Rome Streetz set a high bar with 2022’s Kiss The Ring. The Brooklyn-based MC’s star had been steadily rising since 2019’s Headcrack (with Futurewave), but Kiss The Ring is viewed by many as the crown jewel of his recent output. Whether it’s him getting off bars on “In Too Deep’s” shimmering loop or the Bonnie & Clyde story on “Armed & Dangerous,” Rome’s impeccable lyricism found its oasis over the eight face-scrunching beats Conductor offered to the project.
And while there won’t be a Kiss The Ring 2 (Conductor says, “that’s never going to happen”), they’ve reconnected on Trainspotting, another joint project where both men felt like they owed their friend 100% effort. “I can’t think of anything I would do differently,” Conductor says while sitting in Rolling Stone’s Manhattan offices. “It’s not a beat I don’t like on there.” Rome, sitting across the table, concurs: “There’s not a rap that I don’t like on there.”
Rome, wearing his gleaming razor chain, says the project represents his most intentional body of work yet, as he was more aware of structure and concepts than ever before. That may be why they led with “Rule 4080,” a Tribe Called Quest-referencing takedown of the music industry’s predation. While Rome is most known for cipher-ready lyricism and gritty depictions of the New York streets, he decided to introduce Trainspotting with social commentary, rhyming “It’s the game, these niggas’ll finesse you if you let ’em” over a sample wailing, “Before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave.”
The project started shortly after they finalized “Kiss The Ring,” which had gone so well that they decided to continue trading beats and ideas into the following year. Throughout Trainspotting, Rome’s intricate, nineties-harkening rhymes tear through the pockets of Conductor’s production, which was all crafted with Rome in mind. On “Heartbreaker,” he raps about the women he’s met since accruing game. And “Mash” shows Rome reasserting his mission statement, rhyming “trash rappers should make a group called the cesspool/couple peers I respect and the rest food” over a sinister, dissonant beat.
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The title is a nod to Conductor’s name and penchant for train-themed projects, as well as the 1996 film Trainspotting, one of Rome’s favorite films. Conductor says he found certain scenes in the film gross, but lauded, “the cinematography is gorgeous and, [with] how snappy everything is shot, I completely understood why he enjoyed this movie so much. Then it was just a moment of trying to get the record to move somewhat like the scenes in the movie, just snap against [each other], because I feel like that movie don’t let up.”
They promoted the project with entertaining visuals of their own, depicting older versions of themselves reflecting back on the album in clips directed by their managers, including Coach Bombay 3000 (Rome’s manager), Dylan Hardin (Conductor’s manager), and creative director Nick Illusion.
What’s the inspiration for the title?
Rome Streetz: One, because all of Conductor’s albums that he’d done previously just had a train theme. He’s the conductor of the train. He’s conducting. I’m hopping on the train and we out. Trainspotting is one of my favorite movies, it’s a crazy ass movie, but I feel like if you watched it before, you never forget it. This album is like if you heard this, you’re always going to like it, you’re never going to forget this shit. It’s more so back in the day when they used to tag up the whole train, you saw your train, it’s like trainspotting. This is that right here. It’s like we tagged up the whole train and made something amazing, and then you just seen it ride by.
Conductor: They were telling me about the movie and everything like, “You got to check this movie out. It’s trippy.” We were in LA, I think, so I got back to Kansas City one day, man, had me some leftover Gates BBQ, sat down for my lunch, my lunch for the day, put that movie on. I’m like, “Let me see what they’re talking about, and then it’s the scene where he’s diving into the toilet. Then the guy pooped himself in the middle of the night and it flew all over the kitchen. I was trying to eat my lunch and watch this thing, so I immediately hit the group chat like, “Yo, what the fuck?” It was a setup bro, they set me up. After I threw my food away, [I realized] the cinematography is gorgeous, the colors are gorgeous. [With] how snappy everything is shot, I completely understood why he enjoyed this movie so much. Then it was just a moment of transfer and trying to get the record to move like the scenes in the movie, just snap against [each other], because I feel like that movie don’t let up.
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That creative process of mirroring the energy of a movie, how often have you done that for a project?
Conductor: For a project, I do it every time I load up the drum machine. Every time I create music, I’m doing that. It sounds crazy because I’m a sample-based producer, but I’m rarely inspired by music. It’s the stories of the lyrics and the mood of the song that I can maybe create a juxtaposed state to—or the album cover was really interesting. I get inspired by other things outside of music. A lot of him telling me that was probably psychosomatic and like, “Yo, let’s get him charged.” This is my process, man. Find something interesting to see, read, study just like a painter or any other acrylic artist or sculptors, get some studies in, see some things and then spit out.
What do you feel like is a story that this album is telling?
Rome Streetz: Personally for me, this is just the next level. Me and him worked on Kiss the Ring and that’s something that the fans hold in high regard, so this is “Take all the best parts of Kiss the Ring and expand on it.” I’ve experienced a lot of things in the music industry so this is just a new take on my experiences. You got songs like “#4080” where I’m talking about the ups and downs of the music industry that I had to learn because you never fully grasp everything in the beginning.
