Okayplayer sent resident writer Mike Gadd to chop it up with 9th Wonder and Buckshot who's new album The Formula is in stores right now.  Here is what he learned:

9th Wonder and Buckshot on their favorite tracks from their new album, The Formula.

9th: One of my favorites is “Go All Out.” Me and Buck were having a conversation about this just now. That is the translation of 1993, 1994, nighttime, wet streets, bubble-goose jacket. But it’s up to date. It doesn’t sound dated. It’s a direct translation, but it’s not dated. Another favorite of mine is “Ready.”

Buckshot: That’s my joooooint!

9th: I love that song. That’s one of the ones that when Buck got in the booth and started to spit the verse, it was dead on. Like maaan. A lot of them stick out to me, but those are the two.

Buckshot: I love when a producer loves their work, when a producer is a fan of the music. That’s what makes them make good music. You hear “Ready” and when the verse comes on? It’s like BAM!

9th: I always lean towards one point, man. Me and Buck were walking to the studio, we were on the college campus, the school that I teach at. We were talking about sophomore albums. One thing that he said to me that kinda stuck with me that made perfect sense. We were talking about people’s first albums that were good and second albums that were just terrible, like a complete drop-off. He was saying that you can’t go into your second album trying to beat your first one. You just have to do a good album and act like that album stands alone. Not like, ‘Yo, we gotta top it.’ Just concentrate on doing a good album and everything will take care of itself. Just elevate it musically from your first to your second. Don’t go into thinking about it so much, and you can just do a good album. That was the basis for the whole creation of this record.

On creating a consistent album in an age of 99 cent downloads and ringtone sales.

Buckshot: We still want albums!

9th: Just because there’s not a lot of something going on doesn’t mean you have to stop doing it. If we ain’t gonna do it, who’s gonna do it, man? You know what I’m saying? And if nobody does it, then we’re all in trouble. Somebody has to do it. And if nobody takes the responsibility…it’s like saying that the world has become littered, a big litter box, or the world is becoming a trashy place…so it’s like okay, somebody needs to pick up the trash. Somebody needs to pick it up. So we try to do it.

Buckshot: God is with 9th Wonder right now, I’mma tell you that. I just thought of what he said and then he said it, and that’s the power of the Creator right there. That’s the truth. We always livin’ in garbage, and nobody…nobody wants to pick up trash.

9th: Music lovers still want to go to the store and buy a record. We still do want to do that. But the point is that we’ve got nothing to go and buy. Some of us around the age of 30 or above are technologically advanced and some of us are not. Like some of us know how to get stuff on the computer and some of us don’t. But I mean, you know, some of us still like the thrill of going in the store and buying a CD. Putting it in your CD deck and riding home in the car. I saw a special on Showtime with Herbie Hancock. Him and Sting was doin’ a jam together, right. It was like, these are two giants in the game, and they still believe that with Herbie’s schedule and Sting’s schedule, they can still get together and get in the studio and do a jam, man! That should never die, man. And it shows in the music. You can tell who was together in the studio and who wasn’t.

Breaking down the meaning of “Adult contemporary hip-hop”:

9th: Adult contemporary hip-hop. It’s what? It’s what Common is. It’s what A Tribe Called Quest is. It’s what the Geto Boys is. We listen to albums. Hip-hop is a 34-year-old art form. This year it’ll be 35. If you’re dealing with a music that old and you don’t have the necessary marketing devices that are going to get it to people that’s young, that’s way young, then there’s a place for that. And you’ve got people sitting around a bunch of 15 year olds, and you say the name DJ Premier, and then you get mad at them for not knowing it. How can you? How would they know? How will they ever know? It’s not like BET is playing it. It’s not like 106 & Park is playing DJ Premier records. There’s a big chunk of hip-hop music that only now adults know about. And when I mean adults, I mean young adults. Folks who just got they first house, who just got they first job. Or who are really getting into their 30’s. Living in their 30’s and really understanding mortgages and IRA’s and all of that. Now we’re in a situation that they know these records. Shook Ones is a record that is known by 30-plus black women across America. That’s the thing. My wife bought Illmatic when she was in college. You understand? And she’s a black woman. These records that we talk about and that we herald so much, man, they’re records for adults. If you don’t believe me, I teach a class, and when I say Busta Rhymes, my students are like, ‘He’s old….’ They’re 21. Busta’s 30-what? You know what I’m saying? They look at Busta Rhymes the same way I looked at Cameo when I was 14, 15, or 16. The saaame way. It’s a myth that everybody in rap world, all ages, listens to all of the music in the rap world. We don’t. Adult contemporary hip-hop is hip-hop and it’s for adults. Man, some kids, if you say more than ten words in a sentence, you done lost ‘em, bruh. They’re not used to hearing that. They’re not used to hearing multi-rhythmic patterns in raps. They’re not used to hearing that. There’s too much going on for them. They’re used to hearing ‘dah dah dah dah dee dum dah, dah dah dah dah deed um dah.’ We’re used to hearing ‘Sip the juice, I’ve got enough to go around….’ That throws a kid off!

