by Alex Shtaerman
It’s easy to say that you understand what Hip-Hop is “really” about. For many it has become as easy as reciting a short list of names. Just spit out the right names and you’re in; KRS One, Big Daddy Kane, Chuck D, Melle Mel. What, do I still not understand? Well, what about Kool Herc, DJ Hollywood and The Cold Crush Brothers? Am I in now? I said Kool Herc; I have to be in, right? Wait hold on, I know some graffiti artists too! Seen, Lee, Blade – wait, hold on, where you goin’? What about the Rock Steady Crew? Crazy Legs, Mr. Freeze, I know all them b-boys man, why you walking away for?
But Hip-Hop is not about lists.
They’ll never say it on MTV but Hip-Hop is about what you feel inside more than anything else. Hip-Hop is a mindset. Hip-Hop is ambition. Hip-Hop is the desire to rise above, the desire to be first in spite of circumstance. Hip-Hop is the urge to inspire and uplift those around you. No matter how many times MTV or VH1 pay homage to “Hip-Hop pioneers and legends” and no matter how many times you watch and memorize all the names, they’ll never tell you why those people did what they did. They can’t. If they did they would undermine their own campaigns of ignorance and exploitation. Today Hip-Hop is a tag corporations attach to business ventures, there’s money to be made. Shhh, not another word about what Hip-Hop really is, are you crazy?! Our advertisers will balk! We’ll lose our jobs!
MTV would like us to believe that Hip-Hop legends only exist in the past tense; but this is not Greek mythology. September 28th, 2005 will mark a day when authentic Hip-Hop music will surge forward against an incoming tide of heavily marketed and marginally talented artists. On September 28th, 2005 Wise Intelligent of the legendary Poor Righteous Teachers returns with his new solo album titled Wise Intelligent is…The Talented Timothy Taylor. The vast legacy Wise Intelligent has built with Poor Righteous Teachers is timeless and speaks for itself. So tell me, are you ready to go back to a time when talent determined who was the best MC?
RIOTSOUND.COM: At one point in the not so distant past, Hip-Hop brought awareness and for a lack of a better word, made it cool for the youth to rise up against the establishment and speak out against the injustices of our society. However, today kids seem content with keeping their minds in a dormant state. Throughout the history of music, from Hip-Hop to rock to jazz to blues, the message that always got the most attention was always about pushing the envelope and saying something that was not necessarily in line with the status quo. Why is pushing the envelope not cool anymore? It’s like Hip-Hop is becoming like country music in many ways.
WISE INTELLIGENT: Well, it’s not just Hip-Hop, it’s society as a whole. There’s agendas being pushed right now and it’s just the dumbing down of the society at large, not just Hip-Hop. It’s the educational system, it’s everywhere you go and everywhere you look. Institutions of higher learning are now institutions of the lowest learning. It’s just sad and that’s what it is right now simply because you have people who are pushing an agenda and their agenda is to dumb down the people so that the people can’t see the carpet being snatched from under their feet. So that’s where we at right now and that’s what’s being promoted. Everywhere you look you see the agenda of ignorance and apathy being pushed on the people, no matter where it is.
Like for instance, you could take a group of people and you could ask this group of people a couple of questions. [One question you could ask is], how many of you know someone in your family or have someone close to you that’s in the penal system or dealing with the criminal justice system in some way? When you ask this question you would get a large percentage of people who would raise their hand. You could ask them, how many of you know people that are possibly dealing with drugs, whether using or selling? You would again get a large percentage of people that would raise their hand. You could ask them, how many people know someone dealing with cancer or something of that nature? And again you would have many people who would raise their hand. But when you ask how many people know someone dealing with a gay marriage situation, not many people will raise their hand, yet this was the number one topic for the Presidential campaign!
They were running on gay marriage and that doesn’t even affect the large majority of the people. There’s other issues that greatly affect a lot of the people all the time that they are not even addressing. So they took this one topic and made the topic look like it was so big of an issue that it needs to be addressed during a Presidential election just to keep us dumb as to what’s really going on in the world. It’s just sad. It’s just an intentional dumbing down of the people by the powers that be.
