photo courtesy Block

Rakaa-Iriscience

So, I’ve got to apologize for taking so long with this. First off, these interviews were HELLA long, and it took me forever to transcribe them. Although I’d been talking to Rakaa (it gets weird to call him Iriscience) for some time, it’s been hard to find time to do a formal interview. I’m doing this as part of an article I’m writing for a magazine (it’s the cover story on the fall issue of Remix-more on this later). He’s crazy busy: on the road, filming videos, studying jujistu…I finally call and wake him up one morning.

P: So, let’s just start with the whole history thing.

R: I met Evidence at a graffiti yard. I was finishing a piece, he was coming to start one. We ended up meeting each other. We had some mutual friends and whatnot. A little while later, he came into a place I was working. Where I worked was a spot called the Hip Hop Shop in L.A. They had open mics, open turntables, and everything else. You could just go in there and do your thing. I was in there every day freestyling, basically. He came in a few times and would be freestylin’. We decided to hook up and work on a track together. That turned into a couple of tracks and then the group. We got together and created a group and did our thing like that for a minute. A few years later in early 97, Babu joined the group. I had known him for awhile just being in the DJ scene…I hang out in the DJ scene. His reputation was definitely circulating wide. But he was also a really cool person. We ended up meeting and chillin’ and getting along really well. When he moved a little closer-into Hollywood to manage Fat Beats-we ended up networking and Ev slid him the record, and everything else moved from there. We linked up. He joined right before, “Work the Angles”, and we’ve been together ever since.

P: When did you first meet Ev?

R: That was ’92.

P: So when did you guys actually become a group?

R: Later in ’92.

P K: How did you come up with your name?

R: Well, initially we were looking for a name, and I had a publishing company I was going to start. It was called “Expanding Pupils” which meant “growing students”, and to me that’s what it was. We were looking for a group name at the same time, and actually the Alchemist (the producer), said “Dilated Peoples is ill. What about Dilated Peoples?” It just kind of stuck from there. It was as simple as that. What it means is people of expansion, people dilated in a sense that we’re open. Philosophically, we just stay open to change and understanding of that. Also, as a goal to do the same to others-to get other people open-whether it’s on our stuff or whether it’s to get people open in general. It’s good to be open and widen the margins a little bit.

P: I was just at the National Teen Poetry Slam in SF. It was amazing how many teens and kids knew who you were and were like, “When’s their shit coming out?”. You have totally expanded to people that I thought would not even be into hip hop, let alone know what’s up…they’re waiting for your album.

R: We’ve done our homework a little bit, and we’ve gone around and put ourselves on the line to be out there and network and be in front of the people and plant seeds. We’ve been able to meet some really beautiful people around the planet. Definitely at home, that’s where we’re at, so we make sure we try to keep everybody touched around here. The fact that the people come out and have a good time and are looking forward to our stuff is one of the most beautiful feelings. I cannot even express how it feels to be in this position. We were going to do it regardless, but to have it pay off and at the same time have it be accepted is just a really beautiful experience.

P: When you had first gotten together, you had a deal with Immortal. What happened?? You had put something out, but it wasn’t really the total representation of what you guys were doing.

R: We never put out the album. We put out one song on a compilation. We did an album, but we decided that that was school and that was our school project. We decided it was time to go pro to take it to pro games, pro league level. We stepped out of that thing. It was a situation where we didn’t feel like for the amount of energy we were expending we were getting proper mileage. We bounced. That was kind of that. That meant taking a risk-we could have stayed on the label and hoped that everything worked out, but we left and decided to take our fate into our own hands. We figured our career was bigger than one record label, one record, so here we are now.

P: How did you guys meet Beni B?

R: Beni B? We met Beni B when Ev was producing Defari. Defari was always talking about Beni B, this cat from the Bay that was a DJ and a record collector and he was going to put out his first record and stuff…that’s exactly what happened. We liked how Beni did with Defari’s records, and he approached us. Ev had me talk to Beni, I liked what he was talking about, so we just got down and did it.

