It has been eight years since Dilated Peoples last released a body of work but their presence has been strong since they came into the game and their fans have always stood by their side even throughout their hiatus. Now that they are back with a brand new album, Directors of Photography, their fans are beyond excited to hear their new tracks. And hip hop is fearing the impact that they are about to have on the game. 

RESPECT. Mag sat down with Rakaa of Dilated Peoples to discuss Directors of Photography, working with DJ Premier and more.

RESPECT.: Your last album, 20/20, was released in 2006, how does it feel to be coming out with an album after 8 years?

It feels good. I mean we’ve been working as solo artists and doing a lot of side projects. But getting in the lab together as a group and focusing that energy on a group project is definitely a good feeling. We didn’t just want to make another nostalgia album; we didn’t want people to think we’ve been sitting around for 8 years but rather have been working and pushing that line and we didn’t want to waste everyone’s time especially our own.

Is that what inspired you guys to do this album?

That was the inspiration. Not that we really needed to tell people. We have been solo projects and knew at some point we would have to get back to doing a group project. We wanted it to be right and the timing to be right. There was no contract that said we had to do it. We fulfilled our contract with our last label. We didn’t take a check long time ago. We just wanted to make a crazy album. It’s not just about the legacy but is about pushing forward and making honest music.

How does it feel to be on a different label and release this album with a different label?

So far so good. It hasn’t come out yet so we’ll see how that goes but we know like they are a good team of people.  We know them personally and worked with them. We have a couple solo projects and Step Brothers projects with The Alchemist out with them. We worked with them directly and indirectly for years so it’s still kind of a family project. It’s not like we went and signed with strangers or went for the highest bidder. We went to the place that we felt who could handle this properly on a bigger scale than we’d do out of the trunk. This was the right team and the right time.

Do you feel that your sound has evolved since your last album?

I don’t think it has changed. We weren’t chasing any sound or any particular hidden agenda and having that attitude going into it. You know as an MC when you have an ill line you know you have an ill line and when you chop an ill sample you know that’s a killer and when you feel like that about an album as opposed to a whole song you know you’re in a good place so for us we stand behind it hundred percent. We just let the music rock and speak for itself but we’re excited about the world hearing it. This album is definitely the most dilated album that represents the purest of what we have ever done. This and Expansion Team is probably my favorite album that we have ever done.

Were there any parts of this album that were tough to create?

Probably the first single was the most difficult. Me and Babu started with a different beat and concept for “Good is Gone.” We had different beat and different rhymes but we wanted the title and idea for the song. So we presented it to Evidence and he didn’t really want to do it, it was not where he was at. We got the DJ Premier track and I was like, “Yo we should do this concept.” I was re-doing my verse and re-writing the song and I had this concept. There was a bunch of drama but it was a passionate situation. Ultimately he came around to it and said, “Yo that is a good idea.” I don’t mind the process because alls well that ends well. There is whole bunch of stuff like that on the album that we were all tuned in for, heavy session work and it was something that we all cared about so much and the line we created for ourselves and the people that supported us. So we wanted to make it right.

How was it like working with DJ Premier?

There was a lot of back and forth but it all came out alright. Once we switched to the mode, “Ok you’re right lets do this,” it all worked. But as far as working with Premier that’s our big brother right there he always looked out for us pretty much from the earliest part of our career supported us. It was an honor but also it was a pleasure. Sometimes you get to work with people that it is an honor but you don’t really like the vibe and makes you wish you never met them. Premier is definitely not one of those people.  He’s one of those people that he’s very up on things, he’s very aware of what is going in the scene, he’s a historian and very educated about the culture and obviously he’s a master on the beat so when you get an opportunity to work with someone like that, working with someone like that you look up to and who inspires you to do well. It’s a great feeling. He’s the whole foundation of the Gang Starr team. The only reason “Worst Comes to Worst” came out because he said, “Yo this song is ill. You have to make this your single.” It was like big brother threat we knew we had to release it. We knew if we didn’t release it would be a problem.

