KRS-One: Judgement Day

THE TEACHA KRS-ONE INTRODUCES RIP NICHOLSON TO HIS SCHOOL OF HIP HOP.

KRS-ONE interviewed for Rip2Shredz  // Street Press Australia //  Hiphop.sh @ 08:45 AEST Saturday 4th February, 2012

Oprah visited down under, even Queen Elizabeth and her grandson Prince William walked our red carpets last year. Now we wait, firmly held in 2012 for the inaugural visit of hip hop’s leading protagonist, acting strictly for the cause and survival of a culture. KRS-One, (born Lawrence Parker) is poised in San Francisco to board a boat and head for our golden shores. Afraid of flying, Parker will take the month-long trip down under with an agenda to inject knowledge into our our hip hop culture with a “booster shot.” Following some stringent protocol to get him in session, Parker lets loose over 50 minutes with a booming authority over his words. Holding a genuine concern for the upkeep of his culture, Parker lays out an economic model for the survival of Australia’s hip hop scene in today’s new world, which he believes finds the balance of power shifted in favour of it’s forebearers and creative souls who maintain the culture’s equilibrium behind it’s commerce.

Charting a takeover, Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone (KRS-One) sets sail to arm us in readiness for the new world. “I’ve waited a long time for this. There is a couple of places I’m trying to go to over the next three years. And Australia is just one of them that I’ve been trying to get to for a many years,” admits Parker, who explains the trouble he had with promoters not understanding the goals of his touring plans and treating hip hop’s most active ambassador as an artist only. “There has always been challenges, so when i come to a place i don’t just want to come to the place, perform and leave. I don’t like flying into a country, flying over a country. Beyond that, go straight to the hotel from the airport and to the venue and to the hotel and to the airport and then say ‘OK, I’ve been to Australia.’ That’s not my style at all so i waited it out.”

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Rakaa Iriscience - Wearing The Crown

 BEFORE THEIR SIXTH ALBUM DROPS, DILATED PEOPLES MC RAKAA TAYLOR (RAKAA IRISCIENCE) HAS FRAGMENTED THE DISCOGRAPHY TO INCLUDE HIS FIRST SOLO LP, CROWN OF THORNS, IT’S ALL LOVE, HE TELLS RIP NICHOLSON AND INSISTS THAT HIS RECORD IS “LESS OF A DEPARTURE AND MORE OF A CONTINUATION” OF THE GROUP’S LEGACY.

RAKAA interviewed for Rip2Shredz  //  Street Press Australia  //  Hiphop.sh @ 14.15 AEST Monday 17th October, 2011

[FULL Q&A INTERVIEW HERE]

“It has definitely been therapeutic. It has made us want to get back in the studio together, it has made us truly appreciate our individual growth, and it has allowed us to go find new things to bring back to the family.  There are no weak links in the crew, but there is a deeper magic that can be felt when we are all up there together,” admits the Los Angeleno artist, referring to Dilated Peoples, a group, a group that has always played a pivotal role in Southern Cali’s left-sided movement to advance a more consciously-aware state of hip hop. “The solo magic is sparking though. Everything is growing. I love rocking my Crown Of Thorns set though. I love to see people’s faces light up and see the different people react to different songs.”

Despite holding down his own royal affair, it’s fellow Dilated Peoples MC Evidence’s Cats & Dogs (just released) that’s held the main focus of Taylor and the Peoples’ as of late. “Cats & Dogs is at the front of my mind right now. Any project that the family does is a family project, and that is where we want everyone focused right now. Go get Crown Of Thorns and study that, then get Cats & Dogs and study that. You will need to get up to speed and prepare yourself for [upcoming Dilated Peoples album] Directors Of Photography.”

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The Cypher #1

The BET Hip Hop Awards was recently served up and apart from seeing the return of DMX and Heavy D live and LL Cool J immortalised this year, the cypher, once again became the show’s highlight package. Lil Wayne took both artist and live performer of the year, but when Chris Brown’s Look At Me Now (featuring Busta Rhymes and Lil Wayne) takes most awards including video of the year and the Beastie Boys’ aren’t even nominated, who gives a shit about the rest? The awards won’t be remembered next week but the all-star cypher will go down as one of the most memorable. Everybody got down on their 16 bars, no weak links and scratching each MC in, was none other than the legendary DJ Premier with James Brown’s Payback.

