by Alex Shtaerman
The sun is constant, setting in the West only to rise again in the East. The cycle can never be broken. The sun is vibrant; the sun is in constant motion. One light. When the world descends into darkness, take heed, the sun will return. The first shall be last and the last shall be first and the sun shall illuminate the earth once again.
RIOTSOUND.COM: You’ve traveled all over the world with Sunz of Man and the Wu-Tang Clan; as large as the entire Wu-Tang and Sunz of Man legacy is in United States, how would you describe it on a world-wide level?
PRODIGAL SUNN: I would describe it as love. On the worldwide level Wu-Tang is love man. [Wu-Tang] stands for Witty Unpredictable Talent And Natural Game, that’s how we attack the world. Our tongue is as sharp as our sword and our words is bond and bond is our life and we’ll give our life before our word shall fail. So when you talking to the world like that you can’t do nothing but gain love and respect because we showed and proved that through every record. So I would say it’s love, that’s how I would describe it, being loved everywhere.
RIOTSOUND.COM: You won a Grammy award in France and also a Viva award in Germany. Speaking of the Grammy Awards here in the US, why do you think they overlook real Hip-Hop artists in favor of pop-rap?
PRODIGAL SUNN: They overlook Hip-Hop music because Hip-Hop is a culture and what it is now is not a culture. A small amount of people don’t have as much of an effect as a million people would. So with the smaller amount of people that study Hip-Hop, they can easily dead that. But if you got a million people that’s doing something totally opposite of that then you can grow that. The reason why they don’t put the focus on the smaller version of what Hip-Hop is, is because that’s what really explains what it’s about. What’s going on today does not explain what Hip-Hop is about. Therefore that’s what they want to focus on so the masses can indulge in that shit and forget about the foundation of what really built this. So that’s why [real Hip-Hop] is not respected in the United States like that.
Now overseas they take it to heart. You go to France and they’ll run up on you and say some shit that you been trying to forget [laughs]. Like a song that you didn’t like, that wasn’t even a hit for you, they’ll run up on your ass and be like “yo man, I remember you”. Like my man Timbo King, we was in France and we was at this little restaurant and two African cats ran up on us. It was like “Timbo King! I been following your music, I remember you from the L Train”. The L Train and all that stuff was way back on Who’s The Man soundtrack; Timbo just got all quiet – like damn! [laughs] These motherfuckas know out here man. Meanwhile you got cats in America that might not have a fuckin’ clue about what’s goin’ on. That’s just what Hip-Hop is right now.
RIOTSOUND.COM: Do you find it ironic that people overseas respect real Hip-Hop more than people in the U.S., meanwhile it all started right here in the Bronx?
PRODIGAL SUNN: Yea, that shit really does make no sense at all. It just shows how ignorant people can be, word is bond. I mean, people know what it is, they just don’t care. It ain’t that they don’t know, it’s just they don’t have the patience enough. See us, we New Yorkers don’t have patience man, I had to teach myself that shit. ‘Cause we come from such an intense city and we live on top of one another and we constantly moving 24-7. You come across people and you don’t know who to fuckin’ trust sometimes because you got an overpopulation of people in New York and then you got an overpopulation of rats [laughs]. You gotta know who to move with man and know who you talking around, all that man.
The whole economy of New York is just based off money right now after what happened to us, you know what I mean. So now it’s like you really gotta be on point as far as who’s who because it’s not about a culture no more, it’s about money. That’s what they turned this Hip-Hop shit into, Hip-Hop business. It’s 90% business, 10% music. So the whole science is, cats like us – like me P-Sunn from the Sunz of Man – we been telling cats from the gate what this whole shit was about. That’s why right now the interest and love level is still there for us. I never was caught up into this Hip-Hop shit like that, this Hip-Hop game that they created. Hip-Hop is ME, you feel what I’m saying? There is no definition of what Hip-Hop is, it’s just me. But as far as everything else, the corporate structure, I never rolled with that. I always was trying to foil that shit, from day one telling niggas about it.
RIOTSOUND.COM: Do you think as things move forward there will be opportunities for more artists to break free of the corporate mechanism?
PRODIGAL SUNN: Yea, of course. That’s why right now you got people like me with Godz Incorporated; connecting, shooting videos, shooting movies. I’m developing artists, creating albums, all that can be done independently. All it was is someone told us that we couldn’t do it and that’s how we got caught up in record companies and all that shit. We never had enough knowledge of what to do in a situation when you got that type of money or when you get into contracts ’cause you never dealt with that. Most cats that came into the music industry, as far as my era, came from the hustle game. So you come over to the [music industry] with that shit, you gotta step back, ’cause now you learning. And that’s how artists get got. They had to slide back and listen to another man’s mouth, but at the end of the day it was all for them. It wasn’t for you, it was for them. They made it seem like it was for you but that’s how the industry do, I learned that.