P: How is it working with people who have been your friends for a long time, like Alchemist or Joey Chavez or something?

R: It’s cool. Those are two of Ev’s best friends since they were younger. It’s not really as serious for me. Those are the homies, but…at the same time, they come in a very natural way. I listen to a tape…if Joey did it and that’s the track I want, it’s gonna go down. Otherwise, it’s just Joey Chavez, my homeboy from Venice. Same with Al (Alchemist). We see each other, we chill. I go out to New York or he comes out to LA. It’s all family. We go get ourselves a little Japanese food, a little shrubbery, and everything is good. If he comes with that hot beat, I want it. If it’s not the right beat for me…I just wish him well in his career…hopefully it will be a hit for somebody else. That’s usually how I look at things. It’s never really been a problem. On the other hand, Ev and I have known each other for eight years, so we’ve known each other longer than a lot of people have been married and businesses have been open-all kinds of things can happen in that time. When you deal with someone that you know that well, things can get personal really quick because you know which buttons to press, but at the same time, you also really realize that you’ve been together this long and gone through this much for a reason. If you have kind of self control to get things back. That’s how we’ve been able to do it: give each other our space; support each other in our solo things-we’re not trying to crowd each other. And then come together and really form and do this Dilated thing the right way.

P: How is it when Dilated is in the studio…it’s very collaborative?

R: It’s very collaborative. In a very general sense, Dilated Peoples produced this entire album. At the same time, we didn’t make the music for every track. We were very involved in picking every track, with opinions in the studio how things should go, arrangements…across the board. With full respect to everybody that worked on it, I’m not trying to take anything away from the listed producers, but we oversaw the entire album as an album. That’s basically how we always want to approach everything in a collaborative way, even if it’s a solo song for me or a solo song for Ev or whatever the case is. We still figure out how it best fits on the album or the live show.

P: It’s totally your vision.

R: It’s a vision that comes out of the democratic process of three people. It’s our agreed upon vision. We speak as one. We have one vision and one voice when we’re working together. We work all our problems out behind the scenes. Once we figure out how we’re gonna do it and how we can all feel comfortable with the idea, then we present it. We stay focused like a laser beam.

P: How did you decide who you were gonna have guest on the LP? I’m sure there were zillions of names thrown around. Did you make a conscious effort to have people that were mainly from LA/West Coast? Did it just happen that way? Did you have a a lot of discussion about who or who would not be included on the album? It feels like there are a lot of people trying to get down with you guys.

R: Do you know that feeling like when you reach into your pocket and pull out some money it’s and it’s like “Oh! yeah!” It was a really pleasant surprise, but the furthest thing from our minds when putting it together. I remember looking at the list of everybody and thinking everybody’s from or represents the LA/West Coast hip hop scene.

P: Or transplanted

R: Based out of or from, either way. It didn’t really occur to us when we were putting it together. We were planning on working with all types of people. We did a song with AG (Showbiz and AG) and we’ve worked with other people in the past, even overseas and things like that, but when it came down to pick songs for the album and what worked best for what we were doing, with the people and the time schedules and everything, this is how it was and this is how it felt-like it was ready to be served, so that’s how we did it.

P: Were there a lot of other tracks that didn’t end up on the album?

R: A couple, we stay busy. A lot of it is exercise, training. And expression. A lot of it is venting. We’re really creative, expressive people, we’ve gotta get it out some kind of way. But we’re very concise when it comes time to pick what we want to put out.

P: Do you ever worry about being overexposed? How do you choose who you’re going to work with under those circumstances-when it’s someone else’s project? When someone asks you to be on a track…or is it more organic-that you’re just chillin’ with people and roll into the studio with them?

