AnattitudeMagazine_issue04_HipHopis

no.4

2009/2010

ISSN 1866-3419 Rap, Graffiti, Deejaying, Breakdance, Fashion, Film, Photography www.anattitude.net 10 € EU / 15 $ USA

HIP HOP IS...

ETERNIA KLOR INDIE184 CASEY M.A.F.I.A. TONI BLACKMAN TEXAS ROXANNE SHANTÉ ROKAFELLA INCLUDES HIP HOP IS...

SPECIAL

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FEATURES: KLOR 04 ROKAFELLA 08 CASEY 12 TONI BLACKMAN 20 M.A.F.I.A. 22 TEXAS 30 ROXANNE SHANTÉ 36 ETERNIA 44 INDIE184 52 cover: Rokafella - photography by B FRESH back cover: YO! by 123 Klan this page: Nikki Ntu - photography by Texas Malika Toussaint-Baptiste

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FROM THE WALLS TO THE WORLD There was a time when being a famous grafitti writer meant to be known by posting his/her signature on every piece of the urban landscape. The most famous place of course, was directly on the subway train because it was “going all city,” crossing each and every neighborhood without any permission given or even asked. But this was not the only way to gain ultimate exposure, and two writers Scien and his wife Klor from the 123 Klan understood quickly that graffiti could be just as striking on any support and gain far more exposure with the help of computers.

In the late 80’s, the 123 Klan was born in the north of France, a graffiti crew composed of Dean, Sper, Skam, Reso and of course Scien and one girl by the name of Klor. At that

time, graffiti was mostly written on walls, the internet wasn’t as inescapable as it is now, and the brand with the apple on the back was struggling to exist beside the microsoft giant. But even at this early stage, Scien and Klor, also known as Bonnie and Clyde in the streets, were way ahead of their times, being some

of the first writers to mix grafitti with graphic design.

Since day one, Scien and Klor focused on lettering, always pushing the style forward, trying to find the best way to “write.” In 1994, Klor and Scien reached the turning point of what will become their “savoir faire.” They exchanged the spray

KLOR

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can and the wall for the computer and the mouse.

In other words, they went from “all city” to “all world.” The internet quickly became an open gallery for them to mix their grafitti art with graphic design allowing their art to travel everywhere and anywhere in the world.

From there, the original painted walls turned into supports like flyers, clothes, posters, cover arts for the music industry and even customizable pieces. Nobody can miss their universe made of toys, Japanese aesthetic and old school video games.

A signature that always deals with simple color effects mixing two, maybe three colors, a touch recognized by hundreds. A strong and evident love for graffiti in its pure form upgraded with the computer’s help.

When asked if it was complicated to switch from the walls to the computer, Klor replied that it was a logical process for them. After all, the artistic natural evolution is to explore other supports but keeping in mind what made you. And in her case, what made her, was this strong love for style without forgetting the years in the streets bombing and sharing walls with spray can mates.

Relocated in Montreal, Canada, husband, wife and family have developed their own consulting and artistic agency. Working mostly at home for huge brands and clients in advertising, fashion, video games, and the music industry. Some say that this is the kiss

of death because marketing and advertising are the worst enemies of art. While others see their evolution as an open door to urban art. The key is to have the final say by controlling the whole system, from the idea to the final product. Maintaining a certain freedom of creation is a must. It helps keep the mind in a constant state of evolution and it’s the only way to keep the art alive.

There’s a smell of fairy tale in Klor’s story. A proud mother working hand in hand with her husband, trying to keep her identity, representing the duet by herself at exhibitions when her husband is busy working elsewhere in the world. Who would have ever thought that graffiti would have made it this far, especially for a woman…

We should have started like this: “Once upon a time, there was this girl who loves to paint, she met her prince who was a painter too. They got married and lived happily ever after in a world of bright colors and imaginary creatures and forms” This was 123 Klan’s history, a graphic destiny that’s not ready to give up the brush. Always in perpetual reconstruction, they’ll bring you to their fairy tale street world through their digital gallery and store. www.123klan.com

words by Liz Gomis 2009 illustrations & graffiti by Klor & 123 Klan

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interview by Teddy Esposito 2009 photography by B Fresh 2008 NYC

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ROKA FELLA

BREAKING BECAME ONE OF THE LAST ELEMENTS OF STREET DANCE I DESIRED TO MASTER.

She knows how to rock a fella! Bgirl pioneer Ana “Rokafella” Garcia, is one of today’s most known b-girls worldwide, dancing since the age of 16 and growing up in Spanish Harlem.

She travels nationally and internationally to teach aspiring dancers the art and history of Hip Hop dance and b-girling. She established with her husband Kwikstep the groundbreaking, non-profit Hip Hop dance company “Full Circle Productions” in `96. Her latest project “All The Ladies Say” is a documentary that highlights the lives of six iconic female b-girls from the USA. Enjoy the interview Teddy Esposito did, who has known Rok and Kwik for over 20 years now.

What have you been up to lately, please give us some details for each project?

In June, a four year process of shooting and editing a documentary culminated with a launch/screening at the Bronx Museum. A project funded with support in the form of grant funds and private donations finally took shape and was shared with the people of the NYC and area attendees.

Also present were the six main characters who hosted panel discussions regarding the lifestyle of b-girls in their hometowns - Beta, Vendetta,

Baby Love, Aiko, Lady Champ and Severe. The film is titled “All The Ladies Say” and has cameos by female MC’s, graff writers and international b- girls. Full Circle produced and raised all the funds to make the film possible and Kwikstep produced the music. I expect to have the film finished by fall of 2009. Film screenings are already set for upcoming women’s events such as Ladies of Hip Hop, B supreme and B-girl Be. I have been recording and performing my music sometimes solo and sometimes with a band called RPM-Revolutions Per Minute. I always liked to sing and recite poems so when the opportunity came in 2007 I ventured onto the stage as a lead vocalist of my own band. My music is a mixture that represents my afro-latin roots and my exposure to soul music. Most of my songs come from my own life experiences. I am away on a workshop tour to Rwanda (Africa) for fifteen days and I am sure this trip will be life altering as the many other overseas trips have been in the past.

I will be not only be teaching dance, but also performing my music alongside MC poet Rha Goddess.

How long have you been involved with Breakin?

I began to train in the dance of Breaking in 1994 when I ran into Kwikstep by chance on the subway. He had urged me to go to an audition for a dance company. After rockin the audition, I began to learn fundamentals of Breaking that Kwikstep showed me. He also brought me in contact with many breakers other than the members of the company.

I tried to honor the time and energy they all spent trying to teach me since at that time nobody was really breaking in NYC and being a female always brought along lower expectations. Before I began to break I had already made a name for myself in the clubs where house and latin freestyle was being played. My dance partner at the time was a dancer by the name of Zen/Rico. We would create dance routines and go set them off in dance circles around NYC. He had also helped me to learn basic popping since he was a student of Shake from Queens. I really learned about the rules of the circle from those six years of dancing as his dance partner cuz he wouldn’t fight my battles at all. So Breaking became one of the last elements of street dance I desired to master. African dance and Salsa were under my belt from high school, but at that age (23), I rarely participated in any

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performance that would require those styles. Breaking was hard because only a handful of females were doing it and we did not exist in a united type of setting. Even on the street with the Transformers/Breeze team I had a hard time getting respect for what I was doing. I had much to learn about the history of the dance and

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how to navigate the politics of the scene. But with hard work I got my title and soon my name would ring in many unknown places with nothing but love and respect.

I remember when you used to freestyle/vogue/loft dance... do you incorporate some of those moves into

your Breakin’ style?

Sometimes if a certain song plays that I remember from the club days I insert some of that into my throwdown. But if it is a hardcore circle I try to keep it to breaking. But I am not usually in control of what I do cuz I improvise a lot when I am feeling good. Lately I been hearing some

salsa/soul breaks and if it hits me then I even do some mambo in my toprock because I feel that is exactly who I am - a latina who grew up in NYC with soul and Hip Hop. Tell us about some of your most proudest moments in your career.

One of my most proudest moments is battling in a three woman team against an all male team and winning in the Bronx. Another great moment was battling beside Kwikstep when a group of old school heads tried to take us out over some gossip about our style of uprock. Then two other times when a member of the Rocksteady Crew tried us in Philly and later in California. Finally when I danced in Broadway’s New Victory Theater that my parents went to see. My parents never supported me when I chose to dance for a living because they sacrificed so much of their lives so I could have an education. They left Puerto Rico to give their children a better chance and in their eyes dance was a waste of my time.

Tell us about your working relationship with your husband, the living legend, Kwikstep.

I have been lucky to have established a stable and supportive relationship with Kwikstep. So many people have a hard time working out love/dance relationships. I think when we first met we were tired of deceptive and manipulative lovers. Kwik made it very clear when we began to get serious that Dance was first priority in his life and that I shouldn’t try to take him away from it. I agreed and said that I felt the same way but I always hoped to find someone who could support me. We both came out of bad relationships so we promised to be fair and honest with each other. In 1996 we incorporated Full Circle as a non-profit dance company with the help of Violeta Galagarza and later in 2000 we got married. In

both of those new situations we had to learn how to share power and the work load. We learned from mistakes that we can’t offer everything while receiving nothing in return and that was true in marriage and business.

We also learned to stay strong in your convictions because it may take longer to reach the goal but in the end positive people get positive results.

What is the future for Rokafella and for Full Circle?

Very soon I believe Full Circle will have a photo book that celebrates the existence of a breakdance duo that has developed a platform for the urban experience known as Hip Hop. Full Circle has yet to tour around to different countries with ensemble pieces such as (Soular Power’d) or a duet (Innaviews) both lauded by the New York Times for their clever concepts and tight choreography. So I know that is still left to be manifested in the upcoming years as we increase the visibility through our media evolution. The film “All The Ladies Say” will spread a powerful message to every audience gathered at screenings about the independent and uplifitng aspects of true Hip Hop - no matter the gender. An anthology of music created by Kwikstep and his associates for Full Circle shows and for Rokafella’s lyrics will be produced to help bring back a feeling of breakbeats and soulful rhythms that make you want to dance hard.

One day I hope to partner with other organizations to create an urban arts center that is self-sufficient powered by a cycle of Hip Hop education and social entrepreneurialism that keeps the center financially stable. I envision facilitating Hip Hop veterans to curate open mics, dance performances, have an in-house music recording studio, art exhibits and Hip Hop elements aesthetic seminars offered to university students for class credit. This is a huge dream

but not impossible.

Do you believe in miracles and magic?

I believe that our ancestors are watching and rooting for us. I also believe that because we have free will we can be distracted from our destined connections and that can delay our success... I know that if you do good, good comes to you and I have experienced that not only in my life but in working on Full Circle 13 year journey. Bad things happen when we are not aware that someone is trying to destroy what we build. But we have to keep building and we have to get better with analyzing the people who come around us. I know prayer and meditation can clear the smoke screens. Society has gotten us so far from feeling united with each other and with nature we are existing in a very aggressive state of fear. Man-made religions are criticized just as Hip Hop is criticized for it’s negative elements. But ultimately what is good outlasts the bad. The magic is felt once you get to a point of success and you turn around and give back.

Any special shout-outs?

Big shout out to the international Hip Hoppers who have their own traditions but honor us by picking up our NYC/US street culture and struggle to prove to the world that we all have power and intelligence.

Big shout out to the independent Hip Hop businesses, who represent the balance between representing the roots and pushing forward with a career. Big shout out to the men of Hip Hop who recognize the strength of female Hip Hop practitoners and are secure enough in their manhood to support the nation’s growth. Big shout to the women in Hip-hop who master their skills and bring a feminine edge ... it ain’t easy but it can www.alltheladiessay.com be done!*

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CASEY

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SENSIBILITY IS NOT A HANDICAP, THAT‘S EVEN RATHER AN ADVANTAGE, BUT YOU HAVE TO MANAGE THE SENSIBILITY THOUGH. Casey is one of the most acknowledged MC’s in France. Not only do Hip Hop heads adore her, that’s the amazing thing, she is such a hardcore MC with such a strong attitude and presence that her lyrics are listened to by a lot of different people.