RIOTSOUND.COM: What about the corporate influence and the mass marketing being directed at our youth? Do you feel enough people are aware of how broad the corporate influence has become and the consequences of that; when we criticize the government do we sometimes let questionable corporate conduct slip under the radar?
WISE INTELLIGENT: See, in my opinion, government policy is created by corporate marketers. I believe that what we are seeing here is what I would consider the first really fascist government. Simply because fascism, in its proper manifestation, is in effect the complete and seamless merger of the corporation and the state. That’s what fascism is in its purest form. That’s pure fascism, the complete merger of corporation and state and that’s what we have right now.
You look at this administration and everybody is a billionaire and a gazzillionaire. Multimillionaires, everybody; from Condoleezza Rice to the President himself and everyone around him. Carl Rove, Dick Cheney, the House speaker Frist, all of these guys are millionaires, everybody is rich. All of these people are affiliated with some type of major corporation. For instance, Chevron; in 1967 Chevron was in Angola plundering all of the oil out of Angola and now we come to find out that Condoleezza Rice was on Chevron’s board. They actually named an oil tanker after Condoleezza Rice, it’s called The Condoleezza. So it’s crazy, it’s really crazy.
So right now, like I said, we have the complete merger of the corporation and the state, therefore the policies of the government are the policies of corporate marketers who are marketing to the youth and misleading the youth at the same time as they are taking over other countries and pushing their policy on the world. That’s just what it is. The war in Iraq, we all know that’s a corporate war. We all know it’s about the oil. It’s about the oil corporations taking control; like killing the Indians and taking their land, that’s what it is. With South America it’s the same thing. No matter where you go in the world it’s the same thing; it’s about major corporations plundering the manpower, wealth and resources of every square inch of the planet earth. That’s what they are doing and that’s what’s happening.
As far as marketing to the youth and things of that nature, it’s all a part of the game. It’s just like the Camel cigarettes with Joe Camel, it’s all the same thing. Now they have chocolate french fires and strawberry flavored french fries; it’s horrible, they marketing everything to the youth because they understand that the parents will want to spend based on the demand of the youth. Parents spend on their children, so they know if they can get the child to complain – it’s an age old trick. It’s the same reason why when you are in the grocery store all the candy is in the isle where you’re waiting [laughs]. It’s right there because they want the kids to scream and shout for that candy when you are waiting there by it for all these minutes. Your children are throwing temper tantrums because they want this candy and that’s why they put it there, that’s marketing.
That’s why when you walk down the cereal isle they have all the sugar coated cereal at child eye level and they have all the healthy cereal up at a higher level for the adults to see it, it’s all marketing. The eggs and the milk are always in the back of the supermarket because they know you need these things at least once a week, they expire every week. So when you go get the eggs and milk they want to send you to the back of the store to give you a chance to see everything else that you might purchase that might not be on your list. They know you coming for milk and eggs so in the process they want to try to get you to buy everything else. It’s just marketing and it’s just what they do, it’s capitalism, it’s America and that’s where we’re at right now.
RIOTSOUND.COM: Getting back to Hip-Hop, it seems like fifteen years ago major record companies gave Hip-Hop artists much more creative freedom. Do you find it ironic that as the music has gained so much more exposure, the range of subject matter reaching the majority of listeners has actually become much more narrow?
WISE INTELLIGENT: I don’t find it surprising. I kind of expected it to go this route and for it to end up where it is right now because that’s what always happens. It wasn’t expected for Hip-Hop to reach this level but when they realized that it would, [Hip-Hop] followed the same format as every other music genre. Blues, rock, they all had a political edge when they started but they eventually were overmarketed and commercialized and became what they became. And it’s necessary because, you have to understand, the powers that exist that are ruling the world, they can’t have too much influence in the hands of musicians. There was a time in Europe when it was the arts that actually educated the people. The people were being educated through the arts, through theater, through Shakespeare and so on and so forth. So they understand that science and they don’t want to let music expand and let the musicians have that kind of power. Just imagine you have a 2Pac or a 50 Cent or an Eminem with a political agenda.
