The Kidz In The Hall, hmmm.... I could talk a lot during this intro, probably droll on about how their new CD is great and how you should go to iTunes and go spend some money on it. Truthfully, my words can only do so much justice on how much growth has occurred from their first CD to The In Crowd. Without further distractions I present to you Double-O and Naledge. Get to class, the bell just rang.Double-O: What's up?
illRoots.com: Hallway.
Double-O: What's good with you sir?
illRoots.com: Actually at the current moment I am drinking Kool-Aid, sitting on my porch, watching cars pass.
Double-O: [Laughs] I feel that, I can definitely feel that.
illRoots.com: Yes sir, it's a beautiful day out.
Double-O: It's a beautiful day out in New York too.
illRoots.com: I really want a steak and potato but I'm kind of low on food right now. All I have is hash browns and a pack of bacon.
Double-O: That adds up.
illRoots.com: Doesn't it, am I the only one that catches this equation. My friend was telling me its alot of sodium, but fuck it.
Double-O: Fuck it, I eat enough Top Ramen. Sodium is all through my system. My system is as much sodium as it is water, I'm good.
illRoots.com: You know what we are on the same wavelength. I think my whole left side is just cholesterol, I'm like a Stretch Armstrong.
Double-O: I see that. [Laughs] Naledge?
Naledge: Whats up dude?
Double-O: I was seeing if you were still here.
Naledge: I was just listening to your conversation. You know what I'm saying [Laughs].
illRoots.com: Hey bro, how are you?
Naledge: Chillin'.
illRoots.com: Last time I saw you I was in a monkey suit out in front of SOB's looking like a security guard.
Naledge: Wow, thats crazy.
illRoots.com: You looked inebriated so you probably don't remember.
Naledge: [Laughs] Yeah, that happens from time to time.
Double-O: Weren't we on the train together?
illRoots.com: That would be moi.
Double-O: Exactly.
illRoots.com: I'm not going to take up too much of your time with my ramblings and utterings. Thank you for sitting down with me. How do you feel you have grown from the last album to this album?
Naledge: We have grown as people, grown as men, that's natural progression. If your not moving forward your moving backwards or standing still. We are not the kind of people who stand still so the music is always moving forward so the music reflects that. We have traveled the world, and we have been able to collaborate with more people and artists. As well as been in many more settings. So the music overall has just elevated. Every album we want to push limits and boundaries. So where ever "School Was My Hustle" was, was a snapshot of where we were and the "In Crowd" is a snapshot of where we are now. Next year we will do something else and honestly as soon as a song is made I'm on to something else. Everybody wants to talk about the album I want to talk about the new stuff. Thats just the way life works, I'm always working and Double-O is always creating as well. Just as artists we enjoy working, this is our lives, and I think it reflects in this album that we are actually members of the industry now.
illRoots.com: Give me one song to sum up each one of your lives?
Double-O: Honestly there can't just be one song, the way that we make music is that one song is always going to be based around one subject matter. Every fucking hour of the day I might feel differently.
Naledge: I think Frankie Beverly "Laid Back Guy"
Kidz in the Hall on Obama 08'
illRoots.com: Give me one good Book?
Naledge: Angela Nissel "The Broke Diaries", thats a book thats pretty funny and not to hard to digest. Its a fiction book but it is based on her just being broke and in college. It is her diary about how she is broke and gets through situations. She talks about not having money to buy clothes and how she goes in to stores to try on clothes to know how it feels when she does have money or she flurts with a guy at a store so she can get a discount on "XYZ", its just really funny. It talks about how to stretch Ramen into a gourmet meal.
illRoots.com: Everything you talked about is almost what I try to do on a daily basis.
Naledge: Its ill because people who know her probably didn't know she was doing what she was doing like she talks about steal silverware from restaurants. She is actually a screen writer for NBC TV shows. She is pretty dope and she went to our school, University of Penn.
Double-O: "Thinking Real Rich", it basically is about very goal oriented living. The main theme in the book is that sometimes a "B plan" becomes a scapegoat for not achieving you "A Plan". You have to almost put yourself in a position so you can succeed at one thing.
illRoots.com: If you could go back and change anything off this last album what would it be?
Naledge: This was like the perfect album honestly. For what we wanted to do right now in this point and time. There is really nothing I would change. I guess I wish it would have came together quicker, I think its all apart of the process or the journey.
illRoots.com: The album turned out very good to me, I have it within the Ipod.
Naledge: Everything we invisioned came together, whether it came on time or late or whatever it work out.
Double-O: The most important part is that we feel like this is a completed piece of work.
Naledge: I guess maybe in hindsight, 5 years from now, I can look back and say "We could have changed this or that". We got what we wanted to get accomplished. Every song and every feature that we wanted we got. The artwork is the way we wanted it the video turned out great.
illRoots.com: Ethan did a great job.
Double-O: Yes a very good job.
Naledge: Right now we are in a good place. When you can say you've accomplished what you wanted to do, then you can say you own your work. You can love it or hate it but its just us.
illRoots.com: That African Mink Squirrel I seen them a couple times.
Double-O: Mink Squirrels.
