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S.A.S. – Raw, Uncut & Unedited
Interview By: Mina Jasarevic
 They’ve been called “hip-hop’s rock stars” due to their chic fashion feel (they look so mean in jeans and fresher than farm strawberries ever since they stepped on the scene). Aside from unique fashion sense, good looks and a charming British accent, S.A.S. is also well recognized for their global appeal. Born to Nigerian parents and birthed in London, England, their residence itinerary also includes the U.S. and Belgium. They quickly caught interest of the majors in the game including Kanye West and Damon Dash, who quickly signed S.A.S. to Diplomat/Roc-A-Fella. They created the concept of Dipset Europe due to their then-affiliation with The Diplomats, which resulted in their appearance on Diplomatic Immunity 2. And although Dipset Europe has been scratched off the business curriculum due to poor initiative from those in charge, S.A.S. has proven time and time again that they do not sit by the phone and wait around with their arms and legs crossed – for anyone.
Part of the Eurogang movement - which consists of rappers, producers and staff, S.A.S is coming through harder than ever and their work ethic shows it. Releasing six mixtapes up to date (not even counting the collaborations and features) – including their latest, Where is S.A.S.? – Mayhem and Mega are breaking barriers of hip-hop, the music industry and mainstream ignorance – all at once. On an early Saturday morning, Nobodysmiling.com caught up with the brothers to discuss their latest mix-tape, their global appeal and the ugly truth of the music industry.
 Nobodysmiling.com : First off, your next project, Where is S.A.S.? – when is it being released?
S.A.S. : It is being released on iTunes on the 17th of December and it’ll be available through our PayPal.
Nobodysmiling.com : Can you tell us a bit about it?
S.A.S.: Basically, it’s really a mix-tape but it has a lot of original songs on it; predominately original songs on it. The features on there, we’ve got like, Stack Bundles, 40 Cal, Remo Da Rapstar…there are a few features on there and we got Eurogang on there of course.
Nobodysmiling.com : Was it intended as an album?
S.A.S. : Nah, it wasn’t intended for it to be an album. It was always intended to be a mix-tape. With the mix-tapes you do kind of get a feel of what we’re about, who we are…we just gave ‘em a lot of heat, a lot of impact; it’s less of that soulful sound. It’s more like… you can play it in your car, let’s say you’re going to a club, or even play it on the block, whatever. It’s high-powered, it gets you hyped, that’s the kind of thing we did.
Nobodysmiling.com : What type of beats are you going after these days?
S.A.S. : We’re just going for anything – we don’t really have a set sound of the beats we like. We just want anything that’s just crazy. So when a producer asks ‘what type of beats…are you looking for this sound or that sound’, we’re like ‘whatever’s hot, we don’t really mind’. So right now we go for the beats with the most impact.
Nobodysmiling.com : You and your brother have been very consistent with mix-tape releases – coming out with six of them I believe since 2004 (not even including your collaborations). Can you tell us a bit about your work ethic?
S.A.S. : Our work ethic is crazy. Sometimes our work ethic exceeds our level. Our music, we make so much it’s like it doesn’t get to get out there as much as the amount of music we make. Sometimes we make so much music that people hear things we did like a year ago and it’s fresh to everyone else but we know it’s old to us. We kind of – not hold it back, but we just wait for the timing to be right before we put it out there because you don’t want to put it over people’s heads. It’s hard to digest a lot of songs on the tapes sometimes. They might be like ‘oh I like this song’, and after listening to it they kind of get an understanding about the songs they missed out – but they may not have that understanding if they hear everything all at once.
Nobodysmiling.com : Let’s move on to Eurogang. A lot of people in North America are not familiar with it. Can you introduce us?
S.A.S. : Well basically, the Euro is a revolutionary organization…So Eurogang, it consists of Mega, Mayhem, Haze, Biggs…FYI production, they supplying all the beats and all that…it’s a lot of people, even the people that don’t rap –
Nobodysmiling.com : - So what are you guys going after? What is the concept of Eurogang?
S.A.S. : The whole Eurogang thing is just basically, it’s art. Like how Cam has got Dipset and Jay has got Rock-a-Fella - which is more like a label, Eurogang is a family. So it’s just really a tight circle, the whole sound. That’s pretty much it. We had Eurogang before there was affiliation with Dipset so it’s just something we continued doing. Haze has a new video out for one of his songs…we got a few mix-tapes with Eurogang.
