|
Kidz In The Hall - Epoch
Interview By: Mina Jasarevic
 They don’t need an introduction, they need your attention. For some reason, a number of hip-hop fans are still walking around unaware of Kidz In The Hall. Unconscious of the producer/MC duo Double O and Naledge who worked with and received recognition from the best in the game including Common, Kanye and Lupe.
Together and separately they released four mixed CDs as well as their first album, 'School Was My Hustle' (2006). 2008 is around the corner and the Kidz are completing their latest project, The In Crowd. With feel-good production, a lyrical showdown and an array of features that deservingly blend in with the Kidz melody, the word is out and we’re waiting to hear it. In the meantime, Nobodysmiling.com caught up with the movers and shakers of hip-hop to discuss 'The In Crowd', hip-hop’s loss of balance and the replacement of Common and Kweli (as Kenny G provides the vibe for the interview).
Double O : What up? What are you gonna talk to us about? And it better not be the same questions that other people always ask which are posted on the site…YES, Naledge and I met at the University of Pennsylvania……
Nobodysmiling.com : No, I’m not gonna’ ask that, people heard it already. I do want to talk about the up-coming CD, The In Crowd. When is the release date?
 “ Double O : When it’s good and ready! Nah, it’ll come out March/early April ’08. That’s when the CD full of utter greatness comes out.
Nobodysmiling.com : Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Double O : Greatness is meant to be heard, not explained *laughs*. It’s a concept-collaboration album. What we wanted to do is reach out to people that respected what we were doing and people that we thought were forward-thinking and next class in terms of hip-hop; the people who are gonna be around ten years from now.
Nobodysmiling.com : And these people are?
Double O : Phonte from Little Brother, Camp Lo, Black Milk, Guilty Simpson; a new R&B singer from the U.K. by the name of Jason Jermaine; one of the new electro-pop artists that we’re working with, Tim William; another new artist from Cleveland by the name of Chip the Ripper; Pusher from the Clipse…
Nobodysmiling.com : Great list. What will separate The In Crowd from other releases dropping in ’08?
Naledge : A lot of times you have people who have a lot of good ideas but they don’t get executed well. We have a little bit of something for everybody. Classic albums are made organically and they set the mode and they set trends and that’s what this album is doing – hence the name The In Crowd. The In Crowd is always the trend-setters, the people that people follow. We chose the title because there’s a feature on every song.
It’s not like we just put people on the song. We chose people we respect and really want on these records. We’re taking hip-hop as an art-form. We’re saying it’s not about being gangster, it’s not about being a backpacker, it’s not about being conscious, it’s not about being a trapper, it’s about being dope. And that’s what we’re trying to present, all in one pot. Our style encompasses everything and that’s what we want people to know. Before people kind of looked at us as true school or backpack or conscious or whatever and that’s all good and well but you’re not gonna box me in, I create my own box *laughs*.
Nobodysmiling.com : What can we expect from the album lyrically?
Naledge : It’s an evolution. As a lyricist, for me, the newest thing is the hottest thing. The next round I write, I feel is the best one. It was kind of hard to be just performing rounds from two years ago and not being able to get the public new stuff. But we have to promote the record and properly get it out there ‘cause at the same time I was working on my solo record and we already had most of this new album done while we were promoting our last album so I was itching to get new music out there.
It’s a lot of progress and a lot of evolution lyrically and a lot more topics I touched upon. And it’s my life – my life has changed a lot in the past three years. Rocking from a dorm room perspective and a fresh out of school struggling artist in LA perspective, leaving the cubicle to go the studio perspective, and now, I wake up and I do music 24/7. And I’ve seen so many different countries and absorbed so many different cultures, so many different places…it’s hard not to evolve in some way.
Nobodysmiling.com : How do you challenge yourself in terms of lyricism?
Naledge : I’m competitive. Some people are in it for money; I just want to be the best. A lot of people say that but I really look at myself as an artist. The same way you look at Picasso, the same way you look at Salvador Dali, that’s how I want people to look at the way I construct rhymes. There’s an art to making rhymes, there’s an art to doing this.
