Charles Hamilton Interview

DJ Booth:  What’s goin’ on, everybody?  It’s your boy, ‘Z,’ doin’ it real big, and joining me inside the DJ Booth is an artist who of late has given the word “hype” a brand new meaning.  Please welcome uber-talented 20-year-old Charles Hamilton – how you doin’?

Charles Hamilton:  Good morning!  I’m fine, I’m chillin’ actually.

DJ Booth:  Charles, we recently featured your record, “Windows Media Player,” on the site.  Several people I sent the record to, they thought I gave them a virus once they started playing the song and the little Windows noises began, but luckily for you and for me – more importantly for me – they forgave me after they took a listen.  They said, “This kid is straight dope!”

Charles Hamilton:  Thank you.  It’s funny, I got up at like 6:00 in the morning, ‘cause I sometimes sleep in the studio, just for old times’ sake, and I woke up, I logged onto my computer, and it did that “[imitates Windows startup noise],” and I’m like, “That’s f*ckin’ retarded!”  There’s two versions of the beat; one is like, electronica, drum ‘n’ bass, industrial kind of stuff – I can curse, right?

DJ Booth:  Yeah, you can.

Charles Hamilton:  Type of sh*t.  I was just like, “Why not try to make a hip hop version?”  So after I did the other two versions, I made the hip hop version, and [I was like], “Yo, this ranks in my top 3 beats of all time – I gotta do something to this!” so I wrote to it.  The entire process of making the song was like five, ten minutes long.  When I sent it to somebody, it was maybe 8:00 in the morning, they thought I sent them a virus!  And they’re like, “You assh*le!  Are you still doin’ that stuff?!”  So when they heard it, they bugged out, and next thing I knew, maybe an hour and a half later, it ended up on the Internet.

DJ Booth:  And the rest is history, my friend, as they say.

Charles Hamilton:  I’m just a right-click away, right?

DJ Booth:  Charles, you define yourself as Sonic the Hedgehog.  Everything I see of yours is linked to that creature.  Detail for me the story behind this linkage between yourself and Sonic.

Charles Hamilton:  “Sonic” means sound, and hedgehogs are known for being very underground, so I bury myself in the sound.  It’s that simple, but there’s a lot of complexity that goes along with it.

DJ Booth:  Would you say, other thank the linkage you just provided for me, you’re also a “sonic” enthusiast in terms of sonic knowledge?

Charles Hamilton:  I always interpret things in a philosophical way, so everything based on the game, the history, the storyline and all of that, I take a philosophical meaning to.  The fact that I say God is a woman, pink is the inside of a woman’s womb, Amy Rose, [Sonic’s girlfriend], is pink… It kinda helps my philosophy out a little bit, know what I mean?  Amy’s a woman, “Sonic” means sound, God created sound, it’s only right that Sonic the Hedgehog, a creature of sound, has a pink girlfriend.  Without sound, do you think any of us would be living?

DJ Booth:  Definitely not.

Charles Hamilton:  That’s just the way I see sh*t.  And then I just rap.

DJ Booth:  [laughs] “Yeah, on the side, I just so happen to do music…”

Charles Hamilton:  Well I say I’m just a musician and a blogger, that’s all.  And a couple of executive people liked the way that I rapped, and they gave me the forum to do what I do.

DJ Booth:  Let’s change gears here.  In a press release about your current goings-on, you’re quoted as saying, “If tomorrow I got dropped from my label, I’m not going back to a comfortable apartment, I’m homeless again.”  So Charles, detail your life up to the point when your talents were finally discovered and you signed a record deal.

