Tuesday, August 7 2007 "Wreckognition" Heltah Skeltah Interview
Wreckognition - Heltah Skeltah Interview With Jeffrey Wisdom Barreau
For the final part of our Boot Camp series, we bringing forth Heltah Skeltah! Its been a decade since they first burst onto the scene with Nocturnal, and in 2007 Ruck and Rock are still the Rooks in Duck Down Records strategic, chess-like, domination in the underground hip-hop market. In this interview we find out how theyve been able to stay so relevant over the years, how the solo success of Ruck as Sean P affects the dynamics of the duo, and um Transformers.
Jeff Wisdom: Waddup Sean, how you being?
Sean P: Everything good man.
The last album "Jesus Price Superstar", are you happy with how well received it was by the fans and the critics?
Sean P: Yeah. I mean there's always room for improvements, but there wasn't really no complaints with it.
To me it seemed a light more darker. Not to say "Monkey Bars" was lighthearted, but "Jesus Price" came off much darker. Was that intentional?
Sean P: I know what you mean. Its like, when I did "Monkey Bars", I didn't know how far I could go and what I could get away with. But once the people embraced and accepted it, I was like okay, I'ma hit 'em now. Not to shit on "Monkey Bars", it was a banging fucking album, but with "Jesus Price" it was like I was testing myself saying "yeah n***a you can't do it again". Its like I challenged myselfI was mad at myself. So all the bars was hard body, even the soft joints was hard body. I made a conscious effort to make sure everything on the album was hard body. I ain't the type of n***a to get radio play so I was like fuck it, I'ma do what I want anyway. So I gave you that real no frills Sean P shit, I wasn't going for radio play. Fuck it. I just went for it.
So it was like "Monkey Bars" you was tapping people in the jaw, but with "Jesus Price" you was trying to know teeth out?
Sean P: Exactly. Funny you put it like that, because the name of my third album is "Mic Tyson", real talk.
The Master P mixtape, can we expect it to come along those same lines? With that darkness?
Sean P: Everything I do now is gonna be even harder than "Jesus Price ", cause people know what I like now. My producers know what I like, when they get at me they know what they got to get me. We got a certain standard already we got to live up to. They know what kind of beats they gotta cook up for my shit. Its gonna be fun yo. I'm gonna be working with some producers you ain't hear me with yetAlchemist, Premier, Pete Rock, Large ProfessorI'm getting the dream team of producers. Once again with this next album, I don't give a fuck about radio play, I'm gonna do what I want and say what I want to say.
Can we expect another introspective joints, ala "Mess You Made"?
Sean P: You know I always got a story, whether real or not. Even the introspective joints, some lines are fudged. Like obviously I never tried to kill myself like I said on "Brokest Rapper". That was just to make to song sound a little better...but the majority of it is real. You know what it is with me? I'm the type of dude that the beat tell me what to do. I hear the beat, it tells me a story, and I spit it for y'all, simple as that. So when you heard that happy, summertime sounding beat 9th gave you, the beat just told you Violence ?
Sean P: (laughing) Yeah that wasn't necessarily a story, but more of a challenge. Take this soft beat, and destroy it. Don't give them what they would expect on this beat, give them the exact opposite. The average dude would've said some punk love shit on it. Me, I got some stupid hard body shit on it. What I always tell people, that song is like me and my wife having a picnic on a nice day, all white linen, chilling...and Godzilla walks in the park. People screaming, he fucks up the whole thing. That's what that song was. Yall might get another one of those...
Hopefully. Now, rappers tend to be on some wild hard body shit early into their careers, but as they get older they get a little calmer if not softer in their music. Do you see that ever happing with you?
Sean P: Nah. Im just generally a bad guy. I work hard to be a nice guy, I'm actually a good father right now, and a good husband. It takes a lot of hard work though. I need my therapy. I need to release this anger and this violence....these stupid ass thoughts I be having. That's where the albums come from, I'm generally a bad person. I ain't bad to my people, but I just like doing bad shit. What the average square would consider bad, I love that shit.
Are you still into that knowledge though? I remember when we last talked you were thinking of taking your Shahada.
Sean P: I won't. I was going too. I study Islam. But I decided not to take my Shahada, I cannot submit fully to the will of Allah because, I like doing bad shit. That would be what they say haraam. I'm not going to do it no more. But I do recognize there's a higher god. With the success you had over the past couple of years, you've really had to be the face of Duck Down Records. Are you comfortable in that role? Would you rather play the back sometimes?
