Image via Pigeons & Planes
Two hip-hop legends meet face-to-face for a joint interview about privacy vs. access, industry plants, longevity in the rap game, and much, much more.
August 22, 2024
BY William E. Ketchum III
"To me, so-called Black English and vernacular is way more ill than just basic [English]. The combined contributions to the English language between me and this man right here is like… Y’all still talking about Shakespeare, William?" - Mach-Hommy
"It’s always been up to us to speak to the times. The political times that we're living in call for what artists like Mach and I are doing and have been doing forever, more than ever." - Black Thought
When Mach-Hommy first wrote an original version of “COPY COLD,” he knew who he wanted to join him on the song, but he thought it was too far out of reach to really hope for. “The inner voice is like ‘Black Thought,’” Mach recalls. “And then the rational mind is like, ‘fuck outta here.’ So I put it away, because that's never gonna happen. Then ten years later I’ve got Black Thought in my phone, talking about some, 'Where's the record? When are we gonna cook?'"
It’s hard to blame him for stuffing such dreams into the back of his mind. Black Thought is one of the most accomplished MCs that hip-hop has to offer. Tariq Trotter co-founded The Roots with bandleader and fellow Philadelphian Questlove back in 1987, and he’s spent the decades since not only establishing the band as one of the genre’s most creative entities, but earning his own reputation as one of the country’s most profound thinkers, both in and outside of hip-hop.
He won a Grammy with The Roots for their Erykah Badu-assisted song “You Got Me,” but that’s somehow the least impressive part of his resume. He’s held his own alongside rap greats like Big Pun, Eminem, and Yasiin Bey to name a few, he’s shown unparalleled showmanship and breath control while sharing the stage with The Roots and other rap greats in live performances and award shows, and he’s provided stunning viral moments like his 10-minute freestyle with Funkmaster Flex. And he’s done it all his way: with lyrics that combine vivid storytelling, keen understanding of sociopolitical conditions, and astute references to Black history, all delivered with a warm, husky baritone and a disciplined flow that never loses step.
While continuing to perform with The Roots as the house band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, he’s also released a series of projects outside of his groupmates: he’s three albums deep into his Streams of Thought series and has released an album with Danger Mouse. Since 2023 alone, he’s released the album Glorious Game with El Michels Affair, an Audible original called 7 Years for the company’s Words + Music series, and has released his own debut book, The Upcycled Self. Now aged 50, he’s still unlocking new chambers of his artistry.
Mach-Hommy may not have the storied public history of the rapper he hoped to land on his song, but over the better part of the last decade, he’s become one of rap’s most beloved artists in his own right. Since his 2016 opus H.B.O. (Haitian Body Odor), he’s built a reputation as a mercurial artist who also charts his own path. He persistently covers the bottom of his face with a scarf, only revealing his eyes and whatever headwear or hairstyle he’s rocking at the time. Other information is just as difficult to attain: his real name, age, and other identifiable information isn’t easily available, so you could feasibly walk right past one of rap’s greatest new lyricists and never realize it. He raps in a notably nonlinear, abstract style that has drawn comparisons to MF DOOM, but peppers his lyrics with lingual and historic references to his Haitian heritage.
While many rappers need to stack live shows and flood streaming services to build their fan bases, he rarely performs at all. And when it comes to availability, his music inhabits two extremes. On one hand, he’s got some 20 albums available on streaming services, but it still seems that he isn’t really accessible. He famously released several albums in single-digit quantities, selling them to anxious fans for hundreds of dollars each—an approach, both artistically and entrepreneurially, that has earned the respect of the industry’s greats. He’s released music with Westside Gunn’s Griselda Records, and has made collaborative albums with the likes of The Alchemist, DJ Muggs, and Earl Sweatshirt. In a previous interview, he tells a story of joining Jay-Z and Jay Electronica for a studio session for their album A Written Testimony, and recording a verse that stunned everyone within earshot, including Beyoncé. His verse didn’t make the album, but fans who heard the final product were insistent that they heard Mach’s style all over Hov's verses.