Listening to a Casey track is like having a history lesson with a serious caustic undertone (sometimes difficult for non-french people to understand). Voilà, Anattitude brings you Casey, straight out of Paris at the photographer’s place.

from Paris, who was totally into rap, into tagging, into Hip Hop in general, taught me, and made me really dig into it. He made me listen to French rap, he initiated me in writing, in tagging, all that completely useless stuff, that doesn’t help anything in life in general, but which is fun if you practice it.

Who is Casey?

I was born and raised in Rouen until the age of 14, then I moved to Paris.

The residential areas of Rouen are very far from downtown, and the time I lived there, there was no bus after 9 pm. So I know what it means to get really fucked up, to get bored, just as you need it.

In the track “Tragédie d’une Trajectoire” I speak of Rouen because I have the impression that, when you construct yourself as an adult, everything that makes you become who you are is, above all, what you experienced in your childhood. We were very few Blacks in Rouen, I don’t even speak of other ethnic groups. There were some North Africans, there were some Portuguese hanging around, so during my childhood in Rouen I discovered that I was black. I discovered it little by little, because when you are a child, nobody tells you that you are small or fat or too

My name is Casey, I’m an MC, I’m 33 years old. I started rapping when I was about 14 years old. I was inspired when I heard French rap, I only knew American rap before. It was one of my cousins who made me listen to what they played on radio Nova (1) .

At that moment, I lived in Rouen, it was a discovery, a revelation. Soon after, I started to write mimicking, and today I am still in it.

And he, he was a cousin from Paris?

Yes, that’s a cousin who lived in Paris. There is a part of my family who lives in Normandie, and a bigger part who lives in Paris. So my cousin interview by Keira Maameri & Jee photography by Hélène Tilman translated from French by Olivier Wehner Paris - 2008

In your track “Tragédie d’une Trajectoire” you speak of your childhood in Rouen. When did you move from Rouen to Paris?

meagre, but it’s one day in the gaze of the Other that you discover it.

Do you make a distinction between American rap and French rap?

I think the big difference is that here (in France), you’ve got the problem of immigration, which is not the case in the United States, where you rather have the problems of poverty, ghetto and the descendants of slaves. But here it’s a little different because the problems stem rather from colonization. There are many descendants of kids of immigrants who come from the former French colonies, so this makes already for a quite particular discourse and rap.

I think American MCs are indeed Americans, they feel American. Here, we, the kids of the immigrants, we have a lot harder time to feel French.

That’s somehow what all the MCs say. There is an unlove [désamour], and that is, I think, quite special to French rap.

So Casey is qualified as being a very conscious hardcore MC, isn’t it so?

Your style of rapping is hardcore with a very good flow and a very elaborated language. What are your lyrics about, what’s the message?

Oh, thanks for all the compliments...

Now hardcore and conscious, I don’t have that impression, I have the impression I make rap like everybody else.

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Rather [French] rap in general has become very weak, soft, completely flattened, like a soufflé gone wrong.

I almost have to justify that I don’t make rap just for entertainment.

It’s difficult for me to write stuff that concerns no one but my self, that nobody is interested in but my self. It’s a little crooked to ask people to pay 17 Euro if its to tell them what I ate this morning and how good I feel when I take a sunbath in the park or in a Ferrari.... So what I am

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talking about, I’ve got the impression, are topics of the society in general which are linked to personal experiences. You can say I write what I see, what I live. What does it mean to live in the banlieue [suburbs of Paris], what does it mean to originate from a colony? I come from Martinique (2) , that’s still a colony today. What does that mean, what does that imply, how do you see yourself, what does it mean to come of age in France, to have my perspectives for the future, do I have any at all...

Where does your elaborated language come from?

I don’t think it’s elaborated. It’s only,

if you want to play with words, you need some material. It’d be difficult for me to play with the vocabulary if I could not actively use but 50, 60 idioms. I make alliterations, that’s the cheap artistic side of the thing besides the message. Because I want you to see some form of mastership.

Me, that’s the Russian puppets, I stick ‘em together and pull ‘em apart, it’s like Rubik’s Cubes.

The most amusing thing for me is, to play with the words and to say something at the same time, that’s my credo somehow.

Where do you get your inspirations from?

When I was young I mimicked, I copied the Americans that I was digging, or the French I was digging, but today it’s a lot vaster. Today the inspiration, it’s material, you find it everywhere. I don’t see inspiration like a guy who waits for things to descend from heaven. No, it’s the daily food, it’s how you switch on your critical sense, how you confront yourself with the daily life, with culture,

with the social facts… I watch TV, I feel like spitting on it, I feel like knocking someone down, I bluster, I dance, whatever. A book is the same, it creates a reaction, a film the same, it creates a reaction, that is a reflection, and from there, what do you do with all this? One day you are in front of your paper and then, I don’t know how, everything comes in place, in order. So there is this mess, but you try organizing the mess. I don’t take it like working in a laboratory, it’s rather to be alert.

I’ve got the impression inspiration is to be alert.

does not, should it have one?

Does rap have a mission? No, I guess like all art forms, the only one it might have is to try and render people less stupid if possible. But what culture is requested today in general, is entertainment. Be it cinema, or music, there is always that slice of entertainment. I myself don’t necessarily request music or the cinema to entertain me. I like it if it touches me, but I don’t care at all if it’s funny or not, or entertaining.

I only want that it jolts something in me.

Does rap have a mission, or, if it

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But I’m not talking about rap only, so be it rap or something else, the only mission is to render people less stupid if possible.

Can you explain the concept of “rap of the sons of immigrants”?

As I explained to you earlier, there is this unlove after all, between the kids of the immigrants and France.

All this isn’t settled, there is a kind of divorce with a conjugal problem to be solved, there is a hate-love, there is an attraction-repulsion. And so, with the buddies of La Rumeur (3) , we made “rap of the sons of immigrants.” But note that this does not necessarily include only Blacks and Arabs. I want to say that the Whites that live in the suburbs [cité] are just as fucked up as we are. If you take them out of their frame, they are exiled just as our parents.

So this was above all my reason for not calling it “French Rap” - not having to pronounce the word “France”.

With respect to that effect of love and unlove between France and us. When you go abroad, how do you feel?

Strangely you say you come from France, and then your points of reference are in France, you are a person from France, your family is in France, you like to eat Camembert and baguette. All of a sudden you swank less. Yes, you are French, of course. Then you feel it also because France is the place where you

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live whatever comes, even if politically or historically there are lots of unspoken things, things that are left in suspense. In twenty or thirty years of your life you cannot deny that you have references, cultural references, alimentary references, affective references, they are here.

Now yes, the colonial history of France, yes I have a big problem with it, a very, very big problem. Today look, who is pointed at with the finger, qualified as illegal immigrants [sans-papiers] which are hunted as if we were on a safari. There are deportations of children, horrible things that are going on. 50 years, 60 years after the first decolonisation, it’s super horrible, as if the decolonisation had never existed.

Well in “Dans Nos Histoire” you speak of the “heart under armour”. Casey, a person with a great sensibility disguised by a hardcore rap.

Yes, you can qualify it a little like that. Now it’s just an image. I think this is something that you develop as well if you come from a context which is a little rougher. You develop a certain sense of prudence, you can not show all. But yes, I am very sensible. Sensibility is not a handicap, that’s even rather an advantage, but you have to manage the sensibility though.

And then, I live in concrete, I live in the banlieue. In the banlieue surrounded by concrete you have to be careful, you can not be a blue flower, romantic like that, or be walking on clouds. After all its an environment of hyenas, so you have to be careful, you have to zigzag. So it’s a bit that, the image of the “heart under armour”.

In several tracks you are talking about slavery and its importance in the culture of the Antilles. Can you give a short briefing, explaining for those who don’t know the history?

Well okay, we could go back to the

early history of the Antilles, but Martinique was originally a wild island that became populated by Indians coming from Venezuela and who called themselves Arawacs. Later Christopher Columbus debarked at our shores, he sacked the Indians to make more space but abandoned that later because they had no one to work on the land, so he wasn’t very clever. They said to themselves, together with the Portuguese and the Spanish, well maybe we will find someone who’d be ready to work, and why not for free, for the free love of labour. So since they had no one, they came to take with force Africans, to gently ask to board the boats. They disembarked on the Antilles and that’s more or less the genesis of the people of the Antilles, that is Blacks, Africans, Whites and after the abolition of slavery in 1848 people from India came over. We also have Lebanese people and this whole mixture, this total mess, makes the Creole people, that is an extremely mixed people. So that’s it.

The importance of that history throughout your lyrics?

The importance of slavery, even without talking about my lyrics, throughout our lives and our modes of living. Slavery has been recognized with much hesitation in France, finally because a delegate from the Antilles, Christiane Taubira (4) , has given her all to fight it through.

So it has been recognized in 2001.

The importance of that is, that it creates a complex society where it can be very tense between Blacks and Whites on the Antilles. Its very cheerful, you drink punch, you are in the sun, but on a confrontation between Black and White the mood can change very quickly.

In the administrative hierarchy it’s like in the colonies, the higher you go the whiter it gets. The Police Prefect on the Antilles, who is the highest representative of the police,

is white. The members of the general council are white, the judges of the chamber of commerce are white, the publishers of the newspapers... This is very cliché, but that’s reality, the reality of a colony.

Can you describe the style of the banlieue nord? What are the positive, the negative points when you say “je reste hardcore et hostile comme les rues de ma ville, j’aime mon code postal et son style…”? [“I stay hardcore and hostile like the streets of my town, I like my postal code and its style...”]?

Well okay... the banlieue nord. I wan-

ted to make a track about it because the 93 (5) is quite particular after all with respect to all the other départments. So first it’s a red district, a working class district, actually less and less red, but a district of struggle, and then above all, I think it is one of the places in the Île-de-France [Greater Paris] where you find the most concrete.

And it is there as well where you find the most ethnic groups per square meter. And that in turn reminds me of the Antilles, that is to say that on a confined space, there are tons of ethnic groups, which are obliged to live more or less together. And now like on the Antilles,

this is lucky or unlucky and the both at the same time, that means, it’s a mess. So now here’s the thing where I start to like it; that the banlieue nord becomes very Creole.

So it’s a special district, and there are things I like and things I can’t stand. What I like is the people I find there, a certain self-mockery. What I like about the small people or about those folks, is that they transform the daily life through joking, you totally poke fun at what is happening to us. So there is all this, and then there is all that what I dislike, for instance the fascination for dough, for success, for a certain image of

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ambitions and a way to stay docile to their conditions of life. Because all this renders us docile, the race for consumption and success renders us docile after all, it freezes reflection. And then there is also a blatant leak of solidarity. Everyone has hassles with one another and stabs knives in one another’s back without any problem. It’s really like the lions in a cage that devour one another.

Yet finally the banlieue nord is very, very young. Where France grows old, where France declines, the banlieue nord is the youngest départment of them all. It is there where it repopulates and it repopulates with wogs, with métis. Nowadays you see couples, Moroccans with a spouse from Martinique, who have children.

A Vietnamese buddy, he is together with a Madagascan. That one is an Arab, he goes with a Black. Things you would not have imagined twenty years before, you could have been killed for a thing like that. But now, even the generation of the parents, they evolved as well. They adopted a mode of living, a Creole mode somehow, where you are together and you mix up. So what is currently happening in France is, that France is actually “antillising”.

Casey and the media...did you have bad experiences with the media, press or journalists?

No, I wouldn’t say bad. My relation to the media is rather something personal. I guess I just don’t like to compel myself. I do not feel obliged to play that game, to give all those interviews. I do what appeals to me and when I feel like it. Because today, in the music business, it’s considered like a “must”, and me, I don’t like the “musts.” There are things that I don’t do, that’s not even big consideration, it’s just I don’t feel like doing it.

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I think she (Jee) asked that question because of your track...

Ahh, “Une L’âme Dans Ma Veste” [“A blade in my jacket”]! That’s a little caustic piece. It is to say that, yes indeed, in the media I also met some big arseholes. Among the radio moderators, the journalists or even the artists, I met some really stupid arseholes on four paws, seriously. That means if you watch them it’s like a comedy. So this piece is a little bit about that. Just to say, yes, from time to time you feel like beating up a radio moderator, some stupid jerk, or a journalist or a smart ass artist ... but it’s just a caustic piece.

