Power to the People, Galaxy High’s recently released single, floats along on a buzzing cloud of snares and loping samples.

A self-styled “multilingual ambassador,” Galaxy High is a Swedish-born Gambian Londoner, by the end of his teenage decade already a veteran of the BMG Scandinavia roster, courtesy of his Hundreadz collective – in his words, “pointed out as the Scandinavian Boot Camp Clik.”

Off the strength of Power to the People, I called up Galaxy High in London and listened as he broke down his influences and spirituality, explained why rap cannot be pop (but sometimes is), and outlined his next steps.

Nomadic Wax: What’s the background behind the Power to the People single? Why drop this track right now?

Galaxy High: Power to the People was a quick thing, let’s do it and put it out to the people for free… It’s not a dance track, but it’s more reflective and trying to be something to vibe to. I’m being a bit conscious there, but I like to be light-hearted in terms of how I’m conscious. You have a lot of artists that’s revolutionary, trying to change up the whole system – I’m not this or that, I’m in between both of them. I’m not like, here comes the new underground artist.

I do have a new EP coming out soon, Hello Mellow, so I just wanted to hit them with something to let them know the EP’s coming.

NW: You call yourself the “multilingual ambassador”, and that’s evident throughout your music – in this track, you flip it up and spit in a couple of languages on the chorus. What does it mean to you, to be in that role?

GH: I like to, I like to go back to my roots, and let my roots be in both the West and Africa. So I have both of those sides, really.

NW: Why does hip-hop, why does the world, need someone speaking from that perspective? Where do you get that motivation to put yourself in this role?

GH: Basically, I get my drive from just being me – as an artist, [hip-hop is] an art form, and art comes from your experience, your expression, and your way of interpreting life around you…. [It can include] things that you might not know – but I’m more in tune with what I know, what I’ve seen, and that’s been very multicultural, very colorful.

I was born in Sweden, grown up in Gambia, returned to Sweden, it’s like two different worlds – so you absorb, it’s a very colorful environment to grow up in both those worlds. And you meet people in both languages, both cultures. So I’m not from New York, but I’m very international in my accent. I felt home, straight, the first day I visited New York.

NW: True – I remember, growing up, I was listening to hip-hop so much – old school New York rappers – the first time I visited the city, I was blown away by how much seemed familiar. Of course rap has grown out and taken on new influences, but New York is so imprinted on the DNA of the culture… subways, graffiti, the boroughs, all that.

GH: Exactly, exactly. I think being multicultural comes from my roots, being surrounded by multiculturalism, growing up in two different worlds and knowing them well, knowing the customs and stuff. So it’s part of me, I don’t even have to think about it when I pick up a pad and paper. Whatever comes to me, comes to me.

And I think, God gives gifts to everyone. And that’s just me expressing myself in the way that I’ve been gifted by my surroundings. So it’s only right if I’m being real to me.

NW: What is the meaning of “Galaxy High” – what are you conveying by adopting that name?

GH: Galaxy High, it’s like, outer space, out of here – going beyond the majority of what you see. [A lot of music is] all kind of the same, referring to the same thing, following whoever’s big there, they think that that’s the way to go if you want to reach success. I’ve always been a person that’s a little bit unique in my thinking, in a way. I’m not a follower, I’m a leader of my own self. I’m not telling people, let me be your leader – I’m just a leader of my own.

The galaxies are very different from this earth, [outer space] works in a way that we don’t understand, I’m working in a way that we don’t understand – it’s definitely about keeping different from anyone else. A lot of people choose an artist name because it sounds cool, it sounds dope, but I put it on like it’s a part of me: an artist that’s original, creative, and likes to think a little bit outside the box.

Don Jupiter, that’s where that also comes in – I’m intrigued by mystery, I’m a devout Muslim, and I like to balance spirituality in everyday things we’re doing. That’s a part of us, we’re spiritual beings.

NW: Word. I once read a great quote, something like: We’re spiritual beings, who happen to have a physical body, but people get it twisted and think it’s the other way around, physical first and then having a soul.

GH: Definitely not. We have a soul, and that makes us spiritual beings, and we live in a society

that keeps that hidden – whether you have a lot of money, a lot of materials, you still need that notion of balance in your life. [But] the preaching comes at me first: whatever I’m saying, I’m saying it to me before I’m saying it to other people.

NW: No doubt, we all have to make sure we practice what we preach, that we aren’t just putting things out there for others but then adopting what we’re talking against ourselves.

GH: Right, we can’t worship what we create – we should worship what created us. At the end of the day we need to go back to balance. You can’t be extreme in any way, and as a musician, I’m being an ambassador – a communicator with people.

NW: On the track, you say – “Rap is not pop”

GH: “Rap is not pop if you think that then stop,” right, I’m quoting Tribe Called Quest, they drop that on a track.

NW: Right, and – to you, what does it mean to be “pop”?

GH: These days a lot of people are just talking shit, because it’s good money, it’s quick money – but how much money can you have? It’s just quick fun, it’s fast food, you eat and you get hungry again, after half an hour you feel like you’re hungry again, like you didn’t even eat, you want something proper, a plate with rice. We can balance. I’m all for commercial music, I like Blondie, Madonna, that’s the pop stuff for people to go up and dance, but it was rooted still. It’s not about being commercial and underground, I’m a little bit between both of them.

A while ago, at the time, we were spittin hard stuff, we grew through different stages of rap. When I [first] heard Common Sense, I thought he was soft, i didn’t feel it. The first time I heard the Black Star album – that all grows on you. Company Flow – that was fresh, man, pure freshness.

NW: [laughs] No doubt, man! Shoot, Company Flow, El-P, it’s been a minute since I’ve heard someone mention that album [Funcrusher Plus].

GH: I think there is two different “pops” – there’s a pop that’s original, and that’s not the pop that I mention. I’m not talking about the pop that I used to love back in the day – Chuck Berry, he could be rock-pop, but it was commercial and fresh, Little Richard, Stevie Wonder. Pop comes from those genres. Michael Jackson – that’s not the pop that I’m dissing.

But you can’t come as a rapper, and you’re jumping on something that should be a different song, should be a pop song, the rap on top of it just sounds plastic.

There’s two types of pop: there’s pop for the people, and I like that, digging back to the old days, 80s, 60s, 70s music – that’s the good pop for me. But today’s pop, if they went back to study the old pop, in a sense, that would be great – but… I’m not really seeing any new artists doing it that way, they all sound like Billie Holliday. But it’s good if they add something that’s them, a little bit.

NW: Word. So you’re based in London right now, can you tell me – what is London to you? How does it influence your music?

GH: I don’t think it influences my music much – somewhat, it does, but I’m more of a traveler. I still like to travel, it’s the traveling that brings more, that puts me in the mood of writing. I don’t think that London’s bringing my creativity, especially the rainy days. It’s a multicultural place here, that’s the nice part of it, but in terms of it helping me be creative because I’m in London – I like to zone out in my own world. But big up to London still, and I hope this summer’s shining.

NW: What about Gambia? How does that play into your identity?

GH: I grew up in Gambia since an early age, and that’s the first language I started hearing. I went there when I was a baby, stayed there until I was 12, then went back to Sweden – so it’s very personal, very sentimental.

Going back there brings back old memories, playing in the streets, making musical instruments with kids around the streets, on the block, where the cars were running – I had that African life in the 80s. Growing up there, I’ve seen people having a lot, having poverty, but I’ve seen a lot of happiness. It wasn’t having a color TV that made a person the happiest here, people are smiling, we appreciate life, people have faith in God.

Of course, things have changed now – the whole world has gone materialistic. People might look up to someone because they have a good car, a big house, but growing up there in the 80s, it was simplicity, life was simple, and even now I still feed off some of the music that I heard growing up as a kid.

NW: And how does Sweden fit into your identity?

GH: Sweden molded my rapping, definitely. But since Gambia, you see me lost in the crowd, jumping and dancing, as my auntie was looking for me, amongst adults, basically. Music’s always been a part of me somehow. I was very intrigued by breakdancing – my cousin was breakdancing, but I was much younger, so he didn’t let me come and practice, but I always liked to sneak and see what they were doing.

In Sweden, it’s more organized, it’s very secure – like, your life is quite secure. And um, in the 90s, Sweden was very Americanized. So you might catch Swedish people having a bit of American accent, and the TV shows as well. We were in our own little “New York” world, but in Stockholm. [laughs]

But it’s a lovely place, we had a good hiphop thing going on, it’s a good hip-hip scene. So I think that molded my hiphop, that’s the place I’m born, that’s always going to be a part of me as well. I would say I’m Gambian, first of all, but I’m also Swedish, because I was born there, I know the ways. All of them made me whom I am.

