23 years after the first London show Erick Sermon and Parish Smith, AKA EPMD, return to the Big Smoke still making dollars and having fun, as Phillip Mylnar investigates.

With a funk-saturated sound formulated way out in Long Island, EPMD took their place up front as part of hip-hop’s fabled golden era back in 1987. Now nearly three decades deep in hip-hop history, rap innovators Erick Sermon and Parish Smith look back on the game-changing night they played London’s Brixton Academy, how the business of hip-hop taught them to break-up to make-up, and the lasting lesson the legendary Run-DMC taught them about always embracing rap’s new generation.

It’s 1988 and the Whistle Posse are in the house at London’s Brixton Academy. Their infernal siren fills up the venue’s atmosphere with a fevered anticipation. Back stage, Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay is talking to Erick Sermon and Parish Smith two rookie rappers and producers from the suburban climes of Brentwood, Long Island who rap under the name of EPMD, an amalgam of their monikers and mission: Erick and Parish Making Dollars. Jay tells the duo, who have been invited along on the tour after Run is impressed by their debut album, Strictly Business, that they should consider using the talents of current New Musical Seminar DJ champion DJ Scratch to bolster their live show. It’s timely advice, with EPMD in need of a new vinyl-spinning back-bone after K La Boss, who’d established himself as the duo’s DJ-of-choice after Diamond J – who would eventually go on to spin for P Diddy – had briefly flirted with the position only to bail out of the tour and travel back to the US citing illness. Early commercial UK hip-hop success story Derek B had filled in for EPMD the other night, earning the respect of Erick and Parish for memorising their set. But after witnessing Scratch perform an incredible set, the offer to become EPMD’s permanent DJ is made solid.

After this, things will never be the same for EPMD, as the brothers from Brentwood take up their chance to perform nightly with not just Run-DMC, but also Public Enemy, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, and Stetsasonic. Things will never be the same for hip-hop either: the golden era is in full effect. Outside, the Whistle Posse salutes.

After this, things will never be the same for EPMD, as the brothers from Brentwood take up their chance to perform nightly with not just Run-DMC, but also Public Enemy, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, and Stetsasonic. Things will never be the same for hip-hop either: the golden era is in full effect.

The symbolism of that distant night is strong, and sums up a hip-hop era when the defining momentum was with the music, not the images of individual artists. Run telling Def Jam executive Lyor Cohen to track down EMPD and invite them on the road, and Jay recommending a fellow DJ to fit the group’s vibe, seems like one generation graciously embracing the spirit of the next. Run-DMC themselves had already been in that position, kick-starting a new movement by trading up the (often) disco- and dance-helmed grooves of hip-hop’s first recorded wave of old school music for harsh and sparse drum machine beats and abrasive raps. EPMD heralded their own arrival with thick, mid-tempo funk grooves inspired by cruising around the expanse of Long Island in a car with the low-end frequencies cushioning the ride, not being cooped up on a rattling city subway train. The rhymes were just as comfortable, with the MCs prioritising the effortless way they said something over any allusions to content. As Erick declared on the Zapp-sampling You Gots To Chill: “Relax your mind, let your conscience be free/And get down to the sounds of EPMD.” It could be the group’s motto.

“It was full of five huge TVs, Adidas sneakers with no strings all neatly lined up, nice meals the promoters would have waiting for them”

As Parish tells it, this willingness of stylistically-different artists to commingle was a main part of the reason the time would become enshrined as hip-hop’s golden era. So when he and Erick first walked in to Run-DMC’s tour bus, they reacted with the exhilaration of fans. “It was full of five huge TVs, Adidas sneakers with no strings all neatly lined up, nice meals the promoters would have waiting for them,” recalls Parish, who before that day had only seen Run-DMC on TV and in concert. But EPMD soon found themselves accepted as artists on an equal level of respect and camaraderie. “It was a tight clique that formed on that tour,” Parish continues. “Remember, this was Will Smith before he became a movie star, when he was hoping Parents Just Don’t Understand would take off, and then Public Enemy and Stet were there, and we’d all support each other and hang out. It was like one family.” Backing up the sentiment, he adds, “I mean, once you rolled up on those tour busses, we had basketball courts set up under the busses.” (Will Smith and his bodyguard, Charlie Mack, were kings of the court. As Parish remembers: “They’d be dunking and we were just like, ‘Yo, we was just trying to do a little shoot up!’”)

EPMD’s rise was quick, fateful, and a beneficiary of the times. Their profile was established after a first single, 1987′s It’s My Thing, was played by both DJ Red Alert and Mr. Magic on their influential – but rival – New York City rap radio shows; a debut album, the perfectly-composed ten-track Strictly Business – the first in what currently totals seven “business”-punned titles – was roundly received as a classic. (Between the two releases, the group’s name and logo were solidified, after either KRS-One or Biz Markie – the duo’s memory is hazy – told them the original spelling, EPEE MD, was too complicated, and designer Haze created for them a logo as enduringly iconic as Run-DMC’s own one.) Then came the tour with Run-DMC, the chance to help define an era with fellow Long Island natives Public Enemy (Nassau County) and Rakim (Wyandanch), and the opportunity to extend EPMD’s influence through the early-’90s by putting on their collection of Hit Squad associates: Redman, Keith Murray, K-Solo, and tongue-twisting duo Das-EFX. But as the ’90s moved on, EPMD started to notice changes in the industry around them, not least as bonds that used to be formed through little more than keen creative integration started to fray. “I think once it hit its height for us in about ’93 or ’94, then it became less about the music and the culture and the art-form and more about the financial thing,” says Parish. “When hip-hop first came out, the music industry largely looked at it as trash, said it wasn’t gonna be around. But once it looked super-lucrative to them, it was harder for the artists to stay on top of just the music – it became more about the money than the art. I remember meeting 2Pac out in the Bay Area when he was with Shock G and Digital Underground and thinking that it was a little easier for Erick and I to establish ourselves because when we came out you got respect simply on how dope your music was. But ‘Pac and those guys, they had a lot more to figure out.”

