{"id":1368,"date":"2008-09-07T21:18:34","date_gmt":"2008-09-08T01:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ugsmag.com\/interviews\/noah23-2\/"},"modified":"2022-09-11T10:24:38","modified_gmt":"2022-09-11T15:24:38","slug":"noah23-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ugsmag.com\/noah23-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Noah23"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Noah23\"
Photos by Jon B<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nNoah23 is Guelph Ontario\u2019s rap Godfather and Canada\u2019s own \u201cPoetical Prophet.\u201d He is the President of the Plague Language<\/em> record label\/art collective and he\u2019s been \u201crapping seriously,\u201d for 13 years or since the early 1990s. With about 10 solo albums and a number of other side projects under his cap, Noah23 has been over-looked except by the most arcane underground rap intelligentsia. I myself had only heard of a rapper from Guelph named Noah23 until I listened to his Bourgeois Cyborgs <\/em>project with friend and label mate Baracuda<\/a>. I arrived 2 hours late (fucking GO Transit), but found Noah dutifully waiting for me at the Guelph terminal. Our rendezvous took us west to a nice restaurant with lots of pretty ladies. Peep the interview.<\/b>\n\n\n\n

Introduce yourself, crew affiliations \u2013 all that jazz\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m Noah23, the Guelph oracle, Captain Clark, Fuzzylogic, Fulleffect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you approach rapping, you have some more abstract material, how did you end up going that direction listening to Run DMC?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was really into stuff like Faith No More, Red Hot Chili Peppers\u2026Faith No More was a big inspiration for me, that\u2019s part of the abstract lyrics. Basically I\u2019ve always had an interest in psychedelic phenomenon and poetry, so like Bob Dylan, the Doors anything like that. Anything strange, strange films, strange words are just fascinating to me; I kind of search out strange paranormal things in life. Sometimes I kick more straightforward type of stuff. I think when I started, I had a lot more brain-vomit to kind of spew out; like a lot more abstract, train-of-thought stuff. Now it\u2019s more streamlined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is the psychedelic\/abstract phenomenon tied to drug-use?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not necessarily\u2026but yeah, it is. I\u2019ve been reading a lot of different subjects and I\u2019m really interested in Shamanism, ethnogenic drug use, and psychoactive plants. My dad\u2019s dad wrote a poem about smoking gigantic bats \u2013that was the word he used \u2013 he wrote a poem the day I was born in commemoration. So even from day one, people were smoking weed, celebrating the day I was born and my dad was a big hippie and used a lot of acid. He used to throw LSD confetti off balconies at Mardi gras. It\u2019s just part of who I am, it\u2019s pretty natural how that works itself into my music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last ugsmag interview<\/a> you did said that you wanted to move to Vancouver Island. How has your music and your life changed since 2001?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Really not a whole lot except for the fact that I think I\u2019m a lot better. It\u2019s funny because a lot of my old fans don\u2019t like my new material and I think a lot of potential new fans don\u2019t like my new material because they didn\u2019t like my older material. I kind of experiment a lot; some tracks I make really off the cuff and other tracks I really try to sculpt and mold them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve toured a lot and recorded a lot of material. I think I\u2019m better in the studio and a lot better live. I\u2019m still really hungry to show people my live show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do people in Guelph respond to your music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guelph is a big music\/art community in general. I think growing up in Guelph really sculpted where I take my music. We have the Guelph Hillside Music Festival \u2013 which is ranked really high among world folk festivals \u2013 and I\u2019ve been going there since I was 10. I was really part of a big DIY punk movement when I was 14, so nothing really held me back from knowing that I could make music myself. I play with anything from lesbian folk singers to spoken word artists \u2013 I can really apply myself in a lot of different scenarios. A lot of musicians I grew up with have moved on, but I like it in Guelph. Most people know I\u2019m the godfather of Guelph when it comes to Guelph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How come you\u2019re not bigger in Canada consider you\u2019ve been rapping for so long here?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think part of it is that we\u2019re isolated from the other scenes, so we\u2019re kind of strong. And Toronto has always been sort of known as a haters spot \u2013 I haven\u2019t felt that myself \u2013 but the way I see Toronto, it has a lot of pockets, a lot of tiny, small different kinds of scenes that don\u2019t converge together. You need artists to bounce off of one another and different artists to play together to create a bigger movement. Canada\u2019s a hard country to tour in and I don\u2019t get my VideoFact grind on like Classified, so people don\u2019t really know me like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you connect with the label in Europe?