INTERVIURI

[sunrah]

CAGE: CK WON

Since you were pivotal in launching Eastern Conference Records along with High & Mighty, do you hold a position over at Eastern Conference besides being an artist on the label?

I haven??€�t had a real job in three years. I??€�m living strictly off the music. The last job I had was at Burger King when I had "Agent Orange" out. People used to call Burger King asking for Cage trying to book shows and do interviews.

The Weathermen project is something that a lot of people are anticipating. How is that coming along?

Right now I??€�m executive producing the Weathermen album. I started it, Copywrite confirmed it, and we said let??€�s make it happen. The name of the album is ??€?The New Left??€?. We??€�ve got a handful of songs done. I??€�m just trying to stay busy and not trying to commit when you have to do it when you don??€�t have a million plus dollars behind you to certify a plaque. I??€�ve also got a project called ??€?Nighthawks??€? with Camu Tao that??€�s named after the movie. We basically both hate cops like a lot of people, and we thought it??€�d be funny to do a whole album like that. So ??€?Nighthawks??€? is where Camu Tao is Billy D from the movie, and I??€�m Sly Stalone, but we took it to another level where we??€�re on some crooked cops in the club type shit. Planting coke on chicks, prostitutes, taking drug dealers money and moving shit in the club. It??€�s a different kind of direction. We??€�re really shitting on the police force on that album. I also have a DVD I??€�m working on. Eastern Conference is putting one out with videos, behind the scenes, shit with Beetlejuice, trying to get him to do shit. Mine has videos, mad concert shit, little movie skits, along the lines of a streets is watching type shit, but a lot weirder.

Speaking of Beetlejuice, how did you hook up with him?

Beetlejuice was a gimmick Rawkus came up with. They mentioned his name, and cats were fans of his. So Rawkus made that connection for the Smut Peddlers.

Who is handling production on your album?

Mighty Mi, Camu Tao, RJD2, Rush aka Red Spider, V.I.C. from the Ghetto Pros, J-Zone, for the most part we kept it in house. I wasn??€�t going for an album chock full of special guest appearances-it wasn??€�t about that. Only songs that people have heard are ??€?Agent Orange??€?, ??€?Suicidal Failure??€?, and ??€?Crowd Killer??€?. But there are 15 brand new joints.

How would you describe Movies for the Blind?

Movies for the Blind is kind of setting you up like ??€?this is what I??€�m doing??€�. There are different layers to the album. There??€�s a lot of evil shit to set you up for my next album Hell's Winter. I recorded this new album in two phases. Over a couple months a did four songs, and then I just felt uninspired and was like fuck this and started doing a bunch of bullshit for a while. I took a bunch of months off and didn??€�t do shit. Then I came back and said I need to finish this album, and put 10 songs together in a few months. It all kind of just came to me in the end. With ??€?Hell??€�s Winter??€?, I??€�m doing the exact opposite. I had the title before I even had one song.

Have any songs off ??€?Hell??€�s Winter??€? been floating around?

There??€�s a really ill song that didn??€�t make ??€?Movies for the Blind??€? that??€�s going to be on ??€?Hell??€�s Winter??€? called ??€?Ballad of Worms??€?. That??€�s floating on the net right now. I kind of just gave that shit away. I do shit like that cause I know how kids appreciate it, so I don??€�t mind having something out there just to go somewhere else with it??€�cause rap is so limiting, there is only a certain line you can work between, so its refreshing to do something else.

What do you think about downloading sites like Audiogalaxy and Napster?

I thought it was great when the whole Napster thing was going on, and all of the share sites that mimic Napster. That got my shit out there. To be honest, there??€�s obviously nothing you can do about it. I don??€�t buy music. Only purchases I make are friends, and that??€�s just to get them a couple scans. As far as any big budget artist, I steal them. I??€�m not out to benefit from them, but at the same time I??€�m not trying to support the companies they work for. I think people miss the whole idea of the independent scene- which was like the punk movement in that it??€�s saying ??€?we don??€�t need you to do this??€?. The entertainment industry has such a grip on people??€�s minds that a lot of people miss the point and get caught up in all the bullshit. As independent artists you would think more artists would support each other. You know, go buy your man??€�s shit, and go download the mainstream shit. If you don??€�t buy this album, there??€�s a possibility that you might not see this artist again. But people don??€�t have that trigger in their minds, they get caught up in the bullshit rather than seeing what the whole thing is about. I support independent artists and independent music as a whole, which keeps things pretty fresh to an extent, even though a lot of music right now is pretty stagnant.

What do you think about people that download your music?

Until the Smut Peddlers album, I had no albums out, so obviously some kid with no turntables is going to download it, which is ok, because I??€�ve pretty much made all I??€�m going to make off of those old singles, even though ??€?Agent Orange??€? has still been getting repressed over the past 5 years-but it??€�s like a check for $200 every six months. Kids are going to download this shit because they have no other way to get it.

As a native New Yorker, what was your experience on September 11th?

I was on my way to do my scene in the EC All Stars 2 video, and it was in the meatpacking district, so it was right there. I was supposed to be there at 10am, at 8 I was running late and I got out of the shower and my phone rang-I figured it was people calling me asking where the fuck I was, but they told me to turn on the TV and then I saw the first plane hit. My first thought was that a plane accidentally hit, but then bang, the second one hit, and that was my pinch-and then all of my conspiracy knowledge kicked in. But I was supposed to be right down there. I kind of wish I was in New York City when it happened. I live 50 minutes outside of the city, so I??€�m a nice distance away in case New York City gets hit with a nuclear bomb- I got time to get the fuck out of here.

Did the attacks inspire you to write?

I feel like 9/11 shifted things for me a little bit. Before 9/11 I was a lot more anti-government than I am now. Now I feel like my war isn??€�t really with the United States government, cause that??€�s a war you??€�re bound to lose a thousand times over. But it??€�s with the entertainment industry, and the bullshit I??€�ve been fed, and the bullshit they feed my daughter. There??€�s not really much I can do with making music to combat that, but at least I can throw some shit out there and say here??€�s my take on it. Regardless that the twin towers got taken out, I still have that sense that I??€�m in America, and I still kind of feel how I did on September 10th. It hasn??€�t really changed my life. The entertainment industry had it so amazing the way they captured it and the way that they fed it to us over and over. It was so sensationalized; that I almost felt that it wasn??€�t enough. As if I felt I needed to see something more. It wasn??€�t until I went to Europe for a month doing a tour with Copywrite and High and Mighty that I actually felt really glad that I was American. Being in Europe, I felt like anything could happen.

What about being in Europe made you feel like that?

Just as a whole, I??€�m not saying I??€�m patriotic, or that I support everything the government does- I mean I still don??€�t vote, but I don??€�t feel as good in Europe as I do in the United States. I felt like this vulnerable target walking around. The Europeans, they come at you with shit like, ??€?We could tell you were American before you opened your mouth??€�. Shit like that. We went through a lot of neutral countries like Switzerland and Sweden, and a lot of countries that don??€�t really play a part in the world scheme of things. I guess it??€�s kind of cool to be in a neutral country, but if I??€�m living on the earth, I think I??€�d rather be in the country taking over the world than not. I??€�m all about America saying ??€?we??€�re taking over the world??€�. I??€�m an American, so therefore I??€�m somewhat of a ruler too. So let me live in my odd shaped country, keep me safe, and I??€�ll buy your corporate products.

Are you glad to see Guliani go?

It really doesn??€�t matter to me who the fuck is in office. Granted Guliani did come through and do a lot of fascist shit. Bloomberg comes up in here and everyone thinks wow this dude got high, and you??€�d think he??€�d be the one to say marijuana isn??€�t that bad, but he??€�s probably high when he says ??€?No, we??€�re just going to keep enforcing the laws as they were.??€� I think Bill Maher should run for office. He had one of the most important soapboxes on TV as far as I??€�m concerned. Everything else is just ??€?feel insecure??€� and ??€?get fat??€�,, and ??€?Look, Wendy??€�s is open all night now??€�. They should make things a little more interesting, like outlaw drive-thru windows. Make these fat fucks get out of their fucking car to go get that cholesterol.

[sunrah]

TALIB KWELI & Hi-TEK's TRAIN Of THOUGHT

HHS: Explain the meaning of the name Reflection Eternal...

Talib Kweli: Basically, "Reflection" has to do with the reflection of our ancestors, or things that came before us, as well as reflection of where hip-hop is at now. "Eternal" is like forever, and that is just what we are trying to represent.

HHS: That's interesting. The name always reminded me of when you are standing in between two mirrors, and you see and endless reflection of yourself. But, what is the reason that the group is now called "Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek", rather than "Reflection Eternal"?

TK: Certain people feel like the audience is stupid, and they won't get it ??€� and to a certain extent, they're not stupid, but they sold "Mos Def & Kweli are Blackstar". It took selling that, to understanding what Blackstar is. They know Mos Def, and they know Kweli from Blackstar, now they may know Hi-Tek from producing on the Blackstar album, but the idea is to get them familiar with us. But the name of the group is Reflection Eternal, and right now it's just a matter of trying to get people familiar with who is in Reflection Eternal.

HHS: So, what exactly is Wanna Battle ??€� isn't Reflection Eternal somehow connected with that?

Hi-Tek: Have you ever heard of Mood? That's a group out of Cincinnati that I produced for, and their camp is Wanna Battle. We are affiliated, that's the first work Kweli and I ever did, on the Mood album, through TVT / Blunt.

TK: Wanna Battle is groups like Holmskillet, Lone Catalysts, Piakhan, Five Deez ??€� there's a lot of talent in Cincinnati.

HHS: So, being that Talib is from Brooklyn, and Hi-Tek is from Cincinnati, what brought you together to form Reflection Eternal?

TK: When I was in college, one of my roommates was from Cincinnati, and one time I went to go visit him. At the time, he was hanging out with Mood a lot, and Hi-Tek was producing for Mood, and I got on their second single that they put out. I had heard Hi-Tek's beats from then, and liked them, and when we did a demo together, that's when I felt my stuff was really poppin' off. That was like 1993.

HHS: So, how did the Blackstar connection fit into all of this?

TK: Reflection Eternal was there years before Blackstar was even thought of. Mos Def and Mr. Man both happened to be on the first Reflection single, "Fortified Live". Being that Hi-Tek lived in Cincinnati, and Mos and I lived in Brooklyn, we'd often do shows together ??€� he would do "Universal Magnetic", then we'd both do "Fortified Live". The energy and vibe was there, so the idea was to do something that would let people know who Mos Def is, and who Talib Kweli is, so that we could both follow-up with our own projects after that. So, now it's time to go back to what we were doing originally.

HHS: Do you consider Blackstar just a one-time deal?

TK: No, we have a new album coming out next year on MCA, through Mos's label, "Good Tree".

HHS: There was some talk about you and Mos opening a bookstore in Brooklyn. Can you shed some light on that?

TK: We bought a bookstore called Akiru Center For Culture and Education, it's a non-prophet organization. My Moms runs it.

HHS: What would you say are some important books that you've read, that other people should check out?

TK: The quintessential book I always say, that changed my life, and that I think is required reading, is "The Autobiography Of Malcom X". There's a book called "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho which I think is a great book; "2000 Seasons" of course; "A Lesson Before Dying" by Ernest Gaines; "Pimp" by Iceberg Slim.

HHS: Do you have other hobbies outside of hip-hop? Obviously reading....

TK: I don't really consider reading a hobby, I watch a lot more movies that I do read...

HHS: What is the greatest film of all time?

TK: The Blues Brothers.

HHS: Top Five?

TK: Blues Brothers; Scarface; Mo' Better Blues; Reservoir Dogs, and.....um...

HHS: Star Wars.

TK: Star Wars is up there, but not in my top five....

HHS: Aight. The whole involvement with both the Unbound and Hip-Hop For Respect projects. How did all of that come about?

TK: Hip-Hop For Respect was an idea that Mos had after we did this song on Weldon Irving's CD about Amadou Diallo. I sort of had my hand more on the orchestration of it, while it was more Mos's idea. I have to give respect to all of the artists involved in that project, because it was overdue, and something like that needed to happen in hip-hop. As far as the Unbound Project, because of the type of music that I do, I get a lot of activists approaching me, wanting me to participate in things. Frank Sosa and them approached me, asking me to do a song for their project. It wasn't no thing, if we I had the time, we'd do it.

HHS: Why do you think a lot of big name rappers don't involve themselves in these kinds of projects?

TK: They don't have the situations around them, or the people around them, or the context for them to get involved with projects like that. From what I have noticed from the type of career I have, it's really easy to get caught up, where you're just hanging out with other rappers or other people in the music business, or you don't watch the news or read the newspapers. You're not existing in the world that other people are existing in, because your job is to make records. You have all these people running around, trying to make sure everything is all right for you, so that you can make these records, and you kind of lose yourself, and lose your connection with the people. A lot of times, it's not even the artist's fault, but people try their best to keep the artists isolated, because they think "Oh, if the artist starts thinking too much, or worrying about this too much, then we're not going to make our money." A lot of people's jobs are based on these bigger name artists, and you have to go through five or six people to get through to them. I think most of these artists, if presented with the situation they would get down. Jay-Z mentioned Mumia on his songs, and Amadou on his album, Bruce Springsteen just did a song about Amadou, Lauryn is doing one, Wyclef is doing one. But I think all artists from DMX to N.W.A. to Blackstar deal with police brutality on their records.

HHS: So what artists do you listen to? I guess there's a common misconception that because you guys are on Rawkus, that you only listen to underground 12" singles, and everything....

TK: Yeah, that's the same misconception that you can't get into Reflection Eternal unless you are a vegetarian or unless you are conscious, which is kind of fucked up. Right now I'm listening to Rah Digga, Red & Meth, Ghostface, Dead Prez, Eminem, Common, Jay-Z, as far as hip-hop goes.

HHS: What are you trying to accomplish with the Reflection Eternal album?

TK: I'm just trying to make an album that lyrically has one focused train of thought, one sort of stream of consciousness running through it. We can make different songs for different regions, for the club, for the street, but I was trying to go back to making an album with a definite statement. Where it's fun, it's quality, you can dance to it, but it's not just random statements, random songs, but instead has a sense of continuity.

