October 6th, 2008
Q: What were your lives like growing up in New Orleans?
Rah Al Milio: We grew up in the real New Orleans. Every day was hell, that bitch is a jungle, it’s a third world country inside of America. It’s hard. We were just trying to survive. I’m totally from the hood and I never thought we’d make it to LA. Cats in New Orleans think about LA as though it were fake and don’t exist. We were so stuck in our own shit out there, we didn’t experience anything. We had to find other diversions to keep us out of trouble, mostly music and sports. Our moms made us join a band when we were 11 or 12 to stay out of trouble. Then Katrina happened and we figured we might as well just do it and move to LA. So we did.
Q: How did you guys go about getting a deal?
Krispy Kream: Mike Caren at Atlantic was the first one who tried to sign us in 2005. We’d already been around for a long time at that point. The fact that people come around and call us “hipster rap” still pisses me off, because we’d already been down for a minute. We did a deal with Atlantic, we had a publishing deal for a while, but we were shopping a record deal because we didn’t want to do business with Atlantic.
Q: Why not?
KK: We didn’t like the way they were handling things over there. We were briefly managed by Matthew Knowles. Beyonce’s dad. He tried to get us our own little imprint so we could put out our stuff on Interscope. He was still up at Sanctuary at the time, but that shit didn’t work out.
Q: Why?
KK: They did some shit that I can’t really talk about. But in the process, Shady Records was calling us the whole time. They were like come to New York, yo we wanna’ sign you to Shady. But we didn’t want to sign to Shady, we said we wanted a manager. Paul Rosenberg and Dart Parker came on to manage us. At first, they wanted to shop us to Jive, but then they concluded that they could get us a better deal at Interscope because Jimmy [Iovine] wanted us. They were like, ‘you ought to be on Interscope.’ We’re like, ‘alright, we’ll take a meeting with him.’ So we did and he asked us what we wanted and we said, ‘we only want creative control.’ He said, ‘that’s it?’ We said, ‘yeah, we don’t want anyone to fuck with us.’
Q: What’d your A&R think of that?
KK: 3H was the A&R. He was like, ‘I don’t want to be involved, if you want creative control, I just want you to turn in that crack.’ So we got the deal. Jimmy said ‘y’all gonna be where hip hop is at for the next five years.’ That’s what it was. Boom, we record the album, get a crib in the hills, parties, drugs, all kind of drugs, drugs with an explanation mark. Girls, hookers, strippers, all of em, all of it, it went down. I can talk about some entertainers that got their dick sucked on my coach. It’s the real deal over here, we was livin’ like Slash and Axl Rose up in ‘87. We were the first ones, for all the people that call this hipster rap…we were the first ones…the first ones…the first with a major label deal… we are the reason that these labels started looking at people like this. Ask Steve Aoki, ask anyone who was there before they had 17 year old kids in skinny jeans showing up the club. We were dressing like this when everybody was rocking backpacks, and college ra shit. We were the first ones to experiment with electronic shit…the first ones.
Rah: It got to a point because motherfuckers was getting it misunderstood, like we came in out of the blue or hopped into a scene. The scene was formed around us. We were the first of that stuff that people call hipster shit, not U-N-I. Fuck, we opened Cinespace for hip-hop, there was no hip hop in there, just electronic shit, dance music in there, maybe Spank Rock, no real hip-hop.
Q: How did you get involved with the Tuesday night Cinespace scene?
Rah: We had a relationship with Steve Aoki and plus, we listen to dance music. We go to dance clubs. These motherfuckers don’t understand any of that shit. They’re latching onto a scene. You hear “Bang Bang,” that’s a small token of what’s on the album. Every song is different than the next; this isn’t no hipster rap bullshit. It’s not just about flat out rapping on shit. The album’s about everything, the song writing, the production, everything. If we couldn’t play instruments and shit, maybe we’d do some rinky-dink beats, chop up some samples and shit, but at the end of the day to put us in a category with certain dudes is absurd.
Q: That’s just what music writers do. They have to invent genres. They do it at parties. It’s weird.
Rah: Who wants to be in a genre? Genres are for pussies. They’re for people who don’t have enough balls to do their own shit and so they latch onto these mini-genres and think that’s it’s going to be a movement…a moving train. We stay away from that shit, I don’t want to sound like anyone else, I don’t want to be in a category with anybody else. That’s not me being cocky, that’s me being real. I just don’t want to be in anyone’s category. That’s not knocking anybody, just that genre shit, yo, fuck that. Cats are wearing backpacks and American Apparel. I’m like fuck that shit. I was doing that shit way before you were supposed to do that. Motherfuckers was tripping, the execs were tripping, they kept on trying to put us into categories, they were like, “oh, they’re like Pharrell, they’re skaters.” I was like I don’t wear skate shit, I don’t skate. They didn’t know what to name it. But we was already in this scene, then to call someone a hipster, we were like what is that?
Krispy: I’ve been doing that for a long time. When Steve was still trying to get put on, Dim Mak wanted us to do an EP with them.
Q: How’d you get hooked up with Steve Aoki in the first place?
KK: We met him through AM, who was managed by Paul and Dart. Steve is cool as fuck and he always had banging chicks with him. We was supposed to be on Dim Mak at first. People don’t know that shit, Things didn’t work out because Interscope wouldn’t allow it. This was back in ‘04.
Q: What do you think about your label situation at Interscope? Has it been a positive experience or the typical major label bullshit?
KK: The labels aren’t expecting triple platinum anymore. We plan on just touring constantly and getting money that way. That’s where the money is…on tour. In the late 90’s no one toured, now people love to see live hip hop.
Rah: We think of ourselves as being in a similar situation to The Strokes. They were in at the beginning of their trend and at first, people were calling them ‘retro bands’ and being like ‘they sound like they came from the 70s.’ Then they came in with the “garage rock” labeling. Shit, we’ve been bumping TV on the Radio since their first EP. We’re not some posers trying to latch on. We know these people, we’ve been doing this shit.