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We released my album Quicksand<\/em> here in North America in 2002 and a year later a label out of Hamburg SecondRec, they approached us to license the album in Europe. They picked it up and the label helped me get in touch with a booking agent out there. But unfortunately after one tour and a show in Spain, my booking agent died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Europe\u2019s cool and in a lot of ways I wish I could tap into North America the way I have in Europe. It\u2019s funny when people sleep on you in your own country, but it\u2019s like that for a lot of artists. You have to prove yourself elsewhere before people in your own community take you seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Noah23\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re going on tour, maybe\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m really hungry to get some tours in the States. I\u2019ve toured very minimally, I toured in Florida with Martinez and Bleubird and last year I played a one-off outside San Diego and I played one in Portland, Oregon; both the shows went really well. It\u2019s a catch 22 because if you don\u2019t get out there and hustle and pay your dues, nobody is going to know about you; but it\u2019s not easy to go tour\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you find a lot of hardcore rap heads hating your shit?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s funny because I have a lot of different reputations. I\u2019m too diverse; sometimes I might make a more abstract song, more melodic or maybe a more tough sounding track; so the styles can be really different. I really want to try to unify my image and try to let people know who I am and really just kind of sell that character. Some people think just \u2018cause you\u2019re from Canada you\u2019re wack, but most of that is just bullshit to me, I just do what I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you been to Western Canada much?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never. I played in Calgary once, but a brawl broke out and I never ended up rapping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your new album Rock Paper Scissors<\/em> has a guest spot on every song, what\u2019s the word on that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to make a really ambitious record. I started to think; I knew a lot of people in the indie community for hip hop and some rock cats too. I really wanted to incorporate a lot of my close friends who are talented artists and other bigger artists who are bigger and who would want to work with me. It was a lot of work. It\u2019s a duets record. It causes a lot of curiosity. I haven\u2019t actually reached out to a lot of people in the past before, so I really wanted to do a crazy, really big project. It came together surprisingly smooth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have all these non-hip hop artists doing rap beats for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On some of them\u2026this whole new album is my crossover sellout album. It comes out September 23. I want to do a nice package so that people will want to own it. I put a lot more effort in this album than any other album I\u2019ve ever made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did the Plague Language<\/em> label develop?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, Plague Language<\/em> was run by me and a guy Orphan. About 4 years ago, he left the Plague Language<\/em> and formed Blue Sky Black Death and basically as a label, Plague Language<\/em> was on hiatus, but as a crew, it\u2019s really healthy and artistic. It got more localized into a Guelph collective or artists as opposed to a label putting out artists from California and all over. It\u2019s always been my brainchild, but Orphan (Kingston from Blue Sky Black Death<\/em>), it functions as a loose knit crew right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you think of Canadian rap?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a pretty big fan of Canadian rap, but not so much in the recent years\u2026I have a lot of respect for most artists, but I still think I\u2019m better. I listen to a lot of stuff, DJ Moves, Governor Bolts from London. I\u2019m a fan of hip hop, to me is the reason why I feel I have an artistic edge over a lot of people is because I study it a lot. I\u2019m a bigger fan. In Europe you realize the respect that people have for Canadian rap as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you ever get fed up with a lot of the shitty, American copycat rappers?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Toronto\u2026people think they\u2019re in New York? Toronto\u2019s weird because it hasn\u2019t given itself an identity. I feel it should go with a kind of island feel, they don\u2019t know whether to make trap hop or to make New York rap or really what to do with it. I don\u2019t really get fed up with it, like I like traditional boom bap\u2026who\u2019s that producer that made a real boom bap record\u2026my mind\u2019s going blank\u2026it had Masta Ace on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marco Polo.