Before we start, I'd like to make this statement: This interview is in fact, and all statements herein are statements of the Sa-Ra and by no means is this an interview of Om'Mas Keith. You're actually interviewing with a representative of Sa-Ra. All statements and questions are to be addressed to Sa-Ra and will be answered as such. Just want you to know that because, and I say this to everybody, Sa-Ra is bigger than any of us as individuals. As such if one of us can't make it to an interview it's still Sa-Ra and one thing we want people to know is that Sa-Ra could be five bitches on stage in Las Vegas. Sa-Ra doesn't have anything to do with faces, its a movement, its a lifestyle and to that extent Sa-Ra could be anybody. So just so you know these statements and anything that your going to hear is going to be from Sa-Ra.illRoots.com: I got you dude.
-Om'Mas Keith
Sa-Ra: So moving forward lets do this. So you listened to the album....
iR: I was listening to the album and I think my favorite track out of everything was "Gemini's Rising".
Sa-Ra: Oh yes, that's with Rozzie Daime, little baby girl.
iR: Yeah besides the fact that I am a Gemini and I...
Sa-Ra: Oh, that's your song baby!
iR:[Laughs] So I was listening to it and I normally don't look at the tracklist, so that way if something stands out then you look, you know what I mean?
Sa-Ra: Right.
iR: Explain the title of the album and how you guys came up with that?
Sa-Ra: Look, basically number one: the Sa-Ra are a continually evolving entity; to that respect as of late we've taken our evolution to a core level or what you would call a nuclear level. We've gone deep inside as people in a movement or, as I would say it, we've gone in as a fraternal order and gone right to the core of understanding. Started from our core as a place and began to look at things in a different way. We are all more worldly than we've been in the past years. We've clear seen and experienced more since our last release and we think that having this opportunity to release this independent record under our complete guide and control attests to our evolution. You're finally getting an unabridged look into the Sa-Ra as far as a full length album is concerned. There is no label effecting the outcome, no entities, no A&R admin, it's just Sa-Ra.
iR: So its very organic then?
Sa-Ra: Yeah, so let me just say to that extent we've evolved in our ability to make music and the record is now coming from the core unit with no peripheral action imposed or augmenting our movement in any way, its all us. So that would be the Nuclear Evolution, the nuclease evolving and becoming something that you now see.
iR: Wow, I think what makes that very true, besides coming from the horse's mouth is that when you listen to it, it does sound like a flower.
Sa-Ra: Man! Thank you.
iR: What makes that even more ironic is that I'm actually interviewing you on a line over a flower shop that my father owns, and that I listened to your album right before this in its entirety in the flower shop.
Sa-Ra: Wow that's heavy [Laugh].
iR: So the whole Sa-Ra and the feeling and the emotion and the core does that...
Sa-Ra: It's the age of love and Obama is our President and these motherfuckers are ready for love in their life. People are actually ready for some love. Even your most hardcore rappers aren't talking about the same stuff. People are ready to love baby! Out the darkness and into the light.
iR: It does seem much more happy.
Sa-Ra: Guess what, if they don't do it, referring to the masses, guess what we gon' do? We gon do it, that's what we gon do.We are going to operate as if it is the age of Love because for us in fact it is and the only people that we are concerned about are those who have even the smallest inclination to wanna be free, that's who we made this record for and that's who will like this record.
iR: Right.
Sa-Ra: Free motherfuckers and people who are sovereign and aren't under systematic control.
iR: Wow that's a very good description actually.
Sa-Ra: Yeah doesn't that sound like who you are? And how you feel? Waking up everyday and looking at the system. I'm beyond systematic control even if you sometimes succumb to the darkness of it, your general perception and approach to life is one who isn't, or not of control.
iR: Yeah.
Sa-Ra: There are people who really like to be controlled though.
iR: Very true, so breaking down the actual words Sa-Ra, Ra is Egyptian right?
Sa-Ra: Kemetic they are just synonymous and interchangeable words we deal with ancient Kem and what it was intended to be not the readily adopted and accepted terminology. If you go on the collegiate level you will always find the truth. We can always use their terms but the true reference point is always there, the truth is always there. The Sun is the most powerful force in the universe and we are of that Sa-Ra or "of the son" or "of the most powerful energy in the universe."
iR: It almost sounds like Sun-Ra, kind of.
