I’m Just Grindin Ya’ll Never Mind Me Pt. 2
click here if you missed part one of our feature w/ Malice of The Clipse
Palms Out: You let your son listen to whatever he wants?
Malice: He listens to whatever he wants. The relationship I have with my son and daughter is we talk about everything. Especially with my daughter- when we watch the videos on TV and the girls are shaking their ass and all that I tell ‘em everyone loves a hoe but you don’t love ‘em for long, you know what I’m saying? That’s just real. I try to teach my daughter you see all them hanging on the rapper? That is not who the rapper really wants.
Palms Out: I’ll turn on Cribs or whatever show, behind the life of your favorite rapper…generally they have a wife and a child, but the perception is that not only you [rappers] don’t, but that you shouldn’t. Do you think an ideal of family could be further incorporated into hip-hop or is it just not a part of the message?
Malice: I think it could be. It could be a part of the message- family within hip-hop. Once again, it’s just about being real and I think maybe it might even help when you see your favorite rapper with their wife and with their kids. I was just telling someone, I got this big, big gold Re-Up Records chain, diamonds flooded out and everything and they know me and they know [that's not my style]. I would much rather be putting some money up, but it is about the dream…I remember seeing RUN DMC with the big gold chain on and it made me want to have something. It may not have been the chain per se but it is about having something! Having more than what you had and just trying to better yourself. I wear my chain and it’s not about the chain it’s about the dream and having something and aspiring to be something, not that the chain makes you, (laughing) but it gives you a goal. It ain’t about having a big gold chain but it’s about having a big gold chain.
Palms Out: The chain is a symbol of something, but does rap narrow what that dream is? Does the video make that kid say “the only thing that dream can be is the chain”?
Malice: Right, I know exactly what you’re saying. It’s hard to say because some of the rappers are kids themselves. Not everyone gets it at the same time. You might be out here clowning and acted a damn fool now and you might wake up later. You can’t pass judgment on anyone. But I know I am going to take some responsibility and just paint these pictures and tell it as real as possible because the truth of the matter is if you sell drugs, you either going to get killed or you’re gong to end up in jail. That is just the truth of the matter. You are up against agencies! I wish these kids knew, FBI, Police, they have millions of dollars and your little black ass is not going to find a way to outdo them. We were lucky to get out of the game unscathed and we have only been lucky thus far.
Palms Out: I’m going to switch gears…If you could see any hip-hop battle between any two emcee’s in history, who would it be?
Malice: (long pause) It would be Pusha T and Jay-Z.
Palms Out: Ok, ok I’d like to see it too.
Malice: I’d like to see that too. (laughing) I’d like to see that too. I would love to see Pusha T and Jay-Z go at it.
Palms Out: I was thinking we were going to see Pusha T and Lil’ Wayne do it this year.
Malice: Naw, I don’t even wanna…that’s too easy, that really is too easy.
Palms Out: Similar topic. My boy asked this the first time I met him (what it do Kubie? get off that couch)- You can take three emcees and make a super group. How about this- you can have 2 emcees and a producer.
Malice: I would take Dre as the producer, and I would take early Snoop. Snoop is still hot to me but I’m just saying, and I would take Pac. East coast I would probably get Pharrell and Chad producing, put B.I.G in there…B.I.G and Jay-Z, I’d put that together.
Palms Out: I work with kids. I work with young teenagers, 12-15, and they are more interested in rap than in school, so I am always trying to figure out how to get them interested. What class weren’t you yawning in?
Malice: English. English was always that class.
Palms Out: How do you think Hip-Hop can function as a tool in the academic world?
Malice: I think that the curriculum…well, Hip-Hop is still taboo to a lot of people. It is urban, it is black, it’s inner city, it’s violence, it’s drugs, it’s hoes. To some people that is all it is. I just wish they could stop and say “what is it that makes him say that?” like “why is he talking about shooting somebody?” or “why is he talking about killing or fornication?” Of course it may not be savory but it is something that makes that kid say that and it is that “something” that is important. I don’t think it is a “something” that should be overlooked. If you look at life and it’s so beautiful and you do right and you treat others as you wish to be treated and this that and that is great. But, there is something about that kid that didn’t come from that. Maybe if we can tap into that and try to find a way to express to them that we can show them that life can be beautiful and it doesn’t have to be hardship all time. But people really do come from these hardships and really do come from their struggles, that is reality. Maybe we can show that it doesn’t have to be like that, researching why they feel like that. I don’t know if that answered the question about integrating it into the curriculum but I’ll tell you what, if there is anything I can do, by helping kids, [I'm all for it] because I am always trying burn off some bad karma, straight up.