Q: You guys don’t have any guest appearances on your album, which seems almost strange in contemporary hip-hop? Are you guys instinctively opposed to collaborations?
KK: Well, Jay Electronica’s going to be on the next album. He comes from a good hood in New Orleans but he understands where we come from. Real hip-hop dudes respect us. We’re some of the few dudes those guys respect.
Q: I know you guys have talked about playing your own instruments. Which ones do you specifically play?
KK: A lot of our songs have guitar and bass which we play, but we can play everything. We tweak the synthesizers… so much crazy shit. On the album, a lot of the time it sounds like there are two people playing at once…that’s because there is.
Rah: We’re real musicians, our model is the Dust Brothers. You could never pick out what they were doing, whether they were sampling or doing it live, you couldn’t tell.
KK: And of course, we’re heavily inspired by the Rza.
Q: Did you go to specialized music school?
Rah: We know how to read and write music. Our mom put us in band to keep us out of trouble and in those marching bands they make you learn how to write and read music. You can’t make that shit up, We got into jazz band that did that. We always had side bands though and have gigs on the side. New Orleans is a city like that.
Q: What about mixtapes. Is there a reason why you guys never released one?
Rah: We don’t do mixtapes. All the great albums had like 13 tracks. We don’t whore ourselves out like that. We just show cleavage. It’s a wonder that people buy their albums. I love the anticipation of the album. People just stand not being out there at all times. We love being mystery.
[Some random muffled inaudible talk…..tape recorder clears in time for …]
KK: And fuck Mark Ronson.
Q: He’s one of those dudes who it’s just painful to praise. But I do begrudgingly admit that he’s a good producer.
KK: Whatever, he’s just one of those dudes that never got in a scuffle. We’ll knock that dude out.
Rah: The problem with hip-hop is is that no one is inspiring anyone. No one’s switching it up and inspiring somebody. Everybody treats it like a job. We got into so it wouldn’t seem like a job. No one’s doing anything refreshing…they’re not talking about nothing. There’s trash out right now. I listen to mostly old stuff. I didn’t realize until maybe 2006 how dope some of that shit really was. Like ‘93 till Infinity.’ I always liked that, but that shit was so ill. Some of those Domino beats were crazy.
Q: It seems if you actively dislike things today, people just label you a “hater.”
Rah: We appreciate when writers call out shit that sucks. I love being a hater. We need more haters. People need to speak their mind. Tell the truth.
KK: Hip hop is so PC. Or worse, there’s just fake beef. Fake fools with guns but no one’s saying anything and everyone’s leaning on each other. I’m looking at Game and I like Game and I know he don’t like Jay, so he’s going to talk about it. We need more dudes like that. If I don’t like a dude, I’m going to talk about it. That shit is missing in hip-hop. Look, I listen to all the Biggie records. I don’t think he’s the greatest though and I’ll say it. He was great but he wasn’t the best in my mind. I used to think Biggie was better than Pac, but I switched a few years ago. Big would say fly shit just to say ill shit.
Q: Yeah, but then he’d throw in a “Sky’s the Limit” or “I’ve Got a Story to Tell.”
KK: I dunno, but I could barely separate that shit lyrically from the Lox at the time. At the end of the day, Wu Tang is our favorite group ever. But as I get older I see a lot of them wasn’t talking about shit.
Q: Yeah, but a lot of them were. Have you read the Wu-Tang Manual?
Both: Of course, we love it.
KK: We’ll punch people in the face for talking shit about Wu-Tang.
Rah: At the end of the day, when you’re young you just want to hear the flyest, illest shit, that’s how it is. You know what I mean. I love MF Doom actually, even though he kind of bit GZA a little bit. Those concept albums are cool though.
KK: If we featured somebody, it’d be different. If we were going to feature a Jay, we’d bring him back to the street level, not him talking about G4’s. That’s just what the Knux do, That’s the problem, the hip hop game is so pop when they feature people, it’s so corporate, no one’s even in the same studio, no one talks about concepts because it doesn’t matter, it’s like product placements in movies.
Rah: We want to make hip-hop more gritty, like that early Wu shit.
Q: I remember reading somewhere that you guys were big Gravediggaz fans.
Rah: That’s a great album. Of course, their earlier shit was ill but that’s where our mind was at the time. We swayed from what we were into, used to be heavy into Killah Priest and on some traveling to the stars type shit.
Q: The Wu JV was probably the best JV of all time. I just had a post last week about how dope Killarmy were?
Rah: They were dope. I didn’t care much for Sunz of Man though.
KK: No one puts on dope cats anymore.
Q: When was the last time you saw anything like the Juice Crew or the Hit Squad or the Def Squad. And Diplomats don’t really count. Meanwhile, Def Jam won’t stop sending me albums from Blood Raw, Jeezy’s weed carrier.
Rah: It’s the south man. I can explain this to you. It’s just the South. Not all those dudes are this but a lot of them are and they don’t respect the music. They really don’t care where it goes. It’s about money.
Q: But they have swagger. What else do you need?
Rah: Someone needs to retire that shit. It’s like ‘jiggy.’ That shit’s played out.
KK: We’re trying to do us to the furthest extent. We don’t care about our haters. Our haters aren’t going to buy our album. Middle America is disconnected from everything and we’ll probably find some real listeners out there. They don’t follow new trends as much, or new fashion, they’ll just buy the records because they think it sounds good.
Rah: All these rappers would do better stuff if everyone came from their heart. If they did, you’d hear all kinds of shit, not just a few motherfuckers doing interesting things, I hope that we inspire people.
Q: So what are your favorite spots in LA?
A: 101 Café, Swingers on 3rd, Bossa Nova…we love that place, they even made a racist comment once but we still go. We used to go out to Cinespace a lot but know we hang out more downtown, warehouse parties. One Sunset used to be hot and we’d go there a lot. In general, we don’t fuck with places if we have to wait in line.
Q: What about the future? What are you guys working on now?
Rah: We’re already working on the second album. It’s different and it reflects where our minds are at now. We’re already plotting the next approach.
