Meeting Ninjasonik in the
daylight, and sober no less (well, relatively sober) is a strange experience. It almost feels
wrong. The guys from the band are to be witnessed in a filthy warehouse or
overcrowded dive bar somewhere in Brooklyn in the early hours of the morning
when you’re off your face amongst friends, covered in sweat and losing your
mind on the dance floor. Not at Piano’s at dinnertime.
Which is why it seems
almost unfair that some people’s first experience with Ninjasonik will be the
band’s forthcoming debut album, Art School Girls. It should come with a bag of your favorite illicit
substance and a teleporter that sends you to a party in Bushwick packed with
21-year-old Pratt girls losing their shit.
Because, and not to sound
too lofty here, but it’s about more than just the music. It’s an experience, an
atmosphere brought about by guys who were like, fuck it, if you’re not into our
sound leave us to our own devices. We’re going to have a fucking blast, make
our music and burn this shit down to the ground.
“This record wasn’t based
on some A&R guy sitting around like, ‘This is a great idea,’” says DJ
Teenwolf. “It’s not made for the music industry, we made it for ourselves.
We’re not trying to sell a million records.”
Ninjasonik formed in 2004
when Teenwolf was DJing parties in the Bronx while attending Fordham University
and met Jah Jah. They moved to Brooklyn a few years later and set up in the DIY
scene populated by bands like Matt & Kim, The Death Set and Japanther.
“That’s my favorite scene
in New York, the most creative scene,” says Teenwolf. “I’m just proud to be
able to perform with all those guys.”
The guys DJed all over Brooklyn
and gained some attention with the song “Tight Pants Nigga.” Eventually the
guys hooked up with Telli Federline and came up with a sound that corny-ass
journalists like to refer to as hipster-hop. They kind of defy categorization
but if you held a gun to my head I’d call it electro-punk-rock-Pharcyde-dance
music.
Since then, the band has
developed quite a following, playing shows what seems like every week in
Williamsburg, Bushwick and on the Lower East Side, gaining as much attention
for insane live shows as for the band members’ hard partying ways.
But with a weeks worth of
shows in early May opening for Clipse, are mainstream rap fans and people outside
places like Brooklyn and Baltimore going to understand the hilariousness of
songs like “Art School Girls”—“she likes to draw on pads/ her sketches are so
rad/ her bills get paid by dad/ she loves me cause I’m bad”? Ninjasonik is not
concerned.
“Everyone is going to be
able to relate. Even if you don’t see it [the live show], you can paint a
picture in your mind,” says Jah Jah.
Telli adds, “That’s the
last thing I’m worried about, I’ll play in Kansas City or in the south in a
redneck dive bar doing ‘Tight Pants Ass Nigga.’”
In fact, these guys
generally don’t seem worried about anything.
“We made this album for
fun, and if you can’t understand that, we don’t give a fuck,” says
Teenwolf.
“We don’t give a fuck.
We’re real, we live this shit,” adds Telli. “We don’t rehearse, we just go
onstage and be ourselves.”
In fact, the only time in
the interview Telli turns serious is when he talks about all the people that
have supported them. “We’re friends with everybody,” he says. “To the naked eye
this might look like smoke and mirrors, but it’s all about relationships. None
of this shit ever happens without your friends.”
>Ninjasonik
April 20, Pianos, 158
Ludlow St. (betw. Stanton & Rivington Sts.), 212-505-3733; 7, $8.
