Im here with the All Mighty X-Clan's Brother J what u say, what you say?
Peace to God how you feeling today
(Man everything is lovely)
X-Clan is legendary in hip hop and really been missed by rap fans worldwide, before we get into the new album, where have you catz been man..
Most definently, we been underground basically preparing for the millennium, I took some of my teachers and mentors and forced the millennium phifer which is the second generation of X-Clan and as some of our supporters will up witness we did a "Dark Sun" project were we started to collect some of the Artists and Producers from around the world that wanted to continue holding the torch for conscience music. So since 94 when I introduced them, that group has grown to a lot of headz in this time frame and were ready to introduce the first wave which is the X-Clan project.
The highly anticipated album "Return from Mecca," tell us about it and what can the fans expect?
Well, the fans can expect growth for one level. Production growth is something that we have been waiting to translate to this music stream when it comes to X-Clan. A lot of people are use to us sampling so much it was kind of our signature after a while.
I think its because we were born in an era where sampling was the thing to do, it was about a collage of rhymes and how good your producer or DJ could mix your rhythms to make something unique, and that's costly, Im sure a lot of Artists know u don't wanna continue to buy a house and car for the elder or mentor you sampled from. Coming out to the west coast , I have been out here for about 8 years now, I got in league with a lot of original producers like Fat Jack, Sir Jinx, DJ slip, Tony Touch catz like that that have been around from the beginning, and then to deal with the new era of funk with quakeadelic, DJ Quik of course one of the originators and Jake 1, there's a lot of production on this Album that shows the original funk masters and then the new levels of where we wanna take catz in the future. Circle wise our group is expanding you know X-Clan now is many members instead of just the original four, big up to my soldiers in arms that have pasted Suger Shaft and Professor X.
X-Clan has been at the forefront of Hip Hops Cultural movement, what do u think about the current state of Rap as it is today.
The current state of Hip Hop today is basically to me, it's abusive to the free source of media that we have as far as radio is concerned, I really don't blame the Artists because the Artists have to continue to do what they have to do to eat. But um, I do blame the program direction u know what Im saying, their not realizing that their separating families when u put information that doesn't fit into certain Age brackets in the information. Your giving the youth to much stand against adults, if you give them adult privileges then how is an Adult going to give them anything as far as discipline is concerned. So it kind of defeats the purpose when we wanna put this music out like a X-Clan album because there so use to the garbage that hip hop is just judged to be one thing, ballers and gobblers and grills and all of that, that's just part of the experience of being a hip hop Artist there's so many different angles that are not being exposed in radio and video and so on, so I just feel that the hip hop level right now is just not as educated as it needs to be on many different passages of music.
Your touring with Public Enemy, that's classic right there, tell us how that came about with you and Chuck D..
Well the PE tour came about with Public Enemy just giving respect to us I cant make it any simpler than that. In talking to Chuck D I didn't realize that someone I consider as a mentor had so much respect for what we do. You know ive seen Public Enemy supported in many different ways as I told the people at the press release that Chuck was my inspiration to stay independent you know what Im saying and its been one of the best decisions in my career right now to stay a independent Artist and then to gain major power while doing that has been a blessing and has really put X-Clan in a leadership position for Artists that are wondering how to make this independent record thing work for them you know what Im saying, getting with the right team, getting on the right tours like this one, we just did the Jurassic 5 tour with them we did Damian Marley 16 cities with them, we do various shows with everybody from the Visionaries, KRS 1, Planet Asia, so u know the Clan is everywhere so its a blessing to get on board with P.E. because that's our direct genre as far as conscience music is concerned. Not to downside any particular option that hip hop gives us but conscience music is needed right now this is the kind of audience that can be 3 generations thick when X-Clan and Public Enemy comes together.
The whole Rap Industry is delighted your back and doing it like only X-Clan can do it. What advice would you give new Rap Artists trying to come up on the Rap Scene..
The advice I would give to any new artist on the scene is to get a good team. Everybody thinks they can do it on there own and I see a lot of catz going solo breaking off from groups and trying to make a little CD like its easy you know like Im gonna go sell 10k and be Rich tomorrow you know these are delusions that really don't fit into the way the game is structured. People have to realize when all these big labels broke up a lot of business people, marketing people, our people, promotion people were fired with no work. If some of these groups banned together and put some of these people on as far as in employment and put them on board to push a project I think we'd see a lot more institution in the hip hop community or the hip hop nation.
When we look professional and we think professional we would think twice about the kind of music we deliver to the audience, to the streets. I wouldn't want to talk about just babbling and BS, if i had a strong team behind me that was depending on eating that was behind me, I would give something that has longevity that someone can say yo man u helped my life, my seeds life, my woman's life, u know , something I could listen to for 5 or 10 years like how Roy Ayers and Chaka Chan and James Brown and George Clinton. For us coming up as Hip Hop Artists even the people we were sampling it was inspiration and I feel like we should translate that same thing to the next generation.
Now that X-Clan is back on the scene can we expect more to come in the future because groups like X-Clan are the foundation of the whole hip hop cultural and right now we really need more of a positive vibe to keep it alive.
Well thank you brother I appreciate that, X-Clan is going to be doing a series of projects you know what Im saying were trying to show that there is a conscience wave of music not just one group to offer and that's why were urging people to go out and not only support this album but start to put their ear closer the ground, to the street to maybe listen to other conscience Artists that have been out and haven't been getting the love you know what Im saying. I mean even on my album there's some on there and like the song with me and Damion Marley its a roots reggae joint to where its gonna be classic for years and years. I can see my elders rocking to that and kicking back to that, so were going to position ourselves to do several worldly projects since we've had such a good response coming to the album. I never did collaborations before but to see how people came out and just gave love to us inspired me to do a lot more things with bigger names like a DJ Quik, KRS 1, Papa Roach, thats the first time I ever worked with a serious rock group like that you know what Im saying, these catz selling 9 million records and coming to fly in to give love on a X-Clan project, it says a lot for the dudes from Clan, Im really starting to feel the goodness of the dues we've payed.
That's whats up, X-Clan, Brother j , I want to thank you for this exclusive Rapscene Interview, any last words or shout outs
I wanna give a big up to you and the Rapscene man for having us man you know what Im saying, we need powerful sources of media to get behind conscience music man, we wanna salute you for giving us time man to speak our piece..
I really appreciate that Brother J, My pleasure man, much respect. Look out for the Jewel dropping Jan 07.. X-CLAN "Return From Mecca" you know what it is, It's A Rap!
