New interview over at www.wevegotthejazz.com. MC/Producer of Tanya Morgan drops info on his latest release, the creation of Tany Morgan, what’s next for Tanya Morgan and even lets us know his Top 5 MCs.

Name: Von Pea
Affiliations: Tanya Morgan (is a rap group), The Lessondary
Age: 27
Hood/Hometown: Brooklyn, Ny
Most Recent Release: Tanya Morgan “The Bridge EP” and “The Further Adventures of Von Pea” Mixtape
Record Label: Interdependent Media

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WGTJ: To begin with, for readers who aren’t familiar with your previous solo efforts or your work as a member of Tanya Morgan,can you tell readers who you are? What role do you play as a member of Tanya Morgan as well as in hip-hop in general?:
Von Pea: Well im Von Pea of the rap group Tanya Morgan, im the mc/producer of the group, if we were the original slum village, for example, I guess I’m Jay Dee. I  do some rapping and I push the buttons, Donwill is the lead role like T3 and Ilyas is the crazy one that’s secretly a genius like Baatin (haha) actually he’s Elzhi too. He stays in the cut and he’s dope as a motherfucker. our role in hip hop is just to play our part. hip hop is a team and we’re gonna be the small forward playing his role, but were gonna have more rings than anyone else in the end.

WGTJ: As a somewhat avid listener of Tanya Morgan records, I would personally group you with acts such as Danny!, Kenn Star, Median, Kidz in the Hall and of course Little Brother on a basis of lyrical content, production and overall vibe. With that stated, the majority of the aforementioned groups are from the South (Kidz in the Hall is a Midwestern act). Assuming the connection is there, what acts helped to mold the overall sound of Von Pea and Tanya Morgan?:
VP: That’s funny you name those people because I’m either friends or genuinely cool with everyone you just named. That’s a great list to be apart of for me. Actually i think Double-O is from New Jersey or something. Ilyas and Don are Midwest too, and I think that all lends to people having an East Coast/90s influence but from the outside so they all appreciated it in a different way. For me I was the baby in the family for years so I thought I was older and I had all the late 80’s hip hop at the time yet I was born in 81. When I poke fun at myself that’s the Fresh Prince, when I’m boasting that’s Phife Dawg and Big Daddy Kane. When I’m introspective its Posdnuos, my desire to stand out is De La Soul, my wordplay is Common, my album orchestration/sequencing is Prince Paul and ?uestlove, and my production started by listening to the Ummah, so that’s how I ended up being Von Pea. Take all of that and add in the Geto Boys threat,Ice Cube etc. and you get the influence of Donwill and Ilyas. Me being the guy from New York when i was coming up,  I only knew New York stuff and Death Row/Hieroglyphics/Outkast. I missed a lot of classic albums because NY was known for not showing outside love back then, unfortunately. I just checked for the radio stuff back then, luckily back then it was classic shit. I’m talking about early 90s.

WGTJ: One of my most thoroughly bumped track off of The Bridge EP (Interdependent Media) has to be Hip Hop Is Dead II. Towards the end of the track you state “They keep sayin’ hip-hop is dead, but I can’t believe it/ I just can’t see it”. It seems throughout the past 3 years or so a lot of cats have also been questioning the livelihood/current state of hip-hop. Although this sentiment is steadily turning around with the growing popularity of so-called “hipster” acts such as Wale, The Cool Kids, Kid CuDi, Jay Electronica etc., I’ve gotten the idea that a lot of East Coast cats are still not feeling like hip-hop is really back to where it should be. A Brooklynite yourself, why do you still have faith in the art? :

VP: I think hip-hop is fine personally. I could rant about this question for like 4 paragraphs but, I’ll keep it short. There’s so much good hip hop out there that’s current. The problem is everything else. Like I said I could be on this answer all day so I’ll just attack my latest beef (ha ha): The whole “hipster rap” label. Was “my Adidas” hipster rap? when Nas said “…and im a Nike head” or “suede Timbs on my feet make my cypher complete” was he on some hipster shit? Rappers have rapped about their clothes forever. Everybody had beef with Biggie for talking about his Coogis etc., but when he died everybody was in love with him. Have you stopped to look at what Black Thought wears? Or what De La soul Wears? These cats have better chains than mainstream rappers. If you stop to listen to some of the so called “hipster” rappers they’re nice as hell. Better yet, some even have more content than so called “conscious” rappers. We don’t really get that label, but I’m just standing up for those colleagues that unfairly do like Kidz in the Hall and Pacific Division.

Read the entire interview here.

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