SPEAKER_02 1:45

Welcome to the Hilltop Glove Podcast. Today we're speaking with Patrick, Pat X Rutledge, a self-produced artist. Pat X fuses hip hop with alternative sounds, creating a unique sonic experience. Known for wearing tactical gear and masks, he symbolizes battles against internal struggles with over 4,743 monthly Spotify listeners and 1,000 point one. Oh, watch this. I'm gonna mess this up. You ready? 1.5,000 YouTube subscribers. His music tackles themes like mental illness and self-improvement. His upcoming album, Between Two Planes, releases on April 12th, 2025, featuring five original songs with alternate? This is crazy. I read that, I'm not gonna lie, my fault, y'all. This is a little break from the norm. I read that before when I was looking at your stuff, and I was like, it's gonna have alternate versions. It's gonna be interesting. And it's released um 11 days after my birthday, so I'm definitely gonna be checking that out. Um Pat X is a University of South Carolina graduate, founded Psyche, a company that values deep conversation and creativity. Besides music, he is also a visual artist. Today we'll learn about his artistic journey and vision. How are you doing today, my brother? How are you feeling?

SPEAKER_04 3:00

I'm great. I'm feeling good. That meant was a mistake because now I'm like salivating. Other than that, I feel great.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Well, we're gonna start with a um a disclaimer. Uh we do know Pat X. We've worked with him, seen him in the past. Um, he's really well known in our community. Awesome artists, and etc. Um, obviously, we aren't gonna sugarcoat too much. We're gonna be really mean to him today. We're gonna be really harsh in an interview. Uh, we are not gonna allow him to have any easy questions. I'm gonna ask him about his sex life and all that good stuff, all the baby mamas out here that we know about, and we're gonna keep it real grimy. Is that okay? All right, so let's roll. So, first things first, we just like to start each episode with a little bit of history. If you could just let our audience know what it was like growing up, who influenced you as a child?

SPEAKER_04 3:47

Yeah, for sure. Um, so uh my neighbors were cows. I'm from uh Lancaster, South Carolina. Grew up in Heath Springs, Cershaw, Camden. Like that's my neck of the woods, you feel me? Yeah. Um I was a kid that played in dirt and like played with bugs and my life. Oh, you for real? All right, no child exists anymore. You know what I mean? That was me. Um yeah, and so uh um a lot of my I guess creativity and explorative nature just came from the fact that there wasn't like much around me, you know what I mean? So you kind of have to depend on creativity and occupying yourself.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Literally getting it out of the dirt.

SPEAKER_04 4:25

Yeah, but there you go. Um, so yeah, that's kind of uh uh my upbringing geographically. Uh uh, I'm in the the Bible belt, so uh Southern uh black Baptist, you know what I mean, which uh kind of prematurely gave me an in with music, and so I'm always grateful to my background. Good point. I feel like I had a lot of like early training that I didn't realize was training, you know what I mean? Um, because music wasn't my my first goal or or aspiration. Um really? Yeah, it was visual art. Okay, yeah. Um you still do visual art? Yes, yes. Um and I'm I'm reintroducing myself to it. Uh of course I would do like the cover arts for like my music.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Yeah, that's what I was all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_04 5:10

But now I'm really I had a little bit of a crisis where I was like, man, everything I do is digital, and so like nothing, like 90% of what I make like doesn't actually exist.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

In the real world, yeah what I mean. So it's in electricity.

SPEAKER_04 5:25

And so um that's part of the reason why the the album release is also gonna be an art installation just to fully encompass all of those mediums. Um, but yeah, that's my that's my background. Do you have siblings? I have an older sister. Um, I thought she was like, if not the devil itself, uh a high-tier employee of it up until I was like You know they got those. Until I was maybe like 15 or 16. I love my sister now. We have a great relationship. Um, but I say that to say a lot of my childhood is comparable, comparable to like an only child because I would like actively avoid, we would actively avoid each other. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 6:06

You would say like the typical 1990s brother-sister relationship, like older sister, younger brother relationship where they're giving you nuggies and being mean and kicking you and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 6:14

Sure, but it was a little bit deep, you know. Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord. And I'm sure from her perspective, I was just like the annoying little brother. Yeah. From my perspective, I was like, you are evil.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

You are me, being mean to me. Shout out to my sister. Shout out, shout out. All that all that sibling love and so I mean, I have an older brother. I don't got older sisters by older brother. Sure. And so um, growing up, I used to always tease that my older brother is mean. He's so mean to me. He done let me do what I want to do. And he he he had to follow him around all the time, and I can't go where I want to go. Little did I know, he ain't had no choice. I had to go with I had to go with him wherever he went because my dad made sure that was the current. So I thought it was a um a force, a force action, but it wasn't.

SPEAKER_04 6:53

For sure. She got a little she dodged a little bit of a bullet because anytime I would go to a certain grade, she was just leaving, you know what I mean? Um so she graduated high school whenever I was a freshman in high school, so she kind of dodged that aspect of it. But um, and that probably kind of played a role into why our dynamic was a little bit different.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Obviously, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you wouldn't know. Yeah, that's my dog now.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

That's your dog, that's what we're talking about. So, how did you get into music?

