MPR’s Chris Roberts profiles Minneapolis rapper and emcee Carnage the Executioner, aka Terrell Woods. Roberts interviews Carnage the Executioner about his personal life and album “Worth the Wait." Roberts also talks with others in the music industry about Carnage the Executioner’s talents.
Segment also includes music clips.
Transcripts
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[CARNAGE THE EXECUTIONER, "BLACK STEAL"] (SINGING) [INAUDIBLE]
SPEAKER 1: On Worth the Wait, Carnage the executioner wastes no time warning about the verbal destruction he's about to unleash.
(SINGING) I'm not the King of Rock
But you argue higher
Prefer that you don't call me Sire
Refer to me as heir to the lake of fire
Destiny is hell
Say it might as well be tire
Hyper--
SPEAKER 1: The new CD is also Carnage's full-length solo debut. It's a chance to share a story of survival. And until now, the veteran rapper hasn't told his own.
Carnage, whose real name is Terrell Woods, is from Chicago. His single mom was an alcoholic and drug addict. One of his first memories is of a domestic skirmish.
SPEAKER 2: Two of my aunts got into a fight, and I was standing in the area, and I got knocked down a whole flight of stairs.
SPEAKER 1: His mom moved the family to Minneapolis, where she had an affair with a married man who beat her.
SPEAKER 2: You want to protect your mom, and you don't know what's going on. We're trying to get in and trying to stop it. And we get thrown like a wet rag across the room. And then my mom got into alcohol and started drinking really heavily, and we got evicted from a couple apartment buildings.
SPEAKER 1: When he was 12, Carnage and his sister were placed in foster care, but not before, he says, he was abused by a male relative. By then, Carnage was a street hustler, stealing food, clothes, and toys when he needed or wanted them. He deliberately stopped short of becoming a burglar or a car thief.
SPEAKER 2: But I'll go and steal a sandwich and some pop and some chips so that I can eat while I'm out today, while my mom's at home shooting up. That's what I did.
I knew what I needed to do to survive, and I learned it early on. But I also knew that there were consequences for my actions. So I would only take it so far.
[CARNAGE THE EXECUTIONER, "I WANT IT ALL"] I came from a broken home
I never really had much
I grew up poor
I wanted things to be different when the hope was gone
I used to ponder what Mama would drink and do drugs for
But I never asked questions
I held them in
Because I knew how we were living just wasn't right
She gave me food stamps, money I'd seldom spend
I was stacked, though my stash was nothing nice
Running away from home was the second choice
I wouldn't do--
SPEAKER 1: Despite all the negativity and abuse he witnessed as a kid, Carnage says he always knew he would escape it. And he promised himself he wouldn't get sucked back in.
SPEAKER 2: There was something that clicked at a very early age for me that said, you have to do better than what the environment you're in is. You have to do better.
There's something there. And I really can't explain it. I'm just glad I had it.
(RAPPING) --don't have nothing
I want it all
Out of control, greed
Life's hard
But it wasn't just a war for me
I traveled bad roads, no good path coming
That's how you think when you don't have nothing
I think my roots are--
SPEAKER 1: In local hip hop circles, Carnage is seen as an immense, yet overlooked talent who tends to steal shows when he takes the stage. He's best known for some rather astonishing skills as a vocal percussionist, a beatboxer. The Superhuman Multitrack on his new CD is made up exclusively of beats and sounds manufactured by Carnage's mouth.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Carnage performs as a human rhythm section with spoken word artist Desdemona in the group Ill Chemistry. To Desdemona, Carnage's made-up beats boggle the mind.
SPEAKER 3: Even though he's not saying words, he still exudes this presence about him. Sometimes I'm just like, what? Where does that come from?
SPEAKER 1: Carnage will tell you he wasn't just born with that talent. It took years of practice,
SPEAKER 2: The things that I can do with my mouth, like the [BEATBOXES] You don't just come out learning how to do that. You have to condition your face to be able to know how to move like that.
SPEAKER 1: Carnage applies his acute sense of rhythm as a beatboxer to his rhymes, his flow. He's been told that, as a rapper, he sounds more like a jazz saxophonist.
SPEAKER 2: When you listen to a saxophone player, they don't [CHANTS] They hit different points, and they come back on the one, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they'll keep going for 12, 15 measures before they come back on the one.