What’s the message behind “Ma Haine” [“My Hate”] and what about this gap between “Ma Haine” the lyrics and “Ma Haine” the clip that you made.

Ok so, the video because well, that is part of when the three of us are together, me with my two other buddies, with Anfalsh, we don’t know why but it is true, when we are together we are gore. We like that Z movie frenzy, we like that cheap exposure of violence, we like that. So the clip is a little bit that. And then the text in it self... yes, it was me who made it. I wanted to make a declaration of love, but to my hate. That is where my reflection started, from that anger. But if you try to understand, and you put your reflections on top, this is sane. So I wanted to write a nice text, a beautiful declaration to myself, to that feeling that emotion, that has overwhelmed me so often and which has also allowed me to progress. I did not only progress through love and tenderness, that’s not true. I progressed through anger and I hope I will always know anger and outrage. Because for me, it’s all about bringing it to a level of reflection.

The day when I become

dull, when I stop looking behind the things, when I settle in a certain comfort where I stop questioning things, that is when I have no more outrage nor anger, I think that day I’m not too far from death.

On stage. The audience of Casey is not necessarily Hip Hop only...

Because today, what is Hip Hop in France? That’s Skyrock [commercial Hip Hop radio], honestly, I am proud not to have that shitty audience.

Maybe they don’t wear all their caps backwards and they don’t spit on the floor, but it is a big pleasure to see those intelligent, mature people.

I don’t know, I think it’s already a big chance that those people come to listen.

As a matter of fact, they are very mixed, really, you’ve got everything. There are pierced people, working class people and others who are not at all working class.

You’ve got gays, lesbians, it’s a mess but that is what I like. It’s a pleasure to see those marginalised people, physically or mentally marginalised. You feel those people want to think different, to live different, it’s awesome!

So you are surprised after all?

Yes. When you are rapping, you rap and it’s only after that you look out.

But then look at today’s rap, what is it? That’s kiddy rap. I do rap, I am 33 years old, and I do rap, I think, with a certain reflection. A certain youth likes me well. I think my generation, 25, 30 it’s about that, and then [people] from everywhere. Rockers like me, I’ve got something with the rockers, they dig me, and that’s cool, because I dig Rock. So that was a discovery as well. And the Punks like me. I was in St. Etienne which is a huge meeting place of Punks and

Anarchists, we got along super well.

I’ve got a new project with a group called “Zone Libre”, Noir Desir (7) style, which already worked with La Rumeur. But we really staged a band together. We’re making an album with Marc Sens, Serge TeyssotGay and Cyril Bilbeaud. And there will be me and Hamé - it will be called “Zone Libre vs Casey”. So there’s a disc, recorded by people who share the same outrage.

There are people who live the same thing, but with different codes, and still I have more points in common with those people than with some of the rap folk. Just because you make the same music doesn’t mean there is affinity. For me, what creates affinity, is a vision of the world, a way to ponder, to transcend the scars or the scab, that is where I find me. And then, even aesthetically I know I like the stuff that digs in the caves, that digs tunnels where there is no light, that touches me.

Strangely, when there is no more hope, that affects me... The stuff that is too bright, too colourful, too pastel, that worries me, that really frightens me. I think the most interesting thing about humans is our cracks. It is from there that you establish real relations. It’s rare that you become friends because, yo, you like toffee, hey, me too. It’s more profound than that. *

(1) Radio Nova from Paris is known for broadcasting alternative music distinct from the mainstream. It plays a central role in popularizing Hip Hop in France. However, it was not until after 1998 that it was received outside of the capital.

(2) The island of Martinique is a French overseas department in the Eastern Careabbean Sea. (3) La Rumeur is another French rap group closely related with Casey’s group, Anfalsh.

(4) The French “Slave Trade” act from May 21, 2001 commonly known as the Taubira Act, recognizes the Atlantic slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity. Christiane Taubira, deputy of the National Assembly, initiated it.

(5) 93 is the number of the département Saine-Saint-Denis in the north of Paris.

(6) Noir Desir is probably the best-known French rock band ever. Their guitarist Serge Teyssot-Gay is also a member of Zone Libre.

THE BANLIEUE BECOMES VERY CREOLE

Please read the original french interview on www.anattitude.net www.myspace.com/caseyofficiel

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FEMINIST, NOT EXACTLY, ACTIVIST YEAH RIGHT!

TONI BLACKMAN words by Liz Gomis 2009 photography by Eric Ryan Anderson 2006

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Toni Blackman is one of the only women who can be proud to be a “Hip Hop Ambassador.” Who would have thought that this could be an occupation, I mean a “real” occupation… Since when did Hip Hop have its own official state figures? But in 2001, the U.S. State Department’s American Music Abroad Program named a woman to educate the world on the principles of true Hip Hop. And guess what, she’s still here. Probably because she’s doing a great job! She goes by the name of Toni Blackman and you probably heard of her as a poet or a femcee. She’s all of that, but she is also a fierce activist always finding the right words to explain the place of women in music and in life in general.

Meet coach Blackman, the woman who’s able to wake up in you all the confidence you need to be a strong, proud and accomplished woman. She could have been a social worker, but instead she chooses words and melodies to spread the universal messages of peace, love, unity and being proud of who you are. She said one day that “music in its repetition can act like meditation,” and that power helps to communicate with people. So her work consists of coaching artists to help them find what’s best inside of them and finding the right words to translate the right feelings.

Doing a job like this requires one to go beyond the title of ambassador, it requires one to be involved with the heart. In this position, Blackman traveled all across the world, even in dangerous areas such as Congo during the war a few years ago. And she brought with her dedication, respect and comprehension. Simple principles that help individuals crossing any cultural borders.

Since 2001, Blackman has been making bonds between Hip Hop artists from the U.S. and the rest of the world, in what is known as the Hip Hop diaspora. In a certain way her work consists of opening the mind of thousands of kids and grown-ups in the U.S., who had no idea that the double H was so strong outside of the U.S. And for those kids in Africa or Asia who are only exposed to the MTV Base of Hip Hop, she brings them where they didn’t expect, exploring the culture by another prism far from their usual perspective.

The U.S. Department by this mission takes all the positivity that exists in true Hip Hop and turns it into a social way to create a global consciousness of positivity. Who could blame them for that? But this raises questions. What is true Hip Hop nowadays? And who are true Hip Hop artists?

Blackman is that guarantee that you’ll get the right education on the history and evolution of Hip Hop. She breaks down how it influences our daily lives;from wardrobe style to blasting music in big cars, to holding cyphers on the street corners. Hip Hop is a way of life and we have to defend it. Haters will try and say that it is a genre of music based on violence and people see in the media what appears to be alucrative business based on nothing but the glory of money, power and sex.

But Hip Hop at it’s roots is more conscious than that and because this is unknown to many people, Blackman must also act as the ambassador for the respect and dignity of women. Always involved in panel discussions about how we created a macho world where girls are always objectified. She stands strong and delivers the same message, which can be “Girls you got the power, use it in the right way. You won’t get respect by showing your tits. We understand that life can be hard, but it’s better to use words than what your mama gave you!”

She’s educating masses without any notion of proselytism. When she teaches an idea or something, she allows you to decide what you think it means to do the right thing. We all know that there isn’t one universal truth. Truth is about being real, just like Hip Hop, genuine and respectful. Blackman understood that, that’s why since 2001 she’s been running the streets, countries, hotel halls, official offices, shaking hands, gathering people and bringing them to her universe of words and wiseness.

It’s a hard task, but she probably does the best job in the world but it only takes ONE woman to make a better world. We know that! www.toniblackman.com

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“THE WOMAN IN HIIP HOP WHEN I WAS GROWING UP WERE STAUNCH AND HAD SUCH A STRONG MESSAGE”

O S S A “I W D E S S E S B O O Y O Y H WIT K C A B $ AND BO$ , Y A D E IN TH A D H T I W ALONG E S U A C E B BRAT, T ’ N E R E THEY W L R I G Y L R I G D L U O C I AND RELATE.” interview by Jee photography by Sloane Roccisano 2009

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M.A.F.I.A.

I‘M A VIBE BUILDER! OR A VIBE MAKER! I GUESS MY SUCCESS LIES IN PLAYING MUSIC THAT PEOPLE GET DRUNK AND LOOSE TO, HAHAHA! M.A.F.I.A. is perhaps Melbourne’s hardest working female Hip Hop DJ. She has supported De La Soul, Ghostface Killah, Dizzee Rascal, etc. and she knows how to make the ladies dance while the fellas follow! M.A.F.I.A., the real Hip Hop junkie, started her Hip Hop career as “Fluoro Breaker” in the early 80s after falling in love with Boogaloo Shrimp from Breakin’. As Sneaker Freaker’s first lady, she is kickin it hard for the ladies. ...and if you are somehow involved in “female Hip Hop” you cannot avoid her, someday, somewhere, you will meet her, because M.A.F.I.A. is all over.

Please enjoy our two hour chat with a smile on your face.

Hi M.A.F.I.A., did you just come back from deejaying? Is it middle of the night?

It’s 11:24pm I had an early set tonight. I have another one at 2 am.

Ok so we have to rush!

It’s all good.

To start with the first thing... M.A.F.I.A.

is always smiling on photos...

I never leave home without my smile. I’m probably the happiest person you’ll meet, not in a “I want to smash your head in you’re so happy”, but I guess I’m truly blessed to be doing what I love. It’s a well-known fact that music stimulates the deepest emotions in our soul, and Hip Hop goes beyond that. It takes over your whole body and takes you to another place (without sounding too wanky!)

Plus I love having my photo taken! But I’m not up on my sexy, so I just go for retarded cuteness – which usually entails my tongue hanging half way down my face. I swear, it’s a reflex action!

Who is M.A.F.I.A.?

M.A.F.I.A. is an embodiment of what Hip Hop means to me. She’s an alter ego that has somewhat come into my life unexpectedly like a whirlwind. I never knew I wanted to be a DJ. I knew I wanted to be infamous. I studied to be an actor, and it was something I wanted to do all my life - be on

stage and become different characters. But the more I performed, the less I felt inclined to play other people. I found myself way more interesting, and I’ve never been one to shy away from the spotlight. I guess I wanted to start exploring who I truly was, rather than escape and become another person. That’s when it all started to blossom for me.

You started being an actor... I didn’t know that. I just read that you wanted to be a comedian.

Hahahaha! Yeah well I’ve always loved making people laugh... it’s my lifelong mission to make people shit their pants with laughter! Yeah, I began acting at around 11 years old. I’m not even sure what drove me to it, but as a child I never had a minute to spare between gymnastics, calisthenics, piano, violin, recorder, acting, dance, tennis and the list goes on! I’ve just realised why I’ve always been a workaholic! I loved acting with all my heart! It’s a tough business and I did it for over 15 years, but it doesn’t pay the bills.

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How have you been in this business for over 15 years?

I’m 36 this year, I started at 11 and quit at around 26 years old! That’s around 15 years baby. I’m old, I’ve just never looked it!

Me too... But you started out as a b-girl when you got into Hip Hop, right?

Yeah, once again it all happened around 11 years of age. What a big year for me! It’s funny you ask, because the person who got me into Hip Hop, my childhood friend Simon, died 10 years ago to this day from a brain tumour and my mum just asked me this morning to write a memorial for him. All I could think to write was - it was because of him that I discovered this incredible culture that I became so immersed in. He was the kid across the street that was into everything. So when Hip Hop hit hard, he got sent a cassette of the Rock Steady Crew and a “How To Breakdance” record with the instruction booklet. We sat there along with our other friend Bradley and perfected all the moves.

Simon was Baby Legs, Bradley was Body Rock and I was Fluoro Breaker.

I was so ahead of my years with that name! Being a gymnast, I picked the moves up with incredible ease - it was like second nature! We would go in every competition (which were very few and far between in my hometown of Adelaide) - but we consistently won.... probably because I was the only girl who could do backflips and floor work.

Wow that’s going back 25 years ago now! So did you go directly from breaking to deejaying?

Oh no there was a lot of time in bet-

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ween until I hit the ones and twos.

