photo by JMG

            The Get ‘Em Mamis took the stage at the Metro Gallery as two bombshell goddesses of hip-hop. Exploding onto the scene and leaving no one in the room unaffected by their infectious energy, as they juggled polished lyrics over the rhythm of a Baltimore club beat like they were hostesses to the coolest and most exclusive party in Baltimore. Although the set was short for such a dynamic duo, it left the audience desperately craving more, clamoring for an encore.

            Despite their rising prominence not just as a Baltimore club act but as nationally rising stars of hip hop being courted by publications like Rolling Stone and Playboy, Roxy and Symphony expressed a humility and casual ease with their new fans and the ones who had clearly been following their success for some time.

           As two young women raised primarily in Baltimore, Symphony and Roxy gravitated away from school and instead towards music and through a self-education in hip-hop discovered their true voices as writers and artists. I met with the Mamis after the show to interview the enterprising young women on how they united as a group to begin writing music and eventually produce “Terawesome”, the album driving their new tour.

Interview after the jump! 

Patrick Offenheiser: Before you guys got together and began collaborating, how did you two first meet?

Roxy: Well, when we first met, we were actually about to fight. So the first time we met it wasn’t the best situation but I found out she rapped and she found out I rapped and from there we just started recording and developing ourselves as artists. We both started out very young, she (Symphony) started out around 4, her dad’s a rockstar by the way, yeah we’ll tell you about that, and I started rapping since I was eleven so we were already doing this separately when we got together we just infused so perfectly together that it was a good fit.

PO: So can I ask what the fight was about?

R: She was dating someone and she thought I was the girl on the side. Her cousin and I were best friends. So I come over to the house and its her and her three sisters sitting on the couch and I walk in and she was like who is that and she was talking to her cousin at this point and I was like, whoa these are some big girls I’m going to have to fight, her sisters are taller than me so I’m like wow I’m going to have to take down three girls at one time and calculating it in my head and she’s ( Symphony’s cousin) like oh no it’s not her, and Symph said oh you were about to get slapped and I was like yeah alright and ever since then we’ve been best friends, I don’t know how that happened.

PO: You guys complement each other really well. It’s really cool to see that despite whatever history brought you guys together you’ve managed to make such an awesome pair.

R: We fight though all the time, so don’t be fooled. Randomly just in the street, middle of the highway just get out and start fighting and we’ll do it ‘til someone stops. Because people are so nosy and no one would help, like If I was getting my ass whipped no one would help me, I would just get beat up in the middle of the street.

S: They would like drive real slow to see what’s going on like oh my god it’s a fight, no one calls the police or anything. No one ever wants to be called to action, everyone wants to spectate.

PO: And who usually wins?

R: No one. We just like karate fight and spin spin around. Like the female version of Jackass.

PO: That’s good, that’s like friendly fighting. That’s the kind of fighting where you guys are  going to make up at the end and say you know let’s get a drink together…

R: Rap!

PO: Yeah let’s rap, and drink.

R: Drink…(laughs) yes, drink.

PO: Which artists and where in your lives did you draw the greatest musical influences from what inspired you to rap as well as celebrities and people in your life who brought that out in you?

S: Well my dad definitely, he used to be a rockstar and was in a band called Sphinx and they actually were on their way to get a record deal but they set the stage on fire so the A&R left and they got put out of the club. It was crazy, he got up and just left, like these guys are nuts. So I actually draw a lot of my influence and musical inspiration as far as performing from him, he gives us so much advice like “you’ve got to fall on the stage” because he wants everything to look like an 80’s video, you know, very smokey…

R: Yeah, lights. We think he’s the reason that they don’t let you use pyro on the stage anymore. Like after they did it, they were like no it can’t happen…

S: Yeah, he looked like Rick James at one point. He had like long flowing hair (R: It was straight!) these boots, and his boots were like a dragon, they were like KISS boots or something…just crazy. And I was like, oh my god Dad, this is not the Dad I know.

PO: So aside from your Dad what other artists did you listen to growing up or that you’re still listening to now that really drew you out?