R: We have a strong discography if you look at a list. A lot of people have a lot less numbers by their name, but at the same time, those are albums. We haven’t put out any albums, we’ve done a lot of work, but it’s been really planting seeds. We haven’t fully formed yet, we’re still forming. I do recognize that I can’t spread myself too thin, and we know that we have business situations that are involved, so we can’t just do everything although we love to collaborate and work with people. Ultimately, we know when to chill, or recharge. We don’t get beyond ourselves. I don’t really worry about it too much.

P: How did you decide on Capitol?

R: It was a really unique situation. Pretty much every record label at the time was trying to talk to us. A lot of labels have had success with hip hop, Capitol isn’t really one of them, short of the Beastie Boys, and that isn’t really the same branch of the tree that we’re on. The Beastie Boys are definitely hip hop and very influential, but they were already huge and diverse in their sound when they got over there. To break a group like us…I think the situation at Capitol is a combination of a lot of things. One was that we had a nice amount of light and momentum going into the situation. And two, was that they didn’t have success in a big way with hip hop so they didn’t have a system in place that would confine us to doing things a particular way. They had a desire and a resource and a willingness to be open to ideas, and that’s what made us head over there. It’s that they were open, and they wanted us to help them develop a system, not only for ourselves, but also for the future.

P: Where do you see hip hop going in the next few years as far as like, a lot of the huge somewhat underground groups, particularly from LA, have gone and signed to majors, where do you think the next wave of inventiveness is going to come from?

R: I think it’s going to be a wave from overseas, to be honest. There’s so much quality stuff going on…I travel a lot. There’s so many ideas that haven’t been touched on, so many ways of looking at things. All it takes is for somebody to make that bridge record for it to spark. There’s stuff over there that’s happening that could really do it. I think Canada, that’s gonna happen. All of what we consider Latin America. I think just culture in general is going to be accepted more in hip hop. People aren’t going to be as reluctant to accept new ideas and new approaches in the future because they’re not going to be able to fight with success. [We have a discussion about some amazing emcees from Bosnia and talk about how it doesn’t always matter if you can understand the language they’re speaking…the true emotion comes through.]

P: Where do you get your inspiration for writing?

R: I get it from everywhere, walking around. I get it from John Coltrane’s horn lines, Jimi Hendrix, listening to his songwriting (even aside from his guitar playing) has been extremely influential. Public speakers, my teachers, church…I’ve been inspired by all sorts of things. Gil Scott Heron, Last Poets, Watts Prophets. Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, Kool G Rap, Rakim, Run DMC. I’ve been inspired by hip hop in general. I guess the best way to say it is just by my environment in general. I try to tune out so I can tune in and really just absorb what’s around me. When you travel and you go to this country and that country, and you’re seeing different color money, and different types of people and different attitudes, and you come back to LA, for a little while you get this feeling like LA is just another country, just a city in another country. When you’re looking at things that way, you get a chance to feel the culture that’s here. I’m really influenced by the LA culture, which is just a combination of just different things from all over the world, like most places.

P: Have you lived there all your life?

R: No, I’ve lived all over, but pretty much I was born in LA and I’ve always come back, regardless of where I’ve skipped out to. I’ve got a lot of love for LA, and that’s with full respect for every inch of the world, but I love the people of LA. There’s bureaucracy here and it’s a pretty conservative place. I don’t like everything that happens in LA, but I think it’s beautiful.

photo by Viviane Oh

 

Well, if we had been eating it would have been. This is the first in a series of interviews with super dope people (whose merchandise is incidentally featured on the site). Blackalicious’ Chief Xcel & Gift of Gab get into all the nitty gritty details of how they first met, how Solesides morphed into Quannum, and what happened to Gab’s first DJ.

Peach: How did you guys meet? It’s not the KDVS story.

Gift of Gab: We met in high school. I’m originally from Southern California, and X is originally from out here in the Bay. We met in Sacramento, and when we first met…

P: Did you go to high school together?

