Beat Studies

Like Pavlov’s dogs, hip hop heads are salivatin’ for the latest release from one of the most flavorful MCs on the scene, Dillon Maurer. His Studies in Hunger release is dropping on December 8th 2009 and features production from Paten Locke.  “I’m a restaurant kid, my aunt and uncle owned a restaurant, I started working for them when I as like 15 as a bust boy. I worked for years as a hibachi chef and I made sushi at a Japanese Steak House and I’ve been workin’ at this spot Murphy’s ever since I moved to Atlanta. Is real food oriented and I am real serious about that shit for sure”.

While artists pull inspiration from directions as varying as the musicals styles themselves, this food loving MC seems to return to the dinner plate for his muse time after time. “There is a song on ‘Studies in Hunger’ called ‘Holly Guacamole’ and it’s literally me just calling out the preparation of guacamole over a beat”, he laughs, “it’s totally fuckin’ redonkulous”. I asked about his favorite vegetable, the avocado, and was quickly corrected, “I think it’s a fruit, because it is seed bearing”, he continued, “when I was working at a Japanese restaurant I worked with this cat Ignacio who was Mexican and as I was learning Japanese cuisine and serving that to other people, I had to make employee meal every day as soon as I got there and then cook all night so I also learned some real ass Mexican shit from my man Ignacio, my man Nacho. As for avocados, I just love em’ I love Mexican food for real and yes, mad omega 3 fatty acids.”

I asked Dillon about how his latest musical project came together. “That shit is all 2 track dog, allot of it is straight cassettes from Paten Lock beat tapes beat tapes from like ‘97. I literally was in his living room and there was like this garbage bag full of tapes sitting next to his couch and I was like ‘what is this?’, and he was like ‘oh, those are beats’. Some of it was mad old, some of the shit he made on the fly, but really it’s basically like me taking what was at the time, his entire beat catalog and just picking through the shit and be like ‘I want this one, this one, this one, and this one.”

Dillon is also featured on 16 bars of gold, the beat studies mixtape with DJ Dainja on which drops one week before “Studies in Hunger”. “Its an honor to be on a project with so many quality top notch high grade MCs, much respect, and DJ Dainja on the wheels….woah!”

After some polite prompting, I was able to persuade him to leak a track for our readers… “Hot mess is exactly what I am, provided by Fat Albert on the horns and vocals, me on the rappin’ and P on the beat its a summation of why my hair is so long right now.”

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