And I feel like I’m good – but I want to be great. I want people to recognize what I do long past the point where I put down the mic. I’m not trying to compete with Jay-Z; I’m not trying to compete with Lupe. I’m trying to be considered great on a Quincy Jones level, on a very different level. And that’s ambitious but that’s who I’ve always been.
Nobodysmiling.com : What can we expect in terms of production?
Double O : A very special magical ride and sonic greatness. I think that honestly we were really deliberate with the first album; we wanted to make a good hip-hop album. So our thing was like ‘Yo, we’re gonna make a good hip-hop album that a kid who’s in the eight or ninth grade right now can listen to and say it’s a dope hip-hop album’. So, in doing so, sonically, we had to find a very specific sound and ride with it.
So in case people got the wrong idea of who we were as artists because they heard this music and said ‘OK this is backpack rap’ but it’s just a good hip-hop album. So with this one, we’re just being who we are. We’ve evolved a lot in the past year, year and a half, from the first time. We’ve traveled all around the world a few times and we just like to pick up a lot of those things and incorporate it in…so this was fun production-wise for me because I can think in a way that is it essentially gonna work for Naledge and the prospective artist?
A song with Phonte and Naledge is gonna sound a certain way but it’s gonna have a different feel than a song that’s produced for Naledge and Tim William or a different singer. It’s really high-energy, a lot of fun, and just loving life – that’s the feeling you get when you listen to the production.
Nobodysmiling.com : Why did you guys decide not to go with Rawkus Records?
Naledge : They didn’t have the chips, they didn’t have the bread. To be honest with you, we was like ‘&*^% them’. They don’t want to put no money behind us then we don’t want to put no album behind their brand. We came to a good place with another label that really was interested in making us stars and getting our music to where it needs to be…what kind of label tells you that they gonna ship 7,000 albums and expect you to be broke as an artist? I don’t care what kind of brand your label is as a story from history and &^*%, this is real life, I gotta pay my rent – and 7,000 records shipped ain’t paying my rent.
They were fans and we needed a label. We have fans. We have people who admire our work, and I will give them credit for giving us an entry into the game and giving us a lane and an opportunity but they did not put the work in on our first project. We put the work in. Our management did; everything you saw, all the press you saw…we were our own publicists, we were our own A&R, we were our own tour managers, we were our own web masters, we did everything ourselves. And if we’re doing everything ourselves, why was your logo on everything? What are you bringing to the table other than the fact that people remember that you guys had records a long time ago?
All they were bringing to us was nostalgia. They weren’t the people they were when they were breaking Mos Def, breaking Talib Kweli and breaking Pharoahe Monch. You gotta spend money in this game and the game has changed; they entered a four-year hiatus. During that time, it went from the street team to the digital team and they lost the opportunity in between there. A lot of the artists that would have been with Ruckus like Kanye West, like Eminem, they went to other labels when Rawkus was gone. And now it’s like what are you doing now?
Nobodysmiling.com : So what label is releasing your album?
Double O : Major League Entertainment and Duck Down Records; it’s a joint venture for the album.
Nobodysmiling.com : How did you decide to go with Duck Down and why?
Double O : We have the same vision of where the group should be in the next year and with this next album. They came to us with a plan that prior to we didn’t necessary have. They respected us on a business level as well as a musical level and it was the same with us toward them because of their success with 9th Wonder and Buckshot and then Sean Price. Over the past years [Duck Down Records] has definitely cemented in terms of a great Indie hip-hop label. Once we really sat down and spoke on it, it made sense.
Nobodysmiling.com : What did you take in university?
Double O : Systems engineering.
Naledge: Marketing and communications.
Nobodysmiling.com : Why is hip-hop media placing so much emphasis on the fact that you’re both educated?
