It isn’t every day that you get a chance to sit down and interview your favourite artist, but the dream was real for Action Bronson’s number one fan, who just so happens to be Jonah Hill. Interview magazine has released the latest issue starring celebrities interviewing one another, and we couldn’t be happier with the choices. Off the back of Bronson’s recent, brilliant album Mr Wonderful (read our review,) Jonah asks all the tough questions and proves himself to be Bronson’s biggest fanboy, gushing excitedly and asking all the right questions. Two of the people’s champion were on form right from the start, getting the interview off to a smooth start:
HILL: Bronsonmania, what’s going on?
BRONSON: Flawless from the neck up. Underneath that, I’m a little chunky.
How about how Jonah started listening to Bronson:
HILL: So, three or four years ago, my buddy Dave Appleton, who is up on all hip-hop stuff before anyone knows about it, hips me to Bronson. This was before Fuck, That’s Delicious. He showed me some kind of YouTube show of you cooking with this very hip-hop dialect and extreme knowledge of the culinary arts. [Bronson laughs] I was already in, and then he started playing your music, and I was … It was all I listened to for, like, three months straight. There’s a lot one can say about you to someone who has no knowledge of you: born in Queens; Albanian; former chef. And that’s how I pitch you to people who are stupid and don’t know who you are. But then I go, “You got to see him to believe him.” My work as a fan has been to just share the gospel with as many people as I could.
(Seriously, if you haven’t already, do yourself a favour and check out Fuck, That’s Delicious)
The interview deviates from what you would get with a regulation interview with Action Bronson, as the two guys really relate on an artistic level. So we (naturally) made a list of 5 of the most uplifting and inspiring moments between two of our favourite people:
1.
HILL: The movies I’ve done that have felt big to me, the ones where people have a lot of pressure behind them or are telling me, “This is how it has to be done …” while I’m doing it, I have that pit in my stomach knowing that it’s not going to be my most elevated stuff.
BRONSON: It’s the same shit for me. Exactly.
HILL: And so the lesson you take away is that when you’re feeling forced and you’re feeling this is for other people, then it’s not going to end up like those other projects.
2.
HILL: I know I’ve had to go through experiences where I felt less in control or more pushed around by people, and then, as painful as any of those moments might have been, the shit that gets done after—out of the anger and lessons learned from those—ends up being the shit that you’re most proud of.
BRONSON: Absolutely. I ended up putting out fucking incredible work after that, man. With this new shit, man, it’s a fucking musical. I’m going to make a fucking Broadway play out of it, on Broadway, where Cats was, the Winter Garden Theatre; I’m taking over.
HILL: You should do your album release party at Katz’s.
BRONSON: [laughs] That would be fucking ridiculous.
3.
HILL: You’re the Van Damme of Queens, man.
BRONSON: Yeah, the Van Damme, van Gogh of Queens. I’m a mix of Van Damme and van Gogh; that’s going in the next rhyme. Oh, man. There’s something wrong with me.
HILL: No! My point, my whole message that I wanted to express to you is that it’s so easy to be influenced by the people you adore and who made you do what you want to do, and then there’s that moment when you get to have the confidence to be your own artist. And I really see you heading there and it’s so inspiring to watch.
4.
BRONSON: Man, that right there is a spiritual moment, I’m not going to lie. When I would drive around and have moments … You know a song is good when you drive over the bridge, and you’re looking at the city, and the shit sounds ill, like, “Oh, hell yeah, it’s like a video.” That’s how you know a song is good. And I had several moments with “Easy Rider.” The craziest part about “Easy Rider” is that we took a fucking song off YouTube, made a new song out of it, put it back on YouTube, then got millions of views. That’s a crazy thing.
5.
BRONSON: I’ve been rapping since I’ve been on the internet. My first couple of songs are on there, with a video from when I was younger. So I’ve kind of grown up in front of people. They can trace back, and I think people are very excited about where I am now. And, honestly, the type of artist that I am now is exactly what you say: I’m growing into myself. I don’t really have outside influence from the game. I want to be totally different. I am totally different from everybody else already, so I just have to be myself. You can’t follow the pack in this type of game. People write roles for you, for actors and stuff like that, but if someone found out someone was writing my raps, it’d be like the fucking end of the world. I’m just starting to get in the groove of things. I haven’t totally hit my stride yet, so there’s a lot more to come. I can sit in the big living room right here on a nice fucking leather couch from Jennifer Convertibles, and just get to do what I got to do. [laughs]