Scheme: Tell me about singing in your uncle’s band The Funk Disciples.

Hezekiah: I was around 9 years old to like 12 years old. I would sit in the basement and watch my uncle rehearse with his band, three days out of the week, though I never got to play with the band, because I was too young. My mother had a little singing group, my uncle had a band and my grandfather had a gospel band; we all lived on the same block. This was in Chester, PA.

Scheme: WOW! You have a musical family. Are you from Chester?

Hezekiah: I was born and raised in Chester. Moved to Delaware, then moved to Philly.

Scheme: When did you fall in love with hip hop?

Hezekiah: The day I heard Ultramagnetic MC’s, my brother was playing it in the room. They were so “left”; he had to explain what their lyrics meant. That’s when I fell in love with the art of writing.

Scheme: How old were you?

Hezekiah: I was 12.

Scheme: So you’d say your music consists of hip hop and funk combined?

Hezekiah: Yes, that’s how it started with me. Nowadays people use live instrumentation and digital sound. My mom bought me a track machine when I was younger and my aunt bought my cousin a drum machine. Me and my cousin were always connected musically. We would get guitar lessons from my uncle, and us being in the basement between my uncle and my grandfather was like having my own personal studio. We would play with my cousin’s drum machine, my track machine and we’d be rapping with my uncle playing the guitar. That’s how I began producing.

Scheme: Finish this sentence: Music to me is….

Hezekiah: Is a lifesaver. Music to me is a lifesaver because without music I don’t know what the hell I’d be doing.

Scheme: Really?

Hezekiah: Yeah, without the arts for real. I guess I’d be a painter and concentrate on that career wise. But, music is my favorite right now. It kept me out of so much trouble; like me being in the choir; it kept me out of more trouble I could have been in.

Scheme: I’m going to name some people and I want you to tell me the first thing that comes to mind. J Dilla, Barack Obama, Jay-Z.

“I can’t judge him yet, I can’t say anything about him. I don’t live in the state where he governs. Everything sounds good at the gate, but I’m not following that.”

Hezekiah: J Dilla, everybody says genius. But, I’m going to say revolutionary, no I don’t even want to say that. I want to say, a fighter for my genre of hip hop. Without Dilla, this whole genre that I do in hip hop would have been real small, smaller than it is right now. He bridged that gap between my genre to the De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, and Kanye West. From that whole Bad Boy era there was like two things that kept my genre held together; that was Rawkus and Dilla. So Dilla is one of them saviors again, he just bridged the gap. Barack Obama: I can’t say yet!

Scheme: What do you mean?

Hezekiah: I can’t judge him yet, I can’t say anything about him. I don’t live in the state where he governs. Everything sounds good at the gate, but I’m not following that.

Scheme: Jay-Z

Hezekiah: I love Jay-Z, I love his growth. I guess now that he’s financially stable he can take chances. I think his career was so strategically planned out that I appreciate his business mind. I appreciate Jay-Z.

Scheme: I want to comment on something you said earlier.

Hezekiah: Ohh gosh! (Laughs)

Scheme: Genres of hip hop, what do you mean?

“The people that make that music aren’t educated on hip hop because if they were, they would know that Doug E. Fresh was making those same beats. So that’s not evolution.”

Hezekiah: Well now you have your crunk, your snap; they’re two different things. You have your straight up backpackers, your hood rhyming, and then you have your conscious hip hop; your Tribe Called Quest, Common, Mos Def, and then you have your traditional hip hop where you battle.

Scheme: So, in your opinion, is hip hop dying, evolving, camouflaged or surviving?

Hezekiah: Well my genre is evolving. That’s the evolution of it though. When I was 12 I’d use the 808 sound. The people that make that music aren’t educated on hip hop because if they were, they would know that Doug E. Fresh was making those same beats. So that’s not evolution.

Scheme: So do you agree with Nas?

Hezekiah: Ohh Hip hop is dead. I mean, we’ve been saying that for a while, it just took Nas to say it, so everybody pays attention to it. But yeah, it’s dead.

Scheme: Except your genre, because it’s evolving!

Hezekiah: Yeah, but it’s not making the money. Whatever makes the money is alive. It’s like jazz; we all know what real jazz is. If we go over to station 106, that’s like the crunk music of jazz, but if we go to Temple’s jazz station, that’s like my genre of hip hop. That genre of jazz music in the background is the same because there is an audience to it, but my genre will never be to the level where popular hip hop is now, and I don’t think it’ll ever get back to where it was.

Scheme: You don’t think so?

Hezekiah: No, I don’t. They might let some people slip through. But it’s not going to be like where it’s been.

Scheme: People like who?

Hezekiah: Like Lupe Fiasco.

Scheme: Did you watch the Grammy’s?

Hezekiah: Yeah, I saw it!

