JS: Where did you get your slang from—things like “Acknickulous” and “The Giddy Up”?

EST: That came from me and my man Larry Larr. We came up with “Acknickulous.” Larry actually had the word inside a freestyle. I don’t even know if he had it spelled the way I had it spelled it in the end but it was just something that struck my ear. I was heavily into English. I was an English major in high school so words was my playing field. I heard the word, I ran with the word. Expounded on it and actually gave it a definition. That’s how we used to do in Hunting Park.

JS: Define Acknickulous…

EST: Acknickulous is the utopian state of being nice. That’s the highest level of being nice for what you do.

JS: I always think of the golfer, Jack Nicklaus, when I hear that. Was Larry Larr rhyming something with his name when he came up with it?

EST: Nah. He said something to the effect of, “My flavor is ridiculous, call it Acknickulous.” And I was like, “What you said right there?” and he was like, “Acknickulous.” I said, “what’s that?” and he was like, “I don’t know, I just made that shit up.” I was like, “that shit’s fly though.” That’s how you supposed to do it, kid. In the beginning of this thing we call rap music, being original and being able to trademark shit right from the house party level was important. If you ain’t have your own little saying and your own little cat calls where niggas knew that was you about to get on the mic, you wasn’t that nigga like that. You just wasn’t him. You needed that hot name, that certain way you did your scratch or introduced your MC. I’m a keep it one hundred, too. Fresh Prince was a hell of an MC back in the day. He was crazy. Because the dude actually kept up with Jazzy Jeff. He had the intensity and the energy to match Jeff’s cuts, and not many people was rocking like Jeff. There was Cash Money, Spinbad, my man Baby DST, a couple people. But Jeff and Cash was like the top of the top, and my man DJ Tat-Money. Bottom line, you had to be nice. You couldn’t be no regular dude coming up, thinking you were gonna rock the mic. Niggas might roll up on you.

JS: What about the other slang you were saying. Did that all come from the style of your neighborhood?

EST: It definitely was the neighborhood.

- interview conducted by Jesse Serwer, special to HIPHOPGODS.com

(originally published at www.jesseserwer.com)