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Naughty By Nature - Strike A Nerve

ONE OF THE BIGGEST BREAK OUT ACTS IN HIP HOP, NAUGHTY BY NATURE HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABLE TO STRIKE A NERVE, HOLDING DOWN THEIR TRUE IDENTITY WHILE TAKING IT TO MAINSTREAM NOTORIETY WITHOUT HAVING THEIR GHETTO PASSES REVOKED. TWENTY YEARS AFTER O.P.P. STICKERED THE CHARTS, THE NEW ALBUM ANTHEM INC. IS SET TO CEMENT THEM REAL RAP IICONS. VIN ROCK TALKS TO RIP NICHOLSON.

VinRock (Naughty By Nature) interviewed for Rip2Shredz  //  Street Press Australia  //  Hiphop.sh @ 09.20 AEST - Aug 25, 2011

[FULL Q&A INTERVIEW HERE]

Naughty By Nature went back to their gully, Illtown roots of New Jersey to shoot the video for a new single, but as Vinnie ‘Vin Rock’ Brown explains, they never left. Now fresh from a tour with Redman and Method Man stretching from France to Brasil (and Australia this month), the hardcore hip hop trio feel as young as ever on stage.

“We been movin’ around so much lately. I can’t even tell,” Brown comments on the group reaching the age of fathers to some of today’s top hip hop talents. “We all still young and very youthful and we’re out there working on stage, jumping around and burnin’ them calories.” Retiring is not in the sums for Brown, either. “It’s just that in our culture where we have ageism running wild. But, the reality is do you wanna listen to a 21 year old for your whole life when you’re a forty and fifty year old? Or would you rather have your peer that you grew up on, still catering to your demographic?”

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Interview: Pigeon John - Different Rules

PIGEON JOHN STANDS ON HIS OWN TWO FEET AND WRITES FROM ANOTHER PERSON’S MINDSTATE, HE TELLS RIP NICHOLSON.

Pigeon John interviewed for Rip2Shredz  //  Street Press Australia  //  Hiphop.sh @ 14.00 AEST - April 29, 2011

Most recent album Dragon Slayer has revealed the soul of MC Pigeon John, a record that has challenged him as the writer, artist and producer and one that seems to be the most satisfying for (Pigeon) John Dunkin. This skateboard nerd was not about to front his hip hop with the stereotypes of the reality rap that consumed culture around him. He’d rather impress the Beach Boys, model his hip hop after the Native Tongues movement and perform like the Tin Pan Alley/Vaudeville acts of the early 20th century.

“I knew from the giddy-up – even in skateboard culture – that you had to be yourself and there’s no way you’re gonna fake it, at all,” says Dunkin, who grew up inside L.A.’s Hawthorne and Inglewood districts. “My paths didn’t lead my life to the gangs or the late night parties, 40 ounces in the hood stuff. My path went through the youth group, skateboarding and girls at the mall. So when I started writing for myself I knew that I had to be real and keep it honest, so it just came out pretty naturally.”

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Review: Atmosphere’s The Family Sign

The Family Sign (Rhymesayers)

Track listing:

01. My Key
02. The Last to Say
03. Became
04. Just For Show
05. She’s Enough
06. Bad Bad Daddy
07. Millenium Dodo
08. Who I’ll Never Be
09. I Don’t Need Brighter Days
10. Ain’t Nobody
11. Your Name Here
12. If You Can Save Me Now
13. Something So
14. My Notes

A return from Minneapolis outfit Atmosphere after their double EP last year - and first LP in three years - sees the release of The Family Sign out to their loved ones, friends and fans.

The eerie electric start to this album puts a Gravediggaz edge to the album. Sharp and dissecting rhyme spits from Slug fall from the lips of Slug, not entirely unlike those of the Wu fraternity. A vivid scenery is painted through the album with the instrumentals from touring musicians Nate “The Guitar Man” Collis and Erick Anderson on the keys.

On ‘The Last Say’ the dark side of the domestic front over a simple howling guitar sets the lyrics apart and puts this LP on a much more serious note. The beat is raised and tempo more flowing as the album goes in introducing a new wave of distorted guitar instrumentals and MPC drum patterns to the fabric of Ant’s ASR-born production behind the head-nodding hits ‘Just For Show’ and ‘She’s Enough’ which proves to be a real live show stopper.

All in all this album has more of a live feel about it, a musicality too large and in charge to be contained within a CD. But this will make listeners buy a ticket to see how the Atmosphere raises the humidity at a live show.