RIOTSOUND.COM: You’ve made some remarkable music with Poor Righteous Teachers; what can fans expect from your solo debut The Talented Timothy Taylor, as I understand this record is meant to be a little more personal than your work with PRT?
WISE INTELLIGENT: The Talented Timothy Taylor is letting the fans know that yes I am a mortal and I can be wounded. I have dealt with a lot of things and I am dealing with a lot of things today. I am no different from you or anyone else; we are all one in this whole thing and I am just breaking everything down by getting a little bit more personal, a little more in depth. I got a lot of issues on the record that I touched and people will learn a lot. Nobody ever knew my name was Timothy until this record [laughs]. The record speaks to the personal aspect and that is what the entire album is. It’s a good record.
I’m speaking about things like my mother passing and how I dealt with that and how that affected me. There’s a track on the album called Passing The Time that kinda sums it all up and I dedicate that song to anybody that ever lost a parent or someone close to them. The song is a very moving record and even on that record the skill level, the lyrical assault on the track is damn near pathetic because it’s actually a sympathetic record and I am actually ripping out my heart on this record yet at the same time it’s Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop is still art to me so I didn’t just say “oh, I’m venting right here, this is a sad thing so I am just going to make it boring to hell”, it’s still a skill record.
And that’s what I think of Hip-Hop, I think Hip-Hop is art and an MC should bring something to the table when he comes. Those are the MCs that I respect, those who bring something to the table, something different to bring Hip-Hop to another level. Either lyrically or production wise or with your breakdance, your graffiti or your DJing skill, just take it to another level, even your journalism. Take it to another level, don’t settle for the same thing all the time, push the envelope, break the mold, be first! That’s what I respect and that is what this record is about, it’s about being first.
I tried some new things on there; there’s some songs on there that either you’re going to hate or love because they are definitely different and no MC did it before. Rhyme flow, beat wise, hook wise, it’s just some different things on there and that’s me, I’m always trying to bring something different, something that nobody’s done before. It’s a good record. It’s a very good record.
RIOTSOUND.COM: Your new label is called Intelligent Muzik; what are some of your goals for Intelligent Muzik in the years ahead?
WISE INTELLIGENT: With Intelligent Muzik, the goal and the mission statement of Intelligent Muzik is to give the youth an alternative; you can get with this or you can get with that. The alternate plan for Intelligent Muzik is to actually have 100% youth ownership. It’s going to be a community owned label, probably the first. It’s going to be like the Green Bay Packers in the NFL, the only team that’s owned by the state [laughs]. That’s where I want to go with it, I want to turn it over to the youth in the form of a non-profit and let the youth put their own music out, let them do the marketing, let them man every position at the label.
I want to set up an office in every major city and just let the youth run it as a non-profit organization where they’ll keep all the proceeds and proceeds will go back into their non-profit and help with the next office getting established in the next city. That’s what Intelligent Muzik really is, it’s really something that I want to give back to the babies so they’ll have a piece of Hip-Hop and own a piece of their culture. I want to give them a crash course in industry ownership, owning your art; teaching them the science of the masters and the publishing and royalties and things of that nature. So that is what Intelligent Muzik is striving for.
As far as I go personally; in the next five years or so I just want to travel. Pack up and hop on a plane with like twelve youths from the community and just take them and show them something different. Take them to Africa, take them to Europe, take them to Rome, take them to Italy and let them see things, things that they don’t see that really affect them; things that go on abroad that affect them at home that they don’t really understand.
‘Cause right now the condition of the youth where I live, they only concerned with what’s going on with the guy that live immediately across the street. Like “oh that nigga got new rims on his car, he ain’t all that” [laughs]. That’s the extent of their knowledge, that’s the only thing that they think affects them. So in five years or so I want to kick back and take a group of youths and just travel around the world and also set up some exchange programs with youth in other countries, China, countries in Europe, Africa, India and just work with the youth and build the youth.
RIOTSOUND.COM: I read where you said in a previous interview that you’ve lived in just about every shelter in Trenton; can you talk about that as well as your continued involvement and goals for educating and empowering poor people today?