Video:
The Knux-”Bang Bang”
The Knux “Cappucino”
Download:
MP3: The Knux-”Hard Day’s Night”
MP3: The Knux-”Bang! Bang!”
MP3: The Knux-”Cappucino”
MP3: The Knux-”Cappucino Remix”
Posted in Interviews | 19 Comments »
October 2nd, 2008
Contrary to popular belief, Blu did not take his name from the Eiffel 65 song popular in the late 90s.
Q: So where exactly in LA did you grow up?
A: I was born at St. Andrews and 54th, at my grandparent’s crib, that’s where I was living last year and it’s the first place I ever stayed. But I’ve been all around, Vermont, Vernon, Claremont, Monclair, Inglewood. Hawthorne, Long Beach. Azusa. All over, yo.
Q: Why all the moving around?
A: My parents just moved around a lot. I guess I have the bug and did the same shit…. couch hopping, ditching jobs all the time, trying to live in studios.
Q: What high school did you go to?
A: I went to San Pedro High, Claremont High and Jurupa Valley High. I played ball at San Pedro but got kicked off the team for grades three years running. At Jurupa, I arrived too late to play but was smashing the whole basketball team there. I definitely wanted to play hoops and shit.
Q: What was your family situation like? Your step-dad was a pastor correct?
A: My mom was on some lock down shit, my grades sucked so they didn’t want me to do anything. My step-father was a pastor so he didn’t let me listen to hip-hop. Shit was really boring when I was young. I was mainly into drawing and playing sports.
Q: When did you start listening to hip-hop?
A: In the 10th grade, when I moved to Pedro with my dad. He used to bang Too Short and 2pac all the time. I got into DMX, Mase, and Will Smith, Big Willie Style was my first hip-hop album.
Q: So you must have started rapping shortly after that?
A: I started rapping when I was 16 or 17, in 11th grade. I started writing raps in 10th, like Too Short raps. I used to rap like a baby DMX. Meanwhile, my homebody who I used to rap with, wrote lyrics like Brother Lynch Hung. That was my partner, so you can only imagine what it was like.
Q: So you didn’t grow up on any of the classic LA hip-hop, huh?
A: Not really. When I really got into hip-hop, I got into throwback stuff like De La, old Busta shit…I got into Tribe heavy, Common, the Roots, Redman, certain Ghostface, Saukrates, Planet Asia was the only West Coast stuff I got into in high school.
Q: What made you want to start rapping?
A: DMX. It was his passion. It seemed like he was having a great time doing it and I wanted to do that.
Q: Had you been musical before that?
A: I’d sung in the choir at church when I was little. I did that pretty well, but that was it though. I never played no instruments in school. I always wanted to play a trumpet but we couldn’t really afford it. I’m trying to learn the piano now. I guess I want to learn to play, maybe playing isn’t the right word, but I try and come up with these little wack melodies.
Q: You’re producing now too, right?
A: Yeah, I’ve been producing for a year and a half. I’m wrapping up an album with Sene right now. It’s called. A Day Late and a Dollar Short.
Q: So when did you start to think you could rap for a living?
A: I never thought I was going to rap professionally. I got signed to Sound in Color to do the record with Exile. There were a bunch of young dudes over there, putting shit out, scratch records and stuff. It wasn’t a big deal. I was just doing a rap album,. I’d done four or five before that. Around ‘04, I got serious about it.
Q: How did you get together with Sound in Color?
A: Because of Mainframe. He started the label when he was 19 and signed a bunch of heads. He’d signed Exile the year prior and he’d been working on his own album. Then one of the investors at the label said we should do an album together. I was like hell yeah, the only person that had been hollering at me before that was Suge.
Q: How did that happen?
A: My cousin was engineering at Death Row and he played the CD for Suge right when he got out and had already signed Left Eye and Crooked and it was about to go down. My boy told me, just come with me and we’ll get signed by either Suge or Roc-a-Fella. I ended up to Sound in Color, which is just as good as Roc-a-Fella (laughs.)
Q: How many copies did you end up selling of Below the Heaven’s?
A: They pressed up 3,500 CD’s at first and we ended up selling 7,000 copies total. The rest was digital, no vinyl. They haven’t really released a record since mine but they used to do 75-page booklets with each album. I wish I was around then.
Q: How did C.R.A.C. Knuckles come about?
A: I met T’ Raarach through Aloe Blacc. He was doing a record and I came through and laid some raps and he was like, ‘yo what’s up.’ After five to six months, we linked up and locked up for 7 days to complete the first draft of Piece Talks, which we released on tour, DIY, 500 copies total. Then Tres Records wanted to re-release it and there were two songs we wanted to add.
Q: Did Aloe Blacc talk to you about trying to get in at Stones Throw?
A: I’ve talked with people at Stones Throw but they told me that they thought my music had the potential to be bigger than the stuff that they did. They advised me to take a more mainstream approach than going underground with them.
Q: Has the buzz surrounding Below the Heaven’s drawn label interest?
A: I talk to majors all the time. Have since I was 19 and talking to Interscope.
Q: What’s stopped you from signing?
A: I haven’t signed because the situations haven’t been dope. No one’s trying to offer me any kind of Jay-Z contract. They try to tie you down. Now it’s about trying to get a better situation on the table with the majors. I don’t want to get locked down with some shit that ain’t working. Indie is the same shit. They’re like, we’ll give you whatever you put up money wise. If you want an elaborate record, just put up the money for it first. Labels man….
Q: How did the Johnson & Jonson project came about?
A: Well, Jon (Mainframe) was one of the main people who got me to Sound in Color, but at Sound in Color wasn’t interested in the project which was originally called Powder and Oils and served as a mixtape for the Below the Heavens. It was originally just going to be a white label album with me rapping over old songs, but it became bigger than that. We started shopping around the product and waited for the best situation to put the album out. Tres Records wanted it and it came out Sept. 23.
Q: So do you have plans for another album or are you going to take some time off?
