Earlier you mentioned you were keeping your ear to the streets aside from 50 what else have you been checking?

Mr. Man: I like Jean Grae and Immortal Technique. Kweli’s new record is crazy.

Have you heard the finished version cuz everyone got the bootleg.

Haha I’m talking about the new version which is why I’m on the way to the session right. He doing a whole new record.

The new new record.

Mr. Man: Stat Qou newly signed to Aftermath. Get that Stat Qou mixtape. Those are my top three artists that nobody really knows about right there Immortal Technique, Stat Qou, and Jean Grae.

Light: Besides Stat Qou. I’m on the west so I’m sort of deprived of my real real hiphop. I just came back from NY and all I heard was G-Unit and 50 but I trust Khaliyl if he say Jean Grae is hot. I’m an old school dude dread. I listen to Delroy Wilson 1960 something reggae. That’s what I ride too. Hiphop dudes is cool but I don’t get my feel out here on the west coast. Out here on the west I’m gonna catch everybody’s single but I ain’t gonna catch all the mixtapes.

Most people would probably say you left at the end of hiphop’s golden era. What are some things you miss from those days?

Light: You know what’s funny you’re like the tenth person I’ve heard say that and when we were leaving we weren’t even thinking like that. We was just like these Warner Brother niggas in buggin. It ain’t have nothing to do with hiphop. It was total personal reasons. I think looking back what I do miss is that the powers that be was realizing that hiphop is here to stay and we don’t know nothing about it or how to flip it so lets look to these artists and producers and see what they could do with it. So it was cool in that respect when the Jermaine’s and everybody was out because they was spending money recording left and right. It was more groups and more production. Now it’s a little slower but I think there is a silver lining because the digital era is here and cats are putting their own things out. I try not to look back too much. I just miss the amount of people buzzing about hiphop. Now everybody is like they don’t give out any deals, the money’s tight and downloads are killing us. To me I don’t give a shit because ya’ll been killing the artist for years. I don’t care if they don’t sell no records. We can sell our joints online, sell 10,000 copies at ten dollars a pop, $100,000. Holla!

Mr. Man: I miss the soul of music. Luckily you always got somebody there that’s gonna keep it there a little bit. You got Kanye, you got Kweli, Mos who had a good run when he had a whole bunch of stuff out when his album was out, you got Pharoahe. There are always gonna be a few artists but there was a point in time where everybody really had some good music and we don’t really have that as much right now. Other than that I don’t really miss much I think everything goes around in cycles. What’s going on right now is what’s supposed to go on so that people will eventually say I’m tired of this and move onto something else. And every time people move onto something else they take hiphop and music in general somewhere else. I can’t miss anything because it doesn’t go anywhere for me to miss it. It just keeps adding on to the point where we’re at.

That’s brings up my next question, why now? What do you feel about the scene right now where it’s like this is they year we’re gonna come back?

Light: With the digital era, we’re seeing more ways we can have ownership. We can do our own thing. We just came back from Germany, through brothers like yourselves our contacts overseas you can work [a record]. Independent guys are selling 10k-50k copies. The problem is a lot of cats run for fame first. They think fame equal money and success. It ain’t really like that because you can get that money and success going little by little and then when everyone jumps on the bandwagon you’re stable. That’s really where we’re headed and it took a long time because when we were doing our thing spending quarter million dollar budgets in ’93 nobody was saying Light go to engineering school you got six months off. There were no big brothers. Even [with] all the old school cats I was around nobody told me that.

Mr. Man: Cuz from Tribe to De la, everyone was going through the same thing. People had them in the ringer and were trying to squeeze as much as they can get out of the artist without supporting the artist. So everybody is like I got to go on these tours because I have kids, I have a house note, I have a car note, so no one ever had time to turn around as say listen man this is what you have to do and this is what you have to look out for. At this point and time, everyone has a crew. You got Dr. Dre on your side or Jermaine on your side or Puffy backing you up. You got somebody on some level that is going to back you up and give you some kind of education and information to succeed in this business.

Light: We’ve all been learning in this hiphop shit together and that’s the ill part. Everybody comes down on us but the people Khaliyl just mentioned are working artists a little different than they did back then. Total ain’t around, Xscape ain’t around, Kris Kross ain’t around but these were all large groups when they were doing their thing. I don’t think these guys were ready to school their artists and get them into the individual positions they needed to be. So it’s just a straight music thing and you have all these companies pushing you, working you and juicing you and all that behind the scenes stuff kinda goes on and you learn a little but when you get good at it then you can help people. It takes a good decade to get good at it. It ain’t no two year thing. Even with these sports, cats coming out one or two years ain’t enough you need five years. Lebron ain’t going to the playoffs he needs some time. So hiphop is in a good place even though cats are nervous, if we all work a little harder and pull within instead of looking without we’ll be good.

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Posted by Halftime on Sunday, May 23rd, 2004 and is filed under HIP HOP ICON SERIES.