Interview: Horseshoe Gang (@HORSESHOEGANG) Talk Hip Hop And Politricks

horseshoe gang i am hip hop
Horse­shoe Gang is an emer­ging Hip Hop col­lect­ive that is pas­sion­ate about main­tain­ing the found­a­tions and fur­ther­more devel­op­ing the future of the scene.
They have strong views and even stronger lyr­ics that approach extremely rel­ev­ant top­ics such as the rami­fic­a­tions of “Trap Music” on a young­er and eas­ily influ­enced gen­er­a­tion, which is some­thing that cer­tainly both­ers myself and many of our read­ers!

Hi guys, tell us first of all, what is mean­ing of your group name “Horse­shoe Gang”?

The “Horse­shoe” Rep­res­ents many things. Think of how horse­shoes are put on a horse; there’s pain involved. We’ve gone through a lot of pain in our lives, so think of pain whenev­er Horse­shoe is men­tioned. Also, there’s four of us and obvi­ously a horse wears four shoes. Plus a horse­shoe rep­res­ents luck and we con­sider ourselves to be lucky in many ways. But the actu­al name Horse­shoe Gang was cre­ated years ago after we star­ted wear­ing Indi­ana­pol­is Colts gear cause the horse­shoe is posi­tioned like a U and our group names used to be Untouch­able Gang. We even­tu­ally star­ted call­ing ourselves Horse­shoe Gang.

Ghorseshoe gang i am hip hop trapiven the title of your new album is “Anti-Trap Music”, lay it out for us, what exactly is your opin­ion on the genre of Trap Music?

We feel Trap­pin’ should only be a sub­ject in Hip-Hop songs rather than a sub-genre in Hip-Hop. Rap­pers have been rap­ping about either selling drugs, using drugs, or both since Hip-Hop’s begin­ning. But Trap Music puts way more focus on dealing/using drugs than neces­sary. To the point where it now seems trendy. T.I. is the King of Trap Music, and he made it pop­u­lar. But he has more ver­sat­il­ity as an artist so he nev­er used the “Trap” as a gim­mick. Rap­pers like Jay‑Z, who are known for rap­ping about Trap­pin’, nev­er used it as a gim­mick but rather as a part of his over­all story. Our album “Anti-Trap Music” is an album meant to express the point that rap­pers should­n’t be one-dimen­sion­al.

We’ve seen you speak on the need for more focus on lyr­i­cism with­in hip hop. Where do you see the main prob­lems right now, and who would you say is help­ing bring it back?

Rap­pers like KXNG Crooked, Slaughter­house, Kendrick Lamar, J.Cole, and Wale are a few examples of rap­pers who still get men­tioned in Barber Shop con­ver­sa­tions and also get high praise for their abil­it­ies to make great music. This Rap industry is get­ting bet­ter, but still needs improve­ment. There’s room for both lyr­i­cism and catchy/gimmicky Hip-Hop music. But it should be less of the lat­ter. It’s okay to eat junk food in mod­er­a­tion, but well-bal­anced meals should be con­sumed more often.

Speak­ing of which, what promp­ted you to cre­ate the lyr­ic: “F**k Jar­ren Benton’s mama with a gonor­rhea dick”?!

Dope rap­pers con­coct dope bars haha! Rap lines could be extremely dis­respect­ful, and it still could all be viewed as the accept­able nature of the sport. Since we nev­er had a per­son­al issue with Funk Volume and they had no per­son­al issues with us, everything that was men­tioned in our rap battle was per­fectly accept­able.

So going back over the years, what have been the main chal­lenges you have faced as up and com­ing artists ?

Lack of money. We came from the bot­tom of the bot­tom. We grew up so poor, we had to save up money to be con­sidered broke. And since we tried our best to stay away from obtain­ing money in ways that would land us behind bars, that makes for a hard road. Couple that with the fact that we wer­en’t col­lege mater­i­al… A recipe for life-is-hard soup is cre­ated haha.

Turn­ing to your loc­al scene, who would you say are you main com­pet­it­ors in Long Beach, and who are the artists to look out for? 

We’ve nev­er heard of the word “com­pet­it­ors” or any word syn­onym­ous with it. Maybe someday someone will define it for us. But there’s a bunch of super tal­en­ted rap­pers in Long Beach. Like Kare­lezz (who’s album “Space Time” drops soon) Tim West, Vince Staples, and DC Gang. Go to you­tube and search “Caine Cous­in Har­old” by Pac Ten and Tech­niec and you’ll see what we mean.

Away from music, what do you all do in your spare time?

We hit up movie theat­ers reli­giously. We play Street Fight­er on Play­sta­tion like it’s our jobs haha. And we’ve been goin’ ham  exer­cising a lot lately… Pre­par­ing for world dom­in­a­tion.

Who do you want to win the next USA pres­id­en­tial elec­tions?

Hard to say. Our opin­ions are sim­il­ar to those Nick Can­non expressed in his video “Too Broke To Vote”. None of the can­did­ates stand out in a major way. Although,  Bernie Sanders’ stance on immig­ra­tion, the eco­nomy, and oth­er issues that con­cern people of the inner-city, are pretty good. And Bernie is right to feel that our pri­vacy should­n’t be stripped away in an effort to fight ter­ror­ism. But still not sure we’d vote for him. Maybe if there was a can­did­ate with Trump’s money and busi­ness savvy, Sanders’ policies, Clin­ton’s gender, and the youth of Cruz, maybe we’d vote haha.

What’s your stance on Don­ald Trump? 

Fuck Trump! Our album “Anti Trump Music” may be on the way.

We under­stand you have a healthy fol­low­ing in the UK.  Have you ever per­formed over here and have you any plans to come and tour ?

We’ve nev­er pre­formed in the UK, but we’d love to. We’re work­ing on pos­sible head­ing that way but noth­ing set in stone.

Have you ever worked with any UK artists, or heard any who you rate over there?

We’ve worked with a few up-and-com­ing artists in the UK. We’ve always respec­ted legends like Slick Rick and Monie Love. And we heard of a few new­er UK artists like Lady Leshurr, who’s “Queen Speech” series was dope. And Hyper­apt­ive who’s song/video “Big Man” is also dope. Shout out to COB Niger­ia, COB Canada, COB Nor­way, COB France, and all of our sup­port­ers across the globe.

Sum­mar­ise you music­al style in three words?

Witty, authen­t­ic, aggress­ive.

Any­thing else you’d like to say?

Go to Seven13ent.com and click on sev­en 13 store to order our album Anti Trap Music. Go buy KXNG Crooked’s album Statik Kxng. Go fol­low our bro Mad Man on Twit­ter at @ungradiostation. And much love to I Am Hip Hop Magazine for giv­ing us this oppor­tun­ity. GOD BLESS!

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Adam KG

Adam KG

Adam KG, is con­scious Hip Hop artist hail­ing from Lon­don City whilst walk­ing the world’s pave­ments. He is inter­ested in the enter­tain­ment and media sec­tor, youth work and hol­ist­ic health.

About Adam KG

Adam KG
Adam KG, is conscious Hip Hop artist hailing from London City whilst walking the world's pavements. He is interested in the entertainment and media sector, youth work and holistic health.