The Red Bulls

COB BASRA, Iraq – When I agreed to interview Joe Roos, international rap musician, I must admit I really didn’t know what I was getting into. Joe, or as he is known while deployed to southern Iraq, Sgt. Joe Roos, is a torrential talker who can use a simple question to delve into deep philosophy. For full disclosure, I also admit that I have worked with Roos for over a year, but this conversation, a snippet of a much larger interview, reveals a Soldier who has a lot (almost too much) to say.

How’s Iraq been?

Like anything else in life: probably you’re going to take some good with some bad.

How did this all start?

You know, I’m a Midwest kid from a rural town in Minnesota. When I was 13 or 14, there was this new kid who moved into town from Fort Worth, Texas. And his name was Anthony Watson.

We were in seventh grade, and Anthony Watson was rhyming without a beat, and I was standing there listening, and he started rapping about my shoes. And then he started rapping about the locker, and then he started rapping about this other kid’s glasses. And I didn’t know what was going on, but he was free styling, and I thought it was amazing.

And I tried my hand at it a couple times, and the first time you do something you’re probably not amazing at it, but after a while, I kept rapping with Anthony, we’d do it on the bus, I started to get good at it.

Can you tell me more about your album – how do you come up with your lyrics? What’s your inspiration?

I get so inspired by life, obviously; my own personal experiences. It’s best to talk about what you know, and I know my own personal experiences pretty well, so I put those down in rhymes. I hate to be so generic, and I hate to speak in so broad terms, but I get inspired by life and music.

So do you sit down and consciously decide to write, or does it just come to you?

Whether you’re writing lyrics or writing a movie script or writing a print journalism story, it’s like a muscle. Writing and rhyming is like a muscle. And you have to use the muscle, and when you use the muscle the muscle gets stronger and sometimes the muscle will just want to go on its own. So I do definitely force myself to write, but because I force myself to write, inspiration comes a lot easier and a lot quicker.

Do you have a bent more towards lyrics or toward hooks and melodies?

When I was a kid, I grew up with a lot of music. My dad was a preacher, so I grew up with a lot of Gospel music. My dad was a Pentecostal preacher - I’m not sure if you’re familiar, but it’s a wild service. There’s a lot of very lively music going on.

I learned a little bit about music when I was a kid, but as I got older, it’s like anything else: if you don’t use it, you start to lose it. So I am more lyrically inclined. It’s not to say I don’t have a concept of what a musical chord is or how to put it together, or maybe if a song needs to be in a certain key or what a key does.

But I definitely am a lyricist, and I lean more toward lyrics. I can say that I’m pretty proud that I was able to put the music together, except for one song, on my album. Part of that is out of necessity though; I don’t have enough money to be paying people at this stage of the game.

What’s that like, being a start-up rapper? It’s almost like you’re starting a small business, this rap career.

It’s a learning process, man. It’s just a progression, and sometimes it’s like diving into the deep end. Some of it, as far as the business side goes, is just getting as far as you can get to one point, and then realizing ‘oh, well the next step is obviously to try put an album together.’ Or the next step is to try to figure out a marketing scheme. Or to figure out ‘what am I going to do with these songs now? Am I going to mass-produce a CD? Am I going to put the songs on iTunes? Am I going to sell it one way or another?’ It would baffle you how much lack of forethought I have operated with, sometimes.

So what makes you think you can make it as a rap star?

There are a million Joe Roos’s out there right now. Guys with a mike and a MySpace and an idea of what they want to be. Really, super-big aspirations. And good for them. I hope we can all make it.

But the reason I am going to make it as a hip-hop star is because I know that it takes more than just the thing. It takes a whole machine. It takes a whole public relations and marketing machine behind an artist in order for that artist to be successful.

Until I am in that position where I can hire people and put a lot of people working as a machine behind me, I know enough to be the machine behind me. That’s why I’ll be successful. Right now the machine happens to be me behind me, but that’s a pretty good machine.

So I hear you’re shooting a new music video. Can you tell me more about that?

While I was doing public relations for the Minnesota National Guard and Minnesota, we had our 1st Brigade Combat Team here in Iraq. There was a war going on, a civil war inside of a war, and guys were coming home in caskets, and I was inspired by the resolve of the troops.

You’d hear some very inspiring stories about Soldiers doing really good work over here in the face of a lot of adversity, so I recorded this song called “Troop.” It’s a song for Soldiers, it’s by a Soldier, it’s about Soldiers, and it’s just about being a troop, and the kind of resolve it takes to be a troop in lousy conditions, like Iraq.

I think that about wraps it up. Do you have any words to leave us by?

I’m very lucky and I’m very happy to be put in the situations I am. The name of my album is “Just Glad to Be Here,” and it really is the spirit that I approach everything that I do. I think as long as I stay grateful, I won’t misuse anything, abuse anything and I will stay hungry and keep moving forward. I hate to use corporate talk, keep moving forward, but I will keep moving forward.

Sgt. Joe Roos, a native of St. Paul, Minn., is a public affairs photojournalist with the 34th Red Bull Infantry Division, currently deployed to southern Iraq. His album “Just Glad to Be Here,” is now available on iTunes.