Palms Out: It is very clear that the maturity process has meant a lot to you. What places do you go for your own sanity? Have you gotten more spiritual? Is it family? Through these transformations, this maturating process, where are the places you find comfort?
Malice: Man, the place I find comfort is basically my spirituality and my belief in God. I don’t know…It is something that is very near and dear to me I don’t even know how to share that kind of peace that I get from it with other people…I would love to. Something inside of me I just wish I could share it with everybody. Because we have been through some tough times and I don’t know how I would get through it without God. My spirituality is the base.
Palms Out: I am not a particularly religious person but I always feel a little irked when I see rappers with crosses or symbols of Jesus that are covered in diamonds and excessive jewelry. Do you feel that it offends you or is that something outside of religion itself?
Malice: I’m guilty of that. I got the Jesus piece with the yellow diamonds in it. I was talking to Pharrell, we were having a conversation one time and he said “wow, that’s hot…I knew you was going to do something like that.” There were so many other things I could have got but he was like “with that you can never go wrong” and me, that’s my sentiments exactly. I hope it doesn’t come off as exploitation and maybe to some it does, but I know what it means to me and I feel justified by that. I will have to answer to God. I mean, me, I am going to have to answer to him.
Palms Out: This is kind of a cliché question but this is fun too. If you could live in any other time period when would it be?
Malice: I don’t want to go too far back because I would ha
ve been a slave. I would definitely say, even though I probably still would have been a slave but I would want to go back to the time when Jesus walked the earth I want to be in on that. When the world was fairly new, before all the poisons, and the smog and everything. I believe we were probably almost super human without all the poisons of the world. We were much more in touch with our intuitive side and more in tune with our bodies back then
Palms Out: Seems like urban life can really bog you down, take your smile away
Malice: Even at seven years old coming from New York to Virginia, as a seven year old, I could feel damn near the weight being left in New York and only hearing crickets. And [not to mention], everyone speaks to each other here
Palms Out: What is one question that a journalist has never asked you that you would like to be asked? And then answer it.
Malice: I think you did ask just about everything, ya’ll cover everything. I can’t really think of anything I wanted to get off my chest that you didn’t ask. I would like to say once again that we don’t take our fans lightly at all. Our fans are very much a part of us and we are still fans of hip-hop ourselves and we still listen…Thank you to the fans for riding with us, they kept us relevant and kept us in place when the labels weren’t doing nothing.
10:16 am on February 27th, 2007
hi,
check the party mix at http://machd.blogspot.com/
cheers
m
10:56 am on February 27th, 2007
better hip hop interview than most. congrats. (his answers weren’t better than most: it ain’t about the chain but it’s about the chain – WTF. but your questions were.)
12:21 pm on February 27th, 2007
Hip hop as a tool in the academic world? Is that a suggestion to make Catcher in the Rye palatable with phat beats and rhymes? The problem is that the “artists” promote a lifestyle more than they promote and excel at a craft. Instead of working hard to equal their achievements, the kids cling to common denominator ideas about sex, drugs and thuggery that are easily found in their neighborhoods. And then you as a teacher wonder how their curriculum can work around it. Total bullshit.
9:53 pm on February 27th, 2007
Anon- countless prestigious universities and high school classrooms have realized the potential of using hip-hop as a literary tool, worthy of as much inspection as (yes) Catcher in the Rye, or Kate and Petruccio’s witty reparte in The Taming of the Shrew.
