Lazy (Red Tide)

Lazy of Red Tide is perhaps the most interesting hip-hopper I’ve ever had the pleasure of running into. Give this interview a good read, its “Hella Fresh, fooz”. It’s also done on the pinnacle of mediums, ICQ. Enjoy

Andy: first and foremost, who are you and what set you claim?

Lazy: I’m lazy from RED TIDE outta Tampa Florida. I dj and produce along with 2% while skoolz and bc provide the lyrics

Andy: well lazy, like most ugsmag.com readers, I’m new to red tide. any released/upcoming projects to speak of?

Lazy: why sure…glad you asked! It just so happens that we have a brand new 12″ single called ‘fabric addicts’ out right now. It is available at our website at www.lostnation.net or at www.truehiphop.com/atak or www.foolblown.com (whew that’s a lot!) four songs two instrumentals big fun on vinyl! Yeah a shameless plug from me!

A: Ahh, I welcome shameless plugs! Speaking of shameless plugs, have you ever heard of the column Canadian Thynk Taynk? I hear it’s the most influential article in the world of hip-hop today! do you know who writes this column? he’s undoubtedly a genius!

L: No doubt his columns consistently redefine the very meaning of the word ‘journalist’!!!
excuse me I gotta wipe this brown stuff of my nose…

A: hahaha! yea, I don’t remember the cats name either, but I hear the ladies call him Johnny 15 inch. Well, enough about that, what are you listening to right now? or in the last little while?

L: I am really digging the Mike Ladd stuff like I mentioned before it is pretty tight, both production wise and lyrics

A: who do you think some of your major influences are?

L: for me it is Black Sabbath, Bad Brains, PE

A: Black Sabbath, on the real?

L: Gorilla Biscuits and quicksand etc. Gotta love black Sabbath for the riffs. They define a heavy rhythm section which I like for hip hop too. Love some Prince a lot

A: what do you think of anticon, fag poets or “the re-invention of sugar hill?”

L: anticon… respect their effort and output but sometimes it feels like some members attempt to deliberately alienate themselves from the culture that they want to be a part of. Fag poets… ummmm the re-invention of sugarhill… seeing as they were a re-invention of the authentic hip hop out in the park it would be a mimetic redundancy to re-reinvent them. How do you feel about the whole anticon ‘thing’? It seems like reaction to them is all over the place with regards to who you ask and which members you are asking about. Red Tide is just wandering around over here in Tampa so I guess I am pretty out of the loop.

A: Anticon, they have some of the most talented members in the world today with Slug, Dose One, Sole, Sixtoo, Buck65 and Eyedea, and that’s not even going into the production. Each of them bring an amazing element to the table and continues to make fabulous music, though it’s sometimes odd. However, Circus, Pedestrian, Awol One and the rest seem to be the “poppa wu’s” of anticon, pointless direction. It’s like Ba Ba Ach in cb4. they provide the “direction” and create the alienation projects of anticon that talk about obscure bullshit. However, I love obscure bullshit now and then! and I like the flip-flop of this interview, what do you think of a flip flop?

L: Oops sorry. I tend to question as much as answer in a discussion. I love obscure bullshit too. The only drawback is that it is hard to follow anyone or thing that seems to revel in their or its very obscurity.

A: But then again, something “obscure” provides the avenue to explore what some would deem pointless while others would call it a movement to the “next level”, an evolution of sorts.

L: I wish more of these groups (anticon) could or would tour

A: the opportunity to meet these cats would be amazing

L: For me and for RED TIDE as a crew we put a lot of emphasis on live performance (did I mention a lot?). I just wish we had the opportunity to play in front of everybody out there because if we could constantly tour I think we would.

A: anyone you’d like to meet? hip-hop or not

L: I wanna meet David Letterman

A: any particular reason?

L: Letterman just seems both honestly very funny and quick while at the same time down to earth and real enough that I could eat a sandwich get mustard on my face and he could make fun of me without me feeling self conscious about it you know?

A: what do you feel about the current state of hip hop?

L: Instead of State we should call it the current confederation (loose at that) of hip hop states…It seems to be both in a constant state of flux/change (which I think is positive) but also consistently seems to be in a precarious position given the nature of a ‘culture’ which has commodified itself to some extent. Which hip hop state can we reference at any given moment you know? Is it the online hip hop city? The urban hip hop villa? The international village?

A: But, not the state in the territorial sense, I mean state as in current mood, current popular artists, current direction!

