Forgotten Kingz Feat. Edidit & Lord Sledg

“In my culture, a king is recognized as somebody who owns them self and owns their own mind” – Motionfix

A couple weeks ago I stumbled into The Comet, an old Seattle music venue, where bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam played before the world knew who they were.  As you can imagine, The Comet has a grimy, but homey, alternative vibe, and houses genres of music anywhere from punk, hip-hop, folk, electronic, indy, and pretty much anything else you can start naming off the top of your head.  The sound I heard upon entry on this particular night was something new to my ears but filled with sounds I am familiar with.  The sound was a mashup of Metal, Hip-Hop, and Dubstep and the frontman was a guy by the name of Michael Motionfix who was blessing the crowd with very thoughtful, deep, and explosive lyrics.  Motionfix’s music is  not something you hear every day, and might not be something you would be exposed to period unless you know where to look and are ready for some experimentation with music, but it is damn good.  I stuck around for the rest of the show in awe that I had not heard anything like this before and was really drawn in by the heavy bass and beats and the level of upbeat darkness that was spread throughout the Comet.  I caught up with Motionfix a week later, kicked it for a bit and talked about music for a while before agreeing to meet up again for an interview.  Motionfix is as unique and interesting as his music and has a lot to say about… well…pretty much everything!  I now present you with a few words with Michael Motionfix.  Enjoy!

Me-So Motionfix, tell me a little bit about yourself, where you grew up at, what your background story is leading up you moving to Seattle.

Motionfix-Well, I grew up in South Florida, Spent most of my younger years, adolescent years, wonder years, whatever you wanna call it, in the Miami, Fort Lauderdale area, in a predominantly black neighborhood called Carver Ranches. I was among a few guys doing like uh…hip hop, a remanence of New York style hip hop, but you know, we were also listening to stuff from the West Coast and also Miami Bass music which included Poison Clan and Two Live Crew and groups like that.  There were lots of parties and DJ’s and stuff like that around growing up.

Me-Cool cool, so you grew up with a fairly strong musical background?

Motionfix-Oh yeah, well my father was a drummer too, he was a funk drummer, and passed away when I was 13, so I wasn’t really of age to kinda like…conceptualize what he was doing with drums.  Fast forward to me being a teenager, I was naturally passionate about music, so I assume my father was naturally passionate as well.

As I said before I grew up listening to a lot of hip-hop stuff. We used to have this sampler in a room, and our spot was like a Mecca.  Me and my older brother. I went by the name of ‘Melanin the sun child’. He went by the name of ‘AKA Supa Nigga’.  So we had this sampler and we would get vinyl. A lot of different vinyl from thrift shops, anywhere really. We started listening, well sampling from a lot of different music, but from my spectrum when everyone else was flipping through the music, essentially robbing the music just for a sample, I started digging the music and getting into the music, and started saying “Yo man this is cool…” blah blah blah…

Me-That is a unique approach to have when everyone surrounding you is listening to the music just for a quick sample.

Motionfix-Yeah that is what a lot of guys were doing, just skim through and album just to find a sample and stuff like that.  I was actually digesting the music and appreciating it outside of hip-hop, which a lot of the cats at that time were not doing and not recognizing that actually listening to other stuff and older music is the roots of hip-hop.  Fast forward to the early 90’s the culture has been recycled as far as youth growing up sampling, and growing up rapping over samples, but im pretty sure the founders like Afrika Bambata actually listened to Kraft Werk and Parliament Funkadelic, so from my understanding of that I became one of those people who listened to organic music for inspiration. Music I was drawing inspiration from were genres such from Jazz to Funk to Classic Rock to Hip Hop to Punk to Ska to Alternative Rock and then ran into Hardcore Metal, music of that genre, and even dipped into Death Metal.  That takes me back too…When all this stuff was coming on, rock, grunge, the alternative scene, MTV, the early 90’s, and being a young black kid, I would sneak and watch this alternative videos because a lot of people in my surroundings would be like “Aww man why you watching that whit boy stuff!! What are you doing watching that!” I could relate to a lot of stuff, but I am an eccentric person, which is why I cling to more eccentric things.  That’s why I was getting into alternative rock at this time and even was one of the first cats rocking wallet chains just because that’s what people who were into the alternative culture rocked.  Now everybody in the hip-hop world is trying to rock that!! That was back in the time when I was getting tattoos too when even people who were heavily saturated in the hip hop world were not into getting big pieces on their arms and stuff like that…I think that is influence from the alternative side of thinking, but of course everything gets thrown into the whole marketing thing and then people start replicating “What’s Out”.  Another thing…well actually lets move onto the next question.

