5 Quick Questions With @MeccaGodZilla

What artists past and present are you most influenced by?

Big Daddy Kane, Public Enemy, dead prez, Wutang, Michael Jackson, and the Temptations.

Visually, Judy Almer of Hanna Barbera (she taught me how to paint and use pastels), Ron Wimberly (yall should Google him), and quite a few more.. so hard to name names...there's quite a bit more.

How is your approach to emceeing and production similar and what's different?
Production comes from my spirit spilling out onto this technology to capture it.  I wish I could explain more.. it happens when it happens and when the feeling is in me.. i have to turn my phone off and skip meals to get it all out.. sometimes I end up making a handful of beats in 1 sitting.  I'll hear it first in my mind and try to sit down and make exactly what I hear...sometimes when making what you hear in you mind, you accidentally stumble across something else while trying to duplicate what you initially heard..then it's saving the 1st beat and laying the skeleton for the next beat...then just going back and finishing it all up.  Sampling is similar too..you hear something then u wanna chop that piece.. to start creating.. while triggering the sounds you may hear something else and boom, save the 1st beat..then work on the next skeleton real fast... save that..then go back to the first joint!

MCin is similar...with or without a beat... Nowadays...I'll put a beat on repeat and sit with it for a few days before putting any words to it.. My writing takes a while... I like to sit on music to make sure what I write has the proper impact line for line...

Why do you have so much love for Japan?

My father and uncle studied as the 1st students of Master Oyama's Kyokushin Karate in Brooklyn at 55 Flatbush avenue under Sensei Nakamura...who is now the founding father of Japanese Seido Karate!   At age 7 I was in the dojo..and I stayed until 16 years.  It's just in me.. I spoke karate related Japanese from that age.  Nowadays people only see what they see from me and even in Japan, many of the natives don't understand...but my history is too deep to explain it to them.  I appreciate Japan a lot for what it's given to me.  What I really love is being a "black" man, growing up in the USA and knowing my roots as an "African American"  and I love that I can mash up my identity as an African American with another culture that I really like.

What's your favorite app on iPhone?

City Transit! Having the MTA subway map at my disposal is awesome!  Maps is cool too..the GPS function is pretty sick! 

What's the biggest lesson you've learned from your experience handling distribution for an independent label? 

Great question.   Working for an indie label can be very taxing especially because if the team is small, you do more than 1 job for sure!  I learned to be patient with stores and one stops in addition to my coworkers.  I also learned all aspects of running the label since the team was pretty small.  At the end of the day just putting the ego aside to get the job done is something I've learned.  Sometimes folks you work with are not capable and if they are not capable, in order to win, you gotta work harder!  

Thanks Freehiphopnow!

Follow MeccaGodZilla: http://Twitter.com/MeccaGodzilla