Photos by Eric Massof

With the upcoming release of his first solo album Relax, Relate, Release El Da Sensei has been a busy man touring the country with J-Live and People Under the Stairs. The former Artifacts member came through The Ottobar and I had a chance to catch up with him and cover a variety of topics from Rawkus to Eminem to the current state of hip hop.

Jbutters: How’s the tour been going?

El Da Sensei: We did the west coast. That was like my first time deep deep in the west coast and I have to tell you that was a real totally different experience. Once we got out of LA, we did Arizona and Albuquerque. I saw real Indian cats straight off the reservation so for them to be on some hip hop shit I was like aiight I have a definite fan base. I had never been to Colorado, Seattle or Vancouver none of that. Me and J been doing a lot of shows and for the first time going there with no video to be doing it with People Under The Stairs it was kinda weird for me because a lot of these cats is young and they remember everything from seeing me on TV. It was cats coming up to me saying I was nine years old when I bought your first record. I was like damn. Not that I felt old, but I was like yo these cats is following me. One dude walked up to me in Colorado and he was like what was that shit you was doing earlier in the show that “Come On with the Come On” and the “Wrong Side of the Tracks”? I was like I was in a group. He was like I’m gonna tell you right now I never heard that before I have never heard any of those songs I only know El Da Sensei. That wasn’t bad for me that was the first cat that stepped to me out of body as far as my group. That’s what I wanted to accomplish, I wanted to let the world know that I was solo. Me and tame did what we did and I wish him mad love, but I know that I was destined for a mission. When I first started I kept working with different people, but I told myself if me and tame stopped I wasn’t getting with nobody else as far as another mc ever. I knew that was the ultimate group for me just to do what we did. To this day doing that show tonight and doing this whole tour I kinda know what to expect as far as people saying things to me on the old stuff, but half the shit they say to me is bugging me out because you never think people are really thinking about you till they say shit to you. I’m glad that I still get a chance to say what I have to say and to do another album and I thank Seven Heads for that because dude didn’t have to take a chance on me. I wouldn’t say it’s a gamble, but in these days doing these records I told him to just give me a chance and Ill show you what I can do.

JB: At the show tonight you gave a preview of one of the new joints that kinda chronicles your whole career did you make that for the new cats or for your older fans?

El: It’s for both. It’s for cats that be coming up to me asking what’s up with you I tell them go buy the album it’s a song on there that’s gonna explain everything to a T. I knew I was gonna have to do that song, I knew cats were gonna want me to do that song. There are people back home that’s really down for this shit and when they see me they see 94 or 95, they see all the shit that they remember listening to when the shit was music. They like El man when the album coming out you doing your shit cuz we waiting. And as long as they waiting that’s what I want to hear. A lot of the stuff on the album came from that. Plus to me I’m by myself so I have a lot more shit to say, but I had to figure out how I was going to do it without boring everybody or making them feel like they waiting for that next voice to come in.

JB: It’s been a long time coming, why do you feel now is the best time to release the album instead of a little bit earlier or even waiting a few months?

El: I’m gonna tell you the truth something’s gotta happen. There are a lot of people in this club right now that we did this show in and a lot of people don’t know that they are in that club. There are a lot of uneducated fans out there that are American idoled up or wannabe’d up like I wanna be Ja Rule or I wanna be this cat, you watch that shit on TV and your like damn be yourself. That’s what’s wrong with the game with music as a whole, so what I’m trying to bring there really is no explanation for it. I know I’m going away from the question, but I really just felt in my heart this is what everybody wants to hear. They can’t escape it. If you’re in a club and they play an old school record everybody starts wilding. Why are wilding? Because you remember that shit when you heard it the first time, you knew what you were doing, who you was wit, and where you were at, so now we have to force feed everybody back into that. Music is dead right now. Kaos and I were watching on TV if it ain’t Nelly, it ain’t Eminem and Bruce Springstein it ain’t nothing.

Haha

DJ Kaos: Them the top niggas on the charts right now. They know what’s going on oh y’all want to act a fool bet we are gonna sell a bunch of records on some bullshit that we been doing. Don’t get me wrong Eminem is a dope emcee. He knows how to take the media and use it right back against them.

El: That’s all he doing. Its like with the first “Fresh Fest” in New York a dude got stabbed and the first thing they say is hip hop causes violence. Hip hop is causing a billion dollar industry right now because of us and I feel right now people are stagnated and the world is like yo we waiting for something new to pop off. So in my own little way this is my two cents to put in, but not change it because we are never gonna change it. No matter how much we spit about underground, so it’s like you join the masses or stick to your guns and do it in a more advanced way.

