Cook and Uno's Two Man Symphony

As two of the founding members of LA Symphony, CookBook and UNO Mas have had the West Coast buzzin for over a decade. During that time various members of the group, including CookBook, have released solo albums, and Cook and Uno have been releasing albums as a duo, as well. On January 26th they’ll be droppin their latest Cook and Uno album, C+U Music Factory.

Hip-Hop has a long history of two man tandems, and when I sat down with Cook and Uno I learned there’s quite the long history behind theirs. During my interview with the dynamic duo they also gave some food for thought on why we don’t see very many duos in hip-hop anymore, how they manage to voice things they’re passionate about without cursing, and how their ethnic roots, with CookBook being Puerto Rican and UNO Mas being Mexican, have affected their music. Here are some highlights from the interview:

CookBook on rhyming in English versus Spanish:
We have a lot of fans who would always hit us up and say “you guys are Latinos, how come you don’t rap in Spanish?” We kinda didn’t see it like that, like we should be rappin in Spanish because we’re Latino. We’re like nah, we’re hip-hop. We grew up in LA.

UNO Mas on why he feels there's a lack of duos in hip-hop today:
In hip-hop, and music in general, there’s a lot of arrogance and a lot of me me me. When you’re in a group there's a lot of give and take and you have to squash egos a little bit and listen to your partners.

CookBook on keeping curses out of his rhymes:
I’m so used to the way I rap that it doesn’t even occur to me. I don’t write raps and say “God I want to say bullshit right here, but I JUST CAN’T!”

Read the full interview at RapReviews.com.