Nobodysmiling.com : I keep hearing that you got Kanye’s interest. But what does that really mean? Are there any actual business plans in the making?
S.A.S. : Well, basically, this is what it was. We had a meeting with a person from Warner Brothers and he was hollering saying he was interested in signing us…but you know how these labels are, there’s always a catch – you need a co-sign, that’s what they said. He was like ‘Jimmy/Cam’. We’re like ‘No Jimmy/Cam’. They’re supposed to allocate us a deal as far as we are concerned. We had cases where we couldn’t be in America for the last three years before that…so it was kind of like ‘Huh’? Like how are we gonna get with a label and then they’re saying they need to executive produce our album and get it co-signed by them and they couldn’t even so much as get us a meeting to get us deal? So we’re like ‘Nah, we’re not clowns. No, Cam and Jimmy are not going to executive produce our albums and it’s not going down like that’. And then he was like ‘Kanye, Kanye you got a good relationship with him, ask him to co-produce your album’.
But in my head, I’m thinking, we don’t need a co-signer number one, and number two, this is a joke. Like, you would take someone who’s wack if Kanye West was executive producer on his album. So really, you’re just another person who’s scared to take risks again. So I’m like ‘this shit is &*%%&$@#’. The last time we saw Kanye, when we did the “Cheerio” video, he actually wanted us on his Graduation album. That’s what he told us…but we kind of respect when someone is just buys on their grizzle. Like we don’t really try to ‘Can we get some, can we get some beats?’ We just let them do them. He showed love in our video, that’s cool. ‘Cus I’ve seen videos with songs he’s actually on but he’s not in the video, so that’s some real *&%^. But when we was at the video, we got to talking and everything…he was like ‘You should have been on my last album, I’m gonna try to get you on my next album’.
Everyone’s gonna just jump on it when we get the official hit. But why do we need a co-signer? We don’t know Busta Rhymes, we met him before but we don’t really know him. But he’s on T.V. saying ‘Their sound is crazy’. What co-signs do you need? Do you need the whole rap industry saying ‘Yeah, S.A.S.’ Everyone that’s shook, we’re not really interested.
Nobodysmiling.com : OK. There have been statements made by U.K. critics that S.A.S. was not sticking to its British roots by using U.S. slang. How are you guys accepted in the U.K.?
S.A.S. : We’re accepted. You know what it is? It’s like they want us to conform to the way that they want us….like we use American slang - that’s nonsense. Because we put Americans onto the U.K. slang. We put people we know like Santana and other artists up on how we speak and they’re using slang. On the street, S.A.S. that’s it, it’s all they know, all they care about, they don’t care about no one else.
The industry, they don’t like it, they are very pop-oriented. They don’t know about rap, they don’t know about hard life, nothing. They don’t know about portraying your lifestyle within your raps and spitting really what you live about. It’s hard for them to really digest it because they don’t know what it’s about. Obviously we’re going to rap with a certain slang that America is going to understand because hip-hop is an American art-form so obviously we’re gonna say “our whip”. People say that out here on the streets or whatever. Like “Oh yeah, I’m always in my whip”. That didn’t start over here but somehow it got here, you know what I mean? * laughs* They’re not gonna say something else, make up another slang word for a car. So people that say that are ignorant and I don’t think they listen to our music that much. We had a slang dictionary in our streets that we released in ’05. I don’t know how many artists have done that; I don’t think actually any artists have done that -
Nobodysmiling.com : Wait, wait, wait – you released a street dictionary?
S.A.S. : Yeah, we got a street dictionary in the end of our Streets All Salute release in ’05 for people to understand U.K. slang. So when we say certain things in our rap, they would say ‘Oh, what does this mean?’ or ‘What does that mean?’ ‘I like these guys’ spittin’ but I can’t understand them’, so we kind of give it to them in that way.
Nobodysmiling.com : That’s very interesting.
S.A.S. : Yeah, definitely. That’s what we’re about. We’re not gonna come to America and start doing what Americans do ‘cus that makes no sense. We’ve always been considered different because we reside and have been born and raised in London. So, that sounds preposterous. We was always considered the London Boys, come through with the whole different swagger. That’s been the whole thing, ever since the freestyle on Hot 97…
Nobodysmiling.com : On the other hand, statements have been made that mainstream U.S. hip-hop culture is not ready to accept British rappers due to accent differences. What is your comment on that?