[sunrah]

SHABAAM SAHDEEQ (aka S-Double) - A TEST OF FAITH !

Shabaam Sahdeeq knows a little something about having his faith tested. After all, it was only a few years ago that Baam was prepping to release his solo-debut on Rawkus Records---then the bottom fell out. After Rawkus peeled wheels on releasing his debut, Baam decided to cut ties with the label that promised to make him a star. With a debut that included collaborations with Xzibit, Cocoa Brovaz, Kool G Rap, and production from Alchemist, Just Blaze, and Ayatollah locked securely in Rawkus' vaults. Baam has regrouped and finally shaken the bent-razor guillotine with the release of his "true" debut, Never Say Never; which includes the controversial Rawkus diss track "Straight Like That." On the eve of Never Say Never's release, Baam broke bread with us to clear the air about his stint at Rawkus, and to discuss his new beginning at Raptivism, a possible reunion LP with Polyrhythm, and an upcoming bid that threatens to keep him locked down for three-years. Peep game courtesy of S-Double!

HHS: Now that you have shaken the bent-razor guillotine, can you comment on what when down with Rawkus?



S-Double: Well, I felt like we (Baam, Sir Menelik, Kweli) was one of the first few artists to build Rawkus. In other words, they used us to build to their credibility, and then they jumped to some next-shit. Being that they started off as a 12", and drum and bass company. Once they got a little hit here and there, they started running with that and forgot where their foundation was.

HHS: Would you say they are attempting to emulate Def Jam, or a mini Def Jam?

S-Double: Exactly! Soundbombing went from having new innovative artists, to having artists who were already shining (Beanie, JT Money). You did not see shit like that on the first SB, or Lyricist Lounge. But now they are trying to be a little mini Def Jam, but not even quite, because they are not working shit to their full potential. If they were like Def Jam, "Simon Says" would have been bigger then it was, cause Def jam is like a machine, and once they have a hit on their hands they know how to make shit jump off.

HHS: Or at the very least, the sample would have been cleared beforehand!!?

S-Double: Exactly, but really to me that's management, that's on Monch's manager Omega.

HHS: Was the relationship with Rawkus a mismatch from the jump? Or was there a specific instance were the relationship was strained?

S-Double: It wasn't a mismatch it was perfect! I was doing Indy records, and to do Indy records you need a certain amount of money to make records flip. That's where Rawkus came in, they had that money to flip and they had the same vision that I had. So it was a match, it was just that after awhile they did not appreciate certain artists who brought shit to the table. I made like five 12" with them, that each sold at least 20,000 units independently. I brought them a joint with Eminem before he came out. I brought em mad shit that helped them grow. It's not just Mos Def and Kweli, there are other artists that helped their shit jump-off. I feel like I contributed allot??€¦ I felt they should have given me my shot, and put that LP out.

HHS: You disfavorably reference your stint at Rawkus on "Straight Like That", even mentioning specific Rawkus artists and label employees. Why did you decide to get so personally revealing?

S-Double: I felt like everybody had a part to play. Certain artist's head's got big when they got their turn at bat and shit went good. When shit was hooked up for us to go into the studio and do jams, certain artists ain't show up. Five times I been in the studio waiting for motherfuckers to show up. If you don't want to do the joint that's another story, just tell a nigga. But its another thing when they say "yeah we gonna do the joint" and don't show up cause you on some superstar shit; its bugged out.

HHS: Are some of those emcees you are mentioning the ones you referenced (Mos Def, Kweli) on "Straight Like That"?

S-Double: Yeah, you know I throw my little jabs. I throw my jabs, and heads throw they jabs at me. It ain't really no beef that when I see them I want to smack they head off, but I throw my jabs (laughter).

HHS: I mention that particular track ("Straight Like That"), because allot of heads of are going to be thrown for a loop, because of your reference to Kweli and Mos as "fake bookstore revolutionaries."

S-Double: I know I did it on purpose (laughs)!! I had to do it like that cause heads is on some their too righteous to rock with Baam, or they are too conscious or whatever. Like my shit wasn't fully where they're at, so I just threw that up in the air. You notice that bookstore is not there anymore! I thought cats were cool, but mad heads are getting real swell. So, that's my little jab right there. If heads choose to jab back its all good.

HHS: Taking into consideration that some of the artists you mentioned (Kweli, Mos, Pharoah) got large during your stint at Rawkus, some are going to attribute this track to being sour grapes, or that you are playing the "frustrated rapper" role. Can you comment on that?

S-Double: Nah, it ain't no frustrated rapper role. I just call it how I see it! Cause if I see Eminem in the club right now, he sold eight-million records, he still give me more love then certain other artists, who haven't even reached a quarter of that!

HHS: With that said, does it bother you that some of the emcees you broke in with, and have collaborated with in the past (Eminem, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Pharaoh Monch), have not reached out to you to give you any shine since experiencing that success?

S-Double: Nah, I ain't mad, I don't want nobody to put me on. I want to shine on the strength of my own self. It's not going to be proper to me until I do it like that. I don't want to be the man in the background. No disrespect to D-12, but I'm not trying to shine like that, I'm trying to be my own person and bring my own people in.

HHS: Since "Straight Like That" came out, another Rawkus affiliate (Evil Dee) has voiced his displeasure with the label as well. Do you feel this is just the tip of the iceberg?

S-Double: Yeah man look how they did Brace 4 Impak! I don't see no promotion, any ads, or videos, that's basically why I left. Because I didn't want my album to come out like that, and that's how I felt they were going to do my shit. Personally, I feel like Evil Dee, and Da Beatminerz contributed to what we call "underground hip-hop." They started that scene with Black Moon, Smif N Wesson, and all those groups. They started that Indy type thing, so how can you front on them, when they already got fronted on by Nervous. You're not supposed to do that. Plus, that LP [Brace 4 Impak] was better the last Lyricist Lounge album, so what's the deal? Certain people get the full royal treatment, and other artists don't? Why is Last Emp still sitting there, he already got shitted on by Interscope. Still sitting there! Is he going to sit there any longer, he has a whole album done! They gonna throw out whoever got that radio hit. It's not about servicing the small college radio-station anymore. I'm not mad at heads for blowing up, because that's the main objective, but you can't forget the small people too! G Rap's record was recorded when I left Rawkus! Look at that and he's a vet!

HHS: You are now signed to a fledgling label (Raptivisim). Did the chance to be a major building block in Raptivisim's future attract you to them? If not, what did attract you to them?

S-Double: Raptivism is not as big as Rawkus, or some of these other labels, but I felt like the two cats I was dealing with their minds were more stable and they believed in my shit. Plus, I did a joint on their compilation, "No More Jails", and to me it was successful. It sold 60,000 copies of just raw underground consciousness, and there is no Nate Dogg's on the songs, there's no big time artists already getting shine on any of the songs. I felt if they could blow that up, they could definitely blow my shit up, cause I already had a good four-years set-up fucking around with Rawkus.

HHS: You entitled your "true" debut Never Say Never, and it obviously references everything you have been thru. Though the title bubbles with ironic implications, looking back, was there ever a time you doubted yourself, or the process of being a recording artist?

S-Double: For sure! Never Say Never is everything that I have been thru in the last two/three-years. It's all feelings, its not just lyrics and beats and shit. It's fully based on everything that I've been through. At this point I just want to be heard. I'm not worried about Gold, or Platinum! I just want as many people to hear it as possible. If it sells, 100,000, 50,000, or 20,000 units that's successful to me, because that's 20,000 people that heard my shit. I'm cool building off of that. I would rather have a foundation, then blow-up one day and fall-off the next!

HHS: You have undeniably encountered some hurdles, but overcame them all. Is it especially gratifying to know that you rebounded so quickly with Never Say Never?

S-Double: I'm trying to bounce back with everything! Anything that happened, that set me back, I gotta bounce back; that's just my personality. If I fight and I lose the fight, I'm trying to get right for when I see that person again I'ma whup they ass (laughter). If I lose a battle, I'm trying to write like ten-times more rhymes, so I make sure next time I'm not going to loss that battle. Same thing with the album, the Rawkus album was dope, but now Never Say Never is fifty-percent more skills then what I was doing with Rawkus.

HHS: When comparing the material you recorded for Rawkus, do you feel that Never Say Never is a better representation of where your true artistic vision rests?

S-Double: Yeah, for sure! I've grown since I did that album. Plus, I went thru some hard shit, just life wise. I felt for a minute that it was not going to happen, so I wrote harder.

HHS: Some of the personal/relationship issues you mention are referenced on "Can't Be Together" right?

S-Double: Yeah, that song right there went from relationships, shit I was dealing with personally, music wise, and court wise with some little troubles. That relationship really held me down thru all the bullshit. "Can't Be Together" is a really deep song. Then "I Still Love Her" is a part of that too. I still love her, regardless, of the shit I been thru.

HHS: Speaking of "I Love Her Too" your adoration for hip-hop is really evident on that track. Besides, being your livelihood, how much does hip-hop mean to you?

S-Double: It means a ot! Because really I'm not getting paid from hip-hop. I'm not a teenager either, I'm in this forever, I'ma die trying to do this shit word up!

HHS: Do you have any plans on releasing the material you recorded for Rawkus, or are they holding the masters for a ransoms price?

S-Double: They holding the masters for a ransoms price, because they know some of the beats and vocals on there is real crazy. If I would have been able to use just three, or four cuts of those cuts on Never Say Never shit would have been crazy! They [Rawkus] don't want that!! I feel that Never Say Never is better, but that old shit has some joints on there! I had some shit with some producers and artists I really respected. It seems like the producers (Alchemist, Just Blaze, Ayatollah) and emcees (Xzibit) that I was fucking with on the record, that was new then, everybody done blew up now. Even when I did the song with Xzibit, Rawkus was like, nah, X only sells 50,000 copies (this was before he did the shit with Dre & Snoop), why do you want to do a joint with Xzibit. I thought it wasn't about that? X is hot to me, and was soon to blow. They really jumped on the track after X blew, and wanted to release it again. But I was like nah, what the fuck you gonna put it out again for? Same thing with the Cocoa Brovaz, why you doing a joint with them, Boot Camp Click ain't hot no more, but now they signed them like a year later. Crazy!!

HHS: You worked with Tahir, O-Negative, Molemen, and a slew of new producers on Never Say Never. However, considering you have worked with DJ Spinna in the past, I found it surprising that he did not contribute any tracks to this LP. Will you guys continue to work together in the future?

S-Double: Tahir is going to be that next cat (Dead Prez & Black Thought). Spinna is my man, but I felt like I did so many tracks with him. I bombed on so many Spinna tracks, I just wanted to broaden my shit a little bit. I am going to do more shit with Spinna though, I may do another Poly album, but it depends cause I am going into incarceration in January 2002.

HHS: Can you comment on that, and is everything copasetic now?

S-Double: For the most part, I am out on bail. Raptivism bailed me out, and I already took a plea for a three-flat bid, so heads won't be seeing me for a while. In the meantime, I am doing another LP, so it's going to drop in the middle of my bid. So, it's going to be like I am still here minus the shows.

HHS: Three-years?

S-Double: See, its fucked up! I'm finally coming out with my shit, and I can't even enjoy it. I got a brand new child shit is fucked up??€¦ I wish there was some kind of program where I could come out in a few months, but I doubt it??€¦ But that's not totally deading my shit, I got another LP coming, and when I come out, I'm going to drop another one. The producers I'm working with are dong me a solid, cause they are giving me tracks before they getting money. But, when they know when its time to wrap that up, they gonna see their money.

HHS: Baam, keep your head up dawg! Just know that our prayers will be with you and your family while your locked-down! Anything you want to add?

S-Double: I just hope people go support me, I'ma catch up right where I left off when I come out for real!!!

[Deena]

DJ Hi-Tek: Moving Something
By Chris Yuscavage



DJ Hi-Tek is too oft forgotten since his came into Hip-Hop attached to Talib Kweli as Reflection Eternal. Although Tek was largely responsible for Black Star, it is Train of Thought that remains a popular bid for the best album in the last five years. Easily put, Hi-Tek is to Cincinatti what Kanye West is to Chicago.
While it could have been easy for the Hi-Tek to stay in bed with the Rawkus underground hip-hop movement and sleep comfortably with his critically-acclaimed Thought, he has recently branched his services out providing production efforts for the likes of Snoop Dogg, The Game, and most recently dishing two tracks out to 50 Cent.

Still hitting the Protools as hard as ever with future projects on Dr. Dre??€�s Detox and 50 Cent??€�s movie soundtrack, DJ Hi-Tek took some time out of his busy day in the ??€?Natti to speak with AHH.com about, among other things, Talib Kweli??€�s struggles on Beautiful Struggle, his thoughts on Dave Chappelle??€�s situation, and why he needed a box of tissues after Dre??€�s Detox invitation.

AHH: Talib Kweli received very little critical love in 2004. I want to keep it greasy. What was your initial reaction to Beautiful Struggle?

DJ Hi-Tek: I mean, truthfully, I think when you first come out with a record like the Reflection Eternal record, which was a classic, I think it??€�s hard to top that. People are listening for that same thing, and what that same thing was was a producer, one producer basically shaping a whole album, which took about two years to record. Truthfully, from me to Talib: I??€�ll let him know that. I think he needs that producer that will basically be there with him and give him his real constructive criticism, instead of letting Talib do Talib, which is making music. A lot of producers ??€� you might get a Just Blaze or a Neptune beat ??€� some dudes, they get so busy, it??€�s hard to get them into the studio to really produce your record, let alone mix it. Mixing is part of making the record, too. It??€�s like the icing on the cake. I mean, I feel to this day, it??€�s cool to have a Kanye, a Just Blaze, Neptunes, and all that, but if the s**t don??€�t match up, it might be too much heat. It might be too much heat in too many different direction. That??€�s what I think the album became, instead of having a top, middle, and a bottom.

AHH: Why didn??€�t he stick with a formula that??€�s already worked for him?

DJ Hi-Tek: I don??€�t know, man. That??€�s probably a question you would have to ask him. That??€�s something I??€�ve still been trying to figure out.

AHH: What about the follow-up to your debut solo album? You??€�re doing material for everybody else. Has there been time for that?

