Brian Coleman: Check the Rhyme Ya’ll

Author Brian Coleman has hit us with his second installment in what he hopes to become a definitive volume of hip hop literature that focuses on what hip hop to some fault of our own has forgotten. Check the Technique is an exstensive Hip Hop 101 lesson that every generation from this point on needs to read and keep in their library for their kids. I had the opportunity to talk with Mr. Coleman about everything from 2Live Crew, Public Enemy, the luxury to access that this generation has when it comes to information, Island Def Jam and the Roots. Some of his statements may surprise but if you think about them, they all make sense. The reality is between the lines of what he says makes everyone look in the mirror.

Scheme: You say you got introduced to hip hop by DJ Red Alert or what was it that he did that got you hooked?

Brian Coleman: It was just his style, if you’re a DJ it’s important to create a persona, not only the music you play it just has to be tight. It was really about the way Red Alert presented everything. Afrika Islam and the World Famous Supreme Team had their style which was very different from Red Alert. Afrika Islam wasn’t trying to be super technical and the technology wasn’t there much back then so it was really about presenting music and also a form of community for people who bonded with hip hop back then. Back in the late 80’s it was really starting to take hold and there was no denying that hip hop was taking New York City. So he stepped up his game the technology was there. It was the promo and the humor.

Scheme: When did you realize that you were going to have major contribution in hip hop and that you were going to be a part of this?

Brian Coleman: I guess in the early part of this century I started to realize I felt a certain responsibility and whatever kind of minimal power that I had to talk to the guys, the pioneers that the magazines that have really kind of…because they’re so focused on what’s now and what’s selling they have kind of been left behind in a lot of the discourse. So I’ve always faught to talk to these pioneers, producers, emcees or DJ’s. At that point I was doing stuff with XXL and in more recent years with Scratch, that’s really my focus. I never really wanted to write about current major label stars because I don’t find them terribly interesting, so that’s kind of been my niche and Rakim Told Me was a nice intro and sort of like my demo tape as I call it. Just showing how I wanted to present some of the pioneers. Check the Technique is another extension of that but at the same time I hope it’s only the beginning of what I’m trying to do.

Scheme: What was you’re perception going into the magazine business? Was it what you expected and when you got immersed in it you thought it was something different? Did you already know that they would go after the big fish and they would maybe dedicate an issue to the people that were doing great work but weren’t signed to these major labels.

Brian Coleman: I’m not sure, to be honest with you, I’ve never lived in New York City, I’ve never lived in the belly of the beast when it comes to being in an actual magazine office and seeing how they make their decisions with things like that and that’s a good thing. That’s a good question about when I realized, that doesn’t mean that I think it’s an evil thing I think that I’m fortunate. It’s not easy to put out a magazine in this day in age and it’s getting harder and harder as the years go on because they’re doing what they feel that they need to do. I think it’s great that a e-zine like Scheme and things like allhiphop, places that can afford to give quote un quote ink to lesser known artists who are kind of pioneers because they don’t have to sell on the news stands. I think it’s great and I hope that magazines rise to compete and adapt because I think they’re being forced to and honestly if they don’t they’re going to be forced right out of business. I think covering some of these modern artists it’s kind of hollow and you can’t do that only, you have to balance it out.

“You couldn’t do something someone else had done and not gotten booed off stage. Now it’s actually almost rewarded to not shake things up and do things differently.”

Scheme: I’ve interviewed a couple of artists not as many as you have (laughs), but I always asked them when they got introduced to hip hop what are some of the biggest changes they’ve witnessed. Some say there has been major change and some say there hasn’t been any change at all. What is your opinion on that and then besides the music, the community and the culture as well?