S.A.S. : I think that’s also an ignorant thing to say. Because Southern people – people from the South – they got accents too. People in New York don’t understand half of the things that people in the South say; the slang they use, it’s just the whole way they rap… it’s hard to digest. Like Rich Boy, sometimes I can’t even understand some of the stuff he says in his verse but I still like his music, you see what I’m saying?
I don’t believe that, I think that’s just being ignorant. And they haven’t even tested it yet. They don’t want to risk it. I feel like as soon as that one person comes out from there (U.K.), then everyone will want to sign someone from the U.K. No one’s got the balls to take the risk, basically. We’ve known big people in the game who are serious and they be like ‘I like the music, I think you can be very big, but I don’t know if it’s gonna work with the whole accent thing’. So it’s like mmm, whatever, you just scared, you can’t take any risks. And scared money don’t make money.
Dame was onto us then everyone was tryin’ to holla’, it was crazy. Not to say people are jumping on our bandwagon, but it’s kind of like when you’re hot and it seems that people that are respected in this industry are interested in you, that’s kind of like when everyone else wants to be…pretty much, it is what it is, I’m just trying to be polite - but I’m just gonna keep it real. If you’re popping, then everyone’s trying to be on your &*#$. But if it seems like no one’s interested in taking a risk then you’re just standing in the background, even if you know it’s hot. There’s nothing to do about it until everyone says ‘That #$%^’* crazy’ and someone jumps on it - then everyone wants to. That’s some groupie #$%^ to us. Because the streets just listen to the music. When I say streets, I don’t mean just people that…I mean the public, the consumers. They listen to music and they enjoy good music regardless if it’s got an accent or if it’s got a different dialogue, whatever…At the end of the day, we’re speaking English, we’re not rapping in another language so it’s just dumb – you can understand what I’m saying way more than half of the people that are from deep, deep, South. *laughs* You can understand what I’m saying, straight up. There’s an accent on it but you know every word that I’m saying. But that’s what makes you unique, that’s what makes you different.
Nobodysmiling.com : I’m glad you answered that because a lot of the times critics put things out there and people read their opinion but the artists themselves don’t get a chance to respond back –
S.A.S. : That’s why I’m glad you asked me that question.
Nobodysmiling.com : Good, good. You guys are born to West African parents – Nigerian to be exact. You come from the U.K. and have lived in the U.S. That’s at least three different identities right there. How do you take advantage of your global status?
S.A.S. : We’ve lived in Belgium for three years too so…That’s why we make music on a global scale. We don’t just make music for London or just the U.K. or just cater to America…we kind of just make it in a way that everyone can feel it, like global. We’ve done shows in Spanish-speaking countries where people don’t even understand English, half of it. But they can feel the swagger and energy we bring to the table and I think that’s important too. Because it’s not only about just rapping, it’s like the whole thing. It’s your image, it’s your life-style. There’s hardly any stars in the U.K. because everyone wants to conform to what the industry says is hot and good. And on top of that, they don’t carry themselves with enough confidence. Because over here there’s a thin line…because when you’re over-confident, they feel like ‘Oh yeah, you’re being boastful, you’re arrogant’ or whatever else. But they’re quick to just start praising American artists that come out here and are poppin’ and doing big.
Nobodysmiling.com : Right. So they’re not supporting their own, basically?
S.A.S. : No, they’re not supporting their own. They talk a whole lot about supporting their own and they don’t support their own over here. And a lot of artists won’t say it but us, we don’t care, ‘cus we keep it all the way straight and just say ‘Look man, they don’t support nothing’. How are we gonna get deal offers from all kinds of big labels in the States and artists in the States, and we ain’t even getting an offer, a deal out here? No one has deals, they’re all independent artists. No rapper has deals like that. So if that was ever to happen, that would be the first, do you know what I mean?