L: I guess that is what I mean too…just playing with the concept a little really while still trying to tease out some ideas at the same time. The jiggified penthouse of puffy and his ilk?

A: ilk! What a word!!

L: oh shit don’t start that shit :-). I constantly get shit from reviewers for ‘weird words.’ I said ennui in an interview recently and the reporter girl had a cow hahha.

A: Yo man, I love your interview style. Reminds me of me, trying to confuse people with a barrage of socio-conscious words while trying to define hip-hop as some mass conspiracy of evil or someshit.

L: Well hip hop and culture in general is pretty confusing and I won’t even pretend to insult anybody’s intelligence by acting like I have the answers or even an ‘answer’ I just wanna talk about the things that I participate in and hopefully people will talk back to me and maybe (just maybe) together we could go in some mutually beneficial direction.

A: Now there’s some wishful thinking! I just mean to describe this hip-hop in conversation; you use a big ass dictionary! What do you think of CB4 and its shape on hip hop? That’s one of my all-time favs!

L: I like it but feel like fear of a black hat diluted its message because they were both released so close together
for me I will date myself hear it is Krush Groove that sets off the hip hop cinema

A: fear of a black hat? enlighten me!

L: fear of a black hat was ‘hip hop’ comedy that came out at about the same time that involved three cats who were gonna have a gimmick for their hip hop crew etc etc you know it was a lot like CB4 look for it , it was a little more indie than CB4 too
they wore big hats hahaha

A: which was better?

L: ummmm hard to say I think that they both had good ideas but CB4 had a more cohesive storyline while fear had a few really funny parts

A: ok, I need to find this! where’d you find it?

L: I saw it back in the day. Probably available at any mainstream video store or rental place with a big enough library of backstock

A: tight! Anything you’d like to ask me?

L: tell me what you wanna do at Wal-Mart?

A: I want to make money! Well, I want to work in electronics and play Nintendo all day.

L: No for real I want to know what you think will happen with this online hip hop culture that is starting to develop in the last couple years?

A: I think it will open up a whole new branch of music to suburban white kids, i.e. me, and completely revamp what we perceive to be a music industry. It will also make underground prosperity (living legends, hiero) even more accessible. Other than that, it will start a crew of computer backpackers. but really, I don’t think it will increase the number of core fans.

L: It takes hip hop out of the cities and places it in the hands of a more privileged section of our culture and also implicitly denies a human connection spatially because we can only ‘chat’ and interact virtually. Do you have an accent? what color are my eyes? what are my facial expressions etc.

A: id hardly call it more privileged. Computers are cheap now, anyone can get connected. It just means that now everyone can experience the beauty that is hip hop. but again, the core fans (those of the struggling artists) won’t increase drastically; it will just increase sales in that small group.

L: yup yup I feel you but will any of these groups cross over to the younger siblings of the online backpackers and thus eventually be incorporated into mainstream culture and the dreaded TRL cancer?

A: Nope. For the same reason the backpacker will not cross over into the young kids TRL loves. If the time and love isn’t there to begin with, the virus that is hip-hop cannot spread!

L: computers and online access is not cheap for a kid who gets a gov’t subsidy to eat a lunch at school that is the inner city youth revolution that started hip hop.

A: But it is available at his local school and library. You know what else isn’t cheap for those kids? Fubu clothes, iced down medallions, and Mobb Deep cds.

L: none of those things are cheap you are right but I don’t want those things because I have been relatively privileged in my childhood and wasn’t taught that those things represented status and prestige but some kids were taught that they did represent a status that they wanted thus they rhyme about that stuff and hold it up as important

A: That’s true, but I was indicating that being “poor” and having no disposable income are 2 different things. I just made a bad choice in showing the most “ghetto” items I could think of.

L: kids who could not afford to go anywhere but ‘out in the park’ and actually it is not available in inner city schools or libraries

A: But “out in the park” doesn’t exist anymore and it hasn’t for 10 years. And as for the hip-hop revolution started with ghetto youth, that’s like saying the industrial revolution started in England, yet they aren’t the most powerful industrial nation now.

L: I blame the government for that one (no internet/computers in low income neighborhoods)

A: Well, as a Canadian, it’s available to me, so fuck America

L: haha but is it available to inner city Canadian kids?

A: As far as I understand, ill say yes, but really, I don’t know. For me, as a suburban white kid living on the lively side of the poverty line, hip hop is incredible.

