Cartier’GOD is a man that can be described only as an artist. Over the past 12 years, Cartier has been pushing the boundaries of sound and challenging industry norms by refusing to yield an ounce of experimentation and creativity to any form of long-held hip-hop motif. Cartier has worked tirelessly in the underground to create the waves that industry sponsored artists have been surfing for years. He stands aside names like Lil B and Soulja Boy as one of the most influential artists to emerge from the underground hip-hop scene. Obsessed with expression and infatuated with water, I had the pleasure of sitting down with one of modern music’s most underappreciated creatives.
Alex England: Cartier, how are you doing brother?
Cartier God: My lord, everything’s good man.
AE: You’re from Georgia right? CG: Yeah, it’s called Athens, Georgia.
AE: Have you been in Georgia all your life? CG: Yeah, I’m a Georgia native.
AE: Growing up in Georgia, what kind of music were you listening to?
CG: Given that I was around the Atlanta area, of course I was on anybody from Atlanta. Outkast, Dungeon Family, I mean there’s so many people I could name. I’m gonna try to keep it to the main people. I mean growing up though, I was just on MTV and BET and shit so definitely the music that they played the most. From alternative music to rap to hip hop, pretty much I was just everywhere. I never really based music on where I stayed, I kind of just gravitated toward what I liked.
AE: Were you drawn to making music as a kid?
CG: Yes, definitely, hell yeah. The thing that made me interested was just hearing other people doing it and the way they did it. I always wanted to do it too.
AE: So you’ve been around a while, I was looking at your discography and you have projects dating back to 2010 on DatPiff.
CG: Hell yeah, definitely been around a minute.
AE: I think a lot of your earlier stuff and a portion of the more recent stuff sounds like rap music with your distinct sort of flavor to it. More recently, especially on Cartier in the House, you’ve kind of abandoned true blue hip hop in favor of sounds more in the vein of dance, house and techno.
CG: Yeah it’s just a sound that I like. I’m pretty much a producer, I started out as a producer. Before I fell in love with rapping, I fell in love with the beat. I’ve always been a beat guy, so that’s what brought me to loving that stuff. Any song that I like, I have to like the beat first and foremost. I wanted to be a producer and for some reason back in the day, I was always remembering sounds, like “Damn I gotta get that sound,” before I even had a beat machine.
AE: Do you still consider yourself a rapper?
CG: I mean, I’m an artist. I don’t just want to say rapper because I can do everything. I don’t want to limit myself to one thing because I can do everything. I won’t just say rapper because most rappers can harmonize a little and rap but they don’t go away from the genre unless there’s some money involved or some shit like that.
AE: When people think of Georgia rap, they think of guys like Gucci Mane, Ludacris, Waka Flocka Flame and Migos. More in your face, loud, macho rapping. Your music is ethereal and almost withdrawn at times. When did you think to start experimenting with these very unconventional sounds?
CG: Probably around 2012 or 2013. I have songs dated back that far on YouTube that are like that. I have a song called “#UrSoooDown” featuring Millie, a member of Ocean Gang. I made the beat and it was a rock beat. I put the rock style on it early and I wanted to make those kinds of alternative sounding songs. I also have techno-type beats too that I made earlier, probably in 2013 or 2014, but I still had the rap 808s and the trap snares in them. I was just trying to blend the two instead of making full-blown techno because I knew people weren’t ready for it back then, even though I would have liked to do it. It was just a different time.
AE: Do you consider yourself to be an experimental artist?
CG: Right now I would definitely say that. I’m definitely experimenting with all of the genres I’ve wanted to try.
AE: Have you ever found it difficult to get traction and have people take you seriously as an artist, given that your music is very much out of the norm?
CG: Maybe from the people who are closed-minded. I steer my music towards the open-minded group because I’m based. Being based is for the open-minded people, people who don’t think of things in just one way. There’s so many different ways to think of just one thing. I don’t really have a problem with it because all of my fans are here for the ride. It’s cool with me, I can just keep going as crazy as I want to. There’s always going to be people that aren’t fucking with it. I come from the trap era and my shit definitely goes to the left of that. Like I said though, I’m cool with it. If my fans are cool with it, that’s what I’m gonna be doing. I love it too and I couldn’t do it if I didn’t love it.
AE: Your choice in production is just as distinct as your choice in your vocal style. Are there certain producers that you like to work with exclusively?