We knew Marsha from Floetry when we was little kids. She taught May(hem) to count bars. She’s the one who took him in the studio. And look at her – they told her the track that she wrote for Michael Jackson, “Butterfly”, was an album filler – or intro, whatever. And look how big that song was! She ended up doing background vocals in the booth with Michael Jackson on that song. And that was like a smash that brought him back to an era of people who didn’t even know who Michael Jackson was. Talk about this country, as far as I’m concerned, this country is *&%%^&*$ as far as industry. I don’t care, I’ll just say it. Ain’t no artist bigger than Michael Jackson – that’s like Coca-Cola, Mickey Mouse and all that.
It just made us more hungry; we’re making them look really stupid now, we’re just taking it into fifth gear now. You’re talking like we ain’t winning the race. We’re laughing at you so much, you can’t even tell that we’ve already won the race. We’re doing the victory lap while you ain’t even finished the race.
Nobodysmiling.com : How has the support been in Nigeria?
S.A.S. : Nigeria’s pretty supportive. We’ve done interviews with Cam in the U.K. that ended up in Nigeria and we didn’t even know. Our cousins that live there was like ‘Oh, we saw you on T.V., we’re going crazy, we can’t even believe that, we’re relating and everything.’ Nigeria is very supportive of artists that are Nigerian, they are very patriotic. It’s just that at first, a lot of them didn’t know that we are Nigerian so now we’ve made it a must to say things like “London-born Nigerian”. And just dropping little lines on our music, our freestyles, whatever, just so people know our heritage, where we’re coming from. And we’ve been to Nigerian too, in like 2002, and we’ve been out there in the village and staying there and everything.
So we take this global thing to levels unknown. And when we travel, we don’t do the whole sight-seeing thing, we’re in the hood. Not to be like ‘Oh yeah, we’re Gs’. No, we be in the hood like wherever we go. And you can’t tell us like we don’t spit crazy, and you can’t tell us our lifestyle is not crazy, there’s no way you can tell us that. That’s the whole thing with us, that’s why we’re like a different scale of fish. We’re not no London guys on some Englishman and New York *&%^. We’re coming out there on some like ‘Alright, we’re from London but we’re gonna smash every artist you bring on the table to bits. And you’re gonna look crazy because we’re doing this independently with our bread’. And they need to know there ain’t no A&R on our projects. Between me and May, we market, promote and do everything. We only got A&Rs involved in the last two years. And that’s our A&Rs that we hired; we see they got the work ethic, they got the grind, they got the same vision as us. So we empower the people that work with us.
But as far as we’re concerned…DJ’s, Djs….I’m a keep it real too. Mixtape DJ’s, they’re clowns too. They’re *^&$#^&@#@ as well. They’ll just play people that they know people already know about. They don’t break artists no more. They *&^%&$ up the game because they don’t break new artists no more. They’re followers. This is not an album in stores, so you can’t be choosing big names. Why do we need to hear big names on mix-tapes all the time if we already know who they are? How about they take it back to the days of late 90s when you get a mix-tape and you never heard of someone? They spit some crazy bars and you be like ‘Oh &*^%, whose that?’ And you find out who it is…Those days are over.
Nobodysmiling.com : Makes sense. How about Baby Blu, the U.K. female rapper. I want to know what made you guys choose to do a collabo just because a lot of artists – especially in the U.S. – stay away from doing collaborations with females.
S.A.S. : We met her from early, from before a lot of things were popping and she always used to rep us crazy and on top of that she’s hard too. She had the same outlook as us. ‘I think we need to go to America and blow it there’. Because some people out here, they just want to be on some, just like, putting their music out here and not take it to the next level. And since she had the same outlook as us, we decided to do a song. She went through the same kind of thing (as us) where she felt like the U.K. industry and everything is just not supportive as it should be. So we just went and did the “Hold me” song where we talked about the U.K. like it’s a person, like we were scorned about it; therapeutic for us more than anything. It’s the industry more than the people…sometimes it seems like you’re not on your sh!t.
Nobodysmiling.com : What can we expect in the near future?
S.A.S. : Family Vacations, that’s gonna come out. Coming to America p.2, that’s with Eurogang really. We’re gonna drop Streets All Salute p. 2 as soon as we get an independent deal. As soon as these labels wake up and realize our worth and give us a nice figure. We’re gonna still keep on putting out music anyway, regardless. And we got monthly footage of “Where’s S.A.S.?” People want to know where we are, our travels and what we’re doing on a monthly basis, so that’s gonna be out on our Myspace (www.myspace.com/streetsallsalute).
Nobodysmiling.com : Thank you.
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