JB: With commercialism of the music they are rhyming on lipstick commercials and all kinds of crap…

El: Everybody is in denial right now, it’s far past the ghetto influence, it’s so far gone that they can’t control it. There is no control over the laws of the game, so everyone is going all out. It’s like I’m gonna make this dough, milk it get as much as I can get and be out. Look how many people are gone that made loot. There is no discrimination to one MC to a pop MC or an underground MC its all about what people see on TV. We can spit all day, but if these cats don’t see our faces it’s almost a lost cause. If you not doing what we doing straight grinding this shit out like on some rock and roll shit. We not even jumping into a bus we on some regular shit. That’s another thing there are no regular niggas on the mic, for the regular cat that’s not a drug dealer that’s not a baller, that doesn’t have 23 inch rims, its like motherfuckers is chasing a dream.

JB: Why did you choose the title Relax, Relate, Release for the new album?

El: Lamonte (Seven Heads Dir. of Operations) came up with the title. I said relax because I think that’s what everybody needs to do right now. Shit is tight everybody got they ass cheeks tight as hell.

Haha

El: It’s like everybody got the hip hop wedgy, it’s like they scared to let hip hop go in they ass and open the shit up. Everybody is like I’m not trying to hear that on some girlie shit. I hate when I be in the club and the DJ is playing some early 90s shit and everybody is wildin’. Its like what the fuck are you dancing for now, but if you hear someone spit like that today you say he’s bores me he’s not spitting thug. It ain’t changed its just that everybody is ignorant to what we doing. So what I meant in relax was take it down. Everybody is pissed off making all this money, y’all are chillin’ I don’t want to hear that.

We have to make all these other motherfuckers get into the shit that we are doing. How do we do that, don’t change what you’re already doing because you’re gonna fuck up your shit. Every time we seen it happen its evident. How many people we seen stray away on the second album from what they did on the first album. People you will never do the first thing ever again. It’s like having sex. The first nut you bust you ain’t never going to have a nut like that again. For every album you get like that appreciate it, that’s the first heartfelt thought of an emcee that’s going to come out on his paper because that’s what he wants the world to hear. Second album is kinda him and the label. For me right now to say the shit that I’m saying I feel good in 2002 within all the bullshit that’s in this business today. I had to try and I knew I had to advance it because coming across all these people right now you gotta be on some therapy shit. It’s like potty training right now you have to go and tell everybody how to go listen to the music. Listen to how this beat sound, listen to how he rhyming on the beat, look how the flow is going, now we have re-educate everybody all over again.

JB: I peeped your release date and coincidentally it happens to be dropping right around the time Tame is releasing his album. You guys will basically be linked forever it seems, any competition there?

El: I really don’t care honestly. If people have been following me for the last three years and not asking about what we going to do as far as an Artifacts record it don’t matter to me. Tame it’s on record nigga good luck, fuck that. I ain’t say that shit but good luck. Do your thing cuz ima tell you nigga ima do me regardless what you do, your moms, Boom Skwad its on record quote me, on this fucking album I’m gonna do everything in my heart to do some ghetto gold shit.

That was the end of the organized interview, what follows is a hip hop roundtable of sorts featuring myself, El, DJ Kaos, and Thes One from People Under the Stairs.

Illustration by noyz319

Restiform Bodies are not just a monstrously inventive trio stretching the limits of hip hop-they’re also ballers, and they don’t want anyone to forget it. “[We] don’t play any role playing games,” states The Bomarr Monk, who borrowed his stage name from an obscure background figure in a sci-fi film. “We do coke and shit … and we swear, too.” insists Passage, who writes lyrics about Shirley Temple and hot air balloons. And as far as their recent collaborations with the girls of electro-spazz duo Blectum from Blechdom? They did it all for the nookie. “We read an article in the [San Francisco Bay] Gaurdian, and we thought one of ‘em was cute, so we figured we’d call.” You know how we do.

As far as beef, they might as well be ranchers. “Anti-Pop Consortium are dicks,” says Passage, as blunt in person as he is elliptical on the mic. Apparently he’s irked that APC rely on the tired rap vs. hiphop distinction to define their artistic goals. “It’s so pretentious. It’s the only thing they could come up with to distinguish between creative music and trashy music.” Passages’s lack of reserve is twice as surprising when you know that his group is the newest addition to the anticon crew roster, whose members have been no stranger to squabs-though they haven’t always claimed decisive victories.

