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or sixteen years, Paris has held the mic like a grudge, as his records have approached just under four million sold. Contemporary Hip-Hop may seem far removed from the socially and politically challenging records of the early 90’s, but the themes aren’t. Sleeping With the Enemy dealt with a Middle East war, a Bush in office, and watered-down records dropping every Tuesday.

In 2006, Paris is still advancing his career. However, through his Guerilla Funk Records, he’s also helping others like him. The admitted “biggest undertaking yet” for Paris may be Public Enemy’s forthcoming, Rebirth of a Nation album. Produced and penned almost entirely by the San Francisco rapper, this project is as radical in concept as it is in audio. Paris explains to AllHipHop.com his intentions for the record, as well as his role on the artistic and business responsibilities. Paris is a soul survivor from “The Days of Old”.

AllHipHop.com: We spoke to Chuck D. But I never got a sense of how Rebirth of a Nation came to fruition. How contacted whom, and so on?

Paris: Well, it goes back to [Public Enemy’s] Revolverlution record. I did a verse [“Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need (Remix)”on that. It had been a long time coming for us to actually work together. I told [Chuck] that I’d get down on his project, and I wanted him to get down on the project I had comin’ up – Sonic Jihad, on a one hand wash the other type of thing. Both of those collaborations worked out well. So I approached him when he was out here at KPFA promoting his AOL Radio [show] or something. I told him, I wanted to produce a Public Enemy project. He was with it. He said, “Go ahead, get started with it.” This was maybe in the beginning of ’04. One thing led to another and he said, “Go ahead and write. Because I don’t have a lot of time to do multiple things.” He has hella s**t goin’ on with Public Enemy. They got multiple albums, radio shows, TV related projects. He said it’s cool to do the collab though. So I put it together, called up [Professor] Griff, and took it all out to Long Island to Griff and Chuck’s studio.

AllHipHop.com: It’s almost nonchalant the way that it’s coming out, but you wrote all the lyrics?

Paris: Uh, the majority of them. Two or three songs were remixes of the original.

AllHipHop.com: I asked Chuck this too. But as the producer, you remixed and retitled “I” from There’s a Poison Goin’ On. What was it about that record that attracted you?

Paris: Well, there are a couple of songs on the projects that had been released since they left Def Jam that I dig a lot. It’s just my feeling that a lot of what they’ve released since they left Def Jam actually, hasn’t been heard by anybody. There’s a very select core group of people who follow Public Enemy, and will get down with them, and stand by them, no matter what – through the good albums, through the bad albums, through the hey-day and through the fading of the limelight, so to speak. If there’s one thing I hate doing, it’s being put in a position where I feel like material may be wasted. I don’t want anybody from PE to take that the wrong way. But I just like feel like with the promotional effort that was gonna be put forth with Rebirth of a Nation, I wanted to give it as much shine as possible, and I wanted original contributions from artists that may not have been heard on a large scale. The readily accessible material that I had access to, [‘cause] I couldn’t go to Def Jam, was some of the material from [There’s a Poison Goin’ On]. [“I” really struck me as a song that was being honest in its approach. You can feel the heartfelt tone of it in what [Chuck] is sayin’, and the way it’s delivered. That’s what draws me to most material nowadays is honesty. If you listen to T-K.A.S.H.’s album, it’s very honest. There’s a lot humility in it too. That’s not to say that we won’t get that ass if it’s time to ride. But you don’t have to be that way all the time. I’m very pleased with this project.

AllHipHop.com: What was the purpose of this would you say? ‘Cause Public Enemy will release two albums this year, whether on Guerilla Funk, SlamJamz, or wherever…

Paris: My purpose with this project was not necessarily to recapture a snapshot in time, but to focus on the specific meat and potatoes elements that I love about Public Enemy. There was a certain production style – a certain type of song that initially drew me into Public Enemy. I think that’s kinda exemplified on the track “Hard Rhymin’”, which is very scratch-intensive. It’s not really a heavy-sample sound like The Bomb Squad used to do, because logistics prohibit that approach nowadays. But the structure of Rebirth of a Nation is supposed to mirror their better known efforts.

AllHipHop.com: You mentioned the shorter reach on some of Public Enemy’s independent albums. Certainly, Sonic Jihad reached an impressive amount of people. As the CEO of Guerilla Funk, how do you intend to combat the market?

Paris: Chuck is adverse to spending money on promotions – that’s no secret there. That’s not on diss. He’ll tell you that too, “I don’t spend money on s**t, I just let it sit.” His approach is selling records over a period of time. My approach is to hit ‘em, make a big awareness, and still sell a lot of records over a period of time. To make a dent in this environment where everybody and they mama got a rap record, you have to spend money on promotion. There’s a huge print campaign, an Internet campaign, television commercials, and there is a pretty intensive radio campaign. It’s gonna be a pretty major undertaking.

AllHipHop.com: One of the album’s special points is its guest-list. The Conscious Daughters and Kam are Guerilla Funk artists. These are veteran artists that ride with you. What sense of loyalty do you have as a businessman?

Paris: Loyalty is important. But more important, is the message. Guerilla Funk provides the artists that are on it a lot of flexibility to do what they want to do. At the same time, doin’ what you wanna do must fit into the confines of Guerilla Funk and what we wanna represent. We are self-censored. We are for the right reasons. If you wanna ride, you ridin’ for a revolutionary cause. Make a statement that is socially constructive as opposed to a lot of the negativity that we currently experience in the music industry. Kam is underrated like a mothaf**ka. He’s been around for a while, and consistently comes with heat that is unparalleled by so many, and for whatever reason, cannot find a home to call his own – same thing with dead prez. They’ll never be embraced by a major [again]. Even major-indies would rather have a G-Unit clone than ride with somebody like dead prez. So I said, “F**k that s**t. Let’s all get together and put this down. I’ll finance it, and we’ll make it happen.”