SPEAKER_04 7:18

Um, funny enough, I uh I was forced to be on the choir as a kid, and I hated like leading songs, it would be like super embarrassing. And so I was like, what can I do to like not have to lead songs anymore on the children's choir? So I was like, I'm gonna join the band. Oh, little did you know. Little did you know. And so I started playing keyboard alongside uh Alan Vincent, my uh one of my early mentors, and so he taught me keys, and then he gave me this really old program back when you would like install stuff on CDs, um, called Acid Pro from Oh yeah, Lord, Acid. I love Acid. I think like four, so like two years before I was even born, this program was created. Um, then I started making beats, and then I started making beats for like local rappers in the Lancaster area, and then I was just kind of like BS and like freestyle with them and like goofy stuff. And somebody was like, You should try it like for real. Yeah. The rest is history.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

So it's a question when you're making beats originally when you first started, do you do you still first of all, do you still have some of that material?

SPEAKER_04 8:19

Yes. I have uh, well, with the exception of of the the sad story of losing my hard drive, uh recently everybody's got one of those stories. Uh he sent me his vocals through UVU because I didn't have a microphone. When I say like we're grassroots, like we was really out here, you know what I mean? But yeah, I have all of uh the earlier beats I made back when like you would just put stuff together and it would have sounded.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Did you use hi-hats and snares in all of your music? Mike knows why I'm asking this is this is tongue in cheek. You did? Okay, good, good start. We didn't start like that. We had no we had no snares. Imagine a beat running. With no snares. With no snares, hard is drums hitting. All kinds of sounds going on all over the place. No snares.

SPEAKER_04 9:09

Fortunately, the the program itself had like a lot of like built-in loops and stuff like that. So a lot of my earlier uh production was very like sample heavy. Gotcha before I started kind of like creating my own melodies and doing stuff from scratch. Yeah, obviously, I mean, since you're playing keys, were you learning how to read any music? No, that was uh a real kind of downside in hindsight because I knew how to read music whenever I was younger, but never anticipated picking up an instrument. Yeah. Um so yeah, I'm fairly uh illiterate when it comes to reading music. Um, I know like scales and and and I can use certain like uh verbiage if I need to talk to somebody that's classically trained, but nah. Everything by ear? For sure. Self-taught, self-trained? Self-taught, self-trained. Um, if you gave me some sheet music, I could get it back to you. It would take like a couple days. But I could process wrong. You know what I mean? Process. If I had to, I could maybe read it with a calculator.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

I I'll have to say this to you, man, too. And I know a lot of folks who are self-taught artists, they'll sometimes look down at themselves and like, well, I'm not as good as somebody who can read, but I'm gonna tell you what I heard directly from somebody classically trained Asian violinist who was my um music teacher in college. She was amazing. She said the most um impressive musicians to her are self-taught jazz musicians. She says, they can do what I can do, but I can't do what they can do. And she said, no matter how much training and et cetera I have, when Juilliard, all this stuff, it does not even matter. She said, if I could figure out what that guy down in Podunk, Louisiana, figured out how to do on that darn trumpet, and I could figure out how to just play out of my head. She said, I would trade that. This is this is like she trains, she making money. I would trade that for that ability.

SPEAKER_04 10:56

For sure. It's like it's apples to oranges, you know what I mean? In the same way, like there's different disciplines in like hip hop, you know what I mean? Like a battle rapper may not transition to recorded music. In the same way I probably wouldn't hold my own in in their medium. Um, so yeah, same thing with uh like classically trained people. They uh may have difficulty like at a jam session.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Oh, yeah, there's no jam going on.

SPEAKER_04 11:20

Whereas somebody that's you know can kill it in a jam session may not do well in uh uh uh something that's a little bit more polished, like a recital or something. Yeah, you know? Um, so you can't really judge a a bird by its ability to swim. Flags.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Hey man, so that was funny, man. Um go ahead, Mark that was funny. Um, do you do you have any other talents outside of doing visual arts and music that the that the audience is not aware of? Like, are you really good at balancing things on your nose? Do you know how to juggle?

SPEAKER_04 11:56

I can balance stuff on my fingers. I taught myself how to juggle at a tailgate once because the food was taking really long.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Real tall.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

But I don't know how to juggle anymore. Um, I was really good at like arm pit farts. Uh really pointing to the city.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

I remember that used to be a that was a currency.

SPEAKER_04 12:14

Um yeah, I don't I don't I don't know. I don't know what else I'm gonna I know what I can't do.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Uh what can you not do?

SPEAKER_04 12:20

I can't whistle.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

Me neither, man. That does suck. Yeah, man. I've been trying for years. Man, be quiet. Up here, showing off. See, that's what you get. Mike, out here showing off on camera, man. These whistling people, man. I always ask people, like, how do you do it? I like, do you have to lick your lips before you do it? Is there a certain kind of chapstick you have to use or the lips too dry? It's all in the tongue. It's all in the tongue. It's all in the tongue. See, this is from, you know, this is from somebody, you know, they know what they're doing out here, so the ladies out here you find a man that knows how to whistle now. You know, there's some things that come with it. But um, man, see, I always wanted to learn how to do that. And then there's all these other assumptions about I can't. See, there's all these other assumptions now. This is what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_04 13:02

Please, my woman.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Nah, man, because we ain't knowing how to whistle, man. I'm I'm practicing though. I practice, I practice three to four times a week.

