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Interview Podcast

Audio Pharoahe Monch
"Push"

MP3: Hey. How are you, man? Good morning. Pharoahe: Hey, man. Pretty good. Hey, so we were just listening to "Push" here. Where are you? San Francisco. OK. OK. Yeah. And well, the single is self-produced, and you produced much of Organized Konfusion's music. And I'm just curious if we can expect the same with Desire? Definitely. I did three joints on there, but the bulk of the production I left up to Mr. Porter, Denaun Porter, who co-exec'd the album, Alchemist, and Black Milk from Detroit. Nice. This forthcoming album, Desire, it's pretty--this has been a long time in the making, like, seven years since Internal Affairs. I'm just curious if you could summarize the delay of this installment of Pharoahe Monch? I don't think it was a creative thing. You were just purely subjected to industry delays? Yeah. You know, Rawkus had got taken over by MCA when they lost their distribution deal, and then Geffen swallowed MCA, and then I was on Geffen, and then--I don't know how I really fit at the Geffen situation, but they wanted to keep me there and they didn't want to let me go. And after, I expressed not wanting to come out [on] Geffen, and Rawkus folded, but they still had contractual ties. A bunch of labels showed some interest, and because of the red tape and them not really wanting to let me go, I was never able to transfer over to different labels. And that was pretty much the holdup. Having the integrity to put out the music the way you wanted to put it out to me is worth the wait. So I just waited it out. Did it impact you negatively to be subjected to that sort of corporate bureaucracy? I mean, the worst thing you could do to an artist is bind his mouth or sew his mouth shut or tie his hands together. There's ways that I could have got my music out regardless, but I think when you listen to the album, you're going to see why I waited the situation out. There's just a couple of songs that I think really I wanted to try to get at the masses with, because I think some of the rhymes come from beyond me just writing a f***ing 16-bar. I think that they're given to you for a bigger reason than just this emcee s***. Yeah. You did release "Agent Orange" during that period, which was an innovative and a politically motivated track. A lot of people were waiting for you to come out with a follow-up album. So was the album with Geffen completely shelved, or did you move material and concepts over to Desire? Yeah, that's why it's a funny question. I think the works with Denaun Porter took us about two months to do. Whereas there might be a song or two that's left over. So in essence I can say the album took me nine months to make, because it's mostly new songs. But then if I keep a song from the old batch, I might say that it took me four years to make. So Desire has literally been four years in the making? Much of your music, lyrically speaking, is politically motivated. And I'm just curious the extent of your political motivation in your personal life. I mean, if you can't hold a conversation with me politically, more than likely you're not my friend. Understood. So you're very much in favor of keeping abreast of historical and contemporary issues. I'm not into politics as much as some of my other friends, who are deeper scholars and professors and they teach at schools and that's what they're into and that's what they study. I am involved or it's a part of my life to the point where it moves me emotionally, and that's the only way I can write, you know? Yeah. I'm just curious because over your career you've gone from biochemical warfare on your first album with "Releasing Hypnotical Gases" to "Agent Orange" and references to Masons and what have you. It seems that you have a pretty wide grasp on the historical context of contemporary events, if you will. I'm a big conspiracy theorist. Sometimes I go overboard with it, as you hear on the new record. But at times I think it's pretty on point and not far-fetched at all. It doesn't surprise me considering the amazing concepts that were played out for you lyrically with Organized Konfusion. How have the events that transpired on 9/11, how have they shifted your ideas, or have they even shifted? Have they just further sharpened the claws that you've had in your lyrical style? I mean, it's two sides to it, too. It's like just as a nerd-ass kid growing up in South Jamaica in the 'hood, I gravitated to James Bond and Bruce Lee and movies that were pretty imaginative and technical. I also went to art school, so of course when I'm using my imagination I'm like it's about, What would you like to read? It's about, What would you like to write? And it's about, What would you like to view moviewise? And then on another level, when you actually know people and family who are involved in a false war and they have families, it's personal and it's emotional as well. So to me, for me...these things make great songs for people to listen to that are timeless. I mean, I think "Agent Orange," when pulled out of the vault of the Internet--or if you're blessed enough to have a copy of that f***ing song because it was f***ing so rarely put out--it's going to have a meaning or it's going to maintain its meaning 20 years from now, because I'm pretty sure the propaganda and the bulls*** will continue. So that song is going to have relevance, just like I think "Hypnotical Gases" has relevance still. Absolutely. I mean, in "Agent Orange" you make reference to our society being like Resident Evil, and again, references to Masons. I find a lot of your work lyrically to be prophetic... Do you think there's a place for that sort of lyricism in popular music? I don't know. Music mimics for the most part an everyday situation, and I think if you liken it to fast food and McDonald's versus taking time out to prepare something that's really healthy and has nourishment and vitamins, a lot of times people don't have time to prepare like that, and a lot of times people don't have the time to dissect or the wherewithal or the know-how to. It's the same thing with nutrition. A lot of people eat bad because they don't know any better. Especially here in America. So I say that to say if you look at the Atkins craze or the South Beach diet craze, and you liken that to "Agent Orange," and you're saying, "OK, people are starting to eat healthier and they're having healthier things on the menus," then that kind of answers your question. But if you compare that to the people who are going to order the f***ed-up