EPMD isn’t really looking for
radio play. “We wasn’t gonna
play the politics,” explains Erick Sermon of their choice to pass on
sweating over spins in the Big Apple. “Just straight
underground. We feel that the web, people like AllHipHop
[the world’s most dangerous site],
[REDACTED, though a good site],
[REDACTED, kinda suspect site]; we feel that that’s where the people are at. Rock The Bells had, 40,000 50,000
people a night out there. It was
not one radio commercial, not one magazine ad. It was all Internet.”
True. Surely some radio love
wouldn’t hurt, but who are we to argue with the E-Double or his partner Parrish
Smith? The rap duo are certified rap pioneers,
legends, icons or any other similar adjective appropriate to describe their
dedication to the boom-bap. So holla at your local
DJ/payola receiver to get on their job.
Nevertheless, EPMD just dropped
their seventh album, We Mean Business,
and beforehand we met with Erick and Parrish at Fat Beats Records’ NYC outpost
(shout to Mark for the hook up) and played them some joints. Of course, their
commentary was golden, like the era they rep.
DMX “Get At Me Dog”
AllHipHop.com:
When this first dropped I immediately thought of EPMD’s
“Get The Bozack” but this was all
new to younger kids at that time. That’s
happened a lot to y’all where people would re-flip samples y’all have
previously rocked.
Erick Sermon: I’ll tell you the truth I ain’t really like the beat when I first heard it. (laughs) PMD made the record it was a one bar loop. I was
like that’s kinda weird, you
know what I’m sayin? But then of course I’ma rock with it cause it’s us. We did
it. You know it was crazy but I heard D do it, it was ill, it sounded even
better.
AllHipHop.com:
Did y’all know X personally, you were label mates at that time at Def Jam right?
Parrish: Yeah kinda, when he was grinding with Atlantic records too, before he got
to Def Jam. E always say that too with the beat, cause it was so simple, but
then when DMX used it, you know it kinda [helped] us
too. It kept us current when we wasn’t here.
The Notorious B.I.G. “Going
Back to Cali”
Going Back To Cali – The Notorious B.I.G.
Erick Sermon: Easy Moe Bee… chopped the s**t outta that record.
AllHipHop.com:
Same deal with y’all version [“You Gots To Chill”] and
flipping the loop or did y’all use the LinnDrum?
Erick Sermon:
That was a loop…
Parrish Smith:
Yea that’s before the LinnDrum, that’s like, we
looped it to the tape and then went around on a chair with a pencil.
Erick Sermon: A
chair like, with a ½ inch, quarter inch tape.
Parrish Smith:
Quarter inch so we had to cut, splice it, before the machines.
Erick Sermon:
They didn’t really have loop machines back then (laughs).
Parish Smith: You
get it? Like you tape it to tape, then Charlie [Charlie Marotta,
engineer], got the sample then you put it around a chair with a pencil. And that’s
how it was looped.
AllHipHop.com:
Damn. So did y’all have the record and bring it to the studio knowing you
wanted to use it?
Erick Sermon: Yeah, but on a cassette. It wasn’t a record it was a
cassette (laughs)
AllHipHop: It’s a Zapp record and now heads are
OD’ing with the vocoder and autotune
effect. What’s y’all take on that?
Erick Sermon: It’s dope now cause me and P
get to come back with our sound you know and luckily it just killed two birds
with one stone. We ain’t tryin’ to reach the youth we tryin’
to reach 25 and up. We don’t
really care about the sales and people be like, “What’s up with y’all tryna compete with now?” We ain’t tryin’ to compete
with nobody. We don’t need it. I would be happy if it happens though but
we not really stressing it. Since that’s our sound and for us to come back with
the single “Listen Up” with Teddy Riley it makes it even better
AllHipHop.com: On that “Listen Up” joint ya’ll mentioned DJ’s kind
of being cool on y’all…
Erick Sermon: “Even though I’m def I hear DJ’s is saying I’m washed
up and ‘I ain’t playing it’.”
“We drop our first single ‘It’s
My Thing’ and then ‘You’re a Customer,’ boom, we was out.
Then they wanted the album, we got Strictly
Business and we was on the Run’s House tour. Lookin’
at Will Smith.” -Parrish Smith
AllHipHop.com: So have DJ’s actually said, ‘Yo we’re not playing your stuff’?