NW: Any last things you want to throw out there?

GH: [pauses] Yeah, actually, the EP’s just something I quickly want to get out there. Tell people – the EP’s the first project where what I’m doing is a mixture of written and freestyle. I’m mixing straight freestyle and parts of it are written – so I was like, let me just challenge myself and get it done. I want to get it out of the way quickly, get people out there to get it.

I [also] have an album coming out with this female producer, and we’re looking to call it Black Astronauts – very 70s Shaft, Barbarella, those kinds of spaced out and blaxploitation films, the album’s gonna be that kind of film. We’re gonna be on the cover, dressed in space suits.

I like to bring females who are bringing it to the game. These days you don’t have a lot of women who are doing very much, but she’s a female producer – that will be coming out at the end of the year, but make sure to get the EP just to vibe with me.

Power to the People is available on Galaxy High’s Bandcamp page. The Hello Mellow EP is releasing soon.

and so a young Kris Parker started off his legendary diss South Bronx, simultaneously big upping his hood and dissing on the QB projects and equally legendary MC Shan, Juice Crew, and DJ Marley Marl.

A legendary – controversial – figure in hip-hop, KRS-ONE’s credibility and history is untouchable: responsible for countless rap classics, the Teacha has toured the world, performing solo and with the legendary Boogie Down Productions; put his credibility towards campaigns for Nike, Sprite, and more; founded the Temple of Hip-hop, one of the organizations responsible for stewarding hip-hop culture; and served as an elder (if unpredictable) statesman for years.

During the second evening of the Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival, as the crowd swelled for the Saturday night concert (which KRS-ONE headlined and closed out), a small group of press passes and video cameras gathered, selected by the organizers to partake in a closed-door session with Blastmaster KRS-ONE.

As the volume steadily grew to a raucous clamor outside, KRS shared insights with the audience:

on technology

the need to master (and not be mastered by) our tools

The need for hip-hop education

how hip-hop should be taught and available in school curriculum

on rap’s death and hip-hop’s growth

and – making a strong display for why he deserves his name, the Teacha, he broke down the history of New York urban radio, from WBLS and KISS FM’s radio/DJ battles, to the founding of Hot 97 – and its later abandonment of what he considers to be real-school hip-hop

Last, before rushing out the door, he broke down what he considers the hip-hop lifestyle to be – not flossing or throwing around stacks, but knowing how to get by and survive and thrive

Throughout the weekend, the local Temple of Hip-Hop members (big up to Trinity College Temple of Hip-hop – the nation’s first collegiate chapter!) were showing out for KRS-ONE’s new book, The Gospel of Hip-Hop. At the close of this session, his associates passed out complimentary copies to all the journalists in attendance, as the teacha was whisked away to his green room.

What’s good, party people?

This past weekend, Nomadic Wax’s first-stringers must have all bailed on them, because Ben was desperate enough (all praises due) to issue me a press pass to the 5th annual Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival. As part-time c-list blogger (and so d-list journalist), I was hyped to see how my online credentials would transfer into the real world. And so, last Friday, with Bboy Andrew in tow as my enlisted photographer, I jumped into a borrowed car and headed north from New Haven on I-91.

Pulling into Hartford a quick hour later with Alchemist and Clipse records on blast, Andrew and I cut our way through the Trinity campus in stealth mode. The festival actually started that morning with a series of in-class lectures, but we planned to hit town just in time for dinner; so we made our way to registration just in time to collect our press passes, introduce ourselves to some familiar faces, and hit the invited delegates’ networking dinner

[Flick 2: Bboy Andrew, me, Jasmine, and DJ Nio]

Over that dinner – throughout the weekend – the Nomadic Wax/Trinity Hip-Hop crew did a strong job of creating community between the invited hip-hop writers, emcees, DJ’s, and activists. Whenever event organizers mingled with the crowd, they were building with guests and introducing delegates to one another – artists, workshop presenters, and even press members all bore the event sponsors’ co-sign. And so it was easy to connect and politic with anyone around – anyone displaying a TIHHF badge was already screened and trusted by at least some true hip-hop heads.

The atmosphere throughout the festival was full of this positivity, with a rare level of mutual respect and comfort among the attendees. The vibe was almost family reunion-style – I heard “brother” and “sister” thrown around like a 70s Blaxploitation flick. I’ve seen “networking”, especially at hip-hop events, often turn into a rodeo of promotional gimmicks and self-important rants. But there was a sense of purposefulness to most of the acts gathered in Hartford.

Many groups – Senegal’s Wagebele, Palestine’s DAM, the multinational Readnex Poetry Squad – have explicitly tied their musical identities to bigger issues, like African/Middle Eastern politics, social justice, and urban education. And even those hip-hoppers without explicit social agendas, such as RAH Zemos, still came across as driven by a vision of hip-hop culture as deeper than rap (no Rick Ross), pushing the culture further and bigger than the mainstream image of hip-hop as 45-second commercial interlude soundtrack. With this shared understanding, it makes sense that we would see each other as brothers- and sisters-in-arms for hip-hop.

[Flick 3: DJ Boo on the 1's and 2's]

That sense of positivity wasn’t just unifying people across regions or languages – all elements of the hip-hop culture were representing side-by-side, from Emceeing, DJing (big ups to DJ Boo [NYC] and DJ Nio [Italy]), Graf writing, Bboying, to Knowledge (the hip-hop scholars out in full force, along with the Temple of Hip-Hop). After waking up on Saturday, I drove over to Trinity’s campus and joined the emcee showcase, hosted by Self-Suffice and Undakova backed by DJ Nio, while local graf artists pieced up canvases feet away.

The second half of my afternoon was dedicated to an ill bboy battle, with a bracket filled by crews from the region. Bboy Andrew and his partner were knocked out in a close battle (1 vote away from a tie) in the first round, but I stuck around shooting flicks and politicking with the bboys in the spot. My Mighty Healthy ASIAN tee was getting a lot of looks and compliments from the heads in the crowd (what up my pinoy bboys and fly girls?) – i noticed that the asiatic representation in the bboy crews was much higher than among the emcees. An observation to come back to in the future.

[Flick 4: Warming up for the bboy battle]

As I broke it down with bboys, dj’s, and emcees alike, a troubling thought that remained in the back of my head was that, as much unity and love as we were seeing, one area of segregation that remained was between the diverse elements of hiphop. While we all came out to the same locale, I saw MC’s, DJ’s, and journalists building with one another, bboys sticking to themselves, preferring to vibe out to the music or warm up in tight circles; and i didn’t even have a chance to get at any of the graf writers in the spot.

During a 10 minute interlude between the first and second round of the bboy battle, Zulu Nation emcee K-Swift and a couple of other acts performed – but most bboys scattered to eat, drink, or practice, with only a fraction of the crowd sticking around and dancing or vibing to the intermission acts.

I would have loved to see more cross-elemental communication – the visual artists, musicians, and dancers seemed to all have their own spaces during most of the day. Most of the day, that is, until KRS-ONE took the stage to close the Saturday night concert.

Anyone who knows the Teacha a/k/a Blastmaster KRS-ONE knows that he has been at the very forefront of preserving and bringing together hip-hop’s elements, from his legendary crew Boogie Down Productions, to classic albums like Criminal Minded, and the Stop the Violence movement. Having seen his live performance on two previous occasions, I thought that I would have gotten used to his presence – but as soon as he took the stage, he didn’t let up for a minute until it was time to go home. The consummate performer.

Perhaps most inspirational, though, was how generous he was with the spotlight. Calling out the graf heads for their pieces on the walls, inviting bboys up from the crowd to rock with him, and then ceding the stage to other emcees to let them spit for a good ten minutes, he ended the weekend with a bomb of truth, love, and power – reminding us all that, in the end, hip-hop is bigger than any one of us, our elements, labels, or movements.

[Flick 5: culture on display]

As I drove back to New Haven late Saturday night (early Sunday morning?) alone with my thoughts (Bboy Andrew headed off with his Style Weapons crew earlier in the night), I bumped that same Alchemist record that I had been playing on my way up to Trinity, and reflected on the weekend.

In many ways, it was inspirational – more than the mixtape spots, offers for future shows, and prospects of the 2011 festival, the weekend reminded me that my art – emceeing, writing, photography, and more – is linked to something deeper than the individual products of my skill. It reminded me of that initial sense of a worldwide unified culture – bboys toprocking in France, dj’s cutting in Italy, emcees writing verses in China, and graf heads getting up across metro lines all over the world – and a vision of global brotherhood, sistahood, and positivity that it’s easy to forget when I’m solo in the studio mastering a track.

See yall in 2011!

