We had a great time recently chatting with vibrant hip hop emcee, Buff1. Bringing the ruckus from Ann Arbor, MI, you can’t go wrong with Buff1′s unique artist flavor. While Buff1′s style is deliberately original, he is also influenced by classic acts in underground hip hop. Currently wrapping up a tour full of sold-out shows across the country, alongside artists and close friends 14KT and Mayer Hawthorne, Buff1 has been busy spreading the word about why you music fans should pay attention to what he’s doing.

Great for first dates or playing to cars full of friends on the way to parties, Buff1′s raps combined with production from The Lab Techs will set the tone and beat your system up, whether it’s time to replace yours or you want to feel good about the cash you invested in it.

As far as we’re concerned, nobody has come closer to J. Dilla’s sound as an emcee than Buff1. It’s no wonder There’s Only One.

Holla at Buff1′s music on iTunes. If you haven’t heard Buff1 yet, what the heck are you waiting for?

Hipsterwave: What’s up Buff1, how you doin’?

Buff1: Pretty good man.

Hipsterwave: So I guess we’ll just get right into it man. It’s really good to talk to you. I’ve been a fan of your music for a while and I’m glad that I finally get a chance to speak to you.

Buff1: Yes, definitely, thanks for reaching out. Appreciate it.

Hipsterwave: How has the tour been going?

Buff1: Tour has been amazing. I didn’t really have too many expectations, but it has been exceedingly great. We have five sell-outs in a row. You know, so that makes, I believe eight of the 11 shows sold out. So, it’s just been crazy. You know, I knew that there was a lot of anticipation for Mayer Hawthorne coming to these cities, but uh, yeah this is bananas man. It’s just fun and it’s good that I can be doin’ this tour with my brother and I’m just proud that I could be out there and reach all these different people.

Hipsterwave: When I watch your music videos or I listen to your tracks, I feel like it’s more engaging than with a lot of rappers out there. Like the “Dream Streets” video is great, and I’m also really feelin’ the “Beat the Speakers Up” video. So, how do you come up with ideas for the messages that you send in your music or your music videos?

Buff1: Well, it starts with the music, of course. And with me, nine times out of ten, the inspiration of what direction I’m gonna take is from the beat: comes from the music, comes from the production. I don’t know, there’s no real method to the madness, I don’t really know how it comes to me but I’ll hear something in the beat and it’ll really dictate how I flow, what I’m saying and how I deliver it. With my three music videos: the first one being “Beat the Speakers Up,” Vaughan T, who’s part of the Athletic Mic League and The Lab Techs, he made the beat and came up with the hook for that one and it was just brilliant. You know, that one pretty much speaks for itself. There are two different messages, one is turn it up loud and blow the speakers out: beat the speakers up that way. And the other way is, if you’re tired of what you’ve been hearing, you know, take it out on the system. Those are the two different directions we took that. Also, with that video I just knew I wanted to be beating the speakers up, kind of take it from the Eric B & Rakim “Microphone Fiend,” video, where it had the little kid with the baseball bat hittin’ the speakers, I just knew I wanted to beat some speakers up with baseball bats. That was pretty much it on that. “Dream Streets,” pretty much, for that one, the sample was saying dream streets, so I wanted to talk about the streets. Also, a lot of people tell their stories, how they came up, either they was hustlin’, or the stuff they got into the streets: whether it was beef, or getting shot or whatever. You know, I never really lived that lifestyle but it was around me and I knew a lot of people who was in that life and I just wanted to try my hand, really, see to test my imagination. In the first verse of dream streets I was just wanted to talk from the perspective as if I was a hustler on the streets sellin’ drugs.

Hipsterwave: Right, you’re Dr. Feelgood, you got them pills.