Erick Sermon: Some of ‘em still gon’ front ’cause again, they not used to it. You know they gon’ want to jump on something cause they quote unquote
fitting with the playlist. But luckily me and P are
who we are and we really don’t care, we just doing a Hip-Hop album. If
you hate this CD, then you don’t know what it is, and not to just be boastin’ but the CD is dope. It got Raekwon, Mobb Deep, Red, Meth, Keith Murray,
Teddy Riley, KRS-One…
Parrish Smith: Teddy Riley, Vic Damone…
Das EFX “Kaught in Da Ak DJ Premier Remix”
Kaught In The Ak Remix – AllHipHop
Parrish Smith: We ran into DasEFX in
Virginia on the EPMD promo tour for Business As Usual in 1990. And you know, basically we had our
first Gold album and a lot of success, and we had Redman so…
Erick Sermon: Two Gold albums.
Parrish Smith: Yeah we had two Gold albums, so because the Hip-Hop
community was good to us, Eric and I just wanted to give back.
Erick Sermon: It was a rap contest we saw them at. It was a battle
on the school grounds [Virginia State] and it was a bunch of
groups up there. These other guys
were good too, the ones who we gave the first prize to. We didn’t give it to
Das we gave it to some other guys but we knew that we was gonna sign Das.
AllHipHop.com: So what made y’all go with second place Das instead
of the winner?
Erick Sermon: We just knew, from the way that we never heard
that. The world was gonna be shocked with that. We was like what is that?
Parrish Smith: They had the style like right there.
Erick Sermon: They had the swagger they already had the look and
everything already and they had that new flow. First we went to Def Jam and they
wasn’t with it ‘cause we was rockin’
with Redman. And then we went to Sylvia Rhone, at EastWest
and she totally got it quick. You know Sylvia, she signed, Missy, DasEFX, K-Solo, Busta Rhymes.
Anything that was unique, she signed it.
Isaac Hayes “A
Few More Kisses to Go”
A Few More Kisses To Go – Isaac Hayes
Parrish Smith: That’s one of the things that I was like, YO!!! When
I first heard that… That right
there?! That’s something. Me personally, we was doing
like a whole bunch of stuff and then E came over with that track and Redman
rhyming on it, it was like…”What the f**k!?”
Erick Sermon: It was a 45 I had some 45’s and it sounded good and I
sped it up.
“[Redman] got signed off of one line.” -Erick Sermon
AllHipHop.com: Was it a beat you had in the stash for Redman?
Erick Sermon: Nah it was just 45’s, just digging.
AllHipHop.com: I didn’t even realize it’s been 9 years since the
last proper EPMD project.
Erick Sermon: It’s been 10 years for everybody, it aint’ just us.
The whole industry is held up, except Georgia. So EPMD that’s not us not having an album.
You can’t even say that. Nobody did nothing.
Parrish Smith: We coulda came back and
played ourselves without knowing.
Erick Sermon: We was gonna
play the game like everyone else until we realized we playing the wrong game, we with the wrong people. You know what I’m saying? (laughs) We got the wrong team jerseys on.
Parrish Smith: In the beginning we
had to come to Manhattan. Before
we even got to think other people was on us. Now we here like, Oh wow, this is how this goes. And if you notice, ’88, ’98, 2008.
Every 10 years…
Erick Sermon: Every 10, new
beginning. That’s what happens. That’s why I can’t be
mad, like my daughter likes Soulja Boy. This is their era. The youth is what it
is now, this is their Hip-Hop. When Flash and them came out it was them, when
Run-DMC came they had theirs, after Run-DMC then EPMD came, after EPMD came
Wu-Tang, after Wu-Tang came Bad Boy, Murder Inc. after them came No Limit, then
after them came Cash Money, took them, after them came Lil’ Jon, after him,
came, this whole s**t.
When they took it out, it lost
what the form was and turned into rap music. You know it’s corporate. But again like me and
P don’t even look at that part. We be out
there. I don’t know where these
other cats be. We go to any country go to any
borough. Like Reggie [Redman] said, I could
go to the hood and smoke a blunt with any n***a. I don’t know no rappers that could
do that without getting robbed and getting beat up. You can’t go to one of them n****s neighborhood and just go
in there and just be chillin’ in they hood without
them disrespecting you. How many
cats done came here or the A and got robbed, in New York, or get robbed in L.A. or get taken out
and disrespected in certain places? It’s a whole bunch of ‘em. ‘Cause it ain’t
nobody really believing, ain’t
no respect in that. Nobody gonna rob nobody who they
respected. Or even disrespect
nobody who they respect.
AllHipHop.com: Was there a certain point where the switch flipped
and y’all said no more major labels, we’re going independent?
