In an editorial I wrote recently on the status of the New New York scene, I noted Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire possibly one of the few MCs who could render my thesis of "no classic albums" void, but it would take time. It felt important to leave his career arc up to question for two reasons. One: He's only two, possibly three songs deep in his major label debut after inking the deal in 2012. Two: He'd recently begun discussing his music in a manner that suggests he cares not only about his craft, but how the public perceives it. He denounces the Power & Passion EP as pandering to his peers inability to maintain their identity, sacrificed to the radio hit, and as you'll see from our Rooftop Interview, he did not arrive at this sobering conclusion alone.
When we set up the interview with Terroreyes.tv and Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire, we requested that he bring passages that have recently inspired him. He's gone on record of having Malcolm X and Huey Newton speeches in his headphones, but he caught us with a curve when he quoted E.B. White's Here Is New York essay, referring to him as "the dude who wrote Charlotte's Web", and opened a copy of George Lois' Damn Good Advice (For People With Creative Talent). It's not that we never expected him to quote old white men (he's got a mixtape named after a Philip K. Dick novel). We were just pleasantly surprised to by those old white men in particular. With his Kismet mixtape dropping tomorrow, we'll soon hear if eXquire is back in prime form after the stumble. It is our first opportunity to find out if the devil's advocate lost.
