Rapper Chris Gabo Gives Insight To The Meaning Of His Upcoming Project Titled "Price Of Anarchy" And Details The Growth In His Writing Process
New artist Chris Gabo recently released the single off his new project called “Price Of Anarchy.” The track is described as an anthem for the misunderstood, “One of Those” is a song for the kid who gets bullied for no reason; it’s a track for the unintentional villain – the one that people choose to make fun of in order to take attention off of themselves.
Watch the music video and check out our full interview with Chris below!
Q: What was the writing and creative process like for “One Of Those”?
It’s funny yo, cuz so much of rap music these days is made remotely, i.e. someone sends you a beat, you record something to it, you email it back them etc. etc. ala Postal Service and Brainius and I have certainly made joints that way. But this one we got to do in person and it was so much better for it. We went out to Long Island his moms house– aka my aunts house—with the intention of picking up his car and driving back up to New Haven to work there but when we got there his parent’s car was parked in front of the garage so his car was stuck and we were just like “fuck it” let’s work here. We ordered some Haitian food and holed up. Brainius had made this up tempo joint and I was like, “what if we slowed this down by like half” and he did and suddenly the beat became SINISTER and I was like………..yeah. That. And the rhymes just sprouted from there.
Q: How do you feel you’ve grown as an artist since your previous release?
I’ve gotten a lot better at structure. As a narrative writer structure is my bread and butter but had I wasn’t quite fluent in musical structure during Exit Interview, but after that project came out I got obsessed with building songs from small eight bar chunks and then organizing them after that. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that now I’m only making A Chorus / B Chorus / Pre-Chorus / Post-Chorus pop joints — because knowing structure means you can more confidently break structure. I love going from a meticulously crafted 3 minute 30 second pop song to a seven minute song with all bars and no chorus.
Q: What sounds can we expect from your upcoming project?
You can expect Price of Anarchy to be loud, front footedly heart broken, electronic with dark moody metal undertones, sharp synths, clean vocals, and minor key melodies.
Q: Describe the meaning behind the title “Price Of Anarchy”.
“The Price of Anarchy is a concept in economics and game theory that measures how the
efficiency of a system degrades due to selfish behavior of its agents in the worst case” — this was a title that Brainius came up for a song. And when I learned what it mean I loved how this economics term was essentially about economists measuring the real world impact of human avarice and I was like — shit this mixtape is so much about the tug of war between denying and giving into the darker impulses of the human spirit — we should call the whole project that.
Q: Which track from the mixtape was your favorite to make?
Track four on the tape is a joint called “Stop Calling My Phone” and that was definitely one of the most exciting processes because of the back and forth. It started with me trying to write a chorus that told a narrative story inside the hook. Then Brainius wrote the piano chords and build a beat around it and then I built out this pre-chorus and we took it to our engineer and assistant producer Martín Perna (the founder and bandleader of Antibalas) and after I tracked my vocals he laid a baritone sax part that brought it to a whole nother level. And then when I tracked my vocals Brainius rewrote harmony with my vocal and the vocoder and it just….yeah….it was a very impressive and exciting day to be working with the homies,
Q: What music or other pieces of art have you been most inspired by this year?
I’ve been listening to the Diddy album “No Way Out” — more specifically I’ve been listening to “Young G’s” on a loop and just trying to figure out how to get as nice as Biggie and Jay on that joint.
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About Chris Gabo
Currently contracted to an overall deal with HBO, Chris has written six episodes for the recently aired reboot of In Treatment. Also acting as the consulting producer for The Weeknd’s show The Idol, Gabo’s involvement in music shares a seamless synergy with his background in film/TV. Past musical collaborations include Cakes Da Killa, Lazerbeak, DJ Trackstar of Run the Jewels, and more. He has opened for Ana Tijoux and DJ Rob Swift, while also licensing music to Hulu’s Broad City as well as the independent film Coldwater.