Brian Coleman: I always make a point in the beginning when talking about hip hop as a culture or even as music it’s impossible to do without defining it nowadays. I mean are you talking Young Jezzy or are you talking Immortal Technique? It can be both, I don’t see that much in some of these major label artists that really tells me that they have much of an understanding or concern about hip hop culture. I may be wrong and that may be my ignorance because I don’t know them personally but if they’re flying the flag for hip hop they’re not doing it very well, that’s my opinion. I think independent hip hop has always been much closer to what Bambatta, Kool Herc and Flash were all about and they really started to bring the culture back together where it started in the 70’s and pushing things ahead. The thing that kind of disappoints me about a lot of artists now is there doesn’t seem to be any penalty for being un-original. I think that’s a very important distinction and I would love it if more consumers really took that to heart. Someone did a review in the Boston Herald of the book and said something i I hadn’t even thought of myself. What I appreciated was some of the artists tried to paint a general picture even saying a lot of the major label artists that are really big right now are kind of like photo copies of photo copies of the original artists, and a photo copy of a photo copy is a lot blurrier and a lot less defined and less interesting to look at. So that’s one thing that really disappoints me are that things are pathetically formulaic. Both music and video imagery in hip hop is just…in 1989 you just couldn’t bite like that and get away with it. You couldn’t do something someone else had done and not gotten booed off stage and now it’s actually almost rewarded to not kind of shake things up and do things differently. It’s funny because there are people who are more established who still do things that kind of go against the grain like a Timbaland of the Neptunes on occasion and there so established that way people don’t even look at it that way.

Scheme: It’s like Timbaland or the Neptunes could come out with an album and people would buy it just because of the name.

Brian Coleman: Yeah and that’s dope! Just because Timbaland and the Neptunes are huge – that’s not a bad thing if they use their power for good and not ridiculousness. I think there are a lot of people out there who do use their power to continue to use what they’ve got and continue to push things exactly at the status quo or to kind of lower than that instead of being. An artist is someone who sits there and says, “What can I do that’s different and shake things up?”, and that’s it. So if people you’re listening to aren’t doing that I would encourage people to think pretty hard before buying that next record or that next download.

“How can you call yourself an artist? You can call yourself a business man but how is it taking chances by putting a bunch of women in bikinis in 2007?”

Scheme: I had a chance to read some of the book and in the first section with Uncle Luke they were saying it was more about the lyrics. However, people got so caught up in the sexuality the people just disregarded everything else which was interesting because they really weren’t out to offend anybody. That’s interesting because today all the videos now are the photo copy of the original. My friends talk about it and we’re like if you took away all the women out of the video and were forced to look at the guy whose rapping and listen to what they’re saying, people would be like, “this sh*t is wack!”

Brian Coleman: (laughs) That’s beautiful, that’s exactly what I’ve always said. Imagine if some of these guys were forced to take any Jay-Z video and say you can not use any element that has ever been in a Jay-Z video, okay what are you going to do now? They would all just go home and cry because they would actually have to work.

The thing about 2Live Crew that’s interesting is if you take them and what they did back then in the 80’s and take whoever you want to put in that zone today. First of all 2Live Crew in the chapter very clearly state what they were doing was nothing new. They were doing Red Fox and Richard Pryor it was just had a funky beat to it. First of all they were admitting they were biting but they were doing it in a different way. Now what excuse does that give someone who comes along in 2007 and does the same thing, there’s just no excuse for that bullsh*t. How can you call yourself an artist? You can call yourself a business man but that’s not taking chances anymore, how is it taking chances by putting a bunch of women in bikinis in 2007? There should be some type of demerit system that stops this kind of sh*t. My thing with 2Live Crew is there’s a difference between being funny and being a joke and 2Live Crew came to be seen as a joke but they’re not a joke, they’re a really important group. The entire south and landscape of the hip hop industry of the south would not be the same if it wasn’t for 2Live Crew and honestly would’ve taken years longer to develop. I want people to look at Uncle Luke as an entrepreneur not just some goofball who was there with Banned in the U.S.A. He says in the chapter that he regrets the way some of the band was portrayed, some of that may have been his fault. It’s not like he’s saying I’m perfect but he certainly regrets some of the things that happened. He had a vision and an ear and it was hard for people to see his vision out because people were like, “Oh yeah that booty guy.”

“If you stopped buying a lot of the crap that’s being put out on Island Def Jam guess what, they would stop making it.”

