Hip-hop, beyond the rhetoric

Interview, Oct, 1995

The first time I met KRS-One, he was not a rap star and I was not a writer. It was late in 1988, and although as front man for Boogie Down Productions he'd already released the seminal debut entitled Criminal Minded that would assure his late partner, Scott La Rock, a place in hip-hop heaven, he was unknown enough to be startled by a white kid asking for his autograph. KRS-One went on to release a string of gold albums, but his influence has always been more artistic than commercial. He has made a legend of his self-imposed homelessness, lectured at Yale and Princeton, made outrageous and often contradictory music, worn wooden beads when others wore gold chains, and never once been boring. He was the first rapper to call himself a teacher and the first to think of rap as poetry. He started a campaign called Stop the Violence and then physically assaulted members of the rap group P.M. Dawn for insulting him in the press. His latest album, KRS-One (Jive), features more of his distinctive amalgam of charmingly circular logic and unassailable rhythmic instincts while, like the rest of his work, continuing to miss questions and defy stereotypes.

B-Real, front man for Cypress Hill, came of age in the shadow of KRS-One. His distinctive, gleeful nasal rap and his group's portentous tales of maniacal violence on the streets of Los Angeles remain the West Coast's most compelling response to KRS-One's seamless New York aesthetic. Early in Cypress Hill's career, the group's contribution to hip-hop culture was almost overshadowed by attention to their near-religious devotion to weed. (The first time I interviewed B-Real and asked him about his lavish marijuana habit, he responded, "Too much avocado can kill you, too.") But with a pair of platinum albums behind them, a host of imitators, and Cypress Hill III (Ruffhouse/Columbia) due out this month, any doubt about Cypress Hill's lasting importance has vanished like so much smoke.

The following conference call connected me to KRS-One, in a New York photo studio, and B-Real, in an Indiana hotel room.

DIMITRI EHRLICH: What's up? How ya doin'?

KRS-ONE: Yo, wha's up, Dimitri? Wha's up, B-Real?

B-REAL: Wha's up, yo?

DE: You two are beth writers who stand out in the crowd of hip-hop lyricists. Can you talk about hip-hop as a form of lIterature?

KO: Do you want to hear my technique?

DE: Yeah. Your own personal style.

KO: First of all, you have to be one with your audience. That's technique "A." "A" is not to do hip-hop but to be hip-hop. When you're one with the art form that you represent, then you're one with the people that are a part of that art form.

DE: B-Real, talk about how you write, and also what It means to be hip-hop. Because I'm concerned that a lot of rappers think It only means hardness, and they don't know how to integrate the soft side. I mean, being hip-hop is not all about just, like, breaking Snapple in people's Adam's apples.

BR: The thing in hip-hop that I've noticed these past few years is, everybody's got the Superman ego: "I'm this. I'm that." And it's like you said, you gotta humble yourself. There's ways of being yourself and being hard. But if you humble yourself, people respect that more. I try to put shit that I've seen into my songs. And shit that I've seen, a lot of other people have gone through also. So they can relate to it. I can't just write somethin' that's gonna make me money. I have to be satisfied by it after, to know that people are understanding where this song is coming from. You know what I'm sayin'? It's like when Oliver Stone directs a movie. He's trying to make it a little bugged-out for your mentality, but there's also a moral to the story. And I find when you're truthful with the people, and you're not just writin' it for the hard-core image or for the money, they respect it. Because when we do shows, although our songs are hard-core, we talk to the people. It's like, "O.K., we're hearing some violent-type shit, but it ain't just about violence. It's about you learning about situations that you can avoid."

DE: Can you edit your lyres and worry about being offensive and still be a true artist?

KO: The answer to that is yes and no. Yes, you have to edit yourself. No, to be a true artist, you should never edit yourself. As a true artist, you should never edit your creativity. If you feel something, you should write it. Put it out. Practice it. Know it. It's a part of you. It's your art. Being a true artist also means just representing yourself. But when you want that art to sell, you enter a realm called strategy, in which you will edit yourself if the rhymes and songs that you are writing are being written for the purpose of being sold. Sometimes you come up with a great line and you say, "Damn, that's a dope rhyme about gays." And you say, ". . . and I beat your faggot ass," or somethin' like that. O.K., that's your shit. But if you decide to sell that, then it becomes a strategy. There are millions, if not billions, of gay men and women in the world. They buy hip-hop as well. Why would you offend an entire group of people in society if you want your record to sell? So in one area I would say, "Yes, you have to censor yourself as an artist." But on the other hand, to be a true artist, you should never censor yourself. It's really the distance you've got to take your art.