Jaz caught up with New York-based rapper MaeBae for the fourth RepostExchange podcast. Having picked their track ‘Feast’, they chatted about East coast vs West coast, and lyrical inspirations.

I’m in the Bronx currently, I go back and forth between the Bronx and Manhatten, Harlem, so. This is like movies for people, this is what they see in movies. I’m not a native New Yorker, so when I came over here, it was still very much a shock and I still today find myself looking around and I’m like, “Oh my god, I live in New York!” So, it definitely does not fade for me.

Does being in New York influence the type of music you make?

Well, I fell in love with Nas initially, with 'One Mic' that set off my whole, I want to write and rap. So the East coast is very much a big influence for me, absolutely.

So what do you do for a day job?

I work in real estate, it’s a big real estate business here in New York, so it’s always busy. I work with people every single day. It’s hard because I work really long hours, I work about 11, 12 hours per day. But I come home and that’s where my heart is, that’s where my passion is. So I always try to find time to work on that because it’s such a release for me to work on music. So I always try to find the time, no matter how tired I am from my nine to five. It’s a must!

I’m initially from San Francisco, so I’m from the West Coast in California.

Do you find that it has an influence on your sound?

Absolutely, it was weird growing up over there because I was always fascinated by the East coast, so I listened to the music in the East coast. I always talked about coming to New York and West coast music is really, really dope, but it’s definitely not as lyrical as I found East coast rap to be and I’m more of a lyrical rapper, so I like bars and more of that sense of a rap style.

So if someone asks you if you’re East coast or West coast, what do you say?

I’m coast to coast!

How long have you been making music for?

I started really dabbling and recording myself when I was 11, around there. I was really young, just recording on a tape recorder, playing it back, getting found off of the internet when it first came out and just recording it, so really young.

What kind of music were you writing when you were 11?

It was kind of whatever influence I would get from listening to Nas, Tupac, Biggie. And also I do a lot of poetry. So a lot of that was incorporated into my music, so I would get in touch with my feminine side and talk about love and relationships and things like that. But definitely I’ve always talked about how I am a product of my environment. I think it roots back a little further than that, I was born in the Philippines. I lived in not a bad environment, but it wasn’t an easy life back home. I’ve seen my struggles and everything I talk about in my music either connects with that or my struggles on the West coast or my success on the West coast. But it’s also heavily influenced on things that I read about.

I’m an avid reader, so anything that inspires, any kind of wordplay, that’s what goes into my music for the most part. I actually just dropped a song last night called ‘Lucy’. It’s a concept on cigarette addiction, so I can go a lot of ways, and it’s something I feel a lot of people struggle with and it sounds like I’m talking about a woman, like I’m in love with someone called Lucy, which is slang term for a loose cigarette, like a single cigarette out here. So I called it Lucy and talking about a girl and how I’m addicted to her and being surrounded all day and can’t stop thinking about her. And that’s kind of what addiction is and I wanted to open up this bubble for people where they can feel like they can relate to somebody else going through that struggle and hopefully they pick up on that double entendre on the wordplay.

Like I said, I do a lot of poetry and I’m typically very lyrical, almost to the point that I’m too lyrical. I want to find a balance in my music right now to where it’s trendy, it’s still relatable, it’s true to myself so far as how I write. I always want to progress and change.

I just want to give the biggest shout out and the biggest love to my team, I wouldn’t be here without them, Novel Hooly The Goat, Hooly Savage, King Ky0te, HoolyIll, Last of the Emcees, Raztah Tree, Chem Hooly. It’s such a beautiful journey and music has saved my life. Music has given me a sense of purpose outside of the mundane nine-to-five and it’s definitely helped to shape me as a person and just shout out to my team and RepostExchange for showing love to the 'Feast' track, I hope you guys enjoy it and also to RepostExchange for doing such a great job at keeping everything organic. It’s really rare to find a platform where you can discover new artists and potentially create a network of dope talented individuals to work together. So it’s an awesome platform… I hope to put out more music.

Follow Maebae on Soundcloud, Instagram, and Tumblr.

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This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.