Naledge: Crazy.
illRoots.com: We have them running rampid around here.
Double-O: You can get like $5,000 a squirrel.
illRoots.com: I just thought that was my neighbors dog until it ran up a tree.
Double-O: They got out, they broke out from the local DC area zoo and are just up there way up the East coast, just give it some more time.
illRoots.com: Exactly. What new music are you working on?
Double-O: I mean we are always working, the next probably focused project is going to be Naledge's solo.
illRoots.com: What are you guys looking forward too as far as newer projects coming out such as Nas and Common?
Double-O: I was looking forward to the N.E.R.D. project now I'm afraid its going to be wack because the songs that we heard at SXSW live, I don't know if they can translate those into studio recordings and match the intensity. I think it might sound like the first album before they got the live band to come redo everything. Naledge will attest to this, when we first heard the stuff in Austin it sounded rediculous but then it looses a little bit. In terms of Hip-Hop I want to hear this Guilty Simpson/ Sean Price album. The only way you are going to get the CD is if you boost it from somebody. It has to be stolen, and actually I'm kind of interested in see what this Common album is about.
illRoots.com: You heard "U.M.C"?
Double-O: Yea I heard the UMC. I knew thats what he's doing, I just want to see how he does it and if people still don't fuck with him.
illRoots.com: Truthfully I listened to it but I played it for a group of people and they were like "That shit is wack as hell".
Double-O: [Laughs]
illRoots.com: Thats Common though, I hope he doesn't go double wood grain because that guy is one of my favorites.
Double-O: He won't, not anymore.
Naledge: He, now, has a level of fans that will buy his record regardless. Even the records that got canned like "Electric Circus" still moves some units. He moves units regardless and at this point in his career he could put out just him talking on a tape recorder and it will sell 250,000 units. He is one of those people who want to hear what he is on, next. Mainly just to see where he is moving or gravitating toward. He is at a point where he can take risks because he has such a following. He deserves it at this point it has taken along time. I just think when he put out Electric Circus it was kind of authentic when this time around it almost seems like "trend hopping". It needed a little more Q-Tip and Dre 2000 and little less Pharrell, yet "Electric Circus" was ahead of its time.
Kidz in the Hall - Drivin' Down the Block
illRoots.com: Right now I think why not just make music, and this whole thing with trends is bad to me.
Double-O: Yet that is how popular music is going to be. Unfortunately and fortunately Hip-Hop is the popular music right now. Regardless of what people thing, look at Madonna, Pharrell and Timbaland produced her album. That is the epitome of Hip-Hop influence and because Hip-Hop is always going to get this kind of weird random side eye from some of the people who think they are real Hip-Hop heads. You have to allow mass consumption of certain things and realize that once one thing works than there will be several copies made. Its assembly line because they know it sells.
illRoots.com: So what is to make of the Sean Bell incident?
Double-O: You know nobody has asked us about that in any interviews, at least I can't recall that being asked.
Naledge: I am not from New York so it was kind of like one of those things that I knew had happened but it wasn't right in my face everyday until I spent the last two months on the road. I guess it made more of a resonance when I heard alot rappers were making songs about it.
illRoots.com: I wish people would do other things besides talk, its great that as a society we can talk about these subjects but action in the legislation needs to occur.
Naledge: I think that people sometimes capitalize off of a tragedy. I am an unknown rapper and maybe if I am the first one to come out and talk about it in a song then I will get noticed and become the Sean Bell guy who made the dope Sean Bell song right at the time it was on the news ticker. Nobody is ever going to come out and say that but I'm sure there was a few cats in the studio and there man was like "Yea thats a good idea" or something like that. I'd rather people hop on those type of bandwagons then the other types that they could be hoping on. I can't be too mad at it and at the end of the day you are talking about police brutality inwhich is very prevalent in urban areas.
illRoots.com: It was like the 12 cops that beat the devil out of like four kids.
Double-O: The reality is that the whole issue with the Sean Bell case and you look at that Philly case they didn't even go to trial yet and their fired. The Sean Bell situation, these fools were suspended for a few days or something like that. No, they were religated to desk duty until things cooled down. They can't get much out of the trial now but hopefully they get their asses handed to them in the civil suits. They were doing shit that was out of line. Its a hard thing because no one knows, they didn't even have a jury.
So no one sat there and heard what went on. NYOIL was on Davey D's show, and he had every right to say, that since 9/11 New York has become a police state. The amount of police that are around at all times is rediculous. At the same time these motherfuckers are getting $25,000 a year, there first year on the force. You know they are dealing with alot of BS that everyone else is dealing with. Yet there ability to have a little power over the everyday person creates a weird mentality. That is worst drug, you can put in all substances you want but power is the worst when it comes to human beings. It always ends up into bad things. I don't really know if you had stricter laws if it would change it.
illRoots.com: Thanks to Kidz in the Hall and Dan at Major League for setting this up and go out and get their new CD "The In Crowd". It is great. No more talking just go buy, because I said so.For Our Family Tree, our peoples I have an exclusive interview just with Double-O coming in our forums so go sign up today and get that exclusiveness....and yes that is a word...I'm out.
