Audio Zimbabwe Legit
House of Stone

Early nineties favorites who recorded a mythical debut album that went unheard for over a decade, African duo Zimbabwe Legit are back with a vengeance. The album in question, Brothers From The Mother finally saw the light of day a few years back, to the delight of underground heads around the world. ZL are now releasing their excellent follow-up, House of Stone, on their own label pH Music. We chopped it up with Dumi Right recently, discussing the group's long history in the rap game.

MP3: So first of all, let's talk about the new album. House of Stone is dope. I've been listening to it a bunch. Dumi Right: Oh, thanks. We're definitely feeling it over here. I mean, obviously, you guys have been doing this for a long time now. This album is all brand new stuff, right? Yeah, it's all brand new material. And basically it's one of those things where we kind of struggled figuring kind of how should we come out in the 2000-somethings, you know what I mean, with the sound that, one, people would appreciate but is also true to who we are and what we do because, I mean, I think a lot of times what happens is people try to—you've got to evolve but you shouldn't compromise your sounds and your evolution, at least that's the way we felt about it.

So it's kind of like, "Let's just do what we do best," which kind of reflects the era that we came up in as well. But then at the same time, you want to be up to date and relevant. And so it's kind of just, you know what I mean, just making sure that the rhymes and the flows and the concepts are really strong and the music is really solid and entertaining to where, you know what I mean, if somebody knows your history they can appreciate it. But if somebody just walks in off the street and hears the record playing, they should also be able to appreciate it. They can still dig it. Yeah. So that's kind of how we wanted to come with it because, I mean, I think there's two missteps we could have made. One is trying to redo the original EP and kind of that was an era and a time unto itself, and it's kind of like we did it and that was great and that's who we were and who we are. But then the other thing to do would be, like, "Yo, what's hot now? Yo, let's come out with some booty-shaking joints or something." Right, some ring tones. And then totally play yourself out artistically, which is just nuts. So we didn't want to do that. But you're happy with how it came out and the response to it and everything? Yeah, most definitely. I mean, it was really difficult doing it. It was weird because it didn't start out with the idea that we'd have so many guests on it. But then, at the same time, I was kind of like, "Well, why not," you know what I mean. It's like—I mean, people have heard the classic unreleased stuff with the Brothers From The Mother. We did the O.U.O. record, which his not Zimbabwe Legit. It was me and my cousin, and we kind of explored that.

And I mean, I had kind of interacted and spoken to a lot of the people that are on it just over the years or recently and it was kind of like, "Well, let me see if I can pull this off," you know what I mean. It was kind of an ambitious goal when I set out to be like, "Yo, I'm going to get mad cats to get down on this and pull it together." Since we're doing it on the independent tip, it's not like we can be, "Yo, let's reach out to this person and that person and get this studio and that studio." It's like strictly independent style. All the guests that you have on there, was that people that you had had a relationship with in the past or people that you just sort of made a wish list and then went at them or what? For the most part I would say, and really to start, it was all people we had had relationships with in the past. So Prince Po [from Organized Konfusion] had been a labelmate on Hollywood Basic. And across the years we'd just either stay in touch or still run into each other, either at our various shows or just randomly or even online and stuff. And so getting back in touch with him and being like, "Yo, let's do something," is really exciting because, I mean, it brought me back to the time when we went with Hollywood Basic, which brought Organized and Zimbabwe Legit to Japan. And this was like mad, mad years ago. But we got to sit and kick it and talk and vibe.

And so from that standpoint, it just really made sense to do something with him because I definitely respected his artistry and lyricism because back then YZ, at one point, we'd been talking to him about managing us years in the past. We had crossed paths with Vast Aire, freestyling in the park, in New York City, way back before Cannibal Ox had even come to pass.

So the Jungle Brothers, that's like one of the first joints we actually locked down. But we had kind of just been up on them since we were back in Africa and actually, ironically, 'Funken' Klein who had signed us initially to Hollywood Basic was working at Red Alert Productions, which included the Jungle Brothers and Tribe and Kool DJ Red Alert, so hooking up with them. And we had met them in the past. And I was like, "Oh, hey, what's going on." We had respect for what they were doing and stuff.