The turning point came when I was asked to work in a record store I had been hounding for 4 years to hire me. At the time, the acting was becoming harder to book, so I weighed up my options - steady paycheck, or live week to week with not a cent! $crilla [the recordstore] won out of course! Working at the record store, I amassed an incredible collection in a span of 5 years. I’m talking original pressings of every Hip Hop 12” you could think of. Because we were a second hand store, a lot of older peeps would come in selling their sons and daughters collections not knowing what they were worth or what the records were. Their kids had left home, and left them with their out of date vinyl. I literally had my pick of every dope piece of wax that came in that door for like $1 a piece. Luckily for me, no one else at the joint was into Hip Hop, so I went bananas. I moved to London in 2001 - now that’s a vinyl buyers market!

The amount of wax I copped there was incredible. I worked at Selfridges at the adidas concession, and there was a DJ booth set up near my section. One day I went over to put a record on and management came running over like “get away from there, it’s for DJs only” - I basically lied and said I was a DJ and within a week, I was playing all this vinyl I had bought and became the in-house DJ! I had started to play gigs before I left for London, but it was basically for shits and giggles... nothing serious.

You learnt how to deejay in London?

Yeah I was there from 2001-2003. It’s where I pretty much learnt to DJ! I remember, one day at Selfridges there was a clan of guys standing around me going, “cmon mix in a joint!” and at the time I couldn’t mix for shit, so I just faded a song in and they booed me so hard. So that was the time I said to myself, you need to step yo’ game up!!!! And I did and

I’ve been ‘bringin’ it’ ever since.

Your DJ concept is “make the girls dance, the guys will follow.”

Yep! That’s correct. Not many DJs know how to play for the ladies, they are so locked into tricking out sets and showing off to their mates or other blokes. Not all guys are like that,

but I can’t stand watching a dude bust a whole lot of technical shit into a set when all the girls are just standing at the bar twiddling their thumbs while the guys stand around the DJ like it’s a BBQ and salivating over his scratches.

But listening to your mixes, you are not playing underground Hip Hop anymore, only mainstream, why?

I started off DJng strictly underground. But at the end of the day...

My job is to entertain the crowd.

And most clubs I play at now are not specific to Hip Hop. I play a lot of festivals, rock gigs, and parties where people want to hear party jams. It doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the underground or listen to it, I just crossed over (or as some might say, sold out). Regardless, if the girls are dancing and saying “I remember this jam!” my work is done. It’s unbelievable how profound an affect music has on people. I have yet to play a set where I am NOT thanked at the end of my gig or told how much fun they have had. That just means I’m doing my job right.

You are supporting big Hip Hop gigs?

Yeah, I’ve done a Dizzee Rascal tour,

AS SPINDERELLA WAS THE FIRST FEMALE DJ I EVER SAW THAT MADE ME SAY “I WANT TO DO THAT!” Hip Hop is ... 25

Snoop Dogg, Ghostface Killah, A-Trak, Kid Cudi, De La Soul, and many more.

I play a lot of big name festivals - I’m great at warming up a crowd and getting them involved. I’m a vibe builder! Or a vibe maker! I guess my success lies in playing music that people get drunk and looose to hahaha!

Yes you are, definitely! What is the one track that always makes the ladies dance?

For me - the jam that will always get the crowd (and me, big time!) loose is Kelis “Trick Me” – an R&B track, but hella magic none the less.

Hip Hop wise - “How Many Licks” (Lil’Kim) gets all the girls crazy as well as the standard “Single Ladies” etc. Unfortunately a lot of the new joints dropping at the moment lack any soul and grit, so I constantly look to the old school to satisfy not only myself, but the crowds. I’m in love Queen Latifah... if only the crowds appreciated her as much as I do!

Do you also host your own parties?

Yeah I’ve been running my own nights for years now. I’m trying to steer away from that, because it’s exhausting and I’m over promoting nights – it takes a lot of energy, and realistically if I can get to a point where my promotion is simply having my name on a flyer, then I’m happy. I hate bombarding people and forcing them to come see me play – it’s up to you! Do what you want, if you’re down then sweet - come, if not, I’m cool that way too!

It’s finished now?

No, I still run two nights in Melbourne.

“Hoochie Mama” and “N.O.T.O.R.I.O.U.S.” both of which pretty much run themselves and have an inbuilt crowd that constantly changes and evolves. But I definitely like playing other peoples parties!

M.A.F.I.A., the workaholic. “Never not

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working”, “do it yourself, succeed in yourself”, are you promoting yourself a lot?

This is true! I can’t stand waiting around for shit to happen. I make it happen and I work my ass off for it. A lot of people will never understand that. I’ve been living and breathing this culture since ‘83 (even before). It’s not something I really need to broadcast to the world - I’m not about braggin, I’m about working.

Hard work will warrant bragging rights, but until I’m right up there and djng around the world, then I can start braggin’. I think I’ll be too old by then to care though!

I know what you mean...

Hahah, I love where you are getting these quotes from. I live so much in the moment, and my mouth speaks faster than my mind, so I forget a lot of what I say! But yes, it is true.

I’m a great networker and there is a fine line with pushing shit up people’s asses and coming off as an ego maniac, and really believing in yourself enough to know you deserve what you work for!

You are a huge collector! What was first, the sneaker collection or the job at Sneaker Freaker magazine?

The sneaker collection came way before the job.

Who knew my life would be written by a collection of trainers!

You also have a big collection of tees, right?

Oh my god yes!

How many?

I’ve sold shitloads off at swapmeets and markets, for like $5 a pop. But I used to have well over 700. I have probably around 400 now.

What the fuck, is that true?

I’m constantly getting rid of them as I get more. Yes! It’s ridiculous, but its my style and I never do things by halves plus I get a lot of promo product sent my way fortunately and I wear every tee at least once.

Do you have a favourite tee at the moment?

I collect a lot of vintage Fido Dido, 90210 and black Bart Simpson tees.

Fave tee?

Yes! Mmmnnnnn there’s too many! I have my own tee “MUFF DADDY DONE DID IT”.

I did two runs of them, but that was

in 2005...

I’m pretty much losing interest in collecting.

about, because I have always admired his designs, and I was fortunate to go to the adidas 60th party in Singapore and also DJ at the Sydney party, so was hooked up nicely with the first collection. I do get a lot of product free from working at Sneaker Freaker which is fantastic, but I always make sure to wear everything that I am given. I appreciate everything that I receive!

Ooops, how?

That’s cool!

Only because the scene got so oversaturated with product that the quantity outweighed the quality. Sneakers I will always love, and there’s always a pair I need. I just pulled the trigger on the new range of Jeremy Scott’s which I’m stoked

Yeah, I need to do that! I’m actually starting to save so I can finally come over and see all my international ladies. And throw down a M.A.F.I.A. partaaaaaaaaay!

What is your biggest passion for, sneakers, shirts or mags?

Oh man.... that’s way too hard! Actually to tell you the truth...

Please!

That would be dope!

I’ve been dreaming about it for over 3 years now! One day, one day....

What do you exactly do at Sneaker Freaker magazine?

I’m the online content producer for the website. My main job is creating all the content for online, so most of the stuff you see on the front page of the site, I produce - from interviews, newsflashes, new releases. I also help out on the mag with interviews and ideas. I work very closely alongside my editor in creating only the best content we can for both online and print. It’s a fantastic opportunity and I am a very lucky lady to be in this position. Anything I can do to not only further the Sneaker Freaker brand, but the female snea-

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ker scene, I try to do. Check out our Sneaker Freakette section at the site, if you’re into sneakers!

Do you think there needs to be a bigger focus on women in Hip Hop in the media?

It’s a difficult question because I have found it so hard to get interviews with ladies, for some reason or other!

Why is that?

I’m not 100% sure. Maybe it has something to do with their strict management. Maybe it’s because the media will always go the “sex sells” route which is just so predictable and sometimes detrimental to the talent. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a female MC or any female in rap that wasn’t subjected to some sort of sexuality angle, copping a makeover, losing weight, looking purrrdy purrrrdy and becoming a shell of what they formally were. I understand you need to look good for the media, but who are you really?!

It’s also been my experience with this issue. I had so many problems trying to get in touch with some ladies. They do not respond, it’s so boring.....

Yeah this is what I mean,

there is no real sense of these ladies wanting to talk or spread knowledge.

And unfortunately, just like the sneaker scene, there aren’t that many of us compared to the men - who are always willing to talk about themselves anytime they can! I’ve had a lot of issues getting women to respond to emails, or interviews, whereas the blokes are on it like that!

It’s like I was reading Missy Elliott on

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her twitter going on about how she may have to shut her account because her record company and PR said it wasn’t a good thing for her to be on there 24/7, discussing what she is doing, giving her fans access to her life. These women are so controlled!

Everybody knows M.A.F.I.A., even on the other side of the world. You have a really good network going on there!

Really? Hahah, I’m always surprised to hear that! But yeah I spread the message loud and proud! And I’m always down to connect with likeminded, talented hard working people that share my passion for the scene and its culture.

Thats so good! Before finishing I want to know more about your personal focus on Hip Hop within the last 25 years?

Being that I’m of the first generation of Hip Hop kids, I play a lot of old school jams because that is what Hip Hop is to me. I’m not inspired by the newer ish... where are our Queen Latifahs, MC Lytes, Salt-N-Pepas, J.J.Fads etc? I love Jean Grae, Nonchalant, Jane Doe, Eternia, Kid Sister, Amanda Blank and Aussie ladies like Killa Queenz, MC Trey and Little G, but it’s rare to hear their music played out down under. The woman in Hip Hop when I was growing up were staunch and had such a strong message, I was so obsessed with Yo-Yo and Bo$$ back in the day, along with Da Brat because they weren’t girly girl and I could relate. Even TLC, those girls changed up my game forever. And we can’t forget Lauryn Hill! Where is she now?

God I loved her with all my heart, I’ve been obsessed with her since before “Blunted On Reality” dropped.

But some of these old school MCs are back on stage!

Yeah we just don’t get to see it down under unfortunately. I’m trying to bring out Spinderella (Salt-NPepa’s DJ). I actually think it’s gone

through. As Spinderella was the first female DJ I ever saw that made me say “I want to do that!” I hit her up on twitter, and put her in touch with good mates of mine who tour massive Hip Hop acts down under. So fingers crossed she’ll be here soon.

I mean that would be massive for us!!!!

Good luck for that. Where have you seen Spinderella back in the day?

I saw her when I was 17 in Melbourne. It was the most amazing show I’d ever seen, she had three turntables and it just blew my mind! I was like, what’s the other turntable for?

And before long she was cutting and scratching over all three, and my jaw was on the floor, along with a shit load of drool!

Cool baby, have you ever spun outside Australia?

Um, only in London when I lived there.

But I’ll be getting my world tour on very soon. I’m trying to hook up a manager and hopefully we can work something out. I’ve managed myself up until now, but it’s gettin hectic now! It’s been a long time coming to get my booty overseas, so the time is now baby!

Good luck! Where are you spinning later?

Oh I’m at Miss Libertines tonight, in the city, a massive party.

What’s your time now?

Its 1:22 * www.pandapartypics.com

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I HAVEN‘T BEEN HERE SINCE DAY ONE, I HAVE BEEN HERE SINCE THE NIGHT BEFORE. THAT‘S A BIG DIFFERENCE! To introduce Miss Shanté there is no need for words! Shanté is a living legend, she wrote Hip Hop history overnight at age 14 because she wanted to have a pair of jeans. And now, 25 years later, she is professor Dr. Shanté. Finally after some ups and downs That Fucking Sara, Stef The Cat, and Andrea caught up with her in Berlin during the We B*Girlz festival... this interview is legendary!

Sara: Actually we are almost the same age. When you started in ‘84 I was dancing Electric Boogie to the Rock Steady Crew…

I think I started in ‘85 basically and I was 14 years old. My first record was “Roxanne’s Revenge” which was produced by a DJ by the name of Marley Marl. My attention was never to make records, because I didn’t want to be a rapper. Sometimes I question whether or not ... I never question the talent, because that has always been there. So my reasons for even leaving Hip Hop was because, when I find that you are not treated properly or things are not done correctly... I don’t like to stay in difficult circumstance. I had a difficult childhood where I was in a position where I could not leave.

Sara: But you moved away from home quite early... right?

