DON'T MISS TODAY:

Back to Artist Profiles

6/5/2006 What's up? I'm pretty good right now. I'm in my best shape ever. I'm just going hard right now. I got sweat dripping all over me right now. First off we're sorry to hear about the passing of Allah Sun. What can you tell us about him? I can tell you he was a real talented brother. He never really got his chance to shine but a lot of people were living off his style. He was real spiritual and deep. He was a real good brother. Shout out to Daddy Rose and the whole Rose family. That was another branch off our family tree. I can't take that hurt. I lost my moms and 75% of my best friends. It's been kind of crazy. I don't know. It just shows you have to cherish what you've got. We haven't heard too much from you lately. What have you been up to? I'm taping this DVD right now called Underground Hip-Hop Volume One. I've been working on that and a mixtape with DJ Rated R and DJ Diggz called Burn Babylon, Burn. I did a deal with Mercury Entertainment and the DVD is going to be distributed through Koch. I've been working on the album. That's coming out through Caroline Distribution. Nature Sounds is involved. I've been working real hard. I've also been working with this group Tribes of Judah. They're coming from Maryland. I've been working with them. One of the brothers from the group just got locked up. I'm just working on putting together more and more projects. We're finishing up the Maccabeez project and all that. How's your solo album coming? It's been a lot of hard work, but I feel good about it because I'm the A&R. Nobody's telling me what beats to pick. I A&R'd the Sunz of Man The Last Shall be First album. I've never put out an album by myself. I've always been a group member. I've done Sunz of Man, Black Market Militia, and the Maccabeez. This album is real different from working with a group. When you're in a group, you have to deal with people's opinions. On a solo project, you get to paint the picture. A lot of the themes of this album are the artist painting a picture. That's why I call myself "The Renaissance Child." It's like watching a movie. The way I did this album is seriously like watching a movie. It's going to shock and surprise people when they hear how I'm coming with it. A lot of artists who have been in a group their whole career have trouble making whole songs by themselves. Have you had that problem? No, because I've always been the person who could write hooks. If you go back and check my history, I've written a lot of hooks on songs we've done. I've always been a hook person. I don't even go by the sixteen-bar rule. I've always been lyrical. I'm used to writing a song. The whole thing of being an MC is being able to make a song. You can rap all day long, but a lot of these cats can't make a song. They're more like mixtape MC's. That's what MC stands for now, "mixtape cats." Back in the day, it wasn't like that. You had to make a song. When Eric B. and Rakim came out with "Microphone Fiend," that was a song. I have a song called "Buried Alive" and I made sure every line I wrote was something deep. I want you to be able to tell I didn't just go in the studio, smoked a blunt, drank some liquor, and said something. I want you to be able to tell that every line I said, I meant it. I also know how to perform by myself. A lot of artists don't know how to perform. They may have one part of the chemistry, but they're missing the other half. I know how to perform by myself. At the same time, I know how to make music. Real music with hooks that people can feel, absorb, and play years from now. You've been in the game for a long time. Why haven't you dropped a solo album yet? I was in a lot of bad contracts. My contracts were set up for me to do solo projects, but also to come out as a group. It started out with Killah Priest dropping Heavy Mental and View from Mesada. I was getting out of my contract and I was getting that straight because I was supposed to release an album before the label went into bankruptcy. I was supposed to drop a Hell Razah album around the time of Heavy Mental. We had to get out of a lot of bad contracts. I was stuck in situation where I had to fix it. Now I own all my publishing and I have my own company, Hell Razah Music. My music is coming out through me. I have a partner, Nu-Kemit. We're going to make a killing because I own my own music instead of everybody owning a part of me. I feel better about the album coming out on my label instead of somebody else's and being somebody's puppet. How would things be different for you if you had a few albums out already? I elevate. I always elevate. It would be the same script, but with different actors. Nobody's talking about the stuff I'm talking about in music. They're either too afraid or they have an A&R telling them that's not cool or that's not hot. I'm in control of my situation because I'm not signed to anybody. I'm comfortable with what I'm talking about because this is me and my team. If I came in and started doing something different, my fans wouldn't even have any love for me. I'm just going to elevate. If I sounded like I did in '95, imagine what I'm going to sound like in 2006. How overdue is this solo album? Overdue, man. Way overdue. It's so overdue that I have to drop two albums. As a matter of fact, what's going to happen is I'm going to drop the Hell Razah album which is The Renaissance Child, and then I'm going to do the Heaven Razah album. That's the Kingdom of Heaven. That should be out early 2007. This music is going to make you feel real good about hip-hop all over again. When you hear my