True student of the game

Whether it’s on one project or throughout the career, every artist can’t contain the urge to speak his or her story. Your work reflects where you’ve been, where you’re at, and where you’re heading. On a project more than any, Phil Adé lays it all flat on the concrete on his last project R.O.S.E. The project name is an acronym for “Result Of Society’s Evil” but be clear that it shouldn’t distort your image of the artist in any way. It’s a sonic autobiography that plays like a modern epic written by Homer, filled with tests and hardships all for the journey to peace.

The young artist opens up about his learning curve with Hip-Hop, while growing up in a heavily religious household and his never ending path to earning this industry’s equivalent of a Letterman’s jacket. And of course, the emcee offers an honest opinion of Miley Cyrus that many would see past behind her long back.

If you haven’t already, stream and download R.O.S.E. HERE.

First I want to talk about this R.O.S.E. project that came out. I was giving it another listen today, namely the end of “Disappointed.” There’s a little snippet of a Tupac interview at the end of that track, right?

Yeah.

I was wondering, since the name of your project is inspired by Tupac’s “The Rose That Grew From Concrete, what do you think it’s going to take for society to actually just cherish what that child or youth has to offer rather than looking at the negative aspects? Or is it just a matter of time for society to see someone like a kid, like a youth, that you describe, that grew in a less than favorable environment?

With that poem, real talk, my background, I ain’t really grow up in like a harsh neighborhood or anything like that, you know. What I took from that is it doesn’t matter where you come from or who you hang around or what it is, you know what I’m saying? It’s good in everybody, like anybody can have a positive impact or outcome to their life. That don’t matter where you come from or what it is. With me I wasn’t from the hood but I did hang around the wrong crowd as far as when I moved to MD and DC I started hanging with some gutter dudes but I think with that, the question you asked me, I think that has to change with not just society but the person also. Like it’s gonna take you inside for people to start seeing it. No matter where you come from, like lets say you are from the hood, you know what I’m saying, you gotta start looking at your life like, “What do you stand for? What positive impact can I have on the world?” And people gotta stop looking at people for where they come from and start looking at what are their actions. Our generation is the result of the generation before us.

It seems like the solution is people gotta start looking at themselves first before they look at other people.

Exactly, exactly.

Since it was a really personal project for you, what was the most important or dearest track to you?

Um, I would say “Disappointed.”

Why is that?

I would say in that first verse I kind of paraphrased the entire project.

Did something like that come hard for you to write or was that something you just kind of had in the back of your mind already that you were ready to just spit in the booth?

Nah with that I just knew I needed that track like that, that just really made the statement of what I’m tryna say, so when I heard the beat, the beat just brought it out of me.

I got you , it was something that you were kind of just born to spit.

Yeah, what I’m saying in it is a lot of stuff I realized growing up. So like that first verse was like “Do you know what it’s like, your whole life you’ve being taught that you should live for Christ…” I was just telling my story and how I grew up in that religious home and then I ended up doing Hip-Hop which is something really unforgiven in my house. Well for me to be doing it and doing something positive, and after that, I was looked at like a f*ck up in my family and in school and all that, so for me to be doing something positive like it’s the message of this whole thing. No matter where you come from you can be what you want to be and have a positive impact.

“Nas Told Me” – Intro track to R.O.S.E.