A: I can’t watch it yet; I’m not there… I’m not in the space.

L: Ah, man, it’s just hilarious.

A: See, I know and I want to be in that space so I can think it’s funny rather than be mad at it so I have to… I’m getting there.

L: It’s so pitiful thought that you can’t help but think it’s funny at this point.

A: Yeah, I know. Your lyrics to Emergency Rations are very political; have your lyrics always been so politicized?

L: I mean, I just think that, yeah they have been, but I guess it’s been a little bit more covert. I’ve always, even in battle rhymes, tried to provide lyrics with some sort of social commentary, you know what I mean?
I just think that with a song like “Home of the Brave” or whatever, it was talking about something that people know as an incident that happened. I don’t know, man, on the Intensive Philosophy EP there’s a couple songs that specifically are dedicated to discussing, you know, like I had a verse on this song called “Avengers” that was kinda talking about terrorist threats and the way the U.S. media machine demonizes people to serve the purposes of major corporations and government and so on and so forth. But I don’t know, for some reason people don’t seem to catch on unless it’s a song where it’s like a rise or there is overtly conscious shit like “Home of the Brave” or “Get Wise 91.” So, yeah, I’ve always been doing, or been trying to provide some sort of socio-political commentary, but I guess now it’s just a little bit more dead in peoples’ faces.

A: You talk about doing that on previous work. Since you’ve been doing this, have you had political commentary as your driving force or has it been the other way around, that you kinda got into rapping and…

L: Well, it’s been a driving force, like, the reason I started rhyming was to provide some sort of commentary on the state of affairs for humans on planet earth. I just had to go through my stages of development where when I first started rhyming. I was more skilled at doing battle rhymes, and I couldn’t really craft my concepts the way that they needed to be in order to make points seem cohesive and present them in an intelligent fashion. I think it’s just a part, maybe, of my growth. I hope. Hopefully I’m growing.

A: There’s this conversation/dialogue around commercial hip-hop, as we
know it, being void of any political commentary. Do you think that is
true?

L: I think that it’s not the popular thing. It’s always there. As my girlfriend taught me, out lives are political and we can’t help but be political because we function within the confines and parameters set up by the government in terms of what we can do, what we can’t, the images that we absorb and everything. I think that there are groups trying to do things in an overt fashion, like Dead Prez. Even just the huge political statement to consider the content of what is in commercial hip-hop, which is that of, like, partying and shit. To me it’s just a testament of how asleep we are, you know what I mean? Outkast and that joint, like “The Whole World”, off their greatest hits album… they were bringing it and there’s groups out there that are doing it, but they’re probably just doing it in such a poetic fashion that people are missing it.

A: So, we’re starting to have a dialogue about hip-hop, in itself, being termed “political,” however there seems to be a very male driven… you hear all the time “B-boy B-boy B-boy… oh yeah, and B-girl,” so there is very much kind of a bravado thing going on. What do you think about that?

L: Yeah, definitely it’s a male dominated field. You look at the code of machismo here in the xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" ?>United States and it means you don’t have any emotions, you’re not sensitive, and you have to brag about your brute force at every moment or else your dick will fall off. All the prejudices that come with it and the pig-headed males fall right in line. It’s a damn shame… homophobia and the whole list of shit that goes along with it.

A: Are there any specific ways that you see sexism or homophobia manifested in hip-hop?

L: Just the overall tone of disrespect for women… it’s like a common code of conduct now. I’m sure you’d be exhausted if you tried to go back and count the amount of times the word “faggot” appears in hip-hop. Typically males frown upon anyone who’s living an alternative lifestyle as far as when sexuality comes into play. It’s not considered “manly” to open your heart up to a woman and take the risk of loving someone, you know what I mean, or respecting them. It’s very common nowadays for women to be referred to just as “bitches and hos” in most contexts when it comes to music or even this little fluff vision of relationships and love that’s constructed in countless R&B songs, and now all this romantic stuff that’s being made in hip-hop that doesn’t have the balls to cover any topic in depth and deconstruct it and talk about what it means.

A: Are there a lot of women that come to your shows?

