See also "Action Bronson In Talks to Host Cooking Show, His Albanian Family Has Only Toilet in Town."
Previously, hip-hop and culinary hero Action Bronson told us how to seduce lovers in the kitchen (first course: cheese, second course: oysters, third course: pulling his dick out) and got a kick out of learning about a transexual artist who'd cooked up her own penis for diners.
But there's far more on this man's mind than fever dreams of disembodied schlongs. As you might expect from his kickass music, a conversation with Bronson is a freewheeling adventure that covers all sorts of ground, by turns funny and fascinating.
After the cut, check out some highlights from our chat with the Action man before he absolutely slayed it at Bardot last week. In this installment: perfect marijuana meals, his first time getting paid for a feature, his many dance moves and much, much more.
We were seated at a picnic table in the Bardot parking lot, just out of view of the fans lining up to see his show, a ridiculously high-energy set that did more in 25 minutes in a small room than some massive arena bands can do in three hours. Turning red with intense focus, he did most of the show from within the crowd, rapping hard into the flipped-out faces of his audience.
We'd just come from a meal at Gigi, where Albanian fans had brought him a traditional Albanian cheese bread their mother had made for him. Later, he moaned with pleasure over the restaurant's ribs and chicken legs. And check out our man with pinkie finger out, about to go wild on one of the joint's signature tiny softserve ice cream cones.
How Much Weed He Smokes
"A lot. I mean, I smoked an ounce. I'm a confident weed smoker. I've been smoking a lot for so long that I'm just functional. [My favorite kind is] some kush. Some good kush. O.G."
Action Cooks His Perfect Weed Food, "The Day Over-er"
"What I do is I make the bucatini. You can pretty much make bucatini with anything. But I do it with just toasted garlic that's browned on one side, so it's soft on the other side. So the olive oil gets soaked into it.
"What you do is you heat it up, slowly on the pan. And then you set it off to the side so it becomes like soft candy. You do that. You extract, you drain the weed, obviously.
"You can pretty much make that with arugala, fucking clams. You can put anything at that point in there. Mushrooms, whatever you want. And you eat that first thing in the morning when you wake up and it's over. Your day is over. It's a day over-er."
His Late Start in the Rap Game
"I was always a loner, in a state to myself. I'm an only child. So I'm usually always rolling alone or with one other person. I like to stay under wraps. I don't like attention. I don't wear fancy jewelry. I don't want people looking at me. I'm like one of those, "Why is this person looking at me?" But it kind of happens.
"I never wore jewelry in my entire life. So why would I start wearing jewelry now? Why? What's the point? Why, because I'm making a little bit a money? I'm earning a salary like a fucking lawyer or a doctor every year. It's not like I'm out here making millions of dollars and just buying jewelry and useless things. If I had that money, I wouldn't spend it on that.
"I don't need that type of shit. All I care about is taking care of the kids, taking care of my mother. And that's that. My kids are seven and five. I see them every time I'm not on the road. It's a rough life but at this point, this is my job and I have to go get it while it's there. It's going to improve everybody's life in the future.
"I understand that they don't understand and they want their father, but it's all for them. I don't give a fuck about this shit. This is my job. I'm 28 years old. I'm no fucking spring chicken. I just started rapping and everyone that's rapping is fucking 21, 22, 23 years old. And I'm a fucking old man to them.
"I wasn't building it up. Once I got on a roll, I just gained confidence and kept going. I told myself I wasn't going to let anyone stop me. Once I got some notoriety and people actually started to pay me to do things, I was like, "Fuck that, I'm going full throttle with it."
"The first verse I ever got paid for was somebody from Australia. Maundz. They paid me $600. I don't even remember the song. It's from his song and I was laid up with a broken leg."
Cooking For Himself:
"I do a lot of ordering out because of that lazy shit at the end of the day where you don't want to cook for yourself after you've come home tired. Realistically, no chef just goes home and just whips something up. You go home and you order some pizza or something.
"That's what I do. I don't want to be fucking slaving in the kitchen after I slaved in the kitchen for fucking twelve hours. It's not happening. Bring something home. Why use my kitchen? It's for show. There's plastic around the kitchen.
"Fuck pancakes, man. Who gives a fuck about pancakes? I don't fuck with pancakes like that. I like a waffle better. I mean, you should know how to make eggs. You should know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich. You should know how to cook a fucking steak. There are some basic things that you should just know. You should know how to make rice. You should know how to cook pasta properly."
Action Doesn't Need Features
"I was telling everybody that I don't need anybody to make me hot. I'd rather carve my own, so no one can say, 'You only had this because of this person.' No. No. If we're doing a song, it means I like you as a person. Or you paid me. I'm trying to keep features to a minimum.
"The only people I want are the people I want to work with. Like Cam'ron. Or Kool G Rap, who I've already worked with. Like, the Lox. Rae and Ghost. Shit like that. Slick Rick. Those are like dream songs. Just to have them, even if they never come out. For myself."
His Recording Process:
"I have my family, the Outdoorsmen, which is Mayhem Lauren and A.G. Da Coroner but everyone's doing their own thing. My friends are my friends and I help as much as I can. But motherfuckers don't need help. They're nice. They just need to be heard. My man Mayhem Lauren just put out a project today called Respect the Fly Shit. We recorded it at fucking South by Southwest in a hotel room in two days.
"We had a setup. We had a bunch of nice rooms, like little apartments. So we had all the people in there with us and we banged it out. Motherfuckers stayed up for two days in a row to do it.
"Sometimes I wake up and say, 'I want to do a song.' And I go do a song. Instant. Like, say, I'm working with Party Supplies. I'll go over to his house and we'll make five beats there. And I'll rap on them. When I'm working with Alchemist, he'll make the beat while I'm sitting next to him and I'll write the rap sitting next to him. Then he'll write the next one and I'll write the next one.
"With people like who are non-stop musical people, it's just easy to work. I'm lucky that I work with these people and we have good chemistry.
"I write everything down. I've written raps in my mind before, but it's almost just doing it to do it. I don't want to. I like writing. I write in a notebook. I don't write in a phone, I write in a notebook. With Crystal Bic pens. That's it."
To keep up with Action Bronson (do your best!), visit ActionBronson.com or follow him on twitter @ActionBronson.
Follow Crossfade on Facebook and Twitter @Crossfade_SFL
