You’ve gotten the opportunity to familarize yourself with them through their music (probably because it was bestowed as free gift,) but how well do you actually know about Yannick “Thurzday” Koffi and Yonas “Y-O” Michael, the efficacious duo that makes up U-N-I? For clarification purposes, TSS Crew’s TC caught up with them as well as Romel “Ro Blvd” Ventura, the sole producer behind the duo’s latest achievement A Love Supreme, and eradicated all stereotypes, offered thoughts on being web superstars and just exactly what was up with that Nelly diss.
TSS: Before we get down to the nitty gritty, we had to play What’s In A Name?
Thurzday: The name U-N-I is basically derived from [The Roots'] Illadelph Halflife; the “UNIverse At War” song with Common and I figured it fit us perfect being in the L.A. scene. Coming out of the city, you’re going to face a lot of opposition, so it’s “U” then Y-O and I then “I,” myself Vs. any opposition trying to prevent us from accomplishing our dreams. When I told Y-O and Chris, our manager the idea, they loved it and it’s been working ever since.
As for Thurzday, my last name is Koffi and in West Africa, it’s a nickname for “boy born on Friday.” And everybody called me by my last name and the meaning didn’t really apply so I told everybody “Just call me Thurz.” And it stuck!
Y-O: Mine is simple. It’s just a childhood name that I grew up with. My mom still calls me Yo and it’s short for my real name which is Yonas. It’s an African name given to me by my grandmother from Eritrea. It means soldier. It’s a name that everybody can relate me to or knows me as so I kept it simple.
Ro Blvd: Well my government name is Romel and I always said if I made it, I would want my stage name to have a part of my actual name. I always went by Ro but when I started making music towards the end of high school my mom gave me a stack of records, not even knowing that people sample. And one of them was a soundtrack to a movie called Boulevard Nights which truthfully, is in my top 5 movies of all-time because it’s been an inspirational influence in my life. And I was out ripping and running in the streets like everybody else but I chose to use Boulevard because the term “street” is often stereotyped into something negative. So to me, boulevard is thinking like Saturday Night Fever; John Travolta on the strip having fun so that’s the image I wanted to portray.
TSS: Interesting you say that because when people refer to L.A. music they typically think “gangsta rap.” Did you all go particularly out of your way to avoid that stigma? Read the rest of this entry »
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