AllHipHop.com: VH1 and MTV2 revisit controversial music moments a lot. They quickly go to NWA and Ice-T, but overlook you and 2 Live Crew a lot. As your legacy endures, do you want to be on those television specials for some of the things you’ve done?

Paris: It doesn’t really matter. I’m an economist, which is threatening to a lot of people in the industry because the industry is all about control. Guerilla Funk is a wild card situation, ‘cause I’m not controlled by anybody’s financial interest. I’m able to do and say and make and the material that I wanna do, when I wanna, how I wanna. If somebody doesn’t recognize me – like VH1, the ultimate musical corporate interest, then it’s still cool with me. I’m still 3.8 million records deep, independently. You really can’t kill me. That’s not being egotistical. That to me, is I’m in the driver’s seat making the kind of material that I feel needs to be made, and I don’t care if you acknowledge it or not.

AllHipHop.com: With every interview, I like to revisit an artist’s song –

Paris: — “Bush Killa”.

AllHipHop.com: Actually, “The Days of Old”. [both laugh] Tell me what specifically prompted that joint…

Paris: With “The Days of Old”, the writing on the wall was… quite some time ago, I was predicting the slow decline of quality and message in Hip-Hop. That was my commentary, ten years ago. The difference between the environment in Hip-Hop now and then, is night and day. Yeah, there are a lot of people making a lot more money now than then. The crude expense at which they’re making that money can’t even be measured, because there’s so much negativity infused in the community through s**t that’s being put out by corporations that don’t represent us. It’s scary. There wasn’t really any one defining moment. Sleeping With the Enemy was conceived as a result of the first Gulf War. My cousin went to go fight in that…the anger and uncertainty that went into that. He’s alright now. But these Silver Spoons boys pulling the switches and deciding who fights, who lives, and who dies – it was so much anger.

AllHipHop.com: How’s that angered changed?

Paris: It hasn’t. It’s still there. Now I have more tools available to me to counteract the propaganda of the s**t that surrounds us everyday. Your s**t really will end up in a garbage can too, if you send me material that sounds anything like the artists that a lot of these labels put out.

AllHipHop.com: To go out on a funny note. Through your website, you are easy to reach. However, there’s a notice to artists who wish to get you to appear on their work, that they consider who you are and what you represent. That said, what’s the craziest, or most unusual request you ever received?

Paris: Most of ‘em know better now. [laughs] A lot of ‘em, I can’t really speak on it. There hasn’t been anything that’s been so far removed from what people expect. I haven’t really encountered anything that’s been out-there. People that take the time to figure out how to reach me already know the parameters that they have to operate in. And I am a humorous motherf**ker, in case that doesn’t come through. Everything is serious as a mothaf**ka, but our conditions is serious.

At 27 years old, T-K.A.S.H. sounds well beyond his years in wisdom. Aligned with Paris, the Bay Area radio personality and MC has a major agenda. He’s scaring the streets straight with true-life experiences of his time on the curbs, mixed with his education on a better tomorrow.

In person, there’s nothing scary about T-K.A.S.H. He’s jovial, with an infectious laugh that compliments his sincerity after the crack-up. Having worked with The Coup in the last five years, it’s finally time for his Guerilla Funk debut, Turf War Syndrome. The album blends melodic West Coast music with “hard truth” lyrics that cook up the brain.

T-K.A.S.H. discusses his agenda with AllHipHop.com. He alludes to the dangers of hard truth, as well as the racial barriers that struggle exceeds, and why “Laffy Taffy” is nothing sweet. Peep!

AllHipHop.com: Firstly, you’re the first artist releasing an album on Guerilla Funk that’s not Paris or his Platinum Production series…

T-K.A.S.H.: [hysterical laughter] That is true.

AllHipHop.com: What kind of responsibility or pressure does that put on you? Also, the Bay is famous for “do-it-yourself”, so why’d you align with Paris?

T-K.A.S.H.: With exception of Conscious Daughters being the first group Paris ever worked with on Scarface [Records], I am the first artist on Guerilla Funk to put an album out. I think the pressure really comes from the pseudo aspect of there even being pressure. Here’s the deal: everything that I rap about or talk about, and as far as Paris and what he does, I already do in the streets of the Bay Area. I teach a Hip-Hop Political Science class. I do a lot of community events. I was on the organized committee out here for the NOI [Nation of Islam], I was an activist for the Tookie Williams case, I’m registered in the Millions More Movement, so I do my part in other areas. So really, there’s not much pressure based on the fact that I’m already bringin’ a lot to the table. That was actually part of the reason Paris signed me was ‘cause he saw I was already halfway there. Really, it’s just takin’ what I already have and makin’ sure that gets cultivated under the Guerilla Funk umbrella. For instance, from now on, everything that I been doin’, now has a Guerilla Funk accent on top of it. That’s the new itinerary I have to up-keep.

AllHipHop.com: Being a radio personality in the Bay, do you ever feel that being an artist too, may be of conflict to peoples’ perception of you?