S: Really any female in the game was very influential, because it was rare to see it, so like Eve, Remy Martin, Lil’ Kim to an extent, just any female in the game…

R: Yeah, MC Lite, Salt’N’Pepa definitely, even to this day, I’m not sure if other artists do this but this is something we actively do, we watch other artists performances, like my idol, I idolize Doug E. Fresh’s performance because its just him and the microphone and it’s the greatest experience as a performance ever, like I think he is one of the greatest performers ever and we watch Salt’N’Pepa performances and all that inspires a lot of the stuff you saw us do onstage. We watch all the greats, we watch Beyonce too, even though she’s not like a rapper, but the Beyonce experience is like, you know. There’s just like glitter everywhere and unicorns, its magical….

PO: You’ve mentioned a lot of old school hip hop artists and I’ve found when I watch you guys perform you really bring the crowd into it and into a sort of party onstage in a way that a lot of other artists really don’t. Was that your goal?

R: That’s exactly what our main goal is. When we’re onstage we don’t want our audience to feel like they’re just watching TV, like if you wanted to sit and look at somebody you could do that at home and we don’t want people to feel that way. You came out you got dressed, it’s a recession, you’re out spending money on drinks. We want to give whoever’s watching whether it’s five people or a hundred thousand people in the audience we want them to feel like they’re at the best party they ever had in their life. Bringing pretty much like college parties or TAXLO parties onstage with us and getting the crowd involved in just feeling good to be there and making hip hop fun again. Because we feel like with a lot of the performances you see, like sometimes you go to a rap show and everyone is just standing around looking but we wanted to different, we wanted to be like, let’s have a party, let’s have fun, so yes that was the goal. Hope we accomplished it!

PO: Well I think you clearly did, everyone outside the show that night was telling you they were having the time of their lives. But its also true in rock and roll too you go to a concert and there’s a lot of people nodding their heads, a lot of people nodding off it seems and just not engaged but I didn’t see a single person in the audience of that show who was in that frame of mind. But I have to ask you, a lot of people could have or might have left, gone to New York, gone to L.A, what kept you guys here?

S: We wanted to stay here to remain authentic. You can always go somewhere else but then you’re inspired by what’s going on there. We had to develop ourselves as Baltimore artists and become a part of that movement so we could take that with us wherever we go. So its not like we’re going to another city to experience them, we’re going to another city to give them the Baltimore experience.

R: We know what we have here Baltimore club music is something special and we’re just fortunate enough to realize that this is something amazing because not everybody can rap over a Baltimore club beat, they’re too fast or too slow and they don’t really know how to catch the beat, but we get it and we understand that its something special and something we want to take with us once we win grammies, whether we’re doing movies or we’re in the UK, anywhere we go we want to bring it with us because we know our music is just as good as crunk music was or hifi, and every city had their own movement. Club music is ours and we want to showcase it to the rest of the world. That’s one of the reasons we chose to stay here. There’s always opportunities, like you could go here you could go there, but why leave when we have something special right here and we’re sitting on a goldmine. This is precious, this is amazing and we’re going to make everyone else believers.

PO: Definitely. And is there a Baltimore music family that’s helping to make this is all possible in the club and hip hop scene?

R: I could go on for days as far as the pioneers of the Baltimore club scene. Baltimore club music between Tittsworth, DJ Booman, you could go on for days…Aaron Lacrate is doing it real big, shout-out to Rye Rye she’s amazing, I could sit here and do this all day long but everybody who supports it and actually gets it, because everybody don’t but the people that actually get it they’re making it  possible and making it getting bigger because as you can see it is blowing up. Especially when Kanye West jumps on a DJ Class track and it’s like whoa that’s major. I know people who don’t listen to club music that listen to DJ Class I’m the Ish because Kanye West jumped on it and are like Kanye West is on this track, its Baltimore club music, its hot!” No, it been hot.

PO: Definitely. And it doesn’t sound like a scene where there’s a lot of rivalry but instead a lot of support just from seeing people at the show interact like for example you guys and Sean Banks, he has a very paternalistic attitude, like he’s looking after you guys?    

S:  He will break us down but in a good way, like he forced us pretty much to rebuild ourselves, change our names and everything because we used to be The Plague and he was like you can’t be The Plague and we were like so hellbent, like fuck that, we’re so hardcore and he just shut our whole situation down and we left broken and discouraged but then we arose and the Get Em Mamis, you know, rose from the ashes of our previous self. Thanks to him.

