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Edreys - The Sidewalk Scholar
Interview by: Mina Jasarevic
 Edreys (pronounced E-Drease) translates into the “one who masters the pen”. Does the rising rapper/producer live up to the definition? You be the judge. His solo album, The Expensive Hobby, is scheduled to drop in spring of 2008, a precise time for a hungry artist to showcase his expertise to the judgmental and simultaneously thirsty world of hip-hop music. Buffalo may be snowed in this winter but the talent of The Sidewalk Scholar is anything but under the radar. Aside from his rapid rise in hip-hop, Edreys has produced for television screens including Lifetime Television and HBO. If that’s not enough to get your attention, an additional four tracks from The Sidewalk Scholar made it to ESPN’s NFL 2K5. He is moving quickly and Nobodysmiling.com is catching up swiftly. We sat down with Edreys to discuss The Expensive Hobby, creation of classic music and his quest as a street reporter.
 Nobodysmiling.com : Please introduce yourself to the people.
Edreys : I’m from Buffalo, N.Y. Very diverse cat. I’m an artist…anything that has to do with art. Writer, production as well as visual arts. All those three things I combine are me. That’s what makes me unique.
Nobodysmiling.com : What kind of visual art do you create?
Edreys : I do a lot of pen and ink; a lot of acrylic painting. I do some portraits but it’s really an eclectic style that reflects my music. They all go hand-in-hand for me. From the production to colorful music that I do, to the way I write. All those things work mechanically the same way for me. And that’s what it is, creativity. I’m a very creative person.
Nobodysmiling.com : What separates you from other hip-hop artists?
Edreys : It’s a couple of things, actually. One I would probably say is my diversity. I am able to do story-telling. Convincingly do some really engaging story-telling from the beginning to middle to end. Also, I think my voice and my delivery is very unique in itself – I don’t sound like anybody. Production-wise, my voice, the way I write, all those things engage in each other. My production, I really can’t say it sounds like someone else’s either. I do some sampling but as of lately, I’ve been really just playing a lot; really discovering that I can actually play *laughs*. I don’t really find myself getting trapped in any particular vain of hip-hop. I’m just really into doing good music so in that way, it can touch many people.
Nobodysmiling.com : How do you define “good music”?
Edreys : Maybe I shouldn’t say good music…let’s say classic. I don’t make music for a particular period of time. Whatever’s hot now I’m not gonna switch over and do that just because it’s hot now. The industry and the audience change so quickly. I’m really focused on making timeless music; that’s what the greats do. The greats don’t focus on what’s hot and appropriate right now. They look inside of themselves and they draw out as an artist what’s gonna capture a picture from their mind and where they were in that particular moment and not where the industry was at that particular time. That’s what I mean by good music or classic music. You can put it on now, or five years from now and be like ‘Damn I remember where I was now, I was washing dishes when I first heard this song’. That’s what I try to accomplish…
Nobodysmiling.com : Music that has longevity?
Edreys : Definitely.
Nobodysmiling.com : There are different styles found in your music that can be associated with artists such as Nas, Little Brother and J-Live. Who are your influences?
Edreys : I can say Nas to a certain degree. But my influences production-wise go back to a lot of musicians. James Brown was a heavy influence on me musically; a lot of jazz artists. That’s what I’m influenced by. They make timeless music, like you said, with longevity. Lyrically, I have to draw back to Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, EPMD, and the current artists I’d probably say - not influenced by but inspired by - are Nas, Common… And I love Freeway and Ghost. Right now, Freeway and Ghost are crazy for me. I love their creativity, where they come from, their perspective and their energy. Both of their projects are in my computer right now that I kind of check out on the daily.
Nobodysmiling.com : Other than artists, what influences you?
Edreys : Life. Even the industry changes so life constantly changes and how can you not be influenced by it? I’m inspired by life issues, by social issues -
Nobodysmiling.com : Such as which?
Edreys : Sometimes I go by the moniker called The Sidewalk Scholar. And The Sidewalk Scholar pretty much is…I’m a writer and I write from the street perspective. I’m not out there hustling, I’m not out there in the block, I’m not out there getting women pregnant. I feel like I’m able to convey what’s going on and I kind of throw a mirror to society. Like this is what we’re doing to ourselves, this is what’s going on, this is what’s happening. Not that they don’t know it but I’m able to do it in a way that it’s not offensive and it’s not pressuring and it’s not preachy at all. I’m like a reporter. A reporter goes out in the field. You know what’s going on but they bring it to you via camera and via audio and you’re captivated like ‘Wow, I didn’t know that’. Or you can put a different spin on it. So that’s what really influences me. I feel like I have to be a leader in a sense. People don’t really understand how heavy the music can influence the mind, influence a person’s decision, and I do realize that seriousness. That’s what I try to do through my music – to inspire folks. That’s what music should be in a sense, an escapism; but not a misleading escapism.
Nobodysmiling.com : Tell us about your new album. Run it down for us, the release date, production, lyrical expectations, features and theme (if there is one).
Edreys : We don’t have a release date yet but it will probably be April/May 2008; that’s the ballpark. The overall theme – it’s a tentative title – is The Expensive Hobby. Everyone has some sort of hobby, something that they do and they’re coming out of their pockets for it, and they just enjoy and they love doing. Whether it’s beneficial to them or detrimental to them. So The Expensive Hobby strictly aims at that; that’s why I like that title. Because truly, anybody who’s been doing it for any number of years and until you’re at a Ludacris, until you’re at a Nas, until you’re at a Jay-Z level - you can go on and name them - it’s an expensive hobby for you because it has not paid off for you yet... in a sense that you’re able to eat off of it. So I think a lot of people can relate to that. You can talk about people who love gambling and playing lotto tickets. That’s an expensive hobby but they like it. So that title goes across the board because I feel that everybody is gonna relate to that. That’s why I call it The Expensive Hobby because this is something that I really enjoy doing but I’m doing it with the premise to break some bread and really make this a life-style for myself.