At the end of the day all you got is you. You ain’t got nothing else that you can really rely on in this shit right here. ‘Cause Hip-Hop the way they got it today man is sad. There’s so many hoes in this shit. We missing right now in that shit. That’s how I know that we made a great effect in the game because right now I can feel the big opening in Hip-Hop now that we not there, and that’s real. Cats can take it how they wanna take it ’cause I’m real with mine, I get down. You don’t like it, get at me, straight up [laughs].
RIOTSOUND.COM: How did your new solo album Return of The Prodigal Sunn come about?
PRODIGAL SUNN: It started two years ago when I was coming back and forth to California and working with 12 O’Clock. In 2000 is when I started my corporation Godz Incorporated and I sat down and made a five year plan as far as what I was going to do and how I was gonna start developing my shit. So I was out here recording and recording, my whole objective was to get like 100 songs; I wound up with like 60 joints. My partner, Mark Copeland from Free Agency Media, he was like “yo, I’m about to do this joint with Navarre, and you already got a current relationship with them from the last Sunz of Man album”. So we did the deal.
The concept [for the album] was just the grinds, like the first single. My whole life man, back and forth, moving around, holding cats down, holding myself down, just grindin’ man; trying to show people that the only way it’s going to get done is if you do it. There ain’t no motherfuckin’ mystery. ‘Cause if you waiting on a mystery, the mystery ain’t got no story to it [laughs]. That shit is a mystery, that’s why we call it that, word is bond. So you gotta be on point man and that’s where I’m at right now.
The album is my life and all the shit I’ve been through. You go through the first track it’s called In My Life, second track is Soul Survivor ’cause I’m a soul survivor. I’ve been through mad shit and I’ma keep coming and coming. Like I say in the hook – I keep rising to the top / My mom and pop said give it all you got. That’s what they said, fuck what everybody else said, my mom and pop said that!
RIOTSOUND.COM: A lot of your lyrics deal with conscious subject matter and also you talk about revealing the truth to people; in 2005 what are some of the truths that people need to be aware of?
PRODIGAL SUNN: The truth for right now is that we standing on shaky grounds baby. And right now everybody that’s out there thinking that it can’t happen, it can. So when you out here, just look at the whole world son and who’s controlling this shit. If [Bush] taking that shit on somebody, that shit gonna come back on us. So cats running around here unaware; that’s why I came with the joint Godz People [on the new album]. A common enemy calmly known / Check your roots / What type of man? Only type of man is the evil man, the only difference between me and him is me and you. Tell the truth / The biggest trick the devil pulled / He don’t exist, biggest scam / And don’t expect no help from him.
The only difference between me and him son is me and you. When I say him, that’s the devil son, ’cause that nigga, he’s out, trust me. Right now we in the era where the devil is showing his face because he know that niggas know of him now. So now if you speaking the truth and you dropping that son, it’s gonna be harder for you because it’s 85-95% deaf, dumb and blind man. 85% is blind, they don’t have a clue and they don’t give a fuck. Then you got the 10% that know and they feed the 85, they make money off them. Then there’s only 3 out of 5 [that’s left] that really know what the fuck is going on. So you got only 3% of the world that’s conscious [laughs]. You think the devil’s worried? Nope. One thousand men compared to a million ain’t shit in his eyes.
RIOTSOUND.COM: Going back about ten years or so, how did Sunz of Man originally come together as a group?
PRODIGAL SUNN: At the time the Gravediggaz shit was popping off but before that we was doing the Wu album. All of us had that style that was real deep and it was different. We connected and Rza saw that. When you saying shit that nobody else is saying, ten, twelve years ago, that shit right there is like a spark son. At that time cats was doing that Wu album and we slid in and added on wherever we could, hooks, all types of shit. I had just come home from being locked down and I had the crib in Manhattan, my uncle gave me a job as a super. Killa Priest used to come over all the time ’cause I knew him from around the way from the rallies and all that type of shit. I used to go to the studio every day ’cause I had the joint right across the street.
So me and Priest, once we seen that we connected that was it. Then Hell Razah slid trough, Shabazz The Disciple; 60 Second Assassin was family already. There was so many different names with this shit that we can go on. There was the Art of War which was me, 60 and Priest. Then [originally] I was the Sun of Man, that was my name. We was hanging every day, so that’s the one thing about Sunz of Man, we was together every day; for years, every day. Some cats don’t do that shit man. From being together every day, that’s what showed that we was the same people.