Naledge : ‘Cause it’s different. Every type of product in the market place has to be differentiated from the next product. And what makes us completely unique in the eyes of most record executives, most writers - the people involved in the process of making music and getting us seen in the media - is that we went to an Ivy League school and that represents a certain level of intelligence that isn’t displayed in hip-hop too often.
But I don’t think that’s to say that you will listen to our album and be like ‘Oh those are two Ivy League graduates’. I don’t think you would know that unless you read our biography. But we love the fact that we are intelligent and that we went to one of the greatest universities in this country. But it doesn’t really influence the music; the music comes from my heart.
Double O : We pull a lot of our ideas from it. A lot of the sound and a lot of the ideal that we portray was built within the dorm room. And we’ve gotten out of that on this album and we’re looking through different eyes. Because when we’re rocking for 60,000 people in Sweden, those things obviously change your perspective.
School is still the main point that we link with a lot of people on. Even though we’re out, naturally, we’re both academic in the way that we operate in the world. Specifically for me, especially when I’m producing and trying to break new grounds and do different things, I like to study a lot of different sounds and study a lot of different people and from that kind of build-up a catalogue and use it as a pallet to create something brand new.
Nobodysmiling.com : Should entertainers have social responsibility?
Double O : Ohh…that’s a good question. Honestly, everybody should have social responsibility. But we should not necessarily directly look at entertainers and any of their mess-ups as being larger-than life persons. If they do little things wrong, it shouldn’t count more than if your dad did the same *&^%$# up thing. All of this hoopla that we make out of these people that are getting DUI’s – your uncle got a DUI and it wasn’t a big deal, you might have gotten a DUI and it wasn’t a big deal.
We shouldn’t play into the media overexerting these things. At the end of the day, we’re entertainers but we’re still human; we still will %&*# up; we still will be hypocrites at times. So with that being said, I think this is the best way somebody put it to me once “If you keep drinking from a cup and you’re never putting anything back into it, eventually that cup becomes empty” . So you should do your best for the lack of better words to put back in what you take out to maintain a certain balance.
It’s an odd thing. We treat entertainers like gods these days. We almost give them a superhuman persona for no reason. That might be us as humans, I’ve also thought about that ‘cause when you read the old Greek myths and the Roman mythology, they created these gods, these warriors, ‘cause so it’s something for an average person to aspire towards. So that has unfortunately spilled into the celebrity world these days. So we have these lists, ‘50 most beautiful people’, ‘50 richest people’, we create these beings out of these entertainers that just so happen that their talent put them in a public eye but that doesn’t necessarily make them a superhuman person. We push them into that role, so when they *&$^ up or do something we don’t deem correct, we make this big hoopla about it.
Nobodysmiling.com : Have you seen Oprah’s panel discussion on hip-hop?
Double O : I watched part of it. It’s weird because you have two extremes. You have Russel Simmons and he likes to talk about this poetry thing. There’s a reality that there are people that are poets; but there’s another reality especially now where ring-tones are the new dope game. You can make this catchy-catchy record that will get you X amount of dollars based on ring-tone purchases.
Now we wouldn’t have so many problems with that type of stuff if there was a balance. The balance people had in the early 90s, you can have NWA, you can have A Tribe Called Quest, you can have 95 South. And it was like, I’m a dance to 95 South when I’m in a club but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna have 95 South playing all the time; but there was a time and place for that stuff.
Now the industry pushes artists out and you’re getting the same pattern of ring-tone rap records. It’s making people lose interest in rap in general. We’re all at fault to a certain extent, but I think it almost has to happen. It’s still a young art form and things have to be defined and we have to let stuff go – people who are 28 and older have to realize that their generation of rap doesn’t exist anymore.
Nobodysmiling.com : Why is it so important to have co-signers such as Just Blaze and Monopoly?
Naledge : A lot of what gets signed…you need a gate-keeper to pull the trigger. Most executives aren’t creative, they just imitate what’s out already and they aren’t willing to take a chance. But it takes one person to take a chance on an artist and then everybody else just copies. As far as up-and coming young MCs under 25, I’m it *laughs*. You can’t listen to Kweli forever; you can’t listen to Common forever.