What was your favorite track off this album?

There is a song called “Dark Room” on there that is very ill to me which features Vince Staples. Both of the singles are crazy. It’s hard to say because we didn’t do anything we weren’t a hundred on for this album. For other albums there was a lot respect and space like, “You wanna do that? Ok cool you can do that.” On this one we were stomping our feet. We were pushing each other. There was nothing personal about this but we all just wanted to do well.

DJ Premier and Alchemist are on the production of the album. Who else contributed to the production?

Evidence, Babu, Bravo and Joey Chavez, 9th wonder, Jake One, Twiz the Beat Pro, Diamond D and Oh No. If I forgot anybody forgive me it’s been a long day!

You guys have very few features on the album compared to how others do it nowadays. How did you guys decide who you wanted on the album?

Everything was really natural. We didn’t want a feature on the song just to sell the record. We wanted it to be as close to grain as possible. So the features that were on there we felt complimented the song. It was based on the texture, the vibe and the concept.

What excites you about this project?

I’m just excited for the people who have been waiting for this long for the album. Around the world you know there are people who have been rocking with us for a long time so I’m excited for those people. It’s like when the food smells good and when it hits the table it tastes even better, it’s like that.  That’s what I want for people. We’re anxious to put it out there and see how the reaction will be. We tried to raise the ball and push the line for ourselves so hopefully that will inspire others as well.

What would you like your fans to get out of this album?

It is not like one particular message album. It is not a theme album. Fans would just listen to an album that knocked really heavy and showed that you could make quality music, you could push the line forward and do what is right without chasing anybody down. You don’t have to follow a status quo or trends. You could do according to what feels right, just do it at the highest level.

The post Interview: Rakaa of Dilated Peoples Speaks on New Album, Their Hiatus and More appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

In an interview with probably two of the most slyly funniest guys ever, we were able to chat with Alchemist and Evidence about this new chapter of their careers, how Lord Steppington really came to be, and their favorite projects of 2013. There’s a lot of sarcasm in this interview, so read closely.

RESPECT: You guys are childhood friends and you’ve worked together many times in the past. How did you guys first meet?

Alchemist: Well Evidence used to work at the Swedish Auto Clinic on Lincoln Boulevard. Ev used to work there, he was a mechanic and it all started from there.

So this being you guys’ first album together, what was it like not really having any creative restriction on Lord Steppington?

Evidence: Well, Brother Ali pretty much told Alchemist how to do the shit.

Alchemist: We owe a lot to Ali. He handed us a manuscript with some mad cadences and Ev transcribed them. He had a whole new cache of rhyme patterns once he came back from Europe.

Evidence: I’m into how the brain correlates with the voice. You can like rap left-footed or left-handed and it can really make a difference on your performance. Like if you rap with your left hand versus your right. Or with your right foot first or your left foot first. It’s basically like, if you use your left hand first you’re sharper, like you’re on the beat more. But if you use your right hand, more emotion comes out. So you gotta choose, do I want to be tighter on the rhythm or do I want to be a little sloppier but have more emotion with the right hand? The same applies to the feet.

So what would you say you guys’ style is then? What to do you tend to do when you’re rapping?

Evidence: I don’t know, like I’ve re-done tapes and been like man, I need to go re-do that left -handed because  it was tight with the emotion, but then I didn’t hit the beat right. On the stage, I switch.

For Lord Steppington, did you both work on the beats or maybe one of you worked more on the lyrics? How did you divide everything up?

Alchemist: Brother Ali did most of it, I just controlled the machine so it was basically his input. He did the beats as well as the rhymes when you break it down.

Evidence: Slug did the hooks.

Alchemist: So the whole family did it, it’s like Rhymesayers across the map.

So when did you two really decide to create the album? Had you been thinking about doing it for a while?

