Leaving an EPMD show in NYC a couple weeks ago I overheard a fellow concert-goer say “they don’t make hip-hop like that anymore,” with a frustrated look on his face. That sentiment is shared by many older heads who prefer the hip-hop of days past to what they get on the radio today. Enter Buckshot and 9th Wonder. Buckshot made his debut in the early ’90s as a front man of Black Moon while 9th Wonder began his career with Little Brother crafting a sound deliberately reminiscent of hip-hop’s golden age. Despite their own generation’s lack of faith in hip-hop today, the duo remains optimistic about the future. You may be surprised at what age group they’re banking on to bring that good ‘ol boom bap back. Here’s a hint: think bright fluorescent Dunks and jeans so tight that you have to jump into them to rock ‘em. – Sam Cadet
Interview by Good Money
What’s it like working with Buckshot when there’s such a height disparity?
9th: Umm, what do you mean?
You’re really tall, he’s really short. What is it like working with an artist like that?
9th: Dappin’ him up is kinda hard sometimes [laughs]. You know how you do the dap-up [with a] hug? You know how you give someone dap and a hug? It’s hard to do that with him [laughs].
Is it difficult for you guys to see eye to eye on creative choices?
9th: [Laughs] I met Buckshot 11 years after I heard his music. That’s the craziest thing about living in North Carolina. You meet rappers, producers, sometimes 15 years after you heard their music which is nuts. Not a whole lot of rappers came down here and even if they did they came in big shows and it was hard to go backstage and meet them if you didn’t know somebody. I didn’t know Buckshot was that short until I met him for the first time.
Tell me a little bit about this record, why is it totally awesome?
9th: You stupid. [laughs] You know what? Because I understand now . . . The whole underground, [versus] over-ground [debate], I don’t believe in that no more. I really never did. I believe in accessibility and non-accessibility. Which means if this record gets a push and sells 500,000 is it underground music still? Cats still call me an underground producer. I don’t even know what that means. Why do cats still call me that?
Aren’t you on a couple platinum records?
9th: Couple? I’m on four! I got four platinum records and one gold one. Now I got, hopefully, a Grammy-nominated single with “Honey.” I guess if you’re a child of boom bap I guess you’re considered underground. But this particular record, I learned how to make a record. A lot of times, cats will make music and it’ll sound like a rap and a beat and that’s it. I had to get out of that. I had to really learn how to formulate hooks and formulate songs so the average cat could learn the song. The early ‘90s producers like Puff, they really knew what they were doing. All the old early ‘90s songs we praise so much like Kwame’s “Only You” and Chubb Rock’s “Treat ‘Em Right” they were really well-produced songs. Even “Electric Relaxation,” Tribe Called Quest is one of the most beloved groups in existence for our generation. Please pay attention to the fact that they were like: “Honey check it out you got me mesmerized/Wit’ ya black hair and yo fat ass thighs/Street poetry is my everyday . . .” That’s cadence! Like Nice ‘N’ Smooth, everybody really paid attention to the art of making songs and somewhere that got lost. Somewhere it became just making beats and putting a hot 16 on it and “that’s my song.” In a lot of ways Chemistry was like that. The sound was very linear. Buck was talking about stuff but it was just raps and beats. We had to change that, well I had to change that on the production side. I had to in order for the music to transcend, in order for some person who does not listen to hip-hop all the time or listen to hip-hop back in the day or listen to the more obscure sounding of hip hop, to kind of pull them in and say “Hey I actually like this.” I’ve been a corresponding with this crew from Atlanta called HollyWeerd you ever heard of ‘em?
Yeah I have.
9th: Ok, one thing he said, was “You gotta make music that’s not too deep for shallow niggas and that’s not to shallow for deep niggas.” That said it all. That’s Kanye West!
Very true.
9th: So you’ve got to sound different and be different and be very unique with your approach. But the point of the matter is your raps got to have some cadence, your beats have to bang and it has to be a song a normal person can follow. I think within hip-hop you’ve gotten away from that.
Really?
9th: Everything used to be middle ground, no matter if it was Tribe, Pharcyde, Geto Boys, Luke, Ghost Town DJ’s “My Boo”, those were all different—
But they’re all considered hip-hop.
