Cornel West Theory Part II: The People

Scheme: Which leads me to my next question, since you are all from the same city, people tend to get categorized and would say that you guys all sound the same, but when did you guys get all get introduced to music, not hip hop music, but music?

Waverlyn Bell: For me I grew up in various parts of Southeast DC and there was always music in the car, wasn’t too much in the house because my mother and I were sharing a space. I have to say my mother was a big influence because she kept the oldies on and at a young age something would catch my ear and even though I’m not a visual artist, I’m a writer first. Also being blessed with a mother who let me hold onto my imagination. Also I was the only kid on my block my age so there was a lot of playing alone so it was either toys or music. With music I definitely feel like a newbie because I have a love for music but I try to figure out how I can take my craft for writing pros and stories and put them into lyrical patterns. My father is a trucker and when we used to get on the highway the genre of music changed, so you start going into mountain rock, country rock, country standards and it all felt good to me and that associates with the memories that I had being on the road, and that all factors in with being free.

“…our sound is going to be weird, DC is like a no man’s land sh*t we’re not even a state and what is the District of Columbia? And where is Columbia?”

John Moon: I just started recently investigating my personal history, but I had a really odd early upbringing because there was a split between my parents. My father was a military guy who was kind of strict and my mom was this really free bird. So in my father’s house I really didn’t hear a lot of music unless I was in the car or random places like that. With my mom that’s when I got exposed to gospel music and that’s when I first heard ain’t no mountain high enough and I heard that record like all the time. So between the split I ended up leaving with my mom and started getting more exposure to music and that was during the 80’s when I went to Duke Ellington and started listening to different kinds of Black music and lead me to be really creative but the strongest music for me was Go-Go still to this day. After Duke (Ellington School of the Arts) that’s when I first got into hip hop and I started rhyming and got introduced to things like Low End Theory( A Tribe Called Quest) but at the same time I got introduced to cats making beats and I got introduced to Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders and from there I started getting used to investigating on my own sounds and records and I tried to incorporate that into my own musical expression it’s what lead me up to now.

Tim Hicks: I’m from Northeast DC and music has been a part of my life ever since I can actually remember. My mom said to me on several occasions when I was like 4 or 5 I could get on the drum set and play better than some adults, the only thing I couldn’t do was reach the pedal. When I can remember music it was what my parents were playing. Most of the stuff we’re getting ready to put on the new album was all stuff I heard growing up and I got to the point where I wanted to check that stuff out and I would go back and ask my pops, “who sang this song.?”. My mom was also the religious anchor in the house at a certain period so I heard gospel music and then I heard the White folks version and not hymns but soft sounding stuff that the average kid from Northeast was not getting exposed to. My younger brother and I were really into rock, like Poison and Guns & Roses. I got introduced to hip hop in its infancy and I heard a bunch of stuff. What happened to me was a friend of mine introduced me to reggae and it just hit me and it wasn’t so much that it was a groovy beat but more like this man is saying something severely powerful enough to the point where governments will come after this guy the same way that they came after a Malcolm X. We moved from DC at a certain time and I didn’t like Go-Go when I lived in DC, I didn’t like it until we moved from DC. Then I heard Northeast Grooves who happened to be from my neighborhood and the rhythms were out of this world. These guys (Cornel West Theory Members) introduced to Jazz and the first Jazz album I bought was the Clown by Charles Mingus and the next one I heard was Percussion Bitter Sweet by Max Roach and the drums caught me on that one. So our sound is going to be weird, DC is like a no man’s land sh*t we’re not even a state and what is the District of Columbia? And where is Columbia?

Rashad: My grandmother played the organ and she sung spirituals while she did it. I wasn’t raised with gospel, that was something I got into in my twenties. My father played anything Black from James Brown to Jimi Hendrix and my mother was the same way. My sister played hip hop and whatever was in. Three bands that really got me interested in music was Jimi Hendrix, Organized Confusion and the Cella Dwellas. Hip hop and Go-Go are my heartbeat and then I got into underground rock like Fugazi and the Wipers and real indie type of rock.

“Being from DC we’re around politics, a rich neighborhood and the ghetto right next door.”

Sammy Lavine: My big sister giving me her Fugazi tape and her Go-Go records and the first time I hit the stage it was playing Long Division and their drummer Brendan Canty is the reason I wanted to play drums so put those two together and that’s pretty much it.

Yvonne Gilmore: My earliest and most formative influences were my father, growing up with him and his interest in opera and the trained voiced. All my grandfathers the ones that are alive are still in bands now with Jazz music and my Uncle worked with Charlie Parker and for me with all that music is your life and what you live. When I heard Donnie Hathaway sing A Song for You I was 7 or 8 years old but when he sang I love you in a space where there’s no space or time that for me was some serious…like these sounds mean everything. This is the sound of real life and this is serious sh*t and even to hear Junkyard sing Take me on out to see Junkyard I was like that’s real take me there please (laughs).

Rashad: Our music form the beginning has always been about what’s going on and the social development of the land and I think that’s where it’s going to stay. Being from DC we’re around politics, a rich neighborhood and the ghetto right next door.