[CARNAGE THE EXECUTIONER, "DARKEN"] Preface
Audio Anarchy Cookbook
Turn the page
Note, a suddenly gradual sunset
An increase in those viewed as deserving hate
Murder rate
Herds to make career switches
Tragedy could occur today
Tomorrow might be too late to reverse your fate
Now let's get it on
The executioner comes back to thrust that rough rap
To undiscovered echelon
No longer flexing about impressing a crowd
If establishments knew my potential,
They would pull signs stating "No Weapons Allowed"
You know now you're near doom when you first meet me
I sweat, have bad breath, and appear human
On platforms with a mic on, quite exhilarating
But actually, disguised
A killer waiting for an appropriate strike time
I thought of clobbering--
SPEAKER 2: Some of the rhymes that I write-- like Darken, for example, when I was writing it, I was like, I want this to be more of a conversation. I want it to be all over the place. But I want it to come back at a point where people can follow it because people resonate with the downbeat.
SPEAKER 1: Given his mic skills, some wonder why the 36-year-old Carnage hasn't made more waves as a rapper.
SPEAKER 4: I think people think of him in relation with other people more than on his own, necessarily.
SPEAKER 1: City Pages's music critic Jeff Gage says after functioning for years as a sidekick or guest emcee for other artists, Carnage is coming into his own and becoming more of a storyteller in his rapping.
SPEAKER 4: And he's been delving a lot into his own personal narrative to do some of that. And I think that he's growing a lot in that sense. And considering his natural skills as a rapper, I think there's a lot of potential there for what he could do with it.
[CARNAGE THE EXECUTIONER, "HUNGER"] Epicenter, what a gift that attracts
Big sack, in fat
Get up in you, then I kick raps with knack
Dome wrecker, tomb hecker, representer, and the founder
I found the ominous hurl
Rip beat
Respond to your girl
Prick meat, sick speak to conquer the world
Man of the house plans
SPEAKER 2: You can listen to me and tell that I'm dope. When you listen to me, you can be like, yeah, Carnage is dope. Now I don't have to say it anymore. Now I've told people that I was dope. Now I want to be dope while I tell a story about where I came from.
SPEAKER 1: And after listening to Worth The Wait, if you're still undecided on Carnage's dopeness, you can see him live at his release party at the Cabooze on February 17, where he'll convince you in person. Chris Roberts, Minnesota Public Radio News, Minneapolis.
(RAPPING) I excelled academically, sending me away from peril to homework
Metatarsus of extended fam is bound to planet ground
Few high school graduates
Only three wore college campus crown
Desired knowledge
Conquered acceptance with whim effort
Had friends with mad ends from 'caine slanging gang banging, and grim records
Called sell-out square
Proper English talker,
But fire burning for higher learning made me a distinguished walker
I overcame dunce critique, and I'll prevail again
Because music won't be the one area that I see failure in
Hunger
The difference between me and you
One foot in the door, the other's peeking through
Hunger
Represents these leading views
I'm surely taking more than critique for me to lose
Hunger
Shouldn't with greed be confused
If I ever soar, you'll be seeing crew
Hunger
Characterized by or expressing the discomfort caused by lack of sustenance or craving, English
I almost found truth in the lame excuse
That the fame came from the spooks and the crackers
Give me one juice in the game
Until told by a wise man,
"If you fail, that's nobody's fault but yours"
Just forge and devise plans
Now I'm inside vans
Mini-tour therapies, 14-hour rides,
And sleeping on couches and floors
for hundred-dollar guarantees
Thinking soon thousands?
Nope!
It'll pay off
Until then, coon howling at moon loud, and gut continues growling
I do it for so little cash
I still go get the tracks, then approach with the task of
Composing raps that are all just as quotable as
My previous notable brass, making sure it'll last
No laziness thoughts like, yo, this will pass
Strive to provide stried to my all-encompassing drive to be greeted by type
"Carnage has arrived!"
Trumpeting with the force of a freight train the great came
Ate frames before eighth grade
That explains the excessive weight gain
Mostly water in Minnesota
Fat floats, already leading,
Leaving the field clear after each and every feeding
Show memory of elephant proof, never be suped
Zygote, musically, but cruising the constant development route
Share wealth with champions, no liquor
Suck seeds if attempting to impede
I will succeed, plus bleed
Nothing but raw essence from jaw section
Draw weapons if need be
See me touch not, but soar above y'all peasants
Hunger
The difference between me and you
One foot in the door, the other's peeking through
Hunger
Represents these leading views
I'm surely taking more than critique for me to lose
Hunger
Shouldn't with greed be confused
If I ever soar, you'll be seeing crew
Hunger
Characterized by or expressing discomfort caused by a lack of sustenance or craving, drive