FEED THE FAMILY SPEAKS ON GROWING UP IN BOSTON AND THEIR NEXT ALBUM
WORDS WITH WORD$ INTERVIEW #17
A MESSAGE FROM BORIROCK OF FEED THE FAMILY:
Yo, it’s the Pope, 1000WORD$.
One day, East Boston producer MichaelAngelo slid into my DMs, urging me to check out his friend, BoriRock. It took me a few days, but when I finally tapped in, I was seriously impressed. At that time, I was conducting interviews on cassette tapes, so I hit up BoriRock to see if he was in Boston. I mentioned that I usually chill at Grubby Pawz's spot and invited him over for an interview. That's when BoriRock brought up Feed The Family, explaining that there were four members in the group. He also invited Shaykh Hanif to join us at the studio. I snapped some pictures of both of them, and BoriRock recorded a song, “Thanksgiving,” which he still considers one of his best.
Afterward, I went home and gave the Feed The Family album a listen—I was completely blown away. It quickly became my favorite album of 2022, and we've been rocking together ever since. From The Cookout to The Crib, it's been a dope journey watching these Boston brothers showcase their unique rap style. From The Cookout to The Crib, it’s dope to see some brothers from Boston rap the way they rap.
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$$$. THE AUDIO FROM THIS INTERVIEW
$$$. AN UNRELEASED TRACK FROM FEED THE FAMILY
1000WORD$: What's going on, man? It's 1000WORD$ and this is for Substack. I'm here with Feed The Family, man. What's going on guys? Yo, Hoot. Introduce yourself, Hoot.
Top Hooter: I'm Top Hooter, man. Top HooterAKA P89, the Ruger that'll shoot you.
1000WORD$: And where you from, my brother?
Top Hooter: From Dorchester, Massachusetts, you know what I'm saying?
Dun Dealy: You know the voice, you know the name bitch. It's Dunny Dunny, you know what I'm saying? It's Dun Dealy.
1000WORD$: And where are you from Dunny?
Dun Dealy: Boston, Mass.. Dorchester to be specific, you heard?
BoriRock: Grrt, boom, BoriRock, BoriRock, BoriRock, it's me. Yeah, it's BoriRock man.
1000WORD$: And Bori, where you from, Bori? Let them know.
BoriRock: I'm from Boston, Dorchester man, uh. Dorchester, Dorchester, Mass., on dogs.
Shayk Hanif: Yo, Shayk Hanif from Saudi Arabia, camels and shit. Nah I'm from the south end of Boston, haha.
1000WORD$: Now I know you guys is a collective, right? And all you guys are individual solo artists as well, right? The people that are going to read about this, can you let them know your projects so they can do their homework on you?
Top Hooter: Yeah man, you know, I put out two crazy tapes, the "Grind Time" joints. I put out "Grind Time Volume One" and "Grind Time Volume Two." I also put out a few collective joints with my man Dun Dealy when we were going off the name RNO. We still RNO, but yeah, that was back then, you know? Yeah, more dubs. Got a lot of collective albums together bro, me and Dunny.
1000WORD$: Go ahead Dunny, let the people know what projects you put out?
Dun Dealy: I've put out a trilogy, "Captain Status 101, 102, 103"
Top Hooter: Classics.
Dun Dealy: I put out "12:04," then I put out the deluxe. I put out "10 On a One," "Feed The Family." Like I said, me and my man Top Hoot, we put out a couple projects. We did "Welcome To Hooterville." We did "New Age Outlaws"
1000WORD$: Fire. I liked that "New Age Outlaw" shit. That shit sound fire, I need to tap into those joints. Go ahead, Bori. Let the people know your projects because I know you guys are a group, so I want to let the people know you guys are also individual solo artists. So what projects have you put out?
BoriRock: I mean, I did like 10 projects in less than two years type shit, if you want me to name them all.
1000WORD$: Name a few so that the people that are gonna read this can go do their homework.