Then you have songs like “Died a Thousand Times” where I was living a certain type of life before I got into music and then it’s like, “Wow, I’m living the shit that I used to dream about.” I feel like the story of this album is just, I’m not going to say a coming of age, but it’s more so just the elevation. I’m exactly where I want to be. A lot of the shit I’m talking about, just a lot of experiences I’ve had since I’ve become a prominent figure in music. I don’t think it’s telling one specific streamlined story, it’s just an elevated version of the shit I used to talk about, but it’s more…if I was trying to make a super-duper industry album, but still be me, this is what it is. It’s song structure, I have have conceptual shit, it’s just a bunch of different shit. It’s the best parts of Kiss The Ring on steroids.
What was the creative process? How often were you all in the studio together versus sending beats? What was that like?
Rome Streetz: This project spawned from when I was making Kiss The Ring. The first three days we was in the studio making Kiss The Ring, and then once I went home, Conductor just kept sending me a bunch of beats, just mad beats, and I just was just kicking shit over the beats and I was like, “Yo, we should just do an album.” Once we agreed on that, it was just sending shit back and forth. We’d still link up in the studio, make shit. It was just a constant ping pong. He knows the type of shit to send me and he know that, all right, I’m going to just send it right back. As soon as I hear something, it’s going to click. When I send it to him, he’s like, “Yeah, this is it.”
Conductor: To piggyback him, these songs aren’t necessarily the old throwaway records that we just didn’t use for Kiss The Ring. I don’t want that narrative to be out there where it’s like these were shit that we just had. This is a continuation of us growing as an artist. We did Kiss The Ring, but we kept going and it’s like we’re not going to wait for Kiss The Ring 2. That ain’t never going to happen, so it’s like, yo, let’s just keep working together and then whatever happens happens. When I send beats, I’m not trying to impress him, I’m trying to inspire him, and if he don’t want to rap, then I don’t feel any kind of way about him not wanting to rap over the beats.
Rome spoke to the song structure and other elements that he added to this project. For you, were there any new flourishes that you added in your creative process?
Conductor: Yeah. During this process over that span of years, it’s been different gear that I’ve been using. I use a lot of the little groove boxes for this, the Roland 303 and the Roland 606, I use those ones. There’s no multi-tracks, so it’s not like a kick snare, hi-hat, crash, piano.
[And] with more notoriety comes more access, so we got a great mastering tech, Dave Cooley, [who] did Madvillainy, and he did The Shining for Dilla and Donuts. He did Alchemist and Gibbs’ Alfredo. I always wanted to get Dave to do it because Madvillainy is 10 of 10, my favorite album of DOOM and Madlib and I wanted it to feel like that.
Would you say with his touch it feels more polished, or is there another adjective you would use?
Conductor: I don’t think polished is the word. I don’t know. I don’t know what word I would use. It’s like he gave it the final coat, and it may not be polished, it might be matte, but he gave it the final science to make everything digestible as far as [making] it all feel like we might’ve made them all the same day. That’s it, that’s it. We mix in a few different places. It’s been around, and Dave made it all feel like we laced up in one spot and did it. A wave with a magic wand.
Rome, I’ve talked to you before about recording yourself. When you travel, you take your mic and shit with you as well?
No. I just keep it there. I’m a caveman to it still so I feel like if I unplug it, I probably won’t be able to get it back to where it was. Normally, when I travel, I just jot down different feelings and ideas based upon what I’m actually going through. I enjoy writing when I travel, I get a lot of inspiration from that. That’s why on this album I talk a lot about doing things in different places because I could talk about it. It’s an experience that I really had. “In France trying to find a French toast;” they don’t eat that shit over there.
Y’all revisited the classic Dilla flip on “Lightwork,” how did that come together?
Conductor: I made the beat just by continuing to study the greats. Yeah. Took that, found the original sample. I might’ve been listening to Donuts that month over and over, and it’s like, “Yo, let’s try to find out how he did it, and then I found out what I think he did. The thing that I love most about Dilla is you can think you know what he did, but you will never know. I believe I cut the phrases how he cut them to make it say “Light up the spliff,” the original sample says “Light up the sky,” and then the next line is, “Sparkle and gleam.” If you cut the vowels out and do some time stretching and some other things, you can make it feel like it’s saying, “Light up the spliffs. The name of the game is lightworks.”
Once I cut that, then it’s like, all right, let’s find a beat that fits, something that you can ride, maybe smoke to. Then I found the instrumental, my man Nape sent me over a pack of samples, chopped that shit. It was quick. After I figured out maybe how Dilla cut it, the rest of the beat was like, “Ah, it may be 10 minutes.” It was just fast after that. I sent it to Rome, Rome laced it. I don’t know if you sent it right back.
Rome Streetz: I probably did.