By Rip Nicholson   //   411@hiphop.sh

Interview: MURS - Fornever with 9th Wonder

ANTICIPATION RISES HERE FOR A FIRST LIVE PAIRING OF 9TH WONDER AND MURS IN AUSTRALIA. MURS, REAL NAME NICK CARTER, DISCUSSES TOURING WITH 9TH WONDER, STAYING TRUE TO THE CULTURE HE WAS RAISED ON AND AUSTRALIAN HIP HOP ARTISTS HE FUCKS WITH.

MURS interviewed for Rip2Shredz  //  Street Press Australia  //  Hiphop.sh @ 13.40 AEST - 18th April, 2011

A long-serving west coast rapper, MURS stays staunch and devoted to his home town and thanks to the interstate bounces of North Carolina’s 9^th Wonder, he’s representing Los Angeles life like Crips and Bloods. “If you’re super, really into being a Crip and you’re around a bunch of Bloods, the more Bloods you see, it’s gonna wanna make you be even more of a Crip. So when I’m with someone who ain’t where I’m from, I love representing where I’m from so much it makes me want to to do it ten times harder.”

New tracks from his and producer 9th Wonder’s fourth outing, last year’s Fornever album, such as ‘West Coast Cinderella,’ ‘Let Me Talk’ (featuring the smack-talking pimp supreme Suga Free) and ‘Live From Roscoe’s’ with one of Cali’s fiercest campaigners, Kurupt from Tha Dogg Pound, have kept their longplayer very west coast.

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MURS & 9th Wonder and R.A. the Rugged Man, Saturday May 7 at The Espy.

Tickets $38 plus booking fee, available HERE

Interview: House Of Pain - Hurt So Good

HOUSE OF PAIN ARE BACK, AND DANIEL O’CONNOR (AKA DANNY BOY) TAKES TIME OUT BETWEEN BITES ON HIS BURGER TO TALK RIP NICHOLSON THROUGH THEIR CAREER AND REUNION - OLDER, WISER AND DECIDEDLY MORE SOBER.

House Of Pain (Danny O’Connor) interviewed for Rip2Shredz  //  Street Press Australia  //  Hiphop.sh @ 08.20 AEST - 8th April, 2011

It’s a 20 year anniversary of sorts for the Irish-Americans who last brought their shamrocks and shenanigans to our shores in a massive tour featuring Naughty By Nature and Coolio back in 1996. And this was their only time here as Daniel O’Connor expresses between bites of a burger at Long Island, New York’s White Castle.

House Of Pain’s upcoming shows will be less of a brawl with blunt weaponry and executed in a more concise and refined manner. “The major difference is it’s not as drunken and angst-fuelled. It’s more mature,” O’Connor explains. “It’s definitely sharper than before. Before it was like a dull dagger that we stabbed people in the neck with.”

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Interview: Copywrite - The MC’s MC

HIS LATEST RELEASE ALLOWS YOU TO SEE BEHIND THE CHARACTER THAT IS COPYWRITE. RIP NICHOLSON LIFTS THE MASK.

Copywrite interviewed for Rip2Shredz  //  Street Press Australia  //  Hiphop.sh
@ 14.00 AEST - 10th February, 2011

In the studio tapping out the early creases of a new MegaHertz album with producer RJD2, Jakki Da Motamouth and Tage Future, Copywrite’s Peter William Nelson rings into Drum to “give a little interview”, as he explains briefly to someone interrupting on the other end. His second album dropped at the close of 2010 and what unfolds on The Life And Times Of Peter Nelson is an enduring trip through a tumultuous period in Nelson’s personal affairs of late. Here the cartoonish Copywrite is shredded back to reveal the Peter Nelson alter ego experiment. “When it’s time to write that ignorant shit, that ridiculous shit – my metaphors and all that – Copywrite is a character and Peter Nelson is the person,” he explains.

The angst rapper came up in 1998 in the midwestern scene of Columbus, Ohio with his crew MegaHertz (MHz) and released a string of underground hits before finding ground with his début LP, The High Exhaulted, in 2002 – a ‘battle on wax’ piece he refers to as “fascinating garbage”. With ill-minded punch lines and cocky white-boy rhymes spat in a dark and sickening tone – too dark for most – reviewers trashed the MC’s underground career. Eight years on and keeping himself mixtape-heavy until the drop of his second release, Nelson wishes to be defined and remembered on his open-book narrative LP.

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Interview: Pharoahe Monch: The Art Of W.A.R.