DJ Hi-Tek: Yeah, I??€�m working on it right now as we speak. It??€�s been a struggle though. It??€�s hard to do a compilation album when you don??€�t really rap. It??€�s not like a Kanye album; it??€�s more like a Detox or a Chronic album, where I??€�m just featured on certain tracks. It??€�s hard. I been working on it for like three years now. It??€�s just been off and on. First I had a budget through MCA, then they folded. Then I was on Geffen, but I got off of Geffen. I got them to release me. I??€�m a free agent right now, so right now I??€�m just working on my album out of my own pocket. I got a lot of nice features. I got Mos Def, Raphael Saadiq, Snoop, Slim Thug, Kweli of course, Nas, Busta. Who else? My artist I??€�m producing, Dion. He??€�s on The Game record [??€?Runnin??€�??€?] I produced. I??€�m still working to get other people right now.

AHH: You mentioned Slim Thug. What do you think of the whole Southern, Crunk movement?

DJ Hi-Tek: It is what it is, man. It??€�s just a rhythm. It??€�s a movement that, if you don??€�t feel it, you gonna be wack trying to do it. You really got to ride with the track, just like if you was an East Coast rapper riding the track. So, that Crunk is what??€�s popping right now. That??€�s just got something to do with the moon and the stars. That s**t is hot. You know, Mike Jones, I love that s**t.

AHH: Mike Jones seems to be the favorite, even amongst those who don??€�t feel Crunk.

DJ Hi-Tek: Yeah, and it??€�s like, I don??€�t love it because it??€�s a fad. I knew Mike Jones was gonna blow before he blew just because I can understand when I hear something new and fresh. Slim Thug, the same with him. They like the new Geto Boys of Houston and it??€�s new s**t.

AHH: Oh yeah, and off the beats for a second, I heard Main Flow??€�s album last year, Hip-Hopulation. There was like this short little freestyle clip of you rapping. Is that something you??€�re interested in?

DJ Hi-Tek: Man, f**k Main Flow! It??€�s a little personal, but I don??€�t appreciate somebody putting me on an album where I??€�m featured, and I don??€�t even know about it. What??€�s the point? Why did Hi-Tek come out of nowhere? Yeah, he put it out there like ??€?featuring Hi-Tek.??€� That just sold you 100,000 more units. He ain??€�t cutting me in though, man! [laughs] You ain??€�t cutting me in, man.

AHH: Moving on, how do you feel about what??€�s been going on with Dave Chappelle? I know he??€�s a friend.

DJ Hi-Tek: I know Dave and Dave was on Reflection Eternal. He came through and blessed the album a lot. We got stuff from Dave that we didn??€�t even put out. I mean, we done had a lot of talks. He had a lot of talks with me about success ??€� about doing what I??€�m doing and staying focused. He just gave me some real knowledge on, once I get here, what to do. I just can imagine how receiving that much money and just the pressure of being a comedian, there??€�s so much attention with people cracking the whip like, ??€?Be funny, be funny.??€? I just think he needs a break to recollect and be to himself so he can give the people what they want.

AHH: Yeah. I think that he said something to the effect that the people right around him were always calling him a genius and telling him how great he was. After awhile, he started to question that and that really got to him.

DJ Hi-Tek: Yeah, man, I can only imagine. I do the same thing! That??€�s why I??€�m in Cincinnati a whole lot. I get tired of people calling me Hi-Tek. I got to come back home and get called Tone sometimes. And that??€�s maybe what Dave is trying to get. He needs to get away from people say, ??€?Dave! Dave Chappelle! I??€�m Rick James, b*tch!??€? That probably ain??€�t even funny to him no more, you know what I??€�m saying?

AHH: Hell no. That joke was so funny that it??€�s like, it wore out the joke real quick and you just want to punch people for even saying it.

DJ Hi-Tek: Exactly, so I understand. I just want the brother to, if he gets my message, I just want to tell him peace and keep your head up. Do what you got to do and get your head right. If you don??€�t have your mental right, then you don??€�t have nothing.

AHH: You??€�ve been staying busy with Snoop and G-Unit. On The Massacre, did you actually get in the studio with 50 or how did that set-up work as far as you landing on his album?

DJ Hi-Tek: Nah, actually, the ??€?Get In My Car,??€? I did that track around the same time that I produced a track for Game called ??€?Runnin??€�.??€? I had gave it to Dr. Dre. I did a song deal with Aftermath, which was like a ten-song deal and that was two of the tracks I had gave them. They wanted to keep both of those, and one of the tracks they gave to Game, which was ??€?Runnin??€�,??€? and the second one was ??€?Get In My Car.??€? And the ??€?Ryder Music??€? track, I did that out in Cali. I produced that out there. 50 Cent was in the studio, but I was in another studio. I tracked over to the other studio, but I didn??€�t actually get into the studio with him.

AHH: When you produce tracks for different acts, what is the difference between producing for somebody like 50 Cent as opposed to producing for somebody like Talib Kweli ??€� or is there a difference?

DJ Hi-Tek: Nah, there??€�s not really a difference, man. Because with both Talib and 50 Cent, they both were really musically-influenced, so they hear the track and they basically spit what the track told them to spit. Like ??€?Ryder Music,??€? if you listen to the track, that sound like ryder music, something to ride to, you know? And ??€?Get In My Car,??€? it??€�s like 50, he??€�s really melodic like that. He??€�s the gangsta melodic rapper to me. He really kicks a lot of melodies to the track, but he spits a lot of gangsta s**t.

AHH: So as Kweli has done his new solo thing, how has the transition gone for you with your new collaborators?

DJ Hi-Tek: Yeah, man, them dudes really put me down with a lot of production. I??€�ve been on the G-Unit album and the Lloyd Banks album ??€� also, the D-12, Game, and now I??€�m producing for the Detox album, too. So, between that whole camp and just personally, I met up with Young Buck a couple times, and he told me, ??€?Man, besides me, I think 50 is your biggest fan.??€? So, he was just telling me I??€�m 50??€�s favorite producer, just musically. I might not make every track or every album, but I just was told that 50 really loves my s**t, so it just feels good that people respect what I do.

AHH: So you know that when you give them something that they??€�re going to flip it into something that you would be proud to have your name on, too?

DJ Hi-Tek: Yeah, they give me the respect of mixing my own records, too, like as far as sending it back, me tracking it, putting ad-libs, the flavors, the finishing touches to it. Basically, ??€?Go ??€?head, Tek, do your thing, and we appreciate it,??€? and I appreciate that, too.

AHH: You mentioned the Detox album, trying to slip that in there. I??€�ve heard that you and Nottz is doing work on there, too. So, that album has been on the shelf, off the shelf, how does it feel that Dre hand-picked out of respect to get put onto something that is going to carry his legacy behind it?

DJ Hi-Tek: Man, it makes me want to, cry! [laughs] No, seriously, it??€�s just like a dream come true. I just worked hard to get to this point. That??€�s the epitome to me. I ain??€�t even really going to speak on it too much, because it??€�s not actually done yet. But, I??€�ve been told by Dre personally, ??€?Stop sending me tracks. All I want right now is Detox records.??€? I??€�m in the lab everyday trying to come up with that one Detox record.

[sunrah]

DEFARI & BADU are LIKWIT JUNKIES

By Marlon Regis

DEFARI (of Likwit Crew) & DJ BABU (of The Beat Junkies) are the Likwit Junkies, in this interview, they both get down and vent steam on how divided the hip-hop game is, depending on which side of the fence (or coast) you consider your tastes and preferences to be.

HHS: Emcees meet DJs, DJs meet emcees all the time in this small circle, and especially on tour, not to mention living in the same city ??€� what or who brought you two together, but more importantly, what made the meeting materialize into coming together as a group and for a LP?

Defari: "Me and 'Babs' (affectionately referring to Babu) met back in '95, and that's when I knew all the Beat Junkies. I'm in good with a lot of DJs, like I know a lot of local famous DJs ??€� Julio G, DJ Revolution, the OG KDAY Mix-masters, to DJ Alladin....It goes on. 'Babs' did cuts on "These Dreams" on Focus Daily, and then from there we did a song called "Joyride," from there we did both "Behold my Life" and "Behold my Life Remixed". Yeah, and then I came to 'Babs' with the idea of Likwit Junkies. I brought the idea to ABB (Records) and ten months later, here we are."

HHS: As unique as it is to hear of an emcee in the hip-hop world having a strong traditional education by attending and graduating under grad and graduate degrees at UC Berkeley and Columbia U ??€� do you ever sort of get fed up of this stigma every time you are mentioned? Like now for instance?

Defari: "Nah man....if people know my educational background, I mean that's nothing but FACT, one. And two, it serves as some inspiration for some of the youth. So I don't never get tired of people bringing it up. It's always brought up and it's always a positive thing, but the one thing I'm tired of is, they always bring up the teaching thing, but I haven't taught in eight years since '98. They run that into the ground like they have an old bio. I think a lot of people that do interviews with me, they don't do prior research before talking to me. It's like they read some shit from Tommy Boy or something."

HHS: In this very oversaturated hip hop industry, why you think an average fan of the music ??€� outside of your dedicated fan base or followers ??€� would be lured and attracted to this album, its content and just The L.J.'s chemistry?

Babu: "I think we did a very good job of balancing classic standards with new school aesthetics. Our music that we did on this album reaches and touches people in a lot of ways that they could relate to. Good honest hip-hop with no ulterior motives. No doubt that it's a commercial business and we eat off of this, but me relatively speaking, my other group Dilated Peoples being on a major label ??€� the game is very complicated and very tough. With me doing a Likwit Junkies project, it relieves a lot of that tension and stress I have having to work on a major label. The LJ's is really pure, from the heart, from the gut. It's really honest."

Defari: "Well, first off, because it's a breath of fresh air, and the intriguing factor is it's myself and Babu together. That's like a union of two worlds I think will intrigue a lot of fans, they'll just wanna hear it alone just off of that. And it's another dynamic duo in the tradition of Gangstarr and the tradition of Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Eric B & Rakim, Slick Rick & Doug E Fresh. We got a really dynamic duo coming from the West Coast and people have never seen that before, and the album is so entrenched in soul, I don't think people have ever heard a hip-hop album with so much in it, in terms of the influences."

HHS: Defari, you mention Los Angeles and CALI in general, almost on every track. On "Salute" it's inescapable, but overall you seem to be very adamant about driving in the point that this LP via the production and emceeing one is listening to, is from the West Coast.

Defari: "That's all tradition as an emcee that everyone know where we from. Like even if you do it every song, which I didn't do on the Likwit Junkies, but I probably might do it enough where you might think it's every song. So I'm just following suit, that's pretty much what all of us as emcees are programmed and trained to do for good reason. Because rap is such a different monster compared to all other genres of music. In rap, you gotta let people know you from, and it's important also, because they've never heard a dynamic duo like this out of the West. This is a brand new thing, completely cutting edge. That's what really makes me excited California. Plus it's our debut album, and for those people who never heard Defari and for those people who are not familiar with Babu and The Beat Junkies, or the Likwit Crew, now it's time to reiterate. It's a trip because of what you say because...."(his cell phone rings interrupting). "Hold on real quick." (He continues) "I've read certain periodicals as of late, I guess it's a fad for the month of February to do West Coast articles," he laughs. "You know one month out of the year, and ah, they don't even make no mention of Defari. Shit, I'm legendary status, whether the journalist says it or not, I'll say it to the journalist. So you know, I still gotta keep doing it, I'm like a missionary," he laughs out loud. "Spreading the word."

HHS: On "6 in the Morning" you flip into a great reggae groove, palatable for hip-hop heads to appreciate ??€� why a turn to this genre and outside of typical hip-hop? I just love this track man.

Defari: "Ah yeah man, well that's the beauty of Likwit Junkies, it allows Defari to do some of the creative things that I always wanted to do. In the beginning of that song, I say 'This is for all the Kingston 12 heads.' Kingston 12 was a popular club here in Santa Monica, all the Studio One reggae and dancehall and what not played there. And the new era of hip-hop heads, they don't even understand how close reggae, specifically dancehall and rap, have been over the years. From the East Coast you know, but if you're from the West Coast, sometimes you have no idea. So I co-produced that song, I brought that to 'Babs' and told him this is a chamber we need to visit on this record, and man, it's such a great song. I wanted to do it from the era of riddims that you know were really bumpin' hard in the late '80s."

HHS: Which brings me to ask, what's in Defari's disc-changer or iPod on a regular, whether in LA or traveling on the road elsewhere?

Defari: "Man, that's a tough question because I got a CD book that I keep my CDs in, it's over like 400 CDs in one book. The book is extremely heavy, like ten pounds," he laughs out. "So I got an oldies CD that I made, I'll tell you what's in there right now. I know I got Heatwave in there, The Game's album, Likwit Junkies' album is in there, and I've been listening to Phil Tha Agony's Aromatic, and ah.....I actually got Lil' Weezy in there right now."

HHS: Who?

Defari: "Lil Wayne, 'cause I like that "Go DJ", that's my joint! I got the Mike Jones, the "Tippin' on 44's" and the last CD I got up in there is that Purple Haze by Cam'ron. Evidence has a new mixtape too, I've been playing that as well."

HHS: When you two look at your peers, the world of hip-hop that you're surely a part of, what are some of your disappointing moments or observations in detail? Maybe even pertaining to yourself?

Babu: "Sometimes I really get discouraged on just how the media has gotten a hold of hip-hop culture and exploited it and watered it down, they just broadened the whole term of what is hip-hop. Like hip-hop now is 'Hip Hop and R&B'. And I like everything man, I'm not trying to hate, but the umbrella of hip-hop has gotten really broad over the last 7 or 8 years. It's like anything under the sun now can be called hip-hop. It's not necessarily my peers I'm disappointed in, it's more the industry and the media just taking advantage of it, no always putting the spotlight on the right thing or distort things. When you talk about the commercial side of things and the big business of things, the people who are really pulling strings in the positions, a lot of them don't necessarily take the hip-hop as serious as some of us do. They don't look at it as a culture or a way of life, it's just a paycheck. And on top of that, people get on and off this hip-hop escalator really fast these days. I don't know if you know or understand the analogy I'm making but it just seems like in general, unlike other genres of music, it's ok to listen to rap until you get to a certain age but after that, you gotta let it go and not be as into it. For my peers and who I'm with, we're so diehard about the real shit, we don't know any other way about it. But with hip-hop taking over so large, it can't help but get watered-down too, it's a double-edge sword."