Black Thought was one of the greats whose attention was piqued by Mach’s creativity, and when he attempted to contact him, Mach-Hommy didn’t believe that it was really Black Thought. The legend had to reach out multiple times before Mach returned interest. “Yo, dude was mad elusive. I was on his heels for a couple years,” Black Thought laughs. “It was a vetting process. ‘Yo, if this is really you, meet me on his mountain.’” Mach laughs back, while sharing a sigh of relief at how the two have since become both collaborators and friends. “I'm glad you made that investment,” he says. “‘Cause look what we got now.”
Mach-Hommy and Black Thought came to the Pigeons and Planes office for a joint interview to speak about their friendship, how they decide which parts of themselves to share and what to keep private, and how to build a lasting career in music.
So Black Thought, I heard that Mach is one of your favorite rappers. That’s strong praise, because you're a rapper’s rapper to a lot of people. What helped Mach earn that title for you?
Black Thought: It's a consideration for the craft. People who can rap and take the historical aspects of this thing that we do seriously, but still make it something of their own. Those artists are few and far between. So if I'm at the same intersection as one of those like-minded individuals, I always make sure I reach out, even if it’s to just say “keep going."
Mach, how did you react when you heard that Black Thought was a fan?
Mach-Hommy: At first, I was skeptical. I didn't even believe it was him reaching out to me, to tell you the truth. I thought it was some catfish. I was like, there's no way this is Black Thought. I've had niggas hit me with fake RZA emails. That's one example, I could give you 10 others. But the internet is strange. People have been booking me for shows for five years, but I haven't done any shows. So it's a precarious situation.
Can you share the story behind your song together, “COPY COLD”?
Mach-Hommy: I made this song like a decade ago, and at the time I was going through some stuff. It sounds like a different Mach, if you really pay attention. But I had that record, and the inner voice is like “Black Thought,” and then the rational mind is like, “fuck outta here.” So I put it away, because that's never gonna happen. Then ten years later I’ve got Black Thought in my phone, talking about some, “Where's the record? When are we gonna cook?”
"I think that speaks to the timeless nature of classical hip-hop, if you look at us as classical artists in the same way that you look at Bach and Beethoven. The true test of an artist, for me, is if you're able to create or ideate something today that is going to be just as impactful 10 or 20 years from now." - Black Thought
Black Thought: I think that speaks to the timeless nature of classical hip-hop, if you look at us as classical artists in the same way that you look at Bach and Beethoven. The true test of an artist, for me, is if you're able to create or ideate something today that is going to be just as impactful 10 or 20 years from now. Sometimes I collab with somebody and if it’s my project, ain’t no telling when everything's gonna be in alignment for this to be presented. But you gotta write and record as if it's a time capsule. Sometimes I send cats’ verses back, because it's like I don’t believe it enough. So when you find somebody that's on that same type time, it’s going to best serve the culture for y’all to collab. So I think we’re probably gonna continue to build.
Mach-Hommy: Oh yeah, we’re building, I got a folder for you.
That was my next question. Have you guys done any more songs since then?
Black Thought: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Both of you seem very intentional about what you do and don't share about your personal lives. Neither of you had the debut album that tells your whole life story, like an Illmatic or good kid, m.A.A.d city. How do you decide what to share and when to share?
Mach-Hommy: For me, it's a matter of propriety. I've observed this thing for long enough without being a player. Now, being a part of it and being mindful of the cautionary tales, I add that to my upbringing, and I'm using my intuition and my social skills and knowing when not to speak. But I don't think it's that deep. It's literally like a mixture of home training and street smarts.
Black Thought: In my case, all of the MCs who've been associated with The Roots brand—rest in power Malik B.—I think we've all been a lot more street than The Roots brand. I've never felt comfortable taking over The Roots’ narrative with my life story. To some people, my life story is heavy. At this point I feel like it's tragedy to triumph, but when you’re in it, you’re in it. Because of that, I've never felt that The Roots brand was as safe a space to be as transparent and as vulnerable as one would need to be to tell their life story in the right way. So I've been intentional about that in recent years, both in my music and across every other medium. Everything that I do—if I’m teaching in front of a class, or doing something on the Tonight Show—I'm trying to inject that idea of overcoming the me that once was.
