Kidz In The Hall: Diplomas (And Hip-Hop) Aren't Dead
Published: Tuesday - December 26, 2006
Words by Gritz
Kidz In The Hall (Photo: BallerStatus (file))
The Ivy League is a breeding ground for politicians, CEOs and other white-collar criminals, but its legacy in hip-hop is generally limited to rumors that Lauren Hill attended Columbia University. In an age when coke rap rules the charts and Thug Motivation stands in for traditional learning, education just doesn't seem to be the first thing on people's minds. Anyone watching Season 4 of HBO's "The Wire" right now knows that most young kids would rather be corner boys than college grads.
With their debut album, School Was My Hustle, the Kidz In The Hall are looking to offer an alternative. MC Naledge and producer DJ Double-O met as students at the University of Pennsylvania, and after a series of mixtapes that included the College Graduate, they've worked their way onto the frontlines of a new era at Rawkus Records. But while they hope to show people that a GED's worth more than a Jesus piece, they really hope their music speaks louder than their resumes.
Ballerstatus caught up with the Kidz to chat about their work with Just Blaze, the drawbacks of being labeled "conscious," and the dangers of "poverty pimpin'." Get your notepads out, 'cause school is in session...
Ballerstatus.com: You're clearly good with the college applications: In 500 words or less, who are you, where are you from, and what do you represent?
Double-O: This is Double-O from Jersey. Lakewood, New Jersey, to be specific, with Naledge from Southside Chicago. And we're about making good music. Making the best music we can and telling a story that hasn't necessarily been approached before in this way.
Ballerstatus.com: That was concise. Well done. Now, the album's called School Was My Hustle. What does that mean, really?
Naledge: I'm gonna break it down for you, 'cause the apathy needs to be broken. Life is a hustle, you know what I'm saying? Hip-hop is about hustling. Hip-hop is about moving forward, it's about progression, it' about finding your way in life and always trying to get somewhere better than where you're at right now, you know what I mean? And that's all a hustle, it's a grind, that's what it is. And basically what I'm saying is that those were the cards that I was dealt and that was the best opportunity I had that was presented to me, you know what I'm saying? While some people might say I play ball, that was my hustle, or I push dope, that was my hustle, or whatever you do. You run numbers, you gamble, that might be your hustle. Whatever you're trying to do to get yourself from point A to point B, that's what I was dong with school. The title is putting it in a nutshell. It's basically taking the entire stance of my life and summing it up with those words. I'm inner-city, I'm from Chicago, Southside, but at the same time, I grew up with a pretty normal upbringing, and that's what I'm trying to expose the world to. But at the same time, you will respect me, and you will give me the same ear you'd give any other cat. I'm giving you options. Whereas Young Dro might have his way of doing it, T.I. might have his way of doing it, The Game might have his way of doing it, I have my way. And that's what School Is My Hustle is representing.
Ballerstatus.com: Throughout the album you present use the word "revolutionary," presenting yourself at times as a man trying to lead the blind. Do you think all the attention your education gets ever feel like a burden—like you're expected to be conscious?
Naledge: The same way that I have the intelligence to break down my movement, I also have the intelligence to market an artist. With a product, you have to give the people a label or a brand to put it under that's already existed. You know, it has to be like, "Well, he's like Kanye with Common and a twist of Jay." People have to have same sort of comparison to give it. But the reason I don't like the label "conscious" is that it really implies that social issues aren't relevant in good music. I feel as though you can be aware of what's going on and you can be intelligent and still make good music. When people think of "conscious rap," they usually think of something that's "way over my head," or "I have to think too much about this," or "oh my God it's preachy." And I don't want to limit my fan base, because I feel like if you kill somebody's view before they even listen to you, then they might not take away what you need them to take away. It's a gift and curse. I appreciate the comment, but if you're trying to say that that's all that I'm limited to, then it's an insult. I'm conscious because I'm breathing... I'm not conscious because I see racism. Anybody can see racism, you know what I'm saying? It's not like I feel like talking about it in every song. It limits me in the sense that if want to make a song about seeing a chick in a car then I can't do it, because you just limited me to being "conscious." No one person feels one way all the time. I'm sure Young Dro ain't in the club all the time. Nobody's one-dimensional.