Me, Priest, Razor and Shabazz and, god bless the dead, his cousin Kevin, we had this demo deal over at Atlantic Records. We recorded like five joints and them shits was crazy man. It was right when the Gravediggaz had their shit poppin’, we came with the holycore. [The Gravediggaz] was horrorcore and we came with holycore. We dropped that shit and Rza heard it and he was like “yo listen son, I’ma bring you niggas over here”. So we ain’t go to Atlantic, we came to Wu-Tang Records and we got the same deal that Wu-Tang had. We signed as a group and each one of us was able to go and do an individual deal at another label.
That whole situation right there was just to keep that legacy going. We was the first guys to really come in the game doing that, having the whole broken contract where you can come in [as a group] and then break off as an individual and go to another label. That fucked up the game because it allowed competitors to become partners ’cause they had to if they had [one of the artists]. Before it was never like that. You had Def Jam where they were competing with RCA, but when Def Jam got Method Man they had to sit down and work it out [with RCA]. Same thing with Elektra and RCA and same thing with Virgin and RCA, all that. That was unheard of before we came in the game as far as in rap. That’s why right now we loungin’ son. Cats is thinking that niggas is fucked up and broke up – everybody is chillin’ man, everybody is on point. Sunz of Man is on point, everybody is just doing them. Cats gotta know that each individual is a man before a group, cats have responsibilities individually.
RIOTSOUND.COM: What would it take for us to see another Sunz of Man album?
PRODIGAL SUNN: It wouldn’t take nothing. After everybody finished doin’ what they doin’ we can do it, it’s nothing. We make great music together, that’s one thing about us; and we get along. Niggas don’t have no fights or none of that shit, we all kings man. Power is power, sometimes four kings can’t sit at a table all the time. Each king gotta go and provide for they shelter and then come back to the table and put it all together. That’s what the sun is, the sun in one light. And the man is intelligence. So that’s what we’ve been saying since day one – intelligent men. They speaking the truth no matter where they at, whether a group or whether they broken into fours.
RIOTSOUND.COM: Your first single The Grinds sounds crazy, how did the song come together on a creative level?
PRODIGAL SUNN: It came from my everyday movement. I came to L.A. in August with a couple of ideas, just connecting with my man Troy. I already had about fifteen joints and I played them for Rza and he like “yo, you got fuckin’ crack son, that shit is crazy”. So I was like “I need two joint from you though”. First he was like “you don’t need shit from me son, your shit is already good”. I was like “nah son, we gotta keep it family, fuck that”. So he came through and played some joints and I picked that [track] out because at the time that’s how I was feeling. That music and those sounds, that’s the shit I been going through.
Since I started from scratch with my company I just been grinding man, making ten, fifteen connects a week. But when we came about on that joint son, it just took me back to all my shit I went through in life. Criminal life hard times stress and strife / On brutal grounds kept the four pound jewels and crown. That was me back in the day. That’s my whole life right there. Jailed, fuckin’ shot, living it up and still coming through that to show you that at the end of the day I know what I’ve been through and I’m on point and I’ma continue to be on point. I’ma stay grinding. It was brutal but the grinds is always gonna be brutal.
And then Free Murder Shakwan slid in [on the track] ’cause that’s the 3rd generation of Wu right there. That’s Poppa Wu kids. So we keeping this W. The phoenix is the only bird that resurrects itself from its own ashes man. That shit is deep like that and we really take heed to that. When niggas said Wu-Tang was forever, that’s what niggas meant. We got babies coming up and all that shit.
RIOTSOUND.COM: You got the album Return of The Prodigal Sunn in stores now; what else should the fans be looking out for?
PRODIGAL SUNN: They should be looking out right now for that Prodigal Sunn DJ 730 mixtape and also look out for this Prodigal Sunn DVD that I’m doing, it’s going to be called The Grinds. I just have different shit on there from where I was at; L.A., New York, Philly, Florida, just grinding, showing me connecting. I got a new film company called Vision A Films, the first project that we shot was the Lebron James video for Rza and this guy named Reverend William Burk, one of Rza’s new artists outta Chicago. The video was filmed with a live orchestra, like 55 heads. We also filmed that Unleashed video that I did on the soundtrack for that Jet Li movie that just dropped like a month or two ago.
Right now I’m moving heavy into the music and film marriage. Marrying music with motherfuckin’ film, that’s where I’m at right now. That’s the next level man. Wu-Tang, Sunz of Man, Killarmy, all our songs were graphic like movies, you could see the images. So now it’s time to bring them shits to life on screen. I teamed up with Troy Garity who’s Jane Fonda’s son, the guy from Barber Shop. He got a production company and we’ve been shopping this television series I got called The Shelter. It’s about kids in the shelter and it’s a drama about a dysfunctional family. I reached out to the head of Showtime and the VP of HBO, they liked my idea and they gave me a lot of good direction. So right now that’s where I’m at, just grinding baby.
For news and info on Prodigal Sunn stay tuned to www.ProdigalSunn.com and www.WuTangCorp.com
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