Charles Hamilton:  Well, I’m going to say this from a universal perspective, of all the people that know.  Basically, Mom and I had a falling out about what I should be doing with my future.  I had dropped out of college, I was in the studio full-time, I was smokin’ weed, f*cking b*tches – I was basically living the lifestyle of a derelict with big dreams.  And in my eyes it was good: this blunt here, and gettin’ head from this chick right here is exactly what I need to clear my head while I’m doin’ 27 hours of music.  My mom saw it as, “He’s going down the wrong path, he’s gonna be a bum,” and so all the negative stigma that come with bein’ a black man – and at the time, I was living with my mom in the Bronx – it was over for me.  Especially since I got my GED; I’m the first one on both sides of [my] family to get a GED.  I did not finish college.  My mother went to law school, got a law degree, my father is an ex-lawyer, my uncle [did], my grandmother [did]... like, there’s generation up on generation that I quote unquote “let down,” because I wanted to pursue music.  So ultimately, after one really big argument, I was gonna get put out early in the morning, like 7:00 in the morning.  I just said, “F*ck that!” and left the house at 2:00 in the morning, and pretty much never came back.  I’d spend the nights every so often, but nah… if I wanted to be [there], I’d have to follow these rules, which would take away from me chasin’ my dreams – nah.  It’s over.  So that’s why I did it.  I was stayin’ at friends’ houses.  I had a girlfriend, I could stay at her house, until her mom’s boyfriend didn’t like me anymore, then I got put out, and it was back to the streets, park benches, friends’ houses, just walkin’ round the Apple Store, 59th and 5th Avenue… but I always ended up at my high school studio, 6:00 in the morning.

DJ Booth:  Charles, at any point did you question your decision to do that?

Charles Hamilton:  No, because if I had died in the street, I’d still be doin’ music, and I’d still have an iPod full of music, so somebody could listen to my music and when I’m dead they can post my music online and say, “Yo, this was the best musician that never was heard of.” 

DJ Booth:  Did you ever think of having your friend Kanye call up mom and say, “Listen, I was a college dropout, I think I turned out okay?”

Charles Hamilton:  When I met Kanye, we talked.  The same sh*t that people say about me is what they say about Kanye.  When we had a chat, it was almost like the chat me and [Eminem] had, like, “Okay, I get you,” “I get you too,” and, “This is what I went through, and this is how your music helped,” “Oh, word.  I didn’t even know my music came in like that – thanks a lot!”  We understand each other.  A lot of the real cats with actual longevity, not 3 albums and a little bit of buzz, when they listen to me talk they understand that I’m not comin’ from a kid’s perspective.  Kanye pretty much said he did the same thing.  It was a little less harsh, ‘cause with me you’ve got to add in, at the time I was like 18, 19, and I was goin’ back and forth with my previous addictions and sh*t – it wasn’t a fun time, but it was the best time of my life, because I realized that no one could change me, even if they wanted to.

DJ Booth:  Let’s look at it this way: you have a record deal, you have an album on the horizon, gonna be hopefully dropping at the top of next year, so what has to happen between now and then for your official introduction into this world to be successful, and for your family to realize that, yes, you did indeed make the right decision?

Charles Hamilton:  They understand now.  They said they always knew, but, at the same time, hindsight is 20/20.  My grandma always knew, my uncle knew but was kind of skeptical, my mom was [against it].  And I love my mom, ‘cause at least she was real about it, but, at the same time, she did and said a lot of hurtful sh*t that ended up in the music, and in a few interviews.  I’m here now, and, as far as the album goes, I’m not gonna change – I’ve been an assh*le since I was born!  My mom said that I screamed coming out, and the doctor didn’t have to slap me.  True story.  I’m gonna have a big mouth till the day I die.  Even when I die, I’m gonna be haunting motherf*ckers like, “Yo, heard that new Charles record?” “Wait, is that Charles talking to me?” “Yes, it’s Charles talking to you!  Go buy that new record; me and Tupac just did a joint.”

DJ Booth:  That’d be great.  Seriously, don’t change for anybody, because the second you change for somebody else, you are not going to follow the path that I know you intended to take when you started all this.

Charles Hamilton:  For me, hip hop is a way to become the definition of music.  “Oh, God, this kid is arrogant, he thinks he’s the sh*t.”  No, honestly, I believe that if you dream big and you aim for big sh*t, like, I honestly wanna be Quincy Jones and John Tesh.  Dr. Dre is the Quincy Jones of hip hop.  I’d rather be the Quincy Jones and John Tesh of music, so that when there’s a new next big thing, when there’s another Charles Hamilton that’s gettin’ read to come out, my stamp of approval would mean something.  I wanna be what A&Rs are paid to be, just by saying that I like something.

DJ Booth:  Do me a favor:  If you wanna be like Quincy and John, just make sure you don’t perm your hair so it looks like John’s, ‘cause that would be a mistake.

Charles Hamilton:  Oh, hell no!  People don’t know who John Tesh is.  His biggest piece of work to this day, in my opinion, was the NBA on NBC theme song.

DJ Booth:  Classic.