T-K.A.S.H.: Um, no. Here’s why: I’ve eliminated the aspect of me being an artist on the side. Clark Kent and Superman are the same person with me, man. With a lot of people and a lot of artists, they do radio – and it’s novelty, a cool idea. “Tight, uncle Benny has a radio show!” I’m just as popular and just as important to Bay Area Hip-Hop as a radio DJ as I am as an artist. In the Bay Area, besides AllHipHop.com and other entities that help out, what we have on the commercial level and the college level, there is no middle-ground. KPFA and the Friday Night Vibe, what I’ve been doin’, is constantly steady middle-ground for almost seven years under my guidance, per Davey D. We basically were the only All-Bay-Area formatted show for four or five years till recently. That wasn’t based on ratings, that wasn’t based on ads, that wasn’t based on anything that commercial radio bases their rotation and programming on. It was based on the aspect of me being able to control an aspect of my career, and at the same time, reach out to other artists who were in that dilemma. It just caught on like wildfire. I don’t think it conflicts it all. I don’t play my music all day. Up until now, I played my music maybe once on the show.

AllHipHop.com: In your press release, you called Turf War Syndrome your magnum-opus. Those words are used often and cheaply today. Tell me why you call it that?

T-K.A.S.H.: [laughs] Everybody comes along and says, “We’re going to raise the bar.” And the trend is, the people who say that, are not gonna be the ones who do it. I think magnum-opus is relative to the point that my project speaks for itself. It’s good quality music, and it’s strong messages to the streets, outside of rockin’ ice and rims and all this self-destructive nonsense that commercial Hip-Hop brings to the table nowadays. I don’t want to seem conceited, but I know that people are drawn to harsh reality captured on CD, when it comes to Hip-Hop. I basically scored the frustration in today’s society, and commercial Hip-Hop’s affect on our communities. I did it from the aspect of the so-called G’s and thugs of America. Not college students. Not the 13 year-old suburban square-bear standpoint. I did it from the streets, the ghetto standpoint. ‘Cause I lived that life for a lot of years, and failed miserably like a lot of people do. But there is hope.

AllHipHop.com: You bring an interesting point on perspectives. One of the only Bay groups that could tour on the East Coast and sell out clubs night after night is The Coup, who you worked closely with. I’m always fascinated as to why that is, and why so many White people are in the crowd, when critics refer to the group as militant and Pro-Black. Why is that?

T-K.A.S.H.: [laughs] That’s a good question! I’m glad you asked it because the reason why a lot of people outside of Black and Latin Hip-Hop culture [are drawn], is because the problems we’ve faced have overlapped into other races and other cultures due to economic and social hardship. “I may not be Black, but I relate to you, Black Man. I relate to The Coup. I relate to this hardship.” I think the perils in society are what bring people to Coup shows, and bring people to buy Paris albums, and T-K.A.S.H records. We can all relate to the pain and suffering, and Pop culture’s onslaught of masking that for us. I mean, they’ve got 34 year old men jumping up and down, dancing to “Laffy Taffy”, come on. Meanwhile, the kids are cryin’ and the phone won’t stop ringin’ with bill-collectors. And they got on pink.

AllHipHop.com: The Coup caught controversy for their album cover of Party Music. You have a controversial song on your album, “How To Get Ass”, which is a play-by-play of assassination. With the Patriot Act and all this, are you scared putting this out?

T-K.A.S.H.: Boots of The Coup put my up on this a long time ago: “They’ll come for you wheneva they wanna come for you.” It doesn’t take a Patriot Act – that was designed for everybody. But for Black folks in the ghetto, there was a Patriot Act for us years ago with the drafting of the COINTELPRO. Now as far as, “How To Get Ass”, when I say, “This is how you get assassinated” That’s what I mean: how you and me get assassinated. There’s a good chance that I’ll get death threats, that I’ll be under surveillance, investigated – all for my lyrics. Okay, if there’s something to die for in America, it’s definitely justice and equality. Of course, I don’t mean killing the president. That’s not my domain. My domain is speaking the truth, and it could get me killed in the process. I understand and accept that.

AllHipHop.com: Tell me about your Hip-Hop taste, and that element of your record. Because “Made In America” references Mobb Deep’s “Survival of the Fittest” and “In My Drawz” seems to me, to be referencing Snoop’s “Ain’t No Fun”…

T-K.A.S.H.: [laughs] “In My Drawz”, I’m from the West Coast, and if you’re born and raised on the West Coast and are from a certainly demographic, you listen to a lot of Oldies. I’m 27, so I grew up listening to a lot of Oldies and Hip-Hop. Parliament Funkadelic, The Gap Band, and “In My Drawz” came about from already having that kind of sound in me, instinctively. I wanted a West Coast feel, musically. But the message needed to be politically and socially conscious ‘cause that’s where [the West] is stereotyped. They think we don’t say nothin’. A lot of people compared me to Nate Dogg on that song. If I sound like that, cool. I grew up listenin’ to Nate Dogg too, but what I wanted to prove was that you didn’t have to be Nate Dogg to be somebody likened on that level. You can still have a point on top of that.

AllHipHop.com: A few years ago, I went to a screening of Kevin Epps’ film, Straight Outta Hunter’s Point, a film that you scored, which revealed the violence in San Francisco in no uncertain terms. Three years later, do you think that film brought any awareness to outsiders or people within the community?

T-K.A.S.H.: That’s a great question. It brought awareness to The Bay from people outside. We have the same issues and perils in our community – homicides, drug abuse, mental illness, gang violence, you name it as anybody else. Because we’re not motivated, you don’t hear about it too much. Thank God for Straight Outta Hunter’s Point and other documents like it. It was such a huge stone that was uncovered. Me and Kevin Epps met up on the streets man, and ran with it till the wheels fell off.

