INTERVIEW | TERMANOLOGY @TERMANOLOGYST KEEPS IT 100 IN THIS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

By MJ Savino • On Interviews, What is New , , , , , , , , , ,

Sev­er­al years back I had the pleas­ure of inter­view­ing Terman­o­logy, one of Hip Hop’s most prom­in­ent driv­ing forces.  Over the dec­ades he’s become an influ­en­tial staple in Hip Hop, lyr­ic­ally and as an appraised lead­er in the com­munit­ies.  In our most recent inter­view we dis­cussed his cata­log of music that sur­passes a dec­ade, Good Dad Gang brand, his close ties and broth­er­hood with legendary artists, eight fin­gers of gold, and so much more! Tune in below.

MJ: I appre­ci­ate you tak­ing time out of the stu­dio and tour­ing to chop it up, once again, with MJ.  Before we get into the music I want to talk about #Good­DadGang. Years ago dur­ing our first inter­ac­tion I recall that move­ment was just in the take-off stages. Here we are years later and it’s now become a way of life in the homes of mil­lions of fam­il­ies! #Good­DadGang is some­thing near and dear to your heart. Talk about how it’s changed the lives and fam­ily ties across the world.

Term: Appre­ci­ate that. Good Dad Gang is some­thing I take a lot of pride in. I didn’t intend on mak­ing it a glob­al move­ment. I was just being a very proud fath­er and post­ing up pics with my kids and the hasht­ag blew up. Once the name star­ted get­ting noticed, I put the brand in motion and things elev­ated quickly from there. We now have a web­site, social media cam­paign, full on cloth­ing line, over 70 tat­toos, and back to school giveaways every year for chil­dren in poverty.

MJ:  That’s incred­ible as is the bond and broth­er­hood with fel­low artists in the industry such as Slaine, Statik Selektah, DJ Premi­er, and Book Camp mem­bers. Have those rela­tion­ships influ­enced the longev­ity of your career and success?

Term: Abso­lutely. Statik is one of my old­est friends and so is Slaine. Premi­er helped me in too many ways to name, includ­ing doing 10 songs with me, Sean Price, Smif-N-Wessun, mul­tiple shows, stu­dio ses­sions, and songs togeth­er. All of those guys are legendary and/ or on their way to being legendary if you ask me.

MJ: I couldn’t agree more, salute to all of them! Tell me a little about Terman­o­logy back in 2003 when “Hood Polit­ics” was released…Tell me a little about Terman­o­logy now in 2018.  Look­ing back, what can you say about the artist you were then com­pared to who you are now?

Term: 2003 Terman­o­logy didn’t know any­thing about the music industry. He was just a hungry kid try­ing to make a name in Hip-Hop. 2018 Terman­o­logy is much wiser and aware of what the music industry is all about. I’m a much bet­ter artist over­all now. I learned how to use my voice much bet­ter as I got deep­er into my career.

MJ: You were young when you took the industry by storm without warn­ing! Did you have sup­port in your corner? Did you have ment­ors offer­ing guid­ance and artist devel­op­ment? I ask this because now most up and com­ing artists are also young but the dif­fer­ence is they are not so recept­ive to the know­ledge giv­en by our pion­eers who built this found­a­tion for them.

Term: I came into the game inde­pend­ently with my own music. I was press­ing up CD’s, tapes, and vinyl with my own money. I was put­ting up thou­sands of stick­ers with my own street team, doing hun­dreds of loc­al shows and show­ing up 30 deep to all of them. I gained a loc­al buzz like that. The ded­ic­a­tion and hun­ger I showed in New Eng­land and in NY got me noticed by Krumb­snatcha, Statik, Dan Green, Lil Fame of M.O.P., Premi­er, Buck­wild, Nature Sounds Records, Brick Records and a few oth­ers. But those are some of the names I think of that had a hand in help­ing me out early on with dir­ec­tion, music and opportunities.

 

MJ: Your grind and ded­ic­a­tion speaks volumes! 2018, what is hot right now with Terman­o­logy? Any inside scoop on forth­com­ing pro­jects and tour dates you can share?

Term: I just dropped a full length album with Slaine titled “Anti-Hero”. You can find that on all digit­al plat­forms, cd, and vinyl. I have a new pro­ject out right now with my group ST. Da Squad, and new album off my own label ST. Records was released on 4⁄20. The pro­ject is called “Lost­sol 96’” by Pro­du­cer “Short­fy­uz”.

MJ: One of my guilty pleas­ures of inter­view­ing is get­ting a little per­son­al with artists and shar­ing that with fans. With that being said, let’s begin…Tell me your 3 top tour­ing spots. If I scroll your playl­ist on your phone, who will I find? What are your 3 favor­ite fath­er moments? Finally, talk about the rings. The gold nev­er leaves those fin­gers but I have a feel­ing there is some his­tory or nos­tal­gia behind those rings.

Favor­ite tour spots:

My favor­ite tour­ing spots would be Switzer­land, Italy and Japan.

What’s on my playl­ist right now:

When it comes to music right now I am play­ing Wil­lie the Kid & Klever Skemes EP, Fred­die Gibbs SOD & Short­fy­uz Lostol 96 LP on repeat.

Favor­ite Fath­er moments:

Wit­ness­ing the birth of both of my chil­dren would be my greatest memory I would say.

Reas­on for the Rings:

I wear the rings is as a sym­bol of suc­cess. I grew up very poor and wear­ing the rings reminds me how far I made it. I can remem­ber when I lived in the ghetto with no food and no heat. I came a long way and I am forever grate­ful and proud.

 

MJ: Speak­ing of fath­er­hood, how do you find the bal­ance? Like I men­tioned earli­er you are much more than an artist. So between mak­ing music, tour­ing, giv­ing back to the com­munity, and rais­ing daugh­ters, where is your bal­ance?  For some artists that chal­lenge of find­ing and main­tain­ing a healthy bal­ance can res­ult in the end of careers.

Term: It is one of my biggest chal­lenges hon­estly. It’s very hard to drive 500–1,000 + miles every single week back and forth from NY to Boston, etc., to do music full time and also be there for my kids. But some­how I man­aged to pull it off for the past 14 years. I guess it’s like they say, if you really care about some­thing you will make time for it.

MJ: Facts upon facts! As we wrap up, is there any­thing else you want the world to know about Termanology?

Term: I got love for every­one and I wish people only the best. There is no hate in my heart, God Bless any­one read­ing this. Love is love.

MJ: I want to thank you again for tak­ing time out to chop it up with MJ. As I say on the daily, “MJ’s always a fan first”.

 

Fol­low Termanology:

Twitter/Facebook/Instagram

@TermanologyST

@GoodDadGang

TermanologyMusic.com

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MJ Savino

MJ is Hip Hop Blog­ger, Pub­li­cist, Book­ing Agent, Act­iv­ist, but fan first and fore­most. “Hip Hop saved my life, it is only right I give back to the culture”!

About MJ Savino

MJ is Hip Hop Blogger, Publicist, Booking Agent, Activist, but fan first and foremost. "Hip Hop saved my life, it is only right I give back to the culture"!