[Interview] RH First Look: Jason [^_-] Davis
RubyHornet: What is the Robot Army?
Jason Davis: The Robot Army right now is a group of friends who work together. We have our photographers, we have our rappers, we have our producers. We have our videographers, we have our designers, a lot of people do multiple things. This is just phase one of the Robot Army.
RubyHornet: Can you explain your role in this thing?
Jason Davis: My role, I started it. There was no Robot Army until Welcome To The Robot Army came out. That kind of gave everybody something to get behind. That first album. After that came out, everyone was repping that shit like, ‘yeah, we’re Robot Army.’ I gave everyone that option of, do you want to really do this or is this just some shit you want to yell out as a party?
RubyHornet: It seems like this is just something you started in your bedroom or something.
Jason Davis: A lot of the verses and shit I wrote for the first album, I put those up on Facebook back in like ’07. Welcome to The Robot Army was pretty much a bunch of shit that I had been working on from ’07 till ’09, really, just here and there. I never really took music serious or recorded shit until ’09. I did this mixtape called Chasing Dreams with this dude Nav. I started the little logo, the face, that’s just something I started putting on all my notes on Facebook as a call sign or whatever. That turned into something bigger.
RubyHornet: You told me before that you wanted to be taken more seriously. How do you feel the music’s viewed now? What do you mean when you say you want to be taken more seriously?
Jason Davis: When I say I want to be taken more seriously, I feel like when people hear my music and the other Robot Army music, because we put our own touch on it, a lot of people have called it different. I’ve heard people call it irregular. Some people say we’re just doing stupid shit and recording it. I feel like, I want people to look at the Robot Army like, ok, these guys are doing something and are serious about it. It’s not just a bunch of guys who do shit on the weekends and throw it out there and if you hear it, you hear it. If you don’t, ‘fuck it.’ No. We want to be heard. We want to be seen. We want our shit to be appreciated.
RubyHornet: The first project I really heard was C.A.B.A.P. What was the mindset then? It seems that could have been more, ‘I’m not really sure. I’m going to try this. Can I get a pencil…’
Jason Davis: Can A N***a Borrow A Pencil came after Welcome To The Robot Army. Welcome To The Robot Army was my, ‘I’m just going to try this out. Can I put something together?’ Can A N***a Borrow A Pencil was me saying, ‘OK, I can put an album together. Now let me see if people like this newer shit that I’m doing.’ I put 5 songs together, came up with somewhat of a theme/concept for the EP and I put it out. The response I got back from it was cool. People liked a few of the songs off the EP. “Higher”, I know a lot of people like that. That kind of gave me the confidence to just say ‘fuck it.’ And just go for it, make some real shit.