I will run into folks sometimes, who are like, “I've listened to you for 20 years. I've been supporting your shit for this long, but I feel like I know nothing about you.” I'm like, how have I managed to toe the line and be that ambiguous? There's value in that. The Roots has been able to say we're all things to all people, just because we were never definitive about so many different things. But as a person, as an artist, as a man, and as somebody who's 50 years old, where else is there to go if you want to continue to make art, if you have never opened up until this point? That opened up a whole frontier. It's like a reinvention for me, because I never really wore anything on my sleeve.
Mach-Hommy: I'm a firm believer in save something for later.
It does seem like you’ve made yourself more available over the past year or so.
Mach-Hommy: It was a natural progression. I was more focused on creating and establishing a body of work and some sort of rapport. I've given this analogy before, but it's akin to building a mega structure. First you start digging this hole, and some people might mistake you for digging a grave. “Look at this silly nigga, what is he doing?” Then they see the cement trucks backing down the road, pouring concrete. The rebar starts coming in, then we get the steel beams. It's no longer a joke, right?
So I think at this point, we’ve got the structure up, the electrician has just left. Now we’re accepting lease applications, because we’re open for business. I understand how it looks from the outside looking in, but that's the price you pay for excellence. You have to be in the dark as an observer, as a consumer. Is Coca-Cola gonna give you the fucking secret ingredient, just because you like it so much? Or are you going to have to wait for the thing to get bottled, and then that's your experience? My experience is making it; you don't get to make it.
What kind of sacrifices come with that approach?
Black Thought: You miss out on benefiting from anything that is trending. It’s a different wave every week that people are making money off of, doing deals and realizing their dreams off of, and a lot of that shit comes and goes. You sacrifice now, it gets greater later.
Mach-Hommy: It's hard to hold, though. But after a while, it becomes second nature. Every once in a while, you get a tinge of FOMO. But I've been training. It’s almost Vulcan at this point. I don't really respond to it, because I'm already on this set path. Having so much vision and foresight for oneself helps a lot. Consistently envisioning and building, rebuilding, and making sure your runway is clear. It may not be clear to everyone around you, but if you stay the course, you'll be fine.
I wonder if either of you felt like revealing too much of your personal story distracted from what you actually want to say.
Black Thought: I've definitely felt that way. I felt as though there's so much that I want to say about so many other things. It took years for me to really understand the value in my story. For a long time, I think, I would separate myself and tell stories in second or third person. Speaking for the city of Philadelphia, speaking for the community, speaking for the culture. But still being super vague as far as any details. It's just been a bit of a balancing act in that way.
Mach, during this time where you're putting yourself out there more, you’ve run into some issues. Spotify randomly removed #RICHAXXHAITIAN for a while, you spoke about that. And you also spoke earlier about losing a lot of your YouTube followers. What has it been like to deal with that as you decide to try to move your career into new places?
Mach-Hommy: It seems like a specific response to a new stimulus. I put something in the system and it had a reaction. Now, why did that reaction occur? We could philosophize and hypothesize all day as to who stands to benefit from suppression of what and when and why. But the reality is, my piece of work and my contribution behaved like a monkey wrench or something. I shook some shit up and I did something I wasn't supposed to do.
The shit was charting, and all of a sudden, subscribers disappear, streams disappear, streams get frozen. I'm still to this day trying to figure out how the single’s still got the same amount of spins, but nobody has an explanation. Everybody's explanation is that it's the AI. But we already know that this shit is nowhere near where people think it is. There is an overwhelming human presence within this AI superstructure that everybody believes is like in the fucking Jetsons. Y’all niggas on cartoon time, it ain't that. There's someone still controlling all that. People are still constantly reconfiguring this shit day by day.
I will tell you to speak with them and ask them why the large language models don't consider certain ethnicities and certain patterns of speech. To me, so-called Black English and vernacular is way more ill than just basic [English]. The combined contributions to the English language between me and this man right here is like… Y’all still talking about Shakespeare, William? Y’all niggas bugging, man. I understand the value in that, but the conversation has to progress. At one point or the other, we got to be able to maybe make even some footnotes. Maybe I don't get a chapter, but give me an asterisk. You know what I’m saying?