Defari: "When I listen to the music, that's the DJ side of me, so I don't really listen to the music as an artist per say. I listen to it as a DJ and as a 12-year old B-Boy who started scratchin' hip-hop. So I listen to it as a DJ, for the most part I be listening to records seeing how I could mix them and stuff. Some of the things that disappoint me to make a long story short, is those lackluster rhymes, lackluster topics and concepts. Just the recycled same stuff. But at the same time, I don't take it too personal, I don't get mad about it, it's just music. Either I like the song or I don't. I have a lot of other options or choices. I think when I was younger, you take it to heart like 'oh noo, that's not hot, or he's whack, he's dope!' I don't even get into that no more. It's just, I like so much music, you feel me?"

HHS: Is that what makes you push on, because you're not just into one world of only hip-hop, you enjoy so many other forms of music, and your maturity makes you sort of pour in fresh effort of hip-hop so to speak?

Defari: "Exactly, I'm playing Heatwave and then I'm playing Mike Jones, youknowhatI'msayin? That's the beauty of music, for different moods, for different times. Because I'm a, I'm a, I'm a GHETTO NIGGA!" (we laugh) "Me myself, I know what I'm good at in terms of my music. My music if for the hip-hop Diaspora of people who love hip-hop, then there's the whole Black Rap world ??€� stuff that's in my immediate environment with the cars driving by rattling the windows. I love it all man, 'cause I stay 'street' and at the same time I always stay trying to push forward for this hip-hop. I just don't limit myself just to rap and a bunch of bonehead lyrics. So it's just the melting of the world."

HHS: As much as you'll represent LA, it's hard to escape the fact that a big part why you've become the type of emcee/dj duo today, has a lot to do with being groomed from early on classic foundational East Coast hip-hop ??€� NYC to be exact.

Defari: "But you can't fight and dismiss Ice T, LA Dream Team and World Class Wreckin' Crew, King Tee. There was more coming from the East. Nowadays there's more music coming out the West Coast then it was back then, however, the same bias reporting and overlooking of the music is even more atrocious than then. The non-recognition of Los Angeles other than Gangster rap, is an atrocity, one. Two, the fact that magazines are sort of One-Coast biased, and their headquarters are on another coast, we get the short end of the stick."

HHS: True, but besides the fact you mention CALI/LA/West Coast a lot, are there entities or styles in your music that you care to define for us, that you see as influenced from the East Coast ??€� that parallel comes up a lot with your style, why is that?

Defari: "Oh yeah, I have influences from all coasts. For example, from the South, I could spit '150' in a heartbeat. I can go double-time, in fact I'm nice at it too. And you'll see that on my new album, Street Music. And on this album, in "One Day Away" on Likwit Junkies you see me giving you'll that chamber. I'm going '150' and that's Southern style. Do I particularly have an East Coast style, no not really. But because I'm more of an emcee, the clich?© is this West Coast rapper dude and I'm lyrical, well, they'll say, 'he sounds like the East Coast'. These are labels placed upon us, not labels that we place upon ourselves. That's why The Game's album is such a beautiful thing. 'Cause it's most definitely West Coast in all of its promotion and marketing, but The Game sounds like he's from the East Coast."

HHS: Sound like Nas if you ask me....

Defari: "Right! And in terms of any influences, of course I've been influenced by the great emcees like Slick Rick ??€� my favorite. KRS-One. What influenced me to write my first rhyme was "Eric B is President". I've been influenced by Nas, Jay-Z and anybody in the game can't deny that they're not influenced by who's at the top of the game at the time. I've been influenced by Pac, Biggie....Ice Cube I can't never forget. And LL...."

HHS: DJ Babu, as a producer and turntablist over many years now, looking forward to this Lp's release with Defari, and looking back at your career with The Beat Junkies and Dilated Peoples ??€� how could you say with you, LA and the scene of hip-hop has been shaped? In other words, without you, what and how would it be different?

Babu: "People really knew us, The Beat Junkies, when I first became part of the scene for DJ battling. Initially in LA, and then all around the world we've been known for ripping all these battles, it opened up a lot of doors for us. All of a sudden DJ Melo-D had a gig with Julio G on 92.3 The Beat, the Melo started bringing in Icy Ice, Rhettmatic, he brought in myself. Then on Power 106, they got Mr. Choc who brought in J-Rocc over there. For a second we just really had the city on lock from both commercial radio stations, to the battles, to the clubs, to the mixtapes. We brought back a renaissance of real high quality hip-hop Djing, we raised the bar...."

HHS: Almost necessary to make some part of your LP authentic hip-hop, you have to also depend on scratching chorus-hooks, as opposed to lazily employing a singing or rapper recited hook repetitively. There seems to be a lot of examples on The LJ's - care to explain the process or the art of scratching chorus hooks?

Babu: "My whole attraction to DJs period, in hip-hop was, I was always drawn to DJs in rap groups. My ears were, from anywhere from '86,'87,'88 to the early '90s where it was groups like Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, I liked EPMD because of DJ Scratch. I really grew up on rap groups where DJs got busy. So once we have a beat, or a song idea, I'm already automatically going through my mental rolodex of things that could texture-wise, compliment the song, as far as bringing in the new sound or instrument and on top of that, you definitely wanna cut something that makes sense that the song-topic is. And I'm a big Gangstarr fan, Primo really laid down the original blueprint for me and for what I try to do. But then you look at the situation with me and Dilated Peoples, literally sometimes scratching another rapper is more expensive, it's ridiculous. The sampling issues and complications....it's such a doggy dog industry, that's such a whole other career for some people is just collecting money off samples, a very dangerous, expensive game. I'd love to see more and more people doing the scratching hooks, but they know the reality of the game ??€� 'am I really gonna scratch in this KRS-ONE sample, and give away 50% of my publishing?'"

[sunrah]

Goretex is a sick fuck, he still lives in the projects (Glenwood Projects-Flatbush/Canarsie area), after 30 years he still calls piss filled elevators and bullet hole filled doors his home. He rhymes from a perspective of someone on dust, coming up with some shit that nobody in the hiphop game could think of. That's what makes him so ill, he is original and in his own world of Goretex. He doesnt even listen to hiphop, he listens mostly to blackmetal, hardcore, rock, thrash, deathmetal, and obscure 70's shit. Gore has been down since day one in the triad known as Necro, ILL BiLL, & Goretex. (Goretex & Bill were best friends) All growing up in Glenwood when Decepticons ran wild and beef was at every corner. Goretex has always been on point when it comes to the ill shit and has always clicked with Necro mentally when it comes to obscure records and bands with moogs, playing Axelrod basslines, with funky drum kits played by drummers with afros.

Gore and Necro would sit for hours listening to loop tapes, almost competing with each other to see who had the illest shit. This year you get to hear years of sickness and love for the art make its way to your ears, in the form of Goretex's debut, "THE ART OF DYING". Just look at the cover, that shit is next level, if you don't get it, you're not ready yet! ............. (asta nebun)





GORETEX: COMPLEX LOGIC

Written by Matt Barone

While the common hip-hop fan rarely takes rap music beyond its surface value, those willing enough to dig deeper into what the culture has to offer will come across truly intriguing points of view. A perfect example of this is Brooklyn native Goretex, who, along with his Non Phixion brethren Ill Bill and Sabac, consistently brings listeners into a unique world of perception with every verse he spits. Regularly being backed by the brilliant yet largely-ignored production of Necro, Goretex's bars challenge ear drums with complex metaphors and dusted logic.

Usually granted merely one verse on guest appearances throughout Non Phixon's catalog, including solo records from Ill Bill and Sabac, as well as Psycho+Logical Records family Necro and Mr. Hyde, the mind of Goretex will finally be given a full platform to exercise with the release of his solo debut, The Art of Dying. Offering a one-of-a-kind journey into realities that too many choose to ignore, The Art of Dying is being met with high levels of anticipation and speculation.

Whatever the verdict may be, though, Goretex is confident that The Art of Dying is an accurate depiction of his thoughts and ideas. How the rest of the world interprets it lies completely within the respective minds of those wise enough to give it a listen.

HHS: When people listen to your verses, they generally say how it's almost like you bring listeners into your own world with your metaphors and subject matter. Where do you draw inspiration from when you sit down and write?

Goretex: That's a good question. I think inspiration comes from all kinds of music, from books, from movies, and from reality. Everything that goes down on the regular day-to-day basis. I think every artist, in a sense, wants to create their own world, and their own place where heads can see what's up. I'm just really exploring a side of my own psyche.

HHS: Every verse of yours is real complex. Does it take you a long time to write a verse, or does the writing mostly just come naturally?

Goretex: I'll be honest with you, it depends. If I'm in a really fucked up mood, and I feel really shitty about something, it can be a hard time. I think if anybody is stressed out on the regular shit, it's hard to write a song, or it's hard to pick up a guitar. If I'm writing to a specific track, once the track is on, it kind of just opens up to me. Usually I get the vibe from the beat, and I'm just trying to get under the beat. It's like, the minute I hear the beat, I'm already under it.

HHS: Being that this is your first solo album, were there any angles or areas of subject matter that you wanted to touch upon? Like, things you weren't able to fully cover in the past being that you only typically had one verse on a song?

Goretex: I don't know. I think all of our solo albums are just different sides of our own personality. What I wanted to say is kind of symbolic to how it has been throughout our career. It kind of depends how you interpret my verses, actually. It's all up to the listener. I really like to keep the interpretation of my music up to the listeners. If I'm writing about something specifically, it obviously might mean something to me, but for the listener, it's whatever. It's more about the intent.

HHS: You mentioned how each of the albums separates you, Ill Bill, and Sabac by your individual personalities. How would you define your personality, shown through The Art of Dying?

Goretex: Someone who says fucked up shit, or maybe someone who just says some other shit. I don't know. That's a good question. Again, my perception is different than every other person's perception. As far as within the group, we all have different personalities. Sabac is wild. When we're on tour, he parties his balls off. He has a good time, and we all have a good time. We're out working and trying to make this shit happen. We're taking these projects one person at a time, and that's what is taking so long.

HHS: "Celebrity Roast" has been circulating throughout the Internet. What made you come up with the idea of simply bashing a bunch of celebs?

Goretex: I was just basically sitting around, and some people annoyed me. Some people I was inspired by, and some people I wanted to destroy. Basically, it was just for the fun of it. It's nothing personal. I mean, we all want to eat Jennifer Garner's ass. [Laughs] The song is pretty nonsensical, though.

HHS: People are coming up with their own interpretations of what the album title, The Art of Dying, means, but I want to know what made you choose that as the album's title?

Goretex: It's weird because The Art of Dying can mean a whole bunch of things. I'm not trying to sound vague or superficial, but if it means one thing to me, you may take something different out of it. I look at it on three levels. One, the cover itself is almost like a loss of innocence. I'm not necessarily exploring tangible or everyday things. I'm maybe trying to expound on stuff like supernatural. A lot of weird shit that people don't really talk about, but they know is this underlying feeling in everybody. I'm the type of person where we don't do this for fun. I mean, it is fun, but this isn't a hobby. This is our life and we've been doing it for years. Anything we feel we want to put out there, we have to dig it first. Once we're satisfied, our people hear it and get something special in return.

HHS: See, my interpretation of the title is that living life itself is the art of dying. Like, everyday we get closer to death, so just living is dying.

Goretex: Right, I can totally see that. Yeah, we die a little every day. It can mean the process, of that we don't really know what the afterlife holds. We all have a lot of suspicions, but I don't know. I feel like yeah, there is all kinds of crazy shit popping off these days, and supernatural things going on. It is what it is. The whole team is interested in that kind of stuff. I'm not gonna say the occult, but we read a lot of books. None of us really went to college, so we try to educate ourselves. Obviously, the public school system is one percent a none reality anyway. We try to read books, and that's one thing we all agree upon.

HHS: As soon as news of this album being released was heard, message boards and fans on them were getting really hyped, like, "Goretex is about to come with some real next level shit." Do you feel any kind of pressure to live up to that, and blow peoples' minds with your music?

Goretex: Pressure can either put a flame under your ass, or just destroy you. It's just a matter of, again....I don't think any artist puts out an album, and when they are done, they are 150% in love with all of it. Basically, the reality is that Non Phixion has been touring so much, like touring in Greece and Iceland and just running around, that basically Necro and I had to sit down and really make time out. We have been planning this album for awhile. How the album came together is we basically sat down and decided to put energy into it. Both of our schedules are hectic. He's putting out a lot of material this year, and next year as well, so we really had to make time to do this. We're even about to go back on tour, and there is more stuff coming up. I wish we had a little more time, but it is what it is. All I can do as an artist is that my album isn't bullshit, cuz I don't like to hear bullshit. I wouldn't want to go out and buy a bullshit album. I'm the most critical asshole, and there are very little things out moving me, as far as modern shit. Back to the point, though, I think its dope. I stand behind it, and I put my heart into it. Nothing is perfect, but I fully stand behind it. Also, sonically, I tried to explore a different side as well. Necro produces a vast majority of Non Phixion's stuff, if not all of it. At the same time, we wanted to come with something that was a little more open. I'm not gonna say experimental, cuz what does that really mean? It doesn't mean shit. The next album may sound completely different. I look at this album like a time capsule for right now. This is where I'm at at this point.

HHS: I don't like asking people what their favorite song is on their album, but is there any song on The Art of Dying that you feel most captures where you at while recording the record?

Goretex: Yeah, the song "Earth Rot." What my album is really is just a document, and a sonic time capsule. "Earth Rot" touched on a bunch of things. It touches on what our future holds for us, which unfortunately is basically gonna be a nuclear war. It covers the process of that and the aftereffects of that, as well as the general and blatant disrespect that people have for Earth. The fact that there is a lot of shit that's about to pop off. Anybody that's alive right, from any generations, we bought a ticket and now we're about to see a bunch of shit pop off. We're gonna be experiencing it first hand. These are the things that you'll hear on the album.

HHS: Now, this album cover is causing a lot of speculation, with people trying to dissect it and figure it out. You don't have to give it away completely, but can you shed some light on the image seen on that cover?