9th: Yeah. Like “Posse on Broadway,” “’93 ‘Til Infinity” and I’m jumping around the map. I heard DMC say even within Queens, Run DMC, LL, and Tribe stayed 20 minutes from each other, all our music sounded different. It was all middle ground but now the genre is so spread out, there’s way opposite ends of the spectrum. Either everything’s incredibly smart or everything’s incredibly dumb. The only people who make normal hip-hop songs is like Kanye. When I mean normal, he says stuff that all ranges of black people [can get]. I believe hip-hop is largely a part of black culture. I think his music spreads a large amount of black folk. If you look at the spectrum of people that like Kanye everybody likes Kanye from your average 16 year-old girl to your hip-hopper of hip-hoppers. It’s because we like it for different reasons. She may like it because he says “Lawry’s”. I like it because he used [Michael Jackson’s] “PYT” and cats don’t know it. Even going back in the day, my homegirl liked “Funky Child,” by Lords of the Underground for a certain reason and I liked “Funky Child” for a certain reason. But we all liked “Funky Child” now it ain’t like that. The groups are so separated. If you like this side of hip hop you can’t like another side.
Don’t you think that’s sort of an older head’s mentality? ‘Cause the kids who have iPods, who are on the internet, they like so much various different shit within music in general that it’s easy for them to jump back and for between different styles of hip-hop. I think it may be the older cats who are more close-minded.
9th: When you say younger cats you must understand now, there are four musical generations in America right now. There’s our parents, there’s us, there’s the cat who was in high school when Master P was out, and his kids. Those are the 4 generations of music out right now. Can you understand that my group M1 Platoon, are all 19 year-olds, and one of the rappers in the group, their first hip-hop record was Ghostface’s Ironman? His pops gave him Ironman. It was in ’96 and he was 8 years old. Do you understand, one of the members in the group said “When my momma used to drop me off at in the second grade Mom used to play Biggie.” Can you really fathom that?
Wow, second grade . . .
9th: Yes, that’s nuts. So when you’re looking at four generations of music even with the generation right behind us. [They were raised on] Master P, early crunk, when the Dirty South really started to jump, that generation is really different than the hipsters behind them. They [the pre-hipsters] look at it as black and white. Like “that’s commercial and that’s underground.” Them hipster kids? No sir. Like my boys M1 Platoon like everything from Lil’ Boosie to Madlib. I think hip-hop is coming back to a point, it’s not going to be a point over whether you’re over-ground or underground, it’s not going to matter if you’re from Atlanta or New York, it’s not going to matter if you’re from Chicago or LA, it’s getting back to the point where it’s going to be “are you hot or are you wack?” That’s how our generation was. We didn’t care where you were from, we didn’t care what you were talking about. Where you hot or where you wack, period? Artists of hip-hop, like back in the early ‘90’s like the dude Candy Man “Knocking the Boots.” Everybody liked that song. We liked that song but everybody liked “Shook Ones” by Mobb Deep. Look at the videos that were played. All videos were played, it wasn’t like of “you’re videos had to look this way, you got to be talking about this and that.” Nah, we had a wide array of videos from KMD’s “Peach Fuzz” to Kurious “Walk Like a Duck” man we had a wide array of videos that were crazy. They were all different areas of the country. Now it’s all linear. I think the hipster generation is gonna change that.
Damn you’re really saying that word “hipster” a lot. Like the “hipster generation” . . .
9th: That’s a real generation. I told you it was coming. Remember when I was telling you about this true school generation. It’s happening right now. The hipster generation are the nephews and nieces and sons of the first hip-hop generation. It’s the generation in between them that’s lost. That’s the one that’s clueless
So where does Buckshot and 9th wonder fit into this whole thing?
9th: We choose to appeal to everybody. There’s a certain generation called adult contemporary hip-hop that’s us and there’s another generation, not behind us, but the one after that. Those are those hipster kids that are in love with the ‘80s and the early ‘90s. You know what, the hipster generation is just like the Neo-Soul generation which was a total repeat of the ‘70s. In 1990s you had neo soul and they were niggas goin’ to thrift stores Everybody started to embrace the ‘70s recording in Electric Lady and really started embracing the style and dress in the ‘70s.
[Buckshot joins the conversation]: I’m just buggin’ I’m just listening to you drop them jewels.