s*** on the menu or the millions of people who are like, "What the f*** is an egg white?" Or whatever the case. CQ10 vitamin or whatever the f***, it pales in comparison. So that pretty much answers the question. I think what artists of my kind don't get props for is when you go into making a song like "Agent Orange," and don't get twisted. At the time that I made that song the label was very high on it. That's why it got released. They just knew it would be difficult because it wouldn't get radio play. But they loved that record as well, from the top of the label system down to Rawkus. Like, people were feeling the song. It's just that they knew it would face the opposition of, go back to that metaphor of getting [it] up on the menu for even people to order it. Yeah. And to continue the metaphor, if you're offering this sort of healthy, organic, nonprocessed meal for people, sonic meal, for people to ingest, is it difficult for you to find a restaurant to distribute your food? That's why I'm here where I am right now. But contrary to what people may think, Bad Boy gave me an offer and Sony gave me an offer and I was real blessed. I think when you hear the album you'll see why these labels gave me an offer. It's a perspective and a potential that this s*** is a really big album. I mean, who knows what it's going to sell, as f***ing fickle and as political as the music industry is, but the content alone when you get this CD and you get it in your car or your house or your iPod and you listen to it, either people are going to say, "I'm glad he's doing well," or, "This is--once again this is one of the most slept-on emcees," because the album is brilliant on a pop level and on an underground level. You mentioned Bad Boy, and there's been a lot of talk recently about your potentially ghostwriting the track "The Future" for Diddy. Is it true that you did? Yeah, I wrote it. OK. I've never heard another emcee copy your style verbatim, and that track made me wonder if ghostwriting is something you've done often over the years? Nah. It's the first time I did it. One, because Puff called me in. He was like, "Yo, let me hear what you're working on." I played him some of my s***. He was blown away. I was like, "Wow. I didn't think he was going to respond like that." He played me the beats that he had, which was like Alchemist and Kanye and Denaun Porter and Havoc. And I was like, "Holy s***." Like, he has some real thorough beats. Being the psycho Scorpio that I am and knowing that he's a Scorpio, it was fulfilling to take the job to get to see what goes on behind the scenes of a mogul for my own crazy curiosity, you know. And what did you see when you stared into that realm? The number one thing is there are lots of women. Number one thing is he appreciated my work ethic in the studio. But on the flip side, I appreciated his work ethic, period. Like, dude doesn't sleep. I never seen him sleep. I'm pretty sure he got sleep somehow somewhere, but. But yeah, it doesn't seem to be happening. Yeah. There's a lot of soul in your music and there's always been a lot of soul and gospel infusion in your cadence and your style. Sort of a signature of your flow and your sound from Organized Konfusion to the present, and it's definitely in "Push" and in "Agent Orange." And I'm just curious what your sort of personal affinity is for that sound? For me, like, good soul music does something to the spirit and it moves me to the point sometimes of giving me goose bumps. And that's what inspires me, you know. To try and achieve that with other people inspires me in that movement to always kind of dwell in that area a little bit. I even, like, sat down for a week and examined why goose bumps happen, whether it's a Martin Luther King speech or a sermon or a tragedy or a truth or someone's tone or even in a rhyme where somebody's saying something that you relate to so much it might make your hair stand up and your skin goose bump. So I just looked at those combinations of things and sometimes I try and--one person's truth is not the other person's truth, so sometimes I try to, just like you said, touch on something that might affect an individual and try and say it in a way that might bring them to a place where their hair might stand. At least it's worth the effort rather than being monotone all the time and f***ing never having a shot at moving someone like that. I just have one last question, and that is that here we are in 2006 and looking back to your past and Organized Konfusion and the three powerful records that you and Prince Po released. Can you make any sense of the relative obscurity of that music in its day? Can I make sense of those albums now? Well, no. Why they were so obscure at the time, considering how powerful and insightful and innovative they were for the time? Oh, man. I have so many theories. So many theories. Some of them deal with--most of them deal with our own personal universal energies, which stem from even the name of the group to the purpose of why we got into the business. I think we got into the business at a time where our love for hip-hop was so great that it was an honor to be signed. And there was this humble attitude which still carries over with me today. At the same time it was so humble to where we were just like, "Oh, we just want [indiscernible] to like our rhymes, and we're in it because we want respect from Rakim and Kool G Rap" And that's what we put out there in the universe, and I think we got exactly that back. Secondly, at a time when the recording of the Stress: The Extinction Agenda album, I was told that if you make certain music in a certain vein, you're going to face opposition to that. Forces seen and unseen. When this person told me that, it scared the s*** out of me. But now I have kind of a greater understanding of what he meant. Like, politically and historically there's been a lot of artists throughout the years who I don't want to say were blacklisted, but it's like, you really don't want--as a corporation, as a thing, as a radio--you really don't want certain things to come through without having a certain kinship or people cosigning it, because it could make for a disturbance in what they're trying to do. Am I making any sense? Absolutely. All right. So you just think, I mean, there were sort of obstacles above yourself to keep it from really-- I don't want to take the blame totally off of me, either, but, you know. Well, you did what you had to do. You made great music-- Right. And you got it out to people so they could change their minds. Right. So thank you. Thank you, man.