Yes, absolutely at 12 years old. When you are young and you are in a dif-

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ficult circumstance that you cannot just up and move from… As an adult my tolerance is very short for uncomfortable situations. And I think the Hip Hop industry was an uncomfortable situation for me.

Sara: How did you get in there in the first place?

It was sheerly by accident. It was a fact that Marley Marl happened to be a very well known DJ who worked at the Sergio Valente Jean factory.

And all I wanted was a pair of jeans. So I didn’t do it because I wanted to be famous, I just wanted a pair of jeans. I said look, I’ll do a rhyme, I always believed in the barter system. Still today I believe a fair exchange is no robbery.

And before you knew it, it was just an overnight phenomenon. It was never that I wanted to make records or I wanted to be a rapper.

So when people come to me sometimes and say “I have a demo, how exactly do I break into the industry?”

I say to them very truthfully “honestly, I don’t know.” Like my career automatically spawned itself, literally. So I really couldn’t tell someone how to do that, but what I can instruct you on is, once you are in the industry, how not to go through the things that I went through. How to secure your publishing rights, how to make sure that you get your royalties… All those things that are really, really needed...

Sara: Yeah, that you probably didn’t care about, you just wanted your pair of jeans…

Exactly.

Sara: How do you feel about this wave of over 100 Roxanne records?

Roxanne-this, Roxanne-that, Roxanne’s mom, Roxanne’s sisters?

It spawned exactly 111 records...

Sara: Wow, do you remember how that felt, you were only 14 years old?

Honestly no. You have to take into consideration that when I was 14 years old I had my first child. Everything was a job from day one. It wasn’t what people would assume. I wasn’t this happy go lucky teenager who came across this stardom. I was just a young mom and that just hap-

interview by That Fucking Sara & Stef the Cat photography by Andrea Thal Berlin - 2008

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IF YOU CAN‘T GO AND STAND UP AGAINST A WALL AND MAKE A BEAT ON A FUCKING WALL AND SAY A RHYME AT THAT TIME, YOU ARE NOT HIP HOP AND I WILL NEVER ACCEPT IT.

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pened to be my profession.

Sara: When I listen to your lyrics I wouldn’t think that you were happy.

A lot of times, people will listen to my lyrics and you can see that I have a very aggressive tone. You wouldn’t think that someone that age and that popularity would necessarily have to have that type of tone. But I was living a very hectic life. And it showed and reflected in my music. I find it sometimes hard to even perform certain songs now, because like the Hip Hop has been so calm, that I really don’t see the need to be so angry.

Sara: When I saw your show here in Berlin I noticed that you took the lines out about MC Lyte in “Big Mama”.

It’s not that I took them out. My show is done in a really rapid, condensed mode of the whole Roxanne Shanté legacy. If I have 40 songs I only do 2 or 3 verses of each one. But I never had a problem with saying names, still until today. The show is so rapid from the moment that I step on stage, it’s so high impact that this is how I would like to keep it.

Sara: And I remember when I first heard that track and I remember the diss about MC Lyte, “ain’t no dyke behind the mic” and I was like „Ohh....“.

There is a line in there, where I said that a dyke shouldn’t pick up the mic, and the original version of it was a lot harsher. And not to attack anyone’s sexuality, but it was just a fact of being very hurtful in my approach. At that time that was something that a lot of females didn’t feel was something that they could come out and do and say, because we were teenage girls. And I just felt the need to tell everybody everything.

Sara: And it worked.

But it also opened up the doors and allowed a lot of other people to feel free in themselves and say finally “I am what I am.” because there is no secret. And there shouldn’t be.

Because whatever you hide, you hide because you are ashamed. And so if it comes to a fact of being ashamed then I am going to help you to attack that. I always have, that is just my nature.

Sara: There have been a lot of battles, there was this Juice Crew-BDB battle. I’m still laughing about the line that KRS-One sounds like a radio station. (“Now KRS-One, you should go on vacation, with that name soundin’ like a wack radio station…” - “Have a Nice Day”). How did that beef come between you guys?

At that time a lot of people were feeling that if they made a record about Shanté that was a way to break into the industry. So I had a lot of artists who at one time I may have even liked or respected, coming at me full fledged “Roxanne Shanté is only good for steady fucking” (“The Bridge Is Over” - BDP) just to antagonize to see if they could get me to engage in a battle with them. And at that time I was very aggressive and very angry so I took on all comments up to a point where I didn’t want to do it anymore. Not because, I couldn’t do it anymore, but because it was already etched in stone that I was going to go down in history as one of the greatest, and that was good enough for me.

Sara: Yeah, that sounds pretty nice.

Then you took a break, where you, unlike many rappers today, got an education. And today you are a doctor?

Absolutely, I use the Ph.D. as my travel prefix. Everything that is booked for me is always booked with Dr. in front. But when I get to certain venues it is not a requirement. Because I feel like when I‘m there and I’m on

stage that aspect or that part of my life is not what it is existing on stage. Don’t get me wrong: I am going always to be Hip Hop. Hip Hop is more than just an on and off job, that’s my culture. To some degree it is my religion. But there are times when I may not wear Hip Hop on my sleeve. And when I went back to pursue my education, that was a way of bringing some balance to my own personal life. Because I felt that people take advantage of you when they feel that you have no knowledge of certain things. And people can only pull the wool over your eyes for things you don’t know. Because if you do know then you can say, “no, wait that’s not true.” But if you only have someone leading you and telling you what to do then you really have no choice in a matter. So I felt the need to go back and pursue my education, because I was not going to be a pawn or a commodity without having some type of intelligence behind it. Education is just a key to making better choices, and with education you know that choices exist.

The more education I was able to achieve the clearer I was able to see what choices I should make. And one of those choices was to bow out gracefully and no longer participate in Hip Hop. Sara: When you were leaving the Hip Hop game a lot of stuff happened.

Nowadays, especially in the mainstream, it is not about knowledge and education, it’s just about getting money in the easiest way. How do you feel about that?

What has happened is, everyone in every facette has taken advantage

original material “Round 1” (12 inch) Spin Records 1985

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of Hip Hop without truly having a love for it. Everyone has seen it as a way to manipulate the system, to get money. It has even scratched over into the government. And in all reality their love is not Hip Hop. They are not Hip Hop. They don’t know what it is like to tour on a bus with 10 motherfucking people you may not even like. They don’t know what it is like to pick up a mic even when you are having a bad day and still make the crowd feel good. They don’t know what it is like to have to go into a record company, to wait and see if they are gonna give you a check.

They don’t know what it is like to go to the parks and spin on turntables.

Some of them don’t even know what turntables are. And then to say “Oh, I am an excellent representative of Hip Hop and I do this for the love of the culture” - it is not true, and it is horrible. And a lot of people decided to come and get involved in Hip Hop and have no talent. What do you bring to the table? You have to have some type of talent. And that is why Hip Hop is as congested as it is today. Because they squeezed their way into the whole realm of Hip Hop without having any structure as to what Hip Hop is. All of a sudden it is because you go to the best studios, because you have access to the best programs - that’s not Hip Hop. If you can’t go and stand up against a wall and make a beat on a fucking wall and say a rhyme at that time, you are not Hip Hop, and I will never accept it. If anyone should be able to have that type of opinion it should be me. I haven’t been here since day one, I’ve been here since the night before. It’s a big difference! So I have a right to pick and choose and say what I feel is Hip Hop and what is not.

Sara: Why do you think that the best selling rappers are like all these ... ...non-talented?

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Sara: Gangster - bla... they open their mouth and nothing comes out?

Because it’s a reflection of society. When you have TV shows where people intentionally mutilate and hurt themselves and people find it entertaining. We are in a time where there is the motherless and the fatherless child. A lot of us grew up in single parent homes where it was just the mom and no dad. But now you have children growing up and when they wake up one morning they realize they have been in foster care all their life with no mother or father. They don’t know what a hug is without the following of molestation. They don’t know what a kiss is without the following of being manipulated into something else.

A majority of our young ladies grow up to aspire to be video chicks. They don’t even say they want to be the rapper, they say when I grow up I wanna be in the videos. And that’s horrible. When did that become Hip Hop? When did the video chick become the most prominent female figure in Hip Hop? Sara: So you are not thinking about doing a new album?

No, I wouldn’t do another album. I enjoy being a legend. I wouldn’t tamper with that. A lot of people who could have been truly the greats mess it up by just doing too much too far.

Accept your time. Love it for what it was. Be involved in it for what it is. Be comfortable with who you are.

I am so comfortable with being Roxanne Shanté. I know there will never be another. You may have somebody

who might come along and the freestyle might be phenomenal, but there will never be another Shanté. So therefore I can embrace my sisters, because I am not worried about my position being moved. My whole legacy is etched in stone. You can’t do any “female rapper” without mentioning me. A lot of times people are very aggressive with each other because they are afraid of loosing their position. I have nothing to loose.

Sara: Are there any female rappers that you like, newcomers?

Eternia, she has a phenomenal stage presence. And Invincible has a very, very politcal edge to it, which is something that is also needed. So when I look at all these young ladies I say “Wow, this is incredible. I like the way they are”, because no one is the same. Everyone is totally different. And there is no need for any type of jealousy or feeling defensive, because everyone is in their own lane. I would never rap about politics because that is Invincible’s thing. I wouldn’t do storytelling because that is Eternias thing and I wouldn’t do the whole my-roots-real-soul-thing because that is Bahama’s thing.

Stef: I like the idea that Dr. Roxanne Shanté is bringing education to Hip Hop, ...

I already accepted a professorship, so I will be a professor at Alabama State University. (…) And what I’ve found on this tour is that so many things have not changed for females in Hip Hop. Things that I would have never expected to take place 20 fucking years later. 20 years later and still no control, still no forefront, everything is still separate, still the fellas get the big and the girls get the little. How is that?

Stef: Have you found an answer to the question “why has nothing changed during the past 25 years in Hip Hop?”

I found that lack of knowledge of power is a major problem with females in Hip Hop. And this goes not just with the entertainers or the artists or the performers, but even as the promoters or the producers. They don’t really understand, how much power they truly have. If you settle for less and you are supposed to represent me who does not settle for less then we are going to constantly have a problem. So therefore I am going to incorporate instruction as to, you can’t do that for me.

And because I care about them I can’t allow you to do that to them.

So now, it takes me out of the position of being an artist to being this alpha. I hate to use the alpha male image, but to being a lead dog on a sleigh to say, ”no, you are not taking us off the cliff.“ If for any reason the person leading the sleigh wants to go off a cliff, the dog stops. They automatically shut down. It is a scientifically proven fact. The alpha male feels that it is his job, because he is the only dog that can unhitch himself. He is at the front because he wants to be, but when he is ready to stop he stops and unhitches himself. All the rest follow in line. And it has been known that the lead dog has attacked the person guiding the sleigh in order to save his pack.

Leadership under any facette always feels it needs to be alpha.

But, in order to be a great leader, you must also know how to be a great follower.

Stef: And to pick your moments when to be each one.

Exactly. I think everything in life is made up of strategic moves. And because women act more emotionally, we always want to think of what the consequences are emotionally and this also places a big gap. But see, I have no consequences in Hip Hop. None. If you don’t like

it, send me home. I’ll find the airport on my own. I only travel with things that I can walk away from.

That is why I don’t travel with my kids in unknown situations, because I need to be able to walk alone should I have to, at any moment.

And a lot of women are afraid to do that. Instead, they are saying, no we are all going to stay here and lets just start together.

Why? When we can all go in different directions, and can cover five times as much ground if we split up. But then there is one who may feel that they are not strong enough to go off on their own path and need to stay close. I feel that women just don’t know their strength and that bothers me so much. Because I wasn’t called all types of bitches, I wasn’t snatching microphones and going through changes, but some of the things I went through in early Hip Hop for the video girl to be the major motherfucking... that just blows my mind. And another thing I’ve observed is that women have become very predatorial towards other women in the industry. And that shocks me.

Stef: Do you think that this is new?

For me it would be a new thing, because what I recall is there weren’t a lot of women in the industry, so we needed to be together. And every moment, when something was done it was done with consideration of what the next woman was going to experience. So if I had the experience with a piece of shit, I let the world know “He is a piece of shit,” don’t come over here, cause he’s piece of shit”. But now, women will move out of the way and say, “he got me so let him get her too.” How can you know that he is a rapist and let another young girl walk in his office when you know

Roxanne Shanté records courtesy of Jee

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that? It hurts me. How can you take advantage of your sisters?