CG: Yeah definitely. Of course I work with my little brother Tre’ Beat, he’s in Futuristic'Ideasz with me, so he’s like my right-hand go-to man. If we’re not making the beat together, I’m getting the beats from him. There’s a lot of producers who are out there right now doing their thing. There’s a lot that I want to work with that I haven’t worked with. I want to give people chances and help out the underdogs. I want to work with people who have the most beautiful melodies, people who haven’t been found. You’ll see a lot of new names involved with me right now on this experimental journey. I just work with producers that have what I need, stuff that I can create on. I don’t care about the name or the popularity of the producer, it really doesn’t matter to me.
AE: A lot of your aesthetic is based around water, where exactly does your infatuation with water come from?
CG: It started with the wordplay I was using at the beginning, around 2009. I’m not trying to say I started all of that, but I was definitely on it real early. The water lingo started becoming a trend in rap and I was on that too. I started using “wet” a lot in my wordplay, which became water. I was saying all kinds of stuff about water and it just became a thing, so I started incorporating it into my raps and everyday sayings. All of the water stuff made me start thinking about the ocean. People really started gravitating to all of the shit I was saying but it wasn’t too far-fetched compared to what people were already saying. Cash Money was saying “bling bling” and “ice” and I was thinking about melted ice. I just turned it into my own thing and the water kept going and going. I started saying splash, drip and wet every day. I introduced it to a group of guys I was working with in BasedWorld at the time and said “Hey, let’s do this Ocean Gang shit, I want to start a gang.” They were down and it was a wrap from there, we just got deeper and deeper. With Ocean Gang, I was pretty much coming up with all of the hooks and ideas, all they really had to do was stay on topic. With them staying on topic, they were coming up with ways to say drip, splash and water in their own way. It just kept growing and it became an underwater community.
AE: One of the first things that comes to mind when I think of your music is that robotic female voice that says “splash.”
CG: Definitely, that shit goes hard. Those tags add something to the songs that I can’t say. It’s like a stamp. Shoutout to my boy RareGod, he came through with that specific tag for me.
AE: I think it’s safe to say that you’re one of the most unique artists that rap has seen in the past ten years and that’s garnered you a lot of attention, especially from other artists. With all of your water lingo like drip and splash becoming much more mainstream, do you consider yourself to be influential on newer generations of rappers?
CG: Yeah, definitely. I don’t think a lot of people know that I started it but a lot definitely do because they came up off of it. They know who was in Ocean Gang, they know about Soulja Boy. I introduced it to Soulja Boy who then introduced it to millions of people. Soulja Boy was letting people know that I started Ocean Gang and that what he was doing was a spin off of the shit I was doing and the shit Ocean Gang was doing. I know that a lot of people know. They may not admit it, but I think probably 60-70% of the people saying it know. They may not give the credit where it’s due because people are gonna follow whoever has the cash, like Young Thug and Gunna and all the other rappers saying it. It’s just because they’re on. They pull up in the Ferrari truck, people are gonna believe them over me. That’s just how the world is.
AE: Do you take all of these successful artists using water lingo as a compliment or as disrespect?
CG: I take it as a compliment from people who are paying homage. A lot of people use it because they think they made it or because they heard somebody else do it. It’s really a blessing and a curse at the same time. I love it because I know I created it, but I need the world to know that. The world doesn’t know who made it, they’re just giving everybody credit. I’m the only one that has the real proof. I’d like to have that shine because water lingo is the culture right now, people are saying it everywhere. I’ve been saying it the longest and I created it. People have been trying to take it from me since day one, even underground rappers. It’s been like that my whole career. It’s like Plankton trying to get the Krabby Patty formula. The industry started getting to it around 2015, industry rappers started saying “splash.” Soulja Boy has videos trying to let people know that we started it, though. Some people are gonna believe it and some people don’t even care, they just care about who’s doing it the best. It’s kind of hard for me to take it in the best way all the time, but deep down inside I know that if it wasn’t for me and Soulja Boy, it wouldn’t be being said right now.
AE: I’m a huge fan of Bladee and I thought that the first time I heard you was on “I Want It All”, but in my research I realized that I heard you way earlier than that. How did you link up with Lil B to do the “Go Under” remix on Pink Flame?
CG: He just wrote me on Facebook. We’d been friends on there since around 2009 and he sent me a message. He knows me, I was the first rapper to get “based” tatted on me and shit like that. I always knew I was based at heart so I was showing him love and letting him know I was there for the BasedWorld. I helped build the based community on Facebook, anybody that had “based” in their name was rocking with me, definitely. We were all alike, all just people who were on the same shit at the time. So he just came to me and told me it was a beautiful song. He wanted me to keep my first verse and the hook and to send him the song with two open verses. It was originally gonna be me, him and The Weeknd. That was around the time The Weeknd was blowing up so he kind of flaked out on us, but that’s the story of how “Go Under” happened.
AE: That’s crazy, that must have been around the time that House of Balloons came out right?