A: I’m doing tons of shit, too much stuff. I’m debating if I’m going to drop another album because I have another self-produced album finished. Plus, I’m turning in a record that I produced for Sene, with me rapping on a few tracks and doing a lot of production. As far as rapping, I just want to pause for a while. I’ve been writing for a long time and it’s weird when certain content comes out. I have to go back to the pace that my material is being produced, it’s weird.
Q: What’s your writing process like?
A: I just started writing to a random beat today. I just randomly did five songs with this dude Apex in DC. I just did another five songs with a guy from Rotterdam. When I’m inspired, I just go in all the time. Nothing lately has inspired me to sit down and craft another entire album
Q: Every one of the albums you’ve released has been a collabo. What made you take that route?
A: I think it helps your consistency to be with one producer. It produces a different sound every time I like to be inspired by a type of sound for an entire record, it takes you different places sonically.
Q: So there’s been rumors that you and Elzhi are going to collaborate on an album. Any truth to them?
A: Yeah, we’ve been talking about collaborating to do an album. It was really intimidating though. I just feel like I’m not ready to do an album with Elzhi. That dude writes perfect patterns. You’re just like…’Damn cuz.’
Q: You’ve become pretty popular among the blogosphere. Do you read any blogs?
A: A lot of time people send me links. This song leaked or here’s an article about you, but I don’t read much on the Net.
Q: Do you think the immediacy of the Internet has perhaps sped up your career’s ascent?
A: Definitely. It’s going faster than I planned. Technology has just smashed the old model. The weird thing to me is that I don’t even know how many fans I really have.
Q: What about the Okayplayer set? They seem to give you a lot of love.
A: Definitely. They give me the most, hands down. I appreciate it a lot.
Q: What about shows? Have you been touring a lot?
A: Since ‘05, I’ve toured the states three times.
Q: How did you go about getting a booking agent?
A: J right there (Blu’s manager) has booked every tour. When he came out of college he didn’t know how to do it but he pulled contacts from online places, threw out shit and it all out. We made it happen ourselves. It’s good to establish a team.
Q: What about locally?
A: I’ve played tons of shows in LA. For years.
Q: Do you ever think about playing spots like Spaceland or the Echo?
A: I think I’d need to get another audience at these places. I don’t have a big enough following to fill those spots.
Q: Who would you say your following is at this point?
A: Mostly underground heads..
Q: Do you think the line is blurrier than it used to be between underground vs. mainstream?
A: Yeah, it’s more independent vs. major, than underground vs. over-ground. If it works out, I’ll sign with a major, but we’re trying to do records on our own for now. The indies won’t allot resources to put our stuff and promote it so we want to start doing it ourselves. All we need is a distributor
Q: Who are your favorite rappers right now?
A: Jay Electronica. Cassius King. Sene, Shawn Jackson. I still like Edan. That’s the illest fool to me. I just bought his CD…. Beauty and the Beat and played it for two weeks straight. I had his EP on wax. I also like when J Davey raps. I think Mibbs from Pac. Divison is really dope. There’s tons of rappers I like. Plus, Flying Lotus. We’ve known each other for a while and its dope to see him get this exposure.
Q: Ever think about doing a collaboration with him?
A: We’ve been talking about a collabo for two years now. We’re both born in ’83 so… We did a show in Brussels and he rocked the festival harder than Wu and Ice Cube. It was the illest thing I’ve seen.
Q: How would you say living in LA influences your music?
A: I love LA because everyone in LA is doing something and everyone’s into everyone’s hustle. No one does one thing. The LA scene has a lot of fashion, music, art elements and photographers and writers. Everyone knows someone who knows someone. LA’s ill to me, it’s popping right now.
Q: What’s your typical day like?
A: Now I eat breakfast before I smoke. Then I smoke, read e-mails, make beats, do songs, smoke again, make beats, write to raps, etc.
Q: What are your favorite spots in LA?
A: I like the Fish House on Slauson and Crenshaw, that shit is bomb. I’ve been traveling a lot lately, so I’ve been eating well in a lot of different countries. I just moved out to the Eastside in the Santa Monica and Vermont area. There are a lot of Mexican joints and Thai food places around but I just got back so I haven’t had much time to check them out.
Q: What are your goals for the future?
A: I’d definitely like for our company to come into fruition. We want to put out music, quality film and quality records.
Q: What sort of films?
A: Well, I’ve been writing movies as long as I’ve been rapping. I just write down ideas for films and I want to put them together. We want to make a silent film to go with a music project, maybe a stop animation comedy. All of us have different film ideas and we want to have them coincide with the next few records.
Video- Blu-”Blue Collar Worker”
Blu-”So (ul) Amazing”
Johnson & Jonson-”Bout It, Bout It”
Download:
MP3: Blu & Exile-”My World Is”
MP3: C.R.A.C. Knuckles-”Pop Dem Boyz”
MP3: Johnson & Jonson-”Hold On John”
Posted in Interviews | 8 Comments »
September 30th, 2008
In conjunction with my article in the last issue of LA Weekly, here’s the full text of my interview with Pacific Division. Over the next few days, check for Q&A’s from Bishop Lamont, Knux and Blu.
Q: First off, I suppose the most obvious question is about your back-story. So at the risk of being redundant, why don’t you guys tell me how Pacific Division formed?
Mibbs: We met Be-Young in high school actually. But my brother tells the story better than me, I go off on all sorts of sub-stories.
Like: What’s the question? How’d we meet? We met in Palmdale, we’d just moved there and we weren’t really familiar with the community but we started playing basketball and that’s where we met Be Young. We got into a little hip-hop group at the time; we all had a passion for great hip-hop music, but we were always trying to be different from everyone in the West. We were more into being well-rounded. We liked everything and everyone surrounding us seemed to just be into one sound. It gave us an advantage.
At first there were other members in the group, 10 in all. It was intended to be a West Coast Wu-Tang. But differences occurred and we needed to advance. We downsized it to just the three of us and things have been rolling ever since, rocking shows, doing whatever. We used to pay to do shows, now we get paid to do shows. And now we’re here.
