down your nastier lyrics to suit the circumstances, but sincerely hope that you did not.

JM: Actually, we didn’t. Kids at that age don’t even know their own names, really, so all the cursing went over their heads. I ended the show by telling one toddler that in 20 years, she’d make a good wife. How do we spell scumbag? There were actually adults there too, but they were further back from the outdoor stage, getting drunk and talking about real estate and shit.

M: ?uestlove of the Roots has expressed his fondness for you, regarding Plastic Little as a natural successor to the Pharcyde. That must have felt nice.

JM: Yeah, that was mindblowing to hear that from ?uestlove. Growing up, and even up until now, the Roots were a big influence on me. The fact that they came out of Philly was a big determining factor for me moving to Philly years ago, because I thought any place that can produce a group like them can’t be bad. So they were my rap idols, and for us to be making our silly-ass music and actually hear directly from an idol is unreal and awesome and fucking amazing. He told us to keep saying “fuck you” in our music and not to compromise ourselves in our little rap careers.

M: He’s got a good point, in that Plastic Little and your assorted associates—Diplo, Spank Rock, Low Budget, Cosmo Baker—seem like the backbone of this corridor of cool shit running along the Baltimore-Boston axis, an East Coast effort to make hip hop fun, sharp, unpretentious and open to new ideas again.

JM: I think that the people that we’re associated with just like to enjoy a thoroughly good party and quality music. We all realize that in music, there is a myriad of ways for individuals to express themselves and we enjoy it all, really. Even the shit that’s not party music, we appreciate and consider important—while backpackers just want to hear the Private Journal of Tortured Underground Rapper Complaining About the State of Hip Hop. That shit is fucking boring and quasi-music. Go make a zine, nigga!

M: To add to the above, the West Coast is doing its bit with the hyphy stuff. What’s your take on that goofy business?

JM: Ghost ride the whip! Them dudes is crazy out west. I love it.

M: What’s up with you guys getting an ad banned from Vice?

JM: We got banned from Vice because one of our adverts that I wrote mentioned peeing into a 555Soul backpack, and then 555Soul went apeshit and threatened to pull out on their two-year advertising contract with Vice unless we were no longer allowed to do business with Vice. That’s real hip hop of 555Suck. Us, being the small fries, were politely told that we weren’t gonna be allowed to advertise in Vice anymore. I really didn’t care, and eventually Vice let us advertise again a few months later, but once the blogosphere found out about us being banned from Vice—with no help on our part, I might add—Vice got mad at us again because they thought we were trying to clown them for press, and we were banned again from advertising, and I believe we are pretty hated by some staff members at Vice for outvicing Vice.

M: You guys are tight with [graffiti artist/designer] ESPO, who seems like a pretty heavy cat, on a mission to purge the hip hop nation of fools and charlatans. What can you tell us about ESPO, what he does and what you’ve worked on together?

M: ESPO came up with the concept for the cover of She’s Mature. He was a big fan of our first EP, Thug Paradise, which was put out by aNYthing Records, by A-Ron the Don. So yeah, ESPO, hearing our shit and being from Philly, he was naturally down with helping us out on the visual end for whatever projects we had coming up. We met a block party some years ago that A-Ron was throwing and he told us, “You guys live on my iPod.” I was like, holy shit, one of my favourite artists loves our music, I’m gonna piss my out-of-style, tapered-leg Guess Jeans. After hearing the unfinished version of She’s Mature, ESPO decided that a Smiths cover was the only appropriate route, so we went with that.

M: That’s right, you’ve paid a tender homage to the Smiths with your album cover, and likewise borrowed a chunk of the Cure for “Get Close.” This puts you in as good a position as anyone to offer insight on a pressing matter—which of the two, the Smiths’ Morrissey or the Cure’s Robert Smith, might emerge victorious were they to come to fisticuffs?

JM: Hmmm... Robert Smith. He’s used Camus’s The Stranger to tell the world in secret code that he hated Arabs! That’s gangsta, son!

With Thunderheist, A-Rock and Hatchmatik
at Academy Club on Saturday, May 12,
10 p.m., $10 before midnight/$12 after