Every once in awhile an act comes along that defies description. Sex No Babies takes the talents of three disparate artists and throws their skills into a blender producing an eclectic breed of compelling musical mash that could be termed “art-hop.” The brain child of scene vets Rahim Salaam, Ben Moroney, and Matthew Gladly, Sex No Babies has been raising their prodigy since 2016 and are ready to share their creation in all it’s diverse grandeur. With a three part vignette series beginning with scene one, they explore the inner reaches of their artistic selves, and push the boundaries of creative endeavor. We caught up with the trio at their home base Hostel Earphoria to talk Praise Art, the state of the music industry, and what the future holds for one of Chicago’s most interesting acts. 

Check out Sex No Babies this Saturday, October 26th at Overbar: Presented by Bad Witch Club. And at Bohemian Grove McKinley on November 1st, before they head out on an East Coast run. Get out and see these creative cats before the rest of the world discovers their trippy, beat infused, madness.

RS: Rahim Salaam (vocals)
BM: Ben Moroney (Beats/Production)
MG: Matthew Gladly (Synth/Bass)

History

CCS: How did Sex No Babies come together?

BM: At one point in time Rahim moved into hostel and all of us had been hanging out from hostel shows and doing What About Chicago? and …

RS: Don’t just . . . What’s that? 

(All Laugh) 

BM: Which is the podcast that we do (Rahim and Ben) exploring Chicago arts, music, and entertainment. So when Rahim moved in we shared a doorway that went between our rooms, and Rahim is the ameateur arts hero. He’s always pushing everybody to make and release music. I’ve been making beats forever, and I always sit on all this, because I’m always like “Oh, I don’t know what to do with it.” When he moved in he would come into my room and we would record tracks right there, which became the early Sex No Babies demos. Rahim is always putting out his own music, so we would pick and choose from his albums, and bring them into the band. We got booked for a New Years show at the now defunct Young Camelot church space. We got together with Marc Drake, Corey Anderson, and Benjamin Karras and we were a five piece live hip hop thing. I guess that's the brief backstory. 

RS: Yeah, our first show was New Years going into 2016 at Young Camelot. 

MG: It was supposed to be a one off. 

BM: A lot of it is based off Hostel Earphoria, just as a space. Corey was living here, and playing in bands with Marc and Ben, who lived here later, and so the space helped bring it all together. 

RS: It was definitely an incubator for that. 

MG: It’s where we rehearse and record. 

CCS: Yeah, studio downstairs and performance space out back? 

BM: And performance space downstairs, and short term artists residences. 

MG: Short and long term…

BM: Depending. 

CCS: So Matt, you came into the fold because you were living here? 

MG: I was living here at the time as well. This was before I started mixing, my first project was our first album: A Sex No Babies Christmas. 

BM: Released on Christmas. 

MG: Yeah, that was a great album. But I was learning as I did it, and these fine gentlemen allowed me to record their art and release it, and I haven’t stopped mixing since. I think we’re due for another holiday album.

BM: What else is Jesus related . . . maybe Easter. 

CCS: A Sex No Babies Halloween album? 

BM: Then we could do a “Monster Mash” cover.

 RS: I want to do “96 Tears” by Question Mark & The Mysterians. You know it? You’d know it if you hear it: (sings) “Too many tear drops for one heart . . . too many crying, he gonna cry . . . 96 tears.” 

BM: You’re singing that like Prince, man. 

RS: I know, I don’t sound like Question Mark, he was freaking it . . .

PRAISE ART

CCS: Praise Art. Comes from your (Rahim) solo work, or evolved from that? 

RS: I wouldn’t say that. I have a high emphasis with the solo work as far as art goes. All the titles are art related. But I think it's just a feeling. Somebody could have said it around here. I just started saying it the most probably. It’s just a great feeling. But now it’s become a part of Sex No Babies’ ethos, for sure. What we do and what we’re trying to promote. 

MG: You definitely came up with it. You come up with many things, many phrases and sayings that become part of the lexicon and vernacular of the group. I remember this one: you saying one time “People really like this Praise Art thing” And I was like “Cool, lets just keep running with it then.” 