Goretex: I would say that I was probably not in a very good mood when I put that cover together. I probably woke up on the wrong side of the bed. It's probably something that I ultimately wanted to get out of my system. People were calling us satanic without even really knowing much about us or the music. You hear a lot of stupid things and a lot of bullshit that you can't believe would be a reality for people to say about you. It's nonsense. Not to divert your question, though. That album cover, like I said....I came across the image and it obviously is something that is just a pretty fucked up image, no matter how you look at it.

HHS: Is that a picture that you found, or is it something that you physically constructed?

Goretex: Either way, it doesn't really matter. It is what it is. I can understand people being like, "Wow, what the fuck is that? What is he talking about?" Obviously, it's a little psychedelic, and I wanted the album to not really look like an album that would come out in 2004. Music products just seem like commercials, and it's a really awful time in the industry. I just wanted to put out something that maybe 35 years ago, you could have walked into a store, and copped on vinyl for $1.98. Then, you put the vinyl on, and it's brutal. It's brutality. That's all.

HHS: As far as music goes, what are you listening to right now? What could somebody find in Goretex's stereo?

Goretex: Let's see. Probably like some James Brown shit, like "Funky Drummer." Long versions of James Brown's stuff. Probably Mars Volta, they are pretty fucked up. They sound like old Rush.

HHS: Do you have any rap in the stereo these days, or do you avoid 2004 rap music?

Goretex: Nah, I'm listening to the new Mobb Deep. Actually, that album is kind of inspiring. The last couple of albums they put out were alright. I'm a fan, and what they did on those albums was their business, like label stuff. This new shit, I really feel like they reinvented themselves. I've always been a fan of Havoc, but for this one, I really feel like he went back to the lab. They sound hungry again.

HHS: The whole Psycho+Logical family gets a lot of respect and appreciation below the radar, like on a subterranean, underground level. What do you think it will take for you guys to gain a wider level of acceptance?

Goretex: First and foremost, a music video. A video with a good budget, and motherfuckers that will just play it. The funny thing is, if it got played on MTV2 twice a day, that'd be it. I really feel like it would catch on. Tons of people come up to me, and say stuff like, "Hip-hop is cool, but I'm not feeling a lot of today's shit, and you guys made me listen to hip-hop again. We have a weird cross breed and cross section of fans. There are 35 year-old, 38 year-old African dudes from like Zimbabwe coming to shows wearing Ill Bill shirts. It's wild. Punks, and all kinds of heads. As far as what it will take, we're doing this shit independently cuz we already wasted enough time dealing with fucking labels. We'd have to body somebody. That's just ridiculous, so we just had to chill out.

HHS: You think you'll stay independent for the rest of your career, or could the major label move happen again in the future?

Goretex: Uncle Howie and Psycho+Logical are always going to exist, regardless. Numbers talk, and who knows if somebody from a major is going to step up with an offer. At this point, though, to be honest with you, fuck that. We're just gonna do it independently. That major label shit is over.

[Deena]

EVIDENCE: A Sample of What's Next By ZIO

Evidence has produced numerous dope beats including "I Can Handle It" for Tha Alkaholiks, "The Bionic" for Defari, "High Voltage" for Linkin Park, "Alive Remix" for the Beastie Boys, "Blunted" for Phil Da Agony, "Right Or Wrong" for Planet Asia, "Full Contact" for Swollen Members, and "Last Call" with Kanye West. But despite his impressive list of accomplishments, Evidence's producing career hasn't received the attention that it deserves...until now.

HHS: What is it about music that made you dedicate your life to it? How did you get started?

Evidence: Music is just something I've been around my whole life...But what made me want to do hip hop and actually participate in it was my next door neighbor, QD3, Quincy Delight III, he didn't take his father's last name, he's Quincy Jones son. And I would be piecing, my mother used to let us paint on the back wall of our house, so we'd be piecing in the alley, doing pieces on the wall, and how he got in and out of his house was his garage and it was right next to me and I'd see him pull out of the house and pull back in. And he used to have different people in his car that I'd recognize...And I was like shit, why are these people with homie? And he had long dreadlocks, and he looked like somebody I wanted to know too. So I just eventually introduced myself. I went over there and he told me he was a rap producer, and I didn't even know what a producer was. So I would sit in there and draw in my graffiti book while all these people would come in and do rap vocals. So my whole introduction to seeing how hip-hop got made was through a producer's eyes, not a rappers eyes. I would see the rappers come in and do their part and leave, but I would stay with the producer. I knew that I wanted to rap, I didn't want to produce, but subconsciously he effected me right off the top. He's one of my biggest influences because he organized my mind to think like a producer. Even though I just wanted to rap. From then on out, I was into it. And I'd be over at his house begging for beats and he'd spare me, and then I'd hear the other beats come out on other peoples albums and I'd realize that they weren't for me. But he was just letting me rap on 'em, I thought that they were for me, but he was just letting me rap on them, which was cool. And that's how I got into this right here.

HHS: How did you cultivate yourself into a rapper and then into a producer?

Ev: Well, that was when I was 15 years old. That was a long time ago. I thought I was gonna be the first 15 year old rapper, you know, Kris Kross wasn't out yet, (laughs) you know? But I thought that I was that good, because somebody told me that I was good or whatever. But as I got older I became humbler and humbler and I started realizing that it was mostly fantasies and I started listening back. ..And producing never even entered my mind, I was just trying to rap. The first demo that I did was with Will.I.am from Black Eyed Peas, we were kinda doing our thing for a couple demos or whatever, but we ended up going our separate ways and I ended up hooking up with Rakaa in '92 and that's kinda when Dilated Peoples, even though that wasn't the name, that was when it kinda got formed. Previous to that, you know, I was really tight with one of my best friends at the time Alan, who became Alchemist later, and Joey Chavez. That was my peoples and they were really inspired by QD3 too. They'd wanna come over to my house just to go over to QD3's house to see what he was doing. ... And he's really responsible for jump starting my whole click. Even Rakaa too, because he let me and Rakaa do demo's over his tracks. So he's definitely high in the food chain, as far as I'm concerned.

HHS: So then when did you get into producing your own beats?

Ev: Dilated Peoples had a record deal with Sony in '95. And actually our intros to the game were through DJ Lethal from House of Pain, he put us under his production team, me and Rakaa. He basically shopped our project and got us a deal with Immortal Epic, and Epic was a branch of Sony. Still might be, I don't know. But we put out our record, and we weren't really ready, I didn't produce any of it. Joey Chavez produced it, Redman produced a track, E-Swift produced a track. It was pretty cool but lyrically it wasn't where I wanted it to be yet. Beats were pretty dope, concepts were good. We ended up, I don't want to say we got dropped, because we didn't, our label kind of got dropped, they lost their distribution and at that point we had a certain amount of days where if they didn't get new distribution, we had an out in our contract. And we saw that loophole in our contract, and we jumped through it and we got out of our deal, but had to leave our masters behind. That's why that never came out, which is a beautiful thing because I didn't really feel that record anyways, it wasn't meant to come out yet. So that's when we started going solo, as far as our mentality, we were like we're gonna handle this ourselves and we took on an independent mentality. And I saved up some money and bought an ASR-10 which Alchemist already had and Joey Chavez already had cuz I was just watching them. And the first day I had my keyboard I made a beat that night. I learned how to do it throughout the years of just watching my people. It wasn't no mystery to me what to do, I just had to call up and figure out which button was which , 'oh that's what that does? Ok, cool.'...So I already had it in my head, I just didn't have the means to do it. So that was a big eye opener for me, that was the point where I was like we can do this shit ourselves... That's when we decided to be independent, and I started putting out beats, and ever since it's just snowballed into a lot of things... It started leading to something that could lead to a definite future for me, as well as rapping, because I know I'm not going to be on stage forever.

HHS: Do you plan to focus on one element more then the other, or are you going to give equal attention to both?

Ev: Right now, it's more gratifying for me to write a rap then it is to make a beat, but right now I want to do both for a while. Especially being the era of the producer... I kinda just dipped out for a little bit, didn't take some jobs and I kinda just bounced on a
couple things cuz I just felt like I didn't have the ammunition being around my friends like Alchemist, and even Babu really stepping it up doing the Likwit Junkies and stuff like that. So when I come back out with my shit everyone's gonna know it, so I kinda dipped for the last year...and for the two years before that, it's been like a big work in progress in my head and I feel that now is the time that you're gonna see the benefit, and I'm gonna see the benefit of what I've done. And it's gonna effect people, hopefully the way that I intend it to.

HHS: Yea, I was at Fatbeats the other day talking about The Medicine, the album you're producing for Planet Asia, and they were like 'Yea, Ev was in here yesterday and he was all excited...'

Ev: Yea, I'm really geeked right now. I don't even know how to put. The only way I can put it is like when Raekwon was doing that
interview on the first Wu Tang album, and he was like, 'I know people are waiting on it, cuz I'm waiting on it.' That's how I feel. Sometimes I buckle up in my car and I look both ways because I don't wanna go right now, cuz it's not my time, because this album HAS to come out, you know what I'm saying? I've been eating less carbs (laughs) and I quit soda just so I can make sure that I see this record come out...I'm a make it.

HHS: Yea, you'll make it...So a couple minutes ago you mentioned that you've been refining your style. How do you define your style?

Ev: I want to be like DJ Premier of the West Coast, that's how I want to be labeled as right now. That's pretty much my main influence. That's the person I pretty much looked up to the most, as far as production. I've had the experience to work with him so...He doesn't live out here (laughs), you know what I'm saying? I do, and I really believe that what he did from the Jeru album to the Group Home album to all the Gang Starr albums, he created a sound and a movement, and that's what I want to do, create a sound and a movement. And what I also get off on lately is people hearing my stuff going 'you did that?' Cuz people know me as an underground cat, but I've been really stepping it up.

HHS: Do you prefer sampling or making a beat from scratch?

Ev: I'd rather sample, just honestly. I'd rather just chop some shit up or jack something and put my own twist on it. If I feel that I took enough of the other person's composition, then I'll clear it, I will. If I feel like hey man, I really bent some shit up and pitched it and did some shit, then hey, I'm a take my risks with it...But I love sampling. Plus for me, I can sit down at the piano and play some
chords and some keys just from being a kid and having piano lessons. So I have the ability, if I am going to pitch something, I have the ability to put it into key when I pitch it or I have the ability to play along when I pitch it. So that's really cool. What I really like
doing is sampling and then playing along with it so much that I end up taking the sample away and then I have my own thing. So it's like I play along with somebody's groove and I have so many layers on top of their groove that I just take their groove away. I was inspired by a sample but it's actually all real live instruments and interpolation which is something I've been doing lately that is pretty good stuff on the Planet Asia and Dilated Album.

HHS: What equipment do you use in the studio?

Ev: I use the ASR-10, that's the first thing I learned on, the keyboard, sampler... And then I got the MPC, and the first beat that I made on the MPC was "Downtown" on the Platform Album, the Japanese release...And I fell in love with that machine...And I've been using Triton, people want to shit on that keyboard, but I use it a lot. I like it, so fuck off. (Laughs).

HHS: How'd you end up producing one of the tracks on Kanye West's album, College Dropout?

Ev: ..My homeboy Porse had found that loop and I made the beat and was trying to get it to Jay-Z cuz he's saying 'Mr. Rockefeller' in the loop, and I gave it to Kanye, cuz we were doing "This Way" at the time and I said 'Can you give this to Jay-Z for me?' And he played it and he was like 'I'm the new Mr. Rocafella now. I'm a kill it.' And I was excited, I was like this is crazy. And months went by and I heard nothing. And then I got a call from my homeboy and he said 'Yo he's in the studio, go down there, he's doing it.' So I went there, and by the time I got there it was different, he had put his own drums...he did little tricks of the trade...But I was definitely a part of the creation of that.

HHS: Can you talk a little bit about "Another Sound Mission." How is it doing so far?

Ev: That's Volume One, I got Volume Two almost finished right now. I just put that out just to get the streets wet. Just to keep everybody good, let everybody know that Evidence is out there. I kinda ran a little Alchemist concept, he put out the Cutting Room Floor and then Insomnia, and then he put out First Infantry, which was the real release. It just got the streets wet nice.

HHS: Talk a little about your new projects, like The Medicine and the new Dilated album.

Ev: Yea, those are the two projects I'm most excited about right now. Planet Asia, The Medicine, I'm producing the whole album, I don't know how many tracks it's gonna end up with , 14 or 16 cuts. It's got Prodigy, it's featuring Black Thought from the Roots, got Killa Ben, Turbin on there on a cut killin it..Yea, Fresno's on the map...Phil Da Ag, Krondon, a lot of people coming through. My man Alchemist did the only outside production with me on a track, the Black Thought featured one, we did that one together. Oh, and my man Nucleus, we did a track on there together on the album, on a song called "Thick Ropes." But for the most part, it is just me sitting in my room, or all of it is just me sittin in my room creating something that I feel is gonna be an underground masterpiece. ... This is gonna be where people understand what I'm capable of because their gonna see the versatility that I put through in a LP from beginning to end...This is my vision, this is how I wanna see it with another rapper rapping on my tracks. Planet Asia, I don't got to say it, if you don't know about him, yea he's ready. He just takes my beat to another level...He jumps on a track and his voice becomes the lead instrument. And the shit is how I want to hear it right now....and then the Dilated album, I'm even more excited about that because I'm doing that after the Asia shit. I set the bar real high with the Asia record and I don't want to let myself down lower then that. Plus I get to rap on it. So I'm definitely enjoying the new Dilated album so far, it's just incredible, something
I always wanted to do.

HHS: When are those due out?

Ev: Dilated is coming out in October. Asia's coming out in September. Swollen members is coming out September. It's gonna be good, I'm really excited.

HHS: That's gonna be a good season for you.

Ev: And on top of that, Alchemist and myself are creating a project right now along the lines of a Jaylib thing where we do 50/50 on the beats and the lyrics. And just create an album like that. It's gonna be real tight cuz we're like friends before music, so we have a good time even when we're not doing music, so when we are doing music we're gonna have a real good time together. I wanna go tour Europe with that cat and get into some trouble. (laughs)

HHS: (laughs) Yea, war stories.

Ev: Yea, war stories. There you go.

[sunrah]

SAGE FRANCIS: A NON-PROPHET WITH HOPE FOR THE CURE
By Pizzo

Pizzo: What's Up Sage?

