New Interview: Mistah F.A.B Speaks with Morgan Lee

resh off the release of his street album, I Found My Backpack Vol.2, Mistah F.A.B. is comfortable. He’s been able to travel and perform for fans all over the world while still influentially working with his community at home. Coming up on the battle circuit, he has been a long-standing figment on the Bay area Hip Hop scene, at one point even ranking as it’s most nationally recognized artist, seemingly embodying the area’s budding hyphy movement of the time.

Now in 2012, F.A.B. has witnessed the ups and downs of being the face of a trend and plans to utilize his knowledge of the game and skills as a versatile emcee to continue a lucrative career for himself as well those coming up under his wing. I got a chance to speak to “The Baydestrian” about his new project, his side endeavors, and the things that are most important to the man as well as the artist.

Morgan: I know a few years ago, the Bay Area was at one if it’s highest points ever as far as Hip Hop goes. What direction is the game moving in out there now?

Mistah F.A.B: My perspective of Hip Hop in the Bay Area is that it is relevant to a certain extent. Artists in the Bay have always gotten support from the home crowd and been buzzing within the Bay even if the rest of the nation isn’t hearing it. We’ve been able to accumulate a steady fan base and careers have been created out of our local demographics. It’s important for these cats to realize that being a regional star is a big step in the process of being a successful artist, but in order get to that next level you need to expand and expound your music beyond the city limits. Once they reach that potential, it can be very lucrative for their careers as well as productive for the whole music scene out here.

Morgan: Are you speaking on any artists in particular?

Mistah F.A.B: There are a lot of artists coming up. I’m not sure how familiar you are with the new Bay movement and cats like IAMSU! or Love Rance but collectively they have a movement going on called the new Bay and are dope. There are a lot of those guys.

Morgan: I’m still stuck on the old Bay dudes like [Mac] Dre, [Too] Short, PSD and cats like that, but I’ll make sure to look into the new movement. So you say it’s a sort of a collective… are they a group or just individual cats from all corners of the Bay pushing the same idea?

Mistah F.A.B: Yeah they are from all over. I actually got a chance to see one of their shows before I went on the road because I had been hearing about it. I went to go see and I was like whoa! Blown away by the support they had for their followers and small committee of associates. It was dope…they rocked and are very talented and marketable. If they utilize those things to their advantage they will be very successful. Then you have cats like J.Stalin who embodies a movement, similar to the thizz movement, you know the genre of music may be different but they’ve taken their Livewire Gang brand and expanded it. It’s humbling to see where these guys are taking it while still maintaining that Bay Area pride. At the end of the day, it’s a lot of taking it all upon yourself and that’s good to see.

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