MotionPlus is Realigning His Focus
Talking about the emcee's newest album, produced by A-F-R-O
Even if you don’t know the name MotionPlus, you’ve probably heard the names of some of the crews he has been a part of: War Records, Polished Arrow Music, Syntax Records, and Scribbling Idiots. We got to talk to him about his newest full-length solo album, Focus, produced by A-F-R-O and out in January 2025.
This article originally appeared in Midnight Donuts #6 from January 2025. Want to read the most recent edition of Midnight Donuts? You can do so here!
Midnight Donuts: What makes you most excited about Focus?
MotionPlus: Man, I think it's a sense of renewal for me. I've never stopped doing music, but if I'm being honest about it … for a long time I probably had one foot out of music. … Different things… that happened throughout my career—music started to become a matter of contention to me. Like, it's all I know how to do. It's all I ever dreamed about doing. But when you start to feel your career waning, you know…
Man of War from War Records reached out to me and was interested in doing something with me. And we put out “King's Grace.” In doing “King's Grace”—that beat was produced by A-F-R-O, right? And A-F-R-O really liked “King's Grace.” A lot. So much so that we started to build quite a bit and started to build a relationship. I asked him if he’d be down to do an EP, and he said, “let’s do it.”
And then the EP turned into a full length, right? And we just kept working. It was just pouring out of me. I felt a new vigor for doing it… Everything started to feel brand new and exciting to me again.
And that's why I called the album Focus: because it realigned my focus on what really matters. I was one foot out of doing music, because I felt like … it wasn't doing anything. But that wasn't the purpose of the music! I was making it about me. And the purpose of the music—what made me fall in love with doing music—was how I could share my feelings with people and people would embrace it or enjoy it.
You know, first of all, we do make music for ourselves. But when we give it to the people, it's theirs then, right? That's the good and the bad that comes with that: critics, or people that love it, or feeling like you're ignored or embraced.
It just allowed me to realign my focus and realize I just want to have fun again. I just want to serve God. I just want to really share the things that I've been through, and do it in a way that feels good and special to me. And I think A-F-R-O gave me the soundtrack to make something that feels classical, in the sense of the sonics. It's classical boom-bap hip-hop.
Midnight Donuts: You mentioned that it kind of kicked off when you did that track with A-F-R-O because Man of War prompted you to. But how did you originally get connected with A-F-R-O? Were you just shopping around for somebody to do a beat for a song, or did somebody get you connected personally, or have you known him for years? How did that connection come about?
MotionPlus: It's a very recent relationship. It's kind of crazy how it happened. I'm down with a person from my hometown named Lyriz, and he's a rapper. During the pandemic, everybody was locked down and hustling beats and stuff. So from my understanding—and I could be wrong—but I think my man Lyriz bought the beat from A-F-R-O during the pandemic. And he sat on it and sat on it…
I've always been an A-F-R-O fan. I’ve followed A-F-R-O since R.A. [the Rugged Man] discovered him… I've always been a fan, but I didn't have a relationship with him. My man Lyriz bought the beat, and in a nutshell, he brought the beat to me, and he was like, “man, I bought this beat from A-F-R-O and I just can't do anything to it.” He said, “I think it might be a dope intro for you.”
I heard the beat, and I was like, “that's no intro.” [Laughs] “That's a song!” Like, I hear it, right? And everything inspires people differently, right? So, I heard it and I started to craft “King's Grace” to it immediately. I think I wrote it that same day.
Then I went to my man, DJ Wade Will-Spin, and I had scratches in mind. I had worked the scratches out, but I don't have the scratch skills. So, I had my man do it for me. And he killed the scratches. And when we put scratches on it, we knew it was special. It felt like pure hip hop.
And so, this is what happened: I reached out to A-F-R-O and I'm like, “yo, I got this beat from my man. Can I send it to you? I want you to hear it before I release it.” Emailed it… then he comes back like 10 minutes later like, “yo, the voice, the scratches this is [dope]!” And then it was like 10 minutes after that, he was like, “yo, I'd really like to see this get some traction. If you do a video or anything… add me as a collab.”
Then he came to me …and he asked me if I would get on his “POSSE PART 3 (80 EMCEES).” Then, long story short… I go up to Milwaukee to one of his shows and we just build all night. And I can't speak for him, but I felt like we shared a lot in common. We liked a lot of the same music and we had some great conversations. And the next thing you know, we were talking about doing a record.
So it was—let's just be real about it: I consider it the grace of God that it happened. Because at my age—the resurgence and the buzz and… the fact that [A-F-R-O’s] so kind and so willing to share his platform. It’s amazing, you know what I mean?
Midnight Donuts: You said you're going to do vinyl and CD and maybe tape?
MotionPlus: I'm entertaining tapes, but vinyl and CD for sure. Because vinyl takes so long to press, it'll be a little bit after the release of the album. But I'm thinking about doing pre-orders.
We're releasing the first single January 3rd. That's “S.O.S.” “Souls On Sale.”
Midnight Donuts: “King's Grace” is also going to be on the record, right?
MotionPlus: It's going to be on the physicals. I don't have the rights to put it on the digital. Syntax Creative owns the rights to that. And I play the game correctly! It's my song, so I can put it on the physicals. But digitally, they own the rights to it.
Midnight Donuts: Good to know. I was going to ask you—you're part of Polished Arrow now: what does that mean to you? We got to interview them for issue #2 of Midnight Donuts, but they've added several people since then. And you've been a part of one of the biggest collectives in Christian hip-hop over the years, Scribbling Idiots. So, I'm just curious about your perspective on Polished Arrow.
MotionPlus: Polished Arrow: I am there because—two reasons, it's twofold. (And for the record, I'm not done with War Records. Man of War had a massive stroke, so we're keeping him in our prayers, and he is recovering. … We will work in the future.) But I got down with Polished Arrow for two reasons.
The main reason was my man Kaboose is on Polished Arrow. Me and Kaboose—we were labelmates on Syntax, but we go back before that. He was one of the first people to take me on tour.
Seeing him there—it brought [my] attention to the other artists, like Procyse, iNTELLECT, JusJames, and all them. And I started to build with them because Procyse wanted to put me on a remix for the Souljornerz album [SVDBYGRC]. I'm on “Incredible.”
We started to build, and then I started to build with iNTELLECT. And the more I heard their sound, the more I heard the classic boom-bap feel… and then getting to know these brothers' hearts, getting to know who they are… It was like, “yeah, I want to be down with these guys. I want to be part of this collective.”
I'm Scribbling Idiots forever, right? But it's nice to be around other ideas and other points of view. And also just being edified by these brothers. All these brothers love Christ, man! You know what I mean? They're all on fire for God. And I love that, and I need that. Because sometimes you can start to feel like you're in your own little box, right? It's good to hear other people being excited about God, too.
Between the sound and Kaboose being there—and me being close with that brother for all these years—it felt like a no-brainer to get down with them.
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