IN Conversation with Tech N9ne

Tech N9ne. Photo by Darryl Woods

Nobody in the audience knew the cute 4th grader from Wayne Minor projects who was slaying the talent show with his moonwalk would become an internationally famous rapper and head up his own record label. But they knew Aaron Dontez Yates had it, that special combination of innate talent, drive, and charisma that can’t be taught.

The world has known him since 1996 when he launched his first record under the name Tech N9ne. In a groundbreaking move in 2000, Tech teamed up with Travis O’Guin to found Strange Music. The label, which has 23 gold and platinum records, is headquartered in Kansas City, where Tech still lives, making a home in Leawood with his fiancée and their 1-year-old daughter, Alina. Tech also has three adult children, Dontez, Alyia, and Reign.

Tech, 52, has 15 gold and platinum singles and two gold albums and holds the record for most top 10 albums on the Billboard Rap chart. His local fame expanded beyond hip-hop circles in 2019 when he recorded Red Kingdom to honor his beloved Kansas City Chiefs, and on May 4 he’s breaking audience barriers again by performing in concert with the Kansas City Symphony at the Midland Theatre.

In a relaxed mid-morning phone call with IN Kansas City, Tech’s words flow like a mountain stream, smooth here, rippling there, always running and always in the channel. “You know what I’m sayin’?” punctuates his phrases like a cadence, adding rhythm and structure to the spoken word. Listening to him talk is like sinking into a pillow. You don’t want it to end, as he reflects on growing up in the hood, his inspirations, overcoming addiction, and finding maturity in his 40s. @therealtechn9ne 

How did this amazing project of you rapping with the Kansas City Symphony come about?
Ooooh, man! Last year some people flew in, I think from Australia, [composer and arranger] Tim Davies being one of them, and some people from the Kansas City Symphony. They came to Strange Music HQ and just flattered me, saying, you know, that Tim Davies has done [a concert] with Nas and with Kendrick [Lamar], and they said, “We think your music is perfect for the Symphony.”

I’ve been wanting to do that for decades! Cause my music has always had operatic kind of singing and orchestration. So I was just floored by it, you know what I’m sayin’?

When they came in, they already had a list of songs they wanted to do. “We want to do choppers, we want to do this, we want to do that.” 

And I went through their list, and I made my own list. Tim Davies has had the whole set since last year, and he’s been working on how to arrange it. We’ve been going back and forth for a long time. 

But I am flabbergasted that they wanted to get with me, with my music and augment it with their sound, man. And they said they did not want it to be at the Kauffman Center because they wanted more seats and so they chose the Midland—I think that’s like 3,600. 

I love that building.
I do, too. I’ve done so many shows there, and it’s always like coming home. I usually do my last show on a tour at the Midland. 

This has been the most amazing experience, going back and forth with the great Tim Davies. This is my 39th year in music, you know what I’m saying? I have all these songs from the decades, so I have to really pick the songs to do justice to all the eras of my career. 

I had to tell him the way we do shows, sometimes I do a verse and a hook and it blows up, and I go to the next one and it’s just nonstop. And I said, “If you have to stop the songs and stretch them so I can talk over it, I’m down with that, too.” So some of these songs might have intros and outros that have never been there before. I haven’t heard what he’s done yet. 

I had the show at an hour and forty [minutes] at first, because in the initial meeting, they were like, “We want a pretty long show.” But then when I came home from the Hollywood Undead tour, they had talked to the union, and they said the symphony shouldn’t play over 65 minutes. So we cut it down, and I took Red Kingdom off. After some months, Tim Davies called me and said, “Hey, man. We gotta put Red Kingdom back. [Laughs] 

I would think so, after the Chiefs won the Super Bowl.
We gotta put it back! Wooooo! [Laughs]

You seem very humble. You say you were flabbergasted the Symphony asked you, but when I first heard about the project, I was flabbergasted that they got you.
[Laughs] They called upon us. They called upon me. I didn’t know that was going to happen. I was too busy doing my record Bliss and all this stuff and here they come. And they hit me with it and I was like, “Holy moly, thank you!” They chose me. 

