Del the Funky Homosapien didn’t just fall off a stage with Gorillaz—he fell into a moment of clarity. The kind that comes with injuries, canceled shows, and a new four-legged roommate. “You gotta care for a cat, don’t you? Keep my head out of my ass,” he says. “I ain’t got time to be depressed if the cat’s gonna starve.”
Recovery has him rethinking everything, including how much stock artists put in meaningless digital stats. “Somebody hears your shit on YouTube, that’s not the same dedication as buying your record,” he says. “Kids think they made it just ’cause they got hits on SoundCloud. You really ain’t done nothing, dude.” He’s quick to point out that the industry has always chased the bottom line—it just used to be sales, now it’s streams. “The record industry don’t care about anything artistic. Never did.”
His album, Gate 13, with producer Amp Live, was born from a mutual obsession with gear, music tech, and cutting the fat. “I’m tired of this ‘you need a million dollars to make a record’ crap. That don’t impress me,” Del says. Amp called him for a verse, and after a few back-and-forths, the minimalism clicked. “We just kind of worked organically,” he says, though his lyrics pull fewer punches. “I’m not attacking anybody in general—it’s more about a state of mind or a mental deficiency. But everything I’m talking about is out here right now.”
For Del, hip-hop is still a blood sport, even if the mainstream forgot. “The only way you could be down with it was if you were yourself and if you was dope. You couldn’t bite nobody else.” That purity fuels his current obsession: battle rap. “That’s the only place I can really get what I’m looking for… I watch battles all day, all night. If you ain’t competitive, what is you doing? You’re supposed to be trying to be the best.”
He took a brief detour to film a cameo in Jonah Hill’s Mid90s, which snowballed into extra days on set. “I skate, I love kids, and the set had like fifty skaters. It was crazy,” he says. Hill’s depiction of the skate world, in Del’s eyes, nails the vibe. “He’s from the era, so it’s true.”
While fans might want him celebrating milestones like the 25th anniversary of No Need for Alarm or 20 years of Third Eye Vision, Del isn’t much for nostalgia. “I’m somewhere else, but my show is back in the ’90s. It don’t even fit.” He admits the old records were landmark moments, but right now he’s looking at what’s next. “I could’ve died out there. I’m trying to move to Hawaii, get my life together. Once I do, maybe I’ll put together a new act. I’m tired of the same old routine.”
Until then, the cat keeps him on schedule, the beats keep coming, and battle rap keeps him sharp. “It still takes work. And I’m always working.”
Listen to the interview above and then check out these interviews with Dan The Automator from 2014 below.
