Considering contemporary Hip Hop’s need take themselves seriously at every waking moment, Turquoise Jeep isn’t suppose to work. They dance a lot, rhyme about comical interactions with women, lack commercial or backpacker appeal, troll the era’s notion of machismo by sheer physical appearance alone and music videos from them feel like inexpensive green screen collages. Regardless, modern classics “Stretchy Pants,” “Fried Or Fertilized” and “Lemme Smag It” have collectively garnered over 20 million YouTube views since breaking out around 2009. Since then, they enjoy a long tour schedule that could potentially make someone’s favorite rapper jealous. Their whole dynamic is very reminiscent of early Digital Underground, almost as if Turquoise Jeep are their creative benefactors growing up apart of the connected generation. Things don’t have to make sense or even prove a point; just plain ol’ entertaining performance art. Just as much as Sex Packets existed outside of an Amerikkka’s Most Wanted and Please Hammer Don’t Hurt Emworld, Turquoise Jeep are the same with their contemporaries.
It’s easy to understand as Turquoise Jeep shows enjoy a light, whimsical vibe. Hell, their opening acts during a packed show at The Echo was morbid yet fascinating. That includes hypersexual duo Donna Bummer ending their performance by shooting attendees with spray bottles metaphorically representing semen and New Jersey/Israeli emcee Kosha Dillaz spitting alongside Hellfyre Club member VerBS. Things got a lot weirder after sitting down with members Flynt Flossy, Yung Humma and Whatchyamacallit. Being escorted by their manager Leon to their green room, the first person in view outside of their craft food arrangement was none other than Aftermath artist Jon Connor who yells “Dope” more than a few times in the interview. Yup, the same emcee recently featured on Dr. Dre’s critically acclaimed Compton was just there hanging out. This year also comes with the first individual solo project from Flynt Flossy entitled F. Floss InternatioKnown. Released over a year-and-a-half since their last compilation project Turquoise J33P Records: Existing Musical Being, there’s a very Hip Hop like business model in line with many collectives like Wu-Tang. Despite being well known as under the radar, fans from around the world enjoy riding The Jeep.
Sitting with Turquoise Jeep before their set, the group explains their greatest fan moment, making individual albums and extremely diverse fanbase.
Flynt Flossy Says “It’s About Not Giving A Fuck”
DX: How’s the tour going so far guys?
Whatchyamacallit: I’m good. Blessed man. Glad we made it through that LA traffic. Last night in San Diego was wild and ridiculous. A lot of people were out there. A lot of people.
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Yung Humma: Last night was crazy.
Whatchyamacallit: To keep doing it every night is a blessing.
DX: The best thing about you guys is how much you all just curved the entire industry. But, Turquoise Jeep still manages to tour heavily and maintain an extremely solid fanbase. What’s been the key to that while avoiding stuff most artists have to deal with?
Flynt Flossy: I think it’s about being genuine and staying true to your craft. It’s about not giving a fuck really. Personally, I don’t think about being better than this artist or that artist. It’s about staying in our own lane and doing what we do. I’ve come to find out if you just stick to what you do, the people are going to fuck with you. They’ll say, “OK, you’re not trying to be like someone else.” It’s only one Turquoise Jeep.
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Whatchyamacallit: It’s people buying into people. That’s how this game works. They wouldn’t have bought into us if they didn’t feel it was something more to us than how we look on the outside. The music in itself is transcendent. We just spoke our own conversations that we be having about chicks. We just put it out there for people to understand so they can feel like they’re in our world. That’s our script.
Yung Humma: Stay true to what you know man. Just being real to ourselves. People respect that you’re being real to yourself. That’s what we do.
DX: How would you describe that lane that you occupy?
Whatchyamacallit: It’s music theater.
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Flynt Flossy: People try to box us. They try to say we’re comedy or parody. We ain’t making fun of nobody. We’re just doing our own thing. We’re just weird really. It’s like yo, that’s how we’re creating our own genre of music. We’re just going to try to extend it and get more artists like us. We’re just pushing different and not trying to blend with anyone else. We could drop anything tomorrow; rock, R&B pop or some Hip Hop shit but, we’ll always have the Turquoise Jeep twist.
Whatchyamacallit: That’s how music was anyway. Nobody really put it down to one genre. Music at one point was just how you were feeling.
Turquoise Jeep On Capitalizing Their Web Presence Early
DX: Where do you guy’s aesthetic fit in regards to the look, style and videos for Turquoise Jeep?
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Flynt Flossy: A man, we the shit.
[Laughter]
Yung Humma: Whatever we come up with, we just go for it.
Whatchyamacallit: Think about that little kid growing up in the 90s watching Hip Hop for the first time. Like the late 80s or early 90s. When Hip Hop came to the screen and you were stuck in your room watching videos. You had magazine posters all over the walls and stuff.
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Flynt Flossy: That was definitely us. A lot of things when we do those videos, I was inspired by people like – my favorite music video of all time when I was growing up was ah-ha’s “Take On Me” because it was so unorthodox. I like Peter Gabriel when he was coming out with all those crazy videos. I was just a kid from the hood, looking at the world different. In regards to our aesthetic, I look at us like a Picasso painting. Who’s to say that blue is suppose to be orange or red is suppose to be yellow. However you feel is however you feel. It’s free artistic vision. It’s just freedom.
