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Talking with MIKE from [sLUms] after an incredible performance at 7eventytwo’s first show of the 5-borough tour at Silent Barn in Brooklyn.

Hey Mike, you and the whole [sLUms] family are natural born performers. How do you personally get in the mindset to perform? Do you psyche yourself up or just take the energy available at the given moment?

It's always weird getting in front of people and performing live, I get these really weird butterflies in my stomach. It's a really nasty ass feeling. I perform best when I got my friends and family with me, they help me calm down a lot. Before I perform I always try to just remember who i'm doing it for and put my heart in it and from there i just get lost in it you know.

When you’re lost in it, are you still the same Mike you woke up as, or have you become a different persona on stage called MIKE?

Mike and MIKE are the same people, just like I'm really shy when i’m not on stage or if I’m not rapping so like being on stage or recording always gives me my time to be confident and I want people to feel how I feel for once you know?

For sure. The other thing about your live performances that has always interested us is the way you all feed off each other. On Valentines day you were in the front row rocking out to 6press and his incredibly emotional / charismatic performance. You knew you were going to have to follow that up and to top it off have Jazz Jodi coming up right after you with a killer set of his own. On some level that must be difficult. It’s clear you guys have such a positive supportive vibe with each other. It makes everyone on the outside really get behind you, but I’m still wondering if you also feel competitive with each other. Is there an aspect of one-upmanship to your group performances?

Sixpress did like the most beautiful performance I ever seen him do and it’s because it came from his heart and his true intentions you know. It was really heart-felt, and i don't think its ever about someone doing better than the other. We do group sets to show that this is for all of us. To show people what [sLUms] is even though we represent it as individuals. I think it's okay to say that we all feel different things but we have a gift when it comes to how we say it and our spirits are just aligned. It's definitely a more feeding off each other type of thing then competitive. Like when bad energy is there, I always do a crappy set just cause it throws me off terribly. Also, Sixpress, Booliemane, Jazz Jodi, King Carter and DJ Masoon are like my brothers. We've gone through some embarrassing ass moments, super struggling moments and mad good ones. We all been through a lot together. We became brothers beyond music, like we genuinely got love for each other.

You’ve been getting some attention lately in the mainstream music press. We saw you in the New Yorker and Pitchfork in the same month. Has that changed anything for you?

Yeah, it definitely changed a lot. Really quick. Attention is cool but sometimes it can be overwhelming, especially when it’s not asked for or expected. I appreciate it though, I can definitely see my life changing for the better. People change all the time so it really doesn't mean anything to me, I just didn't like when people were acting like I was doing something new. Like, I been working this hard, been putting in this much from the start. People like to act as if they didn't know, but it’s whatever. Shoutouts to the writer who fucked with me heavy though, I appreciate it a lot man.

I know we were thrilled to see you get some recognition that you clearly deserve. It was cool for us to learn more about Silent Barn at the last 7eventytwo show, they are a collectivist venue without bosses and so their decision-making process was pretty fascinating. What about [sLUms]? You guys are a collective too, right? How do you make group decisions?

We don't really have a position of powers, the whole idea is to be collaborative. We're like brothers besides music. We probably spend more time bonding than we do making music, but it all counts at the end. We bond and the music gets better, you know? We go through disagreements but we believe in each other and everybody's insight so we've never really taken a loss when it comes to that. We have deep discussions a lot about how we wanna go about things.

In the [sLUms] documentary you said it takes a village to raise a boy, and [sLUms] is your village, but it seems like when it comes to [sLUms] its more like it takes a village to raise a village. What do you think?

Yeah it’s definitely like that, or it’s just like building a house. You gotta start with a foundation and the different pieces of the houses have to connect in order to be strong. We all learn from each-other and use each others resources to grow.

Are [sLUms] are growing in number? How would you decide to take in another member?

Nah, [sLUms] isn't growing in numbers. People who book shows and write about us always try and add extra people into the group. It's me, SIXPRESS, KING CARTER, BOOLIEMANE, DJ MASOON, JAZZ JODI. I doubt we're gonna have any new members.

How did you guys come together in the first place?

We all just met through each other like one by one. I met Ade on Soundcloud and we found we live like one street away from each other and just started kicking it from there. King and Boolie I went to High-School with and we was doing music shit during school a-lot, so I just had them by my sides all the time. King was like my big homie and Booliemane was like my other big homie when King left outta school. Me and Booliemane was listening to all the same shit but he was always ahead of the game when it came to music. Sixpress had introduced me to Jazz Jodi at this basketball park in Chelsea and then he started spitting and I was like damn this nigga nice. He was really just barring out in the park like it was nothing and you kinda tell he never really made a song before but just made verses and shit. Then Jazz Jodi introduced me to Mason because we was looking towards starting to do live shows and shit and none of us knew how to DJ. Mason had been DJ'ing for a while, his pops was a pretty big DJ back in the day.

After you guys won the 7eventytwo battle of the bands last spring, with a truly legendary finals performance, you guys got the chance to do some recording at Brickhaus studios with engineer Daniel Lynas. What was that experience like? Has anything from that session been released yet?

Daniel Lynas is a super cool dude yo. He made the recording experience super relaxed and whenever we went to record with him it was always a good time you know. We actually recorded the whole Friends Of Ours tape with him.

You recently started making your own beats too, what has that experience been like for you?

I've been working with beats since like last September/Late August. Beginning was really stressful because I expected the program I use to do everything for me but I learned I had to do some work myself. I've definitely gotten a lot better from my old pieces. It's very cool making your own stuff because it feels mad good when you make something that truly reflects you.

Do you read the newspaper or news sites or anything? How do you stay informed? Are you freaked out by America right now? What kind of politics do [sLUms] advocate?

I don't really read newspapers or go on news-sites but I learn a lot about whats going on by listening to friends, discussions, just interacting with people. I prefer judging society based on interactions with the society instead of reading newspapers or watching the news. I mean, I highkey been freaked out about America before Trump. Black people overall been freaked out by this country. Donald Trump just represent the type of people we try to pretend are not alive. I mean like, 5/6 of Slums are literally political beings. My existence is a part of politics today though, you know? So it's not really advocacy but its fighting our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters.

Has anything changed for you since Trump has taken office?

Not really, I still live the same life I use to. I always compare it to like when the Great Depression happened, like ain't nothing happen to black people accustomed to America's bullshit so, yeah. I mean like now, it's harder to do basement and house functions cause these conservatives been out here snitching ever since that Oakland thang.

To listen to MIKE and the rest of Slums go here: www.slumsnyc.bandcamp.com

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