Stef: But this is how the world works, how society is structured. When you look at who has which position in a company, who earns what amount of money, a woman still has to be twice as good. It is not only going on in Hip Hop… And you know what happens? These same women get into a position of alpha girl and become predatorial to the new girls who come along, because she feels like “I scratched and scritched in and out of here. So this is what I want her to do.”

And for a lot of people I bring out fear, so they don’t want me around. The reason I bring that intimidating fear is because I have no consequences.

So because of that, what are you going to do? “I’ll make sure nobody never plays your record.” You can’t do that, I’m etched in stone. “I’ll make sure you never work again.” Never work where?

Here? I wasn’t gonna, man. So where is your influence really gonna stretch?

No one derides Roxanne Shanté, because she is going to start a problem.

Stef: What is your Ph.D. on and what will your professorship be?

My Ph.D. is in psychology with undergrad studies in criminology. In my spare time I am a counselor and advocate for children in wrongful adoptions and misplaced foster care. I am now getting ready to sign up for the New York Law School to be a legal

guardian. It is going to take me approximately three years to attain a legal guardian degree, where I will actually be able to play as counsel for children who have no lawyers. Because I find that the judicial system for our juvenile justice system is horrible. And what they are doing is that they are incarcerating all our young kids because they don’t have any type of knowledge as to what they can and cannot do. And I will be a person to fully explain to them what the consequences are. Because I feel that if you fully explain to people what the consequences are their actions will be different.

Stef: And you are coming from a psychological point of view where the political agenda is in the background?

Exactly. I will actually be able to intertwine my whole experience. Because coming from Hip Hop actually allowed me to have a kaleidoscope vision. Where I am able to look at everything from every angle. From a runaway, from when I was abused as a child and I feel that I will be very, very helpful. I like to bring it down to layman terms.

Stef: Good luck for that.

Thank you, thank you. As for my professorship, I teach psychology 101.

But we also have a course on Hip Hop. And Hip Hop has now become a prerequisite for music industry and industry business. And a lot of different people want to learn about Hip Hop and I explain it on lots of different levels. And they leave my classes with a whole different view of Hip Hop and consequences. * www.myspace.com/roxanneshante

Roxanne Shanté “Have A Nice Day” Cold Chillin’ 1987

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ETERNIA

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One of the most charm ing perso nalit ies in all of Hip Hop, Etern ia is wide ly respe cted as one of Canad a’s forem ost lyric ists. Shatt ering all stere otype s, Etern ia’s aggre ssive style lies in stark contr ast to her femi nine appea rance , as well as the vulne rabil ity that lies with in her lifenarra tives . Liste ners are left with an equal dose of selfrefle ction in her conte nt, and empo werm ent throu gh her deliv ery. Etern ia has been opera ting under the radar for over a decad e, despi te a Juno- nomi natio n (Cana da’s versi on of the Gram my’s ) for her debut album , “It’s Calle d Life, ” six musi c video s, and exten sive touri ng throu ghout Canad a, the U.S., Austr alia, Europ e and Mexic o. Fresh off the recen t “Girl s Right s” tour with the 411 Initia tive for Chang e in schoo ls acros s Canad a, I was able to catch up with Etern ia to discu ss her most recen t proje ct, “AT LAST, ” with DJ Prem ier’s produ ction partn er, MoSS, as well as how she came up in the musi c indus try, her futur e goals , perso nal passi ons, and more . Not only am I a fan of Etern ia’s musi c, but the perso n behin d the musi c is truly an extra ordin ary soul… I belie ve anyon e who come s in conta ct with Etern ia can sense her innat e beaut y and appre ciate the love that she has for her fans and her craft . All this and more are the very reaso ns why

“MY FAVOURITE RAPPER WEARS A SKIRT...“ words & interview by DJ Sav*One photography by Angie Choi NYC - 2009

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photography by Eternia’s dad

How did Eternia the MC come to be?

When I was around 8-years-old in Ottawa, Canada (my birthplace) my brother brought home Hip Hop, in the form of NWA, 2 Live Crew, Public Enemy and LL Cool J on cassette tapes. Michael Jackson and Prince, too, but my mom threw those tapes out (*laughs*). My mother was a churchgoing woman, she was a woman of God and my father, who she was divorced from, was a nightclub owner and other things that I can’t say ... let’s just say he didn’t make his money legally, so I had both worlds growing up. I used to listen to Hip Hop and I was rapping at the age of eight.

I even have little childhood videos of me just spitting, so anyone who knew me, knew it was just a natural extension of who I was. My mother didn’t find it weird, because I always wrote poetry and I always spoke fast, so you add poetry and speaking fast, you get an MC! (*laughs*). I started writing my own stuff around 12-13 and I moved out of the house around 15. Kicked out of the house actually, because I was a bad kid, and Hip Hop became my life. So, whereas other young homeless girls might have turned to stripping, or drugs, or liquor, or prostitution,

Hip Hop was my religion, as corny as that sounds, it’s true, and my saving grace.

Basically, as soon as I moved out the house, I was moving around every 2 months for 2 years ... changed cities, changed addresses and the only thing that stayed consistent with me were the crews that were rapping;we were creating music together, ciphering, going on radio shows. I was everywhere, just rapping - I was in nightclubs at 16, not drinking but on the mic every week. The DJ would drop “Rock the Bells” and I would spit the same verse each time (*laughs*).

So from age fifteen on I definitely took rappin’ more seriously, I left school for 2 years, but went back at 17 and graduated with honors, then went to university, graduated on the Dean’s List. I always put school as a priority and I always wanted to get my education, but Hip Hop was the love of my life. So as soon as I graduated university, it was either pursue a career in music or a career in what I went to school for.

And truthfully, I woulda been in NYC

ten years ago if it wasn’t for my education, so I moved to NYC in 2005 and the rest is history. So yeah ... that’s the story of how this MC came to be...

How do you feel about the representation of women in Hip Hop, and where do you see yourself fitting into that equation?

People will often compare me to other female MCs; it’s just a liability of the business. It’s almost like there is no room for uniqueness or individuality, so it’s like, “Ok, she raps like this person,” or “she dresses like this person,” or “her voice sounds like this person”. This always used to boggle my mind and I never understood that, because I think that we are all different. Humans are different. That being said, one thing that I get asked about a lot is how I feel about the popular image of the hyper-sexualized female rapper. So it’s either: why do I not do that or would I consider doing that, or whatever. To be honest with you, these are things that I’m completely indifferent to. Meaning:

I would never sit down in a

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boardroom and construct an image... Like, “this is going to be Eternia’s image”. NO! What you see is actually how I dress, how I talk, and how I live.

If I was on a beach, suntanning, I would wear a bikini, but if I’m in the studio shooting a music video, no ... a bikini wouldn’t be what I’d be wearing! Ya know what I mean?! It’s that simple, but it’s not even a judgment on other chicks who do what they do, because let them do what they do.

There has to be room for everything in Hip Hop;there has to be a representation of every type of person and I am just one representation of a type of woman in Hip Hop. There is room for different representations, and mine is probably the most similiar, if you are gonna compare me (image-wise), to Lauryn Hill, because she can be very beautiful, womanly and feminine and yet never sell her sexuality. She’s definitely someone I looked up to when it came to how she represented herself, ya know what I mean?

So, don’t be surprised if you see me rocking a pretty dress, but that’s because that is who I am; it’s not an image thing and it’s definitely not me trying to sell myself... so don’t get all excited!

You do a lot of work with non-profit What kind of work do Q organizations. & A’s by DJ Sav One you do with them, and what motiphotography

by Helene Ehrlich vates you to do this?

I think one thing that’s really important for artists when it comes

to being honest, is talking about the things that matter to them on a personal level. When I do my work with “The 411 Initiative For Change”, we tour elementary and high schools, we bring them “edutainment” programs and the one that is nearest and dearest to my heart is “Girl’s Rights.” When people hear “Girl’s Rights,” they are like “Huh, what’s that?” It’s funny because in our culture, we are fluent with issues of racism or homophobia, but people don’t really think much about issues of gender and how women are impacted differently in societies around the world, strictly by virtue of just being born a woman. In 3rd world countries, obviously it gets a lot deeper because a lot of women don’t have access to education, a lot of women are killed either before birth or shortly after birth simply for being born a girl, and these things, because I’m a woman, are things I’m very passionate about. One thing I really care about is young girls’ self-esteem and their sense of self-worth.

That’s one subject we talk a lot about, because a lot of girls are not given the direction when they are younger to know what’s right, what’s wrong, what to expect, and what not to stand for, when it comes to when they face issues as young adults with males. And honestly, I don’t have all the answers, and girls ask me some really tough questions! On one of these “Girls Rights” tours I was on, a girl put up her hand and she said, “Have you ever been abused?” which is a question we get asked a lot and I always answer honestly because I’m there to

MY MOTHER DIDN‘T FIND IT WEIRD, BECAUSE I ALWAYS WROTE POETRY AND I ALWAYS SPOKE FAST, SO YOU ADD POETRY AND SPEAKING FAST, YOU GET AN MC! Hip Hop is ...

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answer that, so I say, “Yeah, I’ve been sexually assaulted more than once as a teenager,” but part of my learning experience is being able to share that with them and let them know how they can avoid certain things.

Another question that a girl asked me was, “What started this inequality between men and women? How did it start? Where did it begin?”

Can you imagine the depth of that question? It’s like, how do I rewind time and say that since the beginning of time, women were the first documented case of enslaved people on the planet, and yet, there are certain societies that are matriarchal, not patriarchal and women are going out hunting and gathering, while the men sit at home gossiping.

There are documented societies like that. I learn a lot on these tours, I am definitely not the expert, I don’t have all the answers, but I can say that the situation with women and girls around the world is very near and dear to my heart, for obvious reasons and that’s something I plan to continue talking about, writing about, performing, doing my music, and anybody who doesn’t care about these issues, are obviously people who don’t have a mother (that they love), or a sister that they love, because anyone with a woman in their life that they love should care about these issues.

Tell me about your new album project, “AT LAST”, with DJ Premier’s new production partner, MoSS...

So, I just finished an album called, “AT LAST,” produced exclusively by MoSS. If you don’t know who MoSS is, you’ll either find out when we drop the album or when MoSS produces a new Jay-Z single (*laughs*). MoSS is extraordinary, incredible;he’s like the Hip Hop hippie, which is what I like to call him. When you see pictures of us, you’ll know why, becauphotography by J.Grissette Photography 2008

se he’s like this 70s funkadelic cat that samples records that no one else would sample, because he goes digging in like the Czech Republic, in some dirty bin and sells those joints for like 5,000 euros - that’s MoSS! He’s a producer’s producer, a record collector, he’s definitely a unique character, an artist, and I always joke around that we look like brother and sister, so we’ll look good on the album cover (*laughs*). Basically, it was the first time I ever did an entire album with one producer, which is a really big deal for someone who has been recording for a decade. The theme of our album was… well, MoSS saw me perform in the summer of 2007, and how I was on stage is how he wanted do the entire record. So, think Ghostface: if Ghostface is doing a love song, he still sounds like Ghostface, he doesn’t all of a sudden sound all soft and pretty, he sounds like Ghostface. So that’s what we did. We kept it sonically consistent, so if you like one track on this album, you will like the entire album.

The experience was, at times, the highest of the high and the lowest of the low, but we always came out with mutual respect for each other.

We always felt high leaving the studio, that momentum, so the album, “AT LAST,” is like “at last! it’s done!”… or “at last! the album we’ve been wanting to create!”. MoSS said to me one day, and he didn’t even know I was ready to quit, he didn’t know I was ready to leave the biz, anyways he said to me,

“I want to make an album with you that when we are sick of doing this, when we wanna give up, we can play this album remember why we love Hip Hop and why we love what we do,” and that’s

the album that we made together.

What can we expect from you on this new album? What kind of sound?