AllHipHop.com: Guerilla Funk has been so much against commercial radio. But for Bay Area Hip-Hop, is there hope when E-40 and Keek da Sneak are getting airplay like they’ve been?

T-K.A.S.H.: I’ll never associate hope with Clear Channel. I think that all Clear Channel does it bring more awareness, and that’s it. As far as people waking up earlier in the morning to go exercise and s**t, or go to rehab ‘cause E-40 is on the radio again is not happening. Look at the Chopped & Screwed situation [in Houston], or the Crunk era. Those trends were so big that commercial has to comply. Instead of giving people hope, it gives us assurance that we’re doing the right thing. Commercial radio can’t be aligned with what the streets are talking about and what the streets want. I will say, as a member of the Bay Area Hip-Hop community, we have nothing to say to E-40 but, “Thank you.”

T

he opening theme to the Andy Milonakis Show with the show’s namesake spitting such balderdash as, “I got peas on my head but don’t call me a pea-head, bees on my head but don’t call me a bee-head,” isn’t very convincing of a b-boy. But Fat Joe, Lil’ Jon, the Ying Yang Twins, and Andy’s many other guests would tell you otherwise.

Andy’s off-brand sense of humor may have you believing he’s also a little detached from reality, but Andy makes no apologies for who he is; shocking people with his outrageously off the cuff humor is the bane of Andy’s existence. Executive Produced by Jimmy Kimmel, the show is a crazy composition of wild sketches that have you shaking your head at the television in utter confusion. Whether he’s harassing people on the street with his ballsy prodding, or having his mind taken over by a bottle of conditioner, Andy pushes the envelope and he doesn’t have a problem laughing at himself. Though it’s different, it’s a popular guilty pleasure. What’s more is, it may be influenced by Hip-Hop.

As Mike Jones, Paul Wall, and Juelz Santana join Andy this coming season – premiering 3/31, the premium season is released on DVD 3/28. In celebration of both events, Andy Milonakis got down with AllHipHop.com, on some – believe it or not – real talk.

AllHipHop.com: Based upon all the speculation, I have to start by asking, how old are you?

Andy Milonakis: 62.

AllHipHop.com: Yeah? You look good for 62, what do you take?

Andy Milonakis: I smoke a lot of crack.

AllHipHop.com: Well I guess it works better for you than others, crack is wack. But seriously, you’re not going to tell me how old you are?

Andy Milonakis: Nah.

AllHipHop.com: So you just want everyone to think you’re a 30-year-old pretending to be 15?

Andy Milonakis: I want people to believe whatever they want.

AllHipHop.com: Your sense of humor is borderline schitzo, but you’re a funny dude. I’m not sure if there’s a method to your madness but how did your show come about?

Andy Milonakis: I had really weird videos online that I did on my own time and I had this video camera so I thought I’d start creating stupid videos for the Internet. So I did that, and I had a little section of a website for like three years. Every week, I’d put a new one up and all of a sudden after a long time, one of em just caught on and started to circulate all over he internet and got like a million hits and radio stations started calling me. Then Jimmy Kimmel found it, and contacted me and basically he had me make a video tape to like audition for his show, and I sent it in they liked it so they started hiring me to be a correspondent. I still lived in New York, so they’d give me an airplane ticket and say, “Hey, you’re going to Florida to do a Spring Break piece,” and they started sending me all over and it was very surreal, it was nuts. It was even weirder because I had never met cats. I’m still in my apartment in New York. and they just email me and then all of a sudden they’re buying me tickets over the phone and sending me places. I felt like the Charlie’s Angel guy [Charlie], like, “You’re going here, here’s your mission”.

AllHipHop.com: Prior to that, did you have a desire to be on television?

Andy Milonakis: A little bit, but I never had enough desire to want to go out to Los Angeles. I don’t know, it just seemed so out of reach. I just never had it in me to do it, so I’m kinda lucky I fell into it.

AllHipHop.com: So how did that affect your schooling? Did you have to quit?

Andy Milonakis: Yeah, I had to quit [laughing], sneaky.

AllHipHop.com: I had to try. So how do all these big Hip-Hop stars know this “kid” who runs a show from his apartment in New York?

Andy Milonakis: I got props, yo!

AllHipHop.com: [laughing] Tell me about your Hip-Hop affiliations…

Andy Milonakis: They don’t all really know me. Some of them do, but I’ve been a Hip-Hop head forever. So when it turned out that we were gonna start getting celebrity guests for every show, I wanted rap guys from the get-go. I just thought that even though not every body is Hip-Hop [on the show], about 80 percent are. I just think that it’s such a weird wacky comedy-based world, and then you bring in those rappers who are typically all about money, cars and girls and we put them in these wacky situations, and we don’t really treat them like celebrities. Like Lil’ Jon was the first, and instead of treating him like Lil’ Jon with the girls and stuff, we just had him doing some stupid s**t with me so we just like the contrast of taking these rap guys and putting them in wacky situations.

AllHipHop.com: And they were comfortable with that?

Andy Milonakis: Uh, most of them were.

AllHipHop.com: Who wasn’t?

Andy Milonakis: The Ying Yang Twins weren’t really feeling it.

AllHipHop.com: I would have thought somebody like Fat Joe would’ve had more of a problem than Ying Yang.