music, you're going to be pleased somebody's still doing it and bringing it back. I have lyrically-inclined cats on my album. It's so overdue that I'm giving them two albums. The Hell Razah album is going to show my street side and the Heaven Razah album is going to show my spiritual side. What is spirituality's place in hip-hop? Look at Kanye West and Nas. It has a strong impact. Everybody has Jesus pieces. Everybody wants to dress like Solomon. King Solomon had fine linen. Look at 2Pac with his whole Makaveli thing. Look at Biggie doing Life After Death standing by a casket and later on it happens to him. Whatever you say can happen. If you name your album certain titles, like if you name your album "I'm Going to Die Tomorrow," you're liable to die tomorrow because there's power in words. Words become flesh. The words have power and life in it. If you read the beginning of the Bible, it tells you how God created the Heavens and the Earth. The vibration of sound gave light. When you have a lot of people who don't believe in the same religion, they get offended. If you're a Muslim, you're going to have a Muslim fan-base. Muslims may not buy Mase's record. Spirituality plays a major part in music across the board. The Jews run most of the business. You're dealing with the Jews, Italians, Irish, and Russians. Now China and Japan have stepped in now. The reason why there won't be any Islamic rappers is because there aren't any Islamic labels. If there were Islamic labels, you would have Islamic rappers. If you have labels that are mafia-related, you're going to have mafia rappers. At times, spirituality can look like it's corny, wack, tarnished, or whatever people want to say. But here's what you have to remember, they make things that are good look bad and things that are bad look good to the eyes and the soul. You have to remember that. Look at Langston Hughes and the cats before him. It all goes in to who we are now. Do you see yourself and MC's like Killah Priest being the new generation of poets? Definitely. We're rapping about the Twelve Children of Israel. We're bringing that to the hip-hop music. Everything's been done before. Priest first tapped into it when he did Heavy Mental and he did "B.I.B.L.E." From there, I have a song on this album relating to the Scriptures and Deuteronomy 28:48. That's going to really show real, lyrical emceeing. It's going to show artistry, originality, and poetry. Me and Priest actually just got finished filming for our DVD. That's a good brother. I respect that brother a lot. He's enlightened me a lot. I don't hang out with no wood because you can't get sharp on that. I sharpen his steel and he sharpens my steel and together, you could forget about it. We're already doing an album. It's going to be over for cats. Once everyone hears The Offering, oh my God. Wait until you hear my verse on The Offering. It's crazy. It's a crazy song. We did two songs. How did you feel about Prodigy's verse on "Pearly Gates"? I heard it, but I didn't study it. I was like, "Maybe he just doesn't believe in God." Let me tell you, God is spiritual. He's not going to give you material things. God is the reason why you're breathing and why the sun is shining right now or why the moon is lit and why the stars are lit. For you to be able to be a rapper, you wouldn't even know anything about no whips or anything without the Most High. The Most High makes everything possible. The rappers out there talking about that are talking about Satan. Do what you do but that's why I'm the Human Torch. I'm calling myself "Raziel." For those who don't know, look it up. It means "Messenger of God." The Maccabeez are riding out on people like that. You don't come out disrespecting the Most High. Cats recognize it's just wrong, man. You're going to get to hear some positive, basement shit in a minute. You already know we get it in, so it ain't nothing. We're still street niggas, but what we say and what we do, we try to make a change within ourselves. You can't live in the past. That's how we do it, and I don't care. That's why I'm on some Renaissance Child shit, to let people know who God really is. The reason why people feel that way is because they have no knowledge of God. They've never done any research on it and they're happy with where they are in life. I'm not here to judge nobody, but at the same time, if I can be an example, I'm going to be an example. This hip-hop shit, we live this shit for real. Why did you start calling yourself the Human Torch? Ahh. When you're dealing with fire, lava, and things of that nature, the heat purifies things. The Human Torch is like a Clark Kent/Superman thing. It's showing people that I'm about burning and purifying anything that comes in my way. I'm trying to get the children with this too. My man Scientific is working on drawing a character for it. It's crazy right now. For the children, we're going to take our words and powers to another level. We're like the X-Men out here. It's no different from Johnny Storm. I'm a regular dude during the day, but when I get into my zone and I start spitting that fire, that's it, that's the Human Torch. I'm boiling it down, basically, that's it. If I get into my Human Torch-mode with these MC's, it's over. How's the Maccabeez project coming? That's good. Timbo King is real serious with it. That brother right there is a real pioneer who I respect. We've had the Maccabeez project in the making for a long time. We also have the Tribes of Judah group I'm working with too. They're affiliated with the Maccabeez. We also have a production group in Amsterdam holding down the