Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Uncle Spaceman. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Uncle, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

As creators, as artists we take countless risks. We bet on ourselves when it feels like there’s no one in our corner, no cheerleaders dance for us, spelling our names out in songs driven by the perfectly timed kick drum while the esteemed conductor wands our victory song. Trusting our knowing is what we have.. an inner voice, sometimes a whisper… sometimes a scream.. and sometimes a stern reassuring voice. Telling us to keep pushing, keep painting, keep writing, keep producing.. CREATE CREATE CREATE. Then once we’ve created something we feel is worthy of the World’s eyes and ears we take another risk in showing that in publishing that creation. I don’t think it is often spoken of that feeling of ‘Will they love it as much as I do?’ ‘Will they even listen?’ ‘Will the algorithm fxck me again?’ ‘WILL I FAIL?!’ Supercharged excited anxiety. Just putting yourself out there is a risk. A risk we take constantly. But the biggest risk I’ve taken lately would have to be going solo as a Hip-Hop artist. At 33 years old, 15 years after I started recording Hip-Hop, I decided I didn’t have any more time to waste waiting for my co-creator’s drive to match my own. And I gave it one last push… that was 7 years ago and I’m still pushing. With more momentum in many ways than I had with any of my previous groups or bands. That said I still work with a few of my old collaborators, and keep contact with the rest. And the ones that re-joined the cosmos I still use their work (beats or verses) in mine, always credited.
As for making a life out of it; the more risks you take the more rewards you will see.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was infatuated with music as early as I can remember, thanks to my Father, I knew all the words to “Hey Joe” before I knew my ABC’s. My Father showed me how to listen to music, to actually hear the lyrics… explaining the meaning behind them. Knowing there’s hidden messages, clues cloaked in metaphor, deep introspection, revolutionary rants, ancient remedies, epic quest’s, the possible treasures are endless. Buried beneath bass-lines, inside of the hooks we all sing along with is a painting, a picture, a movie. And if done correctly can channel emotion into something timeless. That is what I hope to create when I make Hip-Hop. Which maybe delusional if you compared my budget to my ambition ;)

That is what I do I make Hip-Hop. Psychedelic Hip-Hop. Bar-based, punchline-packed, peace-preaching and rooted in the underground. I have published four solo Uncle Spaceman albums, one every year since 2019, with my 5th, “Styledelic”, dropping officially on the five year anniversary as my first on April, 19th.

Prior projects, groups and bands include but are not limited to;
– ‘Spittin Images’ formed when I was around 15 with my hetero-life-mate Kaps Anonymous and produced by our excellent homie Munk. Both are long gone from this World, tho, I still use a Munk beat on every album and have a Kaps verse (rapped by me) on the song “Theme Music” from my third Uncle Spaceman album “Vacation In The 3rd Dimension”. This group was a smaller branch of a five person collective we called
– ‘Hip-Hop Anonymous’ sharing the last word in Kaps’ name. The other members included Falconry (who produced two beats on “Styledelic”) and Jethro Eastwood. Spittin Images recorded handfuls of freestyles and around five actual tracks. Kaps passed in 2004.
– ‘Liquorbox’ was formed by Jethro, Munk and I. For a few years Liquorbox flourished we played in many major American cities from New York to Miami, the Midwest and LA and opened for many of our Rap Heroes along the way.
We put out the album “Binge Thinking” independently in 2005. Shortly after it seemed, at least in our hometown of Baltimore and the East Coast, that Underground Hip-Hop was seeing a drastic decline in interest. That, coupled with our producer Munk falling into the Baltimore underworld left us playing our last official show as Liquorbox at The Viper Room where we played after a Live Hip-Hop group… a full band and all the bells an whistles… and we decided to build a band around our music on the plane ride home.
– ‘Late Night Breakfast’ was formed out of the list we made of potential members. Everyone we wanted to join was down. Brad Wray on guitar, Ted LaQue on bass, Mike Mullins on drums, with Jethro and I sharing MC duties. We were more successful locally than ever before selling out mid-size venues and breaking into new fancy ones with acoustic guitars. Ones we surely couldn’t play with an MPC and CDJ’s. We released the album “Booze and Cheers” independently in 2008 and sold out a venue Kaps and I dreamt of playing as high school kids.. We covered a Spittin Images song that night.
A year later in 09 and only a few mixes away from completing our second album Late Night Breakfast did as bands do and ‘Decided to pursue other creative ventures.’ We threw banger to hang it up and ended up busting a pipe and flooding the store under the venue.. whuupz
– ‘The Rockhoundz’ born in 2010 with my long time and current collaborator The Elusive Waverider. We had an album full of original Dubstep, Glitch-Hop, Hip-Hop, and Baltimore Club music that disappeared into the ether when The Waverider’s computer crashed beyond retrieval. But we played many epic raves, headlined small festivals and all around got the people breakin sweats on the dance floor. Over the course of years following The Waverider moved around the country but continued to send beats my way here and there. A couple of those beats and two from when I lived on his couch in the lab became 5/7th’s of “Z=Z2+C”, the first Uncle Spaceman album. Currently The Elusive Waverider and I are working on a joint album that could quite possibly be released later this year.
– ‘Crashed Earth’ 2013 & 14 a short lived but seemingly promising project with the multi-talented Mike Kane (guitars, keys, drums, vocals, sound engineer) & Matt Resh on Bass