Even if I were to concede that artists promote lifestyles as opposed to excellence in their field, the two are not mutually exclusive. Circa It Was Written, Nas was on that pink suit and gators fly shit, no doubt, but lyrically and in terms of references that can be dissected and expanded upon, that album is impeccable. Lupe Fiasco- in the span of 5 minutes on one song from one album, addresses teenage pregnancy, terrorism, poverty, patriotism, and the list goes on: countless topics that if properly introduced and discussed in a classroom setting under a hip-hop context, can prove to be a successful method of teaching. So what if at first the average kid might cling to base shit about artists? The overriding fact is that kids feel like these artists are current and easier to relate to than say, Chaucer, for example, and teachers can utilize the base interest on the part of the children to delve deeper into an emcees artistry, and as an effective segue into more “traditionally accepted materials.” Not to mention, the sheer poetic value and literary devices masterfully employed by several emcees (intricate rhyme patterning, alliteration, imagery, simile and metaphor, etc etc). Hip-Hop in the Classroom has been happening for years Anon, co-signed by several institutions (ivy league UPENN, for example) that obviously feel it is not “total bullshit.” There are several resources you should check out (just search “Hip Hop in the classroom” on amazon), organizations (urbanwordnyc.org), and articles (i’ll post an excerpt below) that have done thorough research and are constantly working to make those connections between Hip-Hop and traditional academia. Peep the snippet of a dope article I was recently told about below…
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On Some Serious Next Millennium Rap Ishhh: Pharoahe Monch, Hip Hop Poetics, and the Internal Rhymes of Internal Affairs
by H. Samy Alim
Stanford University
“By examining the Hip Hop poetics on Pharoahe Monch’s album, Internal Affairs (1999), this article demonstrates the linguistic inventiveness and innovativeness of contemporary African American lyricists. As poets, Hip Hop MCs (rhymers) have both built on and expanded far beyond the American poetic tradition, using a form that is highly intertextual and that demonstrates multilayered poetic complexity. While Hip Hop MCs draw upon alliteration and assonance and other traditional rhyme forms, they also employ new rhyme strategies that require new categories of knowledge, such as compound internal rhymes, primary and secondary internal rhymes, chain rhymes, back-to-back chain rhymes, and bridge rhymes. Hip Hop MCs also employ various literary techniques, such as wordplay, simile, metaphor, narrativity, flashback, role-play, suspense, irony, and imagery in their lyrical compositions. Often constructing these rhymes in a multirhyme matrix, Hip Hop MCs offer a vast corpus of literary and linguistic texts to be analyzed.”
12:13 pm on February 28th, 2007
Does anybody think that the guy who just can’t seem to imagine hip-hop being taught in a class room, is from the suburbs? I do. Sorry to all you other burbinites. By the way, I went to a liberal arts college and took a class called The History of Hip Hop: New York in the 70′s and 80′s. Sometimes haters like to try and isolate hip-hop, as if it was it’s own thing, as if someone invented hip hop one day to make some paper. They ignore the fact that it comes from something that it represents something. It is not soley a form of entertainment. It’s not like the interviewer asked to use juggling or fire dancing as a “tool in the academic world.” There are history of Jazz classes offered in most major universities. Should those not be taught? The jazz era was drug and booz filled too. Will teaching this to our youngsters invariably drag them down? I would love to keep writing this post, but that class that I took in college really has me clinging to ‘ideas about sex, drugs and thuggery.” I need to go rob somneone. Somebody help, hip-hop is holding me hostage.
8:03 am on March 1st, 2007
Anonymous said-” it ain’t about the chain but it’s about the chain – WTF”
^I actually thought that was one of the better quotes in the interview. I suppose you either undertand it or you don’t. Its really not that hard to comprehend. The chain is symbolic. If you don’t know what it represents then maybe you come from a different background and its not something you can easily understand.
I really enjoyed the interview. One of the best I read in awhile. And for the loser in the other thread who commented about you not editing enough I hope you know MANY of us are glad u didn’t edit. Leave that shit to magazines who have to fit so many words in so many pages. He must have just been a lazy reader.
I have alot of respect for Malice. I think in time The Clipse will get the shine and success they truly deserve.
1:07 am on March 2nd, 2007
Blah, blah and more blah. “G donk” and his idiocy aside, you magnanimous progressives are laughable. How big of you to assume black kids are so far gone that the mountain must be brought to them. The issue at hand in the interview is the notion that they’re unwilling to learn, therefore it’s hip-hop to the rescue! For all we know, it was brought up by a substitute math teacher wringing his hands. I’d love to know how many white contributors here felt bored at school because English classes taught through the gaze of Kurt Cobain weren’t offered. Cut the crap. Seeing the poetry in the rhymes is one thing, but you’re suggesting that entertainment is a seductive path to a great report card. Is anyone going to address that, or just continue to preach since you went to a “liberal arts college” and “took A class” about really hawt music? Kids react to the most commercial form of hip-hop culture, not the pure intent of its beginnings. But Hilary Swank and Michelle Pfeiffer got around that, so have at it.
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