Sage: Hey Pizzo.

Pizzo: Nice album, The Non-Prophets "Hope".

Sage: Yeah? Thanks....

Pizzo: That's some fuckin' hip-hop shit man!! You are all over the place; crazy with the classic throwback references....

Sage: Yeah, that's the easiest kind of album for me to make. Heh... I guess I will make more later on...

Pizzo: So what's with Jesus on the cover of Hope, I'm just curious, because I thought you were not into religion? I kind of got that (your old song) "Climb Trees" was against it.

Sage: Lots of ties... it's a big part of life. I am very anti-religious - hence, Non-Prophets.

Pizzo: But why a prophet on the cover then?

Sage: It's a reference. The Rhode Island logo is an anchor with stars around it. This is a RI album....Me, Joe (Beats) and Mek-A-Lek (are) all from the same area. RI is a religious place. I grew up with a bunch of Christians and had to deal with all that religious stigma. So now I rebel against it because I see how much it fucked people up. Just as much as drugs. The top of the cross says "INRI", "In Rhode Island", for our purposes.

Pizzo: Can you shed a little bit of light on the track, "The Cure"?

Sage: "The Cure" is the album's closer. It takes a step back from all that just happened on the album and gets really real for a couple minutes. It brings back some real life issues for me. Because after all the laughs and partying there are some serious issues of life for us to deal with. A sickness - my answer lies in a female.

Pizzo: How would you say the character Xaul Zan compares to Sage Francis in "real life"

Sage: In REAL life? Ha-ha. Xaul Zan and Sage Francis are both their own characters. Xaul Zan had to be created BECAUSE it didn't fit in with the Sage Francis agenda. They are contrasts.

Pizzo: Can we expect an album from Xaul one day?

Sage: You can expect a TAPE ONLY release entitled Hiss Sessions at some point.

Pizzo: Please let me know!

Sage: No one will know

Pizzo: So being that Personal Journals was such an introspective album, why did you choose to do the opposite with the NP's album - with more lyrical styling, almost showing off your skill?

Sage: That's the way I operate. It's the only approach that made sense to me. No one wants to hear Personal Journals part 2 after part 1 just came out. And I wanted Hope to be the answer to all the critics who falsely judged me, my origins and my abilities based on Personal Journals (an album I will still stick by til the end.)

Pizzo: What did you mean when you said "I'm not the one sitting in a barbarian chair with Rastafarian hair"?

Sage: Hahahaha....BOOM

Pizzo: Aw man....

Sage: It's a Jeru reference.

Pizzo: So next question, why are you picking a fight with Jeru?

Sage: He dissed me and Premier in that "Friends" song.

Pizzo: (Laughs) Why did you choose the title Hope for the album?

Sage: That is the Rhode Island motto. But that's not the only reason. It also ties in with the religious imagery. I don't have faith, unfortunately. The only thing I have in this world and the one word that keeps poping up in my vocabulary when talking about things and people I care about is "Hope".

Pizzo: So you are signed to Epitaph now, what can we expect from the album?

Sage: You can expect some fire. Less fun than Hope. More political, more angry than Personal Journals, more outrospective.

Pizzo: Okay, so the song "Disasters" is hilarious in its own right - but do you really hate children?

Sage: Man, I really, really do. I hate them. They are all over. Crying, whining, shitting on things. Fucking helpless beings. I hate all things that I once was I guess.

Pizzo: So on "Mainstream" you kind of dismiss the commercial scene, but then on "That Ain't Right" you say "African medallions didn't sell platinum albums, that's the reason you say hip-hop died". So do you feel hip-hop is dead in a commercial sense, only living in the underground or...? Basically shed some light for me on your thoughts on today's hip-hop?

Sage: No, my comment was directed at all the fools talking about "hip-hop is dead" or "hip-hop is dying." Gimme a break. Hip-hop is dead??? The shit has permeated ever single crevasse of this Earth. I have been to piss poor cafes in broken down towns of destitute countries and they are playing hiphop on the radio. That doesn't mean hiphop is great, but it is alive. And as long as it is alive there will be people who use it for the right reasons. It is a tool. What a person uses the tool for all depends on them and their situation

Pizzo: Thats a good philosophy. I hate people who whine about hip-hop is dead. I like major and indy shit, you just gotta sort through the bullshit and find what you like - fuck what anyone else thinks. So what's the story on the message about Joe Beats being a selfish little asshole?

Sage: I don't understand

Pizzo: That answering machine message skit.

Sage: HAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. That is a REAL LIFE message.... People will always wonder about it. Oh man. Man, that was his fucking BROTHER calling him to bitch at him about not making it to his going-away party. It is so god damn classic. We were recording the Hope album and he plays me the message while we were in the studio. My eyes lit up. The shit was too classic to not use on the album. Apparently, Joe's brother was moving to Florida and Joe didn't attend his going away party because he was spending time with his girlfriend. By the time he headed over to the party he received some voicemail messages from random people at the party. His brother's message was the shit though.

Pizzo: Can you shed some light on "Spaceman"?

Sage: Quite literally...that is a song about being in outerspace. But...with a MICROPHONE!

Pizzo: Whoa.

Sage: Yeah...right? That is the sleeper hit of the album though, after a few listens it is sure to grow on you. It is nuanced.

Pizzo: So how possible will it be for you fulfill your dreams mentioned on "Fresh", linking up with Rick Rubin and Sam Sever for an album - will you make this happen?

Sage: I don't think that is out of the question. At all. In fact, Rick Rubin has done other albums for Epitaph. And Sam Sever produced an album for a friend of mine named Beau Sia. I'll be going for Rick Rubin first. And I will be holding an 808 with some rock records.

Pizzo: Okay last question - what can we expect from you in the future - do you have other projects you will pursue outside of the Epitaph album?

Sage: I am doing the Fuck Clear Channel Tour in the spring, hitting up all the major cities in the USA. I am featured on a DJ Signify album with Buck 65 called Sleep No More which will drop in March on Lex Records. Slug and I were talking about doing an album together but that discussion has been going on for a long time. I will be putting out another independent CD called Sickly Business (probably in the spring.) And by the time the Epitaph album comes out I will be on the Wapred Tour.

[sunrah]

yeahh...agaaain! because we appreciate so much this man !



KANYE WEST SPEAKS THROUGH THE WIRE
By Toshi Kondo

HHS: Talk a little about the album. I know you have Jay-Z, ODB, Freeway, etc. But what can fans expect from you? Conceptually and with your flow? Guests and production?

Kanye West: See, here's the thing. All those usual questions that you ask about an album don't really apply. Outside production, that's not what this album is about. This album is like, back when uh, trying to or attempting like when Raekwon made Cuban Linx or when Tribe would make an album. One producer. One sound for the whole shit.

HHS: Okay. The fact that you dropped out of college and pursued your dreams of music is well documented. But it seems like everyone wants to be a rapper or producer these days. What advice would you give to these aspiring artists regarding school because unfortunately not everyone can make it?

KW: Your putting your life in your own hands. You got certain niggas that was drug dealers. And certain niggas was drug dealers and was able to go off and start businesses and get houses from it. Other niggas got killed or locked up. You taking your life into your own hands. If you not conforming to what society wants you to do, your taking your on life in your own hands. Hold on... [Clicks over]

KW: Hello, what were we saying?

HHS: Yeah, you were just answering the question about school and saying 'That's your own choice.'

KW: Nah, that's not what I said. Whenever I speak in interviews, I hate that. I did not say 'It's all your choice.' I said 'You're taking your life into your own hands.'

HHS: Aright, I apologize.

KW: I'm real specific and they [media] always change my words. Your own choice and your life into your own hands are two different things. You know what I'm saying? That's why I hate written and printed interviews because they don't fuck with how I talk. They gotta cut the words down. Let's go into that. Yo, I hate interviews, Source, XXL, whoever, they cut the words down. They try to cut your words down. They got something they want people to, whatever vibe they called it. They want to portray you to the listeners. Instead of having the listeners make their own decision about you.

HHS: So you feel like the XXL story [September 2003], they portrayed you the wrong way?

KW: I mean it's all good, they [XXL] just changed some of my words. And the Source definitely portrayed me in the wrong way.

HHS: Like when you say they changed your words do you mean they actually changed some of your direct quotes?

KW: Yes, they changed some of my direct quotes.

HHS: I know sometimes journalists may cut down words in a quote. But I've never heard of actual words being changed.

KW: Right. So how do I get on top of that? The thing is I'm out here trying to do records and working on Jay's album and doing different shit, and touring doing shows. How can I be concerned? I don't have the time to be listening to the tapes with the transcripts. XXL, they gave me a Nigga [Negro] Please. I said 'I'm not competing with producers right now. I'm competing with rappers... I'm don't spit lines, I spit conversations.' So are you trying to say that I'm not going to compete with rappers?

HHS: I think the way that that they're looking at it is, the producers that have come before you, and you were an MC from the start so its unfair for me to characterize you this way, but I'm just trying to give you an idea of how it's being perceived. The producers that came before you that rhymed, they were producers that rhyme. Where as you're a MC that produces in a sense from what I've been reading and hearing your flow. You flow a lot nicer than most of the producers that rhyme.

KW: Thank you so much.



HHS: Yeah, I'm just saying its going to be hard for you to overcome but...

KW: Yeah, I love the challenge.

HHS: Given that you had a near death experience as you recount on "Through the Wire??€?, what are your beliefs on death? Reincarnation?

KW: I feel like I'm here for a reason. I don't believe in reincarnation. Sometimes I wonder if I believe in heaven. I know I believe in Jesus. I think 50% because it was instilled in me. That's what we call on. Like Kweli said 'We need something to rely on.'

HHS: I had read about your Good Records label. Are you planning on doing any kind of movement in Chicago like how Beans went back and got Philly rappers?

KW: Yeah, I got one rapper from Chicago right now, GLC, the hood celebrity, the knockout king and I got this artist from the Midwest named John Legend, and I got Consequence. He's from Queens. I don't have the time for the type of music I make. I don't make fast food, so I can't have too many to focus on.

HHS: Are these projects that are coming real soon?

KW: My album has to come out first. Consequence and John Legend have managed to put out their own CDs. That's the one thing I like. They getting their work on. Waiting for me, they just using me, we using each other. Like that's how it is for me up at Roc-A-Fella. I get a lot of fame off that Roc-A-Fella chain.

HHS: Speaking on Roc-A-Fella, I had read that you funded the video for "Through The Wire" out of your pocket. Does that concern you in the sense that maybe Roc-A-Fella is not fully committed to this project?

KW: Nah, they will because I did that. That put me on everybody's radar. You gotta think about it, I'm on TV. Can you imagine how many calls Jay-Z, Dame, and Biggs get talking bout' 'Yo, this Kanye kid, I like him.' Or don't like him, or whatever they want to say. Basically, people are talking now. And for the most part, 'Through The Wire' is such a good look for a new artist. It's like the past five years in five minutes. You know I came up with the entire concept. And I did it with Coodie and Chike.

HHS: Okay. How did your collaboration with Little Brother come about? How did you hear about them? Also, when will the two joints be released and on what vehicle?

KW: Well Source had never given me a quote and quoted one of Little Brother's rhymes ['Yo-Yo']. I thought that's something I would say. That's another thing.

HHS: What's up?

KW: The fact that Source ain't give me a quote or XXL never gave me no quote on no rhymes. It's like I could give a fuck about any of their opinions.

HHS: But how credible is that? They gave Benzino a quotable. As soon as The Source did that, they lost all credibility. Everyone was like 'Yo, it's over.' I'm not even looking at this anymore. You don't need that to signify that your rhymes are dope. I mean how did you feel when you saw Benzino's rhymes up in there?

KW: I don't know. It was fucked up. I just feel like good people should have quotes though. Certain people have rhymes that you love, but they don't look that good on paper when you read them. I got rhymes that I wish people could just really read them. I'mma definitely print out all the lyrics on my album.

HHS: So joints that you did with Little Brother, do you know when they'll be released?

KW: I don't know. I think someone is going to have to pay dearly for that [laughing].

HHS: You have a lot of unreleased work such as Royce Da 5'9 's "Heartbeat??€? that has received really good feedback. Do you have any other unreleased tracks that you worked on that you would like to be released?

KW: The Royce Da 5'9's "Heartbeat??€?, I'll never do anything for Royce. He never paid me for that and someone had bought the beat. Well, he two-tracked it off the Pro Tools and put it out. And then the people who were going to buy the beat decided they didn't want the beat because of that and never cut me a check.

HHS: So you actually didn't authorize that?

KW: No.



HHS: You come from a politically charged background, are there any current social issues that you have strong feelings on? And if so, are you doing anything to actively try and remedy that?

KW: Um, The school systems are similar to the prisons because a lot of times, there are so many behavior problems that you have to deal with that you never actually get to learn. The kids that are able to learn have to deal with the kids with the behavior problems and it's like your trying to teach 30 kids at once. And half of them are acting bad as hell, it's like almost impossible for people to excel . The test scores are crazy low. It's like a vicious cycle. Where white kids, they parents use big words around them when they little kids. So when it's time for school, they know these words like 'We can get past that. Quick, keep moving. Keep moving.'

HHS: What was your experience like going to school in Chicago?

KW: I went different schools. I went to a magnet school in the suburbs. I went grammar school in the city. Vanderpool. It was a magnet school also. And I went Chicago State University. That's the last college I dropped out of.

HHS: So you seem like if you weren't going to be an MC or Producer, you were going to be a scholar. You were going to Magnet schools.

KW: That's not what I was trying to be. I actually got a scholarship to go to art school. I used to draw. I was into something creative. Something more influential.

HHS: So did you do any artwork on the album?

KW: It's not really that much artwork on my album as of right now. It's more based off pictures and concepts. Like "Through The Wire??€? [the video] is a piece of art. I was very involved in how the board moved, the color of the board, the color of the Polaroid around it, the grain put on top of it, when to take the grain off, how we pulled away from the board at the end, and Chaka Khan, like, the actual spot where it says 'We bring you through the wire.' All that is going into graphics and art. Art is not just 'Yo, I can grab a pencil and put something on paper that's in your likeness.'

[arigo]

Kanye West si Jay-Z - Diamonds Are Forever (remix)

productia e foarte tare, iar strofa lui Jay e
mi se pare ca a crescut mult kanye la rapping skillz

[sunrah]

U should read it!