BoriRock: Aight, BoriRock, that's my name. I dropped "Fishscale." That was my first tape, 2020. I dropped "It's Me," "Off The Yinz," "FREAKAZOID SUMMER," "Get Rich Or Die Hootin'," "Teflon Hoot," "Watch The Chrome," "HOOT GOSPEL," and "HOOT WAVE," and "FEED THE FAMILY." That's the best one. And "On Dogz." Damn that's the best one too. "HOOT WAVE," wavy too.
1000WORD$: Aight, what about you Hanif?
Shayk Hanif: Yeah, when I came home 2019, right after that, just cooked up. I dropped two projects in 2020. I dropped "Killing Nino Brown," and then I dropped "Broken Window Theory." And then most recently just last summer I dropped "Pyrex Visionary" and then also "FEED THE FAMILY."
1000WORD$: For the people that are reading, what's a summertime [like] in Boston growing up, compared to a summertime grown up already? How was it growing up in Boston? For me growing up? Reason why I ask is cause it's two different eras, bro. Like see for me when I was growing up and shit, probably around like eight-years-old, motherfuckers running around, knocking on your homie door, opening the pump, water balloons, all that kind of shit, you know what I'm saying?
Top Hooter: For me growing up, you know, I grew up on Clarkson and Barry street. And we had the crates on the poles, you know what I'm saying? So I kind of grew up hating on motherfuckers with the hoops in the yards and they don't play on it. I was the type of n***a... I'd go to my grandmother's house in Randolph, you'd find me in your yard playing ball and shit, then I'd run when you come outside. That was me, you feel me? We was doing shit like that, you know, climbing through my window, not having a key as a little kid, you know how that goes. Crawling through the little uh, you know, steal little bag of chips out the store. Little bullshit, you know, regular shit. Yeah, fire. But growing up in Boston was ill, bro. We used to take the hydrants off. We had real older n****s around where I was from at that time, like rolling dice, RIP the n***a Chris. That motherfucker used to scare me, bro. When I came out the crib, I was three years old, I used to tell my mother like "Aight, I'm ready today. Imma go outside today. I'm ready." I'd go out, soon as I step out the door this motherfucker, biggest n***a in the hood, "aaaah!" yell at me and shit. I'd be like "ah!" run up in the crib. That was back in the day shit, you just brought me back. Thank you for that Thou wow.
1000WORD$: What about you, Dunny?
Dun Dealy: For me, it was ill cause I was born in New York so I got a few memories. I moved to Boston when I was like nine, eight. So I still have memories from New York when I came out here.
1000WORD$: What part of New York who grew up in?
Dun Dealy: In Queens.
1000WORD$: Nice. What part of Queens?
Dun Dealy: Corona. I was always coming to Boston. My family was already out here so I was coming back and forth, you feel me? But then when I moved to Boston, it was ill cause it was just completely different. So it was a whole different experience for me, around like eight or nine. It was dope though, man. You know, running around, fucking, like you said, playing with neighbors and shit, getting into shit, stealing shit, getting into chases and shit like that. It was lit.
1000WORD$: That's fire. What about you, Bori? How was it growing up out here in Boston?
BoriRock: I was like eight years old. I used to live in Jamaica Plain and then I moved to Dorchester at like six years old with my older brother. I'm the youngest out of the three. One of my brothers he's [got] like 10 years on me. So basically I was always around older n****s and shit like that. And I remember I used to just chill on my front porch, n****s was out there chilling, drinking beers, bumping music. I got exposed to a lot of shit growing up. I was just fast, bro. I used to go to Toys R Us, steal toys. Nobody taught me how to do it, I was just doing it. No one told me like "Yo, come over here and steal." That shit was just in me. I'd steal Dragonball Z toys, I'd steal fucking Yu-Gi-Oh cards. I used to love Yu-Gi-Oh.
1000WORD$: Yo, me too man.