During that time of change, EPMD started to make more money – but at the expense of not being able to enjoy it. “You were constantly working,” says Parish, “and in between our own albums, we had Das-EFX and Redman and K-Solo and Keith Murray to take care of. We went from more or less just trying to define our art to taking care of business and touring the globe and not getting to see too much of what we were doing.”

After a fourth album, Business Never Personal, EPMD split up – business, sometimes, being capable of corrupting a personal relationship. It was 1997 before they released another studio album together, appropriately titled Back In Business.

Back stage at the Kentish Town Forum, with show time looming, talk turns to the group’s future plans. Erick enthuses about his production work on an upcoming album from the Wu-Tang Clan’s gravel-voiced Method Man; Parish says he’s working with the Snowgoons production troop from Germany, and putting the finishing touches to an EP with Necro-associate Sean Strange titled Boondocks – ”some real underground music,” as he calls it. There is, of course, a new EPMD album being recorded, although since they’ve reunited the musical spark between Erick and Parish has never been as natural – as telepathic, even – as it once was. But that’s common: It’s hard for any hip-hop artist to stay relevant through so many years, eras, fashions and fads. (Parish’s own history goes back to the early-’80s, when he called himself DJ Eazzy “P” and rolled with his older brother, Smitty D, the founder of the Rock Squad. “He had a good relationship with Afrika Bambaataa even before Planet Rock came out,” he says, adding that he’s “seen hip-hop since before they even called it hip-hop.”)

Instead, Erick and Parish are attempting to embrace their experience – their vintage status – without turning sour and bitter to the modern scene around them. Looking back over EPMD’s career – ups, downs, break-ups, reconciliations, and all – Parish says they have “no regrets.” Instead, he figures, “Now that we’re older, it looks like everything is a learning experience.” Then, with a similar humility to the way Run-DMC embraced EPMD’s generation back in ’88, Parish invokes the wisdom of an icon of the wave that followed them: “But I know this – if we stop writing, if we stop producing, then we don’t have a right to complain about the state hip-hop is in. So like I always say to E, ‘We need to keep on that 2Pac work ethic.’”

This article is exclusive to Bonafide and first appeared in print in Bonafide Magazine issue 05: Old-School vs New-School. Go get.

Words: Phillip Mlynar
Photography: Jimmy Mould

Ever since since I clapped my eyes’ on Eric Colman’s and Jeff Jank’s Blue Note riffing cover for MED’s Classic LP I’ve been wanting to know more. When I peeped lead single Blaxican it was obvious that this was a piece of work pitching to be classic in a holistic sense.

With the album just released MED (aka Medaphoar) took five to extol the virtues of the Classic things in his life.

Depends on the person. If they were in a car club I would say ‘Roll Out’, if they were young and in school I would play ‘Outta Control’… if they were Hip Hop I would play ‘ Classic’, and if they were just out the loop on M.E.D I would play ‘Where Im From’. For all the Southern Cali Gang Bangers I would play ‘Blaxican’ to heal all the racist tension.

You’ve entitled this album Classic and indicated in interviews that the name derives from the process of making it. What, for you, is the best recipe for making music?

Best way to make music for me is to have the right beat and be in the mood. To many artist sound like there lyrics are not inspired. I want everything i do to be natural.

And looking back from now to when you first started listening to music, what albums do you think of when you think ‘that was a classic LP which sets the bar to where I want to aim for?’

BDP By All Means Necessary. NWA Straight Outta Compton, A Tribe Called Quest’s 1st LP, E40, Nas, Geto Boys..etc. As you can see I’m influenced by all the greats who carry the torch of having Classics.
If you were going to recommend one song on the album to someone who has never heard your music, which track would you select and what do you think it would say to the listener about who you are and what you do?

Depends on the person. If they were in a car club I would say ‘Roll Out’, if they were young and in school I would play ‘Outta Control’… if they were Hip Hop I would play ‘ Classic’, and if they were just out the loop on M.E.D..I would play ‘Where Im From’. For all the Southern Cali Gang Bangers I would play ‘Blaxican’ to heal all the racist tension.

Will you be touring the new album?

Yes! Check Stones Throw and @meda4ox on Twitter for all show info.

OK, warming to the Classic theme. What for MED makes for classic:

Classic Food = Tacos

Classic TV = Martin

Classic Film = Boyz In The Hood

Classic Book = Rick James book he wrote (ha ha)
Who did the album artwork and were you aiming to reflect the album’s title in the design of the cover? The typeface and font colour laid over the black and white imagery looks like a forgotten record from the Blue Note vaults.

Exactly.

Any two of the albums listed in the answer to the second question, and Mary J Blige My Life, 1 jazz CD and MED’s Classic LP… everyone should have a copy!

I watched an interview piece you did where you mentioned that it had been six years since your first LP but that Madlib busts out like 18 a year. As a friend of his, what keeps him going in his relentless quest to produce music?

Probably the love of making music and… bills.

In England we have a long running radio show called Desert Island Discs. If you were stuck on a small, deserted island which five records would you take to keep you sane?

Any two of the albums listed in the answer to the second question, and Mary J Blige My Life, 1 jazz CD and MED’s Classic LP… everyone should have a copy!