BM: It was one of those things that popped up, because we’re always clowning on things. We talk about religion a lot. All of us have very different and interesting personal experiences with religion. At some point we must have been clowning and saying “Praise God? What is this shit? Praise Art!” 

RS: Art Bless America. 

BM: Yeah, Art Bless America. All that stuff. 

MG: The Praise Art thing is channeled from the idea that its part of our daily practice; and amateur process based off a constant recording and releasing music done by you (indicates Rahim) and you (Ben), that started with them and other people in this space. We spend as much time making art as other people do praising the lord. It’s a similar time commitment and a regular practice.

RS: Now it’s become a real belief, that I guess I’ve always had. Art is my savior, so to speak. It gives me joy. I literally Praise Art. We give it a lot of praise in our lives. 

CCS: You do use it on What About Chicago? too. 

RS: Only every other sentence . . . 

(All laugh) 

GENRE BLEND

CCS: The eclectic blend of genres that exists in Sex No Babies, did that evolve over time or did you ever sit down and talk about what the band would be? 

RS: I think it evolved. We’re all super creative and like to do different things, and we’re all involved in other things. So anything we were going to do with this was going to be different. We all bring our own thing to the table and throw it against the wall and see if it sticks. 

BM: We have all played in different projects with a ton of different styles, and individually when we write music we’re all over the board. Rahim has his style and Matches has a great ear for arranging and writing songs on the piano . . .

RS: Shouts out to Glad Rags. 

BM: with his Glad Rags project. And I’ve written heavier stuff and sad acoustic songs as well as beats. We all come from different musical backgrounds and we appreciate all of that. It goes back to Praise Art. We praise all of that, and we want to draw from that. I always bring it back to this space (Hostel Earphoria). It’s a general philosophy of ours. When we book shows here we like to book multi genre: bringing in a rap band to play on the same bill as a noise musician and a singer/songwriter. Because no one only likes one genre. It has evolved into us not limiting ourselves. 

MG: It’s how we’ve been booking shows here for seven years. It’s always been weird, since the first time I came here off of Craigslist. I’d go to other shows and it’s always the same genre, which is cool too. I still go to those shows and like those artists. A lot of our releases are intentionally different. The three “scenes” we are releasing are all intentionally different genres and vibes to show what we like and are making.      

VIGNETTE RELEASES

CCS: Why do three vignette releases instead of one EP or album?   

MG: Ben is always pushing the dual release, so the video comes with the EP. He could speak better to this, but the visual element of each one will be dramatically different and they’ll come together. 

RS: It’s like combining forms of art, right Ben? 

BM: I’m a stickler for ideas, and pushy for them sometimes. How I feel about the music world these days: I think physical merch is dead, and the concept of the CD and the album evolved out of the medium. You had vinyls so you had an A side and a B side, and then you had the CD so you had full albums. But we live in a digital world now, so why even release an album. I’m really influenced by Dirty Projectors, Janelle Monáe, and Tierra Whack who make comprehensive pieces of art, that aren’t just the song; it’s everything: the aesthetic, and the video, and the underlying message. How the messages of each individual part create a sum that's bigger than just the song. That’s why I think this vignette thing is more exciting to make. 

RS: Most of the time it’s about us, right. 

(all laugh)

RS: We want people to like it, for sure, but we want to make art that we’re proud of. At the end of the day, that's not a chore. 

ART VS. INDUSTRY

CCS: Art is a fantastic way to look at it, but music is also an industry. When all is said and done, do you see this as just what you want to give the world, or to be able to make a living at it? 

RS: Personally, I’m old, I don’t have a lot of ambition as far as the industry goes. I’m not a gangsta but I’m not chasing it. I respect it, you gotta make a buck. I would love to make a buck. 

BM: Luckily we have Glad Matt, cause if he wasn’t here, you and I would be stuck in the smoky room making shitty sounding amateur tracks. At the end of the day, we all feel very similarly. We make art for ourselves because we praise art. Art saved my life, it’s everything. I can’t imagine a world where I’m not making music, whether I have ten dollars or ten thousand dollars from it in my bank account, we’re leaving art in the will, you know. 

