Cratez- Where are you from and grew up?
Finsta-I was born in St.Albans, Queens but my whole life I was
raised in Brooklyn, grew up in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I'm out in NC right
now but I'll always rep Bushwick.
Finsta-Bundy & I grew up a block away from each other. We
would see each in passing but never really clicked until late high
school years. I found out he dj'ed and went to check him at the crib. He
was dope and I'm pretty sure if he kept at it he would've been one of
those blindfold, behind the back, dj with his sneaker type cats lol.
Either way, I needed a dj so when my solo 12" Finsta Baby came out he
was my dj but we used to chill, toke up and freestyle all the time on
his mom's stoop. We worked out a routine where he would come from behind
the set and drop a verse and after we did it in a show in N.C. we
became Finsta & Bundy. Dj Primetime took over a lil' bit after.
Finsta-I kinda got kicked out of Bishop Loughlin and ended up in
Bushwick High School and in band class I saw this cat looking like he
was gonna kill the drum set with how hard he was banging on them lol,
that was Evil back then. We met there and eventually it turned to going
to his crib and making beats. Before that I thought I would be making
gospel tracks but at E's crib that's where I really got into making
beats and at the time I was really writing just to hear lyrics on the
beats but I knew I wasn't gonna be a singer so it was the next best
thing for me.
Finsta-Yep, very first release. We recorded in Calliope Studios
and that was first time being in a real studio. Before that it was just
demos at E's crib in Mr. Walt's room. After realizing some of the people
who recorded there I was blown away to actually say, yeah I was there.
We did everything for both songs in that same session, recorded and
mixed it....it was a long night. Salute to the homie Chuck and R.I.P.
Gucci Man, those were the cats who ran CRACD Records.
Cratez- The Freestyle for Mr Cee you guys did in 94 is classic. How did that came about with Cee?
Finsta-We was dealing with Tape Kingz and at the time Cee was
putting out tapes with them. I can't remember exactly who initiated the
collab but, that's Mr. Cee, hell yeah we'll go and do that lol. Funny
listening back to that because before becoming Finsta Bundy we were
close to calling ourselves Redrum and our lyrics were gonna be way
grimier than when we started FB.
Finsta-Thanks. Yeah that was the second solo joint. Evil told me
about a plan to start his label Pandemonium and was gonna let me set it
off with a single and of course I was down. He let me hear that beat and
it was a no brainer, I had to crush it.
Cratez- Are you still heavy in the production side? and what is your weapon of choice when making beats?
Finsta-Oh yeah, making beats is definitely a passion. Right now my
weapon of choice is my trusted Akai MPC2000 and Korg Triton Le
keyboard. I also rock with an MPC500. There's alot of software out
there that I plan to get into but for now I'm sticking with my 2000. I
used to record mostly on Protools but that's been acting up so I
switched Logic Pro.
Finsta-Indeed, first Finsta Bundy single recorded at Mase Base
Studio in Brooklyn and both sides produced by me. At that time I was
making beats on a Yamaha VSS-200 that Evil gave me, which I'm trying to
track down, and a Tascam 4 track I copped from Sam Ash. Them beats were
grimy as hell, that's referring to the actual sound lol. In the studio I
worked on an Akai S900 and a couple other models because homie changed
models damn near every couple sessions.
Cratez- I remember copping the Who I be record in 95. Yo i
rocked that record to death. Those two tracks were so grimy and heavy.
Did that record give you guys alot of recognition? because alot of
college stations were playing that record heavy.
Finsta-A lot of people I didn't expect actually said they was
diggin' it. Some heads recognized the Super Cat lick in the hook "I'm
not sure anymore, more". Overall it did create some steam for us.
Unfortunately for us with most of our singles, without management there
was a disconnect when trying to actually figure out the reach our
singles were getting. We were learning a lot of things hands on and it
wasn't easy being an artist trying to keep the creativity going and at
the same time trying keep up with the rest of the business while at the
same dealing with creating families. It's way easier now with the
Internet connection.
Finsta-It was the last record out with Tape Kingz but we released a
Finsta Bundy 12" EP called "via FB" in 2012 under FinstaBundy Music. We
plan to release more vinyl in the coming year. There's also a lot of
other collab releases floating around but as a group and with solo
projects we got more in the works.
Finsta-That link came from Mr.Walt. Chopped Herring was already
known for giving light to heads in Bushwick so it made sense we linked
up. It started with trying to grab some older vinyl we may still have
had around and just elevated to throwing out some new vinyl with
unreleased joints.
Finsta-Yeah Primetime and myself are Bushwick Radio. We were a
part of the original cast that formed Beatminerz Radio when it started
on 88HipHop back in about '97, '98. It's only right we carry on
tradition. We hold down the Monday 8-10pm est time slot on beatminerzradio.com which is also on the tunein app under beatminerzradio.
Cratez- Is there aonther Finsta Bundy album in the works? or solo projects?
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