I recorded a mixtape in at the end of 2014 and my engineer had a break down of some sorts and dropped off the radar along with the final mixes…

Sooo… After all that exhausting work I’m left with not much to show in terms of what I can upload to streaming platforms. In the following year I moved to Detroit from Baltimore and by 2017 found a home studio with a super solid engineer, Mike Locks, and began chipping away at everything I’d had pent up. Words poured out like an open fire hydrant and I found myself writing more and with more intention than I ever had previously. I wrote album after album after album… until I was three entire albums ahead of what I could even record if I worked at a relentless pace. I’ve tried to pump the brakes on stacking up releases but since that train has had momentum it’s been hard to slow down. “Styledelic” has been 95% written since 2020 to provide a scope of how many songs/ albums I have working at the same time in different stages of completion.

What sets me apart I suppose is the fact that I’m still here. Still creating. My content isn’t full of lower vibrational tales or fabrications. I believe in lyricism, double entendre’s, wordplay, creative writing and story telling. I don’t rap over trap beats and repetitive hi-hats (often). I believe in LOVE. I value human life, nature, symbiosis, and embrace the strange.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Yes most definitely. My mission, I suppose, is to end human suffering. Creating the abundance needed from creations completed. If I had the means I would work towards that… Until then my pen is my most efficient tool. There is a lot of the competitive nature of Hip-Hop to be found in my music, but it is also full of meaning. A couple of my releases I would consider love songs to friends as well as strangers, as well as friends of strangers. I wrote the song “Know That”, on the first Uncle Spaceman album, after one of my best friends took his life. The same year as another one of my best friends overdosed. And in short it’s everything I wish I could have said to them had I known they were struggling. However, being as I can’t say those things to them, maybe someone I don’t know will find those words exactly when they need to hear them. Or maybe they have a friend struggling and they can’t find the words for that friend. Now they don’t need to find those words, they just need to send them a song.. the words are already there. A lovely synchronicity with the song “Know That” is that the video was uploaded on World Suicide Prevention Day… as fate would write it. I had zero knowledge of the day’s significance until after the video was published. Sorry to get so heavy… but thats life idnit?

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me the most rewarding aspect of Skateboarding is landing a trick you’ve been trying all day everyday for a week, a month or longer. All of the sudden something finally clicks and you land smooth. In Graffiti it’s benching trains with your peers and one of your panels rolls by. Or meeting a writer you looked up to only to find out they are also a fan of yours. But the biggest most rewarding aspect I’ve experienced as a creator is getting a message from someone telling you how your music got them thru a dark period in life. That and stepping off stage meeting a person that drove from out of state to watch you perform… Those type of moments or reaching towards them will keep me going when the motion is quicksand.

Contact Info:

• Website: unclespaceman.bandcamp.com
• Instagram: @neonspinningfractals
• Youtube: youtube.com/@unclespaceman
• Other: To find me on all streaming platforms, simply search Uncle Spaceman. For the only place to hear those old records from my past groups and bands – soundcloud.com/unclespaceman *note my soundcloud is more of an archive than something I’m currently active on, tho I do check it often.

Image Credits
Craig ‘Gage’ Steel – the photo for the Crab Cakes cover (used as the first photo)