Some artists are really concerned with what’s current, what’s hot, what’s poppin’, what’s on the charts, what will get the radio play... but yours truly and my producer, MoSS, we don’t care about any of that! (*laughs*). We made this album because we wanted an album that we’d be proud of making. We believe we have good taste, and we think there are thousands of people with similar taste (and I know that there are, I tour, so I know they are out there). We made an album for those people, who want genuine, real, vulnerable, boom-bap, traditional, east coast, sample-based, ya know... Hip Hop! Just genuine, good ol’ Hip Hop! So, sometimes people will ask, “What happens if someone doesn’t like your album?” Well, we didn’t make it for that person (*laughs*). We made this album for people with similar taste to our own, and people who like to listen to classics. Now, I’m not saying my album is a classic - I’ll wait for you to say that (*smiles*). I will say that we geared it around themed albums, where sonically everything just blends, like old Gang Starr records and Marvin Gaye. I mentioned Ghostface before, where no matter what, he sounds the same. So, again, if you like one song on our album, guaranteed you will like the whole album and that’s what we did, that’s what we made it for. I honestly can’t wait for the responses of people, because they are either gonna love this album or hate it, but MoSS and I went into the album like this: we don’t want any mediocre responses, no, “its ahh-ight,” we want people to either love it like, “this is the truth!” or hate it like, “I hate this sh*t!” and that’s fine by us, that’s

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all we want.

You’re known as being pretty aggressive on the mic. Where does that energy come from, and why are you so mad? (*laughs*) The interesting thing about Hip Hop is that people usually wait until something is on their mind that’s not necessarily positive in order to write.

There’s this theory that no one really wants happy Hip Hop, ya know what I mean? We wait until we’re mad, we wait until we’re sad, angry, pissed off, ready to beef, and then we write.

I am definitely a culprit, I do that and I did it a lot more 10 years ago.

I would wait until something would just infuriate me until I couldn’t take it anymore, and boom! I’d use writing as therapy. What that does is, it gives people a whole bunch of songs, where people are like, “Man, this girl is just depressed, she’s angry, she’s mean, she’s mad!” and then they meet me and I have this supergrin on my face and they are wondering what happened to the Eternia they know on record? (*laughs*). So, I think it’s important to explain ... a lot of times, especially with Hip Hop, it’s about struggle, so people write about their struggle, but things on my mind have been changing a lot concerning that. My writing focus is beginning to change, because I was baptized this year (February 2009). I was raised in the church and it took me a very long time to come back. I was kinda like the prodigal daughter and I’m very excited and happy about that; it’s not something I’m ashamed to say, so it’s like now, how

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does the music correlate to that?

It’s difficult, because even the album, “AT LAST,” that I did with MoSS, was written before I was “saved,” so a lot of the material that I’ve done previous to being baptized is not what I’d say or do right now. I’m living with that, I don’t live with regrets and I’m proud of everything that made me who I am today and brought me to the point where I am today, but I can honestly say that from here on out, if I make more music from 2009 and beyond, you are not gonna hear certain things in my music anymore, because I definitely want to be Christ-like and that is something that is very near and dear to my heart. People ask me how I’m doing, what I do for fun, what’s up with me, and that’s the first thing that they are gonna get in response, ya know, “life is different”. Life is definitely different for me, so there are definitely some songs where when I hear myself … (*thinking*)… and it’s not even the curse words, what really bothers me is stuff where I’m bragging, like I’m better than you, because that is not Christ-like. It’s hard in Hip Hop to not brag, it’s like one of the fundamentals of Hip Hop, bragging, so that makes me think to myself, should I even be doing this anymore?

Do my beliefs completely conflict with the industry that I’m in and whenever I have that answer, you’ll know, because I might just dip out, but if I don’t dip out, I’ll find a way so that my beliefs and my music are in line with each other.

Why do you do this (rap), and where do you see yourself going in ten years?

Everyone has a different reason to be in this game, to be rapping, and people always assume you have some prime objective or motive. To be honest, if I never rapped again, I’d be very happy with what I’ve done. For me, this is not about money, it’s not

about fame, it’s not about being a business mogul, ya know? I came into this trying to make a living doing what I love, but I’m quite happy with my life right now. If I was to leave this planet today, I’d be happy with the music I’ve made, the friendships I’ve made, and my family, as well,

so everything that happens from this point on in my music career and in my life is just a bonus.

It’s not an expectation and I won’t get frustrated if things don’t go my way or if doors don’t open for me.

If an opportunity doesn’t land itself in my lap, than that opportunity wasn’t meant for me. It’s really important for me to say that, because so many people live life just expecting things, like “I deserve this,” or “they owe me that” and I don’t even believe in the term “owing”. Whenever someone tells me they owe me something, I’m like, “No, you don’t,” because when you give, you give freely. When I give my music, I give it freely - you might have to cop it at the store (*laughs*) but you get what I mean, there is no expectation or service you owe me in return. So yeah, all I have to say is: I’m happy, I’m satisfied right now and if I leave tomorrow, hopefully you have some music that will resonate with you forever. * www.myspace.com/eternia www.whatsthe411.ca www.myspace.com/mossappeal

photography by Helene Ehrlich 2006

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interview by Jee 2009 photography of Kweenz Destroy by Marley Kate graffiti photos courtesy of Indie184

INDIE 184 52

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REPRESENTING ALL THE LADIES WHO KEEP IT REAL Indie 184 is an amazing woman.

Being the lady at the side of legendary graffiti artist Cope2 and having three kids, she is always on the run to keep it real for the ladies. Whether in the streets, on the tees or curating street art expos strictly female, come to her correct, cause as she puts it, “real recognizes real.�

Indie, you just came back from Berlin’s event “Yard5.” How was it?

We rocked out for the Yard5 summer jam 2009. It was like a meeting of styles. I had a good time and we painted dope pieces non-stop. We painted with some of West Germany’s finest.

It was like The Bronx invaded Berlin.

Who’s Indie 184, introduce yourself?

What’s up world?! I’m INDIE184, a female graffiti writer, graphic designer and entrepreneur from Washington Heights. I’m Puerto Rican and Dominican. Representing all the ladies who keep it real! I do what I love and love what I do! Come to me correct, because real recognizes real.

What’s behind the name Indie184?

When I first experimented with graffiti, I started tagging with my real name but I thought it was too personal. My tag name derives from the 1984 “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” movie. Indie means independent… I’ve always felt like the black sheep in my family, in school and even amongst my friends. So it’s like an innuendo of who I am personally. I liked INDIE, it seemed feminine to me! And most importantly there was no other writers named Indie, therefore it would stand out.

Would you say your graff style is feminine?

I definitely love to incorporate femininity when I do my graffiti pieces. Being female is a gift, so why not implement my goddessness into my artwork. Graffiti is a male dominated art, plus it’s always important to differentiate your style from other artists anyways. When I apprehend my masterpieces, I like them to possess a lively flair in them. Always implementing fun, fresh designs along with bright colorways. Even with my throw up I engage a big heart on top of each

“i”- it’s my trademark. Having said all that, when people meet me they are shocked and amazed that I am a girl. Go figure!

Because life can be a motherfucker.

So why not escape through my own graffiti art!

Who are you inspired by?

I am inspired by so many different elements... graffiti, Pop Art, and fashion. Childhood memories like 80’s kids cartoons that is forever in my heart, like “Rainbow Bright”, “Jem” and “My Little Pony”. With graffiti, it’s mainly New York simple style graffiti such as SEEN, WEST, COPE2, SERVE and DELTA. Also refreshed by all things bubble that TILT and take it to the next level. Lately, what I have been looking into is mechanical style by CASE2. And fierce ass females like CLAW, MICKEY, SPICE, QUEEN ANDREA and KLOR to name a few.

Would you also say the “Bronx made you”?

Actually, I would say New York City made me. I have lived here all my life and wouldn’t have it any other way! I love my childhood from the early 1980’s riding the A train all the way to Washington Heights. Then living in Bushwick and Flatbush areas of Brooklyn. In the early 1990’s going to junior high school and school in the Bronx. My family was constantly moving around the city. You can say I got all my stripes by growing up here. The public schools, the abandon lots, crime in the city, chilling on the block, blackouts, beat downs, music blasting on corners, summers filled with fire hydrants bursting water.

All that good shit. I experienced it the good, the bad and the ugly.

When exactly did graffiti find you?

For a few years we had lived in the South Bronx on East 167 street and Sheridan Ave. Our building was, you can say abandoned by the landlord.

Living there was pretty raw... rats

Indie184 - Bronx NYC - 2009

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Indie184 - Manhattan NYC - 2006

the size of cats and people stashing drugs in the mail box. Only a handful of tenants resided in the building and my window faced a video rental store right across the street.

It was mostly closed than open and I would see this character female face. This was around 1990 – 1993.

Later I found out that it was done by Tracy168 the same one in “Spraycan Art.” But I didn’t start writing then.

I didn’t know any writers and didn’t have a clue of how to write graffiti.

A few years later when I went to the library to check some books out and I happen to see “Subway Art“ and “Spraycan Art.” It was like I had the discovered a gold treasure!!! It was a pure adrenaline rush, I immediately started copying some letters and pieces from the books, but I still didn’t know any writers and was a bit in the dark. Fast forward to

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2001, I was helping my homegirl do a graffiti documentary for her NYU class about this writer named CEAZE. So there I finally got to meet a writer! I was pretty impressed of how he did graffiti. That’s when I started to take notes on how to do the damn thing!

So, when did you do your first piece on the wall?

I attempted to go sticker bombing in the East Village in 2002, with all these toy names I was experimenting with. Even tagged my real name around my way. Then do outlines of one of those names with a Krylon Fluorescent Pink at a school yard on Broadway. It was terrible, but fun, I was determined to leave my mark somehow. In 2003, along with my first graffiti partner, CASINO 142 from Queens, I did my first throw

up on West 177th and Amsterdam Avenue right next to some homeless guys tent. It was crazy mint green fill in and red outline, it almost looked like a glove! I had no can control at all. We would go tag banging here and there from Jamaica, Queens all the way to The Heights. But that was short lived...

Did you meet Cope2 at the same time? How did you meet him?

Yes, before hand earlier that year at the BBOY BBQ in Philadelphia he signed my blackbook. He wrote on the top of his throw up “Looking for Love.”

That took me back a bit because I was in a relationship back then. And I guess I caught his eye, because I heard he was trying to get more info about me. When he finally got a hold of me, he gave me one of my first outlines. So that’s when I deci-

Indie184 & Cope2 - W.184th street Washington Heights NYC - 2007

ded to really keep the name INDIE. And the summer of 2004, I did my first real piece within a school yard handball court. Cope put me down along with TRAP and FEVER. I was nervous and hot. But I busted it out. No sweat.

The few times I painted with him and conversed he was always respectful to me. So that attracted me to be friends with him.

daily hustle and grind. But actually for me having kids gives me motivation. I have more energy, dedication and control of my future then I did when I didn’t have kids. Basically, my family is always my first priority.

I have a son Cairo 6 years old, Samira age 4 and Samara age 2 - Cope is her father. They are a handful since they are all so young 2 years apart. But I keep them in check, and they keep me on point. Gotta love them!

My children take up most of my time but motherhood is a blessing. Caring for them day in and day out can be challenging but I learn from them so much and vice versa.

I have evolved immensely with my kids.

First much respect! Indie, you are always on the move to write, to curate exhibitions, to run your own street wear brand, to travel the world … how are you handling everything with having three kids?

I always make it known that just because you have kids doesn’t mean that my dreams are impossible, the circumstances might be that I have to work just a little bit harder.

Now you have 3 kids with Cope? How old are they?

Thanks girl. I would say it’s all about support from my mother and Cope. If it wasn’t for them, then I would not be able to do all those things that I (love) to do. Always thriving on the

schedule and planning a head is elemental. But also to make sure things balance out. Family and solo time are crucial. It’s not always about work.

Do you have the opportunity to keepin’ it real in the streets today bombing, tagging, throw ups while having kids?

When I am abroad I do street tag and street bomb as much as I can. I have spent some time at yards and painted a few trains. Gone etching bombing battling undercovers. But currently - here in NYC I don’t jeopardize getting arrested because the system might want to take my kids away and I cannot risk that. I don’t trust cops you just never know when or how they will want to fuck with you. Therefore, to keep things in order and life sane, in that sector I just maintain being a graffiti artist.

What is your day about?