BoriRock: I was that n***a in my hood playing with the Yu-Gi-Oh. So yeah, man, I went from stealing toys, clothes, cause I just always liked cool shit. I had the coolest everything since a little n***a. That was like in third grade, eight-years-old, seven-years-old doing that dumb shit. Shit like that, on top of being spoiled. I grew up spoiled and shit. My moms grew up piss poor. She used to spoil my ass cause she had a daycare and shit. So I kept getting worse and worse throughout the years. I got introduced to the weed in sixth grade, 12-years-old. Started getting bad grades and I was selling clothes a little bit, being fly. Yeah bro, it went from like being a little thief to then fucking... always coming up, I was the come up King. Then I started selling drugs and shit, my bro selling coke and shit. Yeah, first I got introduced to selling weed like my freshman year and then I started hustling. By the time I was 16 I was selling coke, tryna get fly. My mom wasn't schooling me no more. I wanted to be fly.
1000WORD$: What about you Hanif.
Shayk Hanif: Growing up it was fun. You know, when we'd have water gun fights like just everybody come out [with] water guns, throwing water balloons, all of that. Summertime you get like Icees for a quarter, all of that shit, you feel me? It was just fun. As we got older though you kind of see like a paradigm shift in the city. It started getting... just being outside you was risking your life, just to go to a house party and shit like that. So it just kind of got mixy, but we still find a way to have fun and shit like that.
1000WORD$: Light that shit up, bro. Hanif, out here Massachusetts, in Boston particularly, where would you get mixtapes and things like that to keep you tapped in?
Shayk Hanif: Downtown. You could get a lot of shit downtown. Yeah, or you go to like corner stores, a barber shop, some shit, but a lot of the times just downtown. Downtown used to be crazy cause it was the combat zone right there. So you buy everything, all clothes down there, get fresh out there. That's where everybody, kids especially, with all the trains in the hood, whatever, if you was on the Orange Line, the Red Line, whatever. It all connected downtown so that was like the meeting place. That's where everybody would go.
1000WORD$: Hoot, what mixtapes sense would you find yourself getting and where would you get them at?
Top Hooter: I was making my own.
1000WORD$: Ooh, you was burning your own shit?
Top Hooter: I had the CD burner, you heard? My whole thing was, how am I gonna get these blanks? So I used to go to the store, get the little case of the blanks. But if I wasn't doing that, if we was getting mixtapes, n****s was going downtown. You know, you go to the jewelry store, you hit the stairs, you go up the stairs, everybody know that spot. We was getting shit from over there, shout out to Hancock Market, shout out to Western Union in my hood. Yeah, you know that.
Dun Dealy: Yeah, fire.
Top Hooter: We used to try to play n****s on the kicks, you couldn't grab kicks from [me], but music you was good.
1000WORD$: Word?
Top Hooter: Yeah, music you was good, you feel me? Anyway, you know, that was kind of the vibe back in the day. Shout to my man WHITEMAN. We used to roll around all the time in different areas, we would go... like that's what we would chase. If we knew there was a record store, that's where we was headed to. And we was checking out any record store, we was in Cambridge; any fucking record store we was at we was trying to buy something or try something, and if it was trying then we was out of there with it, you feel me? Gang.
1000WORD$: Facts. Dunny?
Dun Dealy: Yeah, it was pretty much the same for me like Western Union, the check cash, and Hancock Market. My man used to have this little corner store in Hancock market, and he was driving to the city grabbing mad CDs and coming back. He had the bootleg n***a come through too and drop mad DVDs off and shit like that, all the Smacks and shit, you feel me? So yeah, that's where I was getting all my shit, from Hancock Market, bro, everything.
1000WORD$: Where you would watch those shits at, those Smack DVDs at?
Dun Dealy: At my crib n***a, on dogs n***a. Bro, right on Adam street, I had my own apartment at 18, you heard? That's a fact n***a. We used to go to my crib. We used to go to the store, grab the new Touchdown From The City, the new Come Up n***a, the new Co-King City, the new Smack, you feel me?
1000WORD$: Hahaha.
Top Hooter: Shoutout to Boston.
Dun Dealy: Nah facts, we was definitely watching the Boston DVDs too. They had the... what was the shit called? Flows from the gutter. You feel me? Facts. Flows from the gutter, that shit was fire. We was heavy on the DVDs and the mixtapes, facts. Shoutout to Hancock market, word.
