Best of What's Next: Chiddy Bang

Emcee Chidera “Chiddy” Anamege and DJ/producer Noah Beresin (who performs as Xaphoon Jones) met a few years ago at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, but beats soon took priority over books and the two dropped out after their freshman year to concentrate full-time on their mutual musical endeavor, Chiddy Bang. After releasing their Swelly Express mixtape (which samples from independent heavy-hitters like Sufjan Stevens, MGMT and Passion Pit) in November 2009, the hip-hop duo signed with EMI Records (with a bit of trepidation) and put out their Opposite of Adults EP in June; this August, they’ll complete the second leg of a major U.S. tour before releasing their full-length label debut later this year. Late last month, Paste sat down with Beresin outside of an In-N-Out Burger in Los Angeles to talk about Chiddy Bang’s flirtation with major labels, their recent shows in Europe and what to expect from the duo’s upcoming debut.

Paste: Where did the name Chiddy Bang come from?
Noah Beresin: We were making music so fast that we really didn’t have time to stop and think about what we should call ourselves. That’s just what [Proto] just kinda called all his music projects, just called it “Chiddy Bang.” And [we] just kinda rolled with that.

Paste: How’d you come up with your DJ name?
Beresin: It’s kind of a funny story. The guitar player that used to play with us live, Pat—me and him would play a lot of open mic nights. It was specifically us playing to a room of drunk fireman in South Philly. It was pretty hilarious. We were getting kind of bored with it so we would play a game and try to embarrass each other. I’d get on the mic and go, “Yo, my man Pat, he goes by the name Forsaken Warrior. He’s about to read some poetry … and play Frampton covers.” So everyone would get around Pat. So Pat started introducing me as Xaphoon Jones, as just a weird embarrassing name. Xaphoon sounds like a built in sound in the program we were using to make beats—it just sounded terrible. I think it’s a bamboo saxophone kinda instrument. He just started calling me that, and when we moved our shit into the dorms to go to school he just told everyone that’s what my name was. And that’s just what everyone called me.

Paste: You utilize a lot of different indie bands in your samples and beat making. How’d that come about?
Beresin: I definitely would disagree just ’cause … basically I just sample everything, like reggae artists [to] Joe Strummer. In all the beats I make, I’m sampling punk bands and world music and just everything. It’s really Chiddy though—even though he didn’t know the music, he was drawn to the songs that happened to be indie samples. Even though I’ll make hundreds and hundreds of beats, the only ones that people hear are the ones Chiddy picks. And so he was drawn to the MGMT sample, the Passion Pit sample, the Sufjan Stevens sample, even though he didn’t know any of this music prior to me making the beats and explaining the samples and stuff. That’s just kinda become my sound, based on the shit I was dropping combined with his selective musical taste. I would attribute my diverse background to growing up in Philadelphia. Philadelphia has got so many scenes going on at the same time in such a small, close-knit scene and town. That’s kind of how I kinda got a wide grip on things.

Paste: The Swelly Express mixtape chronicled you guys going back and forth to New York to meet with labels. Can you talk about your experience with the labels and how it affected you?
Beresin: Definitely, definitely. We have a really funky story with the labels. … Initially we had a bunch of other kids in the band. The recordings were exactly the same, but we had this sloppy punk band sound when we played live. The labels, they really liked us. They liked how much attention we were getting and how new and fresh and diverse we were—white kid and black kid doing our thing. They wanted to change us up. They didn’t want us to sample as much. They wanted us to be more of a Lil Wayne/Kevin Rudolf kinda thing. They told us to stop sampling and they really didn’t like our live show. Even though they flirted with us for mad long, they’d been taking us out for dinner and shit in the Swelly Express days for months and months and we never saw a contract because they were all waiting to see what we’d settle into. Finally, it took this British record label Parlophone, who was kinda brave enough to be like “OK, we’ll clear the MGMT [sample], we’ll put that out as a single.” After that did so well, a lot of the old labels we were talking to and had stopped talking to us, were like, “Whoa, they just sold like 150,000 copies of this single they put out in the first month or so.” A bunch of labels started talking to us again and EMI basically came to us and said, “Listen, we put out your single. What’s it gonna take to sign with us for a full album?” So we told them and here we are.

Paste: How was it getting wined and dined by all the labels?
Beresin: It’s not something that just happens to us. They take you out to dinner and talk about how much they love you months before they give you a contract. It was something we never knew to ask for because we were so new to this industry. None of us had been in a situation like this. We didn’t know the meals and the chitchat and them getting to know us—yeah, it’s important but we didn’t know it was all leading up to a contract eventually. If we had known that, we would’ve been more, “You’ve talked to us a bunch of times. Where’s this contract?” There was kind of a debate between “we can sign right away and maybe not be a priority ’cause we’re a new act,” or “we can take time to build up our own hype and work a little bit more so that when we did sign eventually, we’d be treated with a little more clout on the labels.” That’s the move we ended up making, waiting another six months and putting out a mixtape before signing.

