June 22nd, 2025
Alternative Hip-Hop with Shinobi
Shinobi (S) has always been drawn to music and motivated by hip-hop, yet his love for boundary-pushing soundscapes has his work constantly building the “alternative” sublet of the genre. He recently sat down with Sonali Sinha (SS), an interviewer for SNAKE Magazine, to discuss his distinctive approach to music, upcoming projects, and the unyielding passion that fuels his artistic journey.
SS: SO YOUR NAME IS CHASE, YET YOU GO BY INSANE SHINOBI?
S: Yeah, I go by the artist name Insãne Shinobi, or people just simply call me Shinobi. I got it from a Wu-Tang name generator.
SS: WHAT KIND OF STYLE DO YOU DO?
S: I do alternative hip-hop. It's a mix of pretty much everything, but at the core of what made me inspired to do music, what has always been around me, is hip-hop music. Hip-hop is the catalyst. So I call myself alternative hip-hop because I do everything, but hip-hop is my core.
SS: YOU WENT TO MUSIC SCHOOL, AND THEN TOOK A BREAK. WHAT WAS IT LIKE LEARNING ONE STYLE OF MUSIC IN THE CLASSROOM AND ONE FROM THE WORLD?
S: I never been asked that question. That's a really good question. I would say learning in a classroom is taught in a specific way. They don't tell you, “oh, you have to do music like this or like that.” But it's very much like there's a pocket, a world that you live in. But when you go out in the real world, you learn people who've learned music traditionally vs. non-traditionally vs. how you interpret it yourself. And I would say the best teacher is life and experiencing it from the world around you–even family. Even though classroom can give you the fundamentals to then be able to implement that back into your art, in regards to learning it, you just have to be in it. And I was lucky enough to be in it early before I even was in the music program at my school. So, I would say the world is the best teacher. Life is your best teacher.
SS: WHAT WAS YOUR PROCESS OF INTEGRATING YOUR TWO STYLES OF MUSIC?
S: Oh, man. I didn't really have a process per se. The big thing that I was trying to communicate when I was starting to make stuff was the emotion that I was feeling. And sometimes when it comes to speaking to people–especially about feelings and stuff–I feel like I am able to express myself because I can be well-spoken, I can let people know how I feel. But the easiest way for me to communicate with others, I found, was if I write it down. I would say my process is literally listening to the music–like an instrumental, or making an instrumental–and then processing it, thinking about my life and my experiences. And then, weirdly, the song kind of writes itself melodically. Just a top line, most of the time, just a freestyle melody that I then turn into a real song. So it's really the music speaking to me. It's more so me and the music. Like we got a relationship with each other and we chat a little bit.
SS: SO IT'S AN EXTENSION OF YOU.
S: Yeah, I would say that. It's who I am or who I've become due to being around music from my family, at school, being around my friends who inspired me. But literally, the process is me just relaxing and taking in the music and the experience. I feel like it's being channeled into me.
SS: ARE YOU CONTINUING WITH ALTERNATIVE HIP-HOP OR ARE YOU EXPERIMENTING WITH MORE STYLES?
S: Well, I'm always trying to implement new styles. I feel like I've always been alternative hip-hop; I just didn't know what it was called. But yeah, I'm going to continue to do things that are unique or different or weird. I like the things that are weird and different because they stand out the most and they bring you towards the future. I like that type of music because it's uncomfortable, it's always unexpected and keeps people guessing. But long story short, yeah, I'm going to continue to do alternative hip-hop and try to make new things.
SS: WHAT"S YOUR PROCESS WHEN WRITING MUSIC?
S: First, whether the instrumentals made for me already or I make it, regardless–the instrumental has its own story and energy behind it, like I was telling you: music communicating with me. And I'll hear the song, and I'll just sit and listen to it once or twice. And then I'll hear a melody. I don't know what it comes from, but I'll hear a melody and an energy behind it. And I'll start bobbing and moving around and I'll start doing mumbles. And then when I hear those mumbles, I start thinking of hooks and verses and stories. But it's like the song is telling me the story that it wants to be told, like it's telling me about itself. And then I'm just listening like, “okay, okay–oh, this is–oh, you've experienced heartbreak. You've experienced a desire to be something; you experienced loss. Okay, let me communicate that through the verse and then the hook.” So yes, like I said, just a conversation.
SS: WHAT MUSIC HAVE YOU RELEASED SO FAR?
S: So more recently, I released a short EP called Kissed by the Sun. That's my most recent project. But before that, I released an EP called Obsidian. These last two are mostly alternative hip-hop. It doesn't really have a strict genre. But at the core of everything, like I said, is hip-hop. And I've also released a collaborative album called Project Catalyst. My first ever project was called Gravity. And it was a love story about traveling the world and finding love there. The one I'm the most excited about right now is my most recent single. It's not part of a full project, but it was one I produced and made the music video for with a friend of mine named Johnny Noct. I love that song so much. It gets me so hyped.
SS: WHAT PLATFORMS CAN WE FIND THESE ON?
S: It's on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, pretty much everything. It's on all streaming services. My discography goes all the way back to 2019, so there's a good amount of music up there.