Ballerstatus.com: So you're getting a lot of attention now in hip-hop for your education. On the flipside of that, how did it feel to be an urban Black in an Ivy League environment? Did you ever feel like you weren't getting attention for the wrong reasons?
Naledge: I experienced a lot of people who had identity issues. A lot of the people I encountered at school were very book smart and came from good backgrounds, but they might have not necessarily found themselves, you know what I'm saying? And that's why I feel like my music is good, because when I look in the mirror, I know what I am and I can tell you what I am. I don't let other people define me. If that was the case, then I would be in a cubicle right now. Me going to an Ivy League school was just another step in my development, and I never looked at it as something that would deter me from being an MC. My thing was, I'm an MC, you can't deny that. I have skill. The University of Pennsylvania, and Wharton and all that, it doesn't mean anything. At the end of the day, me being from the Southside of Chicago, and being raised by two Afro-centric parents, that probably makes me more conscious than going to an Ivy League school. The reality of it is that I encountered a lot of people who have never met people from urban settings -- you know, boarding school kids who were mostly from the suburbs. Most people weren't really from urban settings, and if they were from urban settings, they were from like New York or DC. The Midwest has a different flavor to it, and Chicago has a different taste to it all together, you know? It's very racially segregated. There's lot of social activism. There's a lot of religion. And, you know, it's a good mix of all those things. That's why you have that type of hip-hop coming out of the city.
Ballerstatus.com: Did experiencing those type of people at UPenn make you feel like that was an audience you wanted to reach, or you were just gonna do you regardless?
Naledge: You know what, it's crazy, because you take what's going on around you, and you want to affect it. And in the process, you have to realize there's something bigger than your block, something bigger than your corner. I think that's what school taught me, that you can inspire people in masses, and that's what I mean by revolution. It's like, "Yeah, my block's f---ed up, but I'm sure there's somebody in Michigan whose block is f---ed up, or there's someone in New York whose block is f---ed up, or there's somebody in Florida whose blocks is f---ed up." So, I can't make my messages narrow to Chicago. I mean, I can just give you insight into my life experience, but at the same time integrate it into a broader message so that I can inspire more people. So at the end of the day, do you I think about who I'm reaching? I think about it now more than I did before 'cause I didn't have a deal, I didn't have all these people I was interacting with, I wasn't traveling as much. I was just in my neighborhood seeing the problems that was gong on, and it's like my cause has become bigger as I realized that my words have that much power.
Ballerstatus.com: Speaking of Chicago, tell me about your relationship with Rhymefest?
Naledge: I mean Rhymefest, he might not even know it, but he's shown me the most love out of any signed artist in Chicago, and we didn't even grow up together or anything. We weren't friends until recently. He's just shown a lot of support and love for what I'm trying to do with my movement and I love what he's doing with his movement. A lot of people from Chicago will be like, "Yo, there are a lot of haters," but Rhymefest has been one of the people who's defied that stereotype in my eyes, because he's always shown me love, and he's done stuff for next to nothing.
Ballerstatus.com: And what are you two saying when you speak out about "poverty pimping"?
Naledge: Basically, what we're talking about is rappers who are glorifying violence and glorifying a certain lifestyle for the sake of a dollar. At the end of the day, you can say, "Yeah, I'm keepin' it real, I'm keepin' it real, I'm keep in it gangsta," but you're not keeping it real if you're not showing the flipside or the dangers or the ills of this stuff you're promoting. And you're not keeping it real if you're saying, "I don't care, it's entertainment, and it doesn't affect my children," you know? And you're not keeping it real if you're making money off of the same struggle you came from. If you're making money off the same struggle, and you're promoting it to continue the cycle, then you're not doing a good job. You're pimpin' the hood, you're pimpin' the lifestyle. And I feel like it's the worst for people who haven't lived the lifestyle, because it's so cliché in hip-hop right now to be gangsta. It's so cliché to be from the hood. It's so cliché to be pumpin' crack. It's so cliché to say, "That's what a hustler is." That's why I'm telling you that you can go to school and be considered a hustler. You trying to tell me that Donald Trump isn't as much of a hustler as T.I.? And I'm mixing that because, "Yo, I'm black and I'm from Chicago and I went to the same school as Donald Trump! I sat in class with his daughter!" I'm saying you can come with me. If this is the hustle you want to choose, it's possible. There's a saying that my uncle always says: "If n----s knew better they would do better." And a lot of people don't know the opportunities they have.
