Words: Kevin Yuen
Photo: Brooke Nipar
Ambiguousness can be a double-edged sword. Spank Rock’s genre-straddling, critically-acclaimed sounds have led to opening spots for like-minded acts such as M.I.A., Gnarls Barkley and Beck. Yet while Spank Ro’ continues to confuse style distinctions with its signature blend of hip hop and club music, other elements of the group seem equally blurred: It records as an emcee-producer duo but performs as a quartet, hails from Baltimore but is often identified with the Philly scene and “Spank Rock” is the name of the collective as well as the 25-year-old rapping front man. Mass Appeal got a few minutes with Spank Rock (the person), aka Naeem Juwan, to talk about what’s happened since last year’s release, YoYoYoYoYo, and the group’s subsequent departure from its label, Big Dada/Ninja Tune.
Is it fair to say Spank Rock rode in on the popularity of Baltimore club music?
People around the world started bringing Diplo and Low Budget [as Hollertronix] out to spin in all these different places, and that was the first time they got to hear Baltimore club music. And people really liked it, and that’s crazy because we have that influence in our music too. Then we went from being called a Philadelphia rap group to being a Baltimore rap group because the press was all, “New Baltimore-based rap group Spank Rock,” which isn’t completely true, but we were definitely helped out with the music becoming popular. We kind of didn’t deserve it, it was one song [in that style], and a lot of my friends in Baltimore who have been making club music for a while should be getting recognition.
Your friends didn’t get their proper shine, and now with Hollertronix sort of on hiatus and club music never really catching on with radio stations, do you think the music has peaked?
I don’t think it’s peaked, but I have no idea. Club music is so raw that it leaves a feeling you can’t really escape, so I think it will probably be a staple in a lot of people’s DJ sets from now on. And as far as becoming more popular, it would just take an artist to make a solid pop Baltimore club rap song, but no one has done that yet, nobody has the tools to do that. People do that in Baltimore, on Baltimore radio stations, they have hits with club beats. But none of those rappers, even myself, have had the proper tools to get major exposure in pop American culture.
What happened with Big Dada/Ninja Tune?
What happened with Ninja Tune? [Laughs] It’s cool. This is me trying to be polite. I really enjoyed the experience. I’m really happy they let me put out a record…What happened is Mass Appeal is writing an article on me now…
Really? Because you guys had a lot of buzz. I remember before you put out that album, there was so much hoopla for you.
That’s because we’re some hard workers…On my first tour, we were going to small clubs or whatever, three to four hundred people. We did a show that basically sold out, people like, “Yo, when’s the album coming out?” What are you talking about? You just come to my show and you don’t even know I have an album out? That’s wack. The buzz grew over time and the buzz only grew from us performing and a word of mouth thing…When you set a goal for yourself and see the potential that you have, you want other people to believe too and put in the same amount of energy that you’re putting into it.
