Considering the renewed interest in the female rapper, you’d think Eternia & MoSS would shove their advantageous disposition in the faces of all who passed by. But that’s not what Hip-Hop is about and neither are these two qualified professionals. Hailing from two different spots on the map, learn how an accomplished musician and domineering wordsmith crossed paths to create At Last, their first LP together.

Eternia & MoSS. A duo who present challenging answers to coincide with the questions themselves. Intrigued yet?

TSS: Eternia would you say the divisional lines of the male vs. female in rap needs to be deaded?

Eternia: Uhhh…10 years ago maybe?

Everybody: (Laughs!!!)

Eternia: I’ve been hearing it all my life, so I’m not bitter. I understand why people have to put up the barrier. I get it. I went to school for journalism and anything that’s “new” or “different” needs to be referenced. But at the same time, I look forward to one day being compared to MCs period. And that’s not saying I’m not being compared to great women—I am—but I don’t understand why people can say they have a favorite MC and then on the side, say they have a favorite female MC. OR…I don’t understand why people can say they only have ONE favorite female MC. Like you can only like Jean Grae or Eternia—but you can’t like both. That makes absolutely no sense to me. So I’m definitely ready for people’s minds to open up, that’s for sure.

TSS: Speaking of great women, you took place in The Revival last year. How would you say that experience impacted your career leading up to now.

Eternia: I went into it not knowing what to expect; you never know what it’s going to be like surrounded by a bunch of female MCs, especially living together. We’re on the tour bus constantly and you know, people can be territorial. But I think it was the complete opposite. You put all these women in the room that are all very confident in themselves and their abilities and their place in Hip-Hop and all we got was a family vibe. And I’m not just saying that just because. It was absolutely the most warm-welcoming and positive tour experience I ever had it my life. It was amazing. It changed me for sure and I felt like I left being a different person.

TSS: So how does a Caucasian female from Canada get deep-rooted into Hip-Hop to where you’re not even viewed upon as “femecee” or whatever term they could throw at you.

Eternia: Um…my gender and my nationality were never things I was thinking about when I started rapping. Not until other people pointed it out to me. Out in Ottawa [Canada], basically it wasn’t out of the norm. So I became an adult; I was rapping all the way through my teens and found it interesting that people found it interesting that I looked the way I do when I rap! To me it was old news, it was like “O.K.” (Laughs). I just always wanted to compare myself on a level of emceeship. The ones that who I look up to and admire to matter where they were from or what gender they were. I don’t know if that’s too “PC” of an answer but it’s true. It’s like it almost took other people to point out that “oh, you’re a Caucasian female MC” for me to think about that. But I do sometimes represent that in my music because it has been pointed out to me. Normally I just rap because I like to do it and I’m good at it.

But being that I was raised it Canada probably did contribute to blissful ignorance since things are different there. So maybe with a little more nurturing and open-mindedness, by the time I went to the United States in the 90s, I already had this strong background of not letting anything like that stop me. Those are compartilizing limiters and I don’t believe in any of that.

TSS: Obviously you don’t believe in it either, MoSS. You worked with countless “names” so to speak in Hip-Hop, yet you chose Eternia to rock an entire album with. Why?

MoSS: Well it came about because I saw her live. The first time I saw her perform…it just bl..that’s the kind of…the energy she had was just so confident and she just looked like a natural. The way she delivers and the power of voice—all incredible. I approached her about it and she was open to the idea. And I’m glad I did. Even putting gender aside, she’s just a talent. But when you look at within the spectrum of female MCs, she’s something special. I think it’s something the industry needed and I hope people just give it a chance.

TSS: With At Last, is that a revelation of “FINALLY!” It’s here?

Eternia: Generally with my album titles, there’s more than one meaning. With the time spent creating it, that’s one way to look at it. Or the minute MoSS asked me to do the record, I felt like that. Just from being offered that opportunity. I was exhaling and saying “Yes! At last!” Know what I mean? At last we’re making an album that we were meant to make sonically. I’ve never made anything that sounds like this and the whole way through it, it sounded like we had arrived.

TSS: Since some of the songs were recorded in 2007, were you guys getting antsy with the material just sitting there?

Eternia: Well I have to clarify that. We recorded most of it from January 2008 through most of 2009. The only thing that was recorded in 2007 was the first track, “32 Bars.”

TSS: O.K. it just sounds dope coming from the 2007 point of view…

Eternia: (Laughs) Yeah! But I think we were getting antsy, but we were also very patient and we wanted it to come out the right way.

TSS: As the producer MoSS, were you instrumental of the LP’s subject matter or did you just lay the beats and step aside.

MoSS: I was really concerned with the sonics of the record but I wanted to make it really consistent. I wanted to make sure that whatever she sounded best on, we kept driving that. And we obviously had some type of variety in the vibes of the beat and so forth but I wanted all the sound types to be mixed the same way. And what happened at first, I started with stuff that I envisioned just based off her live performance. And then after we recorded a few songs, she started feeding me ideas on stuff that she wanted to write to. Then I would come back with my sampler and starting picturing the perfect backdrops. And for the most part I’d say I got it all right. There were only two songs where she picked beats that I didn’t expect but it worked out. It was a kind of a 50-50 thing and she was pretty easy to work with in that sense. Really open-minded when it came to the music where I know a lot of MCs would go back and forth. So it came out dope.

TSS: So y’all had the X-Men telepathy, mutant power vibe going on in the studio, huh?

Eternia: (Laughs) Yeah, because truthfully a lot of the concepts came about without him knowing what I was going to talk about. Like 80% of the beats he gave me, I had no idea what I was going to rap about beforehand and he really did dictate the subject matter sonically.

TSS: That’s interesting chemistry. And you get pretty personal on songs like “To The Past” and “To The Future.” Was that a therapeutic experience for you to get stuff like that out?