Erick Sermon: 2007
really, 2006
we was still touring.
Parrish Smith: B.B. Kings.
Erick Sermon: Yeah B.B. Kings. My
sister had came up and was like, “Yo,
I thought I was going to a play”.
Cause the line was so [long]. So me an P got a
little gassed. (laughs) But we knew that Hip-Hop was
still alive. Same
thing with the Kane 20th anniversary.
Leaders of The
New School “Sobb Story”
Sobb Story – Leaders Of The New School
Erick Sermon: What was that?
AllHipHop.com: That’s Leaders of The New School’s “Sobb Story” with Busta on that first verse.
Erick Sermon: I don’t remember that.
AllHpHop.com: You don’t remember that joint?
Erick Sermon: Nah.
Parrish Smith: I remember that. The Long Island movement; Busta Rhymes, Charlie, Dinco D, you know and that’s when it was authentic-ness in Hip-Hop, before it started to go in different
directions. That’s when it was innocent, that’s when it was EastWest
DasEFX, Elektra. And it was basically the same building, so you know you had
the Das EFX then you had the Elektra with Busta Ryhmes [and L.O.N.S.] before he went solo.
AllHipHop.com: Repping L.I. must have
been very important for you?
Parrish Smith: I think it’s real important cause like if Run-DMC
didn’t do what they did or KRS-One didn’t do what they did and then us being
from Long Island and it’s EPMD, people even to this day believe in “Strong”
Island. You know Long Island is very big it’s not only Suffolk County, it’s
Nassau county, it’s not only the normal towns you know? People be
sleeping on Riverhead, Bellport.
So when we go out to the Hamptons and we do a show, that’s who shows
up. So you know that Long Island
movement is and still, especially with the independent scene. We got a lot of independent and
underground cats. You know Cory
Drums, stuff like that cat’s that’s really on the come up. So I think EPMD just by us being us,
not trying to be something different just by doin’
us, people follow suit.
AllHipHop.com: Did people ever front on y’all because y’all were
from Long Island?
Parrish Smith: We never got a chance to see that. ‘Cause we just
came with “It’s My Thing,” brought in the choppers and we was always aligned with
Hip-Hop. Between the Latin Quarters, Special K, Teddy Ted and them and Afrika Bambaataa and them. So when we drop our first single “It’s
My Thing” and then “You’re a Customer,” boom, we was out.
Then they wanted the album, we got Strictly
Business and we was on the Run’s House tour. (Laughs) Lookin’
at Will Smith.
AllHipHop.com: So no demos or anything like that?
Parrish Smith: No. Like every song we made, through our whole
career, we put on a album. We went in and did a song, that’s how it came out and we put
it out.
Erick Sermon: We were used to it, not having no
money in the beginning. The studio time costs, so whatever money we had we had
to use it and use it well. So, whatever record we made stayed on the CD. And we
kept that, we kept that philosophy that’s why the records were done quick
Parrish Smith: We didn’t like the philosophy… some people go in and
do 20 songs and pick 13.
Erick Sermon: No. 60, 50. Even Jay- Z had told one of my boys, he
was like “How many records they got? 60 records?” He was like that’s not good ‘cause if you doin’ all that then you aint
confident on nothing you doin’.
Parrish Smith: That’s too much cause you stretch yourself. And an
album is just a snapshot of what you going through at that time.
Erick Sermon: So we didn’t have nothing
extra that we had we only had 12 records and that’s what we had.
AllHipHop.com: So there ain’t
no lost EPMD tapes?
Erick Sermon: Ain’t no lost nothing for this. Not a piece, not a verse or a sentence, nothing.
Redman “Funkorama”
AllHipHop.com: When y’all first connected with Redman did you have
an idea of what he would become?
Erick Sermon: Well, yeah. Me and Parrish we put
him on stage, we had show at Club Sensations in Jersey.
Parrish Smith: With Biz Markie.
Erick Sermon: And he came in there with Doitall
[Lords of the Underground] and some other DJ. He wasn’t even supposed to be rappin’. But
one of his man’s said, “Yo my man’s raps”. Redman stood up, he’s like, “I float
like a butterfly sting like the rock group, process cuts…” whatever it was but
the one metaphor ‘sting like the rock group,’ we put him on stage that night.
Parris Smith: That was enough.
Erick Sermon: He got signed off of one line, put him on stage. Cause we knew that his delivery and the
way that it was that he going to be something. And Parrish said that: “Yo E you
should sign homeboy.”Photos courtesy of YARDY PICS PHOTOGRAPHY.