But those incidents, just like rap vs. hiphop, are old news, and Restiform are all about the future. They were in front of the pack with the multi-ethnic, lo-fi, phonemic polemics of their self-titled debut (2001 6months), and now they’re looking to pad the lead, dropping the deadweight of unnecessary genre allegiances. “We’ve been moving from where we started, with a hip hop goal, and moved away from that,” says Telephone Jim Jesus, who contributes vocals and production to the group. Passage agrees, and then some: “I don’t really have any desire to make hip hop anymore. I just think the rap underground is trash.” So instead of bumping “Halftime”, the three have been absorbing the look-ma-no-formula brilliance of Beck, Kid 606, Radiohead, and especially Elephant Six groups The Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel.

They expect their audience to be just as catholic. “People inside of hip hop don’t understand that there’s a billion other records out there,” notes Passage. “Do you think - Do you really fucking think?- that, like, GZA’s Liquid Swords is the best album that’s ever come out? You gotta be kidding me.” Telephone Jim refines the point: “Everyone should listen to every kind of music.” To Restiform, anticon’s exclusion from the underground rap world is one of those challenge-turned-opportunity things. Passage doesn’t sound too broken up: “[We want] to appeal to electronica heads or indie rock people, which sounds so fucking gimmicky, but it’s so important… Rock and roll fans and techno fans, all those kids are so much nicer than hip hop fans. They’re smart and they know what they like, but they’re not cuntrags.”

With their musical priorities in order, Restiform are taking their time on their third album. “{The first Restiform Tape} was just two weeks in a bedroom,” reminisces Telephone Jim. “And then the second album [the limited-run] Sunhopflat, was [recorded] the next year two weeks before Scribble Jam.” As much as fans loved the outcome, Passage says quality was sacrificed in the rush: “It’s terrible to put anything out that you know is below your abilities - it’s really depressing. We’re never doing that again.” And what will all the hard work sound like? Telephone Jim sez: “[We’re making more] songs that are pop-based, in that they have catchy melodies and catchy choruses, stuff that someone’s more likely to sing along with and be able to get into, as opposed to combating somebody with a lot of really fast stuff.”

Maybe the new, more accessible record, along with Passage’s upcoming, self-produced solo disc, will be enough to dispense with the ‘nerd rap’ taunts echoing in hip hop’s lunchroom. But even if not, Bomarr ain’t sweatin’ it: “I don’t think it’s so bad to be a nerd. All that means is that people are committed to what they’re into, and we’re certainly committed to what we’re interested in.” Besides, says Passage, “We have premarital sex.”

Photos by Eric Massof

Finally with a proper release J-Live has been getting the respect he deserves. His album All Of The Above has received critical acclaim and the former teacher has been covered on MTV and just about every music magazine out there. Now a full time MC, I caught up with J on his first full U.S tour.

Jbutters: This is the first tour since you decided to become a full time musician how do you feel about making that decision and choosing between two things that you love?

J-Live: It’s ill because I’ve been rhyming since I was twelve years old and I didn’t realize I wanted to teach until I became a Five Percenter when I was nineteen. So by the time I got out of school the album was supposed to drop and it didn’t. That was the whole reason my mom made me get my degree so I would have something to fall back on. To have choices in terms of being able to do what you love is very important not just for teachers and emcees, but for everybody in life to do something that they love to do to have a profession so that they can have longevity in it so that they don’t hate themselves for not doing what they really want. So when the opportunity arose to really do this full time I had to take it because I can teach when I’m sixty-five I can’t necessarily rock crowds like this. When your teaching you don’t want to miss a day for your kids, when I don’t come in its because I’m sick or there is some type of emergency, but for me to teach and do this I’d only be able to rhyme on the weekends and holidays and in the summer so I had to do this full time. Its like serving two masters as they say because the time I spent in classroom I could have spent promoting and the time I spent promoting I could’ve spent preparing better lesson plans so I had to choose. I chose hiphop because now is the time to be able to teach through music and when that’s all said and done I can go back into the classroom more heavily armed with experience.

Has there been a big change in lifestyle going from a traditional 9-5 to touring and rocking shows from city to city?

