PMD: The Morning Star Pt. 1

Masked gunmen storm your house and tie up your friends in an attempt to find you. Meanwhile, you are on a tour of the country with your boy Erick and crew the Hit Squad (Das EFX, Redman and K-Solo). You play it cool and continue with the business of hip-hop legacy building. While most people […]

Masked gunmen storm your house and tie up your

friends in an attempt to find you. Meanwhile, you are on a tour of the country

with your boy Erick and crew the Hit Squad (Das EFX, Redman and K-Solo).

You play it cool and continue with the business

of hip-hop legacy building. While most people would lose their wits, for PMD

it was business. A converted soloist, PMD dropped a pair of albums without E, but he’s finally come into his own with The Awakening . The album features Fat Joe, Hit Squad alumni K-Solo, The new Hit Squad (The Final Chapter) and even Erick. AllHipHop talked to PMD about his life, the way things were and the current state of affairs.

AllHipHop.com: Talk to me about the new album

PMD: The new album is called the Awakening,

it has 18 cuts on it. Basically it’s cool cause it’s on my new label Boondocks

and I took the independent route. It’s distributed through Caroline and I don’t

have the pressure to go gold or platinum. I already did that. So now, I been

in the game like 15 years. I came in on Sleeping Bag, Came in on Def Jam, was

on J records. When your younger, you just wanted to be an artist and hear your

song on the radio. That’s basically what everybody wanted to do. But now that

I’m on the other side, I am able to keep the creative point of view and be able

to run the business at the same time.

AHH: Did you step back from production because

of the rigors of running the business?

PMD: To be honest with you, I been in the game

since 82 and then in 92 with the EPMD break up and Redman , Das EFX and K-Solo,

there wasn’t like somebody helping me to do that. I just had heart from the

hood. So after Unfinished Business, I didn’t want to have sons near me, I wanted

to take other artists, let them become established, so they can be on the same

level.

AHH: EPMD defiantly prophesized all that’s going

on in hip hop with " The Cross Over". With you new album, are you

staying away from the radio friendly material?

PMD: Yea, yea, with EPMD I never had to cross

over. I had a dope song and basically with "The Cross Over" we told

people that you could crossover with out playing yourself. You check out the

hook, with the Roger Trautman in it and the respect is there really because

hip-hop decides who they like and who they don’t. People turn this into a big

street thing, and the streets, and the streets. But when Kool Herc and Bambataa,

and all of them started this , the whole purpose of hip-hop was to get out of

the streets. You know you don’t have to be out there with the gat and you don’t

have to be out there slingin. You can tag or you can DJ or you can rap. Now

these cats are so, whatever the right word is with the street game , that they

prophesized it and they talked it into existence. And when you do that, you

see with Pac and Biggie, you seen it with us. And we were like yo let’s put

this pen down because were writing the wrath that’s coming to us. So you gotta

learn more about the world you live in and America as a whole and know that

we can only know so much from the hoods that we came up in because we are in

little boxes. Hip hop allowed us to know what was going on in NY and Cali and

ok we got a little thing going. But, America’s been here for years, we don’t

understand enough about this money, we don’t understand enough about these taxes.

So we need to fall back, get used to handling money, get used to dealing with

people because it aint about you.

AHH: One thing that EPMD was always respected

for was the "Boondocks" theme and not really claiming any street hood.

So how did the street aspect of the game come back to you?

PMD: Well what happens is when your young and

your in the hood, nobody’s really messing with you because nothing’s really

jumping off, you just like everybody else. But then the minute stuff starts

to pop, you have to trust somebody. It’s just like any movie for years, you

never know when you got a kook in your camp. A lot of people when they have

success, they surround themselves with people , But you really don’t know. And

if you surround yourself with a wack team and they just yes men, when they’re

around you everything is cool but when your not around their on the phone or

plottin or whatever the case may be. So what I learned through all of these

years is that you only have control over yourself. And somehow or another, through

the success of EPMD, when you one of the most ruggedest groups, when your one

of the people bringing the truth and speaking truth, and people hear your lyrics

how you coming straight from the heart, then they get intimidated or whatever

and they feel like they gotta take other means. As opposed to just speaking

to you like a man. So with Eric and I, our biggest downfall was trying to pull

too many people on. Then the plane got to heavy and if you didn’t have the eject

systems, you would go down with the plane. I had my eject systems, and I love

my mic so much no matter what would go on, the point is that you still gotta

be able to spit that fire, without sounding like struggling and you still gotta

be able to take care of that business.

AHH: Did those experiences cause you to step

away a bit?

PMD: Yea, because when your left with the only

option of death and guns, there has to be a stronger side to you. The God in

you got to come up and step forward and say that I didn’t come this far just

for me. That would be a selfish act, but for all the people who believe in me.

AHH: I noticed through your recordings and recent

statements that you have a more spiritual aspect to yourself. Is that a result

of your struggles in the game or something you just matured into?

PMD: It’s basically, knowing what you already

knew, but now really knowing it. Because people get all crazy with the Bible

and with the first EPMD albums I didn’t know that Bible stood for Basic Instructions

Before Leaving Earth. So now we in the hip hop industry where everything is

shoot em up, cash, drugs and girls, and touring, and flying. How can you step

up on the front line and be ready to go, when you don’t have the instructions?

What happens if there is a life after death? And your stuck in purgatory . Everything

in my mind that I asked the Lord for, he brought forward. Gave me EPMD, Gave

me the sales. Run DMC used to be just a poster that hung on the wall, now I’m

on the tour bus with them. 3 number 1’s, get to meet Russell Simmons. I’m from

Long Island, not connected to nothing and this is what I did. But then he takes

it further, he let’s me put K-solo on and meet Sylvia Rome. Then he lets me

put Redman on and Das Efx. But then I start thinking in the natural. Then you

get personal feelings but no matter what , it’s not about you. So this is 19

cars later, this is 7 houses later, this is being the most sampled group in

hip hop. And it’s either your gonna stand behind the scenes and not change history

, or realize like how did all this happen to me, how did I fly to all these

countries and I’m still here?