Andy Milonakis: Fat Joe had no problem at all. Snoop put a f**king pancake on his face, and off-camera, we were singing s**t together. He was cool as hell. Even Juelz Santana, who we did this year, was cool. He did this s**t where I got caught in a bear trap and I had to do the “Whistle Song,” and he came to my rescue.

AllHipHop.com: That’s sounds funny. Do you come up with all the skits?

Andy Milonakis: Not all of them, there are a few other writers I work with, and we each write our own stuff and sometimes, we finish each others endings and stuff.

AllHipHop.com: Being that your show isn’t a sitcom or reality TV, how do you describe it?

Andy Milonakis: I would say it’s intensely bad public access television.

AllHipHop.com: So is that your intention – to make it as wack as possible?

Andy Milonakis: Actually, yeah. Some of the kids don’t get that level of it. They just see it’s wacky, and they like that. But part of the stuff I love is the stuff that’s bad. When I’m acting in it, I sometimes purposely act horribly because it’s comedy and I think with comedy, you can do that.

AllHipHop.com: Who haven’t you had that you’d like on the show?

Andy Milonakis: I’d like to get anyone from WuTang. I love them. I got to do one with Method Man for Jimmy Kimmel, but it never got on the air.

AllHipHop.com: Why not?

Andy Milonakis: Sometimes things get cancelled. He did a hidden camera bit, and it’s a long story. But Method Man is cool. I’ve met him a couple times, and I’d like to have him on the show. I’d like to have some Reggae dudes, too. I mean, they’re not as popular over here, but I listen to Reggae about as much as I listen to Hip-Hop.

AllHipHop.com: Would you call yourself a rapper?

Andy Milonakis: Yeah, I mean I do it as a joke and the raps that I write in real life are definitely for comedy. But they’re much dirtier than what I do on the show, they’re not as bubble gum.

Andy Milonakis: Dirtier? If you’re supposed to be a kid, why are you doing dirty raps?

Andy Milonakis: Kids are dirty motherf**kers themselves.

AllHipHop.com: Nonetheless, is your comedy more for kids or adults?

Andy Milonakis: The show is like anywhere from eight to 25. I don’t know too many people over 30 who like it, but I definitely have some middle-aged people who tell me they watch the show, but I defiantly think it’s for a younger audience. Some of he stuff I used to do before I got the show was for an older audience.

AllHipHop.com: Does it bother you when people don’t like it?

Andy Milonakis: No, it doesn’t bother me. I kinda like that people don’t like it.

AllHipHop.com: You’re crazy, you do know you’re a little off, right?

Andy Milonakis: You mean off in the head?

AllHipHop.com: Yes, I say that respectfully, of course.

Andy Milonakis: I just think if everybody liked it. It would be good because it’s the super mainstream comedy I think is awful.

AllHipHop.com: What do you like in Hip-Hop right now, and being from New York what do you think New York can do to bring it back to the East?

Andy Milonakis: My main problem with Hip-Hop is when people in the streets are rapping about real s**t, and then when they blow up, suddenly their music changes, and they start talking about the ‘money cars hoes’ thing. It just kinda goes down the drain. Part of it isn’t their fault, because their lifestyle changes, but the real s**t in the streets doesn’t change. I’m not gonna hate on all that stuff that’s all about bling and all that, ‘cause some of that s**t is catchy and cool to dance to, but there’s two categories to me: the Hip-Hop I want to dance to when I’m at a club, and Hip-Hop I want to listen to when I’m not at a club that I think is great music.

AllHipHop.com: Who’s your favorite rapper?

Andy Milonakis: My favorite rapper is Big L. That guy is so amazing to me. I think more rappers just need to rap about real life, and maybe when they blow up and they make millions of dollars, maybe they shouldn’t be so quick to talk about that rich lifestyle because really that rich lifestyle doesn’t make for interesting. Maybe they have other issues in their lives that they can talk about. When you talk about stuff that 80 percent of other rappers are talking about, you’re just being generic. You should realize that.

AllHipHop.com: What is it that you love about Big L?

Andy Milonakis: I mean, I’m from New York. I like East Coast Hip-Hop, and that cat is from Harlem. He has funny punchlines he talks about real life. I just like straight up ghetto beats – like thug rap, not posing.

AllHipHop.com: Talk to me about growing up in New York. Certainly, on the show, you don’t seem as someone who keeps it hood…

Andy Milonakis: You know, I’m not going to sit here and say I’m from some scary place. I never feared for my life or nothing, but I hung out with plenty of thugs. One of my best friends got busted for selling crack.

AllHipHop.com: To you?

Andy Milonakis: [laughs] No, they used to put crack in tennis balls, and bounce ‘em over to people’s houses. It’s crazy ‘cause nobody believes me, ‘cause I grew up in Westchester County, which is 30 miles north of the city – a dope area, like really rich, and you don’t have to worry about someone putting a gun to your neck. But where I grew up, it was like this big Hip-Hop community. It was a complex, and everybody there was into Hip-Hop. There was crackheads selling me records at my door at three o’clock in the morning. [One time] he sold me three crates of records for like six dollars and there was so many good records in there, old Run-DMC, Kool Moe Dee – a gold mine.

AllHipHop.com: Hearing these things are interesting, because you don’t come off like you just exploit hip-hop for the sake of your show; it’s really a part of who you are.

Andy Milonakis: Definitely. I’ve been into it my whole life, but it’s different from the White kids who ‘dress the part,’ and their slang is obviously fake and all that. When these kids pose, it sounds so fake when every other word is like, “Yo, yo yo, and knowhutimsayin?” I might say some s**t when I’m around my boys and stuff, but I hate the ones who gave White kids who listen to rap a bad name.

