BETWEEN WISDOM & BARS: cisco moon

Words by Matthew Spence:

Bag of clothes. Check 1. Headphones ready for a scattered brain playlist. Check 2. Working thumbs for hitching because I don’t wanna pay for Lyft and train rides. Check 3. Almost ready; now all I need is a list of fake names to use after I blow and Act Like I Ain’t Know Nobody. Eh, 3/4 ain’t bad. NOW, it’s time to add more dirt to my chucks and go state-to-state and pitch the mini-series idea: There’s Something About Mary’s Music. Interviewing artists, fans, and everyday people surrounded by dope beats and riffs, all documentary style.

 

Examining the similarities of how our bond with music and how everyone’s attachment to art isn’t much different from developing a bond between you and a loved one. (Don’t worry, it wouldn’t be a psychology bore-a-thon.)

 

Going through all the circuits and ins and outs of everyone’s love stories with their favorite songs. With each episode, having the interviewees answer the pivotal questions: “What was the moment you knew you’d keep listening?” “What kept you listening?” “How many times did your homies tell you to turn that shit off?” We all get sold on our fave music for different reasons stemming from different experiences. For some, our ears drool over the beats, melody, and production. For others, our mind avatar focuses on the lyrics. A few 10% of their musical heart to enjoy the feel of the music. Last but not least, there’s a rare breed who focuses on all in one, in one listen. I call those types “Anthony Fantanos.” Plenty of artists give you music that works your music muscles to focus on one, two, three, or all. One exhibitor of that is on the rise, artist Cisco Moon. Also known as cisco moon.

 

Hailing from the East Coast: not Boston, not NYC, not the Rhode of Island, but CT. The underdog in the underdog state, cisco is an up-and-coming Hip-Hop artist gaining fans, traction, and respect from peers and listeners state to state while displaying values in his music: honesty, vulnerability, genuineness, and dopeness. Laced over the production curiosity of his close homie and artist himself, stevie!, cisco takes his time to let out all that weighs on him in 3 minutes or less. He lets his soul out through the soul of the sample. Letting listeners in his world he’s trying to piece back together with his art. Touching on grief, trauma, vices, and loss, his debut album 2023s’ Tears of Sweat, alone feels like eavesdropping on a convo you shouldn’t be hearing.

 

 

However, he’s swimming through the sorrow and struggle with caution. Trying to get to the other side and dry off. To understand his reality. Take tracks like “Mykonos” and Fidning You, where he offers lyrics like “Mistakes are followed by Wisdom.” Another figure in his rhymes: Wisdom. Whether you pick his most streamed song, L.A. NOIRE, with production and verses that make you wanna reflect on everything on church steps or like Shapiro on a Rooftop understanding the Wackness, you can’t help but feel you’re in a comfortable conversation with a friend who confides in you as he feels the same towards you.

By the time you go through his entire catalog, it’s like Before Sunrise, feels like you’ve just spent the whole day together: just chilling and reflecting on our ups and downs and enjoying growth in life (of course, platonically, as Before Sunrise is a romance movie, but I’m trying to make a point). However, let’s not get things twisted, as he does have bars to give a stink face meaner than when you block someone’s shot in 2K.

Now, it’s 2024, he has 3 albums under his belt (all coming out in the same year Saturation style, in essence): Tears Of Swet, BETWEEN WISDOM & IGNORANCE, Hands on the Cement. As well 2 EPs: 2023s, OUROBOROSS & 2024s JETSET!. Plus with singles spanning from 2022 to his most recent release 4TheSeason. It’s safe to say: cisco has transformed from producer to rapper mighty well, if you ask me. Oh yeah, I might’ve not mentioned that, that’s ok cause you’ll get to learn more about him soon. Cause on a random day in August of 2024, I got to speak to the talented lad for a good ole Q&A about stuff. You’ll read it in a few……Right now, I think.

What inspired you to rap?

Just life situations and stuff. I’ve always been making beats; that’s how I started with music, but after a while of making beats, I figured I could just rap on them cause you know, there were certain truths I had to get out. So I would just write out my little poems to the beat and record it and have it on my Google Drive for awhile. Then my homie Steven really pushed me to start dropping cause he started making music around the same time too, and we just started dropping stuff.

When did you get into writing poetry?

Probably 2019 to 2020

[Writers note: I swear, 2020 was the year EVERYONE learned a new hobby and passion, at least 3].

When did you start producing?

I’ve been producing since 8th grade, like 2014 and 2015; that’s when I really started producing.

Do you still have any of your early beats?

That’s a good question <chuckles> Probably somewhere deep, like DEEP in my Google Drive. I have my old computer hard drive, so, eventually, one day I’ll get them.

Influences as a kid?

A lot of Kanye West, a lot of the Killers, the band Cake. The Beatles, a lot. Chicago too, one of my favorite bands. It’s more rock than rap, honestly. But around middle school, I started listening to Chief Keef, Young Thug, and Chance the Rapper, and a lot of that really influenced a lot of what I’m doing now. And MF DOOM, but that was high school.

[Interrupting again: It’s cool to see him be a great example of transforming influences, because listening to his music, I wouldn’t even think of Chief Keef and Young Thug being influences. Tight!]