Scheme: I have a friend that was a little disappointed that Ludacris won best hip hop album. She wanted The Roots to win.

Hezekiah: I love Luda’s album. Check this. They (The Roots) didn’t have any songs; nothing that hit you in your chest.

Scheme: Did Runaway Love hit you in your chest?!

Hezekiah: Yes, it hit me in my chest. Did they speak to you on the album? They didn’t have a Runaway Love!

Scheme: I wasn’t really concerned about The Roots. I would have wanted Lupe to win; I love his album from beginning to end.

Hezekiah: And he hit you in your chest. Tell your friend The Roots didn’t win because it’s about song writing. That’s what Kanye West figured out, everybody has, except them. It’s about song writing, you can’t just write rhymes, it’s a new era, a new time. Even KRS-One realized that. It’s about your subject matter and you have to speak to the people. That’s how the blues got through and certain R&B songs go through. Take a song writing class or a story writing class …it’s all about relating to people.

Scheme: Is that what you’ve done? You’ve taken writing courses?

Hezekiah: Ohh-nah, nah, (Laughs) but, Ohh my God, on my album I speak truth; it’s crazy.

Scheme: What is the Beat Society?

Hezekiah: It’s a producers’ website that is free of charge where producers can upload their beats and sell their beats with no commission expected by the website, so people can reach you directly through your beats. By 2003 we had 3,000 producers and every producer had about 8-10 beats on it. I came up with the idea for a live show and sit on stage as a producer and get that shine. Every element of hip hop has been on stage, except producers. MCs, DJs, B-boys, B-girls, are all on stage, producers are always stuck in the studio. This is 2002-03 and within a year we were traveling all over the country and went to Europe with the show. Now, we’re working on a DVD. We’ve had everyone from Kanye, Just Blaze, Pharrell, and J Dilla have attended. I was working on my album then, but now I’m done with my album, so I’m ready to work on this now.

Scheme: Describe the Philly hip hop music scene.

Hezekiah: I’m going to tell you about the Philly hip hop scene. People are going to hate me right now. I came to Philly in 1994. I saw the neo-soul scene and the hip hop scene together. We all supported each other. The soul scene started to get signed and the hip hop scene stayed stagnant. Venues in Philly, like Black Lilly only booked the soul scene. The hip hop scene was left behind and no one was helping us out. So, now the hip hop scene is stagnant right now because we never looked at ourselves as a family. But, we’re here; we just didn’t take care of each other. But, we’re about to do something about that!(laughs) We’re planning a Philly/D.C. exchange; a monthly concert series where we take two acts in D.C. and two acts in Philly and exchange them. We’re going to share each others’ acts and make each other aware of the talent from both cities.

Scheme: Kind of like the Philly Meets London concerts?

Hezekiah: Yup, yup!

Scheme: So, who is Hezekiah outside the studio vs. inside the studio?

Hezekiah: Damn! (Laughs)

Scheme: You can’t be all business!

Hezekiah: I am! All I talk about is music. It gets annoying. My girlfriend and I have a rule that on Saturday and Sunday we can’t talk music, or take business calls; though I do when we’re not together.

Scheme: So, how are you different?

Hezekiah: I’m not! I’m the same, I’m so one dimensional. That’s so embarrassing!

Scheme: Hey, it’s your passion.

Hezekiah: True, it is.

Scheme: What kinds of things would you like to implement this year that you were unable to do in 2006?

Hezekiah: I was supposed to tour in 2006, but I was working on other projects, but this year, I’m touring, I’m going crazy. I’m leaving for Germany in March and I’ll be back in April and then I have a US tour.

Scheme: So, I have to ask this. You juggle mountain lions?!

Hezekiah: (Laughs) I was joking. You read my bio for real.

Scheme: Yes! I have to do my research. What’s your biggest fear?

Hezekiah: AIDS! Everyone fears AIDS. I have to get checked all the time! I have a song I didn’t put on the album called The Clinic, about waiting for your results. I thought it would be too much. Musiq Soulchild is singing the hook. When we recorded it he said that we probably couldn’t release it. It’s everybody’s experience though.

Scheme: How many albums do you have?

Hezekiah: I have two albums. Hurry up and Wait and I also released an online album, Ruby Valentine. I just had a bunch of songs that never got released. So, I put them all together as an album and released it there.

Scheme: What is your newest album?

Hezekiah: I Predict a Riot. It comes out in June on Rawkus Records.

Scheme: What are you listening to now?

Hezekiah: System of a Down.

Scheme: Really!!

Hezekiah: Yea! I’m a punk head!

Scheme: Nice, so am I.

Hezekiah: Yeah, I was raised on funk. Plus I skate. I’m a skater from the 80s. I just like to change it up because today’s music gets so boring to me.