9th: But cats started to pick up on that and everything became very organic and if you went to somebody’s house and they were very into D’Angelo and the whole Soulquarian movement they got lava lamps, they really started to absorb Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. You could even see it in movies like with Love Jones and everything. Now it’s happening again but now its happening with the hipster generation as we in the 1990’s copied the 70’s because we copied our aunts and uncles and they were out in the backyard listening to the OJ’s and Leon Haywood. Now you got these kids who are with their aunts and uncles in the backyard listening to Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh and Big Daddy Kane and remembering those times and repeating those times right now.
Buckshot, since you just joined us I want to ask you about a little about this going on right now too because you representing Brooklyn, F.A.P. [Franklin Ave Posse] all of that. What’s it like having kids, teenagers, trying to emulate what you were doing in the ‘80s and early ‘90s?
Buckshot: It’s just crazy. As a person who still lives it words can’t explain it. Because I came up under Big Daddy Kane and I remember me and my man 5 FT we were tryin’ to be Scoob and Scrap [Big Daddy Kane’s dancers] This was before I started emceein’. And later to meet Kane and work with Kane, that’s something that affects me in the same fashion. Like wow, I used to be influenced by these people and I’m working with these people. For me to be an artist where people are looking up to like that, it’s amazing.
I hear 9th is very much a critic of rhymes. He’s almost like a drill sergeant when it comes to rhyming. What was it like working with him this time around?
I go down to North Carolina, by myself, I record the album, with 9th , while he’s teaching a class in school, I’m recording, I’m writing, to the music as if it was homework. Now when 9th comes back from class and he comes to the studio which is our home, our room, there is no “Umm 9th hold on for one second.” I either have to have my homework done or if I don’t that’s not good. And in that sense when I do have the homework done, whatever 9th dictates to me in the music I have to dictate in my verbal conversation. It shows that we are on point together. So when I do that and 9th is like “Yeah Buck!” It makes me feel really good. This is something that was made naturally and we call it The Formula because we understand there’s a criteria to that we’re working it. We call it adult contemporary hip-hop because we understand it’s going to give people of today a feeling of proud-ness to play the music that they call hip hop without feeling alienated because it’s not the “in” culture that they know of nor they don’t have to feel out of date because it’s old school. So here’s something for you guys, we call it adult contemporary hip hop but it’s really just Buckshot and 9th Wonder, Buckshot and 9th Wonder together doing music.
9th how does it feel to get props from someone like Buck? [laughs]
9th: Man you don’t even understand. I just did a tribute in Los Angeles at the Guitar Center. It was a tribute to Pete Rock. It was myself, Just Blaze, DJ Revolution, and DJ Numark and I’m trippin’ off the fact that I’m even up there. I’m trippin’ to the fact that I’m up there giving a tribute to Pete Rock because I can just remember me listening to his records, walking across campus with my headphones on listening to Main Ingredient. It wasn’t that long ago when I was a fan. I still am a fan. I’m a big, big fan, but it wasn’t that long ago when I was on the other side of the fence. I was just on the other side of the fence five or six years ago. It’s not like I grew up and I started rhyming or I was making beats when I was 18 or 19 years old, I started making beats and I didn’t really get my first taste [of the industry] until I was 28! The trippy shit about all this is that me and Buck are the same age. That’s what’s wild. It’s not like “Oooh there goes Stevie Wonder,” And Stevie Wonder is 50-somethin’ years old. Me and Buck are the same age!
Buckshot: What’s crazy is that we’re the same age right but in hip hop I’m from an era that is way before 9th so the new cats are like “yo we fuck with Buckshot because of 9th Wonder.” They don’t know the Enta Da Stage Buckshot really! All they know is that they’re fans of this producer 9th Wonder that makes fire and that he was working with some rapper named Buckshot. But when they listen to Buckshot they’re like “yo, this guy doesn’t actually sound bad.” Then they go back and did the history. A few younger people told me that. But for me again we’re the same age but 9th is the new Beatminerz of today.
You know what’s funny? I can hear the excitement in your voice and it sounds like it’s not even your record. It’s sounds like you’re 17 and the record came on the radio and you heard it and you got crazy amped over it.
9th: You’ve got to be like that about your own music. You have to be excited about your own music. You have to look at your own music as if you didn’t make it. I’ve been doing that since I’ve been in the game.