ALL OF US Q&A W/ RED PILL Mello: You say Being silent is being complicit - Do you feel its important to be political in general as a musician and more specifically what made you share and discuss your feelings about the Eric Garner and #BlackLivesMatter consciousness raising efforts? Red Pill: I dont necessarily feel that its important for a musician to be political in general, but for myself I do think its important that I create music to be a reflection of who I am. And the person that I am privately is a political and social thinker. I write about my personal experiences and observations, so to mute that part of my private life from my writings as a musician would be disingenuous. I was raised on politically and socially minded music. I grew up on Rage Against the Machine, Mos Def, Brother Ali, etc... Artists that implicitly and explicitly injected their music with their political beliefs. And those beliefs became the basis for who I became as a person, not just a musician. So when Ferguson happened and when Garner happened and Tamir Rice happened, I was glued to Twitter and the internet following people like Deray, Shaun King, etc... paying attention to the events, because as a person it was important to me. Im a white musician in a black art-form. Whether we like it or not, I think theres an even greater impetus on us to be aware of the black community and care for the people that created the art-form and culture that were in. These are my heroes, these are my friends. And it goes way deeper than the art. This is about wanting a world thats fair and just to everyone, not just people of privilege, power and resources. So for me I think it was inevitable that I was going to write a song or a verse about whats been happening in America. Mello: Right now a lot of people are focused on the white-washing of Hiphop. The Azaelas of music are using Hiphop as a Pop ends to a material game, how do you view Hiphop music and its place in your life and your place in its existence? Red Pill: Hip hop music seems to have always been doing this balancing act between entertainment and enlightenment. Sometimes its pure entertainment, sometimes its pure enlightenment and at its best it finds a way to be both. Using Iggy as an example, she clearly feels no responsibility to be a person that wants to make music that has any substance. Which in a lot of cases I guess is fine, but shes using a form of black art to her own material benefit, while being so far removed from the reality that is black life in America that she cant or doesnt want to understand how her accent, or her watered down version of rapping and hip hop, can be damaging long term to black art and artists. A lot of people might disagree, because art is allowed to and SHOULD evolve and progress if it wants to stay relevant, but from the beginning rap music has been a rebellious art. Its been a social and political vehicle. Even a lot of the shit that people feel isnt real rap or whatever, still has been a commentary on the lives of poor black, brown and white people. And for me thats important. I dont have to make boom bap, or explicitly write about being poor, but I have to find a way to say something of relevance to the human experience. I dont know how a song like Fancy or an artist like Iggy accomplishes that in any way. I have a responsibility as a white artist in a black art-form to at the very least be aware of what Im making and think about how I might be influencing future artists and audiences. That doesnt mean I have to ALWAYS make socially aware music, or alter my own individual creativity. But my place in hip hop has to come first from a place of awareness of being white artist in a black creative world. Mello: Its a delicate line between genuinely expressing something and exploiting tragedy. How do you determine, as an artist, when to join a cause and when to stay on the sidelines? Red Pill: I think the line between genuinely expressing your feelings as an artist and exploiting tragedy comes down to sincerity and the goals you want to accomplish by releasing art that uses tragedy as its influence, for lack of a better term. I wasnt sure how or when or even if I wanted to speak on Michael Brown, Ferguson and Eric Garner in my music. I use my music as a form of self-expression. And the months of watching and reading about these tragedies came to a boiling point where I felt like I needed to write about it. This song, All Of Us isnt going to be on an album. Its a free release. Its something that for an artist can be dangerous to touch on, if Im just being honest. We constantly see pushback when a musician or an actress decides to speak out about something that they feel strongly about. Audiences and fans can get angry at their favorite groups for even talking about politics. But again I would be disingenuous if I didnt put into words and song what Ive been thinking about and feeling, whether its something social, political or whatever. And it makes me wonder what kind of fans I even want? Do I want fans who dont understand me? Who dont understand or want to admit that injustice, racism, police brutality, poverty, privilege, state violence, etc... exist? So again for me it boils down to sincerity. This is something I believe in, something that I sympathize with and that I hope either reinforces the people who are on the right side of justice, or helps someone who doesnt see the injustices to be aware of them. Mello: The track All Of Us is produced by Apollo Brown, talk to us a little about the feeling his production inspires for you and how it informed your song writing. Red Pill: Apollo Browns music is soulful. It comes from his ability to find samples that make him feel something and turn them into something totally different that maintains the original feeling of what hes sampled. Its impossible for me to not feel something when I listen to an Apollo Brown beat. His music without vocals has an emotive quality. For the most part, Im a write to the beat writer. I dont write a lot of verses or hooks that dont come directly from sitting down, turning on a beat and writing what comes naturally to me from the instrumental. I use the feeling that the beat gives me to guide my writing. And when I sat down specifically with this beat, it had a beautiful eeriness to it. People who dont really listen to my music will say that its sad, or that its emo. But theres always an element of hopefulness to my songs and albums. I write the blues in hip hop. And I think Apollos beats tend to have a similar quality. Things get shitty, but theyll always find a way to work out or get better. Theres always a hint of optimism in what I write. And thats what I felt with this beat in particular. And thats what drove me to write about the movement that were watching and engaged in. Progress in America is designed to be slow, for good or for bad. But I truly believe that whats happening now is the beginning of something bigger and positive for civil rights. Thats the feeling that Apollos beat gave me and the feeling that I had when writing the song.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 01:07:16 +0000
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