SPEAKER_04 13:10

We still talking about whistling? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

All right, so just moving it off from that, talking about whistling and stuff. Um, I think this is really cool, man. Um, opening up for two of the biggest hip hop artists in your city. Um, it has to feel like an accomplishment. And I want you to explain to our audience about that experience and how that was like an artist that you opened up for. But um, could you tell us about some of the moments that led up to that and how did you get to that point?

SPEAKER_04 13:41

Yeah, for sure. Um, so first and foremost, um, shoutouts to Greg Sword. Yeah. Because a lot of how that came to be were things that I'm not responsible for. You know what I mean? Like granted, I've I've put in the work and this, that, and the third, but a lot of the doors that you get in aren't necessarily your foot that kept them open. You know what I mean? Um, so shoutouts to Greg Sword first and foremost. Um Yeah, I think um it was it just kind of in my head it made sense, but I I I think it's it's nice to know that uh it made sense to other people that made those decisions. Um and it's really reaffirming because I do blend alternative with hip hop and whatnot, so it'd have been uh I could understand how it may have been easy to kind of uh not consider me in this space, you know what I mean? Um but because I uh came up on lyricism and that's something that I I prioritize, uh it's nice to know that like people still view me as a respect. You know what I mean? Yeah, like I like I I am hip hop, you know what I mean? Even though there is fusion and whatnot at the core, it is that and so to share a stage with with legends, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Because you tell people who those legends were.

SPEAKER_04 14:52

Yeah, Method Man and Red Men. Yeah, man. I want people to hear that. I'm not trying to I was trying to blow the spot.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

I'm trying to name drop. I'm gonna let you do the name drop, I'm gonna let you do it. You was there, you know what I mean? And they had to reschedule it.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

Yeah, yeah, which was even cooler because that was around the time where I moved back to South Carolina, so it very much felt like a homecoming. Yeah, because you were out in Texas, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Way down in Mississippi, down south in Texas.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

And so yeah, that just felt like a homecoming, and it made everything there was just so much alignment in the miss you around here, man.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

I'm not gonna lie to you. It's one of those things like I'm um we ran into you at an event um that was being put on. Matter of fact, I got things I got his merch with me today, but I was being put on by um I'm gonna uh black nerd, yeah, quasi a black nerd mafia. And I was just like, Yeah, I haven't seen him in person in a long time. Where has he been at? And I had to be nosy because you do post on social daily, you're one of the people that actually follow, and I actually go look at your stuff because I like your content, right? And I was like, Yeah, he has been in Texas. I'm like, what's this man doing out of Texas? And you told us what was going on at that time. And I was just like, all right, he'll be back soon. He'll be back soon. We'll get him back, we'll get him back in town. So it is good to have you back, man. I'm not gonna lie to you, because there's certain energies and certain artists that you have in a community that add a lot to it. They give it good heft and positivity. And so it's good to have you here and being back home. But um, that moment, just being on stage and being able to open up for such legends, what was your what was the response from the community? In your opinion, like did you see a change from the response of community towards you and what were the the positive net impact of it to your career?

SPEAKER_04 16:39

Anything, like I said, I just keep coming back to the word of like reaffirming um and alignment, you know what I mean? The the people that were there, majority of the people that were there are the same people that would come to a hole in the wall. Show you know what I mean? And so it never felt uh disingenuous people that have been around. Now, granted, you know what I mean, and anytime I attached, you know, a method man's name to something, there were some people that came out of the woodworks, but at no point did it feel um like fake love. Fabricated, you know what I'm saying? Or like fabricated. Uh granted, once again, there were some family members that's like, can you give me anything? Blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? Just surface level stuff. Yeah, it's gonna happen. Yeah, it was just fun. I think the the funnest part was like roaming around the venue when I was. That's what I was about to ask you.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the funnest part. Like, can you tell us a little bit about that? About like being backstage. Like, were you s like and I have to ask this because you know, there's certain movies growing up that we got to see, and they always made fun of this stuff. Did they like have you like were you able to actually see and talk to them backstage? Are they like, no, no, no, no, stay away from here. They got the green MMs, they hit green MMs only for them. They got a poor chop with this special stuff, you you stay over there.