Buckshot: Exactly. That’s why when you hear ‘driving on the highway/on a Friday/my mind-state like payin’ my way,’ I understand the same thing that 9th is explaining as an MC and know how to transfer that as far as it relates to what were talking about. “Adult contemporary hip hop,” 9th really put that in effect, even for me, you know what I’m saying? Just by starting this album.

Buckshot reflects on the life-changing experience that was being in a cipher with Nas, Da Youngstaz, and Kool G Rap:

Buckshot: It was February. I had just turned 18. That was my MC growth stages, you know? That was my first time in California. I’d never been in California before. So I’m seeing everything totally different. And I’m still a fan. I’m a fan, fan, fan, fan, fan. And walking into the lobby seeing Nas is one thing. I knew he was a fellow MC coming up in the same way, but I still respected him as another rapper, so I’m like ‘wow.’ But man, to walk into Kool G Rap’s room? For me as a fan of Kool G Rap, to walk in the room and see him sitting down on the couch and watching TV, you know, it was amazing. And then for me and Nas to rhyme, and for G Rap to be like ‘I ain’t got nothin’. We’re thinking he’s frontin’, but he’s like he didn’t write nothin’ or whatever. So we start rhyming, and then it’s all three of us. It was just such an experience. It just fulfilled me because like wow, I got to freestyle in a room with Kool G Rap, Nas, Da Youngstaz, you know? One of them was doing their thing at the time, but these are rappers who influenced hip-hop, period. So for me to be rhyming in the room with them, and then to run out of rhymes…and start freestyling. And that was the reason it changed me, because I ran out of rhymes and I couldn’t stop rhyming cuz man, I’m in a circle with these dudes! So I started freestyling, and through some miraculous way, it’s almost like having the Holy Ghost in you, I was able just to freestyle. We got out there and me and Nas, that same night we met up and we talked from about maybe 2 o’clock in the morning to about 6. Just chillin’ in the diner. All night. Mad packed. Me and Nas was in there, burning trees outside. It was deep.

Buckshot’s thoughts on NYC’s changing cityscape and the importance of investing in the community:
 
Buckshot: The city is changing rapidly, and everything is changing rapidly. I take pride in being not only an MC, but a voice. You know what, people? Start investing your money together and buying some of these developments and buildings so that way we don’t get bought out. That’s kinda where we’re at now. Some places, you can’t smoke a cigarette in your crib. In your own apartment! I don’t smoke, I don’t condone that, but I can tell you that the reason why I mention that is because there’s going to be a point in time where if you don’t own where you live at, you won’t be able to do what you want. People might think about it like, ‘Oh good, we don’t want you smoking in here.’ But it’s not about smoking – it’s about doing what you want to do. In the end, if we don’t buy up properties with the money that we do have or the money that we can get, we’re going to be assed out, period. It’s rappers, CEO’s, producers – anybody who has the money should either start buying up the properties where they live at. That includes even if they live out of the state, so that eventually people who live in New York can move out of state and develop their neighborhoods, or buy them in New York.
I’m just getting into it right, right now. That’s the reason I can speak on it confidently. For a lot of MC’s, or whoever, just regular people, it’s hard to live in New York. So move to North Carolina where eventually that becomes a development state. So people like 9th might own a building or a complex, and then people from New York come and can build on that. That’s where my mindframe is at going towards the future as far as how we’re benefiting from hip-hop and not just putting the money in our pockets and going to sleep.