Of course they did, because you’re so big. But on podcasts you’re very humble, and you’re doing that now.
[Laughs] People always say that to me. I think that’s because a lot of people that made a lot of money over the years, or are famous, they usually are snobbish, I guess. 

But I come from Wayne Minor projects, you know what I’m saying? Born and raised to 10 years old, then we moved to 59th and Swope Parkway. I been living in the hood most of my life, and this just happens to be my job that I chose in 1985, when I was in 7th grade. I never really had much of anything.

Even when me and Travis [O’Guin, CEO of Strange Music] got together end of ’98 and ’99, and we started putting music together to put out in 2001 with Anghellic, we didn’t have any monetary gain. I know what it feels like to hustle and grind and have no fans. I realize that to have people that really care about your music and care to spend their hard-earned money is a blessing. 

You started rapping in 7th grade, but when did music first take hold of you?
In Wayne Minor, from birth to 10 years old, I grew up in a Christian house, so there was nothing but gospel all the time. And then I’d go outside the house to my next-door neighbors, the Reese family, and they had hip-hop, like Blowfly and Sugarhill Gang. And my uncles Ike and Ricky, they would have music in their car like Elton John and all this stuff that I couldn’t listen to in the house. So I started really loving music in my early years. 

But I didn’t write a rhyme until 7th grade, when I was challenged by a girl named Lola. I was a beatboxer [spits a few bars to demonstrate], and I would do it for other rappers. And one day Lola said, “Aaron, why do you always spit on everybody? Why don’t you rap?”

So I went home and wrote my first rap, and I came back and killed everybody. I just started from there, and I didn’t stop. I had rap groups over the years and out of the rap groups came Tech N9ne. 

Even though it took a while before you started making money, when you first started rapping in 7th grade, did people around you see right away that you had talent?
Oh, yeah, they knew. They knew. My uncle Ike knew before anybody. Because I was a dancer, down in Wayne Minor, before the beatboxing. I was a dancer, pop and lock. I loved music so much that I would dance in talent shows in grade school.

In 4th grade, I was in the talent show and I did the moonwalk, and I was floating. . .

Did anybody get that on VCR?
I wish, man. I wish. I went to Tom D. Korte [elementary school] in Independence, and there was a school right across from it called Rock Creek, and we had to use Rock Creek’s stage because we didn’t have the kind of auditorium they had at Rock Creek. So my mom bought me a pop and lock outfit—it was black and white, a dress button-up shirt with baggy pleated black pants from Harold Pener on the Landing and some Florsheims and some white gloves, you know what I’m saying? And I got up there and she brought me a record I wanted from Sugarhill Gang called Scorpio because I’m a Scorpio, I was born Nov. 8. So, you know: “Scorpio/ Show no shame/ Shake it baby” and I was popping and doing the moon walk. All the people were like, “Whoa, is he floating?” That was 4th grade, dude. That’s what I was doing with hip-hop. 

My mom married a Muslim when I was 12, Abul Hassan Rashad Khalifa. So I went to Troost [Elementary] School for 5th and 6th grade, and that’s when I learned to breakdance. A mixed-nationality guy named Adam taught me how to do the footwork and the ground work, the up rock and everything. And then I started breakdancing and contests and pop and locking at the McDonald’s on 59th and Troost, before it was H&R Block. I was in the talent show, and I came in 2nd place. I also performed down on Van Brunt—it was the Kentucky Fried Chicken on the corner, and I won something at that. I was in contests dancing to rap music all my life until 7th grade when I wrote my first rhyme. 