CCS: Well you guys are about to go an a little tour? 

RS: Yeah ten days; you wanna rattle off the dates, what’s the cities? 

BM: Detroit, Baltimore, Philly, New York for two nights, Ithaca, Buffalo, Cleveland, Grand Rapids. We leave on the second and get back on the eleventh. 

MG: We have Chicago shows at the beginning and end of that. 

BM: Yeah we’re playing at Bohemian Grove and Overbar. 

RS: Everyone’s been asking me about it, sounds like its gonna be a hot show. I’ve had multiple inquiries on the Overbar.    

MG: The secret is its above Underbar. 

BM: OHHHHH!

RS: Well that makes sense now. 

MG: I also truly believe in the art. Ben has this sense of rhythm and he really enjoys beat making and I’m learning how to do it through him. Taking his finished project and mixing it and mastering it, add a bass or a synth. . . 

BM: Make it sound right 

MG: But I’m so creatively stimulated. I play in another project (Glad Rags) where I write all the songs. But this is just as creatively rewarding. 

RS: That’s where the money is! 

MG: Not with eight people unfortunately…

RS: Multiple streams! 

(all laugh)

RS: The millionaire's say you need eight to eleven streams. Have you ever heard that? 

MG: I’m trying to get more streams. . .

CCS: I have three. 

BM: I have three I guess. 

RS: You guys are fortunate. I have two and one of them is art and its way in the red . . .  that shit’s in the red!

THE FUTURE

CCS: So after the vignettes come out, what’s next for Sex No Babies. 

BM: We’ve talked a bit about recording a longer release. Because these vignettes are all of the sampled music, and that could never be distributed by someone other than us. So we were talking about taking all of our other songs that have no, or very indistinguishable, samples and compiling that on to a release. 

MG: And pitch that to labels. 

RS: This process for me personally has been fun, and I’ve learned a lot. Going that route and getting super original with creative energy from this first project and flip it to all original material would be a tight undertaking. I hope that’s what we want to do. Hopefully this project gets some good buzz, and we always want to stay creative, that’s the nature.

BM: We have a couple more tours that are loosely being conceptualized. 

MG: In February we’ll be going down South for the “Is It True” Tour. South and southeast: North Carolina, Alabama . . . 

RS: Hopefully Mississippi will have us, I’d like to get that low. Towards the Gulf. 

MG: In March we’ll have a proper release show for the whole project, at a venue; and then go on a tour and hit South by Southwest with Glad Rags . . . you never know, we both applied. 

CCS: There’s so many bands, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t have both of you. Both acts are great.

SEX NO BABIES 

CCS: Where did the band name Sex No Babies originate? 

RS: I’m a father of two human beings, love em to death. It’s something I used to always talk about, due to the supreme responsibility of being a parent, I just feel like that needs to be super serious. So in a joking but real way I’m like “Sex No Babies.” Have fun but be conscious. And if you want to move to that artistically, it’s the same. Have fun, be conscious. (laughs) 

MG: Sex No Babies means a lot of different things, I love that about it. It’s a proclamation for many situations. 

RS: You can put it into most things. Just like Praise Art. 

BM: Praise Art, and we do. 

RS: Take care of the babies ya’ll, there are so many babies out there that need our care. Need the village, that don’t have it. 

MG: Sex No Babies: as a metaphor for the human population issue. Sex No Babies: as a proclamation for non-straight love of all sorts. It’s beautiful. 

BM: People always ask: “Do you not want people to have babies?” and I say no, to me it’s a general safe sex thing. To think about what you’re doing. 

RS: It’s all those things. Life is so serious, and how we take care of each other. I’m a bleeding heart for the kids. But have babies though. I hope you have a lot of time and a big bag, and people to help you.

CCS: You all have anything to add? 

RS: Go to praiseart.church. We had to twist Bento’s arm, he don’t like no merch stuff, but we got the Praise Art hats.  

BM: The hats are tight, I have one that I wear and people compliment it all the time. 

RS: Stay in tune through that, What About Chicago?, and Earphoria. 

BM: All available everywhere, all integral, all one and the same piece of art.