What do you think are some of the difficulties or hurdles, if any, facing blacks artists in the industry today be it animation or comics or whatever?

Actually when I think about it now the only hurdle is to be yourself. Back in the day the hurdles would be trying to get in, trying to be recognized but now you can sit by your computer get the software burn the DVD, make your own animation, post it on your website, and go out and promote the site. You also have things like For Sisters Only and different conventions related to your product and it seems like people really can’t block you now because technology has changed. I’m not trying to say there are no hurdles its just the main thing that would hold back a black artist now is yourself because there are so many barriers we can jump over now. Of course, you need start up funds and capital but it’s not as much as it used to be. When we first started printing comics, it was two to three thousand dollars to print up a 24 page black and white book and we had to do a print run of 10,000 each time so we had thirty huge boxes we had to store at one time.

You mentioned you djed, how tight are the skills right now?

If you give me some turntables, I’m not Jazzy Jeff but I can rock. My thing in high school was straight two turntables. After high school, I was into multi track production and adding the scratches on it. I always dug a whole lot of old Bambatta shows. I think a lot of stuff people don’t do anymore would be live now if it’s brought back now. I can cut, I can blend and all that stuff and I make tracks. I’m investing now in rebuilding my studio. Where I’m at now I am trying to expand beyond the way I used to do tracks back in the day. My music always reflected my art. I have a lot of music for Brotherman. It just sounded thrown off with the sinister loops and stuff like that. We used to do that stuff in the eighties before it was popular. My cousin would come down with this crazy tight stuff that was a play on sound and he said this is gonna be the future of hiphop. I remember when I used to play it I’d tell people that and then next thing you know Wu Tang came out with their grimy beats. It was something surreal about the sounds and that’s the stuff that used to open me up and inspire me to create a lot of the images. I used to absorb those sounds on a regular basis but just instrumental stuff because the lyrics would put my mind in a different state. That’s where I’m at now rebuilding my studio so I can develop a new sound and a new style to fit the animation.

What kinda stuff are you sampling?

Now I’m more on African culture because a lot of that was purposely stomped out of hiphop. Like when you think of Intelligent Hoodlum, X Clan, Brand Nubian, PE, those were significant lyrics that were talking about the state of black America that inspire a lot of people like me. When I first heard “Public Enemy #1” that inspired me to do what I’m doing now and it seems a lot of those elements were taken out of hiphop when it started becoming more corporate. Now the free expression has almost been gutted out of hiphop. Now its like people are telling you what hiphop is and the majority of stuff being pushed is the same thing. I believe a lot of the performers know it’s the same thing but it’s about getting paid as opposed to back in the day it was about lyrical content and fat beats. Lyrics are intricate now but not in terms of mind food. There was more of a concern for the community as opposed to just exploiting it. People don’t have jobs and it’s the worst time to be talking about go out and get your rings because kids cant afford that and if that’s what they see they are gonna be like I gotta get that one way or another. The mind state is all wrong and it has to be changed around. So what I try to do is use my music for power just like my art. I don’t write lyrics I just try to make tracks that I feel are powerful in my mind. If I do sample something, I might sample African drums or rhythms not common in what you hear in popular hiphop.

What do you think about hiphop now?

Half the time I don’t even listen to the radio and if I do it’s because I don’t have my cds on me. Then on top of that there is no good talk radio so sometimes I’ll listen to radio but then I’m usually like that song is so dumb! Then I start thinking is it me and I’m not up on what’s up.

It’s not you yo. The only time I listen to the radio is in someone else’s car. Other than that, I don’t even hear it.

It’s the dumbing down of America. What you’re experiencing is the results of what they set out to do when they snuffed out people like Brand Nubian or people who was just dropping gems. [Corporate America] knew what they were doing. Next thing you know kids come out and say in order for me to be a rapper I have [to talk] about slapping my mom with the mic cord. It ain’t gonna happen at home but they’ll come out and have these fallacies on the mic. My cousins do lyrical stuff and we always talk about the resurrection of lyrics that are going to be real power. I don’t get mad about it I just use that energy to make something tangible. If you get your thing out there it’s gonna create a contrast to the other things and help people see the difference. I just know that when I listen to the stuff we as black people have reached an all time low if we are gonna support that or hang that person on our wall when all they’re doing is bringing us down. It all comes around because I feel a lot of that stuff is being played out now. Then again I look at it as great characters. The other thing is that people are not really educated. If they really understood the diamond cartel and where everything is coming from and how black Africans are dying so they can walk around with this bling bling while all these Europeans are going to the bank. Jacob the Jeweler has to be going home at night saying I got me some fools. A lot of them don’t realize that diamonds are not rare. When the whole race for diamonds started the diamond cartel in South Africa locked it down to keep everyone from selling them so that they can up the price and make it seem like they are rare. They just sell them like they are scarce. People either don’t know or don’t care about the stuff going on.

Aiight this is the final part of the interview the bullets portion.

Which method of discipline works better with children lecture, punish or beat the hell out of them?

Lecture

If you had to pick a ghetto nickname and these are real actual nicknames from my family which would you choose? Shay-shay, Lump or Pig

Lump

Who from your family cooks the best?

Me

If you had to wear a Scottish kilt or something from J-Lo’s clothing line for a whole week which would it be?

The kilt

Would you wear a brown and pink plaid suit or a lime green and beige polka dot suit?

Lime green and polka dot

If you had to pick an outfit out the closet from Andre of Outkast or Prince which would it be?

Dre’

Who’s the best singer from the 80’s Lisa Lisa or Chaka Khan?

Chaka kahn

Who is a better animated singer Fat Albert or Bobby Proud from the proud family?

Fat Albert

Better singer Lou Rawls or James Brown?

Lou Rawls

Who’s more militant Public Enemy or X Clan?

PE

Last question if you had to make a super hero out of either Teddy Pendegrass or Grand Puba who would it be and what powers would he have?

Grand Puba. He would have the power to lyrically destroy sucka MCs. He would just appear out of nowhere [in front of] a lot of the MCs that are killing the whole rap game and destroy their contracts, get em out the game and resurrect some new life into this industry.

The chambers empty.

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Posted by Halftime on Sunday, December 14th, 2003 and is filed under SLICK TALKIN'.