Scheme: There are people who say hip hop can’t be defined and hip hop can’t be boxed in and then there are people who say hip hop has to be defined. Right now I kind of feel like hip hop is like Star Wars where you have a group that’s on Luke’s (Skywalker) side which is like the “Force” and then you have the dark-side and the force has no tolerance at all for this mainstream stuff. Do you think this is going to be the status quo for the next some odd years because my opinion is if the formula is working I don’t really see it changing.

Brain Coleman: Here’s what I think and I’m always years behind the curve with what I want to happen and what will happen. I will draw the direct parallel and I challenge anyone to tell me I’m wrong. Hip hop on major labels and what you see for the most part on MTV or BET tell me how that is different from hair metal in the late 80’s as far as the industry. Some of these unimaginative videos, what that is – is Poison in the year 1989. It’s this formula, it’s ridiculous but everyone kind of lets it go along but whose coming around the corner but Nirvana. Now I’m not going to predict that that’s going to happen in hip hop but it could and it should. Here’s the thing, I never pretended to see through the eyes of someone who could actually go out and buy a M.I.M.S. album, like I literally can’t stand how someone could go out and buy that and feel that they’ve actually got their monies worth. When was the last time you bought a major label hip hop album and you were really excited about it and you had goose bumps. Don’t you want that feeling? People have gotten into this really ugly state of mind where people will buy something just because it’s new not because it’s good. In that same way I can’t feel bad for people who buy things that suck. If you stopped buying a lot of the crap that’s being put out on Island Def Jam guess what, they would stop making it. There was a time when Public Enemy went Platinum and that could happen again. Whatever the hip hop nation could form around political stances and activism and things like that. People can speak out against hip hop as being offensive, misogynistic and this and that but when are people going to start speaking out against mainstream hip hop as being unimaginative? I’ll be like on a radio show or some kind of interview or something like that and someone will just start saying hip hop in these general terms and that’s why I say is you have to define it because I dislike 50 Cent but the 55 year old pundit dislikes 50 Cent for much different reasons than I do, at least we can be united in saying is he really doing anything good for hip hop and good for music?

I don’t get involved in political stuff as much I just focus on music. So I’m not here to speak on socio-political terms I’m talking strictly on music. In the book I’m talking about musical artistry and innovation plain and simple, it’s not that complex. If someone wants to buy some of the stuff that’s out there it’s not my job to stop them but what I’m saying about the goose-bumps. Really think about are you buying this album because you’re like, “eh, whatever.”, is that really the way you want to enjoy your music because if you don’t feel that way, why don’t you go back and listen to that stuff that’s in your crates, that’s my philosophy.

“Think about why you’re listening to something, are you trying to stimulate yourself or educate yourself or do you just want some dumb entertainment?”

Scheme: Do you find it interesting that the generations now, like my generation when they meet hip hop, they meet it where it is and go forward. They don’t realize that their was a Tribe and Public Enemy and a Red Alert?

Brian Coleman: Yeah I agree, the more that people like Jeff Chang are out in public talking to kids and getting his books out there and Nelson George is doing his thing and different people who know and can talk about hip hop in a different way that kind of explains what the history is about. When I was coming up in the mid to late 80’s like Jeff Chang it was pretty hard to find information about hip hop, there weren’t many books for sure, that’s my whole thing about the liner notes. Kids nowadays have absolutely no excuse. They can go on the web, they can go to myspace pages, download stuff on itunes, the information is out there and it’s so easy to find I’m jealous. The amount of knowledge they can find in 10 minutes back in the day it would’ve taken weeks. Yet I challenge these kids yet again whether your 20, 40 or 15 just think about the way you listen to music and what music does to you. Think about why you’re listening to something, are you trying to stimulate yourself or educate yourself or do you just want some dumb entertainment? If you want dumb entertainment there’s nothing I can really do to change your mind and I don’t want to talk to you anyway. All you have to do is pick anyone of these albums in the table of contents, buy that album and if you don’t say this is better than that record I bought last week cool. Why shouldn’t some kid be able to go and buy Public Enemy Takes a Nation of Millions for nine dollars and then say wholly sh*t! If they listen to that and don’t feel that way then it’s all good at least they’ve had a shot. I can’t feel bad for kids who say, “Oh, I don’t know what to listen too I don’t know where to find it because that’s a bunch of horse sh*t.” I can’t even imagine going to school and having a hip hop class, I did one of my senior thesis papers about Public Enemy and people were like what is that about? I can’t imagine a professor walking into class and saying we’re going to talk about Biggie Smalls today or we’re going to talk about Kool Herc today, there’s no way I could’ve envisioned that. They can sign up and get college credit, take a class on learning about hip hop, what more do you want?

