Chiddy Bang Speak on ‘Band World’ Origins, Under the Influence of Music Tour

Philly duo Chiddy Bang have a one-track mind, even when riding under the influence with Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller. Chidera "Chiddy" Anamege and Noah "Xaphoon Jones" Beresin have success on the brain, as they've been enjoying positive feedback from their first major release, Breakfast, earlier this year. The group is currently opening for the Pittsburgh rap superstars as they work their way across North America on the Under the Influence of Music tour.

"They begged and pleaded and moaned for us to do it until we just said, 'OK, fine. We'll go on tour,'" Xaphoon tells The Boombox jokingly. "Nah, I think they just really wanted to put together a fun hip-hop tour and they reached out to us and we were down for it."

Initially, Xaphoon says that his road plan was to smoke and shop beats to fellow tourmates Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q of Top Dawg Entertainment, but he admits there's actually much more than haze-induced networking going on behind the scenes. Two weeks in, he says the Chiddy Bang crew switches their show up regularly.

"After the set, we sit down and talk about what was good, what was bad, what we need to work on and what we can make better," Xaphoon reveals. "The tradition in hip-hop is to kinda act super cool and go out [on stage] and hope the crowd fucks with us. We kinda come from the 'band world' so we put out 100 million percent and if people don't like it, we look kinda foolish sometimes but we just try and have a high-energy show."

In the near future, fans will have the opportunity to see what they may have missed while attending any of the show dates. "We're doing a week-to-week documentary of this tour so we have our own film crew -- some friends from home -- and we're documenting every day and night," Xaphoon says.

Beyond touring and recording their experiences on the road, Chiddy Bang are also in the process of deciding between album cuts "Talking to Myself" and "Handclaps & Guitars" for their next single and visual.

"It's really about playing give-and-take with the label, between what they want and what they believe in or are really excited about," Xaphoon elaborates. "Because if you don't have their momentum then it just doesn't work. So you just let them believe it's their idea with a lot of things but it's a nice back and forth."

Work is Chiddy Bang's one constant. The Breakfast LP was recorded in bits and pieces in several continents including Europe and Australia. Recording is the one thing they do no matter where they are in the world -- even while on tour. The duo has been playing with different ideas with the distant notion of possibly producing another project soon.