Precocious and ferocious, Toronto-based beat squad BadBadNotGood set the trails of Texas ablaze in an onslaught of ill performances—many of them alongside collaborator Ghostface Killah—at South by Southwest this past week. Dropping jaws at local gems like The Mohawk, Bungalow, and South by’s annual FADER Fort, the crew was even joined on stage by surprise guest Raekwon. We posted up at a South Austin juice truck to sip on soups and smoothies while swapping tales of sound and style.
WILLIAM NIXON: Tell me a little about BadBadNotGood and Ghostface Killah—your history, collaborations, and time together at SXSW.
CHESTER HANSEN: One of our best friends, Frank Dukes, is a producer/beatmaker [whom] we met about three years ago at our first show, actually. We ended up doing some sessions with him… [Then] in 2012, he asked us to come to New York and work in a studio [where] he was recording. He was doing stuff with the Menahan Street Band and all the Daptone Records guys, ‘cause he actually sampled Menahan for a song. That started him working with live bands and musicians and I guess we were some people he wanted to work with, so he called us down. We ended up recording like, 13 beats in a few days. With the hopes of getting Ghostface on all of them. Now, through a three year process of redoing things and opening our own studio with [Frank] and getting Ghost’s verses, our album Sour Soul is finally out there.
ALEX SOWINSKI: Frank knew that Ghost was gonna be on it—Ghost had been rapping [on] a lot of beats of his at that time. Frank talked to his manager and they were like, “Oh, maybe we should do a full-length or something.”
CH: He had toured with Ghost as Ghost’s DJ.
AS: Yeah—so they had a strong relationship from that and Frank had an idea for an album in his brain. We tried to let it out a little bit.
How would you describe the Toronto music scene right now? How do your sounds fit into that puzzle?
AS: The Toronto scene is pretty bumping in terms of hip-hop and rap—obviously, Drake’s a pretty strong front. There are so many amazing beatmakers and producers. Actually, Frank Dukes had three tracks on a Drake mixtape. He and Chester did “0 to 100” together. Toronto is kind of killing it. All these producers are creating a sound that I feel is so different than a lot of the Atlanta producers or stuff coming out of New York. Kind of every day I find out about some new rock shit that I’ve never heard about. Yeah, there’s lots of crazy good music coming out. Really cool to see it progressing.
What ‘90s iconography inspired you growing up?
MATTHEW TAVARES: Blink-182. Zelda, for sure. N64 in general for all of us.
AS: Fuckin’ Sesame Street and Art Attack.
MT: A lot of Canadian shit… and Bananas in Pyjamas.
AS: Arthur and shit.
How would you describe your style as middle schoolers?
CH: I had an older brother who was super into crazy hip-hop clothing, so he’d get like 4XL tees and Eckō, wild stuff like that. I would take all his clothes he didn’t want. I’d be rolling around in size-36 Phat Farm jeans and crazy shit.
MT: I went to private school so my style was non-existent whe
WILLIAM NIXON: Tell me a little about BadBadNotGood and Ghostface Killah—your history, collaborations, and time together at SXSW.
CHESTER HANSEN: One of our best friends, Frank Dukes, is a producer/beatmaker [whom] we met about three years ago at our first show, actually. We ended up doing some sessions with him… [Then] in 2012, he asked us to come to New York and work in a studio [where] he was recording. He was doing stuff with the Menahan Street Band and all the Daptone Records guys, ‘cause he actually sampled Menahan for a song. That started him working with live bands and musicians and I guess we were some people he wanted to work with, so he called us down. We ended up recording like, 13 beats in a few days. With the hopes of getting Ghostface on all of them. Now, through a three year process of redoing things and opening our own studio with [Frank] and getting Ghost’s verses, our album Sour Soul is finally out there.
ALEX SOWINSKI: Frank knew that Ghost was gonna be on it—Ghost had been rapping [on] a lot of beats of his at that time. Frank talked to his manager and they were like, “Oh, maybe we should do a full-length or something.”
CH: He had toured with Ghost as Ghost’s DJ.
AS: Yeah—so they had a strong relationship from that and Frank had an idea for an album in his brain. We tried to let it out a little bit.
How would you describe the Toronto music scene right now? How do your sounds fit into that puzzle?
AS: The Toronto scene is pretty bumping in terms of hip-hop and rap—obviously, Drake’s a pretty strong front. There are so many amazing beatmakers and producers. Actually, Frank Dukes had three tracks on a Drake mixtape. He and Chester did “0 to 100” together. Toronto is kind of killing it. All these producers are creating a sound that I feel is so different than a lot of the Atlanta producers or stuff coming out of New York. Kind of every day I find out about some new rock shit that I’ve never heard about. Yeah, there’s lots of crazy good music coming out. Really cool to see it progressing.
What ‘90s iconography inspired you growing up?
MATTHEW TAVARES: Blink-182. Zelda, for sure. N64 in general for all of us.
AS: Fuckin’ Sesame Street and Art Attack.
MT: A lot of Canadian shit… and Bananas in Pyjamas.
AS: Arthur and shit.
How would you describe your style as middle schoolers?
CH: I had an older brother who was super into crazy hip-hop clothing, so he’d get like 4XL tees and Eckō, wild stuff like that. I would take all his clothes he didn’t want. I’d be rolling around in size-36 Phat Farm jeans and crazy shit.
MT: I went to private school so my style was non-existent whe