K-OS: KNOWLEDGE Of SELF
By Marlon Regis

Although it's been a while since his album, Exit dropped in early 2003, hearing this Toronto-based emcee is always another step forward towards understanding humanity in a little more detail. His analytical skills are so abnormal when compared to other artists in hip hop, it must be warned that he's not here to try desperately to relate to the typical so-called artists in the game, who are easily categorized, marketed and sold into an unsure future. At the same time, he's not too preachy and cocky, just humble and very admitting to how his journey has now begun. In dropping this album, just like his few gems of singles he released in the past, the title Exit is so appropriate. K-Os tends to disappear off the scene deliberately, somewhat like a superhero. Unlike artists who crave the limelight through repeated releases and cameo appearances, justifying their 'battery life' in the music world, K-Os sees life as much more varied, much more important than his selfish music career. Meet a human first, then a rapper ??€� someone willing to risk his career for the sake of transcending good, wholesome and organic hip hop. Remember when the Native Tongues were licking airwaves with a renaissance of soul, true hip hop vibes and a style defining the early 1990s? Well, this is one emcee who could have easily been part of that posse of De La Soul, Queen Latifah, A Tribe Called Quest, Monie Love and Jungle Brothers. Somehow displaced, and finding himself in this time, maybe he can rescue us from what has become the 'jiggy era' gone mad!

HHS: So how does it feel today being K-os, finally finding yourself and feeling comfortable within somewhat, as opposed to that time yesteryear where so much time was spent searching and trying to find yourself?

K-os: "Oh, well you know we're always searching, I don't think you'll come to the point where you're not searching anymore. Being comfortable to me is just the ability to know who you are in the moment. I think to be comfortable with yourself as to who you are in the moment is the ultimate in peace. At the same time, we all stray from that sometimes when we start to compare ourselves with people, or things or time and places. It feels good when those moments happen ??€� of complete abandonment. But because you're in the music industry or because people quantify what you do or put it on a chart, or try to put it opposed to other things where you feel inadequate or you feel like you're not living up to a certain standard, that's where I think it kicks in... you're not centered."

HHS: When I listen to this album, Exit, I hardly hear a tone of preaching, but yet somehow you're saying a lot, making a lot of references to better living, better hip hop and so much more on life in general. You definitely expose the hypocrisy included into hip hop these days, something that seemed so far from its roots back in the day.

K-os: "Well, there's a saying and it says, 'the wise leader or the wise king teaches the people' and the people say, 'look, we did it all by ourselves.' And what that shows to me is that, people don't want to be preached to or think that someone's telling them how to live their lives. At the same time, because of parallel evolution, some men get on a stage where they learn more than other men, and there's always the intelligent few that kinda figure things out before others. The problem is, how do you fit it back into the matrix, without it becoming like you're pontificating or your own ego blowing up because you know more? And the best way to do it for me is - hip hop has a term called 'dropping jewels'. From the beginning in time, someone figured out that's how the way you do it. You put these little jewels between the entertainment. To me, music has to be entertaining first of all, it has to be fun to listen to. It doesn't have to be fun to listen to in the way everyone thinks, because then I'd try to say a positive message over some sort of Puffy beat. I don't think I have to make it sort of entertaining in the way society says it has. I have to just find new and innovative ways to entertain as an artist. It could be an acoustic sound, you could be using a Spanish guitar, it could be using a reggae track, once you find that backdrop music that's most importantly to make people move. To me, the music is the body, and the lyrics is the mind. The body just goes by certain functions ??€� the heartbeat. It's almost subliminal and subversive. The mind now is the thinking part, it's deliberate, it thinks, it puts things together. What I find with a lot of rappers, they even try to put the revolution into the beat also, so the beat may alienate people or, like in underground hip hop, they may use a very minimal type of beat that they don't want to sound too entertaining or to be too attractive or glossy. They think the lyrics are so important, but if you keep doing that, you're just speaking to people."

HHS: I continually parallel the vibe of this release to Lauryn Hill's classic, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. How were you able to simply use a basic acoustic foundation to then create this ??€� such an intricate gift of sprinkled hip hop, soul, reggae and more?

K-os: "It all comes from the songwriting aspect. On this album, I kinda felt, well, let's start with a song. Let's start like how these cats used to write a song and then take it to their band, and go ok, let's expand now. That has sort have been lost. But it's a great method because the song is there from the beginning, with the beat on there or not. "Heaven Only Knows" is what it is but you can go so many places with it in the forms that it is now. Well a lot of the songs, "Follow Me," "Call me" ??€� these started with very simple things and then over a month we added the drums here, or we added a little sound there. When songs build like that, there's no fear because they're creating themselves. You start to hear those noises in the back. When a song is simply a groove, which is what's going on in music right now, I'm watching hip hop in a sort of disco stage. It gives you a good feeling in the clubs, you get a couple of drinks, you feel good, the song might not be there though. That's OK too. I don't think anyone is better than the other, don't get me wrong. I think that's when you sort of become like a snob you know. You can't think that because you sit down and write and put chords together, it's better. But what it is, what's really happening is that those things last a bit longer. If you look at "Yesterday" by The Beatles, or "Imagine" or "Let it Be," those songs last because they follow a classic chord structure. But then again, there's a song like Michael Jackson's "Pretty Young Thing" ??€� Oh! That's wicked that you even have me going here, because that's sort of like what Quincy Jones did on Thriller, that whole disco thing going on. But what Quincy Jones was genius at doing was adding string parts, or horn parts ??€� he sort of brought disco into song writing! Like what Sting and them did with Reggae or Ska; and Ska and punk grooves, and start dropping things out, and incorporating reggae into the chorus. A songwriter will always have a cultured way of taking. I think that's the big thing that excited me there, in helping put some things in perspective of what I was actually trying to do on this record, is to keep it hip hop by keeping the groove there, but at the same time, maybe incorporate a song writing aspect where you bring in some strings...

HHS: But you did it bro, that's exactly what you did.

K-os:"Yo man, so you are asking me these questions and I never really thought of it in this way, thank you."



HHS: Thank you for the compliment. Now, on that track "Freeze," a heroic song for fans and emcees alike to relate to and that understand the need to separate the 'sheep from the goats', so to speak. You sort of use Q-tip and some of his famous lyrics in the past, to show your deep disappointment in his recent turn, and the state of hip hop in general.

K-os: "Well, the Q-Tip thing first I have to say that, Q-Tip was almost like an older brother. My father was living in Trinidad for a while. We moved back to Canada 'cause we couldn't take Trinidad too much. We were there four years, but after a while, it took a toll on us as far as culturally. So my father sent us back to Toronto now. So the lack of having my father around which in those formative years is very important, hip hop became my father. Now because they'd (his parents) already trained me in a certain way, I think that I gravitated towards the Native Tongues 'cause it was something I could play in my house or they were good brothers doing positive things. Now with Q-Tip, I'd gone to England with a group called Tha Razcals ??€� they're from Vancouver ??€� they took me on tour with them just on a run. When I got back home, people kept calling me saying, ??€?Yo! You gotta see this new Q-Tip video, you'll be surprised!' I'm like, ??€?What are you talking about?' And they continued, 'I know you're NOT gonna like it.' Because everyone knows I was a big Q-Tip fan, all my friends knew this. In fact, I got back and didn't see it but started working on a beat, which was "Freeze," I had the drums done, I think I had a couple of samples in there, and I turn on the T.V. ??€� BOOM! The VJ was like, 'Here's Q-Tip for "Vivrant Thing" ??€� BOOM! It came on, the first time I saw the video and I was just like...FLOORED! I couldn't believe...I couldn't believe it! He had a certain reputation, put it that way. When I saw that, the lyrics just came. Yuh see the whole thing on "Freeze" isn't just about dissing Q-Tip. I used pieces of his lyrics, things he said in the past. I don't know, I can't judge him, only God can judge him. Really what that song is saying though is ??€� (he goes into its hook) "Stop. Don't make a move, just FREEZE, instead of telling a lie, GET down on your knees!" Before you do anything, or before I do anything now, I stop for a second. I just stop. I'll have enough time to connect with my beliefs or my childhood. The song is about doing nothing, just freezing, instead of doing something you're gonna regret, and talking about hip hop in general."

HHS: A favorite off this album is "Patience" ??€� a song without knowing its words, just the melodic patterns signal the message. Maybe if one didn't understand English, one would still somehow get it. You think that with the power of music, this is possible?

K-os: "For sure, that's the whole point of music, it's just that. Kardinal Offishall who is also from Toronto, me and him would always argue because he thinks that the music is the message, and I think it is too, just not as completely as he does. I certainly understand art from that viewpoint. And to be an artist, you have to understand art from a non-verbal viewpoint. If you don't, you're basically a clone using the symbols of things done in the past to create a persona. When you use these same chords over and over again, all you're doing is limiting the listener. When you watch these hip hop videos, or these rap or R&B videos and some of these Rock videos, it's jut a bunch of people who have learned the right chords. Music has become more of a thing where you're living out a fantasy as an artist, as opposed to actually trying to push it forward by creating new rhythms and new vibes. That's why when the Digible Planets appeared, it was wicked! That same vibe, you can also speak of De La Soul coming out of. That vibe, The Roots came out of, it is amazing because they're all not using music in the same way. You got 4or 5 or 6 groups that are like The Roots, then you got 95 of the rest doing what people have been doing from the past. And I think the average listener are more worried about it's Friday afternoon and they wanna - 'You could find me in da club!' (he says going into 50 Cent's tone, reciting his smash hook) - The new breed to me is the guy who could get the crowd going like a 50 Cent, but add something to say for it."



HHS: The video that totally revitalized hip hop dance, graffiti and sound, in less of a gimmicky way than other pop icon notables, is "Superstar Part 2" ??€� it's just what the doctor ordered. But still its rotation is smothered by the overwhelming persistence of the 'bling bling' era, just exactly what you're sort of rapping against here.

K-os: "It comes down to economics. The Reagan administration, the Bush administration now. A lot of people react to their environment. Look at me, I wasn't poor, but I wasn't rich. I was a middle class, fairly wealthy, young teenager who grew up driving his mother's Volvo by the time he was in Grade 11. They say the real thing about wealth is that it gives you time. Time to learn, time away from the struggle to become something. I can not judge any of my brothers and sisters in the United States. They wanna pursue wealth 'cause they never had it, and it's all around them. I could say that because I grew up middle class and basically had what I wanted, I have no desire to be rich. I don't like to be associated with being rich. So far, I shouldn't say I haven't met people who are rich who aren't cool, but on a major level, I don't like that culture of being rich. I don't think it breathes characteristics that are admirable for me. It's not to say you can't be rich and not be a good person. These rappers who just have millions of dollars, they know what's going on by now and they're in a position where their words mean a lot. We've seen what happens when people start 'rocking the boat' ??€� there's a lot of scared people with revolutionary hearts, but are scared to do stuff. They don't wanna rock the boat, they wanna make their money. They put on another rapper, set up a community center in the ghetto and they feel they're straight. No one will last in the music industry if they don't keep evolving. What happens is, no matter how rich you get, the next step after being rich is Revolution ??€� change. So what happens is they just become... WACK! Not too many rappers with millions of dollars stay around for a long time, if you noticed. Few. It's an endangered species. So what happens is, their own life becomes their own punishment. They lose their status in the underground, they know in the back of their minds, they're not as dope as before. Find all kind of gimmicks, buying all types of beats to put them back in solid rotation. The first rapper to realize it's not all about the money, will be the next generation and the real end of the 'jiggy' era. But until then, it's gonna be people trying to justify that they need more millions to buy a bigger yacht, millions to help out more people in the ghetto ??€� DON'T help out people in the ghetto, TRANSFORM the ghetto! When black people get money, most of the time, they don't judge themselves based upon what it needs to be to have amongst blacks. They judge what it needs to have a black man with money amongst whites. Their main goal is to be something in that world, that white world. And that's all you really witnessing when you witnessing 'bling bling' rappers ??€� a bunch of black rappers trying to be something in a white world, who still wanna stay black on the surface because they want the people to relate to them. The fact that I say in my song, 'the jiggy era is over,' it's stronger than not putting it out there. It's more like incarnation than it was a statement. More like a magical word like 'OPEN SEASEME!'

HHS: Finally, your strength to not compromise, something that's almost an endangered concept as a hip hop artist these days, especially when signed to a major label. Tell me, how would you describe the success in which you were able to achieve this major deal, without comprising too much of your artistry? A bit of luck, or true self-realization really has its rewards?

K-os: "A lot of it is deliberate. Deliberate because I did that one thing ??€� I took time off to know myself. I wanted Grammy's, I wanted it all like everybody else. Still, I don't think those are bad desires. Time off really, really defined who I was. I know why I was signing that 82-page contract when I signed with the record label, it's not for them to tell me what to do. Those people don't know, they're not on stage. It's like when Bob Marley says about "coming to conquer and not to bow." I didn't sign to a label for some people to tell me what my music is about. Just gimme the check! Just sign the check, you guys have no say over what I do. Once I figured out who I was, then I figured out who everybody else was. There's a lot of good people in the industry, don't get me wrong. Nothing is absolute, but the majority of them are either Wanna-Be artists themselves, or around that whole aura of the game because it's a very, very, very shiny sort of thing. They think they're making decisions of being big hustlers in this industry. We need the industry to get our music to the most amount of people. In that case, show me to where the pressing plant is, tell me how many copies you're gonna put out. Don't tell me about my music. That's why I don't hesitate to tell all those people to fuck off. You have to be as wise as a serpent, but as harmless as a dove. It's that thin line, because if you're as wise as a serpent, you know what they know, so what stops you from becoming just like them? What your intention is! And I think as long as I keep on, keep doing this music for the love and unifying people, people can say I am walking a thin line all that I want."

