“I’m still writing just fine, but a lot of the stuff that coming out isn’t good enough. It’s not writer’s block. It’s writer’s suck.”
In a way, it’s remarkable that Chris Steele can write at all these days. Better known in the music world as Time, the hip-hop artist just completed his “12-headed Hydra” series — 12 albums in 12 months in 2010. With more albums completed last year than some artists complete in a lifetime, you might think Time would be worn out. But this is just the beginning.
“It started out as a dare with myself,” says the 25-year-old of his ambitious project. “I was in Tucson with another guy, and we’d just done some tracks with Kool Keith. He was talking about how they used to go into the studio and bang out an album in a weekend. And I was like, ‘When I get back to Denver, I’m going to do it.”
You might expect a hip-hop project of that size and produced at that pace to contain a bunch of half-baked ideas — and it’s not consistently brilliant through its 100-plus tracks — but the depth and quality of the dozen is surprising. Produced with his musical partner, AwareNess (a.k.a. Chavo Trejo), in their Denver-based Dirty Laboratory, the tracks on each of the hydra’s 12 heads — all available as free downloads from — are packed with complicated lyrical content, ear-grabbing hooks and dirty, often ominous beats.
“I wasn’t even having to write it,” TIme explains. “It was coming out of me. It felt divinely guided.”
The first few installments of the project seem to focus almost exclusively on current events, the political landscape and social issues, with a healthy dose of psychedelia and conspiracy theories. As the series wore on, however, the content got more introspective and melancholy. They also got more musically complex, with acoustic and rock music taking the songs in different directions.
“I was getting more comfortable,” Time explains, “and I was meeting these other musicians, like and , and they started becoming part of the hydra.”
Though the record’s other guests — like Fort Collins’s and from Washington State — are less surprising, Time and AwareNess have distinguished themselves over the years for their musical adventurousness. In 2006, the pair — who record together under the name Calm. — released “Anti-Smiles,” a record that gained them recognition locally and nationally as one of the genre’s most intellectually ambitious acts. Though Time had released a solo EP when he was just 17, “Anti-Smiles” provided a clear indication of the experimental hip-hop that would come on later Time releases like “Fantastic Reality” and “Naked Dinner.”
As they’ve developed their craft, Time and AwareNess have focused on international exposure, while still maintaining their home base here in Denver, and it has paid off. On a 2009 tour through Europe, the pair found non-English speakers who knew all the words to “Get My Mind Right” from “Anti-Smiles.”
“We had some guys take a four-hour train ride from Germany to see us in the Netherlands,” Time marvels. “I can’t even get people to drive four minutes from Wheat Ridge sometimes!”
Throughout his releases, Time — who also writes about — explores both personal and public politics, government control and what he believes is the very real existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. He also isn’t afraid to get deeply personal and introspective. As the “12-Headed Hydra” project unfolded, the lyrics began to tip into intensely heartfelt territory.
“I was having a really hard time after June,” he confesses. “I lost a lot of family members and friends. My family’s going through financial troubles, and I was just letting it out. I guess it was therapy for me.”
But even as Time looked inward, he continued to reach outward. Each of the 12 releases contained a wide assortment of guest artists, many of whom the rapper had only heard of and never met prior to working on these tracks. As he reached out, Time began to build community in a music scene that is notoriously competitive and fractured.
“I talked to Kid Hum, Mane Rok, Whygee, and there was no ego involved,” he remembers. “It’s giving us all more liberty. And I’m putting out everyone’s links and giving credit.”
His community-minded spirit and the quality of the material garnered national attention for the project. MC Sole, a recent transplant to Denver, promoted the albums to his mailing list, and Connecticut-based label Fake Four threw its support behind the Hydra too. Not everyone has been supportive though.
“I had this guy come up to me at a show at the Marquis, and he said, ‘Fuck you! All your Hydras are commercial since April! You’re a fucking sell-out!’ And I was like, ‘I gave those records away. I sold out for free!'”
As part of Denver’s hip-hop scene for so many years, Time is used to this kind of criticism.
“We used to perform in Northglenn with the Flobots,” he recalls. “I’m so glad to see Jonny 5 — someone with a social perspective — and even 3OH!3 making living off music. People say they’re sellouts too. I say you’re sellout going to Red Lobster every day and bussing tables!”
In addition to completing 12 albums in 2010, Time also completed his first novel, and now the wordsmith is ready for an even more productive — and artistically diverse — 2011. He and AwareNess are helping produce a prostate cancer awareness video with Denver’s Lonnie Lynn, Sr., former Denver Rockets basketball player and father of rapper/actor , and also recording an outro for the rapper’s latest album at the Dirty Lab. Meanwhile, they’re also working on a new Calm. album, an album for rapper Extra Kool and a hip-hop album with a live funk band. Time is also working with avant rocker Jamie Stewart of on a new solo album. Having risen to his personal challenge of making 12 records in 12 months, the artist is filled with a feeling that anything is possible.
“I think it’s something anyone could do, if they put their mind to it,” he says. “Writing is a muscle, and I definitely worked that muscle out last year.”
Eryc Eyl is a veteran music journalist, critic and Colorado native who has been neck-deep in local music for many years. Check out every Monday for local music you can HEAR, and the every Friday. Against his mother’s advice, Eryc has also been known to . You can also follow Sorry, Mom.