Ballerstatus.com: Are there any other MCs out there right now who you think are doing it responsibly, but still dope?
Naledge: I love what Lupe's doing right now. I love his album. Kanye, for the amount of celebrity that he has, he definitely shows that he has a responsibility towards it. I mean, Common. You have Talib Kweli. You have a lot of rappers who do it, but even on the flipside of that, you have rappers like Jadakiss doing songs like "Why?" and you have Styles P. doing a song like "I'm Black," and these are songs that are prideful and uplifting. And these are mainstream "gangster" artists who are showing that side to them, you know what I'm saying? And I think it's good... You got Little Brother. You got a lot of people who definitely portray inner city life, then present a flipside. Saigon is another rapper that I'm really feeling right now.
Ballerstatus.com: What's the vibe at Rawkus these days?
Naledge: Rawkus is a good thing for us, you know? It's like playing for the team you grew up watching, and I definitely love the situation that we're in. We're in the position to be seen and heard, and at the same time, we have creative control.
Ballerstatus.com: Plagiarism is a quick way to get kicked out of an Ivy League school. What do you think about creative borrowing and the whole biting controversy in hip-hop?
Naledge: Hip-hop is based on borrowing. Hip-hop is based on biting if you think about the origins of hip-hop. When we made beats we were taking the breaks of other people's records and manipulating them into your own records. If you look at producing, we make sample. If you look at anything, it's all how we use it, you know? When Jay recites a B.I.G. line, he's not reciting it as B.I.G., or to say, "This is my line." He's almost paying homage and reinterpreting it into his own personality and his own lifestyle. And that's dope. And you gotta think familiarity is what's key in hip-hop. It keeps the beat, and it's its origin. It's about improvisation and consistent innovation and progress. So hip-hop is based borrowing, and I'm all for it if it works.
Ballerstatus.com: True. So did that thinking affect your decision to remake "'93 'Til Infinity" for the single, "Wheelz Fall Off"?
Double-O: It was meant as a mixtape record. There was Biggie's song that was on one of our first mixtapes. It might have been the one that Just [Blaze] first hosted. It was actually Doogie Hoosier MC, and it was actually over a Just Blaze instrumental, called "The Storm." And so, basically, I always loved the lyrics, and I had found the sample, and I was like, "Oh this is the ''93 'Til infinity' sample." At first, I was thought maybe I'd use a part that people might not know, but that didn't feel right. So I was like, "Let me do it the way they did it, put my own spin on it. Do it as a mixtape record." I had Naledge come in and redo the hook, so it matched in tone, and kind of just put it out. Even as of a year ago, we were trying to get Hiero on a remix, 'cause we had respected what they did the first time. It hadn't materialized at that point because we were still basically just nobodies [laughs]. One of my friends that I work with in San Francisco, he helped us open for Hiero out there and I gave them the track, so we'll see what happens. I mean, we love those groups like Hiero. They've been doing their thing, and they're still dope. I remember recently they did a freestyle on "Rap City" and they still have it. They're not one of those groups that you hear years later and you're like, "I don't even remember why I liked them the first time." And, again, the song was kind of paying homage, so it'd be great to get them on a remix.
Ballerstatus.com: On your website you talk about the internet generation and MCs coming from all sorts of different backgrounds -- Eminem, Pitbull, etc. Do you think it's time for a new breed of MC?
Naledge: I'm one of the children who don't know a world without hop-hop. It's not just project kids, it's not just kids who have nothing and are buying into this lifestyle. People used to look at hip-hop as an economic art form, an art form made out of desperation and poverty. But it's not like that anymore. You got kids who just have a genuine love for the art of making music and interpreting their reality. And that's what I do. I do it to the best of my ability, and I'm breaking new ground because I don't think there' been anyone with the biography I have that's as dope as me. Not to sound cocky, but that's just what I see it as. Obviously I'll get more attention, but there's other MCs doing what I'm doing, they just haven't got the light I've gotten.
Ballerstatus.com: What would you be doing if you weren't rapping?
Naledge: I'd be in graduate school, but I'd still be rapping. You just wouldn't know who I was. I'd just be graduate student rapping [laughs].