SPEAKER_04 17:49

Right. And so that's a that's a good question because it it kind of um gives ins it's an opportunity for me to give insight to people that may not know this. But a lot of times the higher profile that individual is, the uh smaller the chance you'll have to actually interact with them. That's what I was wanting to know. So uh they got off the plane like very shortly before their set. They did their set and then they got back on the plane. You know what I mean? So I don't even think they saw their uh room, like the green room and their rider and stuff like that. Wow. The only people that were there that I got to interact with were their um merch team and whatnot. Um now I had uh James Neely, shout outs to James Neely. He was running my merch table, and I felt kind of bad because he was out there for majority of the time. Yeah, yeah. Um so I gave him a backstage pass to at least check out the Method Man set. So he actually got to dap up Method Man uh. Oh, he got more content than you did.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

At first I was like, man.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

And I was like, you know what? Like uh if if I could have given that opportunity to anybody to him, yeah, you know what I mean? Um so I was happy to do that. But yeah, the response was great. Uh like I said, I was there really early that day. I would have been too. So I spent mad time in township just like checking doors, see what's going on. Yeah, we said let you in, do we? You know, interacting with people. Um, so yeah, it was really fun.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Awesome, man. Awesome, awesome. Um, I I know we're gonna get into this question, but I just want to ask you about this. Just like, does your and I know this is a question I just have because I watch your stuff all the time. Does your does spirituality and and or religion affect your art and music, and if so, how?

SPEAKER_04 19:30

Absolutely. Um so in the early stages, I would say that religion does because of how I was raised and how being on the choir directly impacted um me being trained, musically trained. Because you're singing certainly. I mean how to harmonize, no song structure, all of these.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah, and to put power into a song too, though. There's something different about that. For sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

Um, but I think now it's it's definitely more spirituality. Um, I wouldn't consider myself religious, but that might what's the difference in your mind? Um, I I think of religion as a a structural process or an an insight for developing a relationship with something spiritual. Um, and I don't think that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, and that's a a can of worms to open up elsewhere. No, it's a can of potato sticks. Uh but yeah, I think that uh um I have a strong relationship with God, with Allah, with the universe, whatever the heck you want to call it, and it and it continues to grow, and I think that it impacts greatly the music I make and some of the ritualistic things I do, like drinking tea is like it's jokey whenever I uh talk about it, you know what I mean? But it is like a big part of, you know what I mean? It's almost like a r ritualistic thing to me. Um meditating and all of that stuff. So I'm really having fun exploring uh various concepts and and you know uh doing things that aren't directly correlated or within the box of this is your religion, this is how this thing structures, how you should do this, that, and the third. Does it affect your morals? Um, I think a lot of my morals are rooted in the way that I was raised, which is Baptist, but a lot of those morals coincide with any, you know what I mean, religion or structure and stuff like that. I can't think of any any dogma that says you should be a bad person. Yeah. You know what I mean? Or you shouldn't treat people uh they're out there.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

Do it, do it. That's what I'm trying to throw you out of here. Do it, do it, Mike.

SPEAKER_04 21:30

I know those things are out there, but the fact that I don't know they exist just goes to show how few and far in between um right. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

And I we just gird it over and say it's business now. Business. Business, yeah. It's just business, it's not personal. There's the morals behind it, it's just business.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

And that's a setup for this question. Okay. The reason why I wanted to ask you that is do you believe in the idea of bad music? Ooh. Um, you're the type of person I would get to ask this question. So it's it's something I would I would wonder what you think about it.

SPEAKER_04 22:01

I feel like I've always had like the the uh open-minded brain and then the old head brain. Like whenever I started, like I used to be the um, if it's not lyrical, it's because you can't be lyrical and you can't rap and yada yada yada, you know what I mean? Um and I was uh actively contributing to hip hop music when like Young Thug and Future, yeah, like even before that, Wayne was kind of interesting. Wayne, like the mumble rap, and you know what I mean, where things kind of transfer. Codeine, promethazine, diluted, yeah, yeah. Drug influence, whatever you want to call it. Um and I think now, I do think in order to be a rapper you need to be able to rap, right? Thanks for having me. But I do think that that it's uh a different dialect, and and at the end of the day, the um medium is just as important as the message, you know what I mean? So just because it doesn't resonate with me, or because I don't like necessarily like it personally, I'm to a point now where I can take that hat off and still acknowledge something as good. So I think that there is uh um I think there's bad execution or poor execution things sometimes because you're just not at that skill set or whatever the case may be. Um, but in terms of like this music is bad, no, I think I just don't like it, or it was executed poorly.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

Because here's my thing, and and and and I'll push on this before we get to the next question is I always I always like to speak to people that are that are lyrical in what they do musically, because there's a certain amount of effort that you have to give. Yeah, you aren't allowed to be lazy, and by doing that, that that effort comes with introspection.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

It kind of goes for all art too. All art, yeah, all art. if it's something that's not uh you know something like poor art where you're not you're not uh it doesn't take like a a skill that you've mastered for a long time but you're still putting a whole lot of effort and energy into uh interpretation. Yes, because that matters.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

It does. It does matter. Yeah. And I guess just to kind of push more on this question is and and I believe this I believe that you can have poorly executed great music. Meaning the vibe behind the music, the message behind the music's amazing. You just aren't that good at the skill and I'm still gonna jam to I'm still gonna listen to it. But I believe you can have excellently executed trash.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Oh I'm I'm on this I'm really on this meaning because there's somebody I like growing I know I listen to music hard grown up and I know I ain't supposed to been listening to this music but um specific rappers out of Memphis that enjoyed listening to that love that love the color white like white on all their clothes like to sell the white like the white wherever the white may be I should have been listening to that because he was executing but it was very bad content. Like the ideas and the behaviors that it was supporting and pushing I think was very negative and detrimental to our community. And so in that case I would have to say that that's bad music. He executed that to perfectly that beats is dropping and everything I ain't gonna say the name because everybody knows who I'm talking about. All I had to do was say white on white on white that's all I had to say. But it was one of my favorite people growing up and listening to during that era you were talking about with Young Thug and stuff like that. And coming out of Wayne era this was one of my favorite rappers to listen to and like going back and listening I'm like that's probably some bad influences old though because I I remember now he our age he our he our age he he our he my age that's why I know back in the day or something like say Pac, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yeah might be talking about violence or something and then our argument my argument would be but he's just talking about what he's experienced.

