Novem Life, Yo!

Serengeti makes music, and lots of it. He put out 3 albums in 2006; and has 3 more coming out in 2007, on as many record labels. Listen to any one of them, and you’d have a tough time classifying his sound… but you’d like it. On a chill Tuesday evening earlier this year, Novem caught up with the constantly moving artist to talk about his new band, multiple albums, and life in Chicago.

You mention Chicago in your music often.
I used to take the EL everywhere, and just being on the trains and busses all the time… I’d hear people say things and I would just write it down. Some lady would just say, “Get me some sausages!” and I just thought wow let me jot that down. I don’t know; I guess it (Chicago) just comes out in some of my stuff. I like Chicago baseball.”

Cubs or Sox?
I like Chicago baseball.

You’ve released entire albums online for free. Thank you.
Well I made (Thunder Valley) like 3 years ago and I’ve got more albums that I’m just sitting on and it drives me crazy that I’m just sitting on them. I don’t want to hook up with a label and give them an old album, so I’d rather just get all the old shit out there- free or not- so I’m not up all night thinking about it. Just get it out there, at least its out…fuck it, get it off my chest. If people like it, they like it.

How many record labels are you working with?
Basically I met up with Jon (of Bonafyde records) and told him I had an album called Dennehy. He heard it, and was like “yeah I wanna put this out.” Then I started working with Will (Polyphonic) cause his buddy Flesh ONE had some beats I wanted to rhyme over. We met up at Will’s house to record, and starting messing around till we had the Race Trading album. And we decided to give that one away for free… Well the band’s album, Marry Your Affair, will come out on Bonafyde. The other album Will and I worked on, sort of a down-tempo album, is Don’t Give Up; it’s coming out on Audio 8.

I really like it, but it’s very tough to perform. We still haven’t really worked out how to perform those songs. They’re really slow and sad and intimate songs, and I don’t really think people want to hear them when they’re out.

So not really party music?
It’s not party music at all, but I think it has a place. It’s just more for listening, which can be tough to pull it off live

You’re a tough musician to put in a genre. Is that an advantage?
People like to generalize things, and because I have all this stuff where people can’t say, “Oh it’s this.” I don’t really just do one thing. It’s actually a disadvantage because people are like, “I wanna hear emo-rap” and that’s this---or “I feel like listening to hardcore” and that’s this. But my shit is just all-over.

Oh Emo.

To tell you the truth, I don’t even know what emo is. Tony Trimm told me about it 2 years ago. Emo? I thought it sounded hilarious… I was like, ‘What the hell is emo?’
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- R.Pepin