Paste: You guys recently did some U.K. tours. How was the U.K. experience?
Beresin: Oh man, it was amazing. It was great.

Paste: How would you compare the U.K. to the U.S. as far as crowds and the reaction?
Beresin: I would say that electronic music has really been in their mainstream for a lot longer than we have. Just the whole grime, dubstep, drum and bass, funky house and all their kind of stuff, electronic genres, filter into their pop radio and their hip-hop much sooner than American acts and also sooner than we do and they’re also a little more open-minded to hybrids of genres. We got shown a lot of love. It was a really hectic tour. We played about 24 to 25 in a 20 day period. There were some amazing shows, like a BBC show in Wales, shows in Scotland and all over England. One show in Munich. It was just a really amazing experience. The fans showed us a lot of love. You really can’t get them to come out on a night where there’s a big soccer game on TV. We had one or two nights where we had 20 or 30 people in the crowd. The big nights, the weekend—they’re out and they’re about. We had a large number, like five or six, absolutely pandemonium shows. Glasgow was crazy. London, the last night, was amazing.

Paste: Your upcoming debut release for EMI/Parlophone is tentatively Aug. 24. What can people expect on the record?
Beresin: Basically, its gonna have a few songs that people are familiar with. A majority of the album is brand new material. We’re working on it. We’ve written about 15 songs so far, and we’ll take the ten best of those. This week, before we start our West Coast tour, we’re doing a lot of writing sessions out here in L.A. with some actual hip-hop heroes of mine. I don’t wanna spoil who we get to write with, but definitely dope producers. That’s what we’re doing out here, basically just trying to write a lot. We’ve made a lot of dope hip-hop records that I really like, but at this point, we’ve kind’ve learned it’s not really about what we like, and its about can you follow up “Opposite of Adults”? It’s sold a shit-load of singles—it just went gold in Australia. We have a few things in the works that I definitely think will give “Opposite of Adults” a run for its money. I’m very excited for our album.

Paste: What kind of influences have you drawn on for this album, at least for the beat-making?
Beresin: We’re definitely kind of continuing the story element. Swelly Express was built in a way because it was thematic and telling our story. The story of this album, I can’t tell you the title, but the story is essentially where we are right now. The pros and cons of getting to do the crazy shit we get to do at the pace at which it’s done. We got a record deal March 1, so it’s June right now—May?

Paste: June, I think.
Beresin: (Laughs) Everything is happening really fast. That’s what the album is inspired on. As far as the beats go, the goal for me, and what I think I’ve succeeded with, is to continue the indie sampling tip and give our early fans what they really expect from us and love from us. But now that we have studio budgets … I have lots of really amazing live instruments and can really beef up the tracks and take it to another level. It’s a lot of instrumentals that are original, a lot of beats that are samples, and it’s a good balance.

Paste: You also DJ on your own, in addition to producing. How do you balance those things with Chiddy Bang?
Beresin: Man, that’s a good question. It’s tough as hell. I had a lot of dope producing offers from other rap artists that I’d really love to take, but until I can make sure that the Chiddy Bang project is secure, I don’t want to put a lot of time and effort into a lot of other stuff because Chiddy Bang is definitely my ticket into the industry, and to not have a fucking complete legendary smash album on my ticket in would not look good later down the line and also as a producer. I’ve had to turn down a lot of dope producing jobs and mixing jobs. The DJing has been fun because our promoters have let us do afterparties after shows—we did that a lot in England. Doing that a lot here on the West Coast. If the opener doesn’t show up, I get to spin sometimes. It’s a useful tool to have in the box.

Paste: Who are some of the artists, time permitting, that you would want to collaborate with or produce?
Beresin: I would love to produce for [Jay-Z], I would love to work with Kanye. I would like to get one beat on Drake, just one beat on Drake just so—I dunno why, just so I could be like “I got one beat on Drake.” … I would love to work with The Roots. I would love to produce for Mos [Def] and [Talib] Kweli—people I grew up listening to, that would be my dream.

Paste: Philly has had a variety of artists, especially with hip-hop, from Eve, Gillie Da Kid, Black Thought, Beanie Sigel, The Roots—how do would you describe the Philly sound and how do you draw that out and throw that into what you guys are doing?
Beresin: Philly is very diverse and a lot of traditional hip-hop doesn’t sound as much as the new street hip-hop. Some of the best musicians in the world that play in Kanye West’s live band and Jay-Z’s live band are all from Philly. If you had to pick a hip-hop record that really showed you the soul side and the street side, I would say Beanie Sigel’s record The Becoming. They have a lot of amazing soul samples, a lot of classic 90’s beats. Beanie just comes super hard with some really real lyrics, really wild shit. Hip-hop is a balance and that balance is between the 90’s bop soul samples and a barrage of very fast street bars and lyrics—that would be the Philly sound.