[Stay tuned for more specific recaps of various elements of the festival, including musical acts, the bboy battle, and more]

-GRAND MASTER

Rah Zemos – Old to the New

Ra – Egyptian Sun God, progenitor of eleven Pharoahs bearing his name: Ramses, born of the Sun God.

Baron Zemo – B-list Marvel Comics supervillain who showed briefly in the ‘60s to taunt Captain America, then killed off a year after his introduction.

Ramzi Mokdad – Ram-Zi, Rah Z, Rah Zemos – has an antipodal rap alias, marrying noble ambitions with a supervillain alter ego. He tells me he’s “Raw material, a king – somebody who’s a leader, not a follower.” But his name hints of aspirations to artistic complication: “I have my pure and righteous side, but we all have that alter ego… that darker side.”

As I listen to him talk on hip-hop, I wonder where that diabolical side rests: Rah’s purist agenda seems ingenuously straightforward. He founded an independent record label, Nocturnalight, in 2004 to “shin[e] the light where it’s darkest” and, when asked to clarify, he identifies hip-hop culture’s drifting from its foundation as the root cause of that darkness: “Selling out to the music industry, calling women bitches, all about drugs… B-boys, DJ’s, MC’s, graffiti. Rarely do you see these elements used in popular music…. they sold out. They didn’t stick to the roots of what hip-hop was all about.”

Our discussion reminds me of the early-2000’s, when the progressive zeitgeist of indie hip-hop was less Drake and Kid CuDi and more a bunch of dudes standing around in hoodies and non-designer jeans, talking about bringing the underground back. “Conscious rap”. Then, labels’ independence – Rawkus, Rhymesayers, Anticon, Def Jux – was touted by purists as a clear philosophical choice (Def Jux’s slogan: “Independent as Fuck”), and hip-hop heads seemed more vocal about bringing rap “back to its roots” than rationalizing the latest regional trend (remember crunk?).

But in 2010, nearly a decade removed from the turn-of-the-century scene, Jay Electronica (buddy-buddy to Rawkus mainstays Mos Def and Talib Kweli) stops by Youtube to big up Soulja Boy, and one-time major label soldier Freeway drops an album on Rhymesayers, with a guest appearance from Cash Money boss Baby. Jay-Z opens the Glastonbury festival backed by DJ Neil Armstrong, and Kanye West’s concert show looks more Cirque du Soleil than Rock Steady Crew.

Is this cultural drift – and is it negative? Rah would say so – “if I go to a show, and there’s a DJ and an emcee, some B-boys and a graffiti artist, that’s the most hip-hop show you’re ever going to go to…. if you don’t have all the elements of the culture, you’re not maximizing the potential of what your culture is.”

Rah has the experience to back up his aggressive cultural rhetoric: born to Lebanese parents on vacation in LA and raised in Saudi Arabia, he attended high school in Quebec, spending his adult life in New York and Toronto. He knows exactly what his Arab heritage brings him – “We’re the ones who are targeted, they’re watching what we’re up to – we’re the new minority… being an Arab and a lyricist is a big thing for me, the music’s big to me, because it’s my way to talk about these things.”

Rah embraces his distinct heritage, despite the persecution it can bring, and I wonder if this factors into his disdain for sell-outs – “they’re scared to really be themselves… That’s why Public Enemy said, don’t believe the hype…. When you put enough hype behind something, you could put out the worst product in the world and people will say, ‘wow, yeah, it’s pretty tight.’” When asked about who he does respect in the industry, he pauses for a long moment before throwing out KRS-One – “kept it real to the point where he hasn’t let the dark side corrupt him” – and, after prompting, Killah Priest, both not just for their cultural authenticity but also the positivity of their messages.

Positivity is a word that Rah often returns to – beyond artistic content, it’s his guiding principle: “My overall goal is to be as best a teacher and role model I can for our youth and adults alike.” His critique of artists who drift too far from hip-hop’s foundation is grounded in how he defines that foundation: “it’s all about positive and negative. Are you going to do something that has a positive impact, or negative?” Rah leaves no room in hip-hop for technical excellence without morality: either you are a fake or, worse, a sellout; or you are helping the audience towards unity and positivity.

Show and Prove is important in hip-hop – if you want respect, you have to earn it – and if Rah is outspoken in his criticism of other figures, at least he backs it up in his day-to-day grind. Ramzi Mokdad hustles 9-to-5 in the nonprofit world, with an outfit called Plan Canada, a sponsorship organization providing youths in underprivileged communities with food, medical care, and education. Nocturnalight Records is also active in bringing awareness of social issues to the forefront, organizing designers, artists, graffiti writers, and producers to hold workshops and get involved with the youth.

But how’s the music? On paper, Rah could come off as preachy and heavy-handed – and as much as he brings to mind the early-2000s Rawkus camp, there are good reasons that Rawkus’ presence on the scene faded around 2004, bought out by larger labels. And the best of intentions – saving the youth, bringing positivity to the hood – can be overshadowed by wack beats, stiff [||] rhymes, and an awkward flow.

Rah’s latest project is Volume 2 of his Full Spectrum mixtape series, released through Nocturnalight Records. While he generally shies away from associating himself with too many other artists, Rah does embrace a small circle of emcees on this project, and it’s obvious from the start that he respects them highly – the album intro finds Rah spitting, weaving the names and track titles of the other rappers together into a 2-minute track. A lot of mixtapes these days can feel thrown-together, with artists phoning in verses separately from one another and a DJ sequencing a passionless project together – but Rah notes, “More than separate artists, I wanted this to reflect a collective movement… these artists, I did the research on them, they’re handpicked, I felt they’d collaborate well together.” More than a promotional project, the Full Spectrum tape is supposed to be a “personal, mental, spiritual collaboration” – not just about demonstrating skill, but about showing off likeminded personalities.

The vibe of the whole tape is what I expected, given Rah’s background and passion for the fundamentals of hip-hop. The emcees he’s gathered together complement one another well – and, given the milieu of his adopted country and his diverse background, it’s not a surprise when emcees spit in a dizzying array of English, French, and Arabic. This fits in with his explicit aim for the project – when asked about the title of the tape, he responds, “It’s a tropical mix, a multicultural mix of emcees from all over the place – different backgrounds, different types of music, but all with a unified purpose. All their music is good – it’s proactive, it’s productive. So the full spectrum is kind of like the full spectrum of light, but also of cultures, religions, and races. So the Full Spectrum mixtapes are gonna feature different artists from all over the world. On this volume, we have 13 different cities and 4 different continents, 20 different artists.”

The overall effort has a distinct air of throwback rap, but the diversity of languages and cultures represented, along with solid production, make it the kind of album I wouldn’t mind walking down the street with in a chill autumnal twilight, or on an otherwise drowsy plane ride. It’s not a revolutionary album – but I don’t think it’s supposed to be. After all, his rhetoric is that of a hip-hop fundamentalist. So, maybe the best compliment that I can pay Rah’s music is that it is evolutionary: taking the substance of hip-hop’s golden era and bringing it one step forward. It’s not a game-changing record, but a solid, diverse, mature project. This might not be the brand of hip-hop that sets sales charts on fire, but the fact that emcees like Rah and the other Full Spectrum artists are still making music like this, over 30 years after the birth of hip-hop, may be the best compliment to the culture’s foundations.

You can download music and read more about Rah Zemos and Nocturnalight Records at Nocturnalight.com or at his blog.

Beverly Dillz -
“the Hollywood underground via [a] G

arden State perspective” – has an
eye-twisting cover. Colors – turquoise, neon purple, and mustard yellow
- alternately evoke bright Hollywood lights and the skinny jeans I’ve
started to associate with a certain brand of pop-cum-party-rap.
Loading the album onto my iPod, I mentally steeled myself for an hour
of 808-lite handclaps and beeping pop melodies.

Turns out, even going Hollywood, Kosha keeps his Jersey wit. Beverly Dillz feels grounded, even cynical. His version of Cali life skews pointedly superficial (if a little hyperbolic): on second single LA Ish, he raps, “Brand new whip/ and I’m sleepin on the couch“, and lines like “rap is a job to stand up for but I can’t get out of my house“, turn the spotlight right back on the emcee. Kosha’s flows are melodic and sing-songy, rarely pausing for an “ohhhh shit” punchline but packing bars with references to hip-hop, pop culture, and Judaica.

While the lyrical presence is firmly Garden State, the album’s beats compromise with the Left Coast. Producer Belief’s
drums clack away, and the synths alternate between fuzzy roars and
staccato beeps. Melodic backdrops often creep into minor keys, and it’s
all very plastic, clean, and slightly unsettling. Kosha knows the West
Coast is party-happy, but I sense he’s not quite ready to let down his
Jersey guard.