[sunrah]

O.C. - HALF GOOD, HALF SINNER

If Omar Credle (O.C.) has learned anything in his seven-year recording career, it's that while skills are a widely appreciated commodity, they are not enough to pay the rent. Reason being, though O.C. has been warmly embraced by critics, and fans alike, there has always been one thing that has eluded him: record sales. O.C.'s quest to attain commercial acceptance is a habitually played out, and eternally debated scenario in hip-hop. One where, respected emcees, like O.C., are forced to withstand watching lesser-talented artists go Gold, or Platinum, merely on the strength of one catchy, radio-formulated single. Though O.C.'s hands have been undeniably tied by his two former labels (Wild Pitch, and London/Payday), both of which grossly under-promoted his highly slept-on endeavors, Word??€¦Life & Jewelz. Things got even more complicated for O.C. when his third recording home, V2, folded up its tents right before the release of his now aborted third release Love, Hell, or Right.
Now back after a four-year hiatus, and recording for his fourth label, JCOR, O.C. has re-emerged withBon Appetit, and with a seemingly more commercial approach to his craft. That approach, has thickened O.C.'s skin, as for the first time he is feeling the wrath of critics who usually adorn him with praise.

With that in mind, an obviously frustrated, and somewhat agitated O.C. spoke with me about Bon Appetit, some of his past woes, and his future as a solo-emcee (retirement?).



HHS: Bon Appetit is your third release, and the fourth subsequent label you have recorded for. Have you ever felt truly at home, or stable on a label?

O.C.- No, not really. Basically, the labels that I was on were not behind me 100 percent. And scared money don't make money. You can't go into situations half-assed. That's always been the problems with these little labels. Maybe there was a quota they had to fill when they signed me, or they did it out of respect, but didn't have faith in the project.

I hate sounding like a crybaby, blaming the labels. But I could have released things independently and made more dough.

HHS: Do you feel comfortable at JCOR?

O.C.- No??€¦ With JCOR, I gave them something easy (Bon Appetit) to work, and they didn't know how to work it. With all of these labels, it's the same shit, different toilet. It's not like they're gonna say, "Aiight, we messed up, here's a half-mil to rectify the situation."

HHS: You have dropped two dope LP's, and a classic b-boy anthem ("Times Up"). Yet, your record sales do not reflect the amount of respect you have in the industry. Do you feel your releases have even been given proper promotion?

O.C.- No! If there's no promotion, then people don't know.

HHS: Bon Appetit differs from your previous releases, as it is a more smoothed out/radio accessible LP. What prompted the change?

O.C.- It's a different day. Every LP is not supposed to be the same. People criticize; talk shit about me trying to thug it out. But if they follow my career, like they said they do, they've seen me with the gold teeth and the chains on earlier albums. I'm just trying to be me. What would happen if I sold over 500,000 records with the same material? I wouldn't be considered underground. But I' ve never put that label on myself. I've called myself a "slept on phenomenon," but that don't mean underground. It could mean, hasn't gone Gold yet. I can't do "Time's Up" on every record.

HHS: What was your goal with Bon Appetit?

O.C.-Just like everybody else's goal in the business. To sell records. That's what we're in the game for.

HHS: Do you feel the four-year delay in-between Jewelz and Bon Appetit affected you?

O.C.- Not really. If you put out a dope album and people respond to it, it doesn't matter when it comes out. I've always felt it's been the lack of promotion.

HHS: Bon Appetit's lead-single, "Half Good, Half Sinner", is not included on the LP, why?

O.C.- Couldn't get the sample cleared??€¦ I did not want that as a single. That's the single the label wanted. It was just supposed to be a white-label. Promo-only! And you know that B. White is hard to clear.

HHS: Fans, and critics have not embraced Bon Appetit like your previous endeavors. Did you expect any backlash from your core fanbase with this release?

O.C.- If they feel like it's not up to what they feel it should be, then don't pick it up. Period! I understand people are not gonna like everything. It's not about me being bitter. It's about being human. Anyone would get upset if people kept saying, don't do it that way, do it this way. I have to do it the way that is best for me. If I go thru the motions just to please someone else, it'll be phony. For those who feel letdown, ask God to turn you into O.C. so you can show me how I should be. I'm the best judge of what is in O.C.'s head. I'm the best judge of what O.C. is gonna say, and why! I bet you if every album after Word??€¦Life went Gold, or Platinum, everyone would have forgotten about "Times Up." But since I never got those sales, and stayed stuck in the "underground," all my work will be judged on that.

HHS: Fans, (myself included) become guilty of expecting artists to stick to certain styles/musical identities. Is it fair to expect artists to remain cemented, or closely adhere to what we have become familiar with?

O.C.- I don't make albums for the fans. No disrespect. I can't please you all the time. I never set out to make albums for fans; I make them for my own personal gratification. If it sounds right to me, then I'm happy.



HHS: Whatever happened to the material you recorded for the aborted Is Love Hell, or Right? How far into recording did you get, and will that material ever surface? (I know "Foundation" f/Jay-Z was originally slated for that LP)...

O.C.- Check for it soon, that's all I can really (legally) say about it right now. It will come out at some point.

HHS: What does the future hold for O.C? Also, any plans on another D.I.T.C. collaborative effort?

O.C.- No more D.I.T.C., we're called Wildlife now. We're always collaborating. No more solo albums for now! I will still be in the game, but I can't really say much more then that. And if you're not satisfied with the 2nd or 3rd O.C. album, buy the first one!! . . . Bine de stiut

[Bazooka Joe]

O.C.- No more D.I.T.C., we're called Wildlife now. We're always collaborating. No more solo albums for now! I will still be in the game, but I can't really say much more then that. And if you're not satisfied with the 2nd or 3rd O.C. album, buy the first one!!

[sunrah]

eh, eu sunt optimista!

[sunrah]

MARLEY MARL`s Re:ENTRY

If there is anyone who truly embodies the spirit of hip-hop it's Marley Marl. In Marley's 15-year career he has seen it all; from his early pioneering work with the Juice Crew (Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap & Polo, Masta Ace, Craig G), to a now legendary battle with those same All-Stars vs. a then young upstart KRS-One. Not only has Marley played an integral role in molding how hip-hop sounds today, by producing the classic debuts of Kool G Rap & D.J. Polo Road To The Riches, and Big Daddy Kane's Long Live The Kane. He also produced arguably the greatest posse cut of all time, "Symphony??€?, helped bring LL Cool J back to prominence with Mama Said Knock You Out, which landed perennial powerhouse Def Jam its first Grammy award (you will later read how Mr. Simmons repaid Marley for that honor). And for you young heads out there, don't forget who helped two kids (Capone & Noreaga) from "Iraq??€? blow the spot with the War Report.

Though Marley's rise to prominence was in the late 80's and then again with LL on Mama Said Knock You Out, he is about to make a triumphant return to the scene with his contribution, Re-Entry, to the Beat Generation Series. And as Marley reiterated to me, "Re-Entry does not symbolize his return to the industry, because he never left, it is merely a Re-Entry into people's minds.??€?

HHS: How did you become involved in the Beat Generation Series?

Marley- Basically, Peter [Arkwadh] called me and asked me if I would like to be involved and I told him of course---hell yeah! I had to sit down and think about what my contribution to the Beat Generation Series could be, I laid out my plan and that's how it was born.

HHS: In an age where hip-hop is very predictable, the Beat Generation Series seems to rally around mass experimentation, did that attract your initial interest?

Marley- Yeah, I like the fact that on Beat Generation we were able to have total artistic freedom with what we wanted to do.

HHS: Did that outweigh everything else?

Marley- Yes it did, cause you know I deal with allot of record companies and allot of recordings and no one wants to set trends, everybody just wants to suck off what everyone else is doing. What really attracted me to this project was the fact that, you can do what you want. If you got sessions, if you're working on this or that, go ahead, we'll sanction it. It was great!

HHS: Most heads do not realize that hip-hop artists have a diverse range of musical interests; it's just not all about hip-hop. What are some of your tastes?

Marley- I listen to all types of music; hip-hop, R&B and Jazz. I just listen to all types of music.

HHS: You have been an influential figure in hip-hop for 15-years, from the Juice Crew, to producing for luminary emcees, to your radio-show with Pete Rock (Future Flavaz). What do you credit your longevity too?

Marley- Staying a fan to the game and staying a fan of hip-hop. If I didn't stay a fan to it and check what was going on, I would probably go in another direction that wouldn't be good for me. I credit everything with staying a fan to the game you know.

HHS: What is your fondest memory, or experience in the hip-hop business?

Marley- When I was recording LL Cool J's Mama Said Knock You Out LL was arguing with the engineer at the beginning of the record and that was recorded by accident. He was like "come on man??€?, screaming at the engineer, but he did not know it was on record and that was before the beat dropped on the record. And on the beginning of that record you can hear the "Come on man.??€? That was a funny moment in my life right there. LL was actually sick that day and he was mad because the engineer kept rolling the tape back to far and it was taking too much time to do his vocals. He was screaming at the engineer at that point when it was already on record and it just fell right there. I just kept it. Those were the vocals I kept too because he was mad.

HHS: Much debate is made about the state of hip-hop; you have an interesting perspective because you've been there from the beginning, what are your feelings on hip-hop's current climate?

Marley: It's definitely a roller-coaster ride I'll tell you that! I'll call it a natural progression for the music itself.

HHS: It's a different time, and a different era, but in your opinion has money, and greed watered down hip-hop?

Marley- Allot of people mad more money and basically you don't have to be as good as before to get in the game. Right now, if I was Jay-Z's cousin and I had no skills, I could probably get a record deal for a large amount of money; with the premise that maybe Jay-Z would be on my record one day. And that's what has happened to the game.

HHS: On Re-Entry, you partner back up with Kane, did you automatically re-connect?

Marley- No doubt! That was a one-night session and what happened was, he basically heard tracks and laid vocals on the track he was most comfortable with and sounded the best on.

HHS: How does your relationship with Kane differ now, then from your Juice Crew days?

Marley- Well obviously before that session we had not been sitting in the same studio for a number of years. We got back in the studio and we was going thru some beats, but when he started rhyming I started feeling that feeling again. Kane is a very talented person; I'm very talented with what I do. When you put two talents together such as me and Big Daddy Kane, you see what can happen!

HHS: You have contributed to some of the most influential LP's in hip-hop history. When you were making Road To The Riches with Kool G Rap & Polo, or Long Live The Kane with Big Daddy, or L.L.'s Mama Said Knock You Out, did you have any inkling they would influence so many artists and fans?

Marley- No I didn't. Actually, the thing about me is I never made records for popularity or fame. I just did it because I had the studio and I love the game. I can still go into the studio and make good records, just off the strength that I'm a fan of this. I like to contribute to what's going on. When I did these records back in the day, I never expected them to be such classics, cause I was doing it from the heart. I wasn't doing it for the money. I wasn't like, yo, I want to be the richest person in the world; it wasn't like that. It was actually, I was having fun doing what I was doing, that's why those records came out like that! That's probably why people can feel those records from the heart.

HHS: Your latest project is called Re-Entry, but it seems as if you have never left. What's the meaning behind the title?

Marley- It's not a Re-Entry back into the industry; it's a Re-Entry back into people's minds. I didn't go anywhere, I been making records, I still drop something, a hot remix every year. It's just a Re-Entry back into the mind.

HHS: The production on Re-Entry makes it very obvious that you still have beats galore. Why have you taken a step-back from producing for other emcees?

Marley- Basically, when I did the Mama Said Knock You Out album, when I left Cold Chillin' and wasn't under good terms, I felt that I could balance out my career by working with Def Jam and doing Mama Said with LL; which was a great album, I believe it's 7X platinum. But, since Russell Simmons kinda jerked my money [laughs] and I never started seeing residuals from a double/triple or quad, you know what I'm saying Quad-triple Platinum (at that time) album, it really discouraged me about the business. So, before I would go and hurt somebody to get my money, I just backed up, I backed up from the scene and lived my life a little.

HHS: Considering you helped bring the first Grammy to Def Jam, did getting jerked bother you more from a respect standpoint, or from a business standpoint?

Marley- Everything! It fucked my head up really bad. I knew I was a talented person and I know I've seen people who did less then me in the music industry get much further. I know that I am one of the most talented producers in the whole game. I understand and know that! By me knowing that helps me keep my cool. If you got talent you always rise. Somebody with no talent is going to be a flash in the pan, a one hit wonder or whatever. That's not going to be me! I know I have talent, I know the structure of the whole music industry hip-hop and R&B wise, everyone is copying what I laid; I already know that. So I just decided, well let me sit back, and plus I wasn't even happy with how the industry was going. I did not want to be a part of all that bullshit. I did not want to be one of the main producers during the "Puffy??€? era [laughs]. I don't want to be that??€¦

HHS: Did you ever repair your relationship with Russell?

Marley- No??€¦ I don't even know how I would act if I saw him in public to be honest---and you can print that too!

HHS: Who are the illest emcees, and producers you have ever heard?

Marley- Emcee; Jay-Z's phenomenal. I like Jay-Z, just off the strength that I worked with him on a Shai remix and we just gave him the subject, it wasn't written down and he went and spit the vocals. We tried to throw a little bone in the game, a little monkey wrench and we gave him another subject and he just went in and knocked out the sixteen-bars without anything written down. That's talent to me! Producers; Pete Rock, Large Professor, Alchemist, Timbaland sometimes, Swizz Beatz is cool sometimes, and a new cat Mike Heron (Kool G Rap, Screwball).

HHS: No DJ Premier?

Marley- Primo too of course, did I leave him off? Primo is like one of my students, he told me that every record he makes is based off of "Nobody Beats The Biz??€?, from the cuts [Marley cutting up "Star Of The Show??€? with his voice]. He said yo, that's where I get that from! When Primo cuts up three and four different things on a record, he told me that he is pattering all these songs from "Nobody Beats The Biz??€?; and the way I did the intro. I'm like oh thanks, put that in your interviews you know [laughs]??€¦

HHS: Considering you were involved in the Juice Crew disses back in the day, what do you think of all the growing beefs that are going on now?

Marley- It's not healthy! It's a different time in hip-hop and people have different attitudes. First it starts off emcee vs. emcee, then project vs. project, then housing projects, then borough vs. borough. It's just unhealthy at this point and time.

HHS: Let us know what you have going on, the floor is yours??€¦

Marley- Pick up Re-Entry on Oct 23, and check me and Pete Rock out on www.futureflavazonline.com. You can check us out doing our show live, and we have an extra hour of underground and uncensored music after we finish the Hot 97 broadcast called the "Future Flavaz Afterparty.??€? It's a fun place to be so come visit us.