Audible Hype Interviews Othello from d_Cyphernauts
Posted by Justin Boland on Mar 04, 2008 | 0 Comments
Obviously, the first thing I’d like to ask about is balance. How do you maintain momentum with two professional careers-both as teachers and as hip hop artists and entrepreneurs?
Actually, the two careers really fuel the fire for what we do and they both feed off of each other. We both look at hip hop and teaching as forms of edutainment, to use the phrase KRS-1 came up with. Being constantly connected to our students helps us to keep things fresh and relevant and being artists helps us to keep our teaching interesting. We have also been participating in a bunch of forums and mentoring projects to educate people, especially young people about hip hop and the culture of hip hop, which has also helped us to open up more people to our music. A great example of that is the Hip Hop Summit that we are hosting at the high school that we teach at. We are combining workshops, open forum discussions and performances to create both a great learning and networking opportunity with a show that’s gonna be crazy!
It’s tough, though. There was one time where we finished teaching on a Wednesday afternoon, drove to Washington DC to do a show that night and then drove from the gig directly back to our school to teach on Thursday morning. That’s the last time we’ll ever do that. Probably.
I’m very impressed with how much work you put in to build a strong, supportive scene in your area. What inspired this approach for you?
For us, it’s like, what other choice do we have?! We wanted to showcase ourselves as a live hip hop act and in New York, where we are originally from, if you are not dealing with pay-to-play situations, then you have to hit the open mic circuit- which are both things that we’ve done. By creating our own showcase and open mic event, one where artists don’t pay to play and where we don’t rush them off the stage, we built a positive rep in Connecticut among the artist community. We also made sure that our event didn’t promote negativity, so it’s been pretty much violence-free, which allows us to continue to push live hip hop to club owners.
Can you pass along advice for promoters and artists looking to create a better scene in their own areas?
First of all, you need to have a strategy. With us, we found a location that we wanted to develop and then started making our presence felt at whatever events we could perform at. We performed at any open mic we could, we gave away promo cds, worked on putting together an e-mail list and we got to know the promoters and owners of the spots we performed at. Once they saw what we were all about, we pitched the idea of hosting an event. By hosting the event, we were able to build with a bunch of different artists so we were able to look out for one another, share fan bases, etc. Really, it’s all about building relationships and making sure that the product is dope so that the people who come out to see you keep coming back.
What needs to change in hip hop culture on the ground level? What kind of assumptions and behaviors do you think are holding the underground back right now?
I really think that hip hop lacks balance. Commercial radio is killing hip hop and there’s really not much that the grassroots artist can do about that, but, at the same time, as an artist, you don’t want to alienate people either. I think a lot of underground artists are really close-minded and self-righteous about their art, to the point that it can turn off potential fans.
Look, our music isn’t always the most accessible music, but we’ll play wherever, to whoever and with whoever. Everybody is a potential fan. I think a lot of underground artists don’t want to go outside their comfort zones. It’s almost like the same thing that everybody complains about mainstream hip hop doing- rhyming about the same topics and acting like walking cliches, the underground cats do the same thing. It’s just that instead of rhyming about slanging on the block, getting gwap, rocking rims and pimping bitches, they’re talking about how nice they are, how real they keep it, how wack everybody else is and how much weed they smoke. And they perform in front of the same 10-20 dudes every time out.
It’s time to stop thinking about our art form in terms of backpack rappers and gangster rappers and commercial rappers, blah, blah, blah and start thinking about how we’re all repping different aspects of the game. I mean, Chuck D shouted out the Geto Boys on his records, he worked with Ice Cube and Ice T, he wasn’t putting up walls, he was building bridges.
Can you explain the Ant Farm Affiliates project? Do you have formal agreements behind the scenes or it mostly a voluntary alliance?
Ant Farm Affiliates is an artist collective where all of us got together out of a mutual respect for each other’s talents and also because we all brought different skills to the table. Right now AFA is primarily a voluntary alliance. We collaborate on music, cross-promote, book for one another, do graphic art design, find distribution and generally pool our resources for the good of the collective. It’s been a great arrangement because we are all able to pull fans from different groups and work to our particular strengths to help one another and to draw fans to one another.