Top Hooter: Flows From The Gutter.
1000WORD$: Word. Who are some of the local legends you grew up listening to that probably people don't know about?
Top Hooter: Duce Banga.
Dun Dealy: Definitely Duce Banga, RIP my dog. Duce Banga for sure, Boss Youngin, you know what I'm saying? Damn, who else?
1000WORD$: Was those gentlemen putting out mixtapes like how they would put out mixtapes back in the days?
Dun Dealy: Yeah, Duce was like that n***a.
BoriRock: Phernalia.
Dun Dealy: Yeah, Phernalia. That's a fact, bro, Phernalia, my boy. Yo, that n***a right there... yeah, he was the first n***a talking that talk too from the city. That's a fact, bro. Shoutout Phernalia for sure, bro. He had it. And Duce, bro, Duce was like ahead of his time. Duce Banga, hell yea. He had French and them n****s in the hood early, word.
1000WORD$: Fire. Bori, now that the first "FEED THE FAMILY" mixtape is out there in the world and it's well received, what can the people anticipate for the second installment?
BoriRock: Great music. Timeless music. You can't lose on a Tremendiss beat when you got us. We all bringing our own element. We all different. We just mesh so good. That's all I can really say, man, good music, getting better. Like we got stories on this one. We are evolving still. We've been rapping forever but we keep evolving and shit, so if anything this one's more advanced, even the beats might be better. But, you know, the first one is a classic but this one's like that one just more advanced, different shit. Fire sequel. It ain't gonna be one of those like "Aw shit. Damn I wish this shit was harder." Like you gonna be fucked up.
Shayk Hanif: Yeah, the first one, It was just really us kind of showing the world like, we really talking that talk. Like we all nice, we all really split. I think listening to this one, the second one, it's really just the evolution of us. Like really curating something that's timeless and really pushing the bounds of not just rapping, like who got the hottest verse on a track? It's like really putting tracks together, really putting songs together, and song structure and things like that. So that's what's dope. That's what's dope for me. It's just hearing the growth in this one.
1000WORD$: And you met Bori in prison, right?
Shayk Hanif: Yeah.
1000WORD$: And what age? What year?
Shayk Hanif: Think it was like 2010. Yeah, he was like, 17. I think I was like, 23 turning 24. Something like that, yeah.
1000WORD$: And when did you guys link when you guys came outside?
Shayk Hanif: Like 10 years later. Like 2020? Yeah, cause I had just came home like right before that.
1000WORD$: Did you have intentions of rapping?
Shayk Hanif: When I was locked up?
1000WORD$: Nah, when you came home?
Shayk Hanif: Not necessarily. It was something that I knew I was good at, but it wasn't real. I didn't know nobody that was really doing things like that, you know what I mean? I knew a million rappers, especially in Boston everybody rap, but it's like actually seeing somebody get it from out the mud. That's why I'm grateful to Bori because Bori saw the talent and he was always giving me game, always giving me pointers, always be like, "Yo, it's not just rapping. Come pop out. Let the people see your face and when they see you, they're gonna want to know who you are, and then they're gonna hear music, and they're gonna fall in love with you, and then they're gonna hear your story, and then it's gonna be a wrap." So that was something that really made it real. I told you like, I be walking around with Bori and random people in street be like "On dogs," and I'm like, "Damn, this n***a is really becoming a star right in front of me." It's dope to see that. That shit really made me... like I can really say that this shit's for real. Like this shit can happen.
1000WORD$: Bori, how did FEED THE FAMILY come about? How did that get started? What's the science behind FEED THE FAMILY?