Buff1: Yeah, yeah. And I just wanted to speak from that perspective and let people know a likely result is that you could lose your life out there doing that. But, seeing as though it was dream streets, I wanted to end with something more positive, you know I kind of build towards the last verse where I talk about, you know, “Streets with bricks of gold, no pimps and hoes, no liquor sto’s, safe for kids to grow in.” I wanted to let people know, okay this is the condition that we’re living in now, but it doesn’t have to be like this all the time. It can change for the better if we put our minds to it. The video actually was the director’s idea: it kind of took a twist on dream streets. You know, I was talking about more the drug-dealing life, hustlin’ on the streets, but the video took a spin on it on the homelessness problem that exists in this country. So, we went downtown LA, Skid Row, I went to the grocery store, I bought all this food and we were asking people to tell their story in exchange for some food. What we found was a lot of people just wanted to tell their stories, you know. A lot of people didn’t even want the food. Some did, but some just wanted someone to listen to their story and see what they’re going through and any kind of help they can get, they were appreciative.

Hipsterwave: Right, right. I like the scene in the beginning, from the very start, where you’re just shopping. I mean I don’t know what it is, but I haven’t seen anybody shopping in like a more baller way. Like you’re just grabbing stuff as you’re rhyming.

Buff1: [laughs]

Hipsterwave: Like you’re just grabbing stuff off the shelves like you know, like it’s nothing, but I haven’t seen a cooler way to shop in the grocery store, so I like that.

Buff1: Right, right. Well, I appreciate that, you know I practice my shopping skills on a regular basis. [laugh] Nah. Yeah, I mean it came out dope. I’m very pleased, very proud of the videos, as well as my new one: “Real Appeal,” which is very sexy: something for the ladies and the gentlemen to get their adulthood on. You know, so I’m very proud of all three of my videos. I was blessed to, on my second album, get three videos out of it, and hopefully I can just continue to grow and get more exposure.

Hipsterwave: Do you think your personal life influences your musical style and the approach you take with your songs?

Buff1: Yeah, I think so. I would say probably the biggest influence that comes across in my music from my personal life is just my upbringing and how my mom raised me. Pretty much, I don’t know if you noticed, but I don’t curse when I rap. I’m almost 30 years old, I’m a grown-man, and I don’t curse. That’s just a result of how my mom raised me. Now, granted, she cusses like a sailor, but she taught me not to cuss and it just stuck with me. I found that pretty much every rapper cusses in his lyrics and I thought, what’s an easy way for me to stand-out? I was like, well you know, don’t use those words. That’s kind of an easy way out, so I decided I’m not gonna cuss when I rap. So that’s one thing, that’s how my mom raised me. Other than that, you know it’s just about growing up in Ann Arbor, there’s not really a lot going on there, so really all we had was our friends, sports, and just laughing and having a good time. That’s where a lot of my personality comes from is just being around my crew, Athletic Mic League, all of the years, you know we just have so much fun together. We wanted to inject that personality that we have amongst each other in our music. Because, there are a lot of things we can’t talk about being from Ann Arbor. I mean we could lie and make stuff up, but you know I think another part of our upbringing is just be true to who you are. We’re not from Detroit, we’re from 30 miles from Detroit, and there’s a different life in Detroit than there is in Ann Arbor and we wanted to put Ann Arbor on the map and just get people our lifestyle.

Hipsterwave: How do you think your style as an emcee has changed if you compare your flows on the Athletic Mic League track “Spot Check,” from the 2000 record The Thrill Is Gone, to the track “Beat the Speakers Up?”