SPEAKER_04 25:46

I think it's intention too in the music that you're pairing with it you know so now it's kind of that's a breakthrough. It's this uh confluence right and so uh um now we have something that sounds like it gives off a certain energy musically and so that negates sometimes the content psychologically you know it's like this sounds like a bop and so I'm a little bit more forgiving to the fact that it's talking about crime or drugs or whatever the case may be whereas pimps earlier there might have been a little bit more intention with the music matching the content.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

I got you I got you I'm agree with you on that one because even like with Pock Pocket is again he is a very interesting case study because part of it is the management he was under at one part at one point then you go in jail and you come back out and you're with this other management that kind of pushes thuggery. Oh yeah you know and so like in order to fit in and be around those people this is what the request for you to make and I and I understand this from being a DJ I'll put it like this I used to when I first started DJing in Charleston and Mike I remember okay now you got to see this stuff and experience this when I first started DJing in Charleston there's a place that I worked at and in that place I worked for a gentleman. Again I ain't saying no names you'll see why I ain't saying no names but I used to work for this guy he's an Italian fella and he used to actually have a he used to run the business as a front mind you I figured this out and he used to want certain type of music played in his establishment in order to facilitate certain behaviors. Yeah you ready? Watch this no not even that watch this mic so mess you with because Skip knows what I'm about to talk about. But he used to like again I already told you one of my favorite artists white on white on white well this guy he liked that white on white on white to be pushed out of his establishment and so he wanted certain music to be played to allow for frequencing to the bathroom and then also he was a really big fan of early 1990s gangster music and he wanted to hear it when he was in the establishment. And so obviously I'm being paid I'm doing the job I got you I got you I'll go ahead and make sure the playlist is looking like that and what I noticed is as I followed his playlist as opposed to what I would normally play for a group violence upticked at the spot at the club one of my first fights I ever had as a DJ at a club I literally just playing I just finished I was playing um Bone Thugs and Harmony and um I was following it up with with some Tupac and um my n-words and as the music was crescendoing and stuff like that doing its thing literally these people just started fighting and they rolled on downstairs broke windows etc one guy pulled a knife the other guy went to go get a gun and I was like at that point in my mind this is when that Top's fault this is when I started thinking about the whole idea of is music bad or good? Because there I know there's a certain format that you can play that doesn't elicit that type of response out of people. And so I started at that point and I was only 18 19 years old I'm like okay there is power in this stuff that I thought was just innocuous. Like I would just listen to a song it's just a song it's not gonna hurt anybody it can really cause problems. And so the reason why I say especially with you and I always like to talk to my brothers that I feel make good music. I think we have a responsibility too as folks who are purveyors of good culture and moral culture or culture that present that pro um promotes balanced fruitful growth to be defenders of it.

SPEAKER_04 29:32

For sure it's there's so much to we can't be weak. There's so much to be weak sauce. There's so much to unpack there and and I think it's the our genre in particular is super interesting because one it's ubiquitous right two is it transcends music it's culture now all of these things and so because it's culture that brings all these other uh um contributing factors to it to where we can't just say oh that's the issue or this is the issue this that and the third um but I think a lot of it comes down to like self-awareness too right um the more conscious you are of self and understanding yourself the less you uh are susceptible to certain energies and and whatnot right and so I have my guilty pleasures that I hey let me like stop listening to this because then I'm gonna chant it. Yep and and now that's my mantra for the day and no wonder I'm pissed off right and so somebody else might not know that they may not know it yeah someone might not have enough self-awareness to know like hey we're in a room with like 200 strangers dancing around drinking smoking talking about killing each other you know yeah white all white all white I dissociate and realize how weird that is somebody else might be turning up you know what I mean um and so I do think that there is a a responsibility but not in a way um where I feel like uh for lack of better example uh like a five percent or to where it's like a moral whatever to stop you from doing this that and the third because at the end of the day it's expression yeah for one and and at the on a fundamental level it's I think of it as something that's just kind of like in the air. It's not you creating this it's not whatever creativity and inspiration is in the air like an elephant and channel that you alchemize that has everything to do with your experiences and this that and the third and so who am I to be a a gatekeeper of art and expression you know what I mean that's beyond my pay grade. But like you said if I see somebody else that looks like me and I I know that you're a little bit more conscious than someone else you know what I mean especially because we're so susceptible to kind of like following what's considered black culture and blah blah blah blah I think I do have a responsibility in being in some of the rooms that I don't belong in. You know what I mean? Thanks let me be that lyrical guy that out of the 20 that are trap artists, you know not to knock them, but there's a kid that's just like me that wanted examples like my music and exactly that's my responsibility I feel.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