Sean P: Nah I'm cool with it. I do mad interviews now. I don't mind doing them, but I hate doing a lot of them. Cause after a while the answers get generic, you knah mean? I could bring a sheet with the answers for some of these interviews. Other than that it is what it is. We family and friends. If I pop off, its a big thing for all of us, cause all of these n***as had something to do with my albums. If I win we all win. If my shit went platinum and I went on tour, all these n***as would go with me. Its like I wouldnt even need an entourage, cause I just move with a bunch of n***as that can all rhyme.
Big Rock how you?
Rock: Good, good.
A lot of people feel the BCC's last album "The Last Stand" was like ten times better than "The Chosen Few", and your inclusion was a major reason for that. How do you feel about that? Do you agree?
Rock: Nah not really.
You don't think you added a big element to that?
Rock: I mean yeahI brought something that was missing. But I would say the shit was only 1/8th better. I was missing from the other one, so I brought back my percentage. I listened to "The Chosen Few", the shit is a good album. The shit was banging.
Do you think it was slept on?
Rock: Yeah, definitely. I mean we all got fans, every fan got they favorite in the group. Its really just people missed me. I was up to my old dirty tricks of course, but I am what I always was. Like when we was kids, and n***as wanted to fight us, they had to bring they biggest man. That's what I am, the big man, the big gun out the group.
Why the absence in the first place though?
Rock: I was doing the solo shit. In the midst of the solo shit, I had to move to Cali, and I was just engulfed in a whole other world of shit with these majors. Majors trying to play n***as against each other, all kinds of advance moneys, all kinds of contracts, stipulations, all kinds of stupid shit. That was the first 2 or 3 years. After that I was just really plotting and really learning more about the game than I knew when I was just a plain old artist. So I went from Duck Down, to Priority to Geffen/Interscope, to no label. From indie to major to nothing. That's when the game got realer and I had to learn survival tactics. So I built "Magnum PI". I developed "Rock Brothers". I developed MFG which is a spin-off of MFC. Its a new label and a new movement, but its all still related to the Boot Camp. Boot camp is my foundation, my roots.
In my absence I was just plotting trying to get my own shit together. To quote fan old wise man, "I got my mind right, my money right, now Im ready for war". (2pac) But once I heard about "The Last Stand" and "Monkey Bars" though, of course had to jump on it. I'm not even allowed to say no if Ruck ask me for a verse. If Ruck ask me to slap the shit out someone, I'm not even allowed to say no. See I'm right-handed, and do you see this hand? Do you see the scars? In '94 I burned my hand, it was in a glove on some Michael Jackson shit. My hand caught on fire, and my shit was fucked up. Everywhere you see discoloration there was a fucking big doofball blister. The only n***a who that shit wasn't too ugly for, the only n***a who would change my dressing and my wrapping was this n***a right here (pointing at Sean). I'm not even sure he remember this before this conversation, but this hand is contractually half his. So if he ask me to write a rhyme or chorus, I gotta be there. You better be nice to him cause if he ask me to pop gotta pop. If he said right hand this n***a now, it gotta go down. So when "Monkey Bars" went down, of course I'm there. And right after "Monkey Bars" came "The Last Stand". I took that time off to learn and plot, but please believe I'm ready for war now.
Are you comfortable falling back right now and having Sean be the front man right now?
Sean P: Its not even like that, he didn't step back for me.its just we got an order to things. We ain't gonna put shit out the same time and cock block each others sales or no dumb shit like that.
Rock: See you notice how when you ask me, if this album was better because my inclusion...you noticed my reaction to that? I was never the type of n***a to want to shine only by myself. For all of Sean's talent to go unnoticed, cause there was a period where fans looked at me as the face for Heltah Skeltah, and I wasn't feeling that. Don't put all that weight on my back, put it on him too. Ask him to sign all that autograph shit too. The shit that goes on in his mind is utterly amazing. But n***as weren't even hearing what we were saying, all they was hearing was my voice. So I took that absence to get my shit together and he was busting dudes in the head with that brilliant shit. So now he's signing the autographs and I can chill in the corner and its all good. But the attention coming back again cause "The Last Stand"...the privacy level done went down again. I feel like I need to move again sometimes.
So you cant go shopping downtown on Fulton street mall in privacy no more huh?
Rock: I mean I still do that shit all the time. Im not gonna be a prisoner to no fame that I created. I just gotta be in the right mood to handle all the attention I know Im gonna get.