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, see I haven\u2019t heard the Marco Polo record, but I like boom bap shit. I feel Toronto does have talent; I just wish it would unify its scenes and people would bounce off one another. It doesn\u2019t even need to be positive light, people can even have small beefs, but keep in musical, keep it artistic, keep it creative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Collage by Sean MacPherson<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You talked a bit about being into stuff outside of the collective unconscious, like numerology\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a neophyte. I\u2019m in my beginning studies in a lot of esoteric fields like Astrology, Hermatism, Alchemy, Kabbahlism, Egyptology\u2026all these things are analogous to one another, so it\u2019s really interesting once really learn them, you can kind of apply them and understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you believe in that stuff or are you interested in seeing the course of humanity?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both. I take everything with a grain of salt. There are a lot of truths you can realize after studying for years. When you study knowledge and when you see it put into practice in your life, it becomes wisdom because you learn from it. Basically I\u2019m trying to study the secret knowledge that the illuminati has hid from the people. Once the people have the same knowledge of civilization that the elite have kept from us, then I\u2019ll be more adept at fighting the oppressors. And these wacky, off-the-wall subjects are things that your religions are built upon; it\u2019s all from Paganism, it\u2019s all god and goddess sun worship and that relates to your modern day Jesus, but people are just oblivious to this shit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do see proof that there\u2019s an elite organization like the Illuminati who run shit?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, it\u2019s obvious. Just look at the Statue of Liberty, the Olympic torch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you mean? What ties all those together?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, I could walk down the street in Guelph right now and show you the Freemason temple and the Shriner temple and obviously there\u2019s money in the Catholic Church. To me it\u2019s like Rome never fell, the Pope still runs shit\u2026Israel, everything\u2019s tied in. I don\u2019t know a lot about of World and global politics; I don\u2019t really keep track \u2013 you sound a bit crazy when you get into it \u2013 a lot of un necessary war, famine, death and murders are done on purpose as a sacrifice, as an offering. The occultist beliefs that I try to study are the same principles that caused the World Trade Center towers down. These things are precisely done and people are just ignorant; people don\u2019t think that the government might make decisions based upon Luciferian astrology, but fuck you, it does. I have my own proof, I don\u2019t really feel the need to prove my own beliefs to other people, if they\u2019re too ignorant to see what\u2019s at hand, that\u2019s their problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see it everywhere; they murdered Princess Diana as a sacrifice under a Masonic site. The shit is everywhere\u2026[Laughs] not like I care about Princess Diana that much, but still they did sacrifice her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot of things. The date April 19 is associated with child sacrifice and April 19 is the day they did the Oklahoma bombing and killed all those kids; April 19 is the day they stormed into the David Koresh building and killed all those kids; April 19 is a day of stealing children, all these sacrifices, this shit\u2019s ancient. You have Mardi gras, it\u2019s a Catholic, Paganized ritual. All this shit, Lent, Mardi gras, Easter and the Resurrection. I\u2019m here to tell people that the connection between Christianity and Egypt and the reason that Christmas is what we worship is because of the solstice. But December 21, 2012 is the day of Judgment, it\u2019s Judgment Day, it\u2019s the day, it\u2019s the time\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does that mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world won\u2019t end, but time and space most likely will. There will be a rip in the fabric of time and space in the whole dimension. It\u2019s the theory of Relativity. You can only measure 5100 years of time before time overlaps upon itself. So basically time and space bend one another; so you can\u2019t measure a million years of time, it\u2019s impossible. Time starts to overlap and warp itself. In 2012, time will collapse. It doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ll be gone, but you gotta fit through the black hole or your soul is weak. It\u2019s a 40-day transgression through the black hole; we really are going through the galactic center; it\u2019s called the Alligator\u2019s Mouth, it\u2019s the dark rift of the galaxy. There\u2019s a lot of theories; my one theory is that we will have a meteoric catastrophe similar to what was 100 years ago in Tunguska the tragedy that happened in Russia, where there was a meteoric impact where 20 million trees were decimated instantly, but there were no crater impacts because all of these were tiny tiny little stones that disintegrated and caused a gigantic megaton blast in the atmosphere. Many people think that we\u2019re [doomed] to have