„Next year will be shark-season“ – The Doppelgangaz Interview

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Interview: Hemma Bergner & edHardygirl14
Fotos: Thomas Steineder

The Doppelgangaz, das HipHop-Duo aus Orange County, New York, hat ein starkes Faible für Essen. Wenn man ihre Lyrics hört – sofern man den ausgeprägten Dialekt hierzulande versteht – spiegelt sich dieses Interesse klar wider. Im Rahmen ihrer Tournee haben sie drei Stops in Österreich hingelegt. Zum ersten Mal im Land, bespielten sie Ende November das B72 in Wien, Innsbruck und Linz folgten.

Als wir die zwei Rapper Matter Ov Fact und EP zum Interview bitten, scheitert dies fast aus zeitlichen Gründen. Der Soundcheck im B72 verzögert sich um eine Stunde und das Abendessen wäre fast zu kurz gekommen. Somit bleibt nur eine Möglichkeit: Das Interview mit der Nahrungsaufnahme zu kombinieren. Eigentlich perfekt, oder? Also begeben wir uns gemeinsam mit den Doppelgangaz ins Kent am Brunnenmarkt, essen genüsslich und stellen die Fragen mit vollem Mund.

Danach geht es wieder zurück ins B72, wo die zwei Feinschmecker mit knapp einer Stunde Verspätung ihre Show starten. In familiärer Runde zeigen sie, wie richtig gefeiert wird. Josh, der korpulente Freund und stete Begleiter der beiden, trägt seinen Teil dazu bei – man kennt ihn aus so gut wie jedem Musikvideo der Doppelgangaz. Ihre Gourmet-Beats zeigen eine Orientierung am klassischen HipHop der 90er: nostalgischer Boom Bap mit natürlichen Sound-Elementen vermischt.

Obwohl sie in Amerika noch nicht zu den Superstars gehören, haben sie in Europa eine ungewöhnlich solide Fangemeinde. Der Erfolg kam 2011 mit dem Album „Lone Sharks“. „Beats For Brothels Vol. 1“ und „Vol. 2“ folgten darauf, 2013 kam „HARK!“ und seit 2014 gibt es „Peace Kehd“ zu hören. Aktuell haben Sie eine EP mit ein paar Remixes und Rereleases gedropped: „The Ghastly Duo EP„. Im Interview sprechen wir mit ihnen über die Produktion ihrer Beats, die aktuelle EP, HipHop und das Tourleben.

TM: You founded your own label Groggy Pack Entertainment LLC. Where did the decision come from?
The Doppelgangaz: We just started a company to make things official. We really wanted to do it right and handle all the legal stuff. A lot of people get messed up later on caus’ they didn’t start out. Yeah, we wanna take things as high as we can. Always take it to the next level.

You wanna do signings, too?
Actually, yes! We would love to. We wanna be a full media company. We wanna sign artists. We wanna have oversea projects. I want us to do public relations and management. I want it all baby! I wanna do this right now, until the day I drop dead from eating to much Turkish food.

You guys produce all the beats on your own. Which beat you produced for other artists was the best in your opinion?
We haven’t really produced that much for others. We didn’t run into any issue, caus’ we did it only a couple of times. I think it’s a cool problem to have. It was fun to work with Lil B, though. You know, the Based God raps on your beat. That was crazy. That was an honor. Bless his heart!

You don’t have that much features on your albums. Why not?
Nobody wants to work with us. It just doesn’t work out that way. When we’re in the middle of working, no one really hits us up. People think we’re insane.

Why did you drop an EP and not an album?
It’s actually a rerelease. It was the first thing we did. But it never got mixed properly and never was mastered and we never put it out on vinyl either. It’s very important to us that every piece of work we ever put out, is put out in highest quality. We want everybody at the Sharknation to hear it – mixed, mastered and just sounding good. We just have one more thing to do that needs the mixing and mastering and than our whole discography is on a professional level. And we got new shit on the way. Next year will be shark-season.

So what is the most noticeable development from “Hark!” to “Peace Khed”?
I just think it’s natural. We don’t look to progress in a specific way. We just think, as we get older we get mature, or maybe become more immature. Things influence us and affect us in so many different ways. It’s the same with our sound. It’s funny because people think the essence of progression is moving upward, like it’s getting better. In my eyes it’s just a timeline. And every album you get to hear, we’re at that point of time. It’s not about that one album is better than the other, it just reflects how we feel at the moment. So it’s more like a progression to find the straight line.

You often get compared with an original hip hop style – a 90ies style of hip hop. But you said once, you don’t really want to be set by side with this definition, right?
No, not that way. Some people might do it purposely. There is no doubt we are influenced by the stuff we grew up on. But we’re just having our own sound, and we don’t plan things that sound so, we just do what we do. It`s not that we are against it, but maybe some people want to make some shit, that sounds like the 90’s style. We just make our own stuff. And you can hear influences from the 2000’s and the late 90’s and all kind of stuff. You can hear some country music as well.

When you see the youth, do you think it’s important for them to know the roots of hip hop, the classics?
No, I mean, I think it’s cool. I think that knowledge is good. Knowledge is powerful. But I’ll be lying if I said that when I was like 10 or 12 years old, I was listening to rap. I didn’t know a shit of any 80’s artists. I just knew what I was hearing now. I mean, it takes time for people to go back and hear stuff. So when you are younger, you just know what’s going on at the moment. So the youth will come around, don’t worry, they’ll be fine. The youth is all right.

Do you know or listen to any Austrian/German rap?
Retrogott! I know that name. We know some names but we’re still learning.