Sean P: You know what I do, I walk in the storeand n***as be like I know you from somewhere. So I be like You seen Oz, they like Yeah, then I say Well I aint on that bitch.
(laughing)
Sean P: I do that all the time, word to mother.
Rock: Yo I pulled up to the gas station the other night, gas station aint have no fucking gas. So Im pulling out, me and lil Rock, madder than a motherfucker like how the fuck the gas station dont got no gas!?. And on the way out some n***a that work there, the windows is closed mind you, through the window he like YoAint you Fab 5? I roll down the window like Fuck a Fab 5, n***a get some fucking gas!. I drive off on that note, lil Rock dying laughing and shit. That gas station man, he was so caught up in his fan-ery, he aint even mad, he aint even vex I cursed his out, cause hes stuck right now. I get that all the time. I dont know if its the scar. My hair that grow like that so I cant hide behind that (referring to Sean Ps beard). I cut my dreads, had an afro, I cut that. Once a n***a get a good look at me its like, I dont know, fuck b.
The Rock solo project, how's that going?
Rock: Its a monstrosity. Who you got on production? Can we expect the same, 9th Wonder, PF Cuttin, etc?
Rock: Umm nah. Its different. My shit is called "Monster Music". Its all things monster, monster beats, monster verses, monster energy drinks, monster trucks, its these monster's balls. As far as producers, I can tell you right now Rockwilder made it. Its one of the tracks from my Interscope album that I held over cause it fits the monster criteria. You can hear it on my Myspace, If I played the shit for you, you'd be like "yo...put that shit out right now!". Ill tell you in a heartbeat, my next rhyme is my best rhyme. This shit is gonna be crazy.
One thing about Heltah Skeltah, Boot Camp in general, yall dont really fall into the rapper stereotypes, the Jay-Z drug dealer, the Snoop Pimp, or the Pac super-thugis that intentional?
Sean P: You know what is it, all that shit you mentioned, all that shit is in all of us. Im the motherfucking jack of all trades. Ill sell some crack if I have to, mug a n***a if I have to, and we can always gas a hoe up, its nothing. Aint no gimmicks with us. We all of that shit, we not just one specific thing.
Rock: We are who we are not what we do. When we rap we telling you who we are. Yeah I dont bust a n***a head everyday.
Just every other day
Sean P: (laughing)
Rock: Nah I aint bust a n***a in the head in a good while, but I aim a n***a who will bust you in your head. (laughing) well you a cool n***a, I wouldnt bust you in the head, but I am of that, you know what Im saying? I am a n***a who will rob, or get money from a bitch. I am a n***a who will do that, but thats not all I am. My whole image aint gon be just that. When I rhyme you gonna get all of that.
So how you feel about rappers who play that role to sell records?
Rock: Just be yourself. It is what it is. Even rappers that I think are corny, even if I think you corny, that dont mean you cant impress me still. Just do you, even if its the same old type of shit, as long as you doing it at your highest quality. I can tell when you lazy even if youre basic, theres a difference between basic and lazy.
When can we expect the Heltah Skeltah album?
Sean P: Soon as yall get out the studio and let us record the shit! Nah but we working on it right now, its called D.I.R.T. De incredible rap team. We not settling for nothing less than incredible. I aint gon say when its coming out though, itll come out when its time.
Anything else you want to say to our audience and to the young amateur MCs out there?
Sean P: Yeahdon't rap. You'll never be better than me. Forget about it kid. Youll never be as nice as me. Fucking go to school and do something else. Be a Knickerboxer or somethinggo to Job Corps.
(laughing)
Rock: If you gon rap, well you know the saying, who you know will get you to the top, what you know will keep you there. If what you know aint how to rhyme, you got trouble then kid. Last question, yall rep Decepticons a lot in yall rhymes, I see my man Rock got the Megatron shirt on right now, since we can't really get into the street Decepts (laughing)....how yall feel about how the Decepts came out in the in the new Transformer joint?
Rock: Oh the movie, I seen the shit, but I seen it with a bunch of bitches, they was yapping and shit, I was rolling a blunt, so I wasnt really focused. How was it though? I gotta watch it again. Staraang aint like the shit. He told me if you get the cube even the humans can make them transform , Megatron was all out of order, and all type of shit.
Sean P: I mean, it was cool, it was aight. With Transformers, well you know in the movies, the bad guys, the Decepts always lose, but in real life you know what's really going onits Decept n***a! With a Z in the back! (laughing) There you have it Ruck & Rock aka Brownsville Siskel & Ebert. Good looking out on the interview my dudes.