Alchemist: I looked at Brother Ali to the left and he just gave me this nod. It was like a mafia nod. Like you know when they make the nods for a hit? And I just knew it was a sign that we had to make an album.

Do you think your work with say Dilated Peoples or any of your other past projects influenced the sound of Lord Steppington? Did you guys try to go for something totally different?

Evidence: I think it was different. The apartment in Amsterdam, when we did a lot of it there, it just didn’t feel like L.A. The Netherlands is different from L.A. The sun’s not out all day, it gets dark early, we were looking at red light shit everyday. It was just a different vibe.

So you released “Step Masters” as the first single back in November. What made you pick Step Masters as the single?

Evidence: It’s the only track that doesn’t have drums. We just wanted something different. Because everyone’s beats are always crashing, so it was more of check us out and you’ll get to the bangers when you get the record.

Alchemist: The track was co-produced by Twiz the Beat Pro. He’s the human version of a skeleton. He’s crazy skinny but he makes funky beats. He’s ill.            

Evidence: Terrible name, great producer.

Alchemist: Great producer, great guy, on the come-up. Looks malnourished but funky.

Are you planning on releasing another single anytime soon?

Evidence: I think we are going to perform, go to Europe in these next two weeks and perform the album and see which songs react the best. I think we’ll be able to judge it off of that.

Alchemist: Did you hear the album? What should be the single?

“Mums In The Garage” with Action Bronson is an awesome track.

Alchemist: We are going to do incentives with every single from now on. Like this next single comes with a piece of gefilte fish. No ones ever done that. We’re going to make that possible. Free pickled tomatoes with the album.

Where did the title Lord Steppington come from?

Alchemist: He’s Evidence’s old au pair. He’s his old house sitter. You know, Evidence grew up in an English breakfast setting so we just wanted to dedicate it to the guy that used to look out for his house.

This is kind of a difficult question but now that 2013 is over, if you had to pick, what was the best mixtape or album of the year?

Evidence: 2013, my favorite album was Kanye West interviews.

Alchemist: Hmmm, Blue Chips 2, Action Bronson. Best mixtape of the year.

Evidence: And Ready to Die by Biggie Smalls. If you revisit it. Alchemist is a big Yeezus supporter.

Alchemist: Yeezus like shaped me in a way. I was going one direction and when I heard Yeezus, I just had to pump the breaks. Praise Yeezus. It was a brilliant work of art. It was a moment that he captured in all its splendor in electronified brilliance.

So what can listeners expect to see from Step Brothers in the near future? Any tours planned?

Evidence: No, we are doing the no promotion, less is greater thing.

Oh, kind of like the whole Beyonce secret album thing?

Evidence: No we are literally trying to see how many records we can’t sell.

Alchemist: Be completely non-existent. We book the shows we just don’t show up.

Evidence: We were like platinum before we even came out. We’re kind of some ill.

Alchemist: I sold a million props last year. My props went platinum last year. You wouldn’t believe how many prop units I moved. 

The regular and deluxe version with bonus tracks and a digital booklet is available for download on iTunes. Or check out a stream of the entire album below.

The post Step in the Name of Rap: A Comical Interview with Step Brothers (Alchemist & Evidence) appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

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All photography by Loni Schick @Elle_Aye

Notes to Self are a long-standing Toronto hip-hop crew, comprised of rappers Roshin, his brother Swamp Donkey, producer/rapper/designer Bronze One, and of course, former World Champion DJ, DJ Dopey. Reuniting after a brief hiatus – after all, Swamp Donkey got married and had a kid – NTS are back in the studio together and making music (check their recent single with Evidence, “Nobody Recoil Remix”), as they intend to release a new project before the end of Winter, entitled Used to be Dark [RECOIL].

