School is almost out for summer but for the Mathmadix crew, class will still be in session when their long-awaited album, In a Class of our Own, finally drops on April 20.
"We've been trying to drop this album for a couple years now and it's been difficult because of real-life-stuff, you know," rapper Knawledg says. "Now what we've been doing is really pumpin' [the record] and trying to really put Arizona out there the way it should be."
The Scottsdale-based group has been knocking out live performances, including an appearance with Cypress Hill's B-Real late last month, and churning out music videos in the buildup to the official record release party going down Saturday, April 28, at the Martini Ranch in Scottsdale.
Knawledg and company are on their way to California for a show in Orange County later tonight, but the rapper took a moment to catch us up with what's good, and chimes in on the resurrection of Tupac Shakur at Coachella Sunday night.
Knawledg on distributing the record: The album is going to be available as a handout. We know that the majority of everything now-a-days is in the digital world, so we're going to be hitting that hard, but the big thing for us was having something to communicate with the people. There's nothing like actually handing somebody a CD. We still want to be in the streets; we want to be with the people; still want to be able to give them what they want.
The goal right now is to press up a shitload of CDs, hand them out, smash the Web as hard as possible and keep releasing music videos.
On "Freaky Girls" music video: It's meant to be sexy but funny. We didn't want to do the typical "naked-girls-with-the rapper-thing" so we tried to have a little fun with it. We're releasing another video with Carlos Berber, he's a music video director out here, that's going to be a more cinematic video. We're releasing that next, shortly after the album.
On the release party: The release party is at Martini Ranch; it should be hella loud. We just did the show with B-Real and that shit was off the hook. So everyone should come out; girls put on your nicest dress and come out and have fun with the Math. Make sure there's no violence because we're going to have a good time and give Arizona a good name.
On hologram Tupac: I think a person like Tupac would have probably loved it. He's still living life after death and that's really what he wanted. I think it's cool because it keeps his memory alive. People tend to forget the kind of impact Tupac had on the music game. He made a lot more than just music. It kind of sucks because Dre and Snoop and them are the ones collecting a check off of that shit, but if they're any kind of real dudes I'm sure they've got something worked out with his family to help out.
The official record release party for In a Class of our Own goes down Saturday, April 28, at Martini Ranch in Scottsdale.