So it wasn't totally out of the blue. And a couple of people like Chubb Rock I was just like, "Man, I'm going to get Chubb Rock down," I was like, "That would be incredible. Let me see if I can make it happen." And he was just—it was almost amazing how cool he was about it too, you know what I mean. He wasn't like, "Who? What?" And part of it was just a testament to the strength of the vision of the project because I kind of explained like, "Hey, here is what we're trying to do." And I told him, "Hey, I want to get people that are recognized as skilled artists in this field of rap to kind of be like 'Yo, we're getting the best the brightest to get down.'"

It was funny because when I got Vast Aire on "Wake Em Up" and I was still trying to get Chubb Rock. And I told Vast, I was like, "Yo, guess who else is getting down?" And goes, "Who?" I said, "Chubb Rock!" And he must have been almost as excited as I was. Nice. It was thrilling. I mean, he killed it and then Chubb Rock killed it. So it was kind of like, "Man," it was like, you know, "I get to be on the track with these two cats." It was really fulfilling from that standpoint. Excellent. I also wanted to go back a little bit. You were signed to Hollywood Basic in what, like, '91 or '90. When did you first come over? Yeah, I actually came over to the U.S. in 1990. And that's right around like—I mean, one of the first things when we were here for a month or two was we met with Dave 'Funken' Klein because I had been corresponding with him when I was back in Zimbabwe. And it was kind of like, "Yo, we're out here doing it. Cats over there it's the Afro-centric era and here comes some brothers from the mother so to speak that are doing it too." And he was kind was like, "Yeah, you know, if you ever make it over to the U.S., look me up," because, I mean, there wasn't much we could do while we were across the oceans and so on.

And so once I came over I let him know I was going to be coming over primarily to go to college but also to try to get the music thing going. When we hit him up, he was actually right on the verge of moving to L.A. to start up Hollywood Basic. So he was like, "Yo, let me take some of your material over to them, to the label, see kind of what they're thinking, see if we could get something going." So that was, yeah, back in '90, '91. Obviously, you must have been disappointed when you record the album and then it never came out. But did you go through a period of sort of getting disenfranchised on the music or were you always making music over the years in between albums? I'd say after the Hollywood Basic thing never really popped off like we had dreamed about, I kind of wanted to finish up school because I was here and that's kind of primary or at least an important focus of why I was here. And I kind of knew, hey, you know what I mean, this music thing might not work out, but the college thing I can almost guarantee myself whether I do or do not get that popping to make sure I have some kind of gainful whatever, occupation, just to keep practicing my craft while I do. So I kind of focused in on college a little bit.

My brother, on the other hand, threw himself full time into music and performance and moved to New York City. He was at Buffalo State College, and moved from there because there wasn't really too much happening out there at all, moved to New York City and started performing, just getting his grind on basically as a full-time entertainment professional working, doing shows across all aspect. He does dance as well as the rhyme and all of that. So we kind of, as far as being as a unit, kind of stopped. Just for the time being. You know what I mean, we were still recording stuff but it wasn't like that was the main focus for a couple of years. And then we thought and we were like, "Yo, we should stay in it, because eventually some things will start to happen." We just needed to figure out exactly how we should come out.

He, being in New York, was connected with a lot of good shows. He was doing a cypher, like a monthly event called "Elevated." A lot of large or soon to be large, later to be large, cats came through there. So he stayed connected that way and doing shows. I went up there periodically to do shows. I was always at that his freestyle cypher thing, the monthly event. So we just stayed involved I would say. We were probably less involved in the industry side of things, you know what I mean. We didn't have any labels or anything that we were messing with. But still making music and still performing. Yeah, definitely. That, we really never stopped doing. Right on. And now do you feel like—there's been a lot of talk about the state of both the music and the culture. I mean, obviously it's huge. It's more mainstream than ever before. I mean, you watch a commercial for Huggies Diapers or whatever and they put a rap beat or whatever on it. Do you feel like things are better…compared to when you guys were getting started out 15 years ago, do you feel like things are better now or worse now or all of the above or what? I mean, I think it's one of those things like the Eastern philosophers will say where it's both, you know what I mean. I like the quote, stic.man from dead prez, "I don't believe in good or bad," you know what I mean. It's like it's not inherently either. It's kind of a little bit of both.