And I'm happy that you said that because I I know with our show specifically being focused on a millennial audience we're gonna eventually have to become the leaders of the future in the sense of like we're gonna have to be the people to tell the children that this is okay or this is not okay. We're gonna be um pressing forward what we think our culture is. It's no longer gonna be our elders I mean you got to look in it and I know this is weird I'd say it's like it's weird seeing this from year to year, but like the stalwarts the foundational leaders that we had in the past like we're watching these people pass away and we're watching that old guard of culture also pass away. And so like in fifteen twenty fifteen to twenty years on the oldie station they may be playing some um some juvenile some back that behind up and when we're 60 years old you're gonna see a grandmama out here Cardi ready no I'm talking about she got to be out here whopping with the Cardi B and the mega and she's not like back in my day when I used to break it down and it's gonna be yeah and I'm gonna be looking at it and I'm gonna go that was our that was our contribution as a culture.

SPEAKER_04 33:13

We don't get um we aren't getting Deion Warwick's gonna be so many pockets you know what I mean it's like when we think about uh because at one point I was looking at what are like the top 100 songs for like each era or whatever the case may be and the same things we complain about now it's no different you know what I mean but there are these kind of small examples you know what I mean um like uh Vin Staples Sparks will fly was like a top 10 yeah at one point in time it's like for that song to be that's dope that was dope that's huge you know what I mean King Kunta for example yeah it's dope stuff there's just so many uh uh instances where it's like there's never gonna be a 50-50 balance but both things are gonna be present in the same way if everything was super woke and conscious we might say hey we need a little bit of smoke no we need no we need a little bit so of course it will not fight for smoke I'm not condoning violence or anything but sometimes like it's just necessary to have a little bit of grit you know whenever we're taking like political approaches you know you need the Malcolm X's to Martin Luther Kings and this that and the third so I think um it's just nice to have examples of all of those things and whatever and that's what the golden age of hip hop was it was all it was what it was exactly what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

It was all of that together.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah it was so much spilling out into everything so you had country artists coming out writing and stuff like that is yeah and I think that's dope a little bit more I think and I guess this leads right into um the question about psyche and if you could just tell us what your definition of the term psyche is and how has your psyche changed over the years?

SPEAKER_04 34:51

Yeah so uh uh psyche was a opportunity for me to kind of branch out of things Pat X. I felt like once things took off then I'm gonna dabble in more in the film and collaborate with people that it might not necessarily make sense to with the Pat X brand and blah blah blah blah. But just like anything else I was like music is taking too long. You know what I mean? And I don't want to uh put these things on the back burner and be six years old you know and talking about what I coulda shoulda woulda done. Yeah and so I just kind of started doing that. I think everything kind of starts from from the brain right and and we're we're one of the rare creatures that are aware of their own mortality and have rationale and this that and the third and so kind of using the brain conceptually as like a playground for all of that stuff um is is the kind of genesis of it. And uh yeah just kind of using it once again as an opportunity to have spaces like that for where the dreamer and the rebel can be in the same room. Yeah. You know and the business savvy person can be with the creative because that's when dangerous stuff happens. That is yeah that is when it's yeah and so um just kind of uh branding that and and facilitating that space. So how's that changed for you over the years? Yeah. A lot. Um uh uh and and it's kind of going through a uh not a rebrand but a rethinking now in terms of like what psyche is and then how I can kind of contribute to my creative community in the best way. Um so that's why you probably haven't seen a whole lot of activity from it. Um there's things that I want to continue to do there's things I want to do at scale there's things that still require um some more thought in terms of like sustainability and viability you know do it again vibe via viabil Hey the ideas are the easy part yeah because obviously we love it you know and obviously it's not about the money the the worst thing you can do if it's about the money is start your own business we love it. But if we want it to be a business and want it to to fulfill us uh financially as well those are things the those are the not fun things to think about and so that's kind of where I am now um in terms of how it's affected my psyche or just in general I'm just continuing to grow. Um I went through a a very difficult time while in Dallas and then kind of hit a a rock bottom in a lot of ways and I think it was necessary for me to have the amount of clarity that I do now. Um and and and it had to come in that way because if it's something I could have volunteered for I definitely wouldn't have um so yeah it came in the form of what I thought was an opportunity and then it was just a hard reset a hard reset um and now we're we're here.

SPEAKER_02 37:35

Yeah and I I like how you you explained it to us um at the event but yeah I and I and I was reading something about the n need for creatives to and I say like suffer but to run into hardships uh to actually see if this is something you want to do but to give yourself to do a hard reset and I'm happy you said reset because when people hear that word and they hear reset or hard reset they think that it's something that is an extreme negative and it's not it's actually not it's a great opportunity um if you look at it with that perspective. And I've seen many people take those chances and turn them into gold mines. So for our audience to hear from somebody specifically that has had some modicum of success or the ability to do their art in a way that I mean I hate to say I have never seen you on the side of the street homeless. So for that to occur it's good for people to see they're not knock on that wood. Yeah knock on that wood but it's good economy is not doing the best where we in right now that's right around the corner at all times. But it's it's good for them to know that so that they can feel like they can take positive risks. Because not all risks are good risks but there are some that you have to do you need to put yourself out there and for some people they won't. They'll be so conservative that like you said they're gonna wait and when they're gonna wake up they're gonna be 65.