Scheme: I agree with you, but the majority of the people who buy the music are the White youth. My thing is this and I could be totally wrong, I haven’t done any research on it but my thing is, if you compare the way the youth of color and White youth hear the music, they hear it differently. I think White youth hear it as entertainment and see it in that way but they know not all, but most know their life looks nothing like that. Where you may have youth of color where what they see on TV looks like what they see directly outside their door…

Brian Coleman: That’s what I’m saying, it depends on what your looking for in the music. I never found hip hop as pure entertainment for the most part, in the same way I never found rock music that way. That’s definitely legit, but at the same time why not make your choice between Nelly, Jeezy and Public Enemy? Public Enemy was talking about a lot of things that were very real as well. I can’t fault anyone for making any music, any artist can make any music they want but I’m saying that, that doesn’t mean you have to buy it. When I was watching the Byron Hurt documentary the thing that I found interesting was when kids would freestyle he would say, “why are you rhyming about this or that?”, and they would reply, “That’s the only way I’m going to get signed.”, which is obviously not true and this is really an interesting point for kids coming up who want to be rappers. What is success of a hip hop artist? Is it 50 Cent or a good friend of mine Mr. Lif? Lif makes music where he answers to no one, he’s not told how to make his music and is very thoughtful, political and entertaining and he also makes a living doing that. He owns property, doesn’t have any debt and he tours around the world, so that’s not successful? So do you have to be a millionaire to be successful? That’s the point I would like to make to the young kid how getting a major label deal, acting like a moron and having someone tell you what to do, if you consider that successful as long as you have a house then fine. I think you’ll realize that, that’s not success in anyway except for monetary and there is a way to do it, Talib Kweli, the Roots. There is this really horrible myth like to compare it to a rock level, you have to be the Rolling Stones.Didn’t the Ramones do alright? It really all depends on your vantage point but I don’t think it’s put out there enough. You can be successful and make a living without answering to someone else that’s not very imaginative or artistic and I don’t think kids have any idea about that and that I blame on the way the media covers that in part because I think that needs to be said. Look at Stones Throw (Records), Definitive Jux, Rhymesayers, that’s all you need to do, none of those people are millionaires but those guys are making a living, touring and making what they want to make so it can be done. I think it’s important for kids to know that coming up, do whatever you want to do, you can make it happen. I would say in so many ways that Madlib or Lif are much more successful than some of these guys on major labels, at least they haven’t sold out.

Scheme: What were some of the interviews that stuck in your mind that you carry with you for the rest of your life?

Brian Coleman: That’s tough because they’re all so important to me. I think the Roots chapter is really dope because I don’t think most people know about all the shit they went through in their early years. There’s always that tipping point (no pun intended) that all artists go through. At any point in 1991 or 1992 the Roots could’ve broken up, and Ahmir (Questlove) could be teaching high school orchestra in Iowa and it shows how bad they wanted to happen and how hard they were trying. Ahmir basically keeping the Roots away from his father who wanted him to be a musician but not a hip hop musician. I think the Roots story is what I’m talking about who wanted to make music on they’re own terms. Think about what they were doing back then. No sampling, no DJ, jazz background, live band, what about that was conventional?

Scheme: What did you think when they signed to Def Jam because a lot of people were mixed on that?

Brian Coleman: Well look at it this way, the album that came out of that was incredible! As to how much push that got from the record label, I think it can be decided that there wasn’t a huge push on that but the Roots make their living as hip hop artists on their own terms and that also is touring.

I hope when I’m done however many years in the future that will be that at some point as a series of volumes it will be approaching a definitive look but this is just an intro and a way to get these stories out there in a managable digestable form.

For more info head to www.checkthetech.com