On a short break from his Heroes for Haiti

benefit tour with Flex Mathews, I give Kosha a call to discuss the
album, his identity as “that Jewish rapper”, and his current career
outlook.

Jason GL Chu: Hip-hop has a tendency to label. How do you respond when you become “that Jewish rapper”?

Kosha Dillz: Barack Obama’s that black president [laughs] you know what I’m saying? What about saying, “he’s the President”?

KD:
Label me? Why not, you know? It’s good to get labeled – you have to
fall into a category. An apple is a fruit; but, people over in the meat
section, the produce section, they need to go over and get fruit too.
The fact is, [my music] comes under hip-hop, under interesting, under
alternative, indie, it could also be somewhat pop. And it’s also
Jewish. The more labels you have, the more well-rounded you are.

KD:
We just got back from Sundance. Anyone there who’s Jewish and directing
a huge film, Boom! it catches their eye. Mind you, I might not be the
biggest thing in Saudi Arabia.

JGLC:
Speaking of identifying with a label, I know you’ve been pretty active
with Matisyahu, one of the more prominent Jewish artists on the scene –
touring and collaborating. How did your friendship, your working
relationship, start?

KD:
I met him in ‘04, went over there, studied some Torah. I wasn’t even
really knowledgeable about anything in Judaism, and we read a little
bit out of this book, which I still have – it was real powerful, man.
Talking about, um, stone and fire and the elements, some next level
stuff, and he was talking to me about aspects of Judaism including
keeping Kosher.

KD: I
was out of jail for like 4 months, got nothing going for me, just my
first single recorded – and he brought me on stage at BB Kings! I went
on stage… and, to this day, people still remember that show. In 06, I
started working with C-Rayz [Walz] – I was recording with him, and he
said, I got to get Matisyahu on this track [2007's "Childhood" off The Dropping]. He
wasn’t really working with rappers at all, but he collaborated with
C-Rayz on that joint, and from there I would see him sporadically. I
wasn’t really that good at the time [laughs];
but then we met at the Jewlicious festival, this past year, and then we
linked up for the Festival of Lights and that was 2008.

KD:
I was supposed to do another show with him, but I wound up winning that
Summer Jam emcee battle instead. Still I got on stage at a couple more
of his shows, and he started saying, “yo, you want to do this? Do
that?” And before you know it, I was on tour with him.

JGLC: Would you say Matisyahu was something of a mentor figure to you at the time?

KD:
No, I just knew that he had the market that I wanted and it was….
When you’ve arrived, once you’ve been out on tour for a while – it’s
not that someone’s a mentor, it’s – they’re partners. [Imitates a fan]
“Oh, my God!” That’s for people the first time you see them. When
you’ve been out on tour with people for a while, you start to just open
up to people, there are certain phases: you see how they work, then you
talk to them some more, you have to take a drive somewhere, things
spring up.

JGLC: Hip-hop
can sometimes come off as anti-Semitic. It’s certainly difficult to
find openly Jewish pop culture figures, particularly in hip-hop. You
reference Ari Gold – from Entourage – and how do you address this
stereotype that Jews can make moves on the corporate side, but not in
front of the mic?

KD: Well, a dope song is a dope song, right? But I have fans that are black – and they’re like, yo this dude can rip the mic –
and now they’re gonna go back home and say, this Jewish kid is dope.
That perspective is gonna travel through their friends and their
families that might have had stereotypical views before. Just like me
bringing Black friends into my house. I come from a family of working
immigrants – my dad hires people out of jail all the time, Spanish,
Black, because I went through the same stuff.

KD:
I go to places where there’s not a lot of Jewish kids when I tour….
The real cool thing is when I’m winning over Indian fans, and Black
fans, and White fans, and people who aren’t Jewish. You know, there’s a
lot of self-hate – there’s a lot of people that are Jewish that hate on
me. Because they don’t like who they are, or they have issues – it’s
not like “Oh shit! You’re Jewish, let me hook you up” – sometimes you
go up to them and they think, this Jewish cat is hanging out with all
the Black guys, it’s a culture clash. But I got to stay true to myself.

JGLC: Word. Now, what’s your feelings on the local scene at home, in Jersey?

KD: Some good stuff, a lot of street cats. Jersey has a very hard, hard talent to it: a lot of hood rappers. Asbury Park, Newark, New Brunswick, which is the scene I came out of. There was Beretta-9 from Killarmy. I worked extensively with Killah Priest, with RZA

a little bit, but Beretta-9 – when I was 18, rockin the open mics – he
would come through and drop the knowledge and gems. At the time, you
know, they were sellin a lot of records, Wu Music Group. That’s the scene I came out of: New Brunswick, Newark, but for me the local scene was definitely New York.

JGLC: I
know one of the stated intents of the record was to bring a Garden
State perspective to Beverly Hillz. What’re your thoughts on the LA
life?

KD: That whole
album, Beverly Dillz, was like playing on that view of LA and all that.
“Brand new whip, and I’m sleepin on the couch” – and then the East
Coast part was like, “get your ass back, comin’ out your mouth”. I
do this chorus during my shows – “if you do not have a gun, let me buck
a shot… Everybody at the bar, everyone’s a star”. That whole thing,
it’s a play on it. It’s like, are you serious, dude? But I love it, I
love it. [laughs] You have to accept it, those stereotypes are real.

JGLC: Word. Now, how would you characterize your home state point of view?

KD: [voice slows down, thoughtful] Well, it’s fast-paced. The Garden State has a lot of rough edges, and a lot of pride. If you ever hear someone say, “where you from?” they’re like, [loud]
“Jersey!”…. There’s a lot of home-state pride, a lot of people that
never leave. But LA is like a transplant, the Hollywood sign is like a
giant lie, a persona of all these people who are pursuing this thing.

KD:
Out of my high school, everyone became cops, or teachers. I’m the only
one who became a rapper, trust me. And having that, and going out to
LA, it exposes the Jersey, the homegrown pride. When I think Jersey, I
think malls, I think diners, I think the Jersey shore, there’s
mountains, it’s really a whole place in one. In a small area.

JGLC: Beverly Dillz has
a distinct production aesthetic, thanks to Belief. What sort of thought
went into that, what were you two talking about while the album was
being produced on a musical and lyrical level? What kind of things were
in your head space?

KD:
Well, we were in Beverly Hills, I was waking up in the morning, getting
coffee, and we were like, let’s be really LA. On some LA shit. That’s
how that song, “LA Ish”, came out. I think that’s the first song I
wrote. I was infatuated with this whole LA thing… when we were making
this album, man, we wanted everything to sonically fit into that mass
appeal. It was a little play with my twist, rapping about not the local
LA, but the façade of Hollywood: the bright lights and the big sign,
how it can all can be a bunch of bullcrap…. So this album was trying
to be misleading. It was supposed to be hard, in a different way.

JGLC:
What was it like, when you were just sitting down and thought, “Let me
move to the West Coast and make this whole album out there”?

KD:
Me and Belief started when we were trying to do songs with the movies,
that was our whole thing. Some Hollywood shit. And it was completely
sample-free, so we could shop it to movies. Everything was a little
different, Belief forced me to put it out. I remember writing to beats
that I was like, “how can I make a song out of this?” If
I’d recorded Beverly Dillz 3 months later or 3 months earlier, it would
have been a totally different album. I realized that, by myself, I’m
kinda stupid. I need to be guided. Belief helped me complete that
album, and that’s why I chose him, because I knew he could bring it out
of me.

KD:
There’s something inside of me, like subliminal messaging that I really
believe, that people will sing along to these songs…. I really think
you can change the world with music. And people have told me: if you
make a fun album, that’s just as spiritual as some other stuff. I
recorded a Hebrew joint last, to let people know where I’m from and
what I’m representing. Kol Ha Kavod Lirkod, it means, “It’s all good to dance”. Like, “stop being so serious!” Beverly Dillz was
really about, you don’t got to be serious all the time, you’re allowed
to smile at the show, you don’t have to come and just have knowledge
dropped on you all day.

JGLC: Any last things you want to put out there?

KD:
I have a distinct rhyme style, and I think that will win people over. I
could learn to do that punchline style, but why not try to do something
different, that hasn’t been done a hundred times? Let me do something
different, that’s gonna change it up and make something new and fresh.
I hope people catch on.

Beverly Dillz is available in stores and on iTunes now. Catch Kosha Dillz at SXSW and on the Heroes for Haiti tour. The Cellular Phone video is online at ThisIs50.com and debuting soon on MTV On Demand.

Find more videos like this on ThisIs50.com : IF IT’S HOT IT’S HERE!