R: Bigger and better than ever.

PO: And was the Plague any different musically?

R: It was the total opposite of what the Get Em Mamis, well not the total opposite because we always remain who we are, like our humor, we’ve always been that way, but as far as the topics we’ve chosen to rap about we’ve definitely grown. So I would say its totally different because of the way we’ve grown as artists and I’d say we’re a lot better now than we were back then, which is a good thing…

S: Back then we were in a constant stage of proving we were good enough to be with the people that were out. Even though we still do that now, like we’re never going to stop proving ourselves, but it was like overcompensating like every other word was like “fuck your mother” and we were so young that we had this what we perceived to be grownup attitude grownup rap and its like when you actually grow up you realize oh its not really cool to tell somebody you’re going to shoot them in the face. So that was the Plague. Young, naïve and…

PO: Angry?

R: I wouldn’t necessarily say angry, just…

S: No we were pretty angry

R: Yeah we were…yeah. I think it was just a part of the growing experience, I wouldn’t change anything but that was just the beginning and we had to go through that to get to where we are right now.

PO: And from there to here its been a long road but you guys went up fast, you know I said this again at the show but now you’re getting attention from Playboy and Rolling Stone and Fader. Does that make you nervous, in the short time that its happened?

S: I’m ready for some more, I feel great about everything that we accomplished and I’m just ready for it to keep going. It’s never a moment where I’m like everything’s happening too fast, because I want this forever. So I’m just ready for everything else that’s going to come.

PO: How about you? (to Roxy)

R: Well I just think that when you’re younger, you always want these things to happen when you’re developing as an artist you always hope for these things. But when they actually start to happen its just like wow, like we’re two rapping black girls from Baltimore and we’re not even small, we’re not you know, like playmates and they love us its crazy, they love us, like I never thought I’d be in Playboy, I never thought I’d be in Rolling Stone, I always wanted to and always strived to make these things happen but to actually see it, its amazing and its humble. We always just try to remain humble throughout the whole experience and know that we need to appreciate everything that comes to us for what it is which is a blessing because there’s a lot of people out there trying to do what we’re doing and would do anything to get to where we’re at and we understand that and appreciate that so we would never take it for granted. But it is, its friggin’ awesome, it’s amazing!

PO: It’s becoming more apparent that in hip-hop that the more revolutionary figures are becoming women, M.I.A. to an extent, now Rye Rye and now you guys. Do you find that being a woman in the hip-hop scene is harder in a predominantly male industry?

S: Well, it’s pretty much like that everywhere, so whatever we would have chosen to do there was a good chance it would have been a male dominated situation, so why look at it any differently. Like my sex doesn’t determine my skill set.

R: Right, don’t let it hinder you and don’t use it as an excuse. Just go harder.

PO: So, how do you guys do your best creative work do you freestyle and improvise or do you prefer to write?

S: Well we freestyle over a beat, then keep what’s good and then sit down and write a little, so it’s a nice blend of everything. We’re not like Lil’ Wayne, just going at it.

R: Yeah, writing is very important to us. I think that at heart we’re both writers, so once we hit 30, 40, 50 we’ll still be writers. Even if you can freestyle sometimes you have to sit down and think about it and that brings out the best in you. Free-styling is good though, its fun and you can come up with some great things but its not like sitting down and writing it out and getting it out you know? It releases something, I can’t explain it.

PO: You said you wanted to take Baltimore with you. I’m curious how you guys plan to do that when you get out there?

S: How do we plan on taking Baltimore with us…Rox?

R: Our goal is to be successful, to make it to the top or whatever they want to call it and we want to bring Baltimore with us, that means the sound, Baltimore club music and even artists god-willing. If we get into a situation where we can bring some people with us that would be a dream come true because everybody doubts it and they all say Baltimore can’t do it, they don’t have any unity, but we do. And it’s there, we’re about to show the world that it is here, and we’re bringing Baltimore with us and that means everybody. Like, Atlanta does it, when they have an artist that’s blowing up they come back and say this is my new artist. We want to do that for our city too, like before I said they had crunk and hifi and New York has their own thing. We want to do that for Baltimore.