What brought you to start your own street wear brand Kweenz Destroy for ladies some years ago?

Having an agenda is most important.

I run my household like an office making sure everything is intact. A

Ever since I was a little girl I have always loved fashion. It’s actually one of my passions! When we lived

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in Brooklyn, our mom would go buy us our back to school outfits at the Albee Square Mall, I would draw her exactly what I wanted her to buy me.

In 2001, I would do custom t-shirts with metal studs and all cut-up ones.

I’ve always experimented with names and styles. So fast forward I finally did with a powerful name and a basic design. I had to start somewhere. And I also wanted to have a brand that around the way girls can relate to.

A brand that the more than average girl can relate too. Like graffiti girls, skateboarder chicks and just really any female who wants to be down with an authentic brand from New York City street culture.

What’s behind Kweenz Destroy? Is it a response to Cope2’s Kings Destroy?

When Cope first put me down with Kings Destroy in 2004 he would break it down like

“... you are now part of Kweenz Destroy or Killa Divas ... represent girl!!!”

So that’s exactly what I did, I wanted to make the female sector but more then a graffiti crew. I’m not really into crews because I feel like they can divide people and I don’t want to make my brand no girl posse. I am a one woman army, a crew does not define who I am.

Who did the KD tag, which is going to be your logo?

In the winter of 2006, in true graffiti tradition I got an outline from WEST FC and there on the side of the sketch he did a dope Kweenz Destroy tag. I immediately fell in love again with the name and it hit me there’s that brand name I have been waiting for! And so I made it into the logo and first t-shirt design of the brand.

The first tee series was a blast... there was only the KD logo on it, but everybody wanted to have it....

The Kweenz Destroy t-shirt with the drippy logo tag is a classic. I wanted to introduce the public to the brand with a bold and alarmingly eye catching yet simple stamp. The agenda is keeping the street in streetwear.

I’ve always liked men’s t-shirt designs and every time I shopped for me I would get all the watered down versions. To me it’s all about originality, having custom artwork and lettering that has a history. That’s why I love graffiti and what it represents.

You had big names wearing these tees like Fafi & Claw. With whom did you collaborate for this upcoming collection?

For the first official collection, Kweenz Destroy did a special collaboration with Fafi and the artwork is a re-introduction of what the brand stands for. Strong graffiti roots mixed with fashion, history and other visual ideologies. I also love random images that I have collected throughout the years such as revolutionary figure Leila Khalid.

Each season we will do one artist design t-shirt. I have a long list of favorite iconic artists that I want to work with so there will be many exciting projects in the works.

Fafi has a big name here in Europe.

Where did you meet Fafi and how did it come to collaborate?

you meet her she is beautiful, vibrant and energetic. She’s a truly awesome girl.

Is Indie a business-oriented woman?

Yes of course, I have to be nowadays. Be organized and do the right thing! No time for bullshit or mistakes. Treat every project I do as a business venture for my portfolio.

I mix my experience in the industry, school and the streets. Knowledge is key and it’s power.

Do you have a daylife job beside or can you live from your art and KD? I quit my day job about 4 years ago.

I used to work in the licensing industry working with kids accessories. Since then I have been working as a freelance graphic designer and artist on various projects including Adidas, Prokeds and Rockstar Games to name a few.

What are your visions for the future?

My vision for the future, is to keep pursuing my dreams. Evolving on all levels with my graffiti art, canvases and Kweenz Destroy brand. Focus on quality shit and just putting my stuff out there. Worldwide Domination! There’s only one way, and that’s up! Living the best life with my family and maybe one more baby! * www.kweenzdestroy.net www.indie184.com

Fafi and Cope have been good friends for sometime now when he would go to Paris and paint in the Kosmopolite events out there. I have always admired Fafi’s characters for many years and got the opportunity to meet her in New York a few years ago. Sometimes when you meet artists they disappoint you with their attitudes and egos but not her I fell more in love with her. Because when

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Rêves,” a story about four french Hip Hop girls who specialized in different fields of Hip Hop, she is now working on her new one, the link between being Muslim & an MC. www.myspace.com/maamerikeira Melissa Czarnik (Milwaukee, WI) is a very amazing MC and poet. “Strawberry Cadillac,” her latest album is a mixture of singer songwriter Hip Hop combined with jazzy instrumentations by the Eric Mire Band.

Her tunes are definitely the tunes we played the most in our office while producing this issue. www.myspace.com/melissaczarnik

LE TT ER FR OM TH E ED ITO R

David Millhouse (UK) developed an interest in letter forms while writing graffiti for 10 years. His attention now is in designing typefaces on the computer and contributing to Volcano-Type and Anattitude. He works with an old partner in crime Éloïse Parrack as part of Defalign - defence against order. They publish their own magazine “gloom” - a study of identity and disorientation in a restricted society.

Typeface: Kimberlite - an investigation into the shocking history of diamond glamour, the tragic consequences of the selfish quest for material status. www.defalign.com

Rebecca “B FRESH” McDonald (Minneapolis, MN) is a Hip Hop feminist and documentarian, photographer, journalist, filmmaker, social justice advocate and community moverand-shaker. Representing the Twin Cities, B FRESH has been telling stories as long as she can remember, Elisabeth Gomis (Paris) a.k.a. Dark- and now channels that calling into SkinLady did her classes beyond visual storytelling through photogthe “périphérique” (=suburbs of raphy and film.

Paris) with a strong passion for www.bfreshphotography.com everything that was growing from concrete. After a short stop by b- Stefanie Alisch (Berlin) a.k.a. Stef girling and top dancing she decided the Cat is a musicologist and to help spreading the word about teaches radio production and the 5 elements over magazines, groove research. As DJ Stef the Cat radio stations and the internet in she spins Broken Boogie records on France. After 2 years of travels dancefloors worldwide. and improbable encounters, she’s www.myspace.com/stefthecat now preparing a documentary about street cultures around the globe. Teddy Esposito (NYC) has been inFirst step, Sao Paulo Brazil…Stay volved with Hip Hop since 1981. He tuned! www.lizletter.com had an influential radio show in Paris in 82’, brought Breakin’ to the Eric Ryan Anderson (NYC) Toni was south of Italy in 83’, moved to the actually his very first photo shoot USA in 87’, worked with Henry Chalafter quitting his job in corporate fant, DMC (DJ Competition), released America back at the end of ‘06. He’d “The Soul Mixtape” by DJ JAZZY JEFF put out a Craigslist ad for free on his own indie label, Groovin’ Rephotographs, looking for anyone cords. Sold/Promoted millions of who would give him some of their records/cds for many labels (Motime... turns out, it was Toni. Nearly town/Atlantic/Giant Step..). Teddy three years later, he is a full-time has been supporting Kwikstep and commercial shooter, running around Rokafella’s creative endeavors for the country shooting musicians, ad the last 20 years... campaigns, interiors and more. It’s certainly not the life he envisioned Texas Malika Toussaint-Baptiste for himself, but he couldn’t be hap- (NYC) first picked up a camera in pier about it.

2005 and got her start and nickwww.ericryananderson.com name “That Kid Texas” shooting punk rock shows at CBGBs and other pockHelene N. Ehrlich (West, San Jose, CA) ets of New York City nightlife. Her was born in California in 1980, and unique style of portraiture amidst lived between the concrete and the the backdrop of New York’s most beach. Through her “Women in Hip notable tastemakers and parties Hop” photo documentary, she met gained her and her self-titled blog Eternia. Helene is currently a mid- quick attention. Inspired by change, dle school art teacher and business individuality, evolution and revoluowner. She hopes to one day have tion, she moves into 2009 shooting her woman’s clothing line, Divine portraits for artists, documenting Orchid Creations, worn by Michelle for magazines, and producing visual Obama, while being paid to travel interpretation projects. the world to document Hip Hop. www.kingtexas.net DJ Sav*One (NYC) is running his site, The Underground Come Up where he publishes great interviews. Worth a bookmark, because Sav knows what good Hip Hop is all about. www.theundergroundcomeup.com

This issue wasn’t easy to bring together, sometimes it was a big challenge and I thought I would never make it.

Yes, this issue had a lot of ups and downs, 20 or even more deadlines and many interviews weren’t able to realize. Some women didn’t even respond to our interview requests. And the ladies in general are very busy.

It wasn’t possible for Liz to get Klor and Toni Blackman on the phone for weeks, it was also very difficult to get Rokafella. Casey, I tried years to get in touch with, without any success. Actually the girls in Berlin made the interview with Shanté possible but they had to convince her for days and wanted to drop it. I guess all this is just the normal life of magazine making and journalism. It can take many years or even longer to get into an interview, I simply had more luck before.

Then the technical hustle, the photographer Texas had a total computer crash, the same Indie184. So it took weeks to have specialists save the hard drive.

But now I am more than happy to have this issue in my hands full of Hip Hop pioneers, full of dope stories and knowledge with attitude, which you cannot read anywhere else. (btw, it’s 100% advertisement free).

Let’s start… Hip Hop to me, is like back in the day when I listened to Roxanne Shanté battling every MC. It was Roxanne and her energy in the first place that inspired me to do Anattitude. When I finally found, after a lot of digging “Roxanne’s Revenge” (12 inch) it was like finding a buried treasure! That was around 2000, at that time you wouldn’t get one hit on google, not any information on Shanté. Now luckily things have changed and lady you are everywhere. I cannot say how happy I am to have this amazing interview with a living legend in this issue. Hip Hop is Casey, yeah .... for me the most important French MC today. This girl has something to say and it must be said. Thanks a lot to Keira and Hélène who finally caught up with her. Hip Hop is Eternia, the MC with the most energetic presence on stage. Girl, you rock! My favourite rapper wears a skirt! A thousand thanks to Eternia & Sav*One, who did this wonderful interview. Hip Hop is about breaking, it’s about the b-girl who knows how to rock a fella.... Thanks to Teddy who made it possible to catch Rokafella via email. Hip Hop, it’s about graffiti, Hip Hop is Klor, Hip Hop is Indie184. Thanks a lot to Liz who wrote two nice articles. Klor took graffiti to the next level and Toni is doing an important job spreading Hip Hop education throughout the world. Indie184 is such an amazing sista who is doing a lot for our street art ladies with a dope attitude about motherhood. Hip Hop is like the DJ, Hip Hop is M.A.F.I.A., who is one of the most charming and uncomplicated persons I have ever met, available on her Muff Berry 24/7. Hip Hop is also about photography, Hip Hop is Texas. She is only 23 years old, but this girl has an amazing raw talent.

CO NT RIB UT OR S

Hélène Tilman (Paris) is a photogra- That Fucking Sara (Berlin), been in pher always on her way in the name love with Hip Hop since ‘83 and it of rap. www.helenetilman.com is her longest relationship so far.

Been behind the turntables since ‘95 Keira Maameri (Paris) is a french and it doesnt seems like its coming urban movie director. After her to an end. documentary “On S’accroche À Nos www.myspace.com/thatfuckingsara

“Hip Hop is...” is the title of this issue.

Anattitude wanted to precise what Hip Hop is all about.

So we talked to a lot of different women from all Hip Hop elements which all have in common their old hands in Hip Hop culture. In some way you could also say that it is a New York issue because they are all from NYC, besides of MAFIA and Casey. Then we wanted to ask more people about Hip Hop, to collect their personal thoughts on it. So we spread the “Hip Hop is...” PDF worldwide and the small zine is the result. Anyone could contribute and the results are amazing.

Thanks to all the contributors who helped make this inspiring issue. A big shout-out to David who did this wonderful typeface for Anattitude. A big shout-out to Melissa who did the whole editing, it has been a lot! A big shout-out to Julius & Laid Back radio and JoBee & supafly girls for much “Belgian” support! A big shoutout to all contributors of “Hip Hop is...” which is the beginning of such an important collection. A big shout-out to Janne aka Dirk who has supported Anattitude since day one and even before. A big shout out to all helping hands, to everybody I forgot, and last but not least ... a big shout-out to my men - Olivier & Léon!

Thanks for the love!!!

I hope you will enjoy this issue as much as I do!

Jee (October 2009)

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her & Art Dir ect or: Edi tor -In -Ch ief & Pub lis Jee Nic e Jea nne tte Pet ri -ak a-

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