TheOGdotNet
03-20-06, 11:55 PM
Credit: G-Rice for TheOG.net (http://www.TheOG.net)
If you missed the first part of this interview, read Part 1 (http://www.theog.net/article-323--0-0.html) before going on to Part 2, trust us.
TheOG: I know in the past you’ve described your music as sacred, and saying that you don’t think of it as a hustle.
Brother Ali: No, it’s not, and I always kind of felt that way, but ANT is really the one who solidified that with me. Like I have friends who make great beats, and they’re different from ANT’s beats, but I’m just like man, they don’t know – it’s sacred, it means something. And making a record with ANT who is one of my best friends, there’s a lot more meaning in that record than there is if I were to just buy a beat from somebody. Not that I would never do that or something like that, but a lot of times… music fans have these ideals or like these myths that they create about artists that they like, in terms of like, “Ali would never listen to a Jay-Z record ‘cuz this is underground to the fullest! Ali would never listen to Lil’ Wayne!” And those two myths are the furthest from the truth. Jay-Z is my favorite MC in the last five years, you know?
TheOG: So what do you think about this sort of “underground elitism” that you see, like “that ****’s too mainstream”, or like people saying that you would never listen to Jay-Z, what’s up with that?
Brother Ali: It’s bull**** man, that **** is played out. That **** played out in the late 90’s, and a lot of it has to do with… well, there’s two groups of people who do that. There’s the “true-school” people, and the new people who have just recently joined the hip-hop world. Now the “true-school” people are just mad, because hip-hop doesn’t feel like what it used to feel like. All the pieces aren’t there the way they used to be, and that’s just a reality that we are going to have to deal with. There is never going to be another Rakim the way that he was, there’s never going to be another Melle Mel, there’s never going to be another KRS-One. There’s never going to be another Ice Cube in his prime, we are going to have to take parts of what we think is great. But I don’t always see it that way, like I think that Jay-Z is just great, period! I think he’s great, that in the art of rhyming and making music and just being fly, like just rappin’, I think Jay-Z is right up there with anybody who’s ever done the ****. Truly, I would put Jay-Z right up there next to Melle Mel and KRS-One and Grandmaster Caz.
To me, he’s right there with them – there are even times when I want to say he’s better than them, but that’s just cause I hear him so much. And then I hear KRS-One, and just remember KRS-One live you know, and even him live now from what I understand – I can’t really put anyone over KRS-One for me. But anyway, it’s not gonna be perfect, like Jay-Z is not like Black conscious the way we wish he would be, he’s not political the way some people want him to be. Like KRS-One. if you look at his styles, he was creating new styles with damn near every song, he was intelligent, he could make songs debating points right up there with a college debate team, like right up there with a professor. He had different ways of approaching things, he was very hip-hop, he had the voice, he had the stories, he could do every type of song imaginable – concepts, stories, topics. He used different styles of music, calypso and ska music, funk, reggae, rock, you know what I mean, way before all that **** was popular. He did everything, and not to mention he created organizations like the Stop the Violence thing, he created this thing called HEAL in the 90’s (Human Education Against Lies), he created the Temple of Hip-Hop, which is like a hip-hop preservation society. And this mother****er live is the most amazing thing I have ever seen, to this day I have never seen nobody do it like that. I feel bad that I never saw Melle Me in his prime, but I saw KRS live two or three times, and he is just incredible, I mean nobody can **** with him live. His talking, the way he talked to the crowds, his rhyming, his freestyling, the way he controlled ****, nobody’s ****ing with him. And its never going to be like that again.
More Here... (http://www.theog.net/article-337--0-0.html)
If you missed the first part of this interview, read Part 1 (http://www.theog.net/article-323--0-0.html) before going on to Part 2, trust us.
TheOG: I know in the past you’ve described your music as sacred, and saying that you don’t think of it as a hustle.
Brother Ali: No, it’s not, and I always kind of felt that way, but ANT is really the one who solidified that with me. Like I have friends who make great beats, and they’re different from ANT’s beats, but I’m just like man, they don’t know – it’s sacred, it means something. And making a record with ANT who is one of my best friends, there’s a lot more meaning in that record than there is if I were to just buy a beat from somebody. Not that I would never do that or something like that, but a lot of times… music fans have these ideals or like these myths that they create about artists that they like, in terms of like, “Ali would never listen to a Jay-Z record ‘cuz this is underground to the fullest! Ali would never listen to Lil’ Wayne!” And those two myths are the furthest from the truth. Jay-Z is my favorite MC in the last five years, you know?
TheOG: So what do you think about this sort of “underground elitism” that you see, like “that ****’s too mainstream”, or like people saying that you would never listen to Jay-Z, what’s up with that?
Brother Ali: It’s bull**** man, that **** is played out. That **** played out in the late 90’s, and a lot of it has to do with… well, there’s two groups of people who do that. There’s the “true-school” people, and the new people who have just recently joined the hip-hop world. Now the “true-school” people are just mad, because hip-hop doesn’t feel like what it used to feel like. All the pieces aren’t there the way they used to be, and that’s just a reality that we are going to have to deal with. There is never going to be another Rakim the way that he was, there’s never going to be another Melle Mel, there’s never going to be another KRS-One. There’s never going to be another Ice Cube in his prime, we are going to have to take parts of what we think is great. But I don’t always see it that way, like I think that Jay-Z is just great, period! I think he’s great, that in the art of rhyming and making music and just being fly, like just rappin’, I think Jay-Z is right up there with anybody who’s ever done the ****. Truly, I would put Jay-Z right up there next to Melle Mel and KRS-One and Grandmaster Caz.
To me, he’s right there with them – there are even times when I want to say he’s better than them, but that’s just cause I hear him so much. And then I hear KRS-One, and just remember KRS-One live you know, and even him live now from what I understand – I can’t really put anyone over KRS-One for me. But anyway, it’s not gonna be perfect, like Jay-Z is not like Black conscious the way we wish he would be, he’s not political the way some people want him to be. Like KRS-One. if you look at his styles, he was creating new styles with damn near every song, he was intelligent, he could make songs debating points right up there with a college debate team, like right up there with a professor. He had different ways of approaching things, he was very hip-hop, he had the voice, he had the stories, he could do every type of song imaginable – concepts, stories, topics. He used different styles of music, calypso and ska music, funk, reggae, rock, you know what I mean, way before all that **** was popular. He did everything, and not to mention he created organizations like the Stop the Violence thing, he created this thing called HEAL in the 90’s (Human Education Against Lies), he created the Temple of Hip-Hop, which is like a hip-hop preservation society. And this mother****er live is the most amazing thing I have ever seen, to this day I have never seen nobody do it like that. I feel bad that I never saw Melle Me in his prime, but I saw KRS live two or three times, and he is just incredible, I mean nobody can **** with him live. His talking, the way he talked to the crowds, his rhyming, his freestyling, the way he controlled ****, nobody’s ****ing with him. And its never going to be like that again.
More Here... (http://www.theog.net/article-337--0-0.html)