Conductor: Sometimes he’ll do some shit like I’ll send it to him and he’ll send it right back. Then other times it’ll be a day, and then he’ll send me a song and I’m like, “What the fuck? You didn’t say you even liked the beat. I could have already moved the beat.”
Rome Streetz: I already knew the mission. Dilla’s one of my favorite producers of all time too. Before I had anybody making or sending beats to me back in the day, I used to rap over J Dilla’s shit. Everybody that was around me at the time, they didn’t know who J Dilla was. Everybody was stuck on the G-Unit, the D-Block, Dipset, all that type of shit. I used to just rap over that type of shit, so when you hear it, you would think it’s my beat like, “I never heard that before.” When he sent that, I was like, “Oh, I got to get on this before somebody do.”
Conductor: Yeah, no, that’s one of my favorites off of the jump. That might be my favorite off of the jump.
Rome Streetz: One of mine too.
When it comes to reapproaching songs with classic samples, is there an extra feeling of, “Get it right” because this is something that’s already been touched for a classic?
Rome Streetz: Yeah. For me it’s just like, the original one is top-notch so I got to come correct. I just know the prestige that they put on me and Conductor’s work. Every time I rap on one of his beats, it’s like all right, I got to make this shit the best shit I ever did. It’s a challenge too because there’s certain songs, the beats they send me, I’m like, “What the fuck I’m going to say over [this]?” Then when I get it it’s like, “Oh, yeah.”
Rome, with “Rule 4080,” I know what you’re saying is a universal thing, but was there something specific that was the catalyst to write it the day you wrote it?
Rome Streetz: What set the idea off was just what the beat is saying: “Before I be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave.” How could I relate that to what I’m going through? The modern-day slave could be an artist who signed a bad deal. I’ve been presented with some fucked-up deals, so I was just talking about my trials and tribulations. I had that beat for a while, too. It just came out like that. I was just following where the beat was telling me to go. That’s where that shit came from, honestly. It felt like a Negro spiritual.
How did “Ricky Bobby” with Method Man come together?
Rome Streetz: Honestly, when I heard that beat, it just reminded me of a Wu-Tang beat. That shit put me in the mode of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and shit. I did the verse and then I was like, “Shit, we need somebody from Wu-Tang on that motherfucker, for real.” Then Conductor was like, “You want to reach out to Method Man?” It’s like, “Yeah, why not?” Reached out to Method Man, and he sent me the track back the same day. We was driving in a car in Boston. I got a fucking video from Method Man about this damn record. He’s like, “Yo, bro, what the fuck? I heard this. This shit is crazy. I got you.” He sent me that shit back right away, bro.
How did you all react when you first heard his verse?
Rome Streetz: I was tripping because Method Man was probably my first favorite rapper. The first real tape my mom ever bought me was Method Man’s first album on cassette. I love Method Man. We’ve had a song before, but it wasn’t like I sent it to him; I just did a song, and the producer reached out to Method Man and got him on the song. This shit was personal. Nine-year-old me was doing backflips. It’s a full-circle moment.
Conductor, there’s a growing dynamic where it feels like artists go to you when they want to show that they can really spit. How do you feel about that?
Conductor: That’s intentional. In 2016 I decided to rebrand myself and I kind of did the Kobe thing where I made a contract with myself that I was not going to go through any gatekeepers, I wasn’t submitting beats to no contest, I wasn’t going through nobody, I was just going to focus on Instagram, [posting] beats there. I did a text and an Instagram story that said I’m only working with the lead MCs from now on. I stopped asking everybody to rap, and I decided to learn Adobe Premiere, shoot Instagram videos for myself with the little cartoons in the background, and me making the beats live.
I did that and came up with a schedule for myself, and I used that comment section as a moment for instant gratification, like a comedian. Even the bad comments I would reply to, the good ones I would reply to, the bots. I said elite artists only. It’s the power of the things that you say to manifest and the things you write down, all of that stuff is so very much true.
It feels great to have the best artist at the time say, “Yo, I’m trying to rap.” What’s even more awesome about it is they come straight to me for it. I have [my manager] Dylan here, but they go right to the DM and they’re like, “Yo, I’m trying to rap,” and then they want whatever I give. They’re like, “Yo, I need that.”
To digress a bit and show some separation, Rome and I’s connection is so much different from my connection with everybody else. They’re like, “Yo, I’m trying to rap,” I’m like, “Yeah. I can’t make you a beat like I make for him,” because I create out of an emotional place, a place where I’m involving all the things we talked about in my process.
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We have a relationship of friendship. He’s telling me the things that he’s been saying and what he’s been doing, and he’s been on the road and the little funnies and even the down times and stuff like that, so I can’t make a beat for you like I make for him because there’s no connection there, and I hold true to that. That’s the ethos of my thing: the ego is dead when you work with me, and we’re trying to get the best piece of art, and you’re going to have to rap because he’s going to have a record right after yours. Then I’m going to do something with West, then I’m going to do something with Cole. It makes me have to be sharp every day. Every day I got to get to it because all the names might call me for that and I got to have that.