itstheBino Interview: Mr. Muthafuckin Exquire
Written by Eli Evnen
Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire stepped into the dark venue at Public Assembly, commanding everyone’s attention with a blue and orange Mishka hat and an onslaught of beaded necklaces. Waka Flocka wasn’t playing at the time, but it might as well had been – the energy in the room quickly ascended and smashed into the ceiling like the Lex Lugar intro synth. eXquire bounced around the mostly empty room, giving daps to not only his crew but also the sound guy, bartender, and lurking unknowns. Once he made his way over to me, he raised his hand as high as he could for a high five that forced me to jump off the ground and onto his level. Then sperry and I took him to a dimly lit room and asked him stupid questions about nothing in particular.
Since the Public Assembly interview, I’ve seen eXquire perform twice, drop a new mixtape and redux video to Huzzah, fly to L.A. to play a show, make friends with Danny Brown and El-P, and become one of Complex’s unsung heroes and Mishka’s bad-ass poster boy bear.
The first time I saw eXquire perform was when he opened for The Knux at Webster Hall. His large entourage frightened club owners enough for them to escort the whole crew outside —only to allow them back in 15 minutes later. The whole ordeal left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, but eXquire was calm. Or maybe he was plotting. Moments later he took the stage.
“Is there a cock in my mouth?” The gold toothed emcee inquired as he opened wide to show there indeed was not, “Then why is Webster Hall dicking me around?!” He then launched into an aggressively infuriate and short lived set, where between songs he bashed the venue while his extensive crew joined him onstage and egged him on with chants of “Exo! Boom Ba Ye! Exo! Boom Ba Ye!” Mid-set he abruptly ended with a bang, literally, when he slammed the microphone down onto the stage and stormed out of the building, his crew following suit. He was later ‘banned for life’ from Webster, something that the venue loves to do with an air of pretension and douchery.
Exquire makes a lot of claims. He claims to be revitalizing New York rap. He claims that he will sell out for any amount of money. He claims that he doesn’t rap, doesn’t do anything, and is on Spankwire watching porn while you read his Twitter bio.
Listen to The Big Fat Kill or Lost In Translation, and you will discover that he also claims mastery at vividly real and psychedelically surreal storytelling. In fact, one of eXquire’s specialties is infusing opposite ends of styles, pop culture references, varied productions, and bi-polar emotions into an overall drunken lo-fi aesthetic that could be imagined as a mottled, discolored homemade Four Loko. In the beginning of his song, “My Chemical Romance (Doom),” he is reminiscing over a sudden lost love, only to later sum up the same woman as a “witch-ho hoodrat, dirty bush, used up, loose cunt, filthy bag, scallywag.”
In his latest project, Lost In Translation, he flexes his narrative ability and lyricism. Standout track “Maltese Falcon Pt. 1 and Pt. 2” starts off with a trip to the corner store and ends in an alternative universe, something the typical rapper couldn’t even conjure up, let alone write. The tape is chock full of 90s pop culture references that our generation will love (as well as older references that our generation will love to Google and nerd out about to their friends).
Sometimes eXquire’s written persona will trick you into fully believing the narrative –maybe he really is just an apathetic 10th grade dropout who raps like members of the Wu Tang and chases Kennedy Fried Chicken with Georgi and psycadelic mushrooms. I don’t believe that eXquire can be summed up so easily. He is a complex and intelligent individual, a hardworking rapper, and a novel character that cannot and will not be put in any box just for the sake of simplification. So fuck everything you’ve read, and go listen to his music.