Q; Where did you guys grow up prior to moving to Palmdale?
Like: We grew up in North Hollywood, we lived in the Jungles in South Central, we lived in Inglewood, all our school’s were in Inglewood, then we did High School in Palmdale. We did a little bit of college at Northridge then we dropped out. Be was from the Valley originally and then he bounced to Palmdale when he was in Junior High. We spent a good portion of our lives in Palmdale. But most of it was spent in LA.
Q: What led to the move to Palmdale?
Mibbs: Our parents wanted a house and got to buy one out there for cheap.
Like: I didn’t know anything about it, we didn’t want to be out there at first, but it was a learning experience. It’s a slow-paced lifestyle out there. We learned that not everyone is the same.
Q: Was there a pretty severe culture shock?
Like: It was, but we adjusted.
Q: What high school did you go to?
Mibbs: We all went to Highland High School.
Q: How did you guys get started rapping?
Mibbs: We’ve been rapping since we couldn’t even speak words. All my life. Seriously. We’d do our little mixtapes trying to show people that we could rap. It wasn’t nothing we took seriously until things started picking up and people started liking the music. We were trying to find ourselves.
We used to have another group, there were four of us—Be wasn’t in it then. I don’t even remember how, but we got down with Sean Healy and he’d make you sell tickets to play a show. We were young and wanted to rock so we did it and sold all our tickets and packed the house with our friends. Then the situation broke off with the old group and our older cousins were out here in LA, rapping in a group called Blue Collar that had the scene popping for a minute. They had a monthly night at Little Temple and I invited my cousin to one of our old shows where we had to sell the tickets and he liked one song. Nothing but one song and he said I want you to do the one song at our show. So we got a good reaction and we kept on doing that one song at their shows and then finally, they asked us to do a whole set at Little Temple. Then we were playing shows there and doing well and then next thing people at Temple Bar saw us and wanted us to do shows. People would leave with our records. We started hustling. It’s a domino effect, people tell their friends, family, what have you and it takes off from there.
Q: Who were/are your biggest influences?
Mibbs: Common,
Be Young-Redman, Nas, Rass Kass,
Like: 2Pac, Az, Grand Puba
Q: How did you end up with the deal at Universal?
Mibbs: We just went into their offices with our catalogue. We had the “Fat Boys” video, which we did ourselves with our own money. It was a sacrifice that we made and it turned out well. We showed them all our stuff, we had a press kit and they’d done some research and knew that we had fans and potential.
Be Young: We just performed for them. We hopped on tables. We performed four or five songs in front of Sylvia Rhone. We were on the tables…just wilding out.
Mibbs: We had meetings with Warner Bros and Interscope too. We met Jimmy Iovine, apparently his young son is a fan of ours. We went to his office and it was weird, I kept on tripping, thinking, we’re in the office of a billionaire and we’re throwing money at him. I acted like I was weeded out….we put on a show.
Q: Why did you pick Universal?
Mibbs: They seemed the most in tune with who we were. They didn’t skim through the music. They understood. As soon as we met with Sylvia, she started throwing out the right names of people to work with, Q-Tip in particular.
Like: You can’t trust nobody at labels but we figured it was a good time for us to be at a label to get their muscle. We’d been signed to Snoop’s manager’s label, Two-Tone Elephant. People always say indie is the way to go, y’know be rebels to the majors, but indies are labels, albeit with less money. If you want someone with money, they have that muscle. It’s about using it to your advantage. We still operate our own indie label.
Q: What’s the status of your debut album?
Mibbs: We’re finishing up our next mixtape: Church League Champions. We’re already got some songs recorded for the album and we’re going to do a lot more recording. We’re really looking forward to the process.
Q: Who’s the A&R
Mibbs: Dimitrius Spencer. Thus far, he’s given us the freedom to do what Pac Div does. He’s not like, ‘make this hook like that,’ he’s liked it everything we’ve given him. The industry’s gotten so lost, they look for anyone with a buzz.
Q: Does it feel like the major labels are actively seeking for good rappers now, whereas for much of the decade they’d been searching for artists who could sell ringtones or pander to the lowest common denominator, or both?
Like: I think they were searching for cleaner music for a while after the Michael Richards/Don Imus thing. Cleaner rap, which they thought meant backpack rap. But now they’re just looking for anyone making noise.
Mibbs: Something without baggage, they’re looking for artists that are more well-rounded.
Like: They don’t want to worry about dudes going to jail.
Q: How has it been working with the label in general?
Mibbs: We can’t tell you that much. We’re actually meeting the staff next week. We only signed the deal last month. We’re still new but we’ve got work to do. We got drafted now we’ve got to work. They’ll put you on the bench if your jump shot ain’t right.
Q: Do you worry about the fact that it’s increasingly hard to get albums released on major labels these days?
Mibbs: We’re just thinking about working hard and making good music.
Q: Is there a theme to Church League Champions?
Mibbs: Not really. We want to take over the world but you’ve got to start in the Church League.
Q: What’s the breakdown of the new tape? You guys going to rhyme over original beats, other people’s, both?
Mibbs: About 60 percent original sounds, 40 percent mixtape tracks. 100 percent Pac Div. We’re rocking over Stevie Wonder loops, Al Green’s “Still in Love with You,” Naughty by Nature, Madlib, and lot of original records from our producer Swift.
Q: How do the think the role of the Internet factored into your guys’ success?
Mibbs: The Internet has its advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages are obviously that previously, people would buy albums. Before, I couldn’t directly speak to Common or have sway in someone’s career. If you bought a bad album, you bought it and you had to live with it. Now if you buy a bad album, you can comment about how terrible it is and make people not want to purchase it. The little people have a lot more to say. Once it catches on blogs and writers spread it, word travels fast..
Like: You don’t need radio in a sense but you’re going to eventually need radio to sell units.
Mibbs: Soulja Boy wouldn’t be what he is without the Internet.
Q: How did you go about getting buzz on the Internet?