Ballerstatus.com: Now, you guys met at school in Philly. Do you think the Philly scene had any effect on your sound?
Double-O: Yeah, definitely. I think it influenced both Naledge and I because that was the meeting ground for us. I mean surprisingly, Philly is very similar to Chicago in a lot of ways, which was very different from me actually growing up first in Brooklyn and then moving to the suburbs of New Jersey, because essentially, I've been in a very integrated environment being on the East Coast my entire life. Philly is a little less of that, a little more segregated and then Chicago is the extreme of that. But what Philly has in common is that there's just so much soul in the city in general. And you know you've got the whole Soul movement, and The Roots, and it's a very organic scene. You could go catch the Black Lily at the Five Spot or go to a jazz café wherever, and a lot of those things just transfer over in smaller ways. We use to have this place called the Rotunda near campus where a lot of the hip-hop events were going on, so early on, I was there DJing and doing stuff, and we would just make music in our bedroom and take it right there and perform it, you know? So it was a testing ground for a lot of stuff, and I think definitely the organic, soulful nature of Philly spilled right onto campus.
Ballerstatus.com: How important was it to hook up with Just Blaze on the mixtape? What did you learn from working with him?
Double-O: The connection with Just Blaze was well before the mixtape. You know, me knowing him from being the [laughs] sidekick dude that I was at the time. I think it's obviously been instrumental in us getting the industry look that we needed, because this game is not a game of talent, you know? It's unfortunate, but it is a game of marketing and relationships. So if somebody who's tried and tested says, "Yeah this sh-- is dope," then that makes the A&Rs say, "Ok, I'll go check it out." But the fact that it IS dope puts us a cut above the rest. And from a learning perspective, he is the premiere -- no pun intended -- hip-hop producer right now. People have put it on his shoulders to maintain the credibility of hip-hop as we have known or as we think it should be. He helped us take something raw and make it into something that's palatable and that can be digested by a larger audience. Because at the end of the day, we love to do this, we love to make music period, but we want our voices to be hear by as many people as possible, you know? We definitely want music to be a platform to help us effect change later on once we reach a certain status level. And to do that, you kind of have to know how to make the proper package. So, I mean, I think that's definitely where he helped us.
Ballerstatus.com: Double-O, rumor has it you moonlight as a track star?
Double-O: Yeah, those were the days the days! Essentially what happened was, I was running track professionally. When I moved to LA, because the music hadn't taken off like it was supposed to, so I was like, "Let me get a job let me, concentrate on running track. I'll still do the music stuff, but it will definitely be a hobby for a second." I had run track through high school, I was State Champion, and I was Ivy League champion in college two years in a row. It was one of those things I was always going to do, but I needed to take a year off for injury. During that in-between year is when I started pitching music in LA, and when it wasn't working out like it was supposed to I was like, "I'm going back to the track." Hooked up with Santa Monica Track club, which is the home of Carl Lewis and some of the fastest people in the world back in the early '90s and late '80s. From there I ended up running at World Championships, Pan-American games, and then eventually the Olympics.
It was funny, 'cause right as the Olympics were happening, Naledge came back moved to L.A. after he graduated in 2004. And we had done the College Graduate mixtape right before I left, and so when I got back, and Belize, who was the country I was running for, where my family is from, they weren't acting like they were supposed to as far as the monetary situation. So I was like, "I got to concentrate on this music thing now." Because it felt like, I'm one of those people -- and Naledge is to -- who take chances and risks when we have the opportunity because it may never happen again. That's kind of what you have to do sometimes in life to really be successful. I wanted to go to the Olympics and I did it. Then music started working out, and just wanted to be down with the whole situation, so I was like, "Let's take this music thing and see what happens." And, a year later, we end up with a deal with Rawkus. And, a year after that, we have an album out. It's definitely been a blessing and a great road, far from over.
Ballerstatus.com: So what's next?
Double-O: Press has been great, really loved the project, now its time to get the fans involved. 'Cause they can talk and read about it, but if they don't hear the music, it's not going to do what it's supposed to do. So we'll just keep touring and making as many appearances as possible. And gearing up for this Naledge Is Power album coming in spring, like the Kidz In The Hall album on steroids.
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