Hodgy Beats – MellowHype

Over the course of the last few years, Odd Fu­ture’s suc­cess has proven to be more than just an il­lu­sion. The camp has been be­hind some of the most com­pelling al­bums hip-hop has had to offer in the past cou­ple of years and Black­ened­White is a prime ex­am­ple. A seg­ment of Odd Fu­ture, Mel­lowHype is a duo pro­ject spear­headed Hodgy Beats and Left Brains and as com­padres, Left Brain is Hodgy’s pro­ducer and Hodgy Beats is Left Brains artist. We re­cently caught up with Hodgy on the brink of their album re­lease and he shared with us some of his in­sight be­yond the music. Black­ened­White is avail­able now on iTunes.

Just to clar­ify and put all the spec­u­la­tion to rest about Chicago, Los An­ge­les and New Jer­sey, what city are you re­ally from and how did you get in­volved with Odd Fu­ture out in Los An­ge­les?
Chicago is so fuck­ing wrong, I don’t know who started that. I’m from Tren­ton, New Jer­sey. When I was young, around 8 years old, my mom mar­ried some n*gga and she moved her fam­ily (which is me and my lit­tle sis­ter) out to Cal­i­for­nia. Then later on in high school, through mu­tual friends, I met Left Brain, who was my first pro­ducer. He was al­ready in Odd Fu­ture and was the sec­ond mem­ber, and I was the third, and that’s how it all hap­pened re­ally

So tell us about the new re-re­lease of Black­ened­White and what we can ex­pect on it?
I took off “Gram,” I took off “Hell,” I took off “Loco,” I took off “Strip Club” and I also took off “Chor­duroy.” With those songs, I just wanted to keep them on the first Black­ened­White album. Just keep it a clas­sic you know what I’m say­ing? The re-re­lease is more of­fi­cial and just a com­pletely dif­fer­ent album. And it’s a re-re­lease, so I just don’t think the same exact songs should be a on a re-re­lease. I added “64,” “IG­o­ta­Gun,” “Gunz” and I have an­other one called “Game.” Tyler pro­duced “Game” and it was just a ran­dom song but I re­ally liked it be­cause we went in on it! You get all four of those songs if you pur­chase the album on iTunes or Ama­zon, but there will only be eleven songs if you pur­chase the ac­tual CD.

Odd Fu­ture records have been hit­ting the mark amongst fans all around the world, can you tell us what the cre­ation process is when piec­ing to­gether a record?
Some­times the in­spi­ra­tion is just the beat, you know what I’m say­ing? The beats that Left Brain makes man, I just lis­ten to them – with­out any lyrics. I be­lieve any reg­u­lar per­son, if they like-like music, they’ll just lis­ten to hisLike my voice over them is ba­si­cally just a co-sign, like “yeah these shits is hot.” But it can re­ally be any­thing, I can hear like a fuck­ing lawn­mower and the lawn­mower would hit a rock. It's just any­thing.

Do you have any spe­cial tal­ents be­sides music?
I like to play bas­ket­ball and used to play in high school but wasn’t re­ally fo­cused. I was more fo­cused on music, and maybe if I was more fo­cused on bas­ket­ball I would’ve got­ten taller. I used to run track and I don’t know...​cook­ing is fun. I like to cook steak and grill shit. An oven is cool, but it gets hot though. A stove is for the women, so I keep it grilling. Meats, you know what I’m say­ing?

If you were to pick two things in this world to rep­re­sent you as an artist, what would the items be and why?
A gun, not be­cause I kill peo­ple, but that’s like my role in Odd Fu­ture. Lyri­cally, I’m get­ting stronger, and I use my music as a weapon. So a gun and a cup of or­ange juice. Why? Be­cause I have a cup of or­ange juice in my hand.

I’m going to say a cou­ple of ran­dom words and just feel free to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.
“Cen­sor­ship”
That shit is gay.

“Supreme”
Stop fuck­ing wear­ing my shit.

“MTV”
Cen­sor­ship is gay.

“Chris Brown”
“Oh look at me I’m Chris Brown, I got like 25 fuck­ing body guards with me and shit but I’m the hard­est n*gga on earth." N*gga you’re a pop singer. But the n*gga do got money though, so I’m not hat­ing.

If you were to choose to work with some­one in music out­side the Odd Fu­ture camp, who would it be?
Tupac n*gga! I swear to God! Cause man, Tupac was the realest n*gga, I don’t give a fuck like, that was a real n*gga. You can hear and you can feel what he was feel­ing when he was recit­ing what he wrote. For one per­son to be able to do what he has done, I find that shit amaz­ing. Just to have a voice, and be hated, and not give a fuck about any of that. He died for what he be­lieved in.

Speak­ing of Pac, what were some of your fa­vorite Tupac records?
(laughs) I lis­ten to “Blas­phemy” a lot, that shit is so fuck­ing sick. Shit is just sick. I lis­ten to a lot of his clas­sics too, I like his angry music. And it’s crazy and I’ll be hon­est with you, I just started lis­ten­ing to Tupac this year. I’m fuck­ing deadass!

If you weren’t in the music game what do you think you’d be doing right now?
Hon­estly, I’d still be doing music, but I’d prob­a­bly be sell­ing drugs, steal­ing shit. Like I’m not even lying. I was in ju­nior col­lege for a se­mes­ter and a half, and I couldn’t do it. Left Brain dropped out of the Art In­sti­tute and was like “fuck it” and then I was just like “well, I’m not about to go to school that cost that much and then I gotta pay shit back.” Ap­par­ently, Left Brain knew we were going to be some rich n*ggas one day! So we just de­cided drop out and here we are. And hon­estly, I was scared to drop out of col­lege be­cause I was liv­ing off fi­nan­cial aid and many col­lege stu­dents do that too. I had no fuck­ing sup­port from any­one ba­si­cally. But we re­ally found our way out with this music shit, now we just gotta stay in it.