Xcel & G: Yeah, Kennedy.

G: It was kinda like an ego thing at first. Because I was from L.A. and he was from the Bay. He’d be saying, “Too Short is better”, and I’d be saying, “Ice-T is better”. So at first, we kinda had an ego thing going on. But then he told me about this song called, “Top Billin” from Audio Two, and I was like, “Okay, I gotta hear that”. That’s when we sparked our first really ego-free conversation. You know we discovered that instead of being at odds with each other, we both really just had a common love for the music.

X: We actually met through this other dude-we went to Kennedy High in Sac-I don’t know if you know this guy Homicide…he was on Priority… [I am blank]

G: You don’t know Homicide???

X: Yeah, he was on Priority, but he wasn’t on Priority at the time…I was originally Homicide’s DJ. And he introduced me to Gab, The Gift of Gab who was then called Tiny T. We were supposed to form this like three-man Run-DMC-type thing, but Justin (Homicide), he dropped out of school, and we didn’t hear from him for like two years. During that time, Gab and I had a home economics class and Gab sat in the row right behind me, so we would just talk about hip hop every day; every single day.

P: Instead of cooking?

X: Yeah, one day he just called me up and he was like “X, I need a DJ”. I was just thinking it was for like a talent show or something. I was like “For when?” He was like, “Forever”, and I was like, “Aight, cool”. And ever since then… With Solesides, though, when I went off to college, when I went off to Davis, Gab was living in L.A. We would be like hooking up. I’d be playing him beats and stuff over the phone and he would be writing to them…it was just taking way too long. We weren’t getting anything done like that. Sophomore year in college, he moved up to Davis. The year prior to that, I had met Tom (Lyrics Born) through a mutual friend. Then me both met Josh (DJ Shadow) and Zen, who at that time was doing his show down at KDVS. You know, the original intent-everybody was just doing their own thing. Tom was working on his demo, me and Gab were working on ours, Josh was doing daytime mega-mixes for KMEL. Right around that time he had done his first record for Hollywood Basic. Zen was really the person who said, “Instead of you doing a demo, you doing a demo trying to play this A&R game of getting signed, this that and the other, you have the resources and being that we’re so entrenched in college radio-we know the DJs and stuff we can get records to-start doing some 12″s. It just kind of started like that.

P: Was it ever your intention to get signed as far as being on a big label? Someone pointed out to me that none of the crew has ever really been on a big label (besides Josh now). It wasn’t like you were on a big label, but you still have that kind of base.

X: Our things was really just “get the music out”. It’s always been if a major comes along and it was the right situation, we would do it, but in our history…deals would come along, but it would be things that we just weren’t comfortable with-like 70% ownership in your company and just wack shit. It was just kinda like just keep doin’ it. You know, bein’ in the Bay…it’s not like being in L.A. where you have the Warner office, the Universal office, all of that shit. It’s like kind of like let’s just do it.

P: Plus, everyone here is like, “Forget that, I want to own my masters.”

X: Believe me, that’s true.

P: What happened to Solesides?

X: At the end of ’97, we all kinda got together at Lateef’s aunt’s house up in the mountains for a little retreat, and we were just kinda like, “We basically did everything we wanted to do…it’s time for something new, it’s time for a change, time to expand.” Around that same time, Jeff (Chang-DJ Zen) was ready to do his thing in the editing world. He’s at 360.com now. It was kind of like a crossroads-a time to expand and build. We really felt like all of our artistic visions for ourselves, our music, and our careers had just expanded so much from what we originally had set out to do in ’91. It was just time for a change.

P: How did you make the transition from being a DJ to doing your own production? Was it that you always knew you wanted to do?

X: I always had a fascination with records. My dad was like a record collector. I was always fascinated where did Mantronix get that from? Where did 45 King get that from? So just from a DJ perspective, that’s really where the record collecting started for me. Really, for me, production didn’t really start until 1988. ‘Cause when we first met in ’87, Gab’s original DJ, Maestro K, was our producer. All I did was just scratch and the live stuff.