Now, if you caught my use of the word ‘crew’, as opposed to ‘group’, it’s because of the recent stigma cast upon industry cats gone plural. The hip-hop group is no longer deemed ‘convenient’, per se, in today’s industry, due to marketing concerns, artistic licensing, and directional conflicts. Nevertheless, there appears to be a minor ingredient the suits have overlooked. Good hip-hop music has, from its very beginnings, arisen out of struggle, not security, not to mention the brotherhood birthed as a community undergoes hardship – note to self #7500000.

Read the complete interview after the jump, bruh.

Roshin: So the greatest thing ever happened today. It wasn’t the Hype Machine thing. That was dope. The coolest thing was J-Ro from Tha Alkaholiks just randomly posted the song [“Nobody Remix”], and I replied, “Thanks for the support, man,” and he replied, “Support! Ya’ll are supporting real hip-hop.” [laughs] I was like, “You’re J-Ro. I grew up listening to you.”

Swamp: He’s in the video for “Nobody Remix”. He has a good cameo. He was probably like, “I’m in this. That’s really dope.”

I probably already asked you this, but was any of that video done in post, like the mouths of the artists?

Roshin: That’s the debate. A lot of people think the editing job was the craziest, and it was actually pretty crazy, but no, there’s a whole detailed superimposed mouth thing going on. It took a really long time. Some of them are real.

At this point in the interview, the table veers off-course into a discussion about Dipset.

Roshin: My dude just shot a video for Jim Jones, and the entire time the guy sat down and wouldn’t get up. He was all smoked out, smoking mad piff, and my buddy was just like, “Okay, dude, get up and move,” and Jim Jones was like, “naw, I’m going to sit here and smoke and you can film me rap.” [laughs] He wouldn’t get up for the video or anything.

Loni [my photographer]: We were just doing this shoot in Washington Heights, and Sen City and JR Writer were drinking mad nutcrackers they got from this lady on the street.

Roshin: What’s a nutcracker?

Loni: I asked them. They were like, “I don’t even know, man. We’ve been drinking them since we were kids,” and it’s like a mixture of a bunch of alcohol.

Swamp: What do you call it when you have a slushy and you put all different kinds of slushy in it?

Roshin: Swamp water.

Swamp: Is that what it’s called?

Roshin: Swamp juice. But the official term is swamp water, if you Wikipedia’d it, just saying. But… does Regina [Saskatchewan, Ontario, Canada] have a really weird hip-hop scene, because we went out there and did the weirdest show ever?

Dopey: It’s because of the homie that put it on. It was a weird fucking venue.

Bronze: It was kind of like a Steakhouse, literally.

Roshin: We did a soundcheck and there was a full table of-

Dopey: During the show there was a full table of people eating. [laughs]

Bronze: No, during the soundcheck. It was before Scratch had opened up so I don’t think there was a good venue yet.

Swamp: It was a very different crowd.

Dopey: They were big DJ fans.

Swamp: But it was a strange setup. It had like a step-up stage, like a half-stage, lower than this table.

Roshin: Picture a Bar & Grill with a dance floor, and then there was a stage.

Bronze: I had a cordless mic so I went out onto the dance floor, there were like four people dancing [laughs] and I went out and I was rapping with this girl. I started dancing with her. It was so awkward.

Swamp: Like he said, when we did soundcheck everyone was still eating. There was a full restaurant.

Roshin: There were a lot of 70 plus women at that restaurant before we went on.

Swamp: And none of them stayed after the soundcheck.

[laughs]

Dopey: I think it was our first show.

Swamp breaks off and begins singing a song from the radio.

Roshin: Are you hearing this?

Swamp: It’s Michael McDonald.

Who?

Swamp: Have you ever heard “Regulate”, Nate Dogg and Warren G, this is the song they sampled from.

Bronze

Which one of you guys is the producer?

Bronze: Me. Book and I.

Roshin: Book is like the fifth member of Notes to Self. He’s not here.

Bronze: Really Elixir is the fifth member. He’s a visual artist.