Heroes for Haiti tour with Flex Mathews:

Feb 5th Abbey Pub w/ DJ Yoda – Chicago, IL
Feb 6th Raging Buffalo Resort w/ Slick Rick – Algonquin, IL
Feb 7th Yacht Club – Iowa Ciy, IA
Feb 8th Vaudevilles Mews – Des Moines, IA
Feb 9th Vaudevilles Mews w/ Trevor all (early show) – Des Moines, IA
Feb 9th Peoples w/ Skee Lo – Des Moines, IA
Feb 10th Firebird – St Louis, MO
Feb 12th Nutty’s North w/ Mr Dibbs – Sioux Falls , SD
Feb 13th Reptile Palace – Oshkosh, WI
Feb 14th Schubas w/ Trevor hall – Chicago IL
Feb 15th Day Trotter – Rock Island, IL
Feb 19th-21st Jewlicious Festival – Long Beach, CA
Feb 25th Pipeline Cafe w/ Matisyahu – Honolulu, HI
Feb 27th Kuhio Lounge w/ Matisyahu – Kapaa, HI
Feb 28th Lahaina Civic Center w/ Matisyahu – Lahaina, HI
Mar 1st Rockstarz w/ Matisyahu – Kailua Kona, HI

Written By Amanda Macchia

True to their moniker, hip hop duo Poetic Pilgrimage pays homage to the spoken soul of poetry and its journey through the power and tribulations of long-awaited social liberation. The women behind the group are fueled by much more than creative rhymes and story telling. Their newest endeavor, mix tape Star Women is a tribute to the light every person has within them. Using their own experiences as activists, minorities, and women, they channel their perspective to shed light where there has always been darkness. Poetic Pilgrimage has conceptualized the prospects of social acceptance and freedom into Star Women, with an energy that can only be described as determination.

Activist and sociologist, W.E.B. DuBois, was known in his critical theory of race for the concept of a “double-consciousness”. Later adapted by the feminist Dorothy Smith as the “bifurcated consciousness”, the idea refers to a sense of awareness that those who aren’t in a position of power are advantaged to understanding. The repressed, the subordinated, or the minority, have a heightened sense of what society looks like; with only one foot in the door, they have the opportunity to experience a duality of self. Capable of looking in from the outside, a repressed member of society understands what it is to be a part of the mainstream social order, while they simultaneously can see the world from the perspective of someone with a limited sense of social amenities. They have a sense of “otherness” that in it’s most bare state is, itself, repression. Yet something positive can come from being the “other”, because a dual perspective is far more valuable than a single provincial understanding of our world. For DuBois, this repressive state can be turned into a celebration of variety, and an intellectual pilgrimage toward equality. Integration for DuBois was a unity of difference, and of the solid fact that we can all relate as human beings. Just as DuBois didn’t extract theory without emphasizing the end goal of political change and the importance of activism within the social world, Poetic Pilgrimage uses Star Women to catalyze the audience into their worlds and their experiences, in the hopes that something important might come out of it.

Sukina and Muneera of Poetic Pilgrimage explain their efforts brilliantly: “Within our music we try to give an alternative perspective, the voice of those who tend not to be heard… As individuals we realized that in many ways we sometimes fail to see the greatness that is inside of us, not just musically but in our personal lives. We spent a lot of time reminding ourselves of our achievements, and then it dawned on us that in general as human beings sometimes we don’t see the beauty, the potential the power, and tenacity that is dormant within our cells. This in itself is an inhibition, and can be oppression to ourselves. So in this project we are reintroduced to messages of freedom and change.”

The free download they have available online is a prelude to their actual mix tape project. It speaks of the beauty inside that we naturally, and unknowingly, tend to neglect. Pulling from a massive volume of styles, decades, and cultures, Poetic Pilgrimage has accumulated an album where every song is different and yet universal in meaning. They combine aggressive, funky beats with a cool, hip and organic orientation. There are glimpses of jazz, vestiges of electronica, intergalactic excursions into R&B, and a percussive tunnel into afrobeat, all of which serve to frame the gentle, persistent rapping of Poetic Pilgrimage’s natural lyrical affinity. The download is as exciting as any mix tape could hope to be, so one can only wonder what surprises their real project has in store.

In general, nothing they do is without purpose. Considering that the marriage of hip hop to social or political activism is a growing trend in subcultures throughout the globe, there is something to be said for progressive and active music that stands out above the rest. Artists and hip hoppers are pooling together their resources, and their natural affinity toward a two-fold perspective to create music of the sort most people have never been exposed to. Star Women is a shining example of an artistry that is full of messages without the sacrifice of the immense integrity it takes to be a truly talented hip hop pioneer.

What I love about hip hop,” says Muneera, “is that it is a tool that has given many people the opportunity to express themselves in a direct and creative manner. Art in general surpasses layers and aims straight for the heart. Hip hop, in particular, is the only form of music in the western hemisphere that was born out of oppression. This music has given those with no way to express their social conditions a means to speak and be noted…. it is something that is accessible to all people regardless of class or financial status. It gave life to a new type creativity, and has provided opportunity for growth and business… now that hip hop has gone international, this has only added texture to the many layers with in it.”

The ladies have a lot going on aside from the release of their mix tape. “We recently came back from a mini European tour where we performed at the 5-year anniversary party of the World Culture Museum in Sweden. We did an event called ‘The Night The Songbirds Are Set Free’ in Berlin that focused on liberating women’s voices, and we performed at a World Music Festival on the German/Polish border too. We are also currently working towards an album that will be ready before autumn. This will be coming out on a Californian based label called Remarkable Current. Most of the production will be by an amazing producer and arranger called Fair Grime. We are also looking at other forms of writing.”

Muneera and Sukina met young, and were both united by one thing. “We first became close friends because of music,” says Sukina. “Muneera used to be a DJ and would always get early releases from Sony and other record companies. I remember hearing Jill Scott for the first time and Amel Larrieux, whilst also being in love with people like Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill, Mos Def, Kweli and Common. We were so inspired by this music and the message and spirituality that existed in it. We wanted to create for others what this music had meant for us. We decided to come together to inspire and uplift people, and represent a voice for some of the voiceless people around the world.”

It’s safe to say that Poetic Pilgrimage as a concept accomplishes these goals entirely.

It is refreshing to see a piece of artwork so honest and bare bones. With songs off the download like “Beautiful”, we are reminded that in most cultures women only know themselves in relation to men. The song is infused with the hope that we can keep shining, and recognize how to allow ourselves to measure up in the face of social norms and cultural gender roles.

“Aborted Daughters (Live)”, addresses the politics that fuel Poetic Pilgrimage, while taking the concept of the mix tape and giving it the integrated identity of a multi-media approach. It starts with a short speech and launches directly into the spoken word format, giving the free download a boost of texture and allowing the messages of liberation and faith more power.

Poetic Pilgrimage uses their own identities, as well as those of other women to forage an image of the universality of the female and human experience. They translate into music the socially constructed domination and internal subordination that we all suffer. On top of it all, Poetic Pilgrimage has created timeless music and poetry that honors the power and prowess of women in hip hop.

“We feel strongly about justice, love, and peace for all,” says Muneera. “Being from different community groups we see how people can get caught up with just themselves, and obviously we all have to make sure that the home is straight, but oppression is a disease and once we allow it to breed we can all be susceptible to it.”

To download a free prelude of Star Women visit http://www.starwomenmixtape.com/.

Modou – man dunu la fate. Dinga nekk sama xol sama xarite. Nammenala bu baax a baax. Sa xarite, Ben

Nomadic Wax Presents African Underground

A Night of African Hip-Hop Film, Conversation and Live Music featuring Meta and the Cornerstones

Join Nomadic Wax and 92YTribeca for a night of film and discussion capped by a blowout concert by the unstoppable Meta and the Cornerstones.

7pm Screening: Fangafrika: The Voice of the Voiceless

Hip Hop may have been born in America, but it is growing up in Africa. Fangafrika is a stylized look at the festival in Ouaga, in Burkina Faso, where Africa’ s best and brightest rappers gather using hip hop to tackle the serious issues facing Africans everywhere. The film is a who’s who in African hip-hop, from veterans like Pee Froiss, Daara J and PBS to up and coming hot acts. All are creating a dynamic new African identity for the mutable genre called hip-hop.

8:30pm Panel Discussion: Marketing African Media in the New Millennium: A Panel discussion About the Intersection of Technology, Digital Media and its Impact on the African Continent. Panelists to be announced.