Mibbs: We was on Myspace and adding people at first, no big deal. It wasn’t until we got a video to people when it all jumped off. We shot the video and people saw what they had already heard. They communicated with the energy and the visuals of the show. It just naturally caught on.
It’s about fan interaction. If the blogs like your music it’ll spread, I don’t know anybody at Nah Right but they know us, which means we’re doing something right.
Q: Were you guys listening to a lot of 80s music when you came up with the idea to play off the Fat Boys?
Mibbs: I was playing some old Audio Two shit at the time. We’d already called ourselves the Fat Boys since Be rapped over a old Fat Boys instrumental. He said that we should call ourselves the Fat Boys to pay homage to them.
Q: Who are your favorite rappers these days?
Mibs: Blu and Diz Gibran. They’re the homies but we like their music too. We’re not into giving people free passes, we get inspired from listening to those cats. We’re cool with The Cool Kids too, everybody really.
Q: What non hip-hop do you all listen to?
Like: Coldplay. Chromeo.
Be Young: I listen to a bunch of artists no one’s probably ever heard of.
Q: What did you think of the hipster rap labels that some people threw at you?
Mibbs: We didn’t sign up for none of that. When people don’t understand shit, they want to put labels on it. When we saw them called us hipsters, we thought it was on some coked out shit—that they thought we were people doing weird things.
Like: When the Cool Kids come out to LA, they chill with us. They’re like, ‘fuck that,’we don’t want to go to some hipster party.
Mibbs: People get hipster mixed with new generation of hip-hop. N.E.R.D isn’t hipster. They‘ve been around for a while too and they don’t wear baggy clothes.
Q: What are your favorite spots to kick it in LA?
Like: The house, we go to work and we make music.
Q: What are your goals going forward:
Mibbs: We want to keep expanding. We’d love to play The Nokia Theater, sell out arenas, do the crazy visual shit that goes on in our mind. There’s no limit to how far we’ll go to create.
Like: We talk about interesting things. We want people to know that there’s more to us than sneakers and a “Fat Boys” video. We know that there’s a whole world of human beings and we’re excited to be in this position. I feel like we’re a high pick, now we have to show everyone what we’re made of. You know how good you can play, now you have to go play.
Mibbs: I wouldn’t call us the number one pick. We’re underdogs. We’re going to be like Chauncey Billups and surprise people with how good we can play. We’re gonna’ start in the church league and work our way up.
Videos:
Pacific Division-”Fat Boys 08″
Pacific Division-”Women Problems”
Pacific Division-”Paper ft. TiRon”
Download:
MP3: Pacific Division-”Fat Boys”
MP3: Pacific Division-”Wake Up”
ZIP: Pacific Division-Sealed for Freshness Blendtape (Left-Click)
Posted in Interviews | 5 Comments »
August 28th, 2008
Last Friday, my feature on The Arabian Prince, a seminal and slept-on figure in hip-hop history, ran in the LA Times. If you’d like to read it, it can be found here. I think it does an adequate job of summarizing who Arabian is and why he’s important enough for Peanut Butter Wolf and Stones to release an anthology of his ’80s material. However, as my interview with Arabian ran well over an hour, a lot of material got left on the cutting room floor. So below the jump, here’s the full transcript of the interview, touching on the history of Los Angeles hip-hop, NWA and Arabian’s unfettered love for Spongebob Squarepants.
Download:
MP3: Arabian Prince-”Strange Life”
MP3: Arabian Prince-”Let’s Hit the Beach”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Interviews, LA Times | 10 Comments »
July 24th, 2008
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece for LA Weekly discussing the difficulties J Dilla’s estate has had in enforcing copyright law and paying off the six-figure IRS debt left behind. In the aftermath of the story’s publication, I had the chance to speak with his mother, Ms. Maureen Yancey about Dilla’s legacy and her current estrangement with the executors of his estate.
Q: In the original article, some comments from Dilla’s estate’s executors made you take pause. What were they and what sort of problems have you had with the estate?
A: I understand the side [estate executor] Arty Erk’s coming from and what he’s trying to do. However, there has been no communication between them and the family in a year. The only time I hear a peep is if there are some propositions between attorney’s going to court. That’s the only time I’m made aware of things.
It’s ridiculous. I still have contacts with all of Dilla’s friends and people in the hip-hop community. We still talk, we still keep in touch, we’ve became friends. They check in on me and I’ve had the opportunity to direct them to the estate thinking they’d be able to help do projects. But most of the time, none of their inquiries have been addressed. There’s no one that has made it accessible to them to contribute and get work done. I’ve stopped sending people there. They haven’t been forthright, I was told they didn’t appreciate the help, that we weren’t supposed to use Dilla’s name or license. By the time, I understood what was happening and learned about the legal ramifications, I took down the website for the Foundation that we’d created as to be in compliance with state laws. I figured in the coming year, they’d reevaluate their decision, but it never happened.
One of the things Dilla wanted me to do with his legacy was to use it to help others, people with illness, kids who were musically gifted but had little hope due to poverty. I wanted to use my contacts to help people and out and it was squashed because we weren’t in compliance with the state and there was nothing we could do about it. I’m Dilla’s mother and I can’t use Dilla’s name or likeness, but I know that I still can honor him by doing his work.
What were your intended goals for the Foundation?
I wanted to set it up to help others but also to be a nucleus for the fans who wanted to do tributes and honor Dilla. It would be a place for artists to be able to show their support. When the estate chose not to communicate with us, they sold themselves short. The A-list artists stay in contact with me directly and they’re basically cutting off the quality talents that made themselves closest to Dilla. Anyone with a knowledge about his work would know this, but those in charge haven’t a clue to Dilla’s worth, They haven’t a clue as to who he was as a man or what his relationship was with his fans and his peers. It’s a community, those artists coming out of the underground. You can see this when you travel around the world and see how large his fan base really was. People are still discovering the extent of Dilla’s influence.