Your writing is rich in storytelling and mythology. Where did that come from?
I read a lot. Like I said, I was raised in a Christian house and my mom married a Muslim, so I had both teachings of Islam and Christianity. I was confused, so I started looking into Shintoism and Taoism and Confucianism and Judaism and Buddhism, trying to find literature on all this stuff from early on. And what I learned is that everybody wants to be the chosen one and God’s people and this kind of stuff. And I just went my way early on, like OK, I’m going to keep all this to myself, and if I’m talking to God, I’m talking to Him, me and Him, and I won’t take a label.

I always wrote stories from my life. I didn’t want to write about things I didn’t know. But what really solidified me writing my life was when I signed with Quincy Jones in ’97 and he said, “Tech, rap what you know and people will forever feel you.” And what I know better than anything is myself. 

At two different points in your career, you made abrupt changes in your lifestyle. Seventeen years ago, you quit doing drugs, and more recently you stopped drinking. Were those changes difficult?
That happened first in 2007, when I quit doing ecstasy and ’shrooms and acid and Adderall. I’ve never done coke, I’ve never put anything in my veins, never did Xanax or Percocet. Ecstasy was my favorite. But I stopped because of my daughter Reignbo. She’s 24 now, but back then she was my youngest, she was little, and I came home high, and I felt like she could see it, as a baby. I’ve been clean ever since.

But, in the years after stopping drugs, I was drinking like crazy. I created “Caribou Lou,” I created “KC Tea,” I’m drinking every day, you know what I’m saying? 

I met my lady, my fiancée now, in 2014. She didn’t drink (before we met), and I was always making us margaritas, and we would go out and just drink, drink, drink, drink, drink. Then, three years ago my doctor told me—because I had buried my dad a few years ago with an enlarged heart—he told me, “If you keep going this direction with alcohol, you will end up like your dad.” 

So me and my lady made a pact to stop drinking on Valentine’s Day three years ago. We’ve been sober for three years. But ever since I first got with her, at the end of 2013, I started meeting a morph. 

Your song I Met a Morph is a play on “metamorphosis,” but what was that experience like in real life—you meeting a morph?
Meeting my morph was surprising, ’cause out of nowhere I stopped wanting to go certain places, stopped wanting to play games with women. I apologized to my children for being unavailable physically and emotionally. I started to respect myself more. It dawned on me later that the morph I was meeting was maturity.

So every idea my lady had about not drinking and being more healthy and adhering to [healthy] menus was easy for me to take on, because I wanted to keep evolving. And I was evolving so much that I wanted to have a baby by this amazing woman that helped me evolve into the perfect—well, close to the perfect, you know what I’m saying? I can’t say that I’m perfect but I’m trying, I’m going toward it.

Toward the best Aaron.
Absolutely, the best I’ve ever been. And with that evolution, I was happy to have a baby in love, and in respect and understanding, you know what I mean? I was excited. I’m still excited. There was no fear of anything at all. Now we’re getting married July 20th. 

Congratulations.
Thank you. So Alina was planned with love and relaxation. Now when I look in her eyes—she just had her birthday March 3, she’s 1 now—and when I look in her eyes I know I have to totally take care of her. There’s more power in my hungriness to make her life the best that it can be.

When you decided to get sober and commit to a domestic relationship, were you nervous that settling down might negatively impact the creative flow?
It’s always a nervous thing, because I always have to rap against Tech N9ne every time I do a new album.

Good point.
That’s how we stay on the incline like we’ve been. It’s always been: I need these beats, I need to outdo what I did.

But I had no idea that sobriety was going to sharpen my skills. I did not know. 

Your recent stuff, like Roll Call, is laser sharp and innovative stylistically. How do you keep it fresh?
I don’t know—it amazes me. I don’t know until it comes out. When I said [starts rapping Roll Call]:

My aura’s somethin’ like a flare gun
Or Bruce Leroy I’m a Troost B. Boy and I boost thee noise and I do be poised
But with the swimmin’ I am who’s devoid

I was like, whoa! while I was writing it, and I thought, “I can’t wait for people to hear this.” 