Sa-Ra: My mother and father used to play with Sun-Ra straight up.
iR: Sun-Ra has one of biggest libraries in modern music if you do your research.
Sa-Ra: Of course he used to just sit around in that house in Philly and just record all day and they were very prolific. He knew he was his own entity and he knew he was a sovereign man and in control of his destiny. He didn't let nobody control his shit.
iR: True, and Philly has a lot of descendants from that feeling.
Sa-Ra: Yes, Sun-Ra was "Son Sun" it was stating the same thing twice. He was the Sun's Son. That means he was the most powerful energies of all the energies. He was it and he was saying that with his name that he was "THE ONE." Y'all are going to be up under me is how he laid his shit down. He knew he was coming from a much bigger cosmic energy believe that.
iR: I mean that's probably why I can use any his records as a reference point for your most recent album. Your new album has this real very smooth, natural, parliament, Funkadelic feeling. I was doing work just listening to the album and I forgot I had headphones on. You know what I mean?
Sa-Ra: Man we think we are the only ones that can take that torch. If you can ask the elders, I mean we get to hang with guys that used to play with George and them and Bootsy them. Just because those guys are older does not make them less intuitive then in previous years in fact history will probably tell you that they are even more intuitive now that they've grown. So what they are saying is "Y'all are the ones." We hear all this shit, don't think that George Clinton is not hearing everything in this world. If you ask 3000, Kanye, Common, Bambatta [pauses] you can ask Afrika Bambbatta our grandfather. The grandfather of Hip-Hop. He'll say Sa-Ra. We didn't make him do that, we didn't make him come to our house and make us Zulu Kings. He was like "Yes y'all are those dudes."
iR: A lot of times I think there's a structure that I personally feel is forced upon everything. I feel like that is what made me want to do journalism in the beginning and continue to make me want to inform folks on a daily basis. Some of the most beautiful things in this world are unstructured, natural, and organic.
Sa-Ra: Including sex and fucking some pussy.
iR: Most definitely. [Laughs]
Sa-Ra: [Laughs]
iR: A lot of things in life that are structured are normally put into a place by a higher power that shouldn't be there.
Sa-Ra: You have to finish that off and say that "Put into a place by a higher power that shouldn't be there ...in order for them to maintain their power." You can't leave out that one part.
iR: Sustainability more or less.
Sa-Ra: Yes sustainability, but there's still a way to keep people down and yourself on top. It's the american way! You don't have to do it like that, there's room for everybody. What's funny about that is once people get to the point where they are all elevated you can't let them all in. Sa-Ra is a fraternal order. You cannot just hop on up in, you have to be granted access and you have to be deemed worthy. I'm talking about the inner workings of the Sa-Ra. It ain't just information you're giving people, you have to know how to divulge information. We hold a lot of information and if people want to elevate, they will get with it. This movement is growing and over the past few years [pauses again] Number one: Sa-Ra is on every continent.
iR: Oh yeah?
Sa-Ra: Oh yeah, there's really not too many countries that there aren't at least one fan in that country. Dude, there's a Sa-Ra fan in every country, I see the statements. I don't but there has to be a Sa-Ra fan in Alaska. I'm going to call Sarah Palin and see what the fuck she thinks.
iR: [Laugh] Yeah for sure.
Sa-Ra: I bet she likes black guys. She got a fat ass she probably likes black men. [Laughs]
iR: Wow. [Laugh] Yep.
Sa-Ra: [Laughs]
iR: I haven't listened to every piece of the Sa-Ra discography, but I am familiar with the Kweli track that you guys did, and that was always one of my favorites.
Sa-Ra: That's amazing.
iR: You know how you hear a song and you don't quite remember the lyrics but you want more of it?
Sa-Ra: Like whatever that is I'll get two of those to go.
iR: Yeah [Laughs] As far as the process of putting this whole album together, what directed you guys to plug in certain songs? In other words, what was the process of narrowing down the final selections?