BACK ONCE AGAIN, IT’S ABOUT THAT TIME OF YEAR WHERE PHAROAHE MONCH MAKES HIMSELF HEARD TO HIS AUSTRALIAN FANS. BEFORE HIS ASCENT DOWN UNDER TOURING WITH JEAN GAE, TROY DONALD JAMERSON DISCUSSES WITH RIP NICHOLSON THE NEW ALBUM, W.A.R. CO-PRODUCED BY OUR OWN EXPAT M-PHAZES, AND REVAMPING HIS FIRST ALBUM OR FIRST BORN AS HE REGARDS IT.

Pharoahe Monch interviewed for Rip2Shredz  //  3D World (Street Press Australia) //  Hiphop.sh
@ 10.30 AEST - 27th October, 2010

Into the fray with Price Poetry as the Organized Konfusion duo, Monch dropped three albums which received plenty on cred but little on sales. After signing with indie-house Rawkus Records in 1999, the seminal Internal Affairs was released and side-stepping plenty of free agent persuasion from Shady Records, Runyon Ave, Bad Boy and Sony Records, Monch signed with Steve Rifkind’s Street Records Corporation and released his 2007 follow-up Desire.

Monch’s W.A.R. Media imprint partnered with Duck Down Records are ready to bring us W.A.R. (We Are Renegades) which Monch regards as his finest work to date and considers it a boom bap return to circa 1993- ‘94. The supporting cast from Desire have returned, which Jamerson confirms is “still expected February 22^nd next year.” And debut single off the LP is the Diamond D produced ‘Shine’ was released earlier this year finding Monch coupled again with the soul-drenched BK vocals of Mela Machinko who featured heavily on Desire. Behind the boards Denaun Porter, Black Milk, Lee Stone all return, but at the helm is Australia’s leading hip hop producer M-Phazes.

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COPYWRITE AND PLANET ASIA – LIFE AND TIMES AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES

BRISBANE THURS 24th February – Step Inn
PERTH FRI 25th February – Rosemount Hotel
ADELAIDE SAT 26th February – Rocket Bar
SYDNEY SUN 27th February – Tone
MELBOURNE TUES 1st March – Corner Hotel

All tickets from: Mistrust Music

Artist interview with Copywrite COMING SOON!

ICON STORY: NAS

MC, 1991-PRESENT

WHEN RIP NICHOLSON FINALLY PINS DOWN THE ELUSIVE MC BORN NASIR BIN OLU DARA JONES BUT BETTER KNOWN FOR HIS INCENDIARY WORK AS NAS, THEY DISCUSS HIS LEGACY AND THE JOURNEY HE TOOK WITH DAMIAN MARLEY ON A PILGRIMAGE TO JAMAICA WHILE MAKING THE COLLABORATIVE ALBUM WHICH TREKS THE ROOTS OF MUSIC AND LIFE ITSELF.

Nas interviewed for Rip2Shredz  //  3D World (Street Press Australia) //  Hiphop.sh
@ 09.45 AEST - 17th January, 2011

Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones was discovered in 1991 by MC Serch (3rd Bass) and released Illmatic in 1994 – his début album, which in time would become heralded the Greatest Of All Time. Twenty years on and Jones is always found in further discovery of his cultural roots – roots that led him out to Jamaica and the Kingston yards that exported the godfather Kool Herc and the late reggae icon Bob Marley. In 2005 Nas and Damian Marley threaded their fibrous genes on the ‘Road To Zion’ record for three-time Grammy winner Marley’s third LP Welcome To Jamrock – a hybrid strain of new era Trenchtown reggae and hip hop.

A journey to rekindling that fire culminated in the long-awaited and much-speculated 2010 long-player Distant Relatives, a QB-meets-Jamrock polymer so well-spun it bonds together the origins of hip hop and it’s culture in perfect transfer. Where Hip Hop Is Dead’s title track paid homage to the first record spun at a Kool Herc jam, Escobar Caeser has returned to reinforce the cultural bindings of hip hop once again.

AFTER ROAD TO ZION CAME OUT, WAS THE REACTION TO MAKE AN ALBUM TOGETHER?

“I think it was we just liked each other’s work and we wanted to do a record. This is some time later, it wasn’t right then like ‘I wanna do a record’. It was an evolving process and later we got together to do the record.”

HOW WAS IT TRAVELLING BACK WITH DAMIAN TO HIS HOMETOWN? DID YOU GET THE MARLEY FAMILY EXPERIENCE, MEET EVERYONE, LEARN THE HISTORY OF REGGAE?

“Yeah, I learned a whole lot. I learned a whole lot about Bob and what his life was like in Jamaica and growing up in Trenchtown.

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