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ShareIt was the mid-1980s, and in Kansas City, Mo., teenager Aaron Dontez Yates decided to move from straight-up beatboxing to writing his own rhymes. All he needed was a name. Not the one his auntie and mama gave him when he was born, but a real name, a name with weight that would give his rhymes that extra layer of respect they deserved.
He and his buddy paged through a book of guns and ammo, but none of the words he saw seemed quite killer enough to him. “`AK47!’ I’m like, no. `Uzi.’ No! `12 gauge!’ No,” recalls Yates, now 36 and better known in the underground rap game as Tech N9ne. “We got to the end of the book, and it was like, `Man we ain’t find nothing.’ But there was a picture of a Tec-9 at the back. He said Tec-9 because the way you rap is like fast, like `tekatekateka’ - fully automatic.”
The name stuck. And it turned out to have significance to Yates because it was worthy of the rhymes he was throwing and the varied beats he found attractive. Tech N9ne has tried on dozens of different styles over the years, wandering from rat-a-tat deliveries to slower rhythms over leisurely beats. The strapped moniker is almost ironic, given that one of his favorite topics - after himself and the tribulations he’s been through from trying to be successful or just keep his marriage together - is women. He’s more prone to rapping about his sexual proclivities than defending his corner or blasting rival gangs.
One place Tech N9ne has rarely had to defend himself is the D. His following in Detroit developed in part because of his talent and in part because he made the decision to don clown makeup - totally independent of Insane Clown Posse. He thus gained the support of the duo’s fans, the face paint-wearing faithful known as Juggalos and Juggalettes. It’s actually been a few years since Tech N9ne bothered with the clown makeup, but he says that maintaining a following here, there and everywhere is a secret every politician - and successful rapper without a major label deal or distribution - knows.
“Longevity comes with being a politician. Going from town to town and introducing yourself to these people who don’t know you. When we first went to San Diego, for example, and there were only seven people in the crowd - now we’re selling out shows in San Diego. You go make your presence felt. You can’t just sit in your town and hope that you can just put your music out through the mom-and-pop stores and expect everybody to find out,” he says, noting that the era of mom-and-pop is pretty much over anyway.
“You’ve got to get out here - like Barack Obama ain’t going to win this election just sitting at his home. Hillary ain’t going to win just sitting. McCain ain’t going to get it sitting on the toilet stool. They’ve got to get out here and politick, shake hands and kiss babies. And that’s what longevity is. You get these people to know you and know your product. And they know you got good product and good intentions and something they love. Then you will win the hip-hop presidency. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Tech is a man full of theories - whether they involve using political science in the name of selling records and filling theaters, or the more mystical, unintended consequences of his chosen name. “I never thought in a million years I would get my name from a gun and it would turn from something negative into something positive,” he says.
“The way we spelled it was Tech, but it’s really Tec. We did Tech like short for technique. And I learned over the years that 9 is the number of completion. Nine months for a pregnancy; cat’s got nine lives; the whole nine yards is everything. So my name started to make sense, like I was the complete technique of rhyme. I’m every MC in one. It fits me perfectly because I’m ambidextrous. I’m everywhere. I’m sizzling all types of styles, not just one.”
Tech N9ne has never been a fan of doing the expected (unless, of course, you expect him to make a move on your girl), and, like any rapper worth his salt, he’s always looking for a play on words. The Fire & Ice Tour he’s currently on with rapper Paul Wall and Brooklyn’s Ill Bill is meant as pre-support for his upcoming album, “Killer,” which comes out this summer on the heels of the 25th anniversary year of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and features cover art that riffs hilariously on Jacko’s supernaturally glowing white suit. Single “Everybody Move,” currently rotating on MySpace, is a swank party banger that sounds like Timbaland dumped Ludacris and Birdman in a blender with a double dose of Viagra.
But Tech says that’s not all there is. The title “means all killer, no filler. It’s a double CD, and if you’re saying there is not one filler, you’re pretty cocky. That’s a cocky statement, like, `Please.’ People are going to be listening to it just so they can criticize me. But I want that. I want them to challenge me.
“I know some people are going to find fillers because there are certain things that I do that people like more. Some people like me to rap fast more; some people like me to be sad more; some people like me to be party more. I’ve got all that on there, for two albums.”
That wasn’t necessarily the plan going into the studio for Tech, though. “I do what the beats tell me to do, and if the beats tell me to do something sad, that’s what I’m going to do and if the beats tell me to do something sexual, that’s what I’m going to do,” says Tech, who has beats from the like of Young Fyre and Wyshmaster on “Killer.”
“I had no idea what `Killer’ was going to sound like till I heard the first beat that I chose. All these albums I put out as my life. I don’t do a million songs and just put 15 on there - I write my life. So if I’ve got 32 songs, I’m doing a whole lot of living.”