I mean, obviously the commercialism and the diaper commercials or the ring tones or whatever it is, is kind of out of control. That's to be expected. And I think that does kind of hurt the art. And it hurts because I think there's not balance. So kind of what people see in the mainstream and in the mass media is kind of the watered-down side. You know what I mean? Like, I use my nephew as an example, he kind of relates to what he sees. So if somebody's the new hot person that's on all the TV stations that's kind of who the people generally will relate to and be like, "Yo, this person's hot," because the videos on 30 times a day regardless of the level of skill or dexterity that person might possess.

So I think there's a lot of that. I mean, I wish—it would be nice if there was more balance so you could hear all the different types. Turn on the radio and I want to hear some Mos Def, play whoever, whoever as well, you know what I mean, all the watered-down stuff but play some of the real cats too to have that balance.

And then I think in terms of just technology and where that's gone, I mean, I think that's good because now being an independent cat you can do your own…you do distribution or you can let your stuff just be heard just on Myspace or whatever your favorite social networking site is. There's so many different outlets. There's blogs or the print magazines all giving you light of day. You can hit up the blogs, online magazines. I mean, you've got magazines in Germany and Italy that, had this been 10 or 15 years ago, we'd have probably never been in touch with. But it's like I have somebody in Johannesburg who I've never met writing a feature on Zimbabwe Legit and it's just crazy. That's pretty cool. But you can email them, get in touch, you know what I mean. They'd be like, "Okay, mail me the album." You mail it. Technically, you could even email it as a zip file. So it's progressed to that stage. And on the downside of that is just the fact that now it's kind of like everybody is an emcee, everybody is an artist. And there's like a million rappers and no fans. It's like everybody's got a record, everybody's got a demo and I think that just adds to the glut. It definitely just makes it more of an ordeal to sort of wade through it to find the good stuff, you know. Yeah, exactly. So what's next for you guys? Are you on the road at all? Are you in the studio working on a new project or what's on your plate right now? We're going to be doing some spot dates, just trying to let people see the live Zimbabwe Legit experience, you know what I mean, hit up some areas and stuff. So a lot of that is still in the works. For definite, we're going to be at Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York in November throwing down. And like I said, other stuff is still in discussion, in the works. Definitely just trying to hustle and since we're kind of doing this record ourselves, you know what I mean, we're taking a large responsibility in terms of the promo and publicity for that.

And then one of the cats that I collaborated with in terms of production on the record, but also just in terms of helping with marketing and getting the record out, Cadence from Raw Produce, me and him are working on a project called Alternate Reality, so we've actually gotten probably, like, three-quarters of the way through in terms of recording material for that. That's going to be the next project coming out through my company, pH Music, and his company, Pro Se. Excellent. So we've got that on tap. And as I was saying, we're doing our own digital distribution. So all the projects we're doing, funneling it through that, setting up the channels, learning the marketing and the promotions aspects and working with some cool people to get the word out. That sounds good. So do you have any last words or messages you'd like to give to the people that's going to be checking this? I mean, I think just people should just keep supporting good music. I mean, it's real easy to be like, "Yo, everything is messed up and things are real wack," but if cats aren't voting for what they believe in and putting their money where their mouth is and copping a record like House of Stone, if that's your thing and if you're feeling it, because that's what it comes down to at the end of the day.

If the artists don't get the support and don't have people purchasing these underground releases, they're going to just continue to stay unheralded, and just be on those lists of slept on stuff, you know what I mean. It's up to us to let people not sleep on the stuff that's good because there's a lot of it out there. And so I urge people to go out and just keep supporting underground music, keep making underground music. I don't think we're losing. I mean, I think cats is winning. I saw EPMD perform recently and they killed it, I can't wait for them to come back. Yeah, those guys are awesome. I was talking to Chubb Rock and his new album is about to drop. It's like if heads keep supporting it's about to be a renaissance. I mean, I see that. Right on, man. Well, hey, thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Dumi. I appreciate it. Hey, I definitely appreciate you reaching out. No doubt. Keep the music coming and I will be looking forward to new stuff. Have a good one. Appreciate it. All right, peace.