On the same day Paul White drops Rapping With Paul White – The Remix EP as a free download from his bandcamp page and to stream below – in a first for the producer, the record includes a trio of sample-free tracks on which Paul plays drums and synths – we are also pleased to present an interview with the south London based beat maker who tells us his top five rap albums of all time, his eclectic working methods and explains why he nearly always includes his full name in the title of his albums.

What is often overlooked and underestimated in much of present day electronic music is its deep-seated influence and growth from hip-hop. Let’s be thankful for Paul White then who, with Rapping with Paul White, has produced an album that unashamedly harks back to the glory days of hip-hop. Enlisting a range of rappers ranging from American big boy Guilty Simpson to UK underground darling Jehst, White showcases a high quality study in beat production not dissimilar to Clams Casino. But what I prefer about White’s LP is its candidness.

It’s not trying to be something it’s not, that much is clear from the album’s title, not biting off more than it can chew, simply revelling in the beats and the rhymes that go with it. It is an uncomplicated master class and celebration that takes pride in its love for early 90s hip-hop. Revivalism has never felt so fresh.

What made you want to switch from the more prog/ psych-rock sound on Paul White & The Purple Brain to this more future funk/ break beat sound?

It wasn’t like I was going out to consciously do one thing then switch to the other – I try and do lots of different things all the time.  It worked out well doing The Purple Brain project, that was great fun just using one source material. Rapping With was a mix of other things I try and do, some of the beats on Rapping… are actually older than those on Purple Brain….

Explain the decision behind having a poem read by folk singer Nancy Elizabeth on the new album?

I had this weird little track, and one day Alex at One-Handed suggested Nancy do something with it.  Me and Nancy had already met and talked about doing something, so we found that poem and it worked out well.  I just had to use the take with her laughing because it always made me laugh every time I heard it! 

I like the idea of listeners being surprised too, not expecting what to come along! It’s all about fun – music to me is all about free creativity with no boundaries!

How did you decide on the various American and British MC’s for Rapping with Paul White?

Well I obviously wanted Guilty on there after doing the Ancient Treasure track with him from the Purple Brain album.  The hook up on that track came through Egon at Now Again, then through Guilty I met House Shoes, even though we’d spoken a little before.  That created the Danny Brown and Marv Won connection, then we found Homeboy Sandman and Moe Pope who were both dope too. Obviously I also wanted some UK rappers on there too, which lead me to Tranqill and Jehst.  It’s an honour to have all these people on my album, it was a lot of fun I was getting up really early everyday to work on it!

How did you get Guilty Simpson on board the album?

Apart from doing the track with him on the Purple Brain, Alex at One-Handed – who also works for Stones Throw – hit him up as he’d been sending him beats after he heard The Strange Dreams album and liked it. So we sent him a load of tracks and he picked from them. It’s amazing to get to work with Guilty.  There’s more coming soon hopefully…

What are you top five rap records of all time?

We’ll five rap albums i grew up on were:

Blacksheep – A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing
Old Dirty Bastard – Return To The 36 Chambers
Pete Rock – Soul Survivour
The Pharcyde – Labcabincalifornia
Group Home – Living Proof

Why do you always include your name in all of your album titles?

I’ve never really thought about it!  There’s “Sounds From The Skylight”, which is an exception.  I suppose with the idea of using such a regular name, my normal real name, it’s worked out funny seeing it in a new strange context.  I’s not an ego thing it’s a funny jokes thing!

How do you feel about being called the ‘21st century DJ Shadow’?

Well I grew up listening to him, I used to love his stuff and listen to it a lot, so he’s definitely been an influence and inspiration for sure. I’m honoured I suppose, but also would like to be thought of as myself first and foremost!

What is it you prefer about creating one long sound arc as opposed to just one track at a time?

I don’t prefer it, I like doing it all – I just like creating an experience, a journey, a world you can just go off into!

What with Wayne (Francis) who plays with United Vibrations, Henry (Keen) from Soundspecies and Mo Kolours (Joseph Deenmamode), would you say that there a scene developing in south east London?

For sure!  It’s cooking up gradually!  It’s weird – it feels like there’s suddenly lots of creative people in Peckham.  I just moved into a place with Henry from Soundspecies who I’ve known for about 6 years now through a music college we both worked at, also Wayne from United Vibrations.  I also live with a guy called Robbie who’s an amazing jazz piano player, my mates Mo Kolours and Tightface live down the road, and through all of us we know another load of musicians.  It’s crazy, people just need to start hooking up, its gradually happening I think.

Lev Harris

Paul White and One-Handed Music label mate Mo Kolours play live at London’s Camp on 11th November – click here for more info.

Friday night, fabric, peak time 1.30am, and London is in the midst of another farcical Indian summer. Four Tet, (Kieran Hebden to his mother) is commencing his dj set. Oozing out of the crystalline Room 1 speakers comes the serene, haunting and woozy tones of jazz pin up John Coltrane. Not your average club fodder then but then nor is Four Tet your average producer.

A true eclectic, Hebden is a man who in the 90’s made whimsical, tripped out down-tempo excursions – and was subsequently labelled ‘folktronica’ by the trend darlings – has collaborated with cult free-form drummer Steve Reid, loves early 90’s hip-hop, glitchy sounds and makes melodic techno records complete with twinkly edges.

Bonafide set about unravelling the skin of this musical chameleon, to coincide with his FABRICLIVE 59 mix CD, release. On it, he stitches together sparse, bouncy 2 step rhythms from the UK garage past, abstract 70s synth excursions, Villalobos modern European techno minimalism and several of his own exclusive, bass heavy, cylindrical house cuts. It’s a fantastically diverse yet coherent ride.

We made a phone call to Seattle, to talk… a lot, amongst other things, about garage.

Kieran, there’s a lot of 2 step garage records and influences on the mix, what grabbed you so much about this sound?

When it really kicked off, it was about the time I was putting records out. I just remember it being really fresh and exciting moment in British music for me. It was kind of brief, there was about a year when it was very creative. I found it to be very experimental. I mean you had bands like So Solid Crew who would come out and their first 12″ would be amazing and then three major singles later everything had gone to shit and they were in The Sun every week and the music had kind of disappeared.

So do you have a producer that stands out from that era and influenced you?

MJ Cole was a massive influence for me. I was in a band called Fridge at the time, doing experiment rock music and we actually did some shows with him, he got in touch because I was going on about him in the music press so much. I was just really inspired by his production.

He did that thing where he mixed incredible rhythms and would weave in the most unlikely, amazingly over the top piano melodies and classical parts. The instrumentation was really unique. People were using all sorts of weird samples and influences; even chart records like Artful Dodger were coming out and using really unlikely synth sounds as the main part of the track. That made everything feel fresh and interesting.

And what about the other major British music movement of the early 90’s, like jungle, was that a big influence?

The big thing about jungle for me was it was the first kind of experience of a musical revolution. Before jungle existed, I could never have imagined it in a million years and then suddenly it was there, at all the parties I would go to as a teenager, and there’d be a pirate radio on and you just couldn’t believe it, you were like; “what is this music, it’s crazy, fast, it’s the weirdest sounding ever” (laughs). I think witnessing that happen and being a young kid wanting to make music and seeing that happen, done by teenagers, just working on an Atari ST in their bedroom, that blew my mind. I think what happened with jungle was an enormous influence on me. I wouldn’t be making music right now if jungle hadn’t happened the way it did.

But for the actual music, I wasn’t at the raves and stuff, I missed that part of the scene. I was buying records here and there, people like Photek inspired me immensely, he’s one of my heroes. But when the 2 step thing happened, I was a bit older and I engaged in it in a much more intense way.

You mentioned jungle being made on Atari’s t4 and being inspired by the DIY, bedroom set up of that music, don’t you like working in studios?

The stuff I’m doing, I’m doing on just a laptop. I don’t use anything else at all; I just travel around and make tracks on the headphones. I’ll go to a studio to use the big speakers and to hear things clearly. I’ve boiled it down to the simplest set up I can really. I’ll sample stuff off records and plug it into a soundcard into a laptop; it’s all pretty straight forward. I’m definitely not collecting vintage synths or anything like that! It’s manipulated audio.

So let’s talk about fabric and your association with the club, you’re soon to release a mix cd for them. Is it somewhere you have an affinity with?

I’ve played there a handful of times, a few when it first opened and at a night Giles Peterson did. I remember one of the best musical nights I’ve ever had had in London involves fabric, which was the week they opened. They had Daft Punk play there and it was the Warp 10th anniversary that night as well.

First I went to the Warp party and saw Boards of Canada, Autechre and Squarepusher. Then I went to fabric afterwards to see Daft Punk, left and then went to The End to see Roni Size all in one night! (laughs) I think that’d the greatest night of club music I’ve ever experienced in London. Just seeing Boards of Canada and Daft Punk in one night (pauses), I don’t think people would believe me if I told them.

You mentioned on the press release that the mix took a long time to put together, sourcing the originals of rare tracks to digitally mix, ripped from vinyl.

I spent about 3 months in total, just going through the legal process of clearing all the tracks took ages (laughs). It took a couple of months tracking down the producers, there were garage songs on there that I’ve only ever heard off YouTube, the whole project wasn’t really about me doing a mix but about me studying and exploring and going back to the late 90s, working out who did what, what still sounds good today and what’s maybe been under-appreciated.

And who would you say has influenced you over the years in terms of deejaying?

It was always the more eclectic djs that interested me. I’d read about Africa Bambatta or someone like that playing a rock and roll record during a bloc party in the Bronx in the mid 80s and everyone going crazy. That kind of a thing appealed to me, building it up and getting the crowd in a frenzy, then playing something unexpected and it working brilliantly. I want to see people have a surprised moment on the dance floor, the first time I ever went to a club and Trevor Jackson was playing (a close friend and an attendee in the aforementioned fabric/Warp London nightclub crawl) at the Blue Note London at one of the Mo Wax nights. He was playing amazing records, so many things I hadn’t heard of. I’d go and see him DJ all the time after that.

Do you still like a night out to see DJ’s play?

Totally, if I’m around and there’s someone I want to see, I’ll go. Seeing Theo Parrish (legendary Detroit producer and master Eq fiend) down at Plastic People is still one of the great pleasures in life. I saw Moodyman in New York at an outdoor party and that was definitely really special. I watched James Blake the other night and I felt really relaxed and enjoyed it, and that’s so important to me. Doing what I do, I think you’ve still got to be in it. It’s dangerous when you see people that have run out of time to enjoy music as they’re so busy making it I really make an effort to have time in my life to enjoy music as well as making it.

You’re output the last few years has been a lot more dance floor orientated, opening your profile up a lot more. Do you think you’ll ever return to your earlier, down tempo stuff?

I hope I don’t go back to anything, that I move on to something completely different, things that haven’t been done before.

People say to me “I love the stuff you did on Rounds or Pause”, but that was 10 years ago and I did it, and happy with what I did so there’s not much need to go back there. As I put records out, it’s supposed to be a musical journey of what I’m going through. I never want to go back to stuff too easily.

You’ve collaborated with Thom Yorke and Burial, the latter you went to school with, were you friends before you started making music?

We knew each other from school, were in the same class together, so I was touch with him but lost contact after we left. We came back in touch through music when his first 12″ came out on Hyperdub, I bought it, didn’t know it was from him. Then, around the same time he sent me email, saying “Hi, I’ve started making music now as well” I was like “ahhhh!” I already bought that record, I love it! And we met up again and have been in touch ever since. I think he’s a genius, he’s put out some of the most staggering music of the last, (trails off) because we went to the same school we were there and had the same experiences in music.

And what artists have influenced you over your lifetime?

I’ve probably listened to Joni Mitchell once every fortnight for the last 20 years (laughs) but I don’t ever think, “I want to make a record like this”. I listen to it and think, “I love music, this takes me somewhere” But landmarks producers, we were talking about drum and bass when drum and bass happened, someone like Photek drew me into electronic music. We talk about hip-hop and hearing stuff like Wu Tang or all the stuff Premier was producing in the 90’s, that very much got me interested in sampling and looping. I was only 13 when Nirvana came out, it was hard not to get well excited by it! Things catch you at the right age, at the right moment and it blows your mind and get’s you into stuff, and that’s cool.

Joel Harris

Drift into FABRICLIVE 59: Four Tet from Fabric London on Vimeo.

In a digital age where virtual identities are ubiquitous, particularly within music, Shabazz Palaces is something of an anomaly. With no Facebook or Myspace page to speak of, the mystique that surrounds him is a genuine point of intrigue and fascination. As a marketing tactic it’s relatively trite but undeniably effective, and as such, is a slightly daunting task for the discerning interviewer to undertake.
A former member of the influential 90s Daisy Age collective Digable Planets, Palaceer Lazaro a.k.a Ishmael ‘Butterfly’ Butler cuts a unique figure in modern day hip-hop, whose new project glides along a more spiritual and bassy landscape while still being undercut with the darker moments that were present in his former band. As Shabazz, Butler has already dropped two combined EP’s, Of Light and the self-titled Shabazz Palaces, and the debut full-length Black Up happily fulfils all the hope that was planted in the aforementioned EPs; we are presented with a truly original, deeply intricate and spiritual examination of light and darkness and everything in between.

Bonafide: I’ll start with your most defining feature – the mystique and secretiveness. Did it not add extra pressure in the build up to the release of Black Up? Was there a threat of an anti-climax?
Shabazz Palaces: I think, looking at it in hindsight, it’s probably a little bit more dramatic than it actually was. I mean, when you’re actually doing something and you’re living it every day, and if you’re looking at it after the end result, it’s a different view. Whilst we were doing it we weren’t looking at it that way. Because while we were working on it, and even up to working on the artwork, no one was really talking about that kind of (anonyminity creating pressure) thing. We don’t really trip on shit like that, pressure from the outside world, from people who don’t know you and don’t care about you, you can’t let that stuff influence the way that you feel because you have no control over that. So trying to react to things you have no control over is kind of self-centred and a little megalomaniacal, so we don’t really travel down that vibe.

How important is identity in the modern world/ music industry?
I don’t know. I’ve never thought of it like that. It’s not up to me to decide that, we just make the music. We’re not making it and trying to pre-determine anything, we’re just making music and then let the music take us where it goes. We’re happy with any outcome. It’s all an opportunity, it’s all a blessing. We don’t looking at it like ‘Where do we stand?’ and ‘What are people thinking?’ we just do it because, at the end of the day, we have no control over that, so we don’t think about it that way.

By packaging Black Up and incorporating felt cover with sparkly gold paper – do cds still have a place in the digital age?
We love making music, so when we give it away and package it, we want it to demonstrate the love we have for it, the combination of the culmination of the work we put into it and a physical representation of our interpretation of the music and the sound, so we take those feelings in the end and come up with ideas with how to do it, an opportunity to do something fun and express ourselves so we go hard.

Do the longer song titles stand as a reaction to digital age of reductionism?
Nothing we do is a reaction to anything, it’s only an action. We don’t have a statement to make, we’re not trying to force people to do anything, it’s just our expression, the way we feel, we have no loftiness, we don’t feel like we have to tell people or instruct people, we just go the way we see it.

There appears to be a certain fascination with light – could you explain this?
It’s hard to say. Duality, you know. Perspectives.

It’s just that the way one thing can be seen from so many angles, there’s light and dark and all the gradients of those things, and how at all times in life, that’s making itself known, it’s pronouncing itself, we see it that way, so we speak on it like that.

In Islam doctrine, Shabazz was an ancient scientist from Mecca who led the ‘original people’ of the Tribe of Shabazz into Africa and is also Malcom X’s family name – do these have a bearing on your music and aesthetic?
It’s also the name of a school in St. Louis, it’s also the name of a hamburger joint that was in Seattle across the road from the high school that i went to. I mean it’s a name that, for us, for our people, it has a lot of different meanings. It’s ingrained in our culture. In all of those things, there is influence and meaning.

Could you explain the iconography on the cover?
It’s something that can be found, it’s revealed over time, it’s not a gimmick or a tagline or a story which we are using to promote. It is what it is, you know? It can be whatever it means to you, and that’s why we don’t talk about it.

We make music and then there are listeners, observers and critics, and once the music is made it’s up to the critics to do their thing, it’s up to y’all. You can talk about it and interpret the meanings but we don’t talk about it because that’s not our style.

But by naming the songs and the band, is that not going some way to giving your music a certain meaning and pre-determined outlook?
Well if you feel that way! Letters are symbols that when put together are words which are also symbols. One word can mean fifty different things to a million different people, so when you put a combination of those words together, then the meanings become even more possible and varied,  so I don’t know if it comes to a finality with the title but I guess I get what you’re saying.

Could you discuss the similarities between your video for Belhaven Meridian, and the film Killer of Sheep?
When it came out, it was the only movie of its kind by an African-American director, it’s in black and white and the story is a character study, and we all just felt inspired and empowered by it.

Could you explain the symbolic significance of the mask in the video?
SP: There’s no direct line from what you see or hear in a finished product and its inspiration. I’m not smart enough or cerebral enough to look at something that happened or that I was a part of creating and then go directly to its influence and then be able to call it out. Ideas come from places that you never really know.

Lev Harris

When sifting through the ubiquitous ‘best of’ lists at the tail end of last year, there was one distinctly noticeable trend wherever you looked; artists from the fledgling bass label Night Slugs kept on cropping up. Co-founders L-Vis 1990 and Bok Bok had a 2010 to remember, culminating in the release of their first compilation album, Night Slugs Allstars Vol. 1, a wide-ranging collection of tracks by artists on their roster. This critical and relative commercial success appears only to have whetted their appetite and fuelled a hunger for more releases for 2011. As such, Egyptrixx has continued the Night Slugs surge with his debut album Bible Eyes, the first full-length album to be dropped by the label, and as of last Friday, the debut release by Bok Bok, who steps up to the plate with Southside EP. Comprised of five tracks, it outlines the aesthetic of the label’s preoccupation with grime and techno most clearly heard on Reminder, which pervades with a sense of darkness and menace with its pulsating loops and thudding bassline; a texture that efficiently spreads itself across the whole EP, carving out its own unique niche in the process.

How did you come up with the name Night Slugs?
At the time when L-Vis and I started the club night we were playing a lot of bassline. And a lot of the tunes from the Northernline camp had this naming convention of ‘something Slugs’. There was “Arabic Slugs”, “Salt Slugs”, “Screwface Slugs” etc.

I really liked the word ‘Slugs’ as a description of that rounded ‘wamp’ bass sound, so I asked Paleface from Northernline if he was ok with us borrowing the naming format and he was ok cool with it. The ‘Night’ part is there to describe the more epic sort of celestial side to the music.

What made you want to expand Night Slugs from a club night to a label?
We were DJing together a lot, our sets felt cohesive and different to a lot of what was around already. The sound we were pushing for at the time wasn’t really being represented by other labels, and there were all these tracks floating about by like-minded artists and friends of ours. So at one point it just felt like the time was right.

What do you think it is about your label that appeals so much?
It’s hard to say but I think that behind it we’re a small circle of genuine, like-minded people, and I think that translates into our output. I don’t care about musical fads, I just want to contribute to a long heritage of great music and I think people can sense that from us.

How have you been received abroad?
Good! I’ve been travelling to DJ for a while before the label had even started out, so I’m not new to playing internationally, but definitely since we started doing the label there is more awareness of what we do further afield which can only be a good thing.

Following the success of the Night Slugs Allstars Vol.1, is there pressure to match it with each subsequent release?
I’m not stressed about that at all really – the way I’ve approached everything about the label has been to let things manifest themselves organically and just happen as they should. So by the time Vol 2 is due I’m sure we I’ll be sitting on a load of tracks just as good as Vol 1 if not better.

Why is it that producers are now moving more towards house?
I think Funky really opened the doors for our urban scene to really explore a lot of different territories that many wouldn’t have gone to before. In that sense Funky was really a watershed for a lot of us. House is a much more universal thing than, say, grime music. It doesn’t necessarily rely on culture or context; it’s a lot less niche-sounding by nature. The way it’s structured as club music, it has this unique ability to communicate to people far and wide. So it’s very effective glue for our diversifying scene.

I have read that Rinse has been a big influence for you. How important is pirate radio in general?
Pirates have been hugely important or me. I was listening to radio before I could even DJ myself. It was inspirational, hearing all this new music in such a covert way. I think we’re really lucky to have had that culture here in the UK. The new generation won’t necessarily get to experience it or appreciate it either, because the Internet has been the great leveller and streaming is so universal now. Locking into Rinse and De Ja back in the day felt pretty special.

You’ve previously mentioned about your solo EP that is coming out soon, can you tell us a bit about that?
My first full release on NS was almost 18 months into the life of the label. Last year everyone else’s releases kept me too busy to do my own, but I’m glad I waited that long. Southside EP is my new release and it just dropped actually.

It’s five tracks, and the whole thing really is an attempt by me to showcase the way I see grime production as just a form of crazy techno music. So there’s a lot of influences from both those genres as well as acid house.

Where do you see underground UK bass music heading towards at the moment?
I think it will continue to diversify, which makes some people panic because they don’t know how to class the music anymore. But I think it’s a good thing. Right now each camp seems to be focussing on developing their own house aesthetic, and I think that’s really cool. Maybe soon we won’t talk in terms of genres, but instead in terms of different record labels.

I’ve read about how important the club is to the overall aesthetic of your sound; what’s it like playing in tents at festivals?
A bit weird actually! I’m doing loads of them this year but I still feel like the dark basement with the huge system is my real home environment.

What big plans have you got for Night Slugs as a label in the near future?
Claude Vonstroke’s remix of Wut by Girl Unit is out soon, followed by a new EP by Jam City. Jam’s album will be out later this year as well, and eventually we will do an Allstars Volume 2 compilation. There’s also a new EP by Kingdom lined up for later this year, and others that I can’t talk about yet.

Lev Harris

“Industry rule number 4080, record company people are shady.”

Unfortunately Q-Tip has been proved right time and time again and no one knows this better than Bilal. His 2006 album, the tragically ironic titled, Love for Sale was deemed unmarketable by Interscope and then leaked mysteriously shortly after. While we live in a time where accidentally on purpose leaks are a promotional tool, for Bilal it was the final nail in the coffin and the album was never released. His debut album, 1st Born Second, with contributions from Dr. Dre, Mos Def and ?uestlove, was released in 2001 at the height of the Soulquarians movement, but he had to wait until last year to release the official follow up, Airtight’s Revenge. Having worked with Jay-Z, Common, and Talib Kweli, Bilal has remained a ubiquitous presence in hip-hop despite his label dramas. Now touring his own material David Acaster caught up with Bilal in London after his show at the Jazz Café to discuss J Dilla, the Love For Sale experience and Einstein.

Bonafide: You said that Airtight’s Revenge sounded like a film title, did you write the album as if it were a revenge film?
Bilal: I wrote the album not actually thinking it was a film, not in a concept of a film, but midway through I started to do that. The songs on the record aren’t the typical three minute songs, they’re considerably longer and that’s what lends itself to that whole film landscape type of a thing, a lot of intros and outros, parts where I’m not even singing, just vibe.

Do you listen to a lot of film scores?
I love soundtrack stuff, a lot of my favourite ideas are from movie stuff, like old Bruce Lee films, or Japansese films; I think they have the best background music.

On your first album, 1st Born Second, you worked with a lot of producers such as Dr. Dre and J Dilla, but since then you’ve handled more of the production yourself. Why did you choose to do that?
I did that because I was really going for a concept as opposed to a lot different sounds and expressions. I was really going for a sound and a cohesiveness.

Although you did work with Nottz and 88 Keys, what made them fit into the concept?
With Nottz and 88 the music is really open end. With 88, we were neighbours at the time and we were hanging out a lot and so he was listening to a lot of the stuff I had done already on my own for the album, and he kind of understood where I was going with it, I mean so it just kind of came about naturally.

What did you learn from working with J Dilla?

“Just his effortlessness, he didn’t really talk about the music too much, he just let the music speak for itself, he showed his skills in the music and that really hit me how effortless he was to his approach.”

Why do you think his music keeps being re-visited and used by artists even now?
Because it’s soulful. He made timeless hip-hop beats, you know so I think his stuff will always be fresh.

The Love For Sale album was clearly a difficult situation for you but what positives did you gain from the experience?
“I look at myself like a blues singer and every blues singer needs a story and that’s how I look at that whole Love For Sale situation. It was hard I guess but I used that as a positive to catapult me to make more music – now I have a story to talk about.”

Did you ever lose confidence in the album or even in yourself?
No I didn’t really lose that. I will say that I went through a period when I was frustrated because I worked so hard on the music. I went through a downer period, yeah.

How did it feel when people at your shows were singing back songs to you that shouldn’t have been leaked?
That’s one of the things that kind of turned things around, it’s like a catch-22, was kind of like a silver lining. It turned a negative into a positive by going to the shows and seeing the audience enjoying it, bringing it back, bringing that energy back, kind of rejuvenates it.

You took a couple of years off, not making your own music before your last album, how did that time help?
The time off gave me a chance to live life and re-evaluate things, so that was cool.

You are quite candid and honest in your lyrics, do you find it easy to be vulnerable like that?
Yes and no. On the song Little One I’m talking about my children and things like that; it is very vulnerable but I look at it like I do this music to inspire other people, I have to kind of open myself up to inspire.

Does having children make you feel a certain responsibility to set an example that you perhaps didn’t earlier in your career?

Absolutely, with children you have to set that example, it puts that charge on you to make great stuff that’s gonna last.

The lyrics to All Matter were from a poem you wrote about Einstein, do you use poetry a lot in that way?
I go through different moods, like I’ll write poetry, or sometimes you know I’ll get a book and draw a lot, I just go through different phases, and use all of that to create music.

You’ve collaborated with a lot of artists both mainstream and underground how does the experience differ?
Working with Jay-Z and and when I worked with Diddy a lot the music was already done, I just had to come in and sing it, but with other people we create together sometimes, it just depends.

Why do you think you are so sought after?
I think people just like my vibe, my voice and what I bring to a song. It’s just really me.

Your collaboration with Common on Love for Sale Sorrow Tears and Blood is a remake of the Fela Kuti song. How much of an influence is Fela?
Kuti was just… I like a lot of aspects, I like his political stance and what he brought to his country and I love his folky sensibilities. He really blended folk with jazz. It’s really awesome, it’s almost like a jazzier James Brown.

You’ve said that you feel you have a slightly lazy work ethic, why do you think that and does it frustrate you?
I maybe wouldn’t call it lazy, I work off of inspiration, I don’t force ideas. If a concept and the inspiration is there I work, I don’t pressure myself to work.

Has the reception and experience of Airtight’s Revenge encouraged you?
It definitely encouraged me, I will say that the music I wrote on this album was all, I’m not gonna say selfish, but I wrote myself out of a dark place. I think first and foremost, music is therapy for me and that really helped me on this record I used music in a different way. Sometimes you make music when you’re happy and when you’re sad, for all of those reasons and that’s what this album was, an album for me.

What’s next for you?
Playing a few more shows and actually what I feel like doing is making some more music, so when I get some down time, that’s what I’m gonna be doing just laying some things down.

Do you have plans to work with anyone in particular?
So far I’ve been working and doing a few things with Flying Lotus so I’m sure a few things will come out of that.

David Acaster

Yup, that’s right kids, for a limited time only you can read all back issues of your favourite art design and music magazine (or ‘a fucking hip-hop guide book’, according to Raekwon) online at Issuu.