P: What happened to Maestro K?

G: Maestro K is chillin’. He owns a chain of restaurants in Jamaica specializing in jerk turkey and jerk chicken. He likes to fish a lot. Naw, he’s chilling. Last time I talked to him, he’s still doing music, living out in Sacramento. He’s doing like…I haven’t heard a lot of it.

X: He does a lot of stuff…you know that label Black Market? He does a lot of stuff for them, like Brother Lynch and all of that type stuff.

G: He does? I didn’t know that.

X: When Gab and I had hooked up, he had called Gab and was like, “I’m not really doing hip hop anymore.” His mom is a really devout Jehovah’s Witness. She didn’t really want her son doing secular music.

G: That wasn’t the reason why, though.

X: That’s what he told me.

G: Really? He told me something different.

X: He wasn’t down to have music with cussin’ in it. That’s why he just wanted to do like R n B.

G: He told me he just wanted to do RnB; he didn’t want to do rap anymore. We gotta get that straight. Maestro K, if you’re out there we need to get the real story…

X: When he kinda stopped doing music, that’s when I started.

P: What was your first equipment? What did you start out with?

X: Korg DS1 sampler that I still have to this day.

P: Do you use it?

X: Yeah. I may have used it a couple of times on Nia. A lot of times I may sample things through that and trigger that to another sampler and actually sample the Korg.

P: That’s how Domino is…he still has his old Casio sampler that he loves still. He uses that to sample and triggers with an Akai.

X: The only other person I know that has that sampler and still uses it is Kut Masta Kurt (ED Note: SUPREMEeX uses a Casio FZ-1). I actually bought…this is my first set of equipment: Alesis SR16 drum machine, a Tascam 4 track and the Korg DS1. I had bought all that for like $1,000 from Brian Morgan-you know the guy that does the SWV stuff? He’s from Sac. Actually Maestro K hooked me up with him. I don’t want you to think that we dissed Maestro K just cause he didn’t want to do rap. We’re still cool.

G: (jokingly) I kind of still have a grudge, actually.

P: A lot of people want to know what you did in the four years you were out of the public eye…

G: Fish.

X: We fished, we swam, went skydiving…I learned how to bungee jump.

G: We really were just in the lab, really. We were just working on Nia. It took us like four years to do this album. There were various versions of this album and various stages of where it was at…you know. Being that this is our first full-length album, we wanted to make something that WE considered to be…something that would be great. That was our goal: to make a great record. So we were just in the lab. We were still doing shows. And it really wasn’t a hiatus because we were still creating. It was just a minute of time between Melodica and between A to G, but we were just in the lab.

P: I should play this on the radio so people will know, “Gab has beef”. As far as the production for Nia, or actually all your production…what is your method, if you can reveal it?

X: I don’t want to go too much into it. I’ll just say there’s different ways that our creative process works. Really three main ways: In a given week, I may have four or five just what we call skeletons or rhythm tracks. I give them to Gab or give them to Lateef, and they’ll pick what they like or what they’re feelin’ and they’ll write to it. I’ll see what they’re doing. We’ll lay down that rhythm track, they’ll lay down their vocals, and then I’ll just start arranging the song; resequencing from there. I like to really craft the music around the lyrics, not vice versa. I just do the arrangement based on what they put down. Other times, Gab or Lateef may have just writtens that they’ve been writing that they just want music for. We’ll just pick a tempo that they want to rhyme to, put down the click track, and I’ll just start building from there. Other times, we may just get together and say, just like with “Deception”, we were like, “We want to make a song about this theme or this person or this experience or whatever”. Gab may just go in his corner and write some lyrics, I may just start working on a beat and it just comes together like that.

P: Do you guys usually work together or separate as far as when you’re in the studio? Is it that you go in your corner and you’re not exchanging ideas?

