WXYC: This is WXYC Chapel Hill 89.3 FM. We're at Hopscotch, and we're here with Swamp Dogg and special guest, MoogStar. 

So just last year, you released the album Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th Street. With such an expansive music career, what would you say is unique about this? The album is really distinctive.

Swamp Dogg: Well, it's the first time that I deliberately joined country music with R&B, and that's so it's country, but not. I'm trying to put the two together because I feel that for me, that's where, where it really is. I was raised on country and blues right near here in Portsmouth, Virginia, so I just, I like the sound and the arrangements of the two when they're meshed together. 

WXYC: So, what draws you to perform and practice these two forms of music?

SwampDogg:  Well, I do more than two forms of music. That's just it. I mean, I've got one album that I did in West Indian Country. Yeah, did it in Trinidad, and it's all Trinidadian musicians, but they're my songs, and that was a far deliverance from what I usually do, but I haven't been able to be pigeonholed, because my stuff is so scattered in concept and people don't know what to call it. Last I heard it was called psychedelic soul, you know? And that's, that's just something they came up with. So, it's really, I just do it all. I mean, I had one song on the album — the song was called “Mind over Whats the Matter”, and I used Andante Cantabile from Tchaikovsky's "Fifth Symphony in E Minor" as the music around it. So, because I like some classical, I mean, I'm not a classic nut. I can do without hearing it, but that's something that has stayed with me for years. That particular song, as a matter of fact, came in second place. I was in third place. I knew it wasn't first place in Virginia. I was in some kind of [music] contest when I was, like, in the seventh, eighth grade, or something like that. 

WXYC: That is wonderful, really wonderful. Talking about your documentary, because I know you also worked on that, and it touches on themes of how to make it in the music industry. Have you had a hard time going through the music industry? Like you said earlier, your music is constantly classified as something that isn’t really graspable, so what is in the future for you to make your musicality be seen?

SwampDogg: Well, I'm doing an album, [and] it's got more guests on it. We’re just waiting for one particular person — I know I'm reconnecting with Gary U.S. Bonds; he and I wrote hits in [the] 60s, 70s, and sung on this album. 

MoogStar: Uh, Margo Price?

Swamp Dogg: No. 

MoogStar: Jenny Lewis?

Swamp Dogg: Jenny Lewis, yeah. As a matter of fact, we're doing one of her songs at Acid Tongue. Yeah, Jenny Lewis, and she's gonna sing on it. And right now, we got our fingers crossed for Shaboozey, and that would be a hell of a step. Well, we're in contact, but we're not sure he's gonna be able to do it, but we're trying. He actually sings R and B. Really, he singing country. He's singing black music, and he gets down with it too. Trying to get Willie Nelson to do something, and he's been listening to the song that I sang, that I would like for us to do that on, because he's done duets with everybody, so I’m thinking why not Swampdogg?

WXYC: Well, that's really wonderful to hear. Are there any more projects in the way, like another documentary or something film-related in the works?

Swampdogg: I keep saying that I'm gonna try and film “Jesus: The Lost Years,” but I don't know. It's all up to the future. 

WXYC: It's all up to the future, it really is. 

(cover photo courtesy of Julian Swart)