Roshin: Book is like the sixth. You know the graffiti artist Elixir from Toronto? He does all those really dope characters, like the Kill Bill piece.

Bronze: Yeah, he was like the number one graffiti artist in NOW Magazine this year.

Swamp: He’s very accessible because he doesn’t do letters very much. He does cool-looking characters and stuff.

Bronze: He’s a Sheridan grad, and knows a ton about anatomy. He mentors kids now. He’s top-notch. We also roll with a dude named Adam who does a lot of the design for our branding. He did the J. Cole Pound Magazine cover. He drew that.

I talked to your boy Rittz the other day. Have you guys worked with him already?

Roshin: We brought him up for Droppin Knowledge. He was the first American headliner at a Droppin Knowledge show. We were responsible for bringing him up. We talked to him about touring Canada, but we want to make sure everything’s right first. That dude is the best dude in the world.

Swamp: That was his first show out of the States.

Roshin: That was his first show, I think, out of the South, because he hadn’t been to New York yet. He’s Yelawolf’s guy.

You guys working on any new projects?

Roshin: We’re working on a project coming out mid December, the 15th I think, called Used To Be Dark [RECOIL]. That’s going to have a lot of the joints we’ve been putting out, like “Mr. Polite” is on there with Fashawn, “Nobody Remix” with Evidence.

Bronze: “Nobody Remix” is now at 30,000 views, in three and a half days.

Dopey: We’re watching it go viral right now.

Tell us more about that video.

Roshin: Yeah, the video took off like crazy. Really that was Bronze’s idea. We all thought it was pretty ambitious, like we didn’t think it would be doable.

Bronze: I pushed it out my loins. It was a painful birth. It was a long experience. When I first thought of the idea, which was a month before I actually brought it to everybody, I wanted to make sure I could get my hands on all the footage. I had all the cassette tapes that we used. It was from my personal collection from high school of constantly taping rap videos. A couple tapes were Dopey’s as well, and then some from my friend, Abel. I lent the tapes to Abel at one point so he could compile for MTV. But I made the video with my friend James.

Swamp: Who’s the seventh member of Notes.

Bronze: [laughs] We have a really strong family. We’ve been at this a while, so the guys who really hold us down and support us we streamline. I mean, I have a Design degree, so that’s my background. I work with Adam on almost all the branding for Notes, and then we have James. I used to do audio for old films he used to do. I edited and directed the “Nobody Remix” video with him. We have Jabari too who did some stuff, and then my dude Book. Book and I are both managed in New York. We have a bunch of stuff on the go, but this is really my heart, this is my everything, for this to happen with Notes. As far as the video’s concerned, I was sitting on footage and I wanted to make sure I had everything we needed. Swamp was a big help in filling in the gaps. You give Swamp a task and he’s a problem solver that way.

He’s the closer.

Bronze: He’s the kind of guy you want on tour with you. He is your GPS system. We are never lost with this guy ever. We never look like goofballs in front of people. But that whole video was from VHS footage.

Swamp

“Nobody Remix” was on an older album too, right?

Roshin: That’s an interesting part of it, because really “Nobody” was released on A Shot in the Dark, which is a project we did with BBE out in Europe. This would have been like the third video for that album, and we got to it super, super late, because the video was taking so long to make. We didn’t want it to just come out and be like a flash in the pan and be gone, because now we’ve got other videos we’re going to be releasing.

Bronze: The idea was that we were going to do a re-release of the project, because we felt that literally nobody had heard the project. I would get people hitting me up a year after the project came out, like, “Yo, I never heard this song. You’ve got a joint with Dilated.” But with the re-release, that’s where the title [RECOIL] came from. When we released A Shot in the Dark it was before Drake paved the way for us Toronto artists, so we were signed to a European label. We went with them, it took us a while to make the project, but it took them an extra year to put it out. There was a lot going on politically. BBE was just moving to Germany from London at that time.