And I don’t look like an old guy on the video, you know what I mean? I didn’t know that sobriety was going to make a guy that’s going to be 53 this year look like he’s in his late 30s. I didn’t know. So I’m happy.

Your gym videos on Instagram are impressive.
Yeah, people in the comments say, “I gotta up my game” or “You inspire me, man.” I gotta stay like this. I have to be careful. I love food, man. 

The only bread I eat now is sourdough, because of the health benefits. I did have some wheat [bread] yesterday, though, cause Jersey Mike’s has this Number 42, it’s like a chipotle chicken Philly and it’s so good, man. But I try to keep the bread down except for the sourdough. 

Sugar’s hard. After I stopped drinking, I started eating stuff that I don’t regularly eat, like blueberry muffins. I hated blueberry muffins, but now I love ’em. And I been nibbling on the Girl Scout cookies the last couple of days. 

About five years ago you said you were thinking about retiring from performing in four years and focusing on your record label. I see that didn’t happen.
I’ll see what happens, you know what I’m saying? It’s special to me that after 39 years, people still want to hear Tech N9ne.

Especially when you keep evolving and finding new directions.
Like I said, I have no idea what my brain is going to produce when I sit down with these beats. When it comes out, I’m just laughing every four bars. I write it then I put it on my dictaphone recorder so I won’t forget the pitch and the style and the voice inflection by the time I’m in the studio. So every four bars I get it perfect in my Dictaphone recorder and I listen to it over and over before I go to the next four bars. And I laugh and go, “Yes!” because I’m a fan of Tech N9ne, man.

That’s a cool perspective.
Yeah, because I created Tech N9ne to be the complete technique of rhyme—that’s what my name means, Technique Number 9, nine being the number of completion. So that means I should be able to adjust to any musical situation. That’s why you hear me on songs with Gary Clark Jr. on the blues side, The Doors on the rock side, Slipknot on the metal side, and Serj Tankian of System of a Down on the metal side, and Marsha Ambrosius on the R&B side and Boyz II Men on the R&B side, and Tupac and Snoop and Ice Cube and Kendrick Lamar and Eminem and Joyner Lucas and Hopsin and Wiz Khalifa and all these people I’ve worked with over the years makes the complete technique of rhyme a real thing.

It seems like it would take a lot of self-confidence to do so many collaborations with other rappers at the top of their game and not worry about being overshadowed.
[Laughs] Yeah. I have no fear. For Speedom, I sent Eminem my two verses and Krizz Kaliko’s verse ’cause I wanted him to do his best. And he did. I originally sent him 16 bars. He did like 32 or more, you know what I’m saying? We all have our own thing, and that’s why I kept my verse at the end [starts rapping from Speedom]:

I’m the fury, the final fight
I flip it on fraudulent fellas for feelin’ fright
I flick it on fire, finish him when the flow in flight
Feminine fakers fall, I’m floggin’ a foe with a fife

[Eminem] told me, “Man, when I heard all those ‘f’ words, I’m like, ‘Oh, man, I gotta go.” 

I felt great because he’s one of the greatest lyrically. I go for the top dogs. That’s why I got with Kendrick Lamar on Fragile and now it’s platinum. I go for the top dogs like T.I. on On the Bible. I’ve already done a million songs with Lil Wayne.

I’m still going for Jay-Z and J. Cole—I haven’t got them yet. I’m still going for Drake, I have an idea for Drake. Nicki Minaj, I’m comin’ for her, too. I’m trying to do it with the greats because I am indeed a great.

Why do you stay in Kansas City? Wasn’t it tempting when you got famous to go to Atlanta or LA and live the big lifestyle?
I did go to LA—moved there in ’04, came back in ’05. [Laughs] Me and my wife at the time, we separated after a big tour that I did when I first moved out there, and I moved back to Kansas City.

This is my comfort zone. This is where my family is, this is where my business is, this is where all my aunties and uncles live, this is everything. There’s no place like home. My base will always be right here. 

Interview condensed and minimally edited for clarity.