Tuesday, August 28 2007 Still Listening: Little Brother Interview
Still Listening - Little Brother Interview By Jonathan Master & Jeff Wisdom
Arguably the most relevant act in underground hip hop today, Little Brother has spearheaded the interest in the non-crunk Carolina hip-hop scene and have proved that indie hip hop can have a mainstream appeal. Their albums 'The Listening' and 'The Minstrel Show' in a short time have already become classics, as well as blueprints for other underground hip hop artists to try to emulate. With their third full length album Getback on the way, we sat down with Phonte and Big Pooh to find out how this highly anticipated album will be different from the rest. Jonathan Master: First question is about your creative process when creating a record. If you guys are going through beats or deciding on a concept or whatever, and Pooh you hear one thing and Phonte hears another, what happens then? What happens when you guys disagree?
Big Pooh: Well if its a beat then it just wouldnt get chose. Like sometime hell play me a joint, and say Pooh Im tryin to use thisI got this idea, and wed compromise on it. Perfect example is Good Clothes, when I got the beat I thought it was cool, but we had already made a couple other songs before that, so I didnt know how it would fit with them on the album, but he said he had an idea already. When he says that, Ill play the idea out, and at the end, if I dont like how it turned out, Ill let you know I dont like it. But if it works, then Ill fucks with it. Thats the exception. Like if something Im completely not feeling, we wont use it.
Phonte: Were never on two different pages, most of the time we meet each other half way. If its a topic and one of us is fucking with it, he might be able to convince the other one to roll with it, but beats Jeff Wisdom: So you guys negotiate with each other on song concepts and topics but when it come to beats you both have to feel strong about them?
Phonte: Aint no negotiating that. We both have to feel it.
JM: Going into records nowadays, a lot of the focus is shifted on the features, I got X artist, or Y producer.how do you guys decide on who youre going to work with? Also do you feel the focus on features has taken away from the music and put more emphasis on marketing an business?
Phonte: Oh yeah definitely.
Big Pooh: The albums look like compilation albums now.
Phonte: Its like, whos album is this anyway?
Big Pooh: With us its like a feeling. Number one, we gotta feel the artist were working with, and they have to fit with what were doing. It wasnt like we gotta find a track for Bun B dawg or we gotta get this beat for Lil Wayne or nothing like that. If we hear something, and we got a vibe like it can fit with what were doing, then well try it. Thats how guest appearances come about when it comes to us.
JM: In terms of producers you have a whole range of different producers? Did you guys reach out to them or did they come to you wanting to do something for the project?
Phonte: We reached out to a lot of cats, and a lot of cats like Illmind were just like, Yeah Im down and start sending us beats. It was just pretty much a family affair, cats we either worked with before or were longtime fans of. It all worked out. JM: You guys do a ton of press when your new records come out, its probably gets a little tedious, and you probably hear the same questions a hundred times over. What is it that you want to say directly to fans that doesnt normally come out in interviews?
Big Pooh: Give Little Brother a shot. Like a lot of times, people go on other peoples opinion of music, not just our music, but music in general. People go on somebody elses opinion, and that discourages them from actually going and trying it out themselves. I would just say give our music a shot. If you dont like it at the end of the day, hey, at least you gave it an honest chance for yourself. JW: In your song topics, obviously you stay away from the stereotypical black-gangsta crack-dealing style on one end, but on the other end you also stay away from being like the tree-hugging mega conscious rapper. Yall stay in the middle of the spectrum. Is that deliberate? If so why?
Phonte: It is deliberate. But its just cause that who we are. Its not like we said were not going do this or not gonna do that, its just who we are as people. The hardest thing is that so much of hip-hop is based on image, particularly with the conscious rap, so much is defined by what you arent rather then what you are. So if you just say you dont smoke weed or you dont rock ice, n***as just automatically assume you a conscious rapper. Never mind the fact that you still may go to strip clubs, you still may be a womanizer, or just doing all types of crazy shit on the side., just because you dont do one or two things people assume you a conscious rapper. We just try to paint the ultimate picture, yeah we try to be good, we try to be positive people, but were still human, thats what we try to put across in the record.
JM: You guys in your music say exactly what you think, you dont tend to pull punches, why is it you think that a lot of other artists shy away from that?
