Damn from 2-3 years ago when I first heard Bronson on Industry Shakedown radio freestylin the dude has come a long way since then. This is a new interview from AskMen.com via Jeremy Berger asking questions about hip-hop, food and Thanksgiving.
I spent a lot of time thinking about turkey this year. Even cooked a Thanksgiving feast a week early to make sure everybody got their share of bird meat. What makes Thanksgiving so great is that it’s all about the food, the company and beautiful women dressed like pilgrims.
But my playlist included Willie Nelson, Gil Scott Heron and Rick Springfield — I didn’t really know what I was doing. Music being the last thing you’re probably worrying about, and today being Thanksgiving, we caught up with the only guy who can make music and carve tableside with equal acuity: Queens-born rapper and chef Action Bronson.
His new album with Statik Selektah, Well Done, is out now. AskMen caught up with him to talk about food and find out what he’ll be listening to today.
AskMen (AM): Have you cooked a Thanksgiving meal?
Action Bronson (AB): Of course, I’ve hosted. My parents used to give out free Thanksgiving dinners at their restaurant. The whole day everyone would come by; they’d give away, like, 20 turkeys. I love to cook a meal for the so-called holidays. You always need the turkey. I like making a good BBQ brisket as well. I like making yams, but in a certain manner. I don’t like mashed yams. I like cutting them into discs and candying them that way, you know, with some beautiful homemade marshmallow, and then I brulee it.AM: It’s pretty involved, Thanksgiving. You’ve gotta baste the sh*t out of the turkey all day, there’s smoke coming out of the oven for the first hour, tears from shallot eyes. Soup.
AB: I don’t do all that sh*t, man. I just throw it in there. There’s no reason to do all that crazy sh*t because you’re not gonna get the taste. The only thing I do is brine it, then I throw it in there and f*cking roast it with butter. Some herb butter under the skin. Or you could make it a Cajun way with a little brown sugar, some cayenne and sh*t like that. You could smoke that sh*t. You can do the fried turkey if you want. You don’t have to do it traditional. You can throw your own little twist on it.AM: Walk us through the music you’d listen to while cooking the bird.
AB: We’re gonna be playing Freddie Gibbs, “Rob Me A N*gg*.” Crazy sh*t. We’re gonna be playing a lot of wild sh*t. It’s all madness. I’ll just throw it on shuffle and it’ll just shuffle it up. We’ll go from Chinese rock ‘n’ roll and old Vietnam funk to some Russian sh*t to some Albanian music. You know? Some straight guitar solos, some crazy hip-hop, mad salsa, Buena Vista Social Club, you know? We’ll go with some Anthrax, some Aaron Neville to mix it up. Some Pun, some Nas, some Mobb Deep, Boyz II Men. Some ABC, BBD, the East Coast Family. Some Shai, some Jade, XWV, 702, you know? You need to look them up: 702, man, listen. Some Shaz Illyork, some f*ckin’ Meyhem Lauren. I don’t even know. Some Eddie Palmieri, some Alchemist. Statik Selektah. A.G. The Coroner. We’ll round it off with A.G. The Coroner.AM: Do you carve tableside?
AB: Everything is done tableside. I only f*cks with things if they’re done tableside. You understand? Tableside Caesar salad. Tableside creme brulee. Tableside bananas foster. If it’s not tableside it’s not ill. Bottom line.AskMen (AM): You’ve been written about as much for your food as for your music. Where’d you learn to cook a tuna steak like that?
Action Bronson (AB): I worked on the line, I’ve been an executive chef, I’ve worked for the Mets, I’ve worked for various steakhouses, vegetarian restaurants, a lot of Middle Eastern stuff. I’ve worked my fair share of a lot of different things. I’ve worked at festivals and street fairs, you know? I’ve been through it all.AM: What was working for the Mets like?
AB: Working for the Mets was pretty cool for a minute. But I’m obviously a person who doesn’t like to conform to things, and sometimes I do things and I act out and we had a little problem, you know, and I had to leave the premises. Let’s put it that way.It was a normal day, you know, because I love my job. And this dude bumps me every time I go past the spice rack. He did it a couple times and I thought nothing of it. Then the third time, at that point I got in his face and started talking crazy to him and he didn’t want no part of it. I was persistent, I don’t know, just very angry, and I threw him over a desk. As I threw him over the desk, the owner of the Mets walked in with the GM and a bunch of bosses from the culinary department, doing rounds, at the exact same moment I threw him to the floor. So I got fired on the spot. That was the end of that one.
AM: Is there some natural connection between making music and making food for you?
AB: Of course, you know, working in kitchens with Mexicans you always listen to the Spanish channel and that’s what I use. Whenever I cook I think of Spanish music, so I always have to listen to some sort of salsa. It gets your body going.AM: Does it matter what time of day it is or what you’re cooking?
AB: Honestly, when it’s really busy, it’s not good to play things with words. It’s better to play things with rhythms because, with the words, I’m going to be thinking of the words in the song instead of thinking of what I’m doing. So it’s always better to play some beautiful instrumentals.AM: Is the music you put on for a party different than the music you cook to?
AB: Straight ’80s f*cking coke music. Cocaine. The sh*t you hear in all those Studio 54 movies. Rod Stewart. Mad A-ha. Phil Collins. Genesis. Peter Gabriel. Huey Lewis and the News. All kinds of wildness from that era. Maybe some new jack swing.AM: Some people make playlists. Are you into that?
AB: I don’t really do playlists