Photo by Mychael Thompson of spaceheaddesign.

There’s nothing quite like the unsettled response to boredom. When that inward call for change sets in, moves must be made. For some, that might just mean getting off the couch and stepping outside, but for Benny, T.A.G. and Flaco, that meant bringing a tireless team of creators together in an effort to construct an undeniable hip hop product.

“We just became BORED., and at the end of the day, all of this stuff kind of started from just being bored at some point,” T.A.G. reflects. “That’s how anybody starts doing anything, and they just get good at it.”

Back in 2010, the BORED. concept was born with the release of Flaco’s The BORED.SOLDIER! mixtape, but it would take a few more years for the idea to fully formulate. During this in-between time, Flaco and T.A.G. were occupied with their METH COAST pursuits, while Benny was busy with solo work of his own. Eventually in early 2014, however, the longtime trio of friends decided to unite as one.

BORED. live at Indy CD & Vinyl, June 7 2014:

“We just sat down and were like, ‘Okay. Let’s put the bullshit aside and come together to try to do something better,’” Benny recalls. “We came together as a collective, sat down and thought BORED. was good because it’s something that hit home, it’s something that had been established a long time ago and it was something we could run with.”

Since making this decision, the potent trio has gathered a collective of like-minded photographers, videographers, designers, producers and more to ultimately accomplish something great. Flaco asserts, “Without our team behind us, we ain’t shit.” In making strides with this ardent BORED. arsenal, the group's initial SOLDIER undoubtedly finds delight.

“The most beautiful thing is that I’ve grown with these people and we’re constantly pushing ourselves,” he says. “It’s almost like a basketball team mentality. We want to win. We want to play the game. We’re not going to sit back and judge the game and not play it. We want to play the game our way and make an impact. It’s just dope having that spirit.”

As the BORED. crew continues forward with future pursuits (including the release of Benny’s Day Drunk next month), the group hopes to make the most of its collective talents, all the while remaining steadfast in their firmly-rooted friendships.

“We’re just people trying to come together and make music, “ Flaco says. “It’s the music that holds it together, but it’s the brotherhood that’s going to keep us together regardless of whatever happens.”

MEET BORED

MFT chatted further with Benny, Flaco and T.A.G., discussing their initial fascinations with hip hop, the point when shit got serious for them as hip hop artists and more. 

BENNY

Photo by Mychael Thompson of spaceheaddesign.

On his initial introduction to hip hop: Like anybody else, I pretty much was influenced by the music—the beat, the way it looked, the way the people looked and, more than anything, just the lyrics. To be able to tell a story and for people to understand within a small period of time, from two to five minutes, and cover so much in such a little time is pretty much why I really got into it.

On when shit got real: I’m not gonna lie. I really didn’t take any of this seriously until maybe last year, when I dropped Sandlot. When I was doing that mixtape, it was the first time I really took it seriously, as far as I felt like maybe I could do something more with it. Prior to that, it was just mixtapes, letting my friends hear it, not really letting anybody else hear it—just keeping it all to myself.

On the mission of BORED.: We wanna just succeed at what we’re doing. At the end of the day, if we fail, you can’t blame anybody for trying. We wanna be successful. We wanna put this city on. We wanna basically bridge the gap between hip hop and Indiana.  We basically want to prove that you don’t just come here to watch the 500 and fucking farm corn.

On being part of a collective: It ties in with family. I know these guys have got my back. If a track fucking sucks, somebody’s gonna say it sucks. It’s like minds trying to reach an overall goal, and especially when we’re trying to reach this goal together, it makes it a lot easier. It doesn’t take the weight off of your shoulders because each one of us pulls our own, but it’s good to know that you’ve got people in your corner, more than anything.

T.A.G.

Photo by Mychael Thompson of spaceheaddesign

On his initial introduction to hip hop: It started honestly back in 2009. I started freestyling in ’08, and then the usual….You go through a break-up or some bullshit like that, and then music kind of turned into therapy for me, so I took it very seriously.

On when shit got real: Back before I started rapping, I would listen to music or rap or whatever, and you know how you can only relate to probably 30 or 40% of the song, if that? Yeah. I wanted to make music that I could relate to 100%. So that’s when I started making music, and it was the only way I could really get my thoughts together.

On the mission of BORED.: Just to create inspiration and let people know that they can do whatever they put their minds too, as cliché as that sounds.

On being part of a collective: It makes me very happy because I’ve never been able to think individually when it comes to things that I do because I’ve always been a part of a team. Even back in the day when we first started rapping, people were trying to get us to go solo and stuff like that, but we just never vibed with it because we were never those kind of people that just cut people off like that. It’s dope to see basically your family progress in something that they love to do.

FLACO

Photo by Tyler Hoyt of BORED.

On his initial introduction to hip hop: When I was a kid, I was just kind of fascinated by words, but didn’t really know how to apply it yet—just some natural attraction to it. Then, my big brother was really into hip hop and just lyricism in general, and that kind of got me really interested. Words interested me in the fact that you could affect people so deeply with just lyricism, so that kind of got me started.

On when shit got real: It was the second semester of my freshman year in college, so around 2009. I had a really shitty semester [grade-wise]. I was just uninterested in school. My roommate had a Mac. One night we were just drunk as fuck, and he showed me GarageBand. We were just recording conversation in general. I don’t know what happened. It just clicked, and I fell in love with it. I just naturally took it very, very seriously everyday, all day. Everyday when I woke up, that was all I could think about.

On the mission of BORED.: All the people that we affiliate with just think big or beyond. They have these goals that most people would kind of see as pipe dreams. I think it’s just an expression of our ambition—us wanting to be more, to be better, to affect more, to reach more.

On being part of a collective: Being an artist in general is such a self-absorbed profession. It’s all about intrinsic goals and milestones and getting better yourself, which I was focused about very seriously before I got into BORED.. But with a team, you have to think beyond yourself and more than yourself and for other people. You have to develop empathy and patience, and that’s something that a lot of people can’t do. That’s why a lot of people can’t work together. So the team aspect taught me a lot of that shit that I was lacking when I was just doing my own personal grind away from the guys.