IIn their independence, Public Enemy has released some outstanding albums. Still, according to some critics, those albums struggled to reach the masses. For the last two years, there has been talk of Public Enemy allowing their creative vessels to be directed by Bay Area legend, Paris in Rebirth of a Nation. This album, written and produced by Paris, features Public Enemy, dead prez, Immortal Technique, MC Ren, Kam, and the Conscious Daughters in one place. If ever there was an album that Conservative White America would try and stop, they should have attempted with this album. Consider it an opportunity missed.

Chuck D discusses his experience in making this album, with AllHipHop.com. He reflects on that distribution system that has made PE’s plans harder than Chuck would hope. The Strong Island icon also touches upon some issues from a recent Elemental magazine column – including why “Stop Snitchin’” is hurting us all. Suckas to the side… Chuck D speaks.

AllHipHop.com: It was interesting to me that on Rebirth of a Nation, you have this song, “Invisible Man”. Originally, those lyrics appeared as “I” on There’s a Poison Goin’ On. Was it your idea or Paris’ idea to revisit that? Why?

Chuck D: Paris renamed it “Invisible Man”. I think he looked into it, and took it to the next level. When I originally wrote it [as “I”], I wrote it as a story of just a day walkin’ through the hood. When I first wrote “I”, it was actually inspired off of when I saw a video of Bruce Springsteen [“Philadelphia”] walkin’ through Philadelphia. That’s as simple as it was for me.

AllHipHop.com: I just loved the opening lines, “I came from a place I forgot / woke up in a parking lot / far from a meal and a cot.” It means something different each time.

Chuck D: That’s why we write songs. Sometimes they’ll make an immediate impact, sometimes they’ll be time capsules in themselves. I’m glad you dug the song.

AllHipHop.com: On the stuff from this album, “Hard Rhymin’” with Sister Souljah is that classic Public Enemy sound. At one point in the song, you say that young kids are probably confusing the term ‘ghetto’ with the term ‘ignorance’. That said, what does ‘ghetto’ mean to you?

Chuck D: Number one: I’d like to clarify – I wrote no lyrics on this album except for “Invisible Man”, and that was the whole gift of the great experimentation of the project. What would it sound like to be actually [written for] and produced by somebody you truly admire from brick to mortar? But my take is that there is nothing ever fabulous about the ghetto, ‘cause the ghetto is forced upon you. Yes, maybe it’s making sugar out of salt. But to me, the “stay in the ghetto” mentality is to accept what the slave-master has forced upon you. That’s always been my belief. Maybe the world is the ultimate ghetto? But let yourself be exposed to all the [things] that the world has to offer instead of saying [that the ghetto] is only your world, and you can’t go no further. That’s some bulls**t, for real.

AllHipHop.com: This album was supposed to be released a lot earlier – like a year ago, the campaign started. What was the hold up?

Chuck D: I have my own label [SlamJamz], and we also release Public Enemy records all around the world. We wanted to release three albums in a short period of time. But in the route, distribution has a bottom line of dictating to you what they’re gonna take, as far as a title from an artist. They’re only gonna take one [release] at a time within a six month window. [laughs] So, it wasn’t so much as what we wanted to do as record labels, artists, or creators – it’s what distribution dictates. I’ve worked very hard to try and balance that playing-field out. But I don’t have a wand that waves over that world. At the end of the day, I’m still using the same distributors that go to the same retail shops which shows how quite primitive that whole system is. We just released a record [New Whirl Odor], and the other record we’re releasing, How You Sell Soul to a Souless People Who Sold Their Soul, which is a real gem – that’s gonna wait till next year. I wanted to release three albums in the period of a year, like they used to do in the 60’s. Distribution dictated that we spread them. Ain’t that some s**t?

AllHipHop.com: Except, they did allow Nelly to release Sweat and Suit on the same day last year…

Chuck D: Yeah, well, he can release them on the same day. But in essence, it’s the same barcode numbers. Plus, it comes from a major. A major has a ruling thumb on what their gonna dictate to the retail audience. It’s a business that’s unusual, right?

AllHipHop.com: Now as far as New Whirl Odor, how have you perceived the fan reaction from that album so far?

Chuck D: Based upon performance or the recording?

AllHipHop.com: The recording.

Chuck D: [laughs] I don’t look at albums like – you drop an album and wait for the first month’s reaction. I think it’s a tragedy that they’ve turned the recording industry into the movie industry. That’s so ridiculous. Anything I kinda record and write is always step one. The next step, the main step is – can we perform those songs? If you really don’t perform a song, it’s just a song. When you perform a song, and it’s able to have a part of you, then it takes on another form of life. That’s one thing that Public Enemy [can do]. We can do concert tours with the U2’s or the Dilated Peoples. We can do it till 2026. [laughs] My thing is – always make sure a performance is enjoyable. It’s the thing that’s allowed us our passport to the windows of the world. We deal with about 30 countries, and there’s nothing sweeter than that.