WISE INTELLIGENT: Can’t nobody tell me nothing about being poor, I’ve lived everywhere man. I’ve lived in all the shelters man, nobody can tell me what it’s like. I’ve seen the welfare checks and the foodstamps. I’ve had pockets full of foodstamps on occasion. I’ve taken foodstamps and spent a quarter out of each dollar just to get the seventy five cents change back so I could catch the bus to the next spot and get where I need to go. I’ve been there. My pops left when I was a youth and I talk about all that on the album. I was a youngin when my father left and I had to deal with it. And it wasn’t just me; it was me and nine others. I have four brothers and five sisters. We were struggling really hard at that point and we were young. The large majority of us wasn’t even of working age. So we ended up in a lot of shelters, moving from one section to the next section.
Right now in my hood I can go anywhere, I live right on the murder blocks. Last night heads shot up the block and get caught in my yard. The police catch them in my yard. Last night at like 11pm they was shooting up the whole block behind my block. They just ran through busting through my gate, just destroyed the gate. It was a wooden gate, you know the tall wooden gates, like a six foot gate? They smashed the wooden gate down; they went through the gate like a cartoon, like in the cartoons when they go right through the wall [laughs]. But they get caught in my yard and I see all this transpire from the time the gun shots go off.
The gun shots go off and I turned off all my lights, you know, hood procedure; turn off the lights, make sure everyone is in a safe place before I check to see what’s going on. So I’m checking out my windows and see the youngins in the yard. They was hiding out in the yard, so then Police come crash through my yard and get the youth up outta there. I’m like wow, I mean, that’s what it is. But that’s where I live, I live right here. Right here man, and I’ve been living here for a long time. It’s really bad around here right now, gang activity is at an all time high like it never was before. Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, you even got MS13 popping up around here, it’s a situation.
[I understand] that organizations are very necessary. Back when I was coming up, like I said, I was homeless. I was living here and there. I would have joined a gang early as a youth simply because they would have met me half way. They would have made sure that I had food, clothing and shelter. Even though I was eventually going to get sent on a suicide mission, but that’s not what I would have saw. I would have saw taking care of my immediate necessities, food, clothing and shelter. And that’s what’s happening with the youth and I see how it’s happening because a lot of these youth are going through the same thing that I’ve been through.
So it’s tough, I’m right here, I live right on the murder blocks, right on the murder blocks in Trenton, New Jersey; so that’s where I be. I can go from living in all these shelters and living from side to side in Trenton – there’s very few heads that can go everywhere and get love from everybody. So when you have that ability you gotta use it to your advantage and try to induce some political orientation into some of these movements around here. I tell them all the time, the Bloods and the Crips running around here in America with AK47s are the only group of gangsters running around with AK47s without any political orientation.
Go to South America and Africa, the youths with the AK47s are part of political movements; so they pointing they guns in the right direction [laughs]. Where [in America] with the black gangster or the black AK47 toter, it’s always spilling out in the community in the form of black on black violence where [instead] they could be a very powerful political force and they don’t realize that yet. But it’s tough, it’s a task. That’s why with my CD cover, I did it the way I did it. In the background I put everything that I am up against. In the background of the picture you see kilos of cocaine, triple beams, a kid doing heroin, another kid with her baby daughter and a gun in her hand, showing [the baby] how to load and shoot the gun. So it’s everything that I am up against, the mentality that exists down here. So it is what it is man.
RIOTSOUND.COM: For young kids that have not heard of Poor Righteous Teachers or Wise Intelligent; what would be the one thing you would want to tell them?
WISE INTELLIGENT: Never assimilate. I want them to know that you should never assimilate. Go against the grain, fuck tradition, really. Tradition is killing them, tradition has them scared to act and it’s putting us in a reactive mode all the time. Just be first man; I want the youth to be first. Don’t be afraid to be you. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. Don’t be afraid to say “look, I respect your Blood, I respect your Crip but this is me, this is who I am”. Don’t be afraid to rise above peer pressure. Don’t be afraid to rise above and be you. Develop yourself from the inside out not from the outside in; it’s not going to happen like that.
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