G: We definitely exchange ideas. It’s just a whole building process. X will play a track, I’ll write to it and then we’ll just say “This sounds good here; this doesn’t sound good here. I think you could do this better”. We communicate with each other through the whole process.

P: As far as the composition of the tracks-I know you don’t want to be too forthcoming-but do you sample stuff or do you play stuff in?

X: My only rules are that there are no rules. I work hard to convey whatever sound I hear in my head. If it’s something from a record that inspires me, and I need someone to come in and play it, I do that. If I need to just chop a particular sample into 16 or 32 different pieces to make it work and manipulate it the way I need to, I do that. I don’t really say, “This is going to be strictly records” or “This is going to be a strictly live thing”. Whatever the overall objective is depending on whatever piece we’re working on.

P: Erica (a mutual friend of ours) was totally concentrating on remixes when I asked her if she had any questions for you. She said, “The El-P remix is SO different” compared to what you guys did. She likened it to giving your baby away to someone else to raise. How do you deal with that. Is it weird for you?

G: It’s all about branching out and working with other people too. To me, it’s kinda like that’s their interpretation of the song “Deception”. We wanted to get together with other people we respected and wanted to do some stuff with. To us, it’s just their interpretation of “Deception”. And it’s good; it’s good for growth to see how other producers interpret your work or what they would do with it; where they would take it. So that’s good. That’s growth.

X: I think that it has to-especially for people to remix our stuff-it has to be somebody that we respect first and foremost and that we trust creatively. Both El-P and Kurt, those are both two people who I have tremendous respect for their work. I knew if we gave it to El-P he was just gonna come with something ILL. And I knew Kurt was gonna come with something that was uptempo and bang and really work. It was just an interesting combination. And what we wanted to do, especially with “Deception” was make it so it was a three-part story. It’s about a guy who blows up and falls off. Well, with El-P’s version he just kind of goes on the brink of insanity and loses his mind. I knew El-P would come with something ill that would fit that. Kurt’s part was called, “Redemption” which is about getting back on track and being at the top of his game.

P: If you could remix or collaborate with other people, who would it be?

G: Collaboration? Right now: Mos Def, I’d like to do some stuff with Common, Black Thought, Pharoahe Monch, we’re gonna do some stuff with a lot of people. Aceyalone and Ab Rude

X: Dilated

G: Planet Asia

X: I think in terms of remixes and production, I’d like to work with just a lot of the greats who are still around, still doing the craft. Like Aretha Franklin. I’d like to sit in and work; do a session with like a David Axelrod, Quincy Jones. Somebody whose experiences are so vast. Case in point: Quincy Jones has worked with everyone from Ray Charles to Ice T. Really just kind of picking their brain and would just like to build with them to get outlook on the craft, discipline. I think to a large degree producing is a lot along the same vein as directing-directing film. When you come into any project, you have to be able to-in your mind-see it from beginning to end. To see whatever logical progressions or illogical progressions you want to have. To work with people like an Axelrod or a Quincy Jones who have worked with so many different artists, with so many different creative processes-that would be amazing to me.

P: What is the future for Blackalicious in terms of recording with all of your different configurations (X has a group with Lateef called the Maroons) and touring. How are you going to take the stuff that you have recorded on the road? Do you just play to a DAT? Because you always incorporate singers and all sorts of other people into your process.

X: We try to bring exactly that. Our band is turntable #1, turntable #2 and a mixer. For the most part, that’s our format sonically. But we bring Erin Annova, Joyo, Lateef and Versatile on the road. With our live show we were always inspired by the Digital Undergrounds, the Cypress Hills at their peak, The Quest, The De Las-groups that really…when you came to see their shows, you were entertained. We never really wanted to be the kind of group where we just went up there and did our single.

Blackalicious will be on a US tour with Del the Funky Homosapien this spring…