L: No, man, unfortunately there’s a lack of diversity as far as women go, as far as people of color go, everything, you know?

A: I know it’s crazy to think that some kid is sitting back listening to you talk about war and racism and poverty and all these things, who has never heard a critique of this before, but now has whether or not he or she knows it. It seems like that communication and consciousness raising is the nucleus of hip-hop. Do you think the future of underground hip-hop will be more about that?

L: That’s a hard one to answer because before 9-11 when people would ask me that I used to say I’m sure something’s gonna happen at some point where world affairs are so in our face that we can’t ignore them and it’s just gonna automatically inject more commentary into the music, even from artists who don’t consider themselves political. I don’t really feel like that’s happened that much, and I don’t really have my ear to the street as much as anyone who’s considered to be very hip and informed to what the trends are in popular music, but I feel like it’s harder nowadays to open up a music magazine and see Jay-Z or DMX and not see someone from the underground. If we continue to get more publicity then that’s going to put more leverage behind what we’re trying to bring forth and, hopefully, make it available to more people. And maybe that knowledge will bring about an age of heightened awareness in lyricism.

A: Did you get a lot of support from the whole Def Jux crew making the album or did you have to push some of the more radical shit?

L: No, it was absolutely all systems go. El-P wrote “Patriotism” and he’s all down for the cause. It was a perfect home for the whole thing. If anything El helped me to cultivate some of my ideas and really helped it all get brought to life.

A: So, what’s your next move?

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A: If you could change one thing in hip-hop as it is right now, what would you change, or would you change anything?

L: I think that these major video stations need to dedicate one or two days in their week, or put back into regular rotation, old school rap videos. I think there’s a problem right now with kids who are just getting into hip-hop and rap right now who are fourteen or fifteen years old, same age I was when I really got into it, and they don’t know anything about the real dope shit. And that’s unfortunate that cats are coming up and they’re thinking that Nelly’s the best rapper and shit, and that’s just missing the point on hip-hop. When someone tries to drop some Rob Boom Bap shit they just ignore it cuz they’re coming into hip-hop in an era when it’s just dance music and not about spreading awareness. I just think that a lot of old school videos need to be kept in rotation as well as old school hip-hop music. There’s space on Funkmaster Flex or any DJ’s agenda to slide in three old school jams every hour. And I’m interested to see where’s hip-hop’s gonna go. I like to dance, myself, so I don’t necessarily want to see it stray away from being a music that’s danceable, but I just want people to step up their game lyrically and try to provide some sort of commentary… just say something that means something for christ’s sake.

A: You talk about old school hip-hop, who inspires you the most musically?

L: Public Enemy. Yeah, Public Enemy, and, as far as lyricism goes, Rakim. I love Gangstarr to death. I definitely take something from everything though. Even things I hate give me some fuel. If I hear some real wack shit it gives me some fire, and I’ll go down and start messing with my sampler or sit down with my pen and write something. In terms of just the shit that I really love and respect there’s Rakim, Public Enemy, Gangstarr, Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Poor Righteous Teachers, Run DMC, old school LL Cool J, Black Moon… all that.

A: I’m going to digress a bit. We were talking about the problems with the machismo aspect of hip-hop and the sexism and the heterosexism that is inherent to that. How do you reconcile your politics with some artists who are out there who are saying some amazing stuff, but who are also saying some pretty fucked up stuff at the same time?

L: Yeah, no doubt. All I can really do is if I happen to be performing at a spot and someone is perpetuating that kind of stuff that I don’t necessarily approve of, I just try to shine as hard as I can to communicate to the people as affectively as possible and you can change the whole vibe in the room. You can create a memorable experience for people and have them take away that information primarily from the evening. That’s mainly what I try to do consistently whether it’s in a studio or on stage. I just try to get it out to as many people as I can and I never try to separate myself from being, like, in the muck. I definitely have several vices of my own. Nobody’s perfect and I’m at least trying to understand where people are coming from, learning about them, not necessarily accepting it, but maybe after learning a little bit about someone you can accept them a little and why they have the types of view that they do. I think the first part of my answer was probably the best though, just try to be as strong as I can with what I’m trying to do.