He has a young audience just coming into the community who he’s had a major influence on. Then there’s the issue of the jazz community. Dilla grew up with jazz. That was his lullaby and the connection is far greater than the estate realizes. It’s more than just notes. There’s so much that can be done and the estate hasn’t got a clue. It’s such a waste of time. But I’m not closing the door on them yet. Dilla worked alongside with me and I was a big part of my son’s past. I moved to LA to take care of him, I worked for him from day one, that’s why the communication with his peers and me has been so great.
What do you hope happens with the estate?
At the end of the day, we want our voices to be heard. We want the community to work with me and the estate. We want everyone to work together. It’s been the estate’s choice to not communicate with us and it jeopardizes the future quality of his projects. They make the decisions for him without the proper musical knowledge. Their depth of musical knowledge just isn’t enough.
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June 12th, 2008
Islands are playing the Henry Fonda next Tuesday. As your faithful attorney, I recommend that you attend. Their recent Arm’s Way is one of the year’s finest records and they put on a fantastic show. Plus, the last time I saw them play in LA, for their encore they decided to light Roman Candles on Wilshire Blvd.
Q: So how’s the tour been treating you thus far?
A: It’s been good. I’m in New York and I just lost my keys and got locked out. But y’know it’s day only three, it’s awesome to go on tour, our show tonight is sold out and the crowds have been really nice and seem really into the album. Even if some people aren’t.
Are you referring to that Pitchfork review? [the interview took place the day after the review ran]. It seemed unnecessarily harsh and just off-base.
Yeah, it seemed a little vindictive. The Internet is a great leveler and it’s supposed to be a place where everyone can weigh in but what I don’t like about Pitchfork is that it’s this hegemonic, monolithic take on music criticism. But whatever, half those guys are like Harvard business school graduates. They’re not musicians, they have no real understanding of what we’re doing.
So have you left Montreal for New York for good?
Nah, just part-time. I’m living with my girlfriend here right now.
How do you like it?
It’s just such a huge place and everything here comes at you all at once. You feel like you’re in the middle of Rome. Everyone here has seen everything, everyone’s continually defying expectations and stereotypes. It’s just a lot of things to look at in a compact radius.
Sorry to have to ask the generic interview questions but now comes the ‘about the album’ part of the piece.
No worries. I’ve got these on lockdown at this point. The answers come out of nowhere. I think they rise out of my lower intestines. I’m like a shaman. All in 20 minutes time.
Alright then, tell me about the recording of Arm’s Way. To me at least, the band sounds like a more cohesive working unit as compared to the first record.
This was definitely a group effort. I would write the songs and while I think I’ve grown as a songwriter, the band has come even further. Touring just turns you into a machine.
It’s a very collaborative effort with regards to the arrangement. I’ll come in with a real skeletal structure and know what I want it to sound like and everyone will have a really great take and they’ll end up surprising me that we can take it to a place that I hadn’t anticipated. I’m always surprised and excited and you to have that in a good band.
You Talking to Me?
Listening to it, you feel a sort of strong classical influence. Had you been listening to a lot of classical and set out to incorporate it in the songs?
I wasn’t. But the band are classically trained symphony type musicians and I might have been influenced by my surroundings. There’s definitely a real classical element to our band and it might have inspired me to draw things out give the songs space to breathe. It seemed appropriate to go there, we had the ability and we figured it was a good opportunity.
There also seems to be a fusion element to your sound, which seems to be a recurring motif of late, with among others, bands like Vampire Weekend mixing afro-beat to pop, No Age fusing ambient and punk. Is this something you’ve noticed?
I definitely think we hop around a lot in our songs. We’re certainly as much a product of this time as this time is of us.
You’ve also experimented with hip-hop in the past. When you sat down to write “Where There’s a Will, There’s a Whalebone,” did you ever stop to think that hey, wait a minute, I’m doing a rock/rap song, this has the potential to be completely Durst.
Not really. I’d say the difference between us and those bands like Limp Bizkit is that we have taste. The most important element is taste and of course, I know that it’s subjective, but I like to think I have superior taste to that shit.
How did you go about thinking about recording a rap song though?
It wasn’t calculated, it was out of a really honest desire to have Busdriver and Subtle on the track. Jamie and I had a project, Th’ Corn Gangg and they were part of it.
What’s the status of Th’ Corn Gangg record?
It’s on hiatus. Things are happening but not for a little while. It’s like our Chinese Democracy. [Laughs.]
How did you get down with those guys in the first place?
It started in LA actually. We lived in LA for a season, in Montebello, east of downtown. We kept it real in Montebello, a friend of a friend had a spot and we were hanging out. Murs, Busdriver and Subtitle came through and we got active in working with them. It was kind of a transition thing. “Where There’s a Will, There’s a Whalebone” was really a Corn Gangg song and it really fit with where the Islands’ sound was headed.
I’ve read that you’re a big hip-hop fan and saw that you were pretty pleased when Hood Internet mashed up your song with Bun-B
I mean I’m not wearing a white tee and I’m not trapping, but I’m definitely an admirer of the genre. I like trying to incorporate a lot of different types of music into our sound. I just wanted it to be natural and not schtick.
Were you always a hip-hop fan growing up?
Yeah. I mean I had pretty eclectic tastes but I definitely listened to a lot of hip-hop.
Anyone in particular you listened to a lot of?
I was really into Maestro Fresh Wes, who’s from Toronto and made a really great rap record called “Symphony in Effect,” with a great song called “Let Your Backbone Slide” that was pretty huge in Canada.
Your on-stage performance seems to have an element of theater to it, from the face paint to way the band interacts. How do you think this has an impact on the music and the art of performance.
I don’t know if that tension exists in the band per se but we’re certainly into drama in the sound. But no, I never took drama classes or acted.
What about the white face paint you’ve been wearing on-stage. I actually thought you were going for a Kabuki touch or something before I realized it probably was more Dylan/Rolling Thunder Revue.
It had been kind of rattling around in my subconscious and I thought it was a really good way to get into character and the spirit of things for our performance.