that over the Northern hemisphere and it\u2019s coming. I don\u2019t know if I believe it or not\u2026it doesn\u2019t really matter to me either way, just buy my record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does this scare you? If your soul\u2019s at peace you\u2019re completely fine\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can say it in different ways, but it means the same thing as \u2018giving yourself to the will of God,\u2019 people don\u2019t really understand that it\u2019s actually \u2018giving yourself up to the will of the universe, not being afraid to reconnect with a universal Buddha mind or when you do heavy psychedelics [and] you have a near death experience, you connect to the Buddha mind while you\u2019re still alive. You do really need to get rid of your Karmic traps from this plain to move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this material wise? Relationship wise?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think everything\u2026but to me I have more of a Dionysus, like a kind of Aleister Crowley type of thing where I believe in Hedonism. Some people believe that abstinence will lead you to god, but I believe that an abundance [will lead you to god]. You get drunk off Absinthe and have an epiphany; you could even be smoking crack and you could be Buddha. I\u2019m pretty against drugs nowadays\u2026but I\u2019m into Salvia Divinorum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salvia Divinorum is \u201cthe eye of the shepherdess,\u201d it\u2019s the \u201cdiviner\u2019s mint,\u201d I\u2019m heavily into it, I\u2019m not afraid to leave my body temporarily. I have a big ego, but I also leave it quite often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do you like Salvia?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I honestly feel there\u2019s a consciousness from the plant, uploaded into my soul. Plants communicate to you and they talk to you. The book The Food of the Gods<\/em> by Terence McKenna; it says that humans evolved by eating mushrooms and evolved a human consciousness. It gives you more sensory acuity, so in case your hunting, maybe you\u2019re in a trance-like state, you really have a connection with god.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To bring the whole discussion full circle; to me rapping is a way to connect with those more Paleolithic times of passing things down by the word, or really connecting to the word. To me the word is powerful and universe is made of syllables and sounds. The reason why I do rap is to hopefully initiate a spark of a new kind of consciousness in the mind of the listener and also just to have fun and shit. It basically expresses the whole human condition, the sad, the happy\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My new album I feel does that; it\u2019s got some dark moments, some light moments, some sad moments, some funny moments, that\u2019s all I can hope for as an artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens if nothing happens December 21?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing will happen [Laughs]. To me 2012 is an idea; it\u2019s an inevitable idea of the evolution of the human species \u2013 in a positive way for me. Basically it is the end of the Mayan calendar, but it is the end of a very very very very large cycle, it\u2019s at least a 26, 000 year cycle. It\u2019s the Halcyon, it\u2019s the Black Phoenix of antimatter rising from the depths of this crumbling, archaic history [Laughs], that\u2019s the way I see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last words? Shouts?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I should say thanks to all the artists who did reach out and get on my record and all the producers. Bigups to Factor for hooking it up. A big shout out to Albane. Big shout out to ugsmag, thanks for the shirt. To all the fans: don\u2019t be a hater because really I might joke around and be a bit cocky, but really I\u2019m a fan and I respect most other artists and I hope most people are going to give me a chance with my work because I\u2019m really trying to reach out to a wider audience. Keep your ear to the street for Plague Language<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rock Paper Scissors<\/em> drops September 23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more info on Noah23 check out myspace.com\/thenoah23<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Noah23 is Guelph Ontario\u2019s rap Godfather and Canada\u2019s own \u201cPoetical Prophet.\u201d He is the President of the Plague Language<\/em>…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100021,"featured_media":1367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","filesize_raw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[46,291],"series":[],"coauthors":[3115],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/ugsmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/noah23-1.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ugsmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/ugsmag-podcast-3000-2021.png?fit=3000%2C3000&ssl=1","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"light","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/ugsmag-com\/id1342014871","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/6n634oIghsT6zqg8PrDRvx","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/ugsmag.com\/feed\/podcast\/ugsmag-com","embedCode":"

Noah23<\/a><\/blockquote>