Tiny microphones are usually seen on the collars of documentarians or in the hands of people conducting on-the-street interviews with people for online consumption. The tiny microphone was seen as more of a novelty item like the tiny hands or bigfoot slippers, it was never thought of as something that would work for recording music, and the pandemic brought on the realization of using silly trinkets in new ways.
When the New Jersey-raised, and currently Los Angeles-based rapper, MoRuf purchased one during the pandemic, he never intended it to be something more than a joke to make content with. It wasn’t until his friend mentioned that he should do more than talk with it, he should rap with it.
“It started off with doing raps in my attic to some of my favorite beats, and some of the videos would go off,” MoRuf said. This sense of virality made him think of how he could take his experiment to new heights. With this new experimentation, he shot eight videos for each of the songs featured on the upcoming Tiny Mic Raps EP.
In this interview, we sat with MoRuf to talk about what the move from the East Coast to Los Angeles has done for him, his fatherhood journey, his family life, and more about the new EP. Read more below:
What prompted the move to LA?
MoRuf: It felt more like vessel work. It was more so like, okay, it’s about that time because I feel like prior to moving to LA, I’ve been taking these calculated risks. That’s what I like to call them. Based upon me being a father. It has to be calculated. So in 2021, I quit my gig because I never gave it my all. I was either in school or working a nine-to-five, so God was like “Tap in.” So I quit my gig. I tripped into NFTs, and it actually changed my life. It also showed me what the artist deserves. Then it was like, hey, what’s the next risk? You need to be with a shit stat. I’ve been in Jersey, New York, forever, and I think I did what I needed to do out there, but I felt like for me to challenge myself and get better, come out here, and that’s just like, been my mindset for the past few years. It’s been four months. I’m grateful, but it’s all because I took these baby risks and just slowly that momentum.
How do you feel like LA is different than New York or the East Coast in terms of the music scene?
The East Coast, I feel like for me personally, where I’m on the East Coast is the gym. This is where you get your grit. I look at LA, at least where I’m at as an artist, this is the indoor court. This is where you show it.
MoRuf began his career in New Jersey with throwing shows of his own with his collective of friends known as Jersey Klan. This became the meet up spot/safe space for the black alt kids in North Jersey. Leading him to meet the Romantic Movement where he found himself among like-minded artists like Jesse Boykins III and Melo X. “I found my tribe,” Morouf said reflecting on the early days of his career. “I think it was a beautiful thing because we all pushed each other and we all motivated each other.”
Ten years after starting his career, he finds himself in the same city as some of the people on his collaboration wishlist alongside his friends from back home. In this decade of exploration, he has seen himself not only change as an artist but a man in addition to his artistry. “Me as a man changed, and it’s reflected in my music, and I’m excited about it,” he said. “That’s why I’m so excited to share this music.”
Fatherhood is such a big part of your journey. How has that impacted you and the things that you say in your music or the things that you even think about putting into your music?
I feel like it makes you or breaks you. And I feel like it made me. It’s not about me, the decisions that I make whether good or bad, now affect this being. It introduced me to my higher self like it’s not about you, it’s about her. It made me want to be better. It made me want to be healthier, made me want to get my pen sharper, made me want to be a better businessman, a better man because letting yourself down fucking sucks. But letting someone else down, especially a loved one, that’s the worst.
So I’ve seen changes in myself within the past three years, and it’s such a reflection, and it’s a blessing realizing how I’m responsible for this person. And it’s scary.
In this fatherhood transition, do you feel like you’ve remained the same artist, or you feel like you became a new different artist?
I’m definitely a new person, no question. I feel it in my spirit. The homies be like, ‘Oh, you a new nigga. You came to LA as a new person.’ I feel like a few years ago, I had an ego death, and I’m seeing the results now.
And what died in that ego death?
The old version of myself, and the expectations of others.
Being a child of immigrants, people struggle with the idea of making their parents proud while chasing their dreams. MoRuf’s parents came to the States from Nigeria in the 1970s to give their children opportunities they might not have gotten back home in Nigeria. In doing that and becoming an independent person outside of his parents’ ideals, MoRuf slowly started to shed the expectations of his family and foraged his own path.