Loni: What’s it like pouring your heart into an album, and then having to wait a year for it to be released? Didn’t you feel like you progressed so much in that time, and then it comes out and it’s almost like a misrepresentation?

Bronze: Oh yeah, we had joints on there which were stupid old. We had finished the “Yellow & Grey Remix” with Dilated a few months before we turned in the record. We had come lightyears, even just skill-wise, figuring out what we were supposed to sound like sonically. They were old joints, but the label liked the older material, because that was kind of where they were at. They’re a few years behind over there.

Swamp: They really celebrate the Golden Age of Hip-Hop over there. Like, some older artists still tour Europe even though they haven’t put an album out in ten years.

What about the Foot Notes releases?

Roshin: The way that Foot Notes stuff worked, it was like a culmination. We tried to do a journey through what we listened to throughout our career.

You have some stuff in there too.

Roshin: That’s where the catch comes in. That would get played on radio stations or podcasts in Europe, and it was put together by Bronze and Dopey. You can listen to it in a chronological order since we started being a group, like back in the day. I was a kid still. It leads into the more current music. That stuff was really cool. It’s interesting to see what’s going to happen when we put out this project, because we’ve come a long way. We went kind of M.I.A. to some extent, after the album came out because of some personal issues. But sonically we’ve really established an evolution in sound. I don’t think we’re going to alienate any fans. If you were a fan of Notes to Self on the last album, you’ll continue to be a fan.

Who are the fans exactly? How would you describe your fan-base?

Roshin: I think a great deal of our fans are the ‘backpack’ fans. A lot of our people in the States come from Cali.

Dopey: I think we’re still kind of figuring it out. I think we’re getting a better sense of who we attract. I know we do attract a lot of DJ people because of my presence. I wouldn’t necessarily think that it’s all backpackers. We’d like to think of our music as pretty versatile.

Swamp: I think on the first album we had the song with Dilated and the song with Evidence, it was an inroad into that world and that world is a very hip-hop world. They care about the culture tremendously, and are very serious about it. I think it’s not until your music gets a wider spectrum and you can travel and see who your fans are. I mean, hip-hop is still hip-hop but the people who like it are very different. It’s not as exclusive anymore. You don’t have to be entirely dedicated to it.

Yeah, people don’t even think of hip-hop when they say they like Drake anymore. They just figure themselves fans of Drake, not hip-hop, per se.

Swamp: And I would say Drake is very polished and poppy, but he’s 100% hip-hop. Any rapper would tell you that. That’s really where he comes from. He’s just doing it in a more contemporary way.

And obviously Notes to Self is more than just the music. What are some of your side hustles?

Roshin: Such is life. Dopey is the resident DJ on Canada’s MTV Live, which wasn’t even a job a couple years back. We were just talking about this before you got here, Dopey’s Twitter followers are 14 and 15 year old kids and they’re not following Notes really. They know Dopey from MTV. It’s a completely separate world. We want to unify it as much as we can because when it comes down to it, we’re a family. We move like a unit.

The hip-hop group isn’t so common anymore either.

Roshin: Not at all. You can name them on one hand, the prominent rap groups around right now. You’ve got Pac Div, Kidz In The Hall- It’s hard to stay together, and there’s a lot more fighting than you would imagine, because not everyone has the same mind. People have the same end goals but you’re still butting heads because people are creative and stick by their guns. Staying together as a group has been trying by itself, but I think you can see in the music how much thought and effort and sometimes anguish goes into it. Most of the time, it comes down to, we love making music together and it sounds best when we all make it together. We’ve been blessed to have dudes who are multi-faceted in the crew. Bronze, who wears many hats, and has a Design background, he’s a great video concept person, great producer, great rapper. Swamp is like this all-man, fill-in-the-blank kind of guy who can finish up stuff. He’s the most reliable dude in the world, and he’s hilarious on the mic and incredible. Me, I just rap, I don’t do anything else.