9th expands on the meaning behind the class he teaches at North Carolina Central University:

9th Wonder: When we first designed the class, it was basically a chronological history of hip-hop from 1973 to 1997. But with every semester passing, it became more like a modern Black history class. If you look at schools from an academic standpoint and as far as the curriculum of it, there are no modern Black history classes. That’s why there’s a generation of disconnect. This really goes down at a Black institution like with an 18-year-old student a 50-year-old professor, and they don’t understand why. It’s because you’ve got one end saying ‘You don’t understand what we did in the 60’s,’ and you’ve got the other end saying ‘You don’t understand what we’re going through now.’ The bridge of that understanding, whether you want to believe it or not, is through music and the culture. Music is the culture. No matter how you try to…whether it’s fashion or whatever…music really controls that. Especially because Black folks lean so heavily on culture anyway. That’s the connection. We talk about 1973 to 1997, but we also really lean on how that affects society. How these records and how the making of these records…Sugar Hill Gang and Mercury Records and all the early records turned into this. Run DMC and on and on and on, and the Reagan administration and all that stuff…how did that affect the way young minds think now? And how does globalization and the commercialization of hip-hop affect how young minds think now? It’s really a modern history class. There’s not really such a thing as a modern history class at a Black institution. There’s not! We call it a hip-hop class, but by the end of the class, we’re really talking about Blacks in society and how we’re looked at. A lot of the reasons we’re looked at in certain ways is because of the things that BET puts out on the airwaves. So we talk about all of that, you know what I’m saying? But first and foremost, we learn the history of the music, knowing that “If I Ruled the World” by Nas and Lauryn Hill, knowing that it wasn’t the first time that song was made. We do that in our class.

Buckshot on hip-hop’s place in academia:

Buckshot: It’s bananas. Like, I’m sitting here listening to a teacher of hip-hop. Everybody needs to hear this. Hear ye, hear ye. This is when it gets to the next level, when we have somebody who is actually teaching hip-hop in a school. We made it! There’s a song with me on KRS One’s album called ‘We Made It.’ It’s so funny how we made it and we do it, but it’s so funny of how that record reminds me of what we’re talking about. We made it to the point that hip-hop is no longer being shoved in the back and being pushed to the front, like when someone on the street shoves you. It’s in academic society and it’s respected as a culture that can be taught to help civilize the kids. Like 9th said, it’s about teaching them why this form of music called hip-hop affects the culture of our youth so much. And now there’s a person explaining to you why.

On the surprised mind-state of 9th’s students – ‘Uh, we’re not just gonna sit around and talk about rap shit?’:

9th: It changes the first day for some people. Some people drop the class after the first couple of days. Cuz if you look at it, you’re talking about a generation that depends a lot on technology. They depend on technology to meet people, you know what I’m saying!? You’re dealing with a generation where people will see a member of the opposite sex on campus and instead of walking up to that person and talking to them, they’ll go up to their room and get on Facebook! They depend so much on technology that they don’t even know how to meet people or talk to human beings. So if you’re dealing with a generation like that, try throwing 1981-1997, all the hip-hop records they probably never heard, at them. If you talk to a person our age, man, they know albums. They know songs on albums. They know artists. It was a thirst for us. It was something that we longed for. Let’s not forget, if you didn’t live in New York, Yo! MTV Raps…I lived in North Carolina, bruh. Yo! MTV Raps came on once a week for thirty minutes. That was all the rap on TV I got to see. All week. That was it! The thirst for us was different. The thirst for us…he’d got records that you ain’t never heard. Or he’d got a cousin who stayed up top who’d play a tape he made of WBLS or somethin’. And you listen to all these records you never heard. So the thirst for us was different. This generation has everything handed to them by technology. So if you’re telling them to learn an art-form that’s not really based on technology and all the records they’ve got to learn…they’re floored, man. They’re really like ‘Dang, we have to know that?’ Like man, we had a pop quiz one time and I was like, ‘Name all of the members of the Wu Tang Clan.’ They was like, ‘Oh my God….’ It was like it was killin’ them to do it. Cuz it’s like there’s nine members, okay, and each member got a nickname, and each member got an album. And it’s like ‘what!’ For a 19 year old kid? That’s hard! That’s hard to learn. Cuz we learned it by records, we learned it by the songs that they sang. They learn it by what we tellin’ them, and these records are just hard for them to get.

Buckshot: People ask us often just to conclude interviews with – where are you guys at? What happened to Little Brother? What happened to Black Moon? Or where you guys at? What up Buckshot, where you guys been at? But something that 9th touches on is key: there are a lot of people out there who still do the research. There are kids – White kids, Chinese kids, whatever, Black kids, conscious Black kids – who get out there and actively search and seek out music. The new Jean Grae. The new Murs. The new Buckshot & 9th Wonder. And that’s the reason they’re able to stay current. If you want to stay current, you have to actively search and seek.

- Mike Gadd 

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed