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Jaz-O - Once Bitten Twice Shy? Prt.2
Interview By: Melanie J Cornish
 Nobodysmiling.com : That’s like the fixation with hip hop right now the whole age thing.
Jaz-O : But to me, of course me.. I am young, I can do everything, and I look like him but I’m my age. The media plays a role in training people’s thoughts to these things, so that the public thinks not just in Hip-Hop but in all aspects of life the media’s responsible for and people don’t even realize. These people think that it’s their thoughts, like they think it, but they don’t realize that they’ve been duped into thinking these things.
 Nobodysmiling.com : It’s just like they mentally drain people to think this way, they drain you of your opinion that’s the thing.
Jaz-O : Yeah because they put it in a certain light; they put it in a perspective like if there’s some big fat dirty nasty person that doesn’t take care of themselves and they talk about all types of negative things and everything else which is Hip-Hop now anyway. Clean them up a little bit, put a whole bunch of jewelry on them and all the other things that they’ve trained people to see as favorable things; they can market that. So they can have them say what they say and these things are favorable so when you have these people saying, the young thing, when you turn 30-something you’re too old to be rapping and everything else.
That’s what people think because they’re the fans of these people who are saying it. The media and the people who control the media have an agenda of creating this type of mindset because what you gotta understand, like a lot of people they might say it’s a racists statement, but the truth of the matter is if you look at white society, white culture if you want to call it that, I’m not a racist I’m just telling it how it is, if you look at white-so called culture, what do they do with their elderly? They put them in homes; every other culture in the world, they don’t do that.
Nobodysmiling.com : They look after them.
Jaz-O : Exactly. The thing is that, that mind state is carried over because that’s what controls the media, so they control, that’s their mentality so they are the ones who push that agenda and push that mind state onto something that was created by Black Culture which is Hip-Hop which is also R&B, Blues, Soul which to me is all the same music, it’s just commercialized in one form or another and that’s what it is. So now because in early black culture and even to this day what is changing now because of the influence of the media, early black culture the elders were held in the highest esteem, that when there was a problem in the family, with the community, where did they go? They went to their elders, because the elders have the knowledge and experience.
But now they’re making elders something, ‘oh you’re useless because you can’t type as fast and because you can’t talk as fast, you don’t think the way you used to and you’re not sharp and you don’t have this youthful look’ and white culture has that fear of getting those wrinkles and everything else because it’s a sign of it being over for them because of the lack of spiritual knowledge. It’s a spiritual knowledge, they just think when it’s over it’s over, now you have black society thinking the same thing, thinking that when you die it’s over, it’s like there’s nothing else.
Nobodysmiling.com : With age comes experience we are told [laughing]. But when you look at the likes of Cool Herc, Big Daddy Kane, KRS One, they never got checks like the dudes who are out now; particularly those from the Golden Era who were the ones who started getting the real big checks. Is that what keeps the so called over 30’s putting out albums, the money or is it the love for hip hop?
Jaz-O : Right now, it’s definitely the money and even for artists like me, it’s definitely the money but it’s a different perspective totally because of the reason why we started doing it. The reason why, I can speak for myself definitely, the reason why I started doing it, my goal wasn’t to make a record; my goal was that it was something that I came upon and was like ‘this is something that I wanna do.’ I was ready in elementary school, I was writing poetry; it was just something about writing words that came together so when MC’ing came into play which wasn’t even Hip-Hop yet, Hip-Hop was a standard name even though Hip-Hop goes so far back a lot of people don’t remember anything before it ever being Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop was the standard name for it, that was something that they coined it to be because the people that were about to commercialize it didn’t know what the hell it was.
They called it Hip-Hop which designated how ni**ers walk for the most part, we got a hop to our step, and the music and everything it was people bopping, that’s what they called it, the same way with the Blues, when they upgraded to Blues and they were merging it with a kind of soul, they started calling it what? Bee Bop. The same thing with that jazz aspect, when it started to get a little more hip, they called it Bee Bop. They called what we knew as B Boy Hip-Hop and B Boy wasn’t just the music, B Boy was the whole culture; it was the big laces in your sneakers, the graffiti, the jacking electricity from the light posts to having a block party setting up turntables outside, break dancing, it was the whole culture and the DJ’ing and the MC’ing. The MC was just the hype for the DJ.. the MC was just the dude describing how incredible the DJ was…
Nobodysmiling.com : Do you believe there needs to be changes?
Jaz-O : Yeah, because change is growth, and growth means that it’s living.
Nobodysmiling.com : Nas saying Hip Hop is dead?
Jaz-O : That’s his opinion
Nobodysmiling.com : My question is this though, do you feel that he instigated people step up their game with that statement?
Jaz-O : Yeah, because a lot of times it creates, I don’t know if he understands the science of it, but we live in a universe of polarity, that’s what this tangible physical universe is based upon where you can’t have one thing… the one thing polarity, it’s the same thing it’s just two different sides of the pole, like there’s no difference between love and hate, it’s really the same thing it’s just 2 different sides of the polarity. Just like energy, you have what they call positive energy and negative energy, energy is energy.
So the thing is its like say for instance when you say God, either subconsciously you think about the devil, or when you say the devil you associate it with God, because they created that as two polarities as far as in terms of the definitions of the two. So when he says "Hip-Hop is Dead", to most people it will be like a traumatic thing, it’s like when you hear somebody dies you want them to be alive; because you feel like you’re separated from them so you want to attach, you wanna go to the funeral; you wanna hug them so you create the opposite emotion of the result of what was said.
So if Nas knows the science of that, then that was very good, I’m impressed a little bit. But if not then still it’s cool because it creates a platform and it creates a condition for change in Hip-Hop which would designate and show that, or create growth and growth means life.
Nobodysmiling.com : Interesting. One more question I want to ask about the Jay-Z situation, were you ever a part of Rocafella, were you ever part of the company?
Jaz-O : No, ‘cause when you say the company that means I was either signed or getting a salary and... no to both of those.
Nobodysmiling.com : Why not, you were so involved with Jay-Z and his development and stuff?
Jaz-O : That was the major part of the problem, where I put my work in and when it came time for dividends all they had for me was to approach me with an artist deal where I would receive no advance. This is the thing they talked about on the radio; he tried to make it seem like I felt I was too good for whatever they were offering me.
Nobodysmiling.com : But no advance?
Jaz-O : And then they said the whole thing, the way Jay-Z put it when he was on the radio with Angie Martinez, he said that they offered me $150,000 to do an album and I said ‘no.’ But all of the stuff in between, like I said ‘do I have control of the budget?’ they were like ‘no,’ well I was like do I have control of at least administering the PO’s to the studio, they said ‘no.’ I said well do I get some kind of advance so I can live being that I’m not going to hustle and do whatever else I do during the time I’m recording my album, ‘no’.
So what was I supposed to say? There’s no way in the world, no way in life I’m doing this type of deal and that’s what he left out, and that’s why to me he added insult to injury because he had the opportunity. Everybody was listening to him because he was speaking on me and he was speaking on Nas at the time and he had an opportunity to rectify... but because of his ego and because of his fear of me as an artist and as a person... which he shouldn’t have if he really knew who I was he wouldn’t fear me at all. Because of those things, he said the things that he said, but also to me his lack of character and that to me; those were the main factors and he made it what it is today and the reason it’s not even worse that what it is, is because of me.
Nobodysmiling.com : If you could cut out the biggest misconception that people have of you what would it be?
Jaz-O : That I’m difficult, I’ve heard it in certain circles and it’s not peoples thoughts it’s what they’re made to think because of who influences them. I think that Jay-Z gave a perception to certain people that I’m difficult to work with and that I’m not a very friendly person, and I’m a very... like an introverted person. I’m an introvert like I don’t wanna be bothered with people, so to a certain extent that’s true, but the difficult to work with aspect is totally wrong.
Anybody who knows me they know just whether you like me or not I’m one of the most fair, fairest people you’ll ever meet. I’m just fair. If I don’t like you you’re gonna know, and if I like you you’re gonna know, but either way I’ll treat you with love and respect and I’m just universally fair and anybody that knows me like I’ve said or anybody who meets me they’ll understand, they’ll understand perfectly. Through the years I’ve changed a lot of peoples perceptions of what they’ve heard about me and they’ve told me, they’re like ‘yeah they told me this that and the other, and now I see how it really is,’ and I’m like I’m glad you see, and maybe you’ll see even further as far as stop taking people’s word for what is and just find out for yourself.
Don’t look at people just because you honor that person and think everything that comes out of their mouth is the truth, like it’s the same thing with movies! How many times you asked somebody who saw a movie, and they say “oh that movie was wack” and you didn’t go to the movie until later on or it came out on DVD or cable and you looked at the movie and was like “I like this movie.” Like people tell me that, it was somebody told me "Usual Suspects" was wack and I was like it’s one of my favorite movies of all time, it’s just how it is, you gotta think for yourself, and of course he plays on that. People like him, I have to say it like that, play on that ‘cause they know that most of these people don’t have minds of their own, they don’t have opinions of their own, their opinions are based on the opinions and the working the mental workings of people who they admire.
Nobodysmiling.com : So with the up and coming projects, what is the deal with those, you know the anthology and such?
Jaz-O : I am doing a three volume audio series called "Jaz-O The Legacy" which will comprise of a lot of my early stuff, a lot of my unreleased early stuff, like I said it will be an anthology. It will go from all my early stuff to almost present day, I have serious production features that were never released, some stuff that was released overseas on vinyl that never saw the light of day domestically.
I have this freestyle from 87 which is myself, Jay-Z and Kane. It will just go chronologically and then I am hosting the mixtapes and we are going to close up work on the DVD which is going to be semi-documentary form which is called 'Jaz-O: Be There', the title of one of my songs. If I am not doing what people love then I am not doing my job.
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