Friday, June 7, 2013

Joe "Lil Joe" Posorski

I am just going to put it out there. It ain’t easy for a white dude in the rap game. There are the inevitable comparisons, be it good or bad, to Eminem, and the inevitable insults of being called Vanilla Ice (which I always find interesting. You want to insult a white rapper by calling him Vanilla Ice, a dude that had ONE album sell FIFTEEN MILLION COPIES worldwide. That’s an insult?)

For Lil Joe Posorski, the comparisons have just fueled him to succeed.

I sat down with Lil’ Joe right before the “Long Road Home” Tour with Josh “Handz Onn” Russell. The tour, which hit several states, was a success, allowing Lil Joe to get his music to a whole brand new audience.

And now, the sky is the limit for Lil Joe. And as far as the comparisons go, he is not too worried about them.

After all, he is Lil Joe, Dammit.


What is going on in your career right now?

I am actually working on THREE new albums. One of them is with Mr. King that is One Night Engagement”. Another one I haven’t named yet, but it is going to be a compilation of me and other artists. All of the proceeds from that will be going to the “It Gets Better” Project. The project is designed to stop teen gay and lesbian suicides. I believe that is a really good cause to benefit, so the proceeds from that album will go to the project.

Let’s talk about the “Long Road Home” Tour.

It’s a tour where Josh “Handz Onn” Russell is headlining. There is me, SQ, and Snake Eyez. And we are going to be going around thru a few different states. Right now we have Wisconsin booked; we have got some show in Ohio and West Virginia. We are also trying to book shows in Indiana, and a couple of other places. It is going to be a weeklong event, and it is going to be one show every night; it should be a good time.

What is the reasoning behind the tour?

Handz Onn hit me up one day and said that I haven’t been back home to West Virginia in a long time and no one there has really heard my music or seen my live out there. So let’s do it. And I said ok.

Let’s talk about Last Trac?

It’s a clothing line I started about seven years ago. We did three or four different seasons with it, and then it kind of fell off for a while. I am actually going to start producing new clothing soon. It was t-shirts, pants, hats, and it did fairly well. We had it in few stores here.

When did you first fall in love with music?

I have always loved music. I can’t ever remember a time when I didn’t love music. When I was younger, I would take songs and remake the words into the way I wanted to as they were on the radio. I really started getting into it myself in high school when I was in the choir classes. My sophomore year, I made my first song. It was horrible, and I have it on my website somewhere. I have it out there for everyone to listen to in case I want to see the progression. I recorded it because I was going to go do a talent show for Kiss-FM. Failed that miserably to. I just kinda stood there frozen.

Who are some of your musical influences?

That is a really good question. I am actually influenced by all music. I can’t really pin down who I am influenced by because I listen to everything. Any song can just spark me. That is usually how it is. When I write the depressing songs, I have listened to country. Depending on what song I write, that could tell you what I have been listening too.

Describe YOUR music.

Most of my recent music has been kind of a mix between hip hop and pop. Hip-hop, pop and dance. But I like to have some real heart-felt music in there as well. Some REAL stuff. My albums kind of clash with each other. I will have real high energy music, and then I will have real mellow kind of real music. There is not a whole lot of in between.

Name an artist, alive or dead, that you would want to do a song with?

I want to do a song with T-Pain so bad. I don’t know why, but it is one of those things where he has a LOT of talent. A lot of people say ‘oh, he does the autotune thing’, but I have heard him sing without it. He has a lot of talent. He CREATED the autotune movement, so in my opinion he is the only one that should be allowed to use it. In ALL of his songs. Dead, I was working on something with MC Breed, and we didn’t get to finished it before he passed away. I was working a joint tour with him.

One song that describes your life?

{Long pause} That is a good question. You know, it’s funny. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anyone else’s songs that describe my life in whole. I have made some of my own. I have got a song called “On My Own” and it describes a lot of my life.

As a fan, what was your first concert?

Alabama at Country USA. IT was a good show too.

You are making a mix tape of your all-time favorite songs. What is the first song on it and why?

“Take Your Shirt Off” by T-Pain. There is just something about it. Every time I hear it, I just want to get up and start moving. It grabs me. It is the way the vocal are on the beat.

What are some of the good things, in your mind, about the music scene in this area?

There used to be a lot of really good things in the area for music. And we are trying to bring those good things back. I think a lot of people have lost focus with what they were trying to do. When I started doing this, there wasn’t a whole lot of hip hop out here and I was doing it for fun. I got one of the first venues in Kaukauna to do a hip-hop show. Handz Onn has some things going on, and Spotlight was doing their own thing. Really there were only four people doing it. I moved to Florida and when I came back, it seemed like no one was trying to work together anymore. One of the good things that is starting to happen is people are starting to work together again.

Why do you think people DON’T want to work together?

People have developed big heads. Everyone is trying to be the rapper, and no one is trying to be the entertainer. My song “It’s a Shame” stems from true events. I was coming up here to do my album release party, and while I was up here I wanted to get on a couple more show besides the album release party. And when I called up some of the artists around here that had shows booked but weren’t full, I basically got told to take a hike, for lack of better words. They basically told me to fuck off.

What are some of the things that need to be improved about the music scene?

I really think people need to take a look at what they are doing. Most of the rappers that are out here, the entertainers, they have never left the area. They have never done a show outside of, maybe as far as Chicago. They don’t know what it’s like further away. They don’t deserve to have a big head. I have done all that, but I don’t have a big head. I have been all over the country, and I have performed with some really awesome people, and I still like to work with everybody.

Best performance you ever gave?

{Long pause} You know it’s bad when nothing sticks out. Some of my better shows have been at ET’s Dogg Pound in Kaukauna.

Worst show you ever did?

I did a show called Local Fest. It was in Kiel. It was at Snake Eyes. It was in the middle of nowhere. He had some property, so he set up a stage, set up some sound and it was basically an outside party. A couple of fans of mine made the drive from Kaukauna to Kiel and decided to bring me a show president of a bottle of vodka and Red Bull. My friend poured a drink that was 90% vodka and a splash of Red Bull. By the time I hit the stage, about 3 hours and 2 drinks later, I couldn’t remember any of my English lyrics. The only thing I could remember was my stuff in Italian. My 30 minute set turned into me talking on stage.

Your first time on stage, you got the inevitable comparisons to Eminem and Vanilla Ice. Tell me about that.

It was that talent show I talked about earlier. I was doing a song called “Unity”. The song talks about everyone needing to stop fighting and we need to come together. I had to be the first people up there and I was nervous. I had never been on stage before, never performed one of my song before. It was the first song I wrote. I started the performance, and I just stood there. I wasn’t even rapping at the time; I was just talking on the beat because I was so nervous. A couple of dudes out in the crowd were like “you are just an Eminem wannabe!” Which I thought was funny.

When all this is said and done and the career of Lil Joe is at its end, what do you want people to say about you?

I want them to say when they saw me, they had fun. That they had a good time. I do this to entertain people. So, if I am not entertaining people when they come to my shows, there is no point in me doing this. That is all I really need for them to think.

No comments:

Post a Comment