In finding his way to success in his career, he reflected on what he learned from his parents. MoRuf started a music career and made the move over 2,500 miles away from his home base. He got his risk-taking abilities from his parents uprooting their lives in Nigeria to create a new existence in the States. “I’m taking these risks because you and Daddy took a risk,” MoRuf started. “I’ve realized as I got older, I’m getting that from my parents because that was a big risk. I couldn’t even imagine.”
How does the risk-taking show up within your sound, especially for the new EP?
I would say shooting eight videos and having a song for all of them. From the sound, the producer selections, what I’m rapping about, how I’m rapping, even the releases, the rollouts, I’m just not dropping the song and posting it on my page for a week and hoping people like it. I think this project is showing creativity, and it’s a great update of where MoRuf is at now. It’s a great appetizer to the album and what’s to come. That’s the best way to put it.
This new project shows MoRuf spreading his wings as an artist, while still maintaining key components that made people fans in the first place. A key component that appears throughout the Tiny Mic Raps EP is the jazz influences that come through in the production. “I think jazz is the older cousin of hip hop,” MoRuf began. “I think it’s a marriage that is necessary because jazz was the hip-hop of its time. It was radical, it wasn’t understood to a certain point, but it was pure expression.”
The same can be said for the way hip-hop is perceived today and throughout the history of the genre. A lot of the younger generations of music interact with jazz through the foundation of hip-hop, and blending the two helps blur the lines between what was and what is to come in the future. MoRuf does the same outside of his music as well. While on break at his job working with adults with special needs in Long Island, he started the now popular Instagram page, Some Jazz Playing.
Something that began as a mood board and an art project blossomed beyond that, but, at its core, it is always an expression for MoRuf.
In what ways has jazz influenced your life, and why is it important for you to incorporate it in your music?
I feel like it’s so embedded in me, more so than it being important. It’s just who I am, and it’s a reflection of it. I’m a student of hip hop, I’m a student of jazz, I’m a student of alternative, I’m a student of music and sonics. And I love that it shows in the music, that’s the whole point.
Being that you’re a student, who are some of the most important teachers for you?
We can start from Roy Hargrove to John & Alice Coltrane, Ahmad Jamal, Yusef Lateef, Kamasi, Robert, King, Anita Baker, and Dilla. Obviously, the Tribe, the Q-Tip, and they were students of jazz. These are all people who, even as people and artists…they were just a reflection within the music. The older I get I want to continue to be a true reflection within my art. I feel like there’s a lot of it now, and the reflections don’t really be reflecting, but it makes sense. I think that’s the whole point of art, it should be a mirror.
Are you holding up the mirror to yourself or the people who are listening to your music?
I’m holding up the mirror to myself, and I’m expressing it to the people. That’s how I look at it, that’s where I’m at right now with the Tiny Mic project, it’s really an update of where MoRuf is at. It’s always been like that for me, like from Ready to Live. I named it Ready to Live because that was the year my father passed. Shades of Moo, I was going through shit, girlfriend, I love her, shit nutty.
To be honest, I am the type of artist for the most part, in order to resonate to me it had to be a reflection of me. When I’m not in the best place, that’s probably why I might not be putting out. It’s good to show when you’re in those places as well.
I get it, it’s like you have to show all these different parts of you, not only to get it off your chest but for people to relate to it as well.
At the end of the day, this shit is therapy. Imagine if these niggas didn’t have the ability to express themselves through art. Shit would be crazy. So, this is therapy for myself as well. I don’t take it for granted that I have the ability to do this. I’m so grateful I do this for a living.
As MoRuf has progressed throughout his career, he’s gone through many evolutions that have each taught him something different. In his lifelong journey of fatherhood, he’s learned that this is something he was built for. This is not something he would be given if he wasn’t prepared for the challenges that come along with the passage.
The things he has learned as a father to his now three-year-old daughter are apparent in his music too. He continues to be fearless, and the Tiny Mic Raps EP shows that. He took a novelty item and created a full project to celebrate the changes in his life and career.
“It’s been a whirlwind of changes in the past couple of years for me,” MoRuf began. “But, I just continue to step into it, move off faith, and not to overthink shit. Life is to be lived.”
Listen to the Tiny Mic Raps EP here.
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