For instance, we have done a lot of shows and appeared on various compilations that have opposed the war in Iraq. We have a strong following in the activist community. Those people and those issues are extremely important to us and are at the core of who we are as artists. At the same time, Quest the Rising Sun, one of the AFA artists has a song that is getting burn on Hartford’s KISS 95.7, a mainstream Clearchannel urban radio station. So that gives AFA the potential to appeal to the people who are picketing outside of the White House AND the people that are buying T-Pain ringtones and going to SummerJam. Now, they might not all dig what we got going on, but at least we are giving people the opportunity to find us.
What are the most helpful tools you’ve found for staying organized and focused?
One great tool is Sonicbids, which is an online service that allows you to keep a electronic press kit that you can forward to venues. They have a lot of great partners, too. Indiebandmanager is a great tool, too. It has a great list of contacts, pre-designed contracts, ways to track website hits and listens, contact lists, etc. and the support is really good too.
What is the light at the end of the tunnel for you guys? How do you define success, in terms of your own music career?
Hip hop is something that is in our blood, in our bones, so I can’ t really see a day where we wouldn’t be doing this music so our successes come with each new accomplishment. When I first started thinking in terms of “music career” the obvious answer would have been that success was getting signed to a major label, but that business model is obsolete.
So now, success is on our own terms. When we performed our song “Got Your War” in front of the Iraq Veterans Against the War and they THANKED us for writing that song that captured their experience, that was a success. When we rocked with Grand Wizard Theodore and Roxanne Shante and Lady Pink, some of our heroes and the architects of hip hop, at a community center in Harlem, that was a success. I’d love to be making more money at this, and that is gonna come, in time, with hard work, but the journey that we’re on is something that we really appreciate.
How do you feel about marketing concepts like “audience segmentation” or “niche targeting”-the belief that specific artists appeal to specific, definable types of people? In my own experience dealing with World-Around Records, I keep seeing that more and more, there’s a “new mainstream” of informed, intelligent listeners who dig every genre and only listen to the quality stuff. Have you found that, too?
I feel like there are definitely niche markets out there, the people that are fiending for the new NECRO album or people who are checking for different regional sounds, but I think it’s a mistake to limit yourself as an artist to only play to one market. I think that there are definitely people out there looking to hear something beyond what the radio is playing in constant rotation, those might be the “new mainstream” that you’re talking about and I agree that they are open to diversity in their music. At the same time, we still want to appeal to our niche markets. I think you can have it both ways as long as the music is honest. You ain’t gonna hear a d_Cyphernauts snap record (we could probably make it hot, though), but you might hear us rocking over some latin beats cuz that’s a real influence for us.
Since you’re teachers, I’d like to ask for a few book recommendations for DIY musicians and new entrepreneurs. Doesn’t even have to be specifically about music, I’m just curious which books have been useful and influential to you, on your path.
I’m reading, right now, a book by James Walker called This Business of Urban Music
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
“Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad is a book I’ve read, like, 10 times. And every time you read it, you have a different interpretation. If you want to understand colonization, which is at the heart of so many of the problems in the world, in a really intimate way, this book is a must read.
As far as hip hop, the book Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
We both teach English, so we could keep going, but those are a couple books that are essentials.
Further Brainfood
The Ant Farm Affiliates maintain a solid online presence, maintaining an excellent blog keeping fans updates from a single, central source. (Needless to say: good call.)
One last note, from an interview at Adam’s World where Nemesis Alpha discusses “new media” :
Adam Bernard: What else do you feel needs to be done in order to get music such as yours to potential listeners’ ears?
Nemesis Alpha: People like you, in the media, are the only hope for our movement to grow. Our music will not be heard by the masses unless you tell them that we are out here doing this for them. They trust you guys and your opinions. You really make or break our popular impact. No matter what happens we will keep making this music because we love it and want to share this love for it. Making some money would not hurt, but it is not our prime focus. Our music is ready and waiting. We will rock any venue, any time. We just need their support.