Me-So you mentioned having grown up listening to basically as many genres of music you could get your hands on.  Overall, who would you say your greatest musical influences are?

Motionfix-I would say that I got to a point where I was naturally open to every type of music.  I don’t know a lot of country artists par say, but I’m not going to discriminate against it just because I don’t know about it.  I’m pretty sure there might be something in a country song that might catch me. For example uh…Speaking of influence, Chuck Berry is a major influence for me.  He is a huge icon for me.  A brother of that time who is so cool and so free considering the time period he grew up in.  He is the founder of extreme expressive music.  Little Richard…BB King of course, but mainly the left field innovative type of artist.  Hip hop influences for me ranged from Run DMC, LL Cool J, Kool Kim from the UMC’s, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Tribe Called Quest, Common Sense (before he was Common), there are countless golden age hip hop artists that I was influenced by.

Me-What do you think about the development of hip-hop and what is has become today?

Motionfix-Well what I would say about that is that there is a invert war on hip hop.  Well this is going to get into politics and government and government agenda, but like, hip hop has always been the voice of inner city youth or any outcast in society, but it was dominantly listened to by Blacks and Latinos up until a certain point.  Now hip-hop has become more packaged, accessible, and more marketable, which is expressed more through rap.  People often divide rap and hip hop.  Rap is considered more of the commercial aspect and hip-hop is considered a more cultural aspect.  So we got to a certain point in time where rap is the hottest selling thing, different cultures, different countries, everyone is learning about it.  It is really about the youth being into what’s new and what’s different. Then also there is the American market for it which is pump the sex drugs and rock and roll mantra which is party, party, party, have a good time, but our music was not really about that, it was more about being young smart and articulate in your own right because you’re an outcast and you standing as an individual.

Me-When did you start incorporating heavier metal with electronic music?

Motionfix-Well actually, go back to what I was saying about the early 90s I was into abstract hip hop stuff and have been into alternative rock for a long time.  About this time I began to cultivate the hip-hop side of me, but also was cultivating the rock aspect of me as well.  People can identify with the hip hop side of me more because of where I grew up at and what kind of community I have been around.  However I was also one of those youth that had been going to alternative rock&metal shows like vans warped tour, Ozzfest and stuff like that. Also when I discovered bands like fishbone and bad brains and stuff like that, it was just confirmation that I should keep doing what I was doing, experiment and not care what other people had to say about my music.

Me-Tell me about the song forgotten kings?

Motionfix-Well basically I was thinking about making a song based on a collaboration with people, so I wanted to do a song that was kind of dancy but also kind of tribal.  I told Chico and he made a beat, I took it home. That’s what I do, Chico makes the beat and I take it home and do my homework, mediate on it, and come up with the arrangement. So the song concept is dealing with people who have indigenous ancestry, well truthfully everyone has indigenous ancestry, but its talking about the people in our position. In the eyes of elite society, privledged society, these people are looked upon as scum but in fact their lineage is much older than a lot of the new world meaning, Europe. Europe is younger than ancient kingdoms in Africa and the song is a reflection on people of ethnic origin, mainly African origin though because that’s something closer to my dominant traits and genes, and it’s recognizing the royalty within the characteristics of the person as opposed to saying, ok, this persons material wealth is what they are worth. In my culture a king is recognized as somebody who owns themself and owns their mind. Before you can be a king and own anything else you have to own yourself and your mind.  So the song is representing these kings that walk amongst us in our society but people don’t recognize them because their forgotten kings and a lot of the education that these people are living off is actually from forgotten kings in a literal sense.

Me-How do you feel the Seattle Hip-Hop scene is taking to your music thus far?

Motionfix- I feel like I know a whole lot of faces and people are familiar to my face but I feel like there is a sense of a bubble as far as different crews.  Its like I’ll stay in my corner and you stay in your corner.  I think more people should be like “ok I think this guys cool, lets get him to do a track and we’ll exchange work”, lets make this world that much bigger.

Be sure to download Foreign Element by Darq Matter, a musical collaboration featuring Motionfix, HERE