Swamp: That’s not true. Roshin has been writing more hooks. He’s been doing choruses, he’s been helping us promote and strategize.

Bronze: He’s giving the interview right now. [laughs]

Roshin: Well, you’re eating so that’s by default. When I start eating you can talk again. I believe you can be stronger as a unit. You might be paying four times the amount of plane tickets sometimes, but it’s still better.

Bronze: This is a complete family, man. This is ten years right here.

Swamp: It’s not just about one guy in our crew.

Roshin

No Eminem in D12.

Roshin: Not to slight anyone here, but exactly. There’s not one guy the label’s pushing or anything.

Do you think that might have helped you more though, if there was a standout artist?

Roshin: If we had Em and he was already at that level? [laughs] When Dopey joined the group that was like the standout guy. For a long time there was the notoriety that we had the World Champion DJ in the crew. When we were touring cats knew Dopey more than any of us, but it wasn’t like they weren’t fucking with us. He was telling people about us and then they became our fans.

Loni: How’d you guys get hooked up with Fashawn?

Swamp: Well, Evidence and Fashawn are real tight. Fashawn was coming on tour here and we wanted to work with him, but Evidence also wanted Fashawn to work with us. He thought it would be a good fit, so Ev introduced Bronze to Fashawn on Twitter.

Bronze: It was Twitter and then I just called him.

Swamp: I remember when were talking to Ev and we told him how much we wanted to work with Blu. He was like, “Yeah, Blu is crazy, but you know who you guys should check out is this new kid Fashawn.” At that time they had put out one song together, I think.

Roshin: So by the time Fashawn came to Toronto, we had all listened to his music pretty thoroughly. It was crazy because Ev told Fashawn that Bronze was the best producer in Canada, and then we met after the show, because he had to leave in the morning. We still knocked the track out though.

And since you guys have been around Toronto for so long, could you attempt to break down Toronto hip-hop, like if it were an organism, could you dissect the city into the different parts?

Bronze: I don’t think anyone has ever thought we were from Toronto, period. You’re finally giving the proper information that we are from Toronto. Normally we get that we’re from California because of our associations out there, with Dilated.

Roshin: The big difference in the last years is the success of Drake, 40, and those guys, and now T-Minus and Boi-1da, but before them there was a lot more screwfacing in the city. You had your camp of guys. You might have a big family of guys and people helping out to an extent, but there was a lot more cats trying to get on top of the city, rather than really trying to make a living, or trying to be an artist who can prolong his career. It was almost like a high school popularity contest about who could get on Flow 93.5 for the longest, rather than trying to have longevity and make good music.

It’s still like that.

Roshin: Not like it was, dude.

Swamp: There’s at least belief through Drake that you can become recognized.

Bronze: Hip-Hop lives in the North. Didn’t 9th Wonder say that?

Roshin: [laughs] He did. He’s very supportive, 9th Wonder.

Bronze: New York had its day, Los Angeles had its day, Atlanta and the South had their day, and now it’s our turn.

Swamp: For the longest time Toronto had this very respected group of artists, like Kardinal, Socrates, Choclair, and they were respected by American artists and stuff, but never broke through.

Bronze: They hovered on the line. Even k-os, he didn’t do big numbers down in the States. He could tour down there, but he’s no Drake

He couldn’t start a movement.

Roshin: Up here k-os was the shit. In Toronto if you saw k-os it was a big deal, even though you could just as easily walk by him on the street and he’d be like a regular dude. There wasn’t that breakout though, like, “I’m on top of the game now.” Kardinal had “Dangerous”. That was probably as close as we’ve come, and that was a million-selling ringtone. It was a huge song.

Do you think Drake’s success will help you guys?

Roshin: One hundred percent.

Bronze: It already has. You read half the blogs and they’re like, “Yo, these guys are coming out the same city as Drake.”

