REWINDING WITH TREK LIFE

PHOTO CREDIT:  Joel Marasigan / Flashpoint Grafix_3

Hailing from West Covina, CA, a suburb of Los Angeles, Trek Life is well known for his aggressive delivery, thought provoking lyrics, energetic shows, and ill DJ sets. His skills have given him the opportunity to work with various talented producers and emcees such as Babu, Evidence, Oddisee, Kev Brown and Khalil as well as host & DJ with QuestLove, Jazzy Jeff, Rhettmatic, and Cerritos All-stars. As Myspace’s official LA host, Trek Life has also opened, hosted, and DJ’ed for Nas, TI, & many more.

Trek Life’s debut album “Price I’ve Paid” received high reviews from several websites, magazines, and blogs and has allowed him the opportunity to tour the world from Seattle to Germany. Songs from the album were featured on popular MTV shows such as The Hills and G’s to Gents. “Price I’ve Paid” was recently remixed by DC’s own Oddisee and released in Japan and the US under the names “All Times” and “New Money” respectively. His second LP “Everything Changed Nothing” was released in Jan 2010, and was produced entirely by Oddisee. On the plate for 2012 is the new album “Hometown Foreigner”.

We saw the Hometown Foreigners cassette and thought that it would only be right to reach out to Trek and chop it up about his newest project.

PHOTO CREDIT:  Joel Marasigan / Flashpoint Grafix_3

(SC) Let's talk about your new album. Why the title "Hometown Foreigner?"

Firstly, thank you very much for the interview. The title Hometown Foreigner comes from being well-known by so many people in the inner circle of music, but somehow not receiving the credit and success you feel like you deserve. Its the thought of being on the inside but still feeling like an outsider. I feel like i've been doing great music for quite some time now, and I want people to begin to recognize that a lot more. Same goes Duke Westlake as well.

(SC) You and Duke (I remember Duke from E.SuPer) got an incredible sound together. How did you link up?


All credit goes to Tommy Blak. He played a beat by Duke Westlake for me years ago on tour. This was back when Duke went by Maestro the MadMonk. I was sold from the very 1st beat. The sound was flawless, but raw. I got word that he was going to school to learn mixing and mastering. Soon as I heard that I was like "i'm going to work with that dude." Skip ahead to 2012, I hit up Duke to do the Ready to Live remix on Wouldn't Change Nothing and we started making plans to make a full record. That was pretty much the beginning.

ORDER HOMETOWN FOREIGNER AND GET THE HOMETOWN HEROES MIXTAPE (Cassette) FOR FREE.

(SC) Ok, lets talk about the Mixtape. I think it was fitting to get Rhettmatic to mix it, especially since the man has dropped MANY classic mixtapes. Tell us how the "Hometown Heroes" Mixtape came to life.

Mello Music wanted to do something that put the people on alert about the album. They felt like I had all this dope music that people had been missing & brought up the idea of doing a mixtape. I immediately thought of Rhettmatic. He's been so dope for so long and doing a mixtape with him was already on my Rap Bucket List lol. Once the business was handled, I just send over pretty much my entire catalogue HA. I know he had to be thinking "Why the fuck did he send me all this?" It came out exactly as expected, Rhett is the man. Putting it on cassette was a no brainer. When you have 2 local turned international artist working together, it just makes sense to make a product that's memorable with it.

PHOTO CREDIT:  Joel Marasigan / Flashpoint Grafix_3

(SC) Mello Music Group is one of the more prolific Hip Hop labels in the game right now. How did they react when when you introduced the idea of a (Free) cassette release with the album?

Mello is always open to doing something special for the fans. It was mainly their idea as well. That's one thing that makes Mello Music so dope. They really want the fans and artist to have a great experience to go with the music.

(SC) In your lyrics you make references to cassettes, walkmans, etc... Tell us what your top cassettes would be. Which ones did you play until they poppped?

Hell yeah! I survived off my walkman back in the days when I was riding the bus.

• Ice Cube - Death Certificate: I actually had to buy 3 different copies of this cassette THEN bought the CD, THEN bought it on iTunes. I used to listen to this tape all day everyday.

• Big Daddy Kane - Long Live the Kane: I can't even explain how much I bumped this. I had a janky swapmeet bootleg at 1st because I saw it at the Nogales Swap Meet. That one popped in about 2 days HAHA. I used to try to fall asleep listening to this, but those old headphones were hella uncomfortable. I wanted to soak up every style.

• The Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride...: This tape stayed in the box.

• Slow Jam tape I made for this chick in High School: She didn't want the tape haha, I ended up liking it and bumping it anyway. Had some Jodeci joints on there, Keith Sweat. Don't act like ya'll didn't make slowjam tapes!

(SC) Last thoughts? Thank you again for the interview. Everyone please go out and pick up Hometown Foreigner

Peace

CLICK HERE TO COP HOMETOWN FOREIGNER CD + MIXTAPE (CASSETTE)