INTERVIEW: FAM-LAY
WORDS: MARISA BRICKMAN
IMAGE: REYNARD LI

Fam-lay first popped up on Clipse’s debut album Lord Willin’ in 2002. We fell in love the Norfolk, Virginia rapper when he released the track “Rock ‘N’ Roll” on a Neptunes comp in 2003. The next year, he called up Lil Flip and released another version of the same song along with a hot hometown video, from which we ripped some righteous dance moves.

That tune, along with a mixtape, only left us wanting more. Guess you could say we were bummed when we found out his debut album Traintogo wasn’t going to come out – Def Jam dropped him. Luckily, Fam had friends in Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, whose Star Trak imprint picked him up, and plan to release an album in September this year.

You may have heard “Da Beeper Record” by now – if you haven’t, make sure to cop that shit because its infectious. Fam-lay raps about all kinds of things from his VA neighborhood: the VIP lounge, sour diesel roll-ups, partying, and being surrrrious.

Raised in a Baptist family, Fam says he has his own relationship with God and doesn’t like to waste his time on any negative energy. We caught up with him on the phone despite the fact that he prefers to be hit up on his beeper, because “people be talkin’ too much nonsense on the phone.”

Hey Fam, what you up to right now?
I’m driving in a car. I’m in Virginia right now.

When I lived in NYC a couple of years ago “Rock ‘n’ Roll” was one of my jams – I used to rock the elbow dance that Pharrell does in the video!
[Laughs] I appreciate that baby.

You’ve been popping up on Clipse’s stuff, you’ve got “Da Beeper Record”… Since then though, it’s been like, ‘When is this guy going to give us an album?’
It’s looking like late summer, in September. I just shot the video for “Da Beeper Record” earlier this month. We moving forward.

What was the deal with you maybe having to shoot it in Miami?
Yeah, because our time was so tight it was just that Miami was where we’d have to shoot it at, but we ended up being able to shoot it in Virginia.

Keeping it real!
Yeahhh, I was fighting for it to be in Virginia anyway, but I wasn’t trying to mess nothing up. If I had to shoot it in Miami I was just going to have to do it. It all worked out for the best. We shot it in Virginia, all the people came out and it and it turned out like I wanted it.

You first got into the game through Pharrell, how did that come about?
The neighborhood where I grew up, Huntersville, in Norfolk - where we shot that video – Pharrell has family out there. Me and his younger brothers were real cool. Pharrell used to come out there and visit his family. He used to talk about music back then, in ’97. Me and his little brother and the rest of us running around weren’t really trying to hear that. Music for us was an unreachable thing, for real. You never heard of nobody from Virginia getting a deal and really pursuing it. Pharrell just stayed with it. A long, long story short, I ran into him a couple of years later in a club and he was just like, ‘Yo, I heard you’ve been rhyming.’ I don’t know how he heard. I used to rap, just joke around in the neighborhood. Like I said, we used to joke around. He came up to me in the club one day and said, in the middle of the club, in the middle of the dancefloor, ‘Why don’t you kick something for me right now?’ I’m drunk. Everybody’s drunk, know what I’m sayin’ [laughs]? So I rhymed for him and he was like, ‘Man, you got it, you got it.’ I was still like, ‘Yo, this dude is trippin’.’ I never took him serious until he asked me to come around the studio to see how things work, how the process works, making songs and stuff like that. It took me a minute to come through because, like I said, I didn’t think it was going to be for real. So I started coming around as he and Chad were producing. And out of the blue, as I was coming through and hanging around, he’d call me and be like, ‘I’ve got so-and-so on the phone right now, rhyme for him real quick.’ When I say out of the blue I mean out of the blue. Like I’d be taking my grandma to the doctor or something and there’s Pharrell on the other end of the phone, ‘Yo, rhyme for me real quick.’ So I’m in the car with my grandma rhyming my heart out and she’s lookin’ at me like, ‘What the hell?’ He just used to tell people about me and keep me out there. As I saw that, I started taking it more seriously and started writing rhymes. And then some people told me I was good. I was getting better and as all this was going on the Neptunes were getting bigger and bigger. As I’m learning and getting sharper, they got more power in the game. It was only right for me to sign with them. I’m thankful for that.

That’s one thing that’s beautiful about hip-hop – everybody’s always supporting their people and promoting where they came from. Someone blows up and they bring other people with them.
Yeah. It’s a good thing because Pharrell and Chad allowed me to grow under them. I’ve seen them producing some superstars when I was around. It wasn’t like they said, ‘Oh he ain’t ready yet, we can’t do no hood shit’ and went out and found somebody else. They stuck with me and let me grow and now I got it.

You had a full record recorded for Def Jam that never came out. The one you have coming out in September on Star Trak.
It’s mainly new stuff. But there are one or two songs that we just felt like were classics. We couldn’t get rid of them, so they’ll be on the album.

Is there a particular type of song you like best? Like are you partial to a slow jam?
When I make music, its never planned. I’m not like, ‘I need a slow jam, I need a hardcore song, I need a club record, something to talk to the girls.’ The process of me going to the studio is that I just let a beat take me to wherever it feels right. If I get 10 songs and they all make me feel like clubbing, then I have a whole club album. That’s not the case, but I want to stress that’s what happens. I let the beat and the feeling take me wherever. I say that because I feel like a lot of other people don’t do that – they’re always aiming in the direction they think they should go, like ‘Snap music is what’s up right now. Let’s make a snap record.’ I could never go into the studio with those kinds of plans and make that type of song because I feel like I’d be forcing it and I’d make a song that would come out wack.

It seems like when people are focused on making music a career rather than just making good music, that’s when things get fucked up.
One main thing that I always remind myself of, one that that Pharrell always tells me is ‘Don’t forget. This is supposed to be fun.’ When you get caught up in the politics it can mess you up. That happened to me before. In the beginning at Def Jam I was just young. It was my first time getting my feet wet, recording records and having fun. I ain’t run into the political side yet. The situation we went through with “Rock ‘n’ Roll”, a lot of radio stations didn’t get it so they didn’t play it. It was white labelled, so a lot of DJs didn’t look at it – all those things I didn’t know. I just thought if it was good music people would play it. Once the politics got in there that kind of stuck with me. I had to get back to my frame of mind like ‘It’s fun. I’m back.’ That’s where I’m at. Back to make a fun record and have a ball.

Website: famlaymusic.com