We enjoy wasting the day away on the Internet whilst pretending to do work as much as the next person, but Bonafide is essentially a print magazine and in order to keep it that way we need to sell it. And to encourage you to buy it we’re giving away a free album from the legendary BBE records with every 2 issues ordered via our online shop. And that’s what we like to call bullshit free marketing.

All art is subjective. But there are some lyrics that, no matter the time nor place, will remain epically true; verses that represent a moment, feeling and passion in a way that demands preservation. Listening to Talib Kweli’s immaculate Blackstar collaboration with Mos Def, for example, it stands tall to this day – 13 years later – as a body of words that’s simply untouchable.

And when you get wrapped in Kweli’s profound lyricism that shook through Hi-Tek’s productions as Reflection Eternal, or his solo work that urgently kept hip-hop moving forward, it’s no wonder that the masters continually hold their hands up in respect, as seen in the trailers for his If Truth Be Told documentary (named after Jay Z’s props in Moment of Clarity: “If skills sold, truth be told/I’d probably be lyrically Talib Kweli”).

“Success is doing what you love for a living, period. My success is defined by how happy I am when I finish recording a song, and whether or not I’m able to feed my family.”

A Kweli song is power on tap, enlightenment for rent. Being someone that reps the community and equality (as he once famously stated, “My name is in the middle of e-Kweli-ty”), his words propel encouragement to keep your eyes open to the truths of the world. With powerful poetry and provocative wordplay as his weapons, and political outrage as his ammo, for the last 2 decades he’s been firing out the voice of the people.

Sitting down to talk with Kweli a few weeks ago, he wasn’t quite the lyrical mastermind one would expect from such a generous storyteller in rhyme. When prompted about the stories that led to the creation of his new album, Gutter Rainbows (released last month on Javotti Media), he sighed and said, “Different stories come up everyday.” And in explanation of his collaboration choices, he yawned out: “They’re my friends and they wanted to work, and I’m fans of their music.” Silence painfully hung in the air afterwards; his unsubtle way of saying he didn’t want to say more.

Often giving similarly disinterested answers consisting of a mere few words, it was hard to tell if he was bored with the grind of repetitive questions, or if maybe he’s just bored with the industry in general. The endless treadmill of interviews, shows, videos, people coming and going. And money coming and going…or these days, with the music business model crumbling, mainly just going.

The latter sentiment came up in an interview with Billboard last week, in which they called him out on being a sell-out. Kweli’s voice was featured in a Pepsi commercial for their NFL playoffs campaign, with custom lyrics that revolve around the drink. The irony is hard to ignore, even for the most uninvolved followers. But it’s understandably caused a backlash amongst the fans that duly cherished his lyrics over the years; here stands a proudly against-the-grain, fuck-the-man icon doing the most artless scheme of the capitalist world. Something that’s usually reserved for the money chasers in the Top 10 pop charts, not the man of the people.

In response to the haters, Kweli said point blank: “There’s a segment of my fan base that wants to believe that I’m in some basement somewhere with a notebook, with a backpack on, writing rhymes to Eminem instrumentals or something. So the idea that at this point [is that] I’m 35 years old and there’s no music business, and I have grown man responsibilities, so of course I’m going to get paid for my craft. And I’m going to work with companies that are willing to support the lifestyle.”

Interestingly, speaking to us about the notions of success, at one point he mentioned, “Success is doing what you love for a living, period. My success is defined by how happy I am when I finish recording a song, and whether or not I’m able to feed my family.”

As for his feelings about releasing his ninth album (including two with Hi-Tek, one with Mos and one with Madlib), he says rather bored, “I feel good about it. I leave the description for the journalists – I tend not to want to describe my music. Hip-hop is so loquacious, hip-hop describes itself. I want people to buy it. I tried to establish a sound that harkens back to my childhood. It’s up to the listeners to decide whether or not I actually achieved that.”

With Gutter Rainbows, the album has its moments, but overall it feels like an extension of our interview: just going through the motions, unengaged. He says that the album was inspired by “different types of music: black music, soul music, a lot of music. My output has been that in the past, but this is more of a laser-focus on that; it’s more a biographical album as opposed to talking about what a great rapper I am.” Yet songs like I’m On One almost sound like someone doing an impression of Kweli, with empty quips about his lyrical abilities. Though he does end the song with a provoking question – “This is America, ain’t it? When can I be free?”

“There are a lot of people who just don’t like the thought of a black president, and they found all sorts of excuses to divide the country because of their prejudices.”

Taking that into play, when we ask him how he feels about America these days, particularly the state of affairs with Obama, for once he lights up. The words fly out at a genuine sprint, bringing that Kweli eloquence and outrage that powers his lyrics. He tells, “I think that he’s doing probably the best job he can do but I think he’s having a rough time, and I think his presidency has actually brought out some of the worst aspects of our country. There are a lot of people who just don’t like the thought of a black president, and they found all sorts of excuses to divide the country because of their prejudices. That is an ugly, ugly thing that’s going on because it’s really rearing its ugly head to the point that we can’t even get anything done in Congress – we can’t even get anything done government-wise, because you’ve got other people on the other side of the party who are saying, ‘We’re just not gonna’ work with him.’ And they’re being supported by people.”

With his political stance still holding strong, and the people’s support at his forefront, at least his love for the art is in check. He says, somewhat robotically, but with an ounce of audible passion, “I’m a fan of hip-hop, I’m not just someone who gets caught up on trends. I just love music. There’s nothing I have to do extra to motivate me. I get up in the morning and I do what I love.”

For better or worse, outrage or no outrage, whether he’s a sell-out or someone that’s just trying to feed his family, as he says in Cold Rain: “I’m still standing right here.” And, just like his lyrics of the past, no one can refute that.

Sia Jewels