How did you get your rap name?

It really came to like freshman year in college when I moved into my dorm hall. I had long hair and my face was kinda chubbier, so a lot of people, and when I was meeting people one day, my boy Tre was like “Doesn’t he look like Cisco Roman from The Flash”  and I had never watched The Flash, so I was like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and he showed me a pic and I was like “HOLY SHIT.”  I looked just like Cisco, so they’d call me Cisco, and Moon, because of my last name.

[Hair change, but the name remains.] However, if you want, do a side-by-side to see the comparisons]

 

Songwriting Process?

It’s kinda like, “It is what it is.” I’ll hear a beat, and the beat will tell me what to write to. Depending on what I feel from the beat, whatever I’m feeling, or whatever rhyme scheme to fit that beat. It definitely varies; sometimes there’ll be a beat and I’ll already have an intention for it before I hear it, but most of the time the beat gives me the intention.

When did you decide to choose emotions over bars?

I don’t know; that’s kinda been like the beginning. Just because it’s a form of therapy for me doing this. I do admire people who got bars like my boy Milford Lane and shout-out my boy “money for water” as well; they’re two artists I admire as well.—

—-he takes this moment to give props to his peers and praise their lyrical skills: “Their wordplay makes me go like ‘OH SHIT'”—-

Most of the time when I’m writing, I’m trying to release something. Often times when I’m writing and recording to a song, there’ll be points where I’ll cry on record and flush it out of my system. Like the movie Inside Out: “These orbs of memories fill them with emotions; I can look back on it, whether good or bad; it’s out of my system, and it’s in this form.

Outlet before rapping?

I didn’t have one; I’m gonna be real. I guess making beats.

Navigating Subject Matter and Trauma: How do you figure out what you’re ready to speak on in your personal life in your music?

I just lay it all out; sometimes I try to do it in metaphors that make sense to me, like “if you know, you know” type of thing. Those who are involved in those situations, like if you hear it and if the shoe fits, then it fits, but I just don’t be putting anybody else’s business out on a song. If there was a boundary, that would be it. But my own shit, I put it all out there. It’ll all be there; just some are more blunt. —–

—–I couldn’t help but point out how it is impressive on his part, cause you gotta remember, especially hip-hop, it takes a while for artists to really open up and give more emotional depth outside of surface-level; it took Jay-Z over 10 albums to give a full vulnerable break with 4:44 (no shade to tracks like “This Can’t Be Life”). cisco bounces back on my statement by saying—

Many artists take awhile to break the shell and be vulnerable. I never picked up on that, how long it takes for artists to break that shell a little bit or show behind the curtain.

 

Any names for you and Stevie! as a duo?

Not really, but I should ask him about that. That’s my dawg dude.

 

3 albums in one year. Any reason for the amount of releases?

I see where I wanna be, and I know that you gotta get the reps in order to be where you wanna be. Even where you wanna be, when you get there, there’s gonna be another spot higher that you wanna achieve, you know what I mean? So it’s like a never-ending grind, so I figured (and Stevie! too) to just drop as much. Steve was the main one pushing. 2023, he’d send me 3 beats a day; I’d pick one beat, I’d rap to it, and send it back to him, and we’d just amass so much music in the Google Drive. —–

—-He’d emphasize his point with the poignant: “Any moment you’re not spending making music, you’re losing time”—–

Regarding those times, do you feel there are forced moments vs. natural drive?

Yeah, there are sometimes I’ll record something and send it out to Stevie, and I’ll be like, “Hey, I recorded this, but I’m not really feeling it,” but in the moment like that where I’m tapped out dry for the moment, I take moments like that to mix the song or try my hand at Stevie’s stuff.

[The Method of MF DOOM: If you’re stuck, just move on and come back to it later]

 

Creative Burnout vs. Imposter Syndrome: What affects you more?

I don’t even know; I know I feel creative burnout, but I don’t know if I ever feel imposter syndrome, or maybe that’s imposter syndrome telling me I don’t feel it. My mind be playing tricks on me a lot.

Top 3 Alchemist Collaborators?

MIKE, Vince Staples, Sideshow

Artists inspiring you right now?

Stevie! definitely.   Consistent ying-yang. My boy Amil Berlin, he really be speaking his truth, and every time he comes through with a banger, I’m just like, “How does he not have such a big audience?” money for water. That new Navy Blue joint [Memoirs in Amour], I’ve been spinning that.

Album you’d love to read as a book?

“Let the Sun Talk” by Mavi.

—[Note: He answered this question pretty quick to where i was stumped somehow]. —-

Since 2020, I’ve been spinning that joint all the time. On my Spotify, it’s the only album (except a Lil Tecca album) I have downloaded, so when I’m on a plane or something, I could listen to it. It’s like every single time you listen to it, there’s certain glimpses of the songs and certain things he talks about that become relevant in my life. Like, ‘Oh, I could recognize this because this is now happening in my life. It’s like a memoir, just through music. And that’s the type of vibe I wanna have with my music. Storytelling through music—not just a story but, making something beautiful.

 

Future Plans?

Just Cranking Out Music!

 

Be Sure to Follow and Listen to cisco moon on all social medias and DSPs available.