10pm Concert: Meta and the Cornerstones

Featuring members from across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, Brooklyn’s Meta and the Cornerstones fuse Afropop, reggae, hip-hop and serious soul with a mixture of French, English, Wolof and Fulani vocals. With their powerful lyrics and feel good melodies, the band creates a sound that transcending borders and language barriers.

http://www.92y.org/shop/92Tri_event_detail.asp?productid=T%2DMM5PF11

Flex Mathews: Making Music, Having Fun.

-Jason G.L. Chu
Photo Credit – Magee McIlvaine

“What’s up man, who’s this?”

The first time I hear his voice, it’s tinged ever-so-slightly by a sleepy haze.
Flex Mathews – born Dathan Harbor – is back on the road, on the third day of a month-long
tour with fellow emcee Kosha Dillz to raise support for the recently devastated
Haiti.

The
press pictures I’ve scrounged up show a ferocious, goofy emcee. Even candid
shots never catch him lounging; continuously mugging for the camera, he’s smiling
widely, smirking, tossing up his fists, clowning around with an LP collection. And
flicks of him on the mic are still more energetic: eyes bulging, veins popping,
hands jabbing to punctuate his delivery. He’s confident the crowd’s enjoying the
Flex show, because he’s enjoying the Flex
show.

Even
in still shots, Flex has a sense of magnetic restlessness: Eyes around him seem inexorably drawn to him. His music – the Handsome Grandson EP, emailed me a few
days ago and promptly synced to my iPod – is not only bold, clever, and intricate
(none of which is particularly rare in today’s well-versed hip-hop underground),
but refreshingly humble: he boasts more about his passion than talent, and his
subject matter is grounded in reality, reminiscing on all-night ciphers, favorite
childhood music, and family and friends. The EP boasts a song called Just Gunnen; but Flex gunnen has less to do with popping off
pistols and more with “freestylin nonstop… [with] a CD to sell and 16’s to
drop.”

So
when I hit him up on the phone to start this interview, I’m half expecting a relentlessly
self-promoting narcissist, and half expecting a soft-spoken, even reticent,
emcee. The joke’s on me, of course, because he’s neither.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about me rapping and having fun.”

“Yo
Flex, what up? It’s Jason from Nomadic Wax, this a good time to talk?”

Turns
out it is; I’ve caught him during a lull on tour, and his crew is picking their
way along the road somewhere near Aspen or Vail. As I start launching into my
questions, bringing up the music game, his voice picks up speed, excitement. After
doing music part-time for most of his career, Flex has been a professional artist
for eight months now, leaving a steady hospital job to go full-time into his
musical craft.

Me: “So what makes you put your
voice out there? What do you have to say, what makes you think your art has a
place out there?”

FM: “Man, I’m a kid in a grown man body, making music and having
fun…. Sure, at certain times, I wanted
the big bills, staying large, but at the end of the day, home in my room, as
long as I was rapping and having fun, it really didn’t matter.”

Flex
Mathews isn’t a hip-hop neo-luddite, a backpacker on a quest to save hip-hop from
its evil future self; he’s in the game because the game is fun. I feed him a leading question – what sets your voice apart from other
artists? – and wait for him to bite, to go in on how much iller he is than other
emcees. Instead, he pauses slightly and replies thoughtfully, excitedly. Flex gets
hyped up reminiscing about the old days: “growing up rhyming, there was so many
different emcees. A lot of emcees didn’t have the same style: Guru was Guru,
MOP was MOP, Big Daddy Kane was Big Daddy Kane.” The message is clear: Flex
Mathews’ emceeing isn’t going to be the sort to submit to ready labeling.

If
his style sounds good to you, that’s fine by him; but if not, he’s not going to
talk down on anyone’s tastes either. When he talks about recently listening to
Brother Ali, he’s quick to mention that he doesn’t begrudge Drake his radio
presence, saying the former has “a little more substance… something a little
different,” while giving props to the rising Young Money star: “He’s very
clever, I don’t think you can really deny that he’s a clever dude along the
emcee tip, with the punchlines and things of that nature.”

“It’s important… to have a good catalogue, that can be received different places.”

Speaking
of substance and punchlines, Flex’s own recorded style is a combination of twisting
lyrical barrages supporting a keen storytelling voice. His enunciation has a soft
edge, and I mentally add him to my continuum of emcees beside the more abstract
Mos Def and raw-flowing mid-90s Common. When his vocal pace picks up – and it
often does – words slur by in long, assonant chains. In my first listens to
Flex’s EP, I found his flow taking on a life of its own, and I wound up hitting
the rewind more than once as I picked apart his actual lyrical content, lines alternately
self-deprecating (“I hope she don’t like thugs/ because I’m not a hard cat”) and
clever (“I pray she ain’t a Thundercat/ Thundercat ho-ooooo/ She can be
Cheetara and I’ll be the Liono”).

That
joke-laced flow is a relic of Flex’s growth as an emcee, a reminder of days moving
around as a military brat. Constantly spitting in new environments, Flex came
up by adapting his style, creating a responsive ear for the tastes of different
audiences:

FM: “If I’m a scientist, and I’m rapping on super-scientist stuff or
whatever, I can’t take that flow everywhere…. I could, but I won’t necessarily
be received anywhere else. It’s important for an MC to have a good catalogue,
that can be received different places.

“I learned that from freestyling. Being in mostly white areas
growing up, my punchlines and my rhymes there were relevant there. I had to
learn how to rhyme about my current environment, which they could relate to.
It’s all about knowing the time and the place and all those elements that are
playing a part in what’s going on at that specific moment….”

“Albums are great, they serve their purpose. But to me, freestyling,
I could shake a whole day off. If I had a bad day at work, I could go to a
club, and freestyle for three hours, and truly it could take the whole day away
from me.

“Good doctrine
produces good doctrine, Good habits produce good habits, peace produces peace, love produces love.”

Disarmingly
ecumenical, Flex reserves his laconic scorn for one group: cats who front in
their bars. He distinguishes the craft of emceeing from the task of rapping: “Anybody
can rap from a piece of paper. That’s rapping. To me, emceeing is living what
you speak.” In short: if Flex Mathews raps about freestyling all day, it’s
because he’s out there spitting on the corner. If Flex Mathews is rhyming about
helping the kids, you’d best believe he’s out volunteering.

And
he does, too – having brought up the topic of community building, Flex proves
himself good on his word. He tells me about a DC organization, Words,
Beats, and Life put together by local hip-hoppers who dedicate
themselves to mentoring DC-area kids in rhyming, painting, bboying, and DJing,
even as they guide them through the issues that inevitably arise in the violent
and raw inner city life that sprawls practically in the shadow of Capitol Hill.

Flex
also brings up a more personally relevant project, Hip-Hop Against Human Trafficking, a projected 5-part EP collection
bringing to light the nine billion dollar global business that provides slave labor
and sex workers. I ask Flex what led him to take on such a project, fearing that
I’m going to unearth a personal tragedy; but instead, we break down one of my
favorite flicks, Taken, geeking out together
over the cathartic glee of Liam Neeson’s black ops agent tracking down his kidnapped
daughter and, in the process, straight up
tearing apart the men who sold her into sex slavery. But after a few minutes,
Flex turns sober:

FM: “You can’t tell me that you walk into the Red Light District and find
some 15-year-old girl who wants to have sex with an 80-year-old man. I’m not
buyin it… These girls are stolen.

“I was really driven to want to say something, I didn’t want to do
rap music about it, I wanted to do something more direct, more in the now. Then
I calmed down and was like, let me act with my strong point first.”

Right.
Watch a movie, get inspired – and start a long-term awareness project. All in the
emcee job description.

As
we build, I’m noticing Flex’s communal
approach to hip-hop: other artists might claim to be leaders, but he wants to gather
leaders. When I ask about his plans for activism, Flex downplays his own
importance, pointing to “those who are truly in the trenches… people who are
really out there on the regular. When we are asleep, they are on the grind for
human trafficking.”

At
this point, Flex Mathews’ mobile signal goes dead, a victim of the wilderness
cell phone network of western Colorado. I head out to run some Saturday afternoon
errands, still bumping the Handsome
Grandson EP in my iPod.

“Having a blast out here, man!”

It’s
Monday before Flex and I connect on the phone again. On my way in to work, I
shoot him a text – “you up to finish the interview? holla @ me whenever” – and
my Nokia is ringing before I reach my desk. This time, he doesn’t sound hazy at
all; keen and eager to talk, Flex is riding high on a weekend of shows in Colorado
and Utah.

I
say that I’ve been bumping his album all weekend, noticing a clear direction in
the EP’s production. The project fits together in a breezy mix of jazz and
boom-bap samples, feeling like a record by
an old hip-hop head for an old head. Several
of the beats quote, sample, or lift album cuts from rappers you don’t know
unless you know: All Night is spit over a Madvillain (Madlib/MF DOOM) beat, and I catch
Jedi Mind Tricks lying under another track. Reminisce,
a mid-album song, seems to sum up Flex’s œuvre: the title, the lyrics, and the
beat – a melody line from the pseudo-80s by way of Napoleon Dynamite – all work
together to pull the audience into the Flex Mathews Hip-Hop Experience, a
reverse Being John Malkovich.

