Strong Arm Steady x Frank’s Chop Shop
About a week ago, the West Coast super group Strong Arm Steady stopped by Frank’s Chop Shop to parlay with us a little…
L-R: Krondon, Mitchy Slick, Todd Nisbet of FRANK151, Phil da Agony
We caught up with Phil da Agony, Krondon and Mitchy Slick, as they dropped knowledge on us about their current projects, touring and the new album. Follow the jump to peep more pics and read the conversation.
FRANK151: I saw you perform the other night. Obviously, it was a strong performance. A lot of talented MC’s. Basically, just wanted to get some background info on there, drop some links to all the projects you’re working on – website, myspace, all that.
PHIL: We all started as individual artists off the top, you know? Krondon, Mitchy Slick, myself – Phil da Agony – you know, we all been working as solo artists for awhile.
So, we kind of got together on the mixtape scene, maybe like 4 or 5 years ago now, and just started creating mixtapes on the West Coast. You know, everybody’s doing it a lot our here [in New York], but we really started doing it out west. Not only my brothers right here, Kron and Mitch, but we had our extended family like y’all. You know, X used to be part of Strong Arm Steady. We got Chace Infinite, Planet Asia, Mitch got his Wrong Kind out in Southeast, Englewood and everywhere else, so… This is just an extended family, a cast that just grind together and do music, so it was just like, “Fuck it, let’s form a supergroup.” That’s basically how it happened.
Krondon x FCS
KRONDON: Every movement – like, if you look at NWA, you look at Dogg Pound, you look at Wu-Tang Clan, you look at OutKast, Dungeon Family – all those movements in music – even G-Unit, even now, and Dipset – all those movements in music had poster childs and faces of that movement. A lot of people fell under the movement, but all those movements had faces. And Phil da Agony, Mitchy Slick and Krondon are the faces of Strong Arm Steady. But Strong Arm Steady extends for many, many families and many, many moves behind this particular jump.
FRANK151: That’s what’s up. So, what are you guys doing right now? Are you going on tour? What’s the current project?
Mitchy Slick
PHIL: Lots of spot dates, man. We’re working on the Arms & Hammer album – that’s the album, the debut album from Strong Arm Steady. We’ve been hitting spot dates. You know, Kweli? He tours, like, 250 days out of the whole year, so he workin’ a lot, man. So we catch little spot dates with Kweli. We can’t keep up with him everywhere, but you know – he brought us out to New York for this, we did a show out in Connecticut last night, we’re about to go do the Urban Network tomorrow. A couple weeks ago, we were in Houston doing SXSW. So we’ve been staying busy. But recording a lot, too – we never stray too far from the studio. I love performing, but I love being in the studio. That’s special, man.
Phil da Agony x LA Looters
FRANK151: You mentioned some DJs also, man. Who’s doing production for the album?
PHIL: DJ Khalil, DJ Muggs… We got Jellyroll… Hi-Tek’s still got one for us… can’t forget Dub-Nox. A lot of cats. There’s not too many features on this album. We dropped a big single with Paul Wall, but we had a lot of features on the Deep Hearted album, which came out last year. We had Black Thought, Kweli, Dilated Peoples, Chamillionaire, Juvenile, so… We doing our thing. We rubbing elbows with you, most likely we talking about doing some music and taking it forward.
FRANK151: Where can people go to hear what you’re working on?
KRONDON: Myspace. You got Strong Arm Steady the gang, myself Krondon, you got Mitchy Slick or Phil da Agony.
PHIL: Or y’all could go to Kweli’s page, and we’re all right there. You can find us right there.
KRONDON: Yep. And go to Kweli’s page and download the MCEO mixtape. Mick Boogie and Talib Kweli got a mixtape out right now you can download all over the internet for free. You can put it on your ipod, you dig?