Along with the access to your personal story, your career is interesting in terms of access in general. Philosophically, how do you look at accessibility? Are you going for the biggest audience possible? And if not, what are you going for when you create your music?
Mach-Hommy: There's a place where quality can meet quantity, and you can maximize those things and have a high quality experience over a very wide audience. I'm approaching it from the perspective of… access to me has two levels: you've got ownership, and then you’ve got participation. If you want to own something, that is an entirely different level of engagement from streaming or catching it when it comes on the radio. You don't really have any agency or any authority.
That's what you're paying for: that level of accessibility. “I want to own this thing that is very hard to get, no one else has it, and it makes me happy.” There's nothing wrong with either one, it just depends on how comfortable you are with the material. If you want to partake in ownership, that's a whole ‘nother conversation. Especially if I'm making sure that I'm maintaining the scarcity—potentially, maybe to my own detriment, depending on how you define success, not me. Some people might be like, “You could have sold a thousand more.” But what does it really mean to me? Not much, and that's a decision I've made. I can't say that I don't see the value in wanting to sell more records as far as quantity. But I don't know, man—I've decided already.
Black Thought: I feel the same way. The amount of records The Roots were selling was one of our last concerns, and it was too far to turn back and adopt a new model. In the tortoise and the hare dynamic, The Roots have always been the tortoise. I guess I picked the wrong industry, because it isn’t an industry to not care about selling records. But so many models have been turned over on their heads at this point.
Mach-Hommy: Slow and steady wins the race, literally.
Mach, what informed your perspective there? Are there any specific experiences that you saw that made you decide to pursue your career in music that way?
Mach-Hommy: Let's not forget about all of those who came before us and everything they endured, as far as so-called Black musicians are concerned. Furthermore, Black musicians in the diaspora in the Caribbean, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, and then going from there to what's going on in the inner city in Newark, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Harlem, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta. All of this history informs me in a certain way. Then I take this history and I step into the space as someone who wants to pursue a particular end with whatever means I have. I have my culture, my history, and my mind with me. And not much money.
The hardest thing for me was pricing it, because I knew it was priceless, just because of whatever I've been given. I've been given something to preserve, and over time, I realized, I've been given something to conserve. With that being said, it's not as infinite as it may seem. The word is infinite, but my time is short. I still have trouble with where I land sometimes, because I'm trying to approximate beams of light traveling at speeds unknown, into a dollar amount. I don't understand what to do, on some real shit. I'm just doing my best to make a price and figure it out. There's a little fucking sharp pain every time I publish something for mass consumption, I feel mad ill. But it's just some shit you gotta go through. That’s my version of pregame jitters, if we were to draw the analogy of a high performance athlete. Because what we do is very athletic.
I would love to hear about you guys’ writing processes. Mach, I was told that you don’t write your lyrics down?
Mach-Hommy: I write, and I don't write, but I'm not reading off the paper. I've had a stage where I refused to physically write. I was under some sort of common spell, where I was being pulled down the drain of “this is what you gotta do to be top tier.” But that's not necessarily true. I've done it every possible way by now, at least thrice over. So I'm here to report that one is not really preferable to the other. It’s about what makes you more comfortable as a speaker. To me, there's something in the mechanics of having a pen and a paper and physically writing. Fuck the vocal performance, the thoughts are different. They're very different from dealing with the digital apparatus. I've done it all, though.
When y'all were recording together, did you take anything from each other's process that you would like to apply to your own?
Black Thought: I would like to give less of a fuck about the structure of things. About how many bars a thing is, what key shit is in. My musical training wasn't formal. I went to school for art, and then I started cutting my art classes to sit in on music classes. That classically trained musician that exists within me, it doesn't necessarily hold me back, but it serves me in a different way as a lyricist. I wish it was more like the Wild West.
Mach-Hommy: I don’t give a fuck. [Black Thought laughs] I get it. And then when I look at Thought, part of me be like, damn, should I give a fuck? But then I’m like, nah. But it’ll creep in! Good people make you reconsider your own decisions, nigga!