SPEAKER_04 39:01

Right and that's and I and I just want to uh take the opportunity to add to that and say that a lot of times we like romanticize those things happening. This is coming from somebody that would would look at like Steve Harvey stories and all these great success stories where it's like they had to sleep out of their car and I would always say like I don't want to have to hit rock no to learn. I would like verbally say it you know what I mean and you know I would hear Mike Tyson talk about man rock bottom is beautiful. I'm like get out of here like no it's not you know what I mean so I I don't want to to portray this ultimate poise now that I'm out of it's like this was rough I was I was in the fetal position I folded like a chair I cried like a baby you know what I mean but at some point you have to ask yourself are you really who you say or think you are and this is going to determine whether you really like that or not you know what I mean you got two options you stay there or you keep moving you know what I mean and it's really difficult to keep moving forward when you don't see any light or direction you know yeah um and so I just want to say that I'm not talking as if you know what I mean I took it on the chin and look at me well you know hit rock bottom and now I'm dropping this album and everything's up. It's like nah this is difficult. This was difficult and it and it didn't feel like there was an out you know what I mean? Um and so I just want to clarify that and not make it seem like a narrative.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

Yeah right I mean you could look in that camera made sure that they went yeah sucked.

SPEAKER_04 40:39

It sucks dealer sucks and the fact I can even smile about it is mental it's mental.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

Yeah yeah no but it's it's necessary for people to hear this stuff hey it's necessary and um I'm I'm happy with your your honesty and your ability to to be uh what's the word that I want to use right now um vulnerable to say that because a lot of folks ain't and they aren't gonna tell you how tell you how it really is and until you actually ended up into in it yourself and they're like yeah that's how it was the entire time I'm trying to tell you it wasn't funny part of the growth man yeah ask one like I said I was in solitary confinement it felt like for like because I don't know nobody in Dallas you know I was about to ask you that bro I was just there you feel me yeah were you there with anybody but yourself no like my aunt lives there and so we kind of reconnected which was cool but I could count on my fingers one hand.

SPEAKER_04 41:31

Wow less than one hand how many people I knew in Dallas and so that that kind of comes down to how it's impacted my psyche and my growth and whatnot because I'm not the person that would like reach out for anything or be as uh open about this. But like you said it's important to be vulnerable and I'll always make a point to be vulnerable because I'm not the only person in the world that's ever experienced something. Exactly. You know what I mean? And so there is probably somebody that's at their rock bottom right now. So if I can vocalize or me saying that one thing the certain way that I said it can prevent you from kind of taking a step back from that ledge. You know what I mean? I didn't necessarily have that or maybe somebody did that for me I'm just paying that forward. So it's much less about me and more so about whoever else is listening to this and is currently going through it. It's like I empathize with that I've been there and more people have been there than you think I mean deep that's what I wanted to hear man. How do you stay motivated? Yeah um I don't see it as a what's the alternative move or die. Yeah it's the impending doom none of this works what the heck else would I be doing yeah facts.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

Yeah you know what I mean it's like Did you have do you have any like would you have had like growing up and this is a side question and we'll we're gonna let you do your your wrap up but yeah you have to almost leave this out but obviously we're gonna get to this part but like if you could have been anything that was a quote unquote normal job growing up what would you have been uh my dad was in the Marine Corps so that was almost what I was going to do out of high school yeah infantry like kind of vibe.

SPEAKER_04 43:10

Is that normal though? Uh uh if you remember pretty common I guess it's pretty common okay yeah but I was like man I don't want to wear those huge goggles because I can't see and I'm not about to take cold showers.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Yo those were literally like the determinant factor.

SPEAKER_04 43:23

Did he tell you about um his basic and his special trainings and how they try to kill him sleeping in a ditch cool firing at other brown people at the time cool yeah but like cold showers deal breakers and cold showers no but no that was around the time I started getting introduced to music and so yeah but I don't know what I would be doing if not this I like science but I like science as long as it makes sense and then when you get a little deeper into it it's like then you gotta look at other things.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Yeah but that's good. I just I like to get that full picture so people understand you're human man you're human. One of the things I do want to discuss um on our way out of this interview is your upcoming album if you can explain to people what kind of content they're probably gonna hear from it and then just your process for making it and then I want to make sure that you get your shameless plugs.

