1.
Rappers these days are getting weirder and weirder. When we first heard Tidus, it was clear that had he come along at any other time, he’d be for underground heads only, but these days people are opening up a little. Thanks in part to guys like Tyler, The Creator, Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire, Das Racist, and Danny Brown, being weird is okay. For a lot of us who have admired guys like DOOM for years, the growing popularity of weirdness is welcomed.
We’ve heard a good chunk of music from Tidus, but realized that we still don’t really know much about him. He’s linked up with Odd Future’s management, he produces all his own stuff, and he seems to have a thing for aliens. Besides that, he’s a big question mark, so we decided to talk to him and see what we could learn. Look out for his new EP, dropping very soon.
Interview by Midas
We’ve got no info on who you are, where you’re from, anything like that. I was wondering if that was intentional?
It’s one of those things that’s just very organic for me. What people know in the moment is definitely what comes from within. I do have some pieces that are very personal, but a lot of my pieces are just a perspective that might not be personal.
My intention is to be as organic as possible. To be as natural as possible. If I have an impulse to do something or speak on a certain topic I’ll just do it. Cause that’s what I feel like is channeling higher powers. Those impulses, man
What do you want people to know about? What’s your story?
Dude, I’ve been writing shit, I wanna say since I was 9, 10 years old. This was when stuff like “Hard Knock Life” was coming out, and we would be like “dude, what the fuck is this?” That shit, I just heard stuff like that and started writing shit on paper. I was dedicating to writing songs by the time I was like 13 or 15. I decided that this is what I want to do, that I want to create art. This is my being, what I was reincarnated to do. So no matter where I go, I found that out at an early age.
So you’re not the kind of guy that has a backup plan for this?
Nah [Laughs], I don’t really believe in backup plans. I guess if I were to be doing something alternatively I would be directing movies or working on shit like that. Anything to do with creation, you know what I’m saying?
I want to talk a little bit about “Gone Face,” do you produce your own tracks? That beat was nuts.
Yeah, dude. I do all the production. Thank you.
“Gone Face” means a few things, actually. Gone Face can be like, “Yo, I’m fucked up!” And then I’ve kind of stretched it to where I’m literally gone. I’m gone. I’m gonna go somewhere else. I’m gone face.
And what did you mean by the term “Gone Face?”
“Gone Face” means a few things, actually. Gone Face can be like, “Yo, I’m fucked up!” And then I’ve kind of stretched it to where I’m literally gone. I’m gone. I’m gonna go somewhere else. I’m gone face. I’m gone somewhere else, and it doesn’t have to necessarily do with something like location, it can be something like meditation, but I’m gone. I’m choosing to be in a different state because there’s something there that I need to understand, so I go there. It’s not necessarily what it’s about, but it’s just how it turned out as a phrase. It’s a “let’s get fucked up” kind of song, but it can definitely be interpreted in a few ways depending on how you feel. That’s just what’s beautiful about life, there really is no truth to anything, just perspective and perception. You know?
Yeah, definitely. To someone who hadn’t heard the song, how would you describe it to them?
The beat in general, with all that snapping in the background, it’s bouncing around in your head when you hear the snap. You hear the snap in the back, and then when the chorus comes in with those crazy-ass synths, it’s literally like I’m going somewhere else. That is just an altered state of being.
What role do drugs play in the making of the music?
That’s a good question. I don’t think they play much of a role. It’s more like an experiment. If I’m making music I’m not saying, “Oh, I’m going to go do this, then go make this beat.” It’s kind of more like, I’ve already done this and you remember it a few days later like, “Oh, that was cool.” Everything’s to me is just an experiment. I tend to go back and listen to a lot of my tracks in an altered state of consciousness. If I can see something else that I didn’t see there before, then that’s another truth.
2.
You’ve got some aliens chilling in the back of your videos, and you’ve compared yourself to aliens too. Do you believe in aliens?
Fuck yeah. I think they’re here, dude. They are here. I mean, I don’t know how else to put that. With this solar system and our planet and all this other stuff, we can’t just be alone – we’re not dreaming. I feel like I’ve had contact and had things, I feel it a lot. I know, that if I’m not a direct descendent of something from another planet, then I am closely related to it.
Alien is kind of like…If Socrates lived today, they would probably have called him an alien. They shunned him. His ideas were so far-fetched that they called him crazy. If people are here, he was there – do you know what I’m saying?
Yeah. So out there that it’s not considered normal, so it could get labeled as extra-terrestrial?