L: I just wonder if the online hip hop will remain as pure as it would like to be when the second generation of fans (the little brothers and sisters of the online backpackers) pick up their older brothers mp3 players and start listening to their stuff and then call mtv and want to hear stuff like it and then big business sees a market for that stuff and starts signing those acts or acts that act just like them you know what I mean?

A: That big market already exists, that’s why acts like eminem are immensely popular. But, there might be 500 internet “backpackers” who listen to the type of odd underground music that I do, I doubt more than 20 of the kids from there would get into that shit, let alone call MTV.

L: maybe but remember that blink 182 is around because that little sisters and brothers of kids who really like operation ivy let them hear their records and what is blink 182 if not a blatant rip off of the descendants?

A: Yea, you got a point, but I still think that the internet is nice for hip-hop. on a final note, what do you think of wrestling?

L: I loooooovvvveeeee wrestling we should have started the interview with that hahahaha

My dad and I have been watching it since I was knee high to a knee hi

A: which do you prefer? wwf or wcw? and are you a super mark who reads dirtsheets?

L: I revel in my mark iness!! but sometimes at get mad at the internet sheets because they reveal stuff that should really be a surprise!!!

A: so? which of the big2?

L: I like ric flair so I am WCW but they are so screwed up that it is hard to be a fan. I really enjoy both jericho and benoit and malenko and guerrero especially and vampiro.

A: but WCW has made such a strong move lately! My favorite wrestler is in constant debate. I love ECW Taz, WCW Raven, WCW Jericho, basically any heels with good mic skills and stiff moves. I love flair on the stick. I also absolutely love the outsiders.

L: I tend to like the heels rather than the faces but I really am a work rate fan rather than a storyline fan I like good performers

A: damn man, why haven’t we talked about wrestling earlier? were a couple of supermarks! do you like ECW at all?

L: I like it a lot only now I can just watch it on wwf television hahah they pirated so much of heyman’s innovations. I miss sabu.

A: I love ECW but I hate the bookers. I hate seeing the same jerry lynn RVD match for 4 months.

L: yup but they are shackled because they have fewer performers and they are always getting stolen by the big two. On the other hand heyman gets a lot of great new guys in so constantly that it is like watching a farm league for the big time then you can say you liked them back in the day hahaha

A: haymen is a genius. I also love bischoff!!

L: arrrgggg bischofff….what bad hair hahaha.

A: bischoff is amazing my friend, amazing like the old mick foley!! what a guy!!

L: mick foley is wonderful and bischoff loves each… and… every… one… of… us… I can feel the love in this room! hahaha

A: man, I love smart marks!! What’s your fav. finisher?

L: I am old school so I will say the figure four, but for new school I feel the kata hajime of Taz and the crippler crossface of benoit I like submission style stuff

A: my fav is the even flow DDT what a delivery! and nothing like a 5 star frog splash or Shooting Star Press

L: what old back in the day wrestler do you like?

A: back in the day? I was huge Hitman mark (Oh Canada!) massive and I always loved andre the giant and macho! I didn’t really start watching wrestling till last year. Do you remember spooky kool kid keen?

L: I am a big time fan of the American Dream Dusty Rhodes and the Road Warriors of old when they were the first to paint their faces and dress bad ass and just kick the crap outta people and of course they entered to a black Sabbath song ‘iron man ‘ so you know I was feelin’ them never heard of spooky kool kid keen who is he?

A: he was an old wrestler with a klu klux klan gimmick. Ge used to fight these angry black mufuckers like ahmed johnson

L: really? that is kinda disturbing. I hate ahmed johnson so much but I guess that in that situation I would actually have to root for the fat tub of goo hahaha

A: he (Ahmed Johnson) used to be ripped, then he started taking his character too seriously and went crazy and got the boot from wwf

L: yeah and he couldn’t put three words together in a coherent sentence

A: hahaha, what a character, and angle is amazing

L: and he can actually wrestle too it’s true it’s true!

A: exactly. that’s my man right there

L: haha well now we have really shown our dork side in this interview I wonder if folks will just read this and shake their heads? hahaha

A: well man, I think its time to wrap this shit up, it’s gotten VERY long. ah well! Thanks to lazy, the undisputed king of interviews!

L: oops thanks to Andy the best interviewer on the planet haha. Check the RED TIDE stuff and our old cd is available at www.truehiphop.com/atak it is called rogue mc’s and our record should be out in the fall ‘free roaming radicals’ check us and e-mail us with your thoughts peace.