Charles Hamilton:  I have his catalog – he is a f*cking genius!  If you can get, like, the elements of Earth, Wind & Fire, Parliament-Funkadelic, Incubus, Blues Traveler, Nine Inch Nails, Quincy Jones Orchestra, and the musicians that John Tesh worked with, that’s pretty much how I hear the future of music.  You can’t come out less than talented.  You have to have something to say.  If somehow I end up the President of the United States and you disagree with something, your song better sh*t on me, so that when I come out with my State of the Union address it’s gonna be a song hotter than that!  Music is a friendly competition, and I honestly believe that music is going to boost the economy.

DJ Booth:  Well, I’m sure that your record label friends are certainly hoping that that is the case.  On your Outside Looking mixtape project, which was one of my first introductions to your work, you sampled music from Willy Wonka on the track “Pure Imagination.”  So, let’s put you into that movie hypothetically – does Charles Hamilton join Charlie Bucket at the end of the film?

Charles Hamilton:  No, I’m Wonka!  This is my sh*t.  Imagine how lonely it is for Wonka to be in a factory with a bunch of motherf*ckers that do what he says as he’s making the best chocolate in the world.  I literally lived in my high school studio, so I’d call girls from the school phone, like, “Hey, can you come visit me?”  Of course it was way more playfully that, and they’d be like, “Ew, why are you still in the high school?”  I’m like, “It’s a studio!  You should come by.”  When they came by, they’d be like, “Oh, this is hot!” “All right, so, you spendin’ the night?  ‘Cause it’s kinda lonely here.” “Aw, I have to go to work.”  One a few occasions, “But I have a boyfriend!”  “I’m not tryin’ to f*ck you!  Spend the night here!”  And [some of them] actually would f*ck me, and it’d be like, “Can you spend the night?”  I’m a sucker for love.  This is why I’m happy I’m in a relationship, ‘cause I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: Melissa Ford and Gloria Velez and all the vixens would have a field day with me, as much as I’d be willing to spend time and money just to not be alone.

DJ Booth:  Charles, if there’s a movie about you 20 years from now, how are you gonna classify it?  Comedy, thriller, drama, horror?

Charles Hamilton:  It’s gonna be like the Blair Witch Project, somewhere blurring the line between reality and documentary.

DJ Booth:  With a still hand?  Because that movie made me sick to watch.

Charles Hamilton:  Nah, not a still hand.  It’s gonna be motion, and it’s gonna be from a first-person perspective.

DJ Booth:  So maybe all four of those things rolled up into one?

Charles Hamilton:  I don’t know, because 20 years from now I hope to be doing scores for movies.  Pharrell said Seeing Sounds, I actually call it, one of my favorite bands, TV on the Radio.  I want people to hear exactly what they’re seeing,  to the point where you’d literally have your eyes closed, but hear the whole movie and be able to identify the sounds it in.  Because, honestly, I don’t see anything; I hear everything.

DJ Booth:  Well, you hear what people see, but I want people to hear what you’re all about.  You cannot go anywhere on the net without someone passing around one of your freestyles; you’d think that they included the names of Tupac and Biggie’s shooters, they’re so popular.  It wouldn’t be acceptable to have you join me inside this DJ Booth for this interview and not require you to spit a freestyle, so please, would you do that for me?

Charles Hamilton:  All right… [To hear full freestyle, stream above audio or download the .mp3]

DJ Booth:  You know what you just did?  You just increased your stock tenfold, you increased our traffic twentyfold, and you entertained me for the last few minutes.  And people, if you are listening, Charles just did this live.  He didn’t spit an a cappella from one of his previously-written songs like so many artists do when I ask them to do a freestyle.  The man did it off the top of the dome, and name-dropped DJBooth and myself – by the way, thank you for that.

Charles Hamilton:  No problem!

DJ Booth:  You’re the man!

Charles Hamilton:  I hope so, man.

DJ Booth:  Charles, before you go, give everybody a website, a blog address, a MySpace page, so they can find out more about Charles Hamilton.

Charles Hamilton:  charleshamilton.blogspot.com.  Yes, that is my blog, yes, that is my blog, and yes, that is my blog.  I get asked that all that time.  Yes, I update my blog all the time.  iamnotcharleshamilton.com, myspace.com/hamiltonsmusic.

DJ Booth:  That’s what’s up, my man.  Thank you so much for joinin’ me inside the DJ Booth, and the best of luck.

Charles Hamilton:  No problem, Z.  All right, man, thank you.