CG: Yeah, Thursday too. The Weeknd was in BasedWorld too, a lot of BasedWorld artists listened to him. We were all into him with each other, just underground family type shit. So that’s how that happened, that’s how I got two verses on that song. I’m pretty sure I’m the only rapper to have two verses on a Lil B song.
AE: Going back to the last question, how did you link up with Bladee?
CG: It was through a mutual friend. I can’t remember if it was him linking us together or if it was Bladee asking him to link us together. He came to me and he was speaking on Bladee and saying that we should work together. Next thing I knew, we were working. We were writing and he was telling me that he’d been rocking with me since the Ocean Gang days, almost like I was a big part of why he’s making music and I really appreciated that. I wasn’t a devout fan at the time, but I was definitely aware of him. He just started sending me his vocals and I put together some masterpieces for sure. I don’t know if everyone else thought they were masterpieces, but “I Want It All” is definitely a legendary song.
AE: I saw on your Instagram yesterday that you have another song with Bladee in the works, can we expect that soon?
CG: Oh yeah, definitely, real soon. I’m actually mixing it right now.
AE: That’s so sick. Your songs with Bladee are some of your most listened to songs, particularly “Let Me Go.” Do you think that the exposure of being on Pink Flame with Lil B and being on Icedancer and having multiple singles with Bladee has been important for your career?
CG: Oh yes, those were some big stepping stones. After “Go Under,” I was the first rapper since Lil Wayne to collaborate with Lil B. He did the “Bang” remix with Chief Keef, a tape with Soulja Boy, a song with Lil Wayne and then it was me.
AE: That’s pretty good company.
CG: Definitely. It wasn’t until years down the line that he was collabing with underground artists and trying to help them out. At that time it was definitely big, it put me in a nice category. It got me in Fader Magazine and I think Rolling Stone. Any interview that he got off of Pink Flame had my name in it because I was the only feature on the tape. It got my name in some nice magazines and introduced me to some nice new eyes and got me some clicks.
AE: Is clout and exposure something you put a lot of focus on?
CG: It’s really more organic now. The bigger you become, the more eyes you get on you. Lil B and Bladee definitely put some eyes on me.
AE: You’re a bit of a serial collaborator. Is there anything that you look for in an artist when they ask you to get on a track?
CG: I have to love the song. Music is fun to me. Well, sometimes it’s not fun because you’re knocking out songs because you know you might have to. When people come to me with fun songs that I like, I have to be on it. Some people get lucky and send me the right thing.
AE: You’re a part of a few music collectives. Do you think having that bond with other artists and constantly collaborating and working together is important?
CG: Yeah it is. We all have supporters from everywhere and we like being in the friend group we have from Ocean Gang to RCB to Nightmare. We all have selective and different music groups, but we’re all alike in certain ways so it all blends together. I don’t mind giving a smaller artist exposure.
AE: It’s more about the art.
CG: Yes, exactly. I love the input from other artists.
AE: So you started Ocean Gang in 2009?
CG: Yeah, I started it in 2009 and I gave it an internet presence in 2010. That’s when I started posting music with the actual group and having my homies come down and do songs together.
AE: So Ocean Gang has been around for 12 years. How has it grown and evolved since you first started it?
CG: To be honest, Ocean Gang as a group is really no more, I’m just keeping the name around. People still want to be in it but as far as rapping, we’re not really making music right now. I was kind of the head of it and I was doing everything. I was sending out the songs and picking out the beats to keep it as oceanic as it was meant to be and it was slowing me down from being who I’ve turned out to be now. I kind of had to focus more on me.
AE: I’ve always been drawn to artists that release a lot of music and you’re certainly very prolific. By my count, you’ve released at least 27 projects and almost 150 singles. I’ve always been curious about the thought process behind releasing so much music in relatively a short span of time. Can you give me a little insight into that?
CG: It’s simple, really. If I find a beat and I like it, it needs to go out. It doesn't even matter, I might just freestyle on it in one take and ship it out. I might be feeling down one day so I’ll just sit down in my little chair, go crazy right quick, make something that makes me smile and put it out. Sometimes I’ll go live on Instagram and let people hear it to see how they’re feeling about it and I throw it out just like that. A lot of my songs are one take songs and that’s kind of where my sound comes from too.
AE: Real organic.
CG: Definitely. Just some raw, uncut energy.
AE: Cartier, I appreciate you talking to me.
CG: Definitely, I appreciate you my lord.
Cartier’GOD’s newest project Gold Fangz is now available on Spotify, Apple Music and Soundcloud. His newest single “#WetWater333” featuring Bladee can be found on his Soundcloud. You can follow Cartier’s Instagram here and his Twitter here.
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