AllHipHop.com: You pen a monthly column in Elemental magazine. In the latest issue, you wrote two pages on “What I Want to See From Hip-Hop in 2006”. In particular, you address your displeasure with the Stop Snitchin’ campaign. I urge people to read the article, but tell me, in a nutshell, why you feel that way…

Chuck D: What I’m sayin’ is – to make this even smaller than a nutshell – is that I’m so ticked off of smarter people havin’ to dumb themselves down to feel comfortable with themselves in society. It’s not a Black thing homie, it’s an American thing. Americanism encourages people not to be smart, not to figure out what’s really goin’ on in the first place. So when it comes down to it, to see college journalists actually accept these aspects in Hip-Hop just so they can feel like they’re down with it, or down with the streets, this is a ridiculous notion. At the end of the streets, are two industries – jail and death, which are highly profitable for everybody other than who comes up out of the hood. [laughs] So I think, if somebody’s smart, and they know better, than they should say better. The whole snitchin’ aspect – if your mom needs to get from one place to another safely, how you gonna actually say she don’t need no protection? If you can’t protect her, who the hell can? I just think a lot of these cats in Hip-Hop who know better, are so hypocritical to the way things are really supposed to be.

AllHipHop.com: What do you tell those people?

Chuck D: I would tell them that I don’t care how rough they say they life is in America. I deal with cats who are from Russia, and I ain’t never seen no hard life as Russia. How will people know if they don’t respect themselves? My job is also to give as much respect to them as possible. When I see wrong, I say, “That s**t’s wack, that’s f**ked up.” Hip-Hop is also known as the artform that points at s**t as being wack. Snitchin’ came out of the 60’s, when you had revolutionaries who had the neighborhood in the best interest, [as] they were actually being disassembled by COINTELPRO. But if you don’t know what happened in the 60’s, and you don’t know COINTELPRO, and you just lookin’ at snitchin’ as somebody who just rattin’ out on a drug-dealer who ain’t doing no good for no f**kin’ body any God damned way, you’re grossly misunderstood – and Hip-Hop’s not about that. When it comes down to that criminal element, it affects Black people first. They can say I’m a racist, but that’s just the way it is. When I say I’m a ‘race man’, it’s easy for people to run away from me, or say, “Ah, I heard it before.” This ain’t a passing trend, this is what it is. I’mma die Black. That’s just the way it is. Society doesn’t need dumb mothaf**kas actually speaking for us – that needs to stop. The country already has a village idiot at the top. We don’t need that same attitude in Hip-Hop. Quote me on that.

AllHipHop.com: In the same column, you also said, “Rap albums need decent liner notes by good journalists.” Tell me why…

Chuck D: I think everything needs an interpretation – not to be studied immediately. I take it yourself, just like myself, can actually have a portal into something we might not have previously been into, based on the liner notes. I mean, if I’m reading into some album by Prestige that they happened to have graciously given us in CD form, with the liner notes included. That allows me to get into the psyche of the music – and also get an idea of the sense of the time that it was [recorded] in. I think that’s very important, to squeeze in the elements of what surrounded the musicianship with clear-cut interpretations. I think that Rap music now has a better chance of being enhanced by the liner notes because what we deal with is dealt with the written word. Having an interpretation by some journalists who have an idea of music history of Hip-Hop, can actually bring the best out of an artist, and explain the best out of an artist to somebody who might grossly be misdirected just on time [period] alone. People need to step away from anti-intellectualism and dumbassification. You always need a think-tank, and it doesn’t always need to be for the sake of money. Believe me, if these motherf**kers were so smart on the money tip, then they should go straight to Wall Street, and make they money that way. This industry is based on the communication and spreading of souls. Yes, it has a profitable window somewhere in the picture, but it is not the theme that we should look and aspire to, and [have it] be the reason that we do it.

For more on Public Enemy, including music and videos, click here

O

nce upon a time in Hip-Hop, there was a King and his Queen who lived happily together, working closely with their family making music and ensuring they continued to provide nourishment for their fans. Then one day a figure from the King’s past began to play two-way games with him, thus enraging the Queen.

So amidst controversy and paternity tests the King and his Queen found themselves in quite a quandary, one that brought them a lot of unnecessary drama and brought the King’s somewhat protected private life out to the masses.

That’s Queen, Ma Barker. She doesn’t hold back in her rhymes or her interview. She gives it up about her nemesis, holding her own in the Five Family Click and how she handles the haters. Twelve years overdo, Ma Barker is stepping away to earn her limelight with a solo album and mixtape this year…

AllHipHop.Com: Going back over your history in the rap game as an MC, how important was The Main Source as your entrance to the game?

Ma Barker: Well, not really because that project really never happened but besides [“Set It Off”] that I did with the Warlox that is now [known as] the Lox at the time my main entrance into the game was when I did my deal with Mighty Entertainment and put out my first single which was “Just Because” which was # 15 on the Billboard chart for like twenty weeks and that was in ‘97, ‘98.

AllHipHop.Com: So what do you have on the table right now?

Ma Barker: I have a few labels looking to do something; it’s not concrete so I won’t say anything. I have a couple of deals on the table that are looking pretty good right now.

AllHipHop.Com: Is this just you as a solo artist?

Ma Barker: Yeah, this is just me, Ma Barker. Also they are looking at the Five Family Click which is with my brother, 40 Cal Hammerz, Nino Bless, Catalyst, Big East and Kool G Rap, of course, who is the main person. Then there is our new member called Shea.

AllHipHop.Com: The Click of Respect album you put out with G Rap and the other members of the 5 Family Click, what did you learn from that?

Ma Barker: You know what, that album was so hot, it was just very independent. It was somebody who came to the table, a guy named Jonah who met G through a mutual friend and he really didn’t have the money to do it. I think it was a hot album I just wish it had gone through a major. You know even Jay-Z was on the radio saying that was one of the hottest albums he heard, that was the only album he was messing with at the time. You know people who did hear it, loved it to death.