The Handsome
Grandson EP makes another thing clear: Flex isn’t afraid of giving his DJ a
little shine. Or a lot: on Catwoman, he
drops a final bar, “listen to my DJ scratch,” and a cat’s meow breaks in, to be
chopped up, spun back, and stuttered for the entirety of a feline-themed breakdown.
Within the first seconds of intro track R.O.Y.
(Rookie of the Year), DJ GeeDubz’ scratches cut up the remix, and Flex is
careful to support the other elements of hip-hop: “Oh yeah, man, you’ve got to
have your four elements, that’s the basis right there, the foundation for
everything, the whole culture.”

Refreshingly,
Flex doesn’t hold that respect back from other emcees, either. Other artists I
know revel in distancing themselves from hip-hop fandom, either too cool, too post-hip-hop,
or too much the artiste. But Flex
basks in hip-hop nerditry: on The Blue
Line, the EP’s fourth track, he spits a dizzying slew of references to
other artists, including De La Soul, Redman & Method Man, and Duck Down
Records’ OGC in four or five bars. But rather than an unimaginative name-dropper
(cough*The Game*cough), he comes off as a rap connoisseur, still awed to be watching
the game from the field instead of the bleachers. When I ask him to name his
top influences, he jumps to your favorite rapper’s favorite rappers: “Big L had
delivery, style, cadence, personality. Big L was the emcee’s MC…. Redman too,
Redman was big to me.”

“that’s what I love, that’s what I live,
that’s what I like.”

I
know that Flex isn’t afraid to be real – but I’m still curious about the Handsome Grandson moniker he goes by.
It’s telling, I think, that he chooses to identify himself as a grandson rather
than a father, lover, husband, or even brother. After all, while he devotes several
songs on the EP to flirtatious advances at hypothetical female partners, Flex’s
Lover persona is a winking, roguish scamp, more Bart Simpson than Big Poppa.
He’s not the kid only a mother could love – he’s the kind of kid your mother could love.

Me: “Yo Flex, a lot of cats in the
game these days are just hard, hard, hard all day long. But you have this more family-friendly
persona. How does that work out?”

FM: “I’m definitely not a hard cat. I like rapping, you know? …Growing
up I did wild things with my friends… growing up into adulthood, expressing
ourselves, we all have that to some degree…. But that’s about it. I was never
out there trying to be a thug…. I knew thugs, but there was a clear difference between
them and I. They was still my friends, I have love for them…. [My music] may
come off as silly, but at the same time, if the whole world was serious, it
wouldn’t be any fun if the whole world was serious”

And
we’re back on the topic of making music and having fun – not compatible, but identical pursuits in Flex’s eyes: “I’ll
make a silly song because it’s fun. I’ll make a song ‘bout how I hate to go to
the mall with girls… I’ll make a song about that because, that’s what I love,
that’s what I live, that’s what I like.” I mention how his clear comfort with the
role of jokester, jester, and entertainer (Flex tips me a verbal nod – “uh-huh,
yea”) reminds me of a slimmer – much slimmer – Biz Markie. Flex responds
respectfully: “Biz Markie? He’s one of the greats!”

Like
the Biz, Flex Mathews is a professional
joker, a topic that comes up again later, when I ask him where he got his rap
name:

FM: “The name was a bit of a joke… a panic-stricken moment I needed to
be quick on my toes to work out.

“Me and my friends in high school were hanging out at smokers’
corner where we would rap, we would freestyle. Me and my friends were late
coming to class, and the hall monitor caught us… and my friend gave his name,
his real name! And I was a bit of a class clown, so I said Flex, and she said, ‘Flex
what?’,

like expecting that I couldn’t make up a last name. So I had to be
quick, and I said Mathews, and she said, OK, Mr. Mathews, you report to
detention at 2:50.

“I couldn’t tell my friends, because in high school your friends are
idiots, and I knew that if I explained the situation to them, you know how fast
that would have got around the school? That would have got around real quick,
and so I kind of kept it to myself.”

Me: “[laughs] Did you cringe and
like try to stay unnoticed for the rest of high school? By this hall monitor?”

FM: “Nah, no, actually she was pretty cool to me after a while, we got
along. Yeah [laughs].”

“before
rapper, before emcee, before jokester, before best friend. I’m a Christian man first and foremost.”

Flex
likes to get along with people – and, it seems, it’s not from some need for
affirmation, but because he genuinely likes
people. And while we haven’t yet
touched on it, I’m suspecting that it has something to do with the beliefs that
have been hinted at as we talk about his upbringing and doctrine.

Of
course, many rappers – A-listers like DMX, T.I., and Kanye West, along with
lesser-known rappers like LMNO and Lecrae – have prominently promoted faith on wax, but
many have demonstrated questionable follow-through in their personal lives. While I know he’s a military brat, I’ve also heard
Flex drop hints about his parents’ occupation (“son of a pastor”), and read
interviews where he touches on his own faith. So when it comes up in
conversation, I’m ready to listen to Flex speak on his personal beliefs and their
role in his growth.

FM: “Yeah, man, both me and my parents are preachers. [But] being
raised Christian, growing up I hated church…. People say hate is a strong word,
but when you a kid it’s easy to hate something. When your parents make you do
something…. they made me go.”

Me: “Yeah, I feel you, I definitely
know that process. How did you move forward from there?”

FM: “I remember when I got deep into my faith…. I was going to be a
Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a whole bunch of other things before I sat down
and said, let me really take this Christian thing seriously. I read up on a
whole lot of other things, I wanted to just find the true word of the Most High,
I sat down and read, and this is what spoke to me the most.”

“I never want to be a dumb Christian, you know? ….Many people
believe in God, that don’t mean they do right, or are equipped to tell you
about Christianity or about the Word.

“Early, when I was young, 21 or 22, I would get into conversations…
and I couldn’t support myself, because I was just believing, not just studying,
believing without understanding…. So that was my fault, because I didn’t know enough, I didn’t read, I
didn’t study…. And that’s what had driven me to stay focused and study the
Bible in as many aspects as I can.”

“I’m a Christian man before anything, before rapper, before emcee,
before jokester, before best friend. I’m a Christian man first and foremost…. To
quote a Mos Def line, ‘I give a damn if any fam recall my legacy, I’m tryna live
light in the sight of God’s memory.’ [from Black Star’s Thieves in the Night].”

Me: “Yeah, that’s dope. Now, I’ve
heard some, I know there’s Christian rap out there, but honestly – I mean, I’m
a man of faith – but a lot of it is kind of corny.”

FM: “Yeah! Corny. I’m working on this Gospel hip-hop project, and that’s
why it’s taking me so long to do this. Because I don’t want it to be corny…. There’s
been some good ones out there, Cross Movement, The Ambassador… [but] there’s
some Gospel hip-hop that I am not feeling…. So it’s taking me a while to do
this project. I want it to be a good, dope, hip-hop project.”

Me: “What about when you’re out on
tour with Kosha? I know he represents the Jewish culture very proudly, very strong…
do yall ever speak about religion, that kind of thing?”

FM: “You know, Kosha is Orthodox Jewish, he’s observant, but he
respects my views and I respect his….

“People don’t see everything the way you see it. And I think, if the
world would just acknowledge that – you aren’t everybody and everybody ain’t
you – the world would be a better place.

“Christianity springs out of Judaism. Without the Jewish people,
there would be no Bible, no Jesus, no Christianity. You can’t not acknowledge
it. That’s like trying to say RUN-DMC didn’t guide the eyes of commercial
America to hip-hop music.”

“peace… peace…
peace… peace… peace… peace… all praises
due.”

At
this point, Flex is vibing – I envision him in Utah, animated as he chills in a
tour hotel, palm jabbing in the air unraveling his philosophy with the same prodigal
ease that has carried him through emcee battles and rock tour stages. We could
keep kicking around thoughts, but it’s almost time to bounce, though, so I run
a few closing topics by him.

In
a few pictures, I’ve noticed Flex wearing caps from The Hundreds and MAJOR DC, one
of the capital’s premier streetwear boutiques; I ask him if he’s into sneaker
culture, any particular street brands. He chuckles – which, I’ve concluded, makes
it a good bet that Flex is reminiscing – and mentions hip-hop brand DURKL (“some
really stand-up guys…. Any time I go off on tour, they tell me to come through
and they bless me with some gear…. cats have been sweatin it!”) and, yes, MAJOR:
“My homey DJ Underdog helped found the store; and Ducky, those are my boys…. DJ
Underdog used to be my DJ, when I opened up for Lupe Fiasco, he would bring me
out. So it’s family…. Major’s a good store. I like Major.”