You got to understand I was rhyming and doing shows even in college. So I’d have a 8-3 or a 8-4:30 and on Friday we’d go out to Japan and I’d have to take my textbooks with me and study for my midterms come back get off the plane take a cab to a bus and the bus to campus get off and go straight to a class. It was hectic like that so it kinda trained me for now. When I was teaching it was like this weekend we do Philly, this weekend we do DC, this weekend we do New York, this weekend we do Atlanta, or this weekend we go to LA; so it was the same type of hectic style that I had in college so the whole thing was one big transition from rhyming and studying to rhyming and teaching to rhyming and raising a family to rhyming and growing old, its just a part of your life.

Do you feel you’re able to teach just as many lessons through your music as you did in the classroom?

Oh yea if not more. The thing about teaching is that every second in the classroom makes an impression whether the kids recognize it then or not. Looking back on my teachers from back in the days I realized how they’ve influenced me even the ones I didn’t like and the ones I didn’t understand what they were trying to do for me. So that’s the kind of awards you get. For somebody to teach and think oh they don’t understand me, they don’t care or they not listening, they young they are doing what they supposed to do. If you keep doing what you’re supposed to do they will keep doing what they’re supposed to do. Those same kids that hate you at the end of the year when they are in the next grade and they see you in the hallway the next year and they don’t have you as a teacher anymore they are like Yo! You just have to really care about what you doing and it’s the same with music that’s why I’m able to teach through music. A lot of people come up to me and say my songs helped them through certain times in their life. That’s the best compliment I think anybody can get. I’ve heard that in England, Boston, I’ve heard that in LA so it feels good worldwide. I would listen to Al Green when I had problems with my girl or Bob Marley after I came home from a test. I have certain things in my CD case that I listen to when I feel a certain way so to have people to be able to say that about my shit or to have girls that might have had troubles or been assaulted or things of that nature listen to “Like This Anna” and be like word; or to have people listen to The Best Part when they are starting to rhyme or to have people listen to “Satisfied” when they are mourning somebody in the tragedy at the world trade center or just watching all the bullshit on the news everyday; to have someone recognize a song like “Them That’s Not” and see all the ignorant rappers out there that are living that out and to be able to tell me I relate to it and I see what your saying those are the best compliments I ever get.

With The Best Part being bootlegged like it was you weren’t able to really gain exposure. With this new release your getting a lot of publicity it seems like everything kinda fell into place.

This is what happens when you have an official release. When a record is released to press and its not released to the masses somebody’s gonna sell it, its only right. I can’t even be mad it’s a supply and demand thing. It would be different if I was putting a record on the shelf and someone was bootlegging it then it would be competing with something, but the fact that it wasn’t out I’m glad somebody chose to sell it because that’s what kept my rep up.

I read you said you picked up a lot of things working with different producers what are some of the things you picked up and applied to “All Of The Above?”

I worked with DJ Spinna and I probably learned the most from him and my engineer Elliot from Fast Forward. But [I’ve been influenced by] Pete Rock, Premier, Grap Luva, Joe Money, and countless DJs, I just pick up a little bit from everybody. I’m trying to develop my own sound and production wise right now my sound isn’t really definitive, but it is consistent and I like what I come out with. It’s very easy to compliment myself because I know what I like to do as an emcee, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it like that if I hadn’t studied and watched. See a lot of emcees just sit in the studio and in the booth kick their rhymes and then hang out in the lounge, but I chill right behind the board with the producer and the engineer and really watch what they do and try to pick up some tricks of the trade like how to filter, what time stretch is, how to recognize time signatures, how to keep something in key, all those things are important and I wouldn’t have known that if it wasn’t from watching all the producers from the best part.

What are some things as far as production that you feel you may need to improve on?

I need to learn everything there is to learn about midi interface because I have a Motif, an MPC and a 1680. I just got to really study so I can apply what I know about the keyboard to my beats and then incorporate that more.

With Satisfied you touch on the events of 9/11 and how old problems were being ignored. With that fact still being an issue where do you see the country in the next few years?

I still think that before and after you have an unaware majority and an aware minority and you have a large amount of people kept uniformed by a small amount of people and a smaller amount of people trying to keep them informed. Until you can really break those barriers and change those percentages its gonna be the way it is. You just gotta be able to teach your family whenever you can make yourself more aware definitely take that opportunity.

Do you think with amount of money commercial powers have invested in hiphop that mainstream radio can ever go back to the diversity it once had years ago?

The commercial powers are going to do what they do you just have overcome that not by trying to going through it, but by showing people there are other routes, the internet, college radio, independent records if you embrace those things and put people up onto them you don’t need to get me on Hot 97 you just put the Hot 97 crowd up on WNYU. You approach it from that angle we not trying to chase after anybody. I want commercial music to be me, I don’t want to make my music commercial.