SPEAKER_04 44:13

For sure I'm I've been trying to figure out a way to like cohesively say what the album is or explaining it. But essentially it's between two planes uh red representing the higher self the unapologetic full expression and then the blue representing um the less of that and then I'm somewhere in between it also gives an opportunity to kind of fuse all the different genres together um between the more alternative and the hip hop and then the singer songwriter um melancholic is that a word melancholy yeah sure um but in terms of what you'll hear it's it's it's a real nice fusion in a way that I personally haven't heard before and it's also it just feels authentically me. Yeah and I think the the proudest thing is well for me is that I was in that that pit in despair like while creating it so it's not like uh I I ascended and then I made a project about it. It's something I was creating actively. And so even when listening listening to it the conclusion of it is how I feel now. And so I was talking to somebody about how artists like sometimes tend to do that and maybe that's something that's coming from source. But a lot of times we we end up feeling how we should feel prematurely if that makes sense. So like the outro to the album very much feels how I feel now being on the other end of that despair which is so nice because I would have hated To put out a project and I feel totally different. Um, so it's honest, you know what I mean, and it it's just a reflection of what happened and where we are.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

Do you still are you when you listen to the music, does it put you through that journey?

SPEAKER_04 45:58

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I remember like some of the songs that are my favorite songs were difficult to record. And it still kind of puts me in that space. And so, yeah, I'm just kind of I'm just proud of myself for where I am now. Even the beginning of that despair was enough to because like I said, I lost my work in June. You know what I mean? That's 90% of anything I've made for the last 10 years. Shh. Um, so that and that was just the catalyst that kind of started everything.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Lord, you about to hurt my feelings, man. He said 90%.

SPEAKER_04 46:25

Um and so yeah, it's just uh it's a big moment for me. It's a real special project, and I feel um uh uh people are are catching on to that based on how I'm presenting it. Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

Of course, we'll support. Um, make sure that uh you let us know. Um you said there's an art exhibit around right there, too. Yeah, that's what I wanted.

SPEAKER_04 46:43

That's the part that we want to get for the for the release. Instead of just a release party, um, I'm gonna be having uh an installation at Soul House. Shout out to Preach Jacob. Nice for the show.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:53

The gallery will be open for a week from the 12th to the 19th. But opening night is the same night that the album's dropping. So we'll do a awesome release party there. Awesome. Make sure we get invited.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

Yeah, absolutely. Come look at that out. Check that out. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

I know, I know, but we gotta make sure we ask, yeah. And um, if you could just for um our audience, let them know about anything outside of, of course, the album drop that you got coming out, anything else that they might want to pay attention to, how they could follow you on your social medias, how they can get to your music and or your art, and make sure that they are participating in the movement.

SPEAKER_04 47:26

A lot is in the works. Um, yeah, yeah. We're about to be out here in 2025. I'm not gonna speak too early, but we really we really out here. Um, I was finishing a feature-length script in the parking lot. Uh just as one of the the many things. Um, yeah, you can Google me. It's capital P A T lowercase X. It's one word that lowercase X is so important. Yes, it's so important. It is. Yeah, and just stay tuned in, man. I'm I'm I'm in my value era where I'm just trying to give as much value where I can and and and live in my purpose and whatnot. And so a lot of what you'll pay attention to in regards to me is is beyond me and higher than me, um, and and adjacent to me and and all that good stuff. So, yeah, there's the album, but then there's other things that are gonna impact my creative community and the people that have rocked with me. So show love, get love, and that's where we're at. Excellent, excellent.

SPEAKER_02 48:19

Well, yeah, yeah, you ready? I know he said this, but tell them just to make sure they can follow you on Instagram and Facebook.

SPEAKER_04 48:27

The gram is I am padx because I am padx. I chose the handle I am padx. On TikTok, it's padx got it paddedx got a TikTok because I am padx is taken, but I think that's just mine because I You can't get back into it. Yeah, I messed up the sign in with Google. Yeah. So security? TikTok, like give me give me that handle so it'll be consistent across the board. But yeah, it's I am padx.

SPEAKER_02 48:51

Excellent, excellent. Because I mean I follow your stuff all the time, but yeah, really good stuff to listen to. If you want to hear something, if you want some inspiration or something to listen to that's positive, that's on social media in my mind, um, and you are of age, yo, make sure you check out. I get in my bag a little bit. Yeah, make our of age. Make sure you check them out because I always look at this stuff. I don't listen to many people, I don't follow many when it comes to that stuff, so that that's a good cosign for you on that. But for the Hilltop Glove Podcast, this is DJ and what? Um Mike.

unknown 49:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 49:24

And our esteemed guest, Bad X. And we wanna we wanna tell you, man, we appreciate you joining us today. Y'all go and like and subscribe us. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

We're on YouTube also if you if you only tune into the podcast. And if you only tune in on YouTube, check us out on the pods. We're on all the all the platforms. Yeah, your Spotify's, your iTunes. Thanks to this wonderful space, Celeb Studio. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 49:46

If you're interested in using it for your events or for recording podcasts here, you can call Chef J at 803-667-9058. Her and her husband, Nate, do an excellent job with this space. They're some of our best. Um, I guess we would consider them um patrons. Um, they really do make sure, and ever since we met them, they make sure they do a really good job of assisting us in our vision, and they're really about helping um the community and the youth community, and making sure that we are able to um do what we need to do in a professional manner. So as long as you step correct, you do not have to worry about anything. But um, this is the Hilltop Glove Podcast. Until the next time we see you, make sure you tell somebody next to you that you love them and that you appreciate them. Um, and we'll be signing off. Peace. Peace.