If
I this were a face-to-face interview, I’d probably give Flex a pound, or maybe
a dap; but he’s located at points unknown in Utah, and I’m in New Haven, so I say
peace and ask him for any last shout-outs:

FM: “Peace to my boys Federation, I’ll be in it til I die.

“Peace to my brother Jehosaphat, my brother KASH, my brother Leo.

“Peace to Kosha Dillz, peace to South Dakota, to everybody in the
605 area code, all of the DMV.

“Peace to Nomadic Wax – my boys Magee and Ben…– and peace to my mom
for raising me right and all praises to the Most High.”

Flex
Mathews can be reached on myspace and twitter: http://www.myspace.com/flexmathews
and http://www.twitter.com/flexmathews,
and The Handsome Grandson EP is available for download online.

The
Heroes for Haiti tour with Flex
Mathews and Kosha Dillz runs until March 1.

Feb
5th Abbey Pub w/ DJ Yoda – Chicago, IL

Feb 6th Raging Buffalo Resort w/ Slick Rick – Algonquin, IL

Feb 7th Yacht Club – Iowa Ciy, IA

Feb 8th Vaudevilles Mews – Des Moines, IA

Feb 9th Vaudevilles Mews w/ Trevor hall (early show) – Des Moines, IA

Feb 9th Peoples w/ Skee Lo – Des Moines, IA

Feb 10th Firebird – St Louis, MO

Feb 12th Nutty’s North w/ Mr Dibbs – Sioux Falls , SD

Feb 13th Reptile Palace – Oshkosh, WI

Feb 14th Schubas w/ Trevor hall – Chicago IL

Feb 15th Day Trotter – Rock Island, IL

Feb 19th Jewlicious Festival – Long Beach, CA

Feb 20th Jewlicious Festival – Long Beach, CA

Feb 21st Jewlicious Festival – Long Beach, CA

Feb 25th Pipeline Cafe w/ Matisyahu – Honolulu, HI

Feb 27th Kuhio Lounge w/ Matisyahu – Kapaa, HI

Feb 28th Lahaina Civic Center w/ Matisyahu – Lahaina, HI

Mar 1st Rockstarz w/ Matisyahu – Kailua Kona, HI

Interview with DJ Nio (Italy)
Interviewed by Mikal Amin Lee (aka Hired Gun)

1. Please tell the people a little bit about Dj Nio, how you came into the culture, and a quick description of where you are at currently?

I’m from Genoa (Genova), Italy, and I’m a dj, mc, producer and Hip-Hop Activist. I started spinning records and writing my first rap in 1993, after listening to Cypress Hill, Public Enemy and the very first Italian rap groups. I felt in love with Hip-Hop Culture and I started buying records, rapping, making “graffiti” and even b-boyin’ a little. As a dj, I’ve been performing everywhere in my city and in many other towns in Italy since 1996, and I’ve been part of or worked with a lot of groups such Zena Art Core, maybe one of the most important crew in our country. I founded my group, Zero Plastica, in 2001 with my man Lure and since then we made a record, hundred gigs and so many mixtapes… so much music! Actually we’re recording our 2nd cd, while I’m working also with NYC underground label Nomadic Wax and many great artists. In these months I’m working with Ben Herson on “Mo’Glo”, a show on 91.5 New York Radio, where basically I mix world wide rap and reggae music.

2. What is Triburbana? What is its importance to the hip hop community? Its importance to the community at large?

TribUrbana is a non-profit cultural association I found in 2006 with other hip-hop and reggae artists. Basically we promote Hip-Hop Culture and Reggae good values through events, records and workshops. We made the biggest hip-hop event in Liguria -our region- ever; and we had some very good workshops with teens and youth workers since last year, when Mr.B a.k.a. berlusconi’s government cut almost any kind of financial resources to social activities like these.

We kept on building anway, and now we have a new office and a new studio that is considered the best place to make a hip-hop or a reggae record in our city; plus, we’re planning some big events for 2010.

3. Give us from your perspective the state of the italian hip hop community? Is it unified? What are the styles/themes going on? How similar or different is it from the American hip hop scene from your view?

Actually, Italy is living one of its worst moment in its history, not only due to berlusoni’s dictatorshit, but also due to people who still believe him and his bullshit. The state of Italian Hip-Hop community reflects the greatest part of the Italian society and it’s a product of a fiction-propaganda going on in the last 30 years through mr.b’s medias: not only the HH heads, but all the Italian community has definitely never been so divided and confused as in this moment. Too many people here aren’t able to see the whole big pitcure we’re living because they’re focused just on themselves as they were into the “Big Brother” TV series; at the same way, Italian rap is basically about braggadocio style, battling, posing, or self-mental-masturbation, and when rap is a little bit conscious and speaks about social problems, it’s seen as “communist”, “populist” or ignorant definitions like these. I know it’s incomprehensible, but it’s like that: after I’ve been travelling so much world wide, I can sadly tell you Italy is the 3rd world of hip-hop. Yo, we had and has very good mainstream and underground rap too, anyway, but it’s so damn rare!

Any kind of comparison between Italian and American Hip-Hop should be inappropriate because here it’s often seen/lived not as a culture but as a fashion or a teen-agers hobby, while there in the U.S. it’s a mass phenomenon, obviously. Well, we def could laugh at that, telling Italian rap is like the worst American soccer team!!!

4. Can you give us a brief history of the italian hip hop scene? When did it start? Name a few pioneers?

Hip-Hop Culture went to Italy with films like “Wild Style” and “Beat Street” in the early 80’s. Some Old School pioneers were The Next One a.k.a. Maurizio, Emilio & Marcella (Battle Squad), Dj Enzo, Dj Gruff, Mc Shark, Ice One; some of them are still pretty active. In the first 90’s Italian Rap music became a little bit mainstream thanks to artists like Frankie Hi-NRG Mc, Articolo 31 and Sottotono, but maintaining deep roots with punk mentality and the “posse movement” born in squat social centers. Due to Eminem’s “8 Mile”, Italian medias and major labels revamped interests in rap music, but actually our music business is just “floating”, I guess.

5. Who are some of your personal influences in the culture?

I’ve been influenced by so many artists, dj’s, mc’s and producers! The list is too long, but If you need some American names I can say: Cypress Hill, Public Enemy, Tony Touch, the whole Native Tongues, Gangstarr, Nas, the Dungeon Family, Reflection Eternal, Common, dead prez, KRS One, Non-Phixion, Scarface, Rakim, Wu-Tang, etc. I’ve def been influenced by SensaSciou (that means “Out of breath”), the very first rap/raggamuffin group of my city, who where the first to rap and sing in Italian and in genovese dialect, in the first 90’s.

6. From your perspective what is the relationship between hip hop from around the globe and America?

Hip-Hop gives voice to people and has been saving so many guys and girls everywhere. U.S.A. are Hip-Hop’s father, but wherever you go around the globe you can see different and beautiful sons growing up! I think that in the beginning Hip-Hop is very tied to the Old School original values wherever it lands, but if and when come the money, any kind of problems follow. HH’s is a philosophy and a way of living, and everywhere there’re scientists and dumb folks, poets and prostitutes, if you know what i mean.

There’s a straight relationship between hip-hop and food, to me: although I’m Italian, I never eat pasta when I go abroad, I’m always looking for local and traditional cousine because I’m curious, I like to try different flavours; at the same way, I love when rap is mixed with local and traditional music, language, dialect and instruments!! That’s originality! That’s true Hip-Hop!!!

7. Does hip hop in italy play a role in informing/educating the people on issues happening inside the state?

I wish it was like that! If any Italian mc’s spit a little about our reality, probably we wouldn’t have the mafia at the governament!!! I know just some few artists that are pretty conscious and focused on concrete social issues, but unfortunatly they’re totally underground like me and Zero Plastica. Even if Chuck D said that “Rap is the Black CNN”, here it’s seems more an Italian comedy, a bad fiction, an horror b-movie… That’s why I love to deal with International Hip-Hop!
8. Besides your crew of course, who are some of the hip hop artists from Italy we should look out for?

Actually If you want to listen to some good Italian rap, you def have to hear Colle der Fomento, Tormento, Cor Veleno, Groovenauti, Assalti Frontali, Ghemon, Mistaman, Fabri Fibra; there’re also a lot of dope aerosol-artists, b-boys and dj’s -as the Scratch Busters, IDA World Champions 2009-.