I’ll probably end up saying that. [I didn’t]

[laughs]

Or I probably already have. [I have]

Roshin: But that’s the thing. You see Drake’s success and his camp, The Weeknd included, and you don’t necessarily need to sound like them to be from Toronto. We want to be different, but have that mutual respect. Like, if you examine classic New York artists, not everyone sounds the same. You can tell they’re from New York maybe, but they’re not all the same rapper, you know?

Swamp: I have this whole theory. Drake’s extremely talented and he had a really good co-sign with Wayne, but then there’s Kardinal. He’s different and has this West Indian flavor. It’s hip-hop but it’s very different. It’s influenced by reggae. In the same way Drake is very different, and so was k-os. I think this helps our artists distinguish themselves, because for the longest time it was like, “What makes these Canadian artists different? What’s really different about them?” I mean, there’s not one sound of Toronto. Toronto is this super multicultural place, so the hip-hop can’t be just one way. It’s a lot of ways, and it’s became easier to explain it, like, “This is Toronto hip-hop because it’s not like New York hip-hop.”

It’s like trying to explain what a Canadian is. [laughs]

Bronze: And then there’s 40. 40 changed rap.

Roshin: Yep, one hundred percent. Like before 40 and Drake, would you see someone like Wiz popping off, who sings his hooks? Before Drake no one was doing that.

Bronze: I haven’t seen somebody do that since Kanye. It’s tough to try and explain that whole Toronto scene. It’s a giant group of different people and different cultures so you’re going to get very different music.

Swamp: Before though people never wanted to celebrate that they were from Toronto. That’s changed now because of Drake.

Where do you guys fit in?

Dopey: I’d like to think we’re that fucking supergroup that’s missing, that brings it back to the feel-good- I don’t want to label it Golden Era rap…

Bronze: Dopey did it when he won the World DJ Championships. He did it. So that’s what we bring I guess, a guy who’s already gone international. The dude’s been everywhere.

Roshin: I think we’ve always been a little left-field. I think we try to describe it as you start in the rap box and you push out of that, as opposed to the other way around. Because some people are making electro music that’s rap. We like to stay connected to hip-hop culture. I don’t mean on some four elements shit. I mean, we know where we came from. You watch the “Nobody Remix” video, you can’t really front like we’re not real hip-hop fans, because we are.

Swamp: I think what we have, because we’re a group, we have one producer, who has one producer he works with, which helps give you a sound, we have these rappers, not that many features, that’s what is different. Our albums have cohesion like albums used to have. I think that’s what we bring. We have a certain energy. There’s a feeling, like, “Oh, this is Notes to Self.” That’s us.

Dopey

– By @petermarrack

The post Exclusive Interview: Notes to Self Talk Work With Evidence, Fashawn, Toronto Hip-Hop & Drake appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

For those of you agonizing over the Dilated Peoples’ five year absence, we have good news. Evidence, perhaps the trio’s strongest member, is set to drop a new solo album, Cats and Dogs, on September 27th. Even better, Evidence has solicited former Dilated Peoples comrade DJ Babu to put together a free five song sampler of the upcoming album, nearly a full fledged reunion. Peep below and get excited for the full album come late September.

Via HipHopSite

The post New Music: Evidence “Cats and Dogs” Sampler appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

While the rollout continued with the pop-up store, in the trendy SoHo section of Manhattan, this past weekend for the physical release of Jay-Z and Kanye West’sWatch the Throne, Evidence of Dilated Peoples took a different route. For his “Same Folks” Punit Dhesi-directed video, Ev and featured artist Fashawn, took it back to the days of young upstart artists hustling burned CDs and setting up listening sessions with their very own Discmans and headphones while roaming places with the most potential listeners. “Same Folks” has the two mingling with ordinary people – who love or hate the bonus track from September’s Cats & Dogs. A nice soul sample with Ev and Fashawn trading back and forth rhymes about a simpler time, what’s not to love?

The post Video: Evidence – Same Folks feat. Fashawn appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.