BoriRock: Yeah, I was super inspired by Griselda and shit liked that, and I wanted to put out a tape. Me and my guys, we all spitters, like to the core and at the time, I had a tape that came, "Fishscale," when I started working on "FEED THE FAMILY." And it was kind of like drill beats and Hip-Hop shit. But I dropped my "It's Me" tape and mind somebody had told me like, "Yo, gotta do a tape just beats." I was already trying to get into that Hip-Hop wave because it's what I enjoyed doing the most, but I seen it was becoming a thing. And I already know that my cousin Tremendiss makes the best type of soulful samples, all them type of beats. So I was in jail for two months in 2020, I had mad writtens. So like first month out, I already knowing like "Okay, I already have one tape ready." I already knew I was gonna make a tape that's solely Hip-Hop bars and I was like, "My guys are gonna kill this shit cause my n****s is spitters." So yeah, I had all my writtens out one day in my crib cause I was on house arrest and shit, and I was just bored going through all my writings, bumping Tremendiss beats. He had new ones, he had some that he been sent me, and I was just putting all my bars together with the beats, and then I lined up the studio session and I banged out like eight songs and shit, and I send them all to my man Nif cause I had reached out to him. I had been out of jail for like a month already, like a couple of weeks. I banged out the songs. I sent him sent him like four songs. And then we linked in the studio soon and he banged out three, type shit. And yeah, then Dunny... I already had my guys in mind. That was the whole point of this project. I wanna do something with the guys, with P and Dun. They've been rapping before FEED THE FAMILY was already known. Real n****s only and shit like that. So that's who I came up rapping with as a young boy. That was like the n****s in my neighborhood that I've been rapping with and shit like that. So by 2016 I'm over here making music with my cousin Tremendiss. Long story short, it was RNO Hooterville. Hooterville is the wave too. But "FEED THE FAMILY" came together after those first couple of sessions. I already had Nif in mind to get on these records. I banged out like eight or whatever, and then yeah, n****s kept building. I banged out my verses and then Nif banged out verses, then Dunny's hearing the shit, then he banged verses, and then Top Hooter's coming and he's banging out verses. Then we realized, "Shit this is crazy." Yeah, basically it was Tremendiss beats, and some jail bars, and Nif, and then the guys, and then the essence, and then yeah. Crazy.
1000WORD$: So you're dropping a solo project right now, right? Pretty soon, Hoot?
Top Hooter: Yeah, definitely.
1000WORD$: When that's dropping?
Top Hooter: I don't know gang, to be honest with you. I know n****s like come on and lie and shit.
1000WORD$: Haha.
Top Hooter: But, you know, I had a bunch of tracks and then I got booked for a little bit, and I guess that just kind of opened my mind up to like, "Yeah, you can do other shit. You could do greater shit." I just came back like not wanting to settle with myself, you feel me? Wanting more for myself, wanting better for myself. So I'm just going back to the drawing board, on top of all the tracks that I kind of already have. I just want to kind of add a little seasoning, you feel me?
1000WORD$: Fire. Yo, Tremendiss, how was the process creating the canvases for the "FEED THE FAMILY" tape? Where where you?
Tremendiss: I just did everything at the crib, on my little laptop in my room. Banged them joints out. I just chilled like a couple of days. I listened to samples. Whatever comes to me, I snatch them up.
1000WORD$: And seeing that being put together under your own production, how did you feel?
Tremendiss: I felt great, you know what saying? Basically, like I said, I got four elite fucking MCs just organically, cause I didn't look for nobody. That's the ill thing. Everything happened organically. So it made me kind of have to be like, "Oh, I gotta step up cause I got ill MCs right now, so I gotta give them some ill shit to spit on."
1000WORD$: So now knowing that you created that first masterpiece, how are you going into the second one? Cause you producing the second one, right?
Tremendiss: Of course, yeah. The second one, like I said, I sent all my shit to Bori at the beginning, so the second one had a lot of beats as well that I had already done. So he just went through the files, but it's a whole different vibe of beats. I would say like the second one is more Dipset vibe, you know what I'm saying? The first one was more Lox.
1000WORD$: When do you guys plan on dropping the second one?
Top Hooter: Very soon.
BoriRock: Sometime this year.
Tremendiss: Yeah, when the sun is warmer. Summertime, you feel me?
1000WORD$: Aight. I appreciate you guys, man. Thank you so much, man.
Top Hooter: Appreciate you, bro.
BoriRock: On dogs n***a.