Pharoahe Monch is currently on tour promoting his latest release W.A.R. (We Are Renegades), but he’s got lofty plans for album cut “Assassins.”
The Queens, New York native has revealed that he has a 45- to 60-minute planned for the cut, which features Royce Da 5’9 and Jean Grae.
“We just gonna finish this tour out. We actually leave from the West Coast to go to Budapest. We got a couple of festivals overseas, then we’re gonna try to do an East Coast leg of this,” he told 90.5FM KSJS’s StrongArm. “We got the ‘Black Hand Side’ video coming with Styles P and Phonte, which is crazy. We’re trying to shoot a film for the ‘Assassins’ record, a 45-minute to a 60-minute film in which it’s back-story. You still get the verses but there’s so much back-story. There’s fighting scenes and it’s crazy.”
He also explained which new MC’s he’s feeling, as well as a few hip-hop mainstays. “I mean, I listen to a lot of Georgia Anne Muldrow, a lot of Blu. I just heard some stuff off his new album, it’s just phenomenal. He’s been phenomenal for a minute,” he continued. “It’s difficult to call different people ‘new,’ but when you do stuff like this, if you’re a hip-hop fan and you don’t know that, kill yourself. Fashawn, Shafiq, Jean Grae, Royce, Elzhi… I think Royce is at the top of the pinnacle of the shit right now.”
The “Simon Says” rapper shared his wish list, with hopes of collaborating with DJ Premier, Madlib and Blu.
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“I’d love to get on a joint with Blu and I’d love to work with Madlib and I’d love to work with an array of people. When I say it feels like halftime, it’s because I never put the timeframe on my career. Since the beginning, I looked at it like I was loving stuff that was early ‘70s, ’72, and I’m like, how did these people make music that’s transcended to me now? So I try to emulate them, make music that would last for 20 years. So for me, it feels like halftime because I’m yet to do the Premier joint and the Madlib joint and a couple of collaborations I want to do. As well as I don’t feel like I’m at my pinnacle yet, so as an artist, I’m still working on my craft.”