Big Pooh: They afraid to offend somebody. It dont matter what you say in this world today, youre going to offend somebody else. They got focus groups for fucking everything. The rap world is real political.shit any world is real political, preaching, rapping, teachingit dont matter. So a lot of artists are afraid to offend somebody , they worried they not gonna be able to use that crowd to do something later in they career. With us, were just like what the fuck we got to lose? Why hold your tongue? Its not gonna get you anywhere. Why look back later in your life and be like damn, I shouldve said X, Y, and Z when I had the chance? If you got the chance, say your piece.
Phonte: Live with no regrets.
JM: Looking back on your career, ever since the first mixtapes and The Listening, is there anything you guys do regret in your career?
Phonte: Nah. Everything led us to this point. Of course hindsight is always 20/20, but for the most part, its all made us who we are?
JM: Do you guys prefer recording in the studio or performing live? It seems a lot of times in hip-hop today, what you see at the show is nothing like whats on the record.
Phonte: Personally I love the studio, thats where I get all my ideas out. But the live performance is where your bread and butter is, thats when people get a chance to see you in your element. I always have fans tell me that they thought our record were alright or cool, but when they saw us live thats when our records made sense to them.
Big Pooh: Those are the only two facets of my life that dont feel like work, studio and stage shows, everything else feels like a job. You gotta get your interviews scheduled, photo shoots scheduled and hurry up and do that. Studio and stage are free, creative, youre just in your natural element. JW: For the new album, did you guys try more experimenting with new styles or anything like that?
Phonte: Not really experimenting, but just pushing ourselves to go places that weve never been before. The sign of a good artist is one that challenges themselves to do what they havent done. For us we always made like the long themed, cinematic type albums, now were like lets scale all that back and go to the left of what people know us for. This is a record that is much more dynamic than our previous records. We have live records, we got soft records, we got horn solos, its just us branching out. JW: Will there be a Percy Miracles appearance?
Phonte: (laughing) Nah no Percy Miracles. Im singing on it, but the Percy character aint there this time. JW: I was talking with Nicolay a couple months back and he said for the next Foreign Exchange album you guys were fusing lot of different genres, like jazz, or samba, with hip-hop. How has that been going?
Phonte: Its been cool. Its gorgeous what we have so far with that record. Look for it sometime next year , and expect to hear me do more singing and song writing, still some rhyming, but more singing.
JW: You guys are well known in the underground hip-hop scene and have already gotten limited MTV exposure. If some suit from a major asked you to make some changes and hes put you on blast on mainstream radio and TV would you change?
Big Pooh: Change? What you talking, like my t-shirt?
(laughing)
JW: Not your t-shit, but like we talked about earlier with the stereotypes of bling rap, or mega conscious, would you change to fit one type?
Big Pooh: I cant do it. I wouldnt do it. You gotta look at yourself before you go to sleep and when you wake up everyday and be satisfied with what youre doing. If I change anything about me, then I would not be being true to myself. Fuck that. Unless they were giving me like 50 million dollars un-taxable or some shit.
(laughing)
Phonte: The best answer I ever heard to that type of question was by El-P. I was talking to him overseas a couple years back. And people were asking him would he ever change to get on with a major and get mainstream love and he was like If and when I ever sellout, it would have to be to the point where I would never have to sellout ever again. It would have to be so serious that n***a my kids kids kids kids were going to eat from me doing this snap song.
JM: When you were on a major releasing Minstrel Show was that something they pressured you to doing? Cause the impression I got was that they wouldnt be thrilled with your style, and even the title.
Big Pooh: They werent thrilled. They was just like Minstrel Show!? Okay.
Phonte: It kind hurt cause it was like they half-way pushed it, like by the way Minstrel Show is out. They didnt really get behind it, but they let us do us, so I cant be too mad.
JM: Anything else you want to say to our readers?
Phonte: Just get out and support us. If you cant afford to buy the record go download the record or get somebody to burn it for you. We just want people to hear this music. If you like what you hear, come check us out at a show, come to the shows, get a t-shirtcome holla at us at www.myspace.com/little brother.
JW: Any advice you want to give to up and comers, with the myspace you got everyone and they mama trying to rhymeany advice for them?
Big Pooh: No myspace.come find me at a show. I cant be going though 50 million myspace pages waiting for all your graphics to load up to listen to your 4 tracks.
Phonte: Hit me with a CD. If you see me in public just give me a CD and say check it out, you aint gotta give me no speech or nothing just hand me a CD, simple.