Thought, you’re 50. Mach, I’m not asking your age, but there is a level of wisdom to your music. This year, we have a lot of greats from the ‘90s who are dropping new albums: Common, LL, Rakim, Nas. What do you think are the most important things that it takes to be able to grow older in hip-hop?
Black Thought: Grace. And that whole “do unto others,” that's some real shit. Certain people move like they want to be around for a long time. I feel like that's what it narrows down to. People that I've seen fall to the wayside and self-combust, you never did right by the people you’re supposed to do right by.
Mach-Hommy: How does your energy bar keep going up while everything around you turns to shit?
Black Thought: It has to take place within yourself. I don't rob myself of any sort of self-care. If I got something that I know I'm not gonna feel like doing this evening, I might do yoga, acupuncture, and a colonic before I go to work. The rest of the day, I'm unstoppable. Things like meditation, breath work. It really doesn't matter how brief. If you're able to steal a couple moments and devote that to yourself, then you’re better prepared to navigate the bullshit. Self-love is important.
Both of you spoke about navigating personal bullshit, but the world is in a crazy space politically right now, too. Somebody just tried to shoot the former president. But it feels like hip-hop isn't necessarily reflecting how fraught this climate is.
Black Thought: I feel like real hip-hop is reflecting it, and always has. That's always been my agenda. There's socio-political commentary. I might not have been the first person, but I was always speaking for the people and speaking to the people about the real shit. I've been blessed in that I've never had to bite my tongue. I've never had to change my lyrics, they never thought it was iffy to have me on Sesame Street. I'm thankful to have been able to occupy the space that I do.
Mach-Hommy: First thing that comes to mind is like, I don't know, this might be 20 years old or some shit. “Rough late nights / Police use they flashlight to bust brake lights / Aim away to buck the gauge right in broad daylight / State Trooper blasts on black church events from North to Buddha gray / The whole city is looking like O Trizzay.” That's some baby Mach shit, it just is what it is. It's always gonna be like that.
What do you think it'll take to make even more artists be willing to speak up about these things?
Black Thought: Cats is industry plants at this point. Not even industry plants, just plants. It's a huge challenge to separate the real from the fake, because there's so much industry and money and power behind the fake. So many people stand to benefit from that sort of diversion. But that doesn't take away from people creating real art. In times like these, when there's a war, when it's a recession, when shit hits the fan, it's up to us. Traditionally, it’s always been up to us to speak to the times. The political times that we're living in call for what artists like Mach and I are doing and have been doing forever, more than ever.
Mach-Hommy: Yeah, especially when you say the word “willing.” Like, define willing. In what context? Because you gotta also consider the overwhelming amount of financial abuse and disproportionate intensity Black artists are treated with in a commercial space in terms of what they are allowed to say and not. So your willingness has to be attached to something more. I don't know, man. These people are in these situations, and I don't know if it's about willingness. Because I feel like if things were a little bit different, you'd hear a lot more social commentary.
Black Thought: You got free will, you got ill will.
One thing I value about what both of you do is the sense of heritage and ancestry. Mach, you draw a lot from Haitian history and Haitian culture. Thought, I just read your book The Upcycled Self, and you were able to draw a lot from family and places you’ve been. How are both of you able to draw from and build from location and heritage in a way that's able to feel so tangible in your music?
Black Thought: For me, it's just something that happens organically. Certain places vibrate at a certain level and are more conducive to the process. Philadelphia is just as much a character in my life story as any person. I feel like New York is like that, LA [too]. I've always been my most introspective in LA and it might have something to do with just how far apart things are spread out. You just get that 15 or 20 minutes between point A and B more often. You're drawn to the places that you could most get in your bag in. Those places where you feel most creative, those are the places that I frequent. Even if I'm trying to figure out where I'm going for leisure or my social life. All of that is built around my creative life.
Mach-Hommy: Some of these places, you don't even gotta be there. You just gotta call it, think of it, and boom, you there. And it's a whole different…the conductivity changes. And whatever frequency you was at, you need to dig into a different bag, and just like he said, think about Philadelphia, think about New York.
Black Thought: For me, it could be images, it could be anything. But you need that one transcendent sort of trigger.