Brand Nubian
Halftimeonline (Marcus): I was trying to explain to this girl why its so important to learn your history because a lot of what they have in those textbooks is lies.
Grand Puba: It’s not only that my personal opinion is that there was nothing that really attracted me to say yea I really want to know about this. You don’t get into that because it’s not your history. You’re learning somebody else’s history and after a while you get into it but it’s like that’s enough of that shit. It’s crazy.
Halftimeonline (Marcus): You become a different person and look at life in a different way if you just learn the truth. I learned racism is just math right now.
Grand Puba: It’s the haves and the have nots now. It’s more like rich and poor. If you look at that Fahrenheit shit you see what its about and it all boils down to money and the evilest people running the world.
Halftimeonline (Jbutters): It seems like it’s even jacked up when you do finally get the money.
Grand Puba: Cuz that’s what they taught. My man’s son is like six years old and he introduced me to him and said this is Puba he is a rapper. He was like he don’t look like a rapper, where’s your tattoos at? Then I showed him my Brand Nubian tattoo and he was like no a lot of them down your arm and everywhere. I was like wow but its programming. That’s what they’re learning. When we seen rappers when we were coming up that’s what we thought we had to be like to be a rapper. Its what you see. Right now you gotta be a gangsta and then a rapper.
Brother Ali: It seems like the real killers be the worst rappers.
Halftimeonline (Jbutters): Haha
Grand Puba: Then you got dudes that’s real and they don’t even speak on that shit.
Sadat X: Yea the real dudes don’t even want to be connected with that.
Lord Jamar: Why would you tell on yourself if you are really doing it.
Grand Puba: I’ma tell you who is a real dude. Slick Rick is a real dude. He plays no games.
Sadat X: Freddie Foxxx
Grand Puba: Freddie Foxxx is a real dude. Even Snoop, he party and do his thing but when me and Snoop met he was in gangsta mode. This was before he blew up. They just put an emphasis on that because it’s for a reason and that’s why it’s acceptable.
Halftimeonline (Jbutters): I was talking to Warren G about when the money gets involved and he made one main point, he was like when you come up in the industry you really have to stay friends with the people you with or the industry will push you apart. I know ya’ll were at the height and went through it so what things are people doing that separated the relationships ya’ll had for a while?
Lord Jamar: They’ll offer you money and just getting in your ear with shit like you don’t need these motherfuckers. Its all kinds of shit they will come at you from different angles. When you ain’t having money and you start seeing money…
Sadat X: That’s the number one thing.
Grand Puba: That’s the main thing.
Lord Jamar: It’s a blinding thing.
Halftimeonline (Jbutters): Ya’ll seem mad comfortable to come out the way you are so what motivates you to keep going?
Sadat X: It’s for the love of it back then. It’s not even the glitz of it now. It’s just from loving to do it from then that’s what keeps me in it.
Grand Puba: This is all I know. There ain’t nothing else. I’m not gonna go get a job now it’s too late this is it. It don’t necessarily have to be behind the mic but it’s this music. This is it. I found it and I’m gonna ride it out. And that never was my style even before I was rapping. I’d work three weeks and my check be like $9.00 and they be like don’t even come back man. Getting up on time and having on some funny shoes I can’t do that. If it was my thing I probably would have been did something else. Same thing with school. I got to get up when I want to or it gotta be something I love doing.
Halftimeonline (Jbutters): Lord Jamar I was reading an interview and it said you weren’t going to vote this year because you felt your vote didn’t count. I wanted to know if your stance is still the same and if so what do you think we can do to change the voting issue that we have in the U.S.
Lord Jamar: What issue is that?
Halftimeonline (Jbutters): That people don’t vote.
Grand Puba: People did vote and look what happened.
Lord Jamar: That’s what I’m saying. I understand what they are trying to say the importance of voting is but the kind of change we need will not come through voting. It will only come through revolutionary means! If you look at anything in history that’s the only way it comes about so I’m not the one that’s gonna waste my energy and time doing that (voting). Other people can do that because some of that can make things a little more tolerant for the time being but none of that shit will solve our problems. If Kerry get in there that’s not gonna solve our problems. They are the same motherfuckers with two different names. ‘Demon’crats and the fucking Republicans are both the same. Bush is a bad motherfucker and I’d like to see him go and I hope these people vote and get him out of there its just that I’m not gonna do it. You can look at me as the bad guy cuz I’m not voting but we already know this nigga got mad power and all this shit set up and he steals elections so what’s gonna stop him from doing it again. Nobody flipped when he stole it the last time and if he steals it again what are they gonna do? They just gonna be like if we had more people that registered! It would be good if they did flip out but I don’t think they will.
Halftimeonline (Jbutters): As a student of political science I’ve learned about the inner workings of government and all that and it is fucked up but what really trips me out is how we are only a two party system. We are like one merger away from a straight dictatorship.
Grand Puba: It needs to be if you get caught stealing I’m chopping your hand off now go steal something else. Just keep it straight.
Lord Jamar: They let you know they are all down with the same shit they say they are trying to spread democracy across the world. They aren’t trying to spread republicanism. This is a republican trying to spread democracy.
Halftimeonline (Jbutters): The way they are doing it is more like imperialism actually.
Lord Jamar: Colonialism or imperialism whatever you want to call it.
Grand Puba: Whatever country America does that too it has to be a fucking investment or it ain’t gonna happen. If they really had serious feelings about that shit they would take a look at what’s happening in Sudan and do something about that. If they are so worried about the well being of the people like we care about the Iraqi people. Look at the motherfuckers in Sudan, there are a lot of places that need help that aren’t being looked at because there is nothing in there they can gain from helping those people. Its bullshit when they tell you we care.
Lord Jamar: There is genocide going on in mad different places they don’t care about that.
Grand Puba: They don’t give a fuck because there ain’t nothing there we can make money on.
Lord Jamar: The shit Saddam did was years and years ago in the 80’s.
Grand Puba: Bush pops paid for the shit to fucking gas the Kurds!
Lord Jamar: They gave this nigga Bin Laden 3 billion dollars. Bush was head of the CIA and bringing all the drugs into America in the 80’s under Ronald Reagan.
Brother Ali: That’s chemical warfare on your people. Crack is chemical warfare, the same shit they have against Saddam. They are proving in L.A. that they put crack in the community to pacify.
Lord Jamar: But see they are the only ones that are allowed to do it. They are the only ones who can have nuclear weapons and engage in chemical warfare and genocide just nobody else can do it. Who benefited the most from 9-11? Once that happened we forgot about Chandra Levy, we forgot this nigga stole the election, we forgot about a lot of shit when that happened and now the nigga got mad power.
