The Original Tommy Cash
“Goes to London for the first time. The show is sold out.” It sounds like a meme, but it’s not. It’s a caption to accompany one of Tommy Cash’s recent Facebook posts during his string of shows across Europe. In the photo, he stares victorious, with an adidas tracksuit and John Waters-esque moustache.
Tommy Cash is the product of boredom in post Soviet Estonia. He grew up in the hood of Tallinn, with a Russian influence that was still prominent. It’s what forced Cashto become an outsider, hovering by the periphery wearing pink (probably a tracksuit) in a sea of grey. He gave himself the freedom to explore his creativity, and he came across rap and didn’t look back. A few years later, the Estonian youth (although he’s adamant that he was born in 1940) started producing music, shared it online, and accumulated a mass following absorbed by his Eastern Europe meets the hood sound, and his overuse of Zs (see Euroz Dollaz Yeniz, Guez Whoz Bak).
He’s idiosyncratic and irreverent; he’s direct yet convoluted. He loves horses and he loves adidas, but he hates quite a few things as well, as he told us without hesitation.
fluoro. Individuality – tell us what this means to you?
Tommy Cash. Individuality is my magic wand, and means everything to me. I wanna lead people so they could find their own.
f. Pop culture – are you a part of it?
TC. I am to Pop Culture like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is to the world: somewhere in the sewers, hiding. We come out only to save everybody.
f. Is Tommy Cash a real person? Or he is a character?
TC. Tommy is real, swimming in the world of replicas.
f. Tell us who you are. Are you a freak of nature?
TC. Yes I am a freak of nature. I am a Professional Rap Superstar from Estonia making that post Soviet rap through your speakers.
f. What’s the importance of nature and spirituality in your life?
TC. It helps me to balance, air is important.
f. What was it like growing up in Estonia?
TC. Growing up in Estonia A,B,C is isolated, lonely, boring.
f. Did your upbringing and hood of Tallinn impact your sound? How?
TC. The hood helped me to keep it real with myself. Work on my craft, while tha scum was flooding the clubs, our women and polluting our city.
f. What did you have playing on your mp3 player when you were a kid?
TC. Eminem, Daft Punk, Michael Jackson, The Doors.
f. How did the sound you were listening to you influence you?
TC. I don’t know if the sound influences me I think it goes more for my music partner/dj. I get influenced by people like when Marilyn Manson wanted to suck his own D##K. Beautiful.
f. How do you come up with concepts you create?
TC. I don’t know concepts are just like plants they grow inside your head. You use ideas like fertiliser.
f. Why do you create the sound you do?
TC. Because this is what we want: to hear ourselves. We just played at Rotterdam witch is the birthplace of Gabber, Happyharcore. Love to listen to stuff like this in Eastern Europe.
f. Do your parents like the music you create?
TC. Yes, my dad is a megafan. He knows some stuff before me because he such a stalker.
f. What other words fit in with religion, rap, superstar…?
Don’t know, potatoes maybe?
f. What does writing lyrics help you achieve?
TC. Writing my own lyrics helps me to tell my story exactly how it was. I put all of me inside all the things come out from Tommy Cash. Even if it’s a Tour Poster – I’m there watching. In videos I’m part of everything too.
f. Where do you write?
TC. Write where I can, when it comes. It could be on a toilet paper
What are five things you love, beside adidas, horses and music?
TC. I could tell you what I hate: stupid questions, interviews, answering questions, interviewers, life in general.
f. Money on your mind?
TC. Right now, I got a good breakfast on my mind but at all times dolla dolla bill ya!
f. What’s on the go in 2017?
TC. In 2017 we will take over!
Listening to Cash takes listeners through a series of thoughts and emotions: we question his authenticity, but soon realise that he is nothing but. We question his music, but before we come to answer, we’re already half way through his album.
If Cash does take over, you will know, after all he is a professional rap superstar from Estonia making that post Soviet rap through your speakers.
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