AllHipHop.Com: Someone commented about your lyrics on AllHipHop.com’s Ill Community. They said you are the type of woman “who would do you, and leave change on the dresser for you to catch a cab home.” Do you feel as a female in the game you have to come across so hard to get respect?

Ma Barker: No. I am just from the era where a lot of dudes was gutter, the hardcore. I messed with a lot of street dudes, you know as far as my click, my family; I had a lot of people in the streets so I was always raised by that. I know the street life. I didn’t just sit home and go to school and then go to the movies. I had a lot of run ins with the streets and the cops, that was my life and that was what I saw. You know, I can’t stay away from it.

AllHipHop.Com: Yeah, well you are a Mother too.

Ma Barker: Yeah I have to come across ladylike too. But I can’t get away from them, Melanie. [laughing]

AllHipHop.Com: Always chasing you, huh?

Ma Barker: Yeah, every time I get out, they pull me back in.

AllHipHop.Com: When you roll with a crowd of dudes do you feel that you have to keep a certain degree of independence?

Ma Barker: Most definitely. Look at who I am around, I got G Rap, I got my younger brother, they all spit gutter, you know imagine me coming on a track and being the weakest link, I can’t do that. Even in my own click, I have competition and I got to struggle to stay on top. I want to be able to be on a track with G, and they hear me and not people think what is he doing on that track.

AllHipHop.Com: I have yet to read or hear someone say that you didn’t deserve to be on a track with G.

Ma Barker: Well yeah, knock on wood, but you always know you gotta have your haters.

AllHipHop.Com: So how do you deal with your haters?

Ma Barker: I ignore them; I already know what life is. Like 50 said, “I need you to hate.”

AllHipHop.Com: Do you think people are going to be harder on you because of who you are associated with?

Ma Barker: Hmm, I don’t know, not really as people respect me off the bat as G Rap’s wife as respect due.

AllHipHop.Com: Okay, now you know I have to take it back to last summer…

Ma Barker: [laughing] Yeah ask away, go ahead.

AllHipHop.Com: Okay, so there was a rumor circulating about a book signing that you ruined, is there any truth in that?

Ma Barker: Yeah, my peoples did. Like I said before, I am a street chick. I couldn’t get there, luckily for her. Let me make a long story short for you. She had got G’s two-way from somebody in the industry and she started hitting him, “Hey Pa, how you doing?” I am not with all of that: you want to talk about the baby that he didn’t know at the time whether was his or not, cool, keep it professional – but that “Pa” s**t, I don’t play games like that. She told me she had no groceries in her house for her and her baby, and even if it was or wasn’t G’s baby, I am the type of person that – if you come to me, and are talking to me civil, I am going to look out for you. There I was, sending this chick money because supposedly Poppa had wiped out her account and left her all messed up. Then I caught wind of the book and it was like crazy. You know she was all cool with G, you know they had their little fights but nothing like the stuff she said. You know all the stuff she said about his Mom, she never met his Mother in her whole entire life. It was like she was saying all this stuff. You know this chick was calling me crying and telling me all the stuff she was going through, like when she got locked up for prostitution, I know a couple of people who know her. G was asking me what I was doing and I told him I felt bad for her and I was sending her money for groceries and then when all this s**t happened, G was like, “I told you,” and then I read the book.

AllHipHop.Com: Yeah because when you were on Hot 97 you hadn’t read the book had you?

Ma Barker: No, I hadn’t read the book.

AllHipHop.Com: So when you did read it what did you think?

Ma Barker: It didn’t mean nothing as I know what type of chick she is, I knew what it was with G. Me and G been together seven years and we never had no problems, nothing. He is no abusive man and he is a good dude, so for her to try and disgrace his character because he didn’t want to f**k with her no more, that was f**ked up to me. Nobody did, just like Bill Maher just dumped the b*tch, who she going to date now, David Letterman? She running out of n***as. I am a rapper I write songs, she wrote her creative book out of her own mind. But the beef with me and her is, when I see her she isn’t safe because when I see her I am going to hurt her. I don’t like the fact that she tried to be cool with me, even though I knew she was up to no good and the way she tried to turn the whole story around. At the end of the day. I feel sorry for that child, if the baby is G’s or not, I would love to adopt that kid.

AllHipHop.Com: Has there been a paternity test then to decide if G is the Father of the child?

Ma Barker: Yeah, there has been a test and he is just waiting for the results. But this was all before she was acting all wild so it probably will turn out to be his, as when he met her she wasn’t doing none of that stuff. He met her in Arizona, before she started wilin’ out and acting like that and trying to get with everybody. It was when she moved to California, supposedly with Ice-T, that was when she started doing what she was doing.

AllHipHop.Com: Did this book and what she was saying put any strain on your relationship with G at any point?

Ma Barker: No, not at all.

AllHipHop.Com: Okay, moving on, you are working on your album, Wife of a Don and when can we expect to see that?

Ma Barker: I am working on that now, and I just did a feature with one of the new members from Dipset, N.O.E and that song came out hot featuring myself, G, and N.O.E and I am working on a few other features right now, so we are looking at the end of May beginning of June. But I am working on a mixtape as we speak. I haven’t decided on a name yet but I was going to call it “Unforgiven Sins.”

AllHipHop.Com: And the reason for that title?

Ma Barker: You know, all the stuff that you do in the streets, you do things are just not meant to be done. I think what home girl did was an unforgiven sin, there is no apologizing for those, there are just certain things that there really is no apologizing for, things ain’t never going to be the same and you going to get yours. You have to watch what you do to other people, God don’t like ugly. It comes back around to you.