Buff1: Wow. Wow. Man, I haven’t heard “Spot Check,” in probably… Shoot, five years might be the last time I listened to that. I don’t even know. Who got next? Step up before you get your spot check. Yeah, okay, nah I don’t remember the verse I just remember how it starts, but uh… It’s kind of similar. I think my flow, my actual cadence and delivery is a lot more polished and better now than when I was younger. But you know, the message is pretty much the same. There are a lot of themes that permeate through hip hop: one is, you know, thinking that you’re the best. Hip hop is almost like a competitive sport. That’s one of the reasons why we’re the Athletic Mic League, besides the fact that we play sports. There are a lot of us, but we also view it kind of as a competition because we wanna be the best. So, from “Spot Check,” to “Beat The Speakers Up,” that theme is kind of still the same. Just letting people know, I deserve some attention for what I’m doing, because I feel like I’m one of the best and I wanna be recognized for that. So like, but starting from “Spot Check,” into “Sweats and Kicks,” and “Jungle Gym Jungle,” era we kind of did not want to be on no bragging stuff. We did not wanna talk about emcees. We didn’t talk about fictional emcees that we were fictionally battling. We wanted to get rid of all that in those next two albums, “Sweats and Kicks,” and “Jungle Gym Jungle.” So, actually, when I was writing “Beat the Speakers Up,” it felt like the “Spot Check,” era. It felt like me going back to that, because I hadn’t done it in a while: I was so focused on just telling my life story. Talking about relationships with women, talking about college, talking about jobs that I worked, so with this one, when Vaughan T came with “Beat the Speakers Up,” it was like “Yo, let’s just get back to letting these emcees know what the deal is.” So, that was fun. I used a lot of metaphors. We tried to like wipe out all metaphors, similes and using the word “like” in “Sweats and Kicks,” and “Jungle Gym Jungle,” just because we didn’t want to use metaphors. We wanted to speak directly from the source of what was going on. But I got back to that in “Beat the Speakers Up.” It was fun. It was kinda like sparring or practice just to see if I still had that you know, braggadocios style in me.

Hipsterwave: What are a few changes you would make to the radio if you owned all the stations in the country right now?

Buff1: Hmmm. That’s a great question. I would play more music! [laughs] Pretty much, it’s as simple as that. There’s so much music being created, and I’m not saying it’s all good, but there is so much good music that goes unnoticed by the radio and because of that it goes unnoticed by the masses that listen to the radio. I go back and forth about whether or not I would actually want to have radio play all this stuff because the Internet is such a powerful force now, and you can find pretty much anything you want on the Internet, and that could serve as your own radio nowadays. You can pretty much find anything you want. If you’re looking for good music: it’s out there. But, it would be nice to get some equal representation of all genres, all different types of personalities in music, on the radio. Just like, you know, with music television. I mean, music television isn’t as big as it was. People are rarely showing videos nowadays, it’s more like reality shows and stuff. But, even on the more video-oriented channels, it would be nice to get a broader view of the horizon as far as the different types of music that are out there. You know, so yeah, I would definitely try to expand the radio.

Hipsterwave: So I know you’re on tour right now, but what’s good with the Crown Royale project with DJ Rhettmatic? I just heard the track “We Gotcha,” I think it’s hot, and I was just curious what’s going on with that.

Buff1: Yeah, we’re almost done with it. I’d say we’re about 90 percent done with it. Me and DJ Rhettmatic, that’s the homie, that’s my brother. We met on one of my many trips out to Los Angeles from Michigan, and Haircut AKA Mayer Hawthorne and Jackson Perry from the group Now On had just put out my last album, “There’s Only One,” last year and I was trying to think of what to do next. Just different incarnations of Buff1, you know, I didn’t know if it was gonna be another solo album, or if it was gonna be a group Athletic Mic League album, or what. But, I had been going to LA a lot, loving the scene, getting a lot of love out there. You know, they came with the idea of maybe yall should link up and bring these two different worlds together. At the time, I didn’t even know Rhett made beats, this was like a year ago. I was like cool, as long as I like the beats. Because I’m kind of spoiled being affiliated with The Lab Techs, some of the dopest producers in the world, who just happen to be my brothers. But, I heard beats that were dope and I was cool, let’s do it. I’ve been working on that. We just signed with MYX Music Label, for the album, this label out of San Francisco, and it should be out early next year.

Hipsterwave: Off the top of your head, what’s your favorite Dilla track on “Ruff Draft?”

Buff1: Woo!

Hipsterwave: And, also, any Dilla track Dilla rapped on and what do you think stands out so much about Dilla as an emcee?

Buff1: Okay, okay, okay. Off Ruff Draft… I would probably have to say “Make’em NV,” either that or “Reckless Driving.” I think I lean towards “Make‘em NV.” Overall, my favorite Dilla track that he rapped on, like solo Dilla, has to be “Shake It Down,” off of “Welcome 2 Detroit.” Dilla as an emcee is so underrated. He never got the props that he should have as an emcee, because he was the greatest producer of all time, but he was also one of the dopest emcees. His delivery and cadence was like so flawless, like everybody in SV is underrated for their delivery and their cadence. Like, they were really about using their voices as instruments and being part of the rhythm and being part of the beat. We studied that, you know, comin’ up. That’s why Slum Village is such a big influence, not only because of Dilla’s beats, because of how they flow with the music. But yeah, Dilla was an incredible emcee.