Sa-Ra: You know ultimately, answering those types of question, you find some of the most ambiguous of terminologies. It's just what it felt like at the moment. There comes a point when you ask yourself "What do it feel like baby?" What feels the best. Quite frankly, your question is specifically oriented towards playlist selection. This is in fact something all artists must come to terms with at the end of their project is their playlist and their selection. I guess I can just say that the process varies from time to time, picture this scenario for instance: Three gentlemen sitting around in a very mood lit room with velvet and drapes and ease chairs and Courvoisier loungers and you know spritzers and beautiful women, and very very expensive speakers and nothing to do but to select the songs for the album. I mean that's kind of how it went down [Laughs]. Enter the world of Sa-Ra, cats get together and they figure shit the fuck out. It's kind of like how you hear all the old stories about how the bankers and Morgan Man and Piedmont. Piedmont took the richest men when the world was in disarray and locked them up in his mansion on Lexington Avenue and locked the god damn door when they walked in. After locking the door he threw the key out the window and none of them could leave until they had hashed out a plan. So we've always had a kind of procedural approach to finalization as you would call it. Some people are like "let their people handle it" but as in running businesses you have to understand the boardroom kind of approach when coming to huge final decisions.
iR: I always liked to see the final product the process is what is particularly fascinating to me.
Sa-Ra: Only cats like you who are really enlightened actually get that because we all know that in many instances allowing consumers to immerse into the most intimate of process' can skew their perception of the final product. Especially assuming that for the most part they know nothing of what we are doing so that last thing a consumer needs to see is the three members of Sa-Ra bickering on which song to go 13th.
iR: Otherwise a very jaded view is normally the end product.
Sa-Ra: Someone like yourself is not a problem because we are of the same cloth but that is really only for creative, that kind of look. As well what you find is who watches the commentary on the DVD and extras, creators. Normally people who want to have a direct correlation to the industry watch and study these sort of "extras" and industry content. So to that extent I get where your coming from and we invite folks like yourself to come hang out. When we make musi,c we always invite a select few into our space as a lot of artist tend to do.
iR: What's really fascinated is how much of a connection to the world you can actually find if you slow down and realize how things operate.
Sa-Ra: The key to most things is the unsolicited request. We pride ourselves on that concept because it is in fact how our life has unfolded. It's like you have to realize in this game, you have to get it poppin'. If you make it they will come. Essentially you and your illRoots family are pushing your initiative which is exactly what we are doing. If we think it is cool we let you in. This is why in fact we have gravitated to each other because all the people who are key seekers and code crackers tend to gravitate to each other or as they say "Game sees game." However you would say it we all have this rogue self made mentality. You're just not going to put anything on your fucking website and make a demonstration and open yourself. Basically illRoots.com does their thing and at the end of the day, critics don't really matter. Speaking of you, there may be several critics of your website, but at the end of the day you feel that you've done all you can do and you were in control of it then you can and should be able to live with your final decisions. You guys have success through your own formula. I see it.
iR: We do our thing regardless if success seems to follow or not.
Sa-Ra: Right! Holla! Our approach is not to enlighten but we do what we want to do. We do like money. Sa-Ra ain't no backpacking shit. Taz is designing for MCM, one of the most ovulate luxury brands on earth. How is it's Taz can design for the most ovulate luxury brands on earth, Om'Mas can be on a series with Puff Daddy, and we're still J. Dilla fans? It's like the best. This is what its all about, you can have the mainstream and the underground. Bob Marley has fans who listen to death metal and he has fans who listen to gospel music. However great our aspirations may seem, that's the level that we want to be regarded on. However small our fanbase may be then that is the scope of who we are. We are the guys who have billionaire fans and those who have dirt poor fans who have Hasidic Jewish fans in Brooklyn.
iR: At the end of the day they are fans.
Sa-Ra: Right.
iR: I've always wondered who is the person who distinguishes titles. It's always a person of power that says you are this or that.
Sa-Ra: Right.
iR: Not to go completely anarchist because once you get on that level people question how you live and your mental capacity but it always fascinated me that struggle is all the mentality, but you still have to have a sense of reality.
Sa-Ra: That's an ill little rhyme, on some Johnny Cochran shit. [Laughs]
iR: [Laughs]
Sa-Ra: Through this magical process that is unexplainable we reap the rewards of letting the cards unfold and knowing that we control our destiny. All that people want in this world are the ability to control their lives and who better than you. That's it man, we are the prototype for the new shit.
iR: It's been a pleasure talking to you.
Sa-Ra: The honor and the pleasure was all ours.
iR: Sa-Ra's new album hits stores now, make sure you go pick that up.