Thorburn in his Meiji Restoration Phase
Photo Via Stereogum
The album also pays homage to the Who’s “A Quick One, While He’s Away.” What was the story behind that?
It was meant to be playful, an homage or a redux type thing. Pop music is about borrowing from its predecessors. Dylan took from people. Bob Marley took “Spirit Up” from Desmond Dekker and that’s just the Bob’s. We can go down the alphabet, there’s a legacy of the dialogue in pop music.
Thematically, your lyrics seem almost obsessed with the concepts of good and evil. How often is this something you think about or is this something that just manifests itself spontaneously when you’re writing?
I’m beyond good and evil. Sure, I think about it at night, sometimes it’s political and sometimes its apolitical,
Have you ever given any thought to doing concerts to support any politicians?
I would probably do some stuff if I had a voice that people gave two shits about. I lack that viewpoint to protest. I don’t like to make things explicit. It comes off tasteless. I want a change but I’m waiting.
What bands were your biggest influences growing up?
In my adolescence, there were a few that I could cite, but I’d rather not. I’ll admit that I did have a thing for Jane’s Addiction, but I’m only admitting this because it’s for an LA publication. I liked their theatricality, the way they used different styles of music that could get hippies, punks, metal heads and rockers into one room. No comment about how I retroactively feel about that band. I was into lots of things, I grew up in a really small town and bands would come by and I’d have to drive to see them. I think my starting point with bands, my first show was a local regional punk band named Anthony Monday.
Were you a punk rock kid?
I was into punk by association. I didn’t live and breathe it. I had a pretty diverse musical palate. My parent’s had some good jams and old blues records and stuff like that.
Are there any misperceptions about yourself that you think the press have wrongly portrayed, and if so, how have they got the story wrong?
That I’m an asshole. To quote Larry David, there’s an an asshole confusion. People think I’m an asshole because I’m trying. They might conflate pretension with effort. I think things gets lost if you focus on surface interpretations or superficial assessments. I try to keep things layered…like a three-bean dip.
Download:
MP3: Islands-”Arm’s Way”
MP3: Islands-”Creeper”
MP3: Islands & Bun B-”Draped Up and Creeped Out”
From Return to the Sea
MP3: Islands ft. Busdriver & Subtitle-”Where There’s a Will There’s a Whalebone”
Bonus:
Video: Maestro Fresh Wes-”Let Your Backbone Slide”
Posted in Interviews | 2 Comments »
April 8th, 2008
It was my third night in Austin. Devin had just blazed through an epic set that had been celebrated in the appropriate fashion , El-P was currently on-stage and I was wandering around the Def Jux party with four cups of Jack in my stomach, a head full of smoke and the strange desire to approach people and ask if they had also expected everything to be “1984″ themed and staffed entirely by surly robots. But I held my tongue, instead approaching a ornery, heavily tatted bartender at the Scoot Inn, noting the sign above his head that read: “Sorry We Do Not Have Redbull, Wine coolers or Smirnoff Ice, Please Don’t Even Go There P.S. No Shiner Either.” So I did the only sensible thing, I ordered a Jack on the Rocks with a Zima chaser. The barkeep didn’t find this funny and come to think of it, neither did I.
Luckily, I ran into my friend, Will, who was whispering weird gibberish about Del tha Funky Homosapien. As that’s not a name you want to say sotto voce, there was a slight misunderstanding but when things were finally straightened out, I learned that he had canceled his interview with Del moments earlier because of a bout of laryngitis. Naturally, I volunteered for the assignment.
“It won’t be a problem, I rambled. “No one needs prepared questions. Performing interviews without questions is like the freestyling of journalism. Chris Matthews, Larry King, Ellen DeGeneres, they all do it.”
“Maybe I can help you think of some questions?” he said. I could tell that he was a fan of common sense and this frightened me. After all, Finding Forever was terrible.
“Nonsense. I freestyle questions all time,” I scoffed. “It’s part of my plan to improvise everything, release my interviews as mixtapes and win the 2008 Pazz & Jop poll. It’s foolproof.”
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Posted in SXSW, Interviews | 7 Comments »
April 2nd, 2008
Yes, the title is true, one article, one interview, one post. All for the low low price of nothing. I am nothing if not bargain-minded. Act now while supplies last and before I run out of cliches to spew. Nonsensical gibberish aside, I may not be as a big a UGK fan as others on the Internet, but I’m not about to deny that they made a lot of great music, nor will I argue with anyone who wants to ascribe classic status to Ridin’ Dirty. Plus, Bun B is one of the world’s great interviews and it was an honor to speak with him. The link to the Times piece is below, the interview with Bun is below the jump.
LA Times: Bun B’s Birthday Has Him Thinking of Pimp C’s Death
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Posted in Interviews, LA Times | 3 Comments »
February 21st, 2008
Pete Rock needs no introduction. His new album NY’s Finest drops on Tuesday. While it might not be a classic on the level of a Soul Survivors or Mecca & The Soul Brother, it’s a strong record with occasionally great moments. But buyer beware: Jim Jones yells “floooosssssiiiin’” no less than four times.
Q: You’ve stated that your intent for NY’s Finest was to modernize your classic sound while attempting to retain that ‘grimy boom-bap” music that you helped pioneer. How did you go about achieving this? Was it a matter of you implementing a new philosophy, buying new equipment, a combination of the two?
A: I wanted to have different sounds and for that I used new and upgraded equipment. I work with all-new Akai’s and MPC’s and to get that I had to buy new equipment, new keyboards, new everything. It’s a lot of the old Pete in terms of the choice of records with soul jazz and even reggae samples. But I delved a lot further into those elements. I’m into classical music and classic rock and even soft rock. Hell, even obscure overseas bands that that people haven’t heard of in the states, but are funky as hell over there. Of course, the J.B.’s pioneered that Boom Bap and funk but there were other groups around the world. I listen to Mandrill, Fela Kuti, all the French groups like El Chico. People like that. Oh and I also listen to a lot of Brazilian music.
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Posted in Interviews, Best Of | 15 Comments »