It’s not even a thing about normal, necessarily. More that I’m destined to be outside the box. There’s a lot of us that are trying to do this, society doesn’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing because when it comes to creativity you’re not always shunned. But, life in general, it’s a certain kind of energy that people don’t always know what it’s about. Those that were called crazy, those that were called aliens, those that were called not normal, those are the people like me.
I wanted to know what you meant when you called yourself Binnagod
Binnagod is a way to see things as of the next level. No race, no color, no hate. We argue over the stupidest things, like religion. So the whole Binnagod thing is what I believe deep down that we all have gods down in us. We’ve all been gods. And that’s what Binnagod is about.
At the time, I wasn’t too familiar with OF. I was fucking with Earl heavy, man. I came across Mellowhype and saw the management that they had and I figured I would be just send music that way. Then after a couple of days they hit me back and we started chopping it, and now we’re here.
What about 3L4, how did you get linked up with them?
Oh, that was just the way of the universe. I was just flipping around and I came across Mellowhype. At the time, I wasn’t too familiar with OF. I was fucking with Earl heavy, man. I came across Mellowhype and saw the management that they had and I figured I would be just send music that way. Then after a couple of days they hit me back and we started chopping it, and now we’re here. Just instant realness, you know what I’m saying? It’s universal shit and it’s dope.
Do you think there’s going to be any collaborating with OF in the future?
I don’t know. I don’t know at this point. I don’t know about any collaborations to keep it 100 with you. I’m really just focusing on getting my own stuff out, but I think it would be dope as fuck if that did happen. I know it would be dope as fuck.
If you could collaborate with anyone in music right now, who would it be?
A lot of the cats aren’t even alive anymore. But of people alive right now that I want to collab with, definitely? Radiohead, man. Bjork has a beautiful voice I want to with Yukimi from Little Dragon. If Portishead came back to make music I think we could do some sick shit. Couple bands out there that I fuck with…I listen to a lot of psychadelic type shit. So anyone in that scene I would be so down.
What are you listening to today?
Fuck, that is a good question. Right now, I’ve got a lot of Hendrix and shit on my iPod. A lot of his jam sessions. The way that he made that guitar sound was almost like a conversation. I’ve been studying that shit a lot. I hear new music, I listen to it, I acknowledge it, I love it, but I try to do things my way too, you know what I’m saying?
Is Hendrix your favorite rock star?
No, I would definitely say Pink Floyd. Just because I really like the instrumentation. I like the way it’s almost trance-inducing, like “Yo, you’re tripping balls right now!” It’s the coolest, when it comes to rock shit.
What about Flying Lotus? The first song I heard from you was you rapping over a FlyLo beat.
Yeah, I wanted to rap over a lot of FlyLo stuff. I was listening to his stuff and couldn’t stop thinking that these beats should be rapped over. When I got a hold of Pattern+Grid World I heard that “Jurassic Motion” beat, it just had so much space so I just did it.
And you went out there and performed at Low End Theory in LA?
Yeah, yeah, we did that. It was fucking awesome. The energy there is just awesome. I’ve been going out there for four or five years now, and it’s so dope. The first time I went we were just there and hanging, but it reminded me of what I hear about Europe. How the appreciation of music is a part of the culture, which is so tight. I performed there and no one knew who I was, but they felt it, and I felt them. And that shit was amazing. I’ll never forget that and I’ll definitely have to do it again.
What’s a live Tidus show like?
Well, the first live Tidus show was kind of just a rap show. Just like a rap show, with my guy in the back, he was amazing, and a dope sound system. But I want to be outputting as much energy as possible, and it’s just going to get better. I’m looking at a show as an experience, that’s what I envision my show as becoming. I guarantee it will be an experience, and after you leave the venue you will be like, “Now I’m back on the planet now.” That’s how I want everyone to experience this thing. It’s a feeling, not just being in a crowd listening to someone else spit into a mic, it’s an experience. The ideas that I’ve had I actually can’t use because they’re definitely kind of illegal. Shit is on another level, we’re going to be fucking up some shit. We’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to put all of this together. It’s going to be great.
What’s your favorite color?
Black, definitely black. If not black, it would be navy or gray. I don’t know why. I feel like black is just… there’s something about it. The power that I feel.
A pigeon does whatever the fuck a pigeon wants to do. It doesn’t have to be driven or commanded, it can do whatever it wants.
Pigeons or planes?
Pigeons. I would say pigeons because a pigeon does whatever the fuck a pigeon wants to do. It doesn’t have to be driven or commanded, it can do whatever it wants. It wants to go down to the street and mack with the people, or go fly somewhere. It’s a pigeon. It does what the fuck it wants.