Hipsterwave: What are some of your hobbies or does music just consume your whole life?

Buff1: Um, for the most part it does, but I try to play basketball when I can. That’s still a passion of mine. That’s about it. I watch a lot of TV, I hate to admit that. Actually, in all honesty, my TV-watching has declined a great deal since I started traveling—over the last three years—but you know I still try to keep up with Sports Center and I like a couple pointless reality TV shows. I must admit, I watch those, occasionally for my entertainment. For the most part, on the music, if I’m not writing, I’m recording. If I’m not recording, I’m performing. If I’m not performing, I’m trying to get some sleep. And other than that, yeah I’ll try and go catch a movie, or go out and hang out—to the club or whatever—mix and mingle, and play a little basketball. That’s about it. I’m not a reader, that’s for sure.

Hipsterwave: Yeah, me neither really. So, if you could make a track with Weezy tomorrow, what are some ideas you would have for that?

Buff1: Ideas on the track or would I take the opportunity?

Hipsterwave: Well, like, assuming you would take it…

Buff1: Uh huh, which I would, just to be clear. I would actually really do a song with him. As for the ideas, I don’t know. I would maybe try to do something where he wouldn’t be able to just spit and just talk about how dope of an emcee he. I don’t really know what direction that would be, but uh, since he has songs on pretty much everything… nine times out ten he’s talking about how dope of an emcee he is and bragging and maybe I would try to go in a different direction. I don’t know what exactly. He does a lot of female-oriented songs, so maybe we could do that: talk to the ladies. Or, I dunno, maybe we could talk about sports or something I know he did the Kobe Bryant song and he knows sports. You know, I’ve seen him on Around the Horn and Sports Center and stuff, so I dunno! Try something different.

Hipsterwave: How does the hip hop scene in Michigan compare to the scene in Southern California?

Buff1: It’s a little different. I mean, it’s the same in that they’re both kinda small. You know, it’s like, of my last three years of going out there—back-and-forth—it’s like I’m pretty much on the scene ‘cause I know everybody, everybody’s cool and welcomes me with open arms. So it’s kind of like home in that sense. And, it’s the same in that there’s also kind of little pockets of crews. You know, Michigan has done a real good job of unifying different sectors in the hip hop game. Especially after Dilla and Proof passed away, different factions—not that there was beef—but it was just like different sections of hip hop grew. But, I think since they passed especially, we have done a great job of coming together. I’m not asked into the networking and the scene of Los Angeles as I am in Michigan, but I get the feel that there’s kind of some different factions in the LA scene as well, but I know a good amount of people in all different types of sections in the LA scene out there. And I know that there are some people that respect each other mutually, and you know hopefully they can get on the same page and start coming together, and supporting each other for that movement as well. Because, that only helps everybody, and yeah there’s a lot of talent in both areas, of course. Me being from Michigan, of course I’m a little biased, in thinking that some of the best talent in the world is out of Michigan, but its a lot of cats I respect out of the Southern California hip hop scene. A lot, and you know, they accepted me with open-arms. I’ve worked with a few of them and I hope to work with a lot more.

Hipsterwave: Alright, well that’s all I had man. I appreciate your time and the detailed answers and explanations, and I really appreciate your taking the time.

Buff1: Thank you. Thanks Hipsterwave. I’m still trying to figure out why Hipsterwave wanted to interview me, because I’m not “cool…”

Hipsterwave: [laughs]

Buff1: But I appreciate it.

Hipsterwave: Well the whole idea is just sort of like non-mainstream stuff, but the more it grows, you kind of can’t avoid squeezing in all kinds of artists. But basically, the point is to talk about artists that really deserve attention, like Dilla, and just get the word out there.

Buff1: Word. Well thanks again, I appreciate it.

Hipsterwave: You’re welcome and good luck with the rest of your tour!

Buff1: Peace out, Parker.