DX: The internet has changed drastically since you guys first hit the scene. Before Instagram or Vine became A&Rs within themselves, you were using social media and YouTube solely to push your music. Now, it’s an everyday occurrence. How have you evolved with the internet?
Whatchyamacallit: Just capitalize on it at the right time. It’s crazy because we talk about that every day. We joke about it. We’re in the Vine era now and I think we came right before all of that shit popped off. We were able to work on it and show people that this was us. We’re not really going to conform to everything you see out there. Just let us do us. If you rock with us, just rock with us.
Flynt Flossy: People can sense when you’re real, true to your craft and really talented. Therefore, you’re not a here today, gone tomorrow type of artist. All of the fans we acquire are lifelong fans. We’ve developed a fan base large enough to where we can drop something and they’re going to check for it. That’s definitely a blessing.
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DX: Speaking about those fans, what’s been the most surprising moment of fandom over the years?
Yung Humma: I think for me, the most surprising moment was our first show in Brooklyn. Someone walked up to me and said, “This is our first time in America, I’m from Australia and I really wanted to check you guys out.”
Whatchyamacallit: He was crying.
Yung Humma: He was crying. It was hard to take in. We was like for real?
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Flynt Flossy: Remember that 70-year-old woman?
Whatchyamacallit: We were in Chicago and this old couple from England said they loved our music. And, we’re looking at them like you sure?
Yung Humma: They were easily 70-years-old. It’s just the different type of fans we have. People coming to us crying, talking about how our music helped them when they were down and didn’t know what to do with themselves. To hear people say that is surreal. It’s like damn, you really have that effect on somebody by just being creative.
Turquoise Jeep Explains Co-Signs From Jon Connor and Questlove to Jimmy Eat World
DX: How does it feel to have artists co-sign you like Jon Connor?
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Flynt Flossy: First of all and you can quote me, Jon Connor is dope as fuck.
Whatchyamacallit: It’s funny because you never know who’s listening. It’s crazy to think he was listening to us while in the basement making music. That’s how far our music transcends.
Flynt Flossy: It shows at the end of the day that art is art. If it’s quality, it shouldn’t matter if you’re doing rock or country or whatever. One of our biggest fans is Jimmy Eat World. They love us. That also goes for other artist who likes us like Questlove and Childish Gambino.
DX: You guys have worked with Gambino as well.
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Flynt Flossy: Exactly. It’s all over. When people ask us what our demographic is, it’s hard to say. We’ll get emails from eleven-year-olds asking us how to get into our concerts and we’re like what? Then, we’ll have people like the 70-year-olds show up. Quality is quality.
DX: Does not having an exact finger on your demographic keep you creatively on your toes?
Flynt Flossy: Naw, it makes it better because you can do what you want.
Yung Humma: You just do what you want and people are going to gravitate to it. It’s not about keeping up with what you think they think is popular. Just keep doing what you doing and let them gravitate.
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DX: How do you guys come up with those crazy ideas?
Whatchyamacallit: It’s so organic how it comes up. I can talk about “Fried or Fertilized.” He [Flynt] came up with the hook and he was talking about this one weird hook the whole time. I was trying to make the beat and was kind of confused. We didn’t think about it until Humma came into the mix. He heard the beat and didn’t even have lyrics or anything. He just sat down and wrote it right then and there. We recorded it right there. For Humma, he writes on the spot which is good and bad.
Yung Humma: Sometimes it can take me a minute and they get upset.
Whatchyamacallit: Most of the time, it’s all about situations with him [Flynt] and chicks. Everytime. Everytime.
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DX: Speaking of chicks, how much as the groupie game improved for you guys?
Flynt Flossy: Oh yeah! Fuck yeah man!
[Laughter]
Flynt Flossy: I’m just playing. OK; no, I’m not playing. I’ve always been a charismatic dude. I’ve been in the game for a while.
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Whatchyamacallit: This nigga here man.
Flynt Flossy: When you on a certain level, it goes from trying to date to you want to do what? You don’t even know me?
DX: You guys are fucking hilarious. One of the things I’ve noticed in Hip Hop nowadays is how serious it’s become.
Whatchyamacallit: It never really was back in the day man. Think about it, what was going down back then. Sugar Hill Gang was rapping. Even MC Hammer was rapping.
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Flynt Flossy: Think about artists like Slick Ric or other emcees saying stuff like “You a sucka emcee.” Even the aesthetics were colorful. I was fucking with Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff heavily back in the day and Special Ed. We just took it back to that’s what I grew up on. Big Daddy Kane “Smooth Operator.” He was fucking it up with the suit on. In this day and age, being that we’re so unorthodox, people want to dismiss us like we’re corny. But nah, this is where Hip Hop was at one point. Just like Digital Underground and Shock G.
Whatchyamacallit: Hell, Tupac was a back-up dancer for them.
Flynt Flossy: People who love us and understand our music knows where it comes from. If I ain’t never kill someone, I’m not going to talk about it.
Whatchyamacallit: I ain’t never cooked no crack but I know people who’ve done it.
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Flynt Flossy: I’m from the hood so I’ve seen stuff. But at the same time, if a girl is making me wait for the coochie, I’m going to write about it. Why I got to wait on the coochie?