Musically, earlier on when I first started this album I had some samples here and there; but now I’m kind of going a different route with it. It’s still very hip-hop but it’s almost like an electric sound. It has a bit of old-school but it has a little futuristic sound to it. It’s kind of up-tempo. There’s some very deep story-telling in it, some emotional stuff. I have a song called “DUI”, called dumb under the influence. I could do a hook but I’m doing my Rakim; that’s like an ode to Rakim when he did “Microphone Fiend”. That influenced me like ‘Wow that joint didn’t have a hook’. So lyrically, you can expect true MC lyrical prowess down to great song writing and almost some novel-like writing where you can sit down and actually absorb some album material as well as some good singles. There are no features right now, I’m being very selfish with it *laughs*. Not to say there won’t be any but it’s not looking like there’s gonna be any right now.
Nobodysmiling.com : This is your first official album?
Edreys : This is my first official solo album, yes.
Nobodysmiling.com : How are you planning to market and promote it? Is there a target audience?
Edreys : We’re working on the team right now for the marketing; that’s the difficult thing. The thing for me is, I think a lot of people – a lot of industry itself – have glazed over a lot of professionals, people that go to work for a living and they have children, and they just want some good music. They can’t listen to the radio and they don’t want their children singing these persuasive songs and they want to be able to still be engaged and involved and in-the-know of hip-hop, and at the same time be able to play it around people so they won’t be…not embarrassed, but not feel comfortable playing. I don’t use any profanity in my lyrics and that’s by choice. I think my vocabulary and my wit and all those things play together so I don’t even have to use it; and it’s not in my character, it’s not something that I walk around with. I don’t walk around using it every-day so it’s not difficult for me; that’s how my rhymes come out too. So in that aspect, I don’t have to make apologies for folks and all that stuff…
But to get back to your question, marketing-wise we’re still working on that but that’s gonna be one of the targets, the bracket of professionals. You’re talking white, black, whatever. There’s a professional age group that feels that there’s no hip-hop for them.
Nobodysmiling.com : You’ve produced for TV screens – how did you get into that?
Edreys : There’s been a couple features on Lifetime Television, there’s some on HBO. We had a nice joint on ESPN’s feature video game, NFL 2K5. Yeah, the TV thing I would love to get more into. A lot of people want to be the star and that’s not really my goal. I’m not doing this for selfish reasons of ‘Oh I want to be Jay-Z’ or ‘I want to be Nas’. It’s great that those guys work hard to be where they are; but there are this many people that you will ever read about that are doing very well in the industry musically because they’re writing songs, like you said, for TV, for movies…so I’m not limiting myself to just trying to be this guy who has this big dream of being known and having to wear sunglasses everywhere I go *laughs*. I truly don’t care about that; if it gets me to that point, that’s awesome but that’s not my drive.
Nobodysmiling.com : How did you start getting your music out?
Edreys : Dre, the guy who manages me right now, he’s in New York City and New York City is eight hours away from where I live. So he’s able to be up in people’s faces. We talk all the time, ‘You know what, let’s try this’. We’re always looking at different options, different ways…You can’t always make it through the front door so you got to find a window that’s open. You gotta slide down ropes and crash windows and come through the back door. He just dug deep, he found a lead, somebody was looking for some music…and so we just reached out to them for the licensing, for the music and we just kept going that way. We were so tired of knocking on Major’s doors – we literally tried about six or seven different labels, Major labels, just doing the regular thing, shopping the demo. We’re like ‘You know what? There’s better ways out here to really get it going, let’s stop wasting our energy on that’. And right now we’re going Indie, we’re on Deep Thinka Records. So that’s where we’re going now, we’re going with the Indie. It makes me a little more flexible, I don’t have to play these games of ‘Yo, you need a single that sounds like this’. They let me do me.
To stay focused on your question, I have a great team of folks and we always just brainstorm. ‘What’s another way to do this?’ There’s more than one way to get in. So I’m very thankful for the Lifetime and HBO stuff and I want to continue going that way. TV is huge. 300 channels, somebody gotta bite for one *laughs*.
Nobodysmiling.com : Where is your focus now – on TV/big screen production or the promotion of your new album – or can you do both?
Edreys : The promotion of the album is…I’m gonna’ do what’s necessary, be wherever I have to be…because that’s a big part of it, my availability to do that. Which I’m putting my heart into everything that I’m doing, the writing and production so that just comes with the territory so I’m ready to do that. And as far as the TV thing, I think it can go simultaneously. That’s where the team comes in. My team is great, all I need to do is put up my product. I was up at 6 o’clock in the morning recording ‘cause that’s what I gotta do. I had to wash mad dishes after, I HATE washing dishes. Rappers too have to wash dishes *laughs*.
Nobodysmiling.com : Hey, you gotta’ do what you gotta do.
Edreys : *laughs*. So I’ve been up. I do what’s necessary. If it takes me 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock in the morning to complete something, then I’m doing it. My thing is to complete the product and then let my team run and do what they do best. That’s what makes us successful – everybody plays their position.
Nobodysmiling.com : Did I miss anything?
Edreys : I think that’s pretty much it, man. I think you’re asking great questions. I hope I answered them right…
Nobodysmiling.com : Perfect. As we anticipate The Expensive Hobby, folks can check out your talented art-work at www.edreys.com.
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