These are people that I idolize but you ain’t gonna listen to them forever. They’re fathers, they have families, they won’t be able to rap about being young forever. Where’s my generations’ Kweli? Where’s my generations Common? Where’s my generation’s Mos Def, Q-Tip, and on down the line? And I feel like that’s me. And I’m taking the title, I’m claiming the title at this point and I feel that that’s what this album is doing. That’s what The In Crowd is - ringing all the people that are dope together to make better music and to compete to make better music.
Nobodysmiling.com : You’re often compared to and mentioned along side of Common and Lupe. Is there something particular about Chicago that allows it to nurture such lyrical artists?
Naledge : I think it’s the setting, the landscape in Chicago. I’m a strong believer that the music that comes out of the region is birth from the scenery and the same way the Southside has bred a certain type of MC in the past few years like Kanye and Rhymefest and myself and Common, the Westside has bred their MCs too. And I think Chicago breeds creativity and it’s also in the middle. If you look at Chicago, there’s no one style that’s called “Chicago”. The only thing which you can really say is that Chicago has passionate MCs and people who are unique but they have to have a strong sense of self and a strong sense of social issues – because that’s real blatant in Chicago.
A lot of the stuff is in your face, racial segregation is still in your face in Chicago. My neighborhood was 98% black and I grew up in a very middle-class environment but I never saw white people in that environment but when I went to high school, went to private school, I interacted with white kids all the time. At the end of the day we still live in different areas, different neighborhoods. These are the things that don’t happen in say New York where you go to a school and it’s very diverse and everybody interacts with one another. Chicago is very geographically and racially segregated and there’s a lot of issues that are just flat-out still in your face; so even the most gangster MCs can still recognize that.
Nobodysmiling.com : We’ve seen 50 break the charts with shoot-shoot bang-bang. Now we’re seeing artists like Lupe set standards for intelligent and positive lyrics. What does that say about the direction in which hip-hop is heading?
Naledge : The styles are being blended and genres being bended. There’s a lot of different people who are just coming up and these are the people who grew up in a certain way but still feel the need to express themselves through hip-hop and I feel like that that’s what’s different now from before. And that’s why a kid like Lupe – or really myself – at one point looks at T.V. and is like ‘I can’t be a rapper ‘cause you gotta be like this to be a rapper’. Or, ‘I can’t be a rapper ‘cause everything that’s on T.V. is this’. And what’s happening now is barriers are being broken and people aren’t scared to be themselves and be dope and appreciate what they are as individuals.
Nobodysmiling.com : You guys have created music to support Obama’s campaign. Why are you guys pushing for Obama? Why was the choice made to get politically involved?
Naledge : I wouldn’t call myself political so much as I think I’m social. And I have an opinion on everything. I know enough to know that I care about who is running it [the country] for the next how many years and to know that it does matter to check out certain people agendas and what kind of a plan they have for our country because those things will affect us whether you’re from the bottom of the bottom or the top of the top. And me being from Chicago, Obama is a home-grown politician to me.
I saw him from the point from when he was a civil right lawyer to becoming a senator and now running for president. He was sitting in my best friend’s living room talking about the plans that he had for our community in Chicago. I liked his demeanor and I liked his ideas even then – he represents a new of politician the same way I represent a new generation of MC. It’s time for a change.
Nobodysmiling.com : Double O, you competed in the 2004 Greece Olympics (hurdling). What happened at the competition?
Double O : We got beat in the first round. I wasn’t satisfied with my performance. It’s a little bit of a sore spot but you know, I’m doing music right now, alright?
Nobodysmiling.com : You didn’t get over that, did you?
Double O :: No, I didn’t, I’m not even gonna lie.
Nobodysmiling.com : What is white and black and red all over?
Double O : A bi-racial Indian girl? *laughs*
Nobodysmiling.com : A newspaper.
Double O : I don’t read as much as I should; I read too many magazines…
 (20) Comments | Post a comment »
|
|