Maccabeez. We've got our producers on lock and we're doing it like that. The Maccabeez album is real, how can I say it, it's like Public Enemy. It's going to be on some Fear of a Black Planet Part 2-type shit. We may even get Flava Flav on the album. When will the Maccabeez project drop? That should be dropping in the winter. We should be releasing a single after my album drops. Are you working on a new Black Market Militia album? Yeah. I've been reaching out to Talib Kweli about that. Killah Priest has been talking to Immortal Technique and Saigon. Any respected MC's who want to be a part of the movement can get at me, get at Priest, or Timbo King. Any of the three of us you can get at. This is some power-moves shit. Hip-hop is missing this. It's like you have appetizers like chicken fingers and french fries but you don't have any real meals. We're bringing that meat to the table. Are you happy with how the last Black Market Militia album did? I'm happy with how it got out there. It could have done better. What happened was that in the middle of the album, a lot of shit happened. Basically the album got out there. For those who don't know about it, you missed a crazy album. I have a song on there called "Mayhem" which is ridiculous. The second part is going to be building off the first, so before you check out the new one you have to go back. Is Sunz of Man any closer to working on a new album? We're all into a lot of shit right now. Prodigal Sunn is into a lot of filming right now. He's working on taking that to the next level. He's been working with Showtime for a minute. I'm going to hold down my square, Priest is going to hold down his square, 60's doing his thing, and Prodigal's going to do his thing, then we're going to show everybody what we've been working on. We're still working, but now we're going to be able to attack from different angles right now. Everybody wants to rap and be a producer now, but we need to put out books and newspapers. That's why we're working on comic books to go along with our music. When you hear Sunz of Man, you should think of superheroes. At this stage in your career, do you get the respect you deserve? I'll tell you like this: honestly, I'm a lot of favorite rappers' favorite rapper. I'm not saying that as a slogan. A lot of artists and producers stepping to me telling me about my music. A lot of the new cats are stepping in off the Biggie or Jay-Z era. We were there when Biggie was coming up and we did shows together sometimes. I went to school with Foxy Brown. This hip-hop shit to me is something for real. I was born into hip-hop. It's crazy for me. At the same time, I look at it like I have to reeducate people. That's why I named my album The Renaissance Child. Renaissance means rebirth, and the word child symbolizes purity. I'm reinventing myself. A lot of cats don't know about Hell Razah. The ones who do, I'm going to satisfy them already. The ones who don't know will be satisfied and they'll be soldiers. They have to start out at stage one and build it up. I'm taking them to the breast milk of the Black Madonna. They're going to think Sunz of Man is brand new. They're going to be like, "That is so spiritual" and they're going to love it because they've never heard anything like it before. They've heard the Nas' and the Kanye West's, but they've never heard it like this. When you hear The Renaissance Child, you're going to know it's some different shit and you're going to say, "I ain't never heard nothing like that before." What's the best way to get the kids to listen to Hell Razah today? They just have to check my music. I can give them information and that's good for me. I make people feel good about what they're doing. For the cats who want to get busy and if you're a part of the movement, let's do it. Anybody who's in our way is getting run over. That's it. We're going through hell and hot water to get to where we're going and to say what we're saying. They're putting people in prison and people are talking all of this gangster and street shit but they're living in Hollywood. The people are trying to live out what they're hearing in the music and they get locked up and they don't have no future. By the time they come out, it's twenty or thirty years later and there's no telling what's going on then. We've been talking the New World Order and Da Vinci Code shit and look what's happening now. This is to show you that nothing we said was bullshit and we didn't say these things for nothing. We're going to keep giving music for the people and we're going to keep prophesizing in the name of the Lord. What do you want to say to everyone? Visit HipHopGame and check out some of the bangers I have on there. Definitely go cop any albums that we did. If you don't have Sunz of Man's The Last Shall be First or any Killah Priest albums, you're missing out on a lot of shit. If you don't have Black Market, you're really lost. Keep supporting what we're doing. To producers who want to get with us, we're not going to brush you off. We're always looking for new talent. If you're going to support real hip-hop, it's going to support you. Fuck these A&R's. Don't listen to them telling you you have to make a down south record to sell. Be original and listen to older hip-hop CD's. Slick Rick, Big Daddy Kane, and KRS never sounded like each other and each one is a monument for hip-hop. You can do the same thing. Don't try to be no gangster if you're not a gangster. Don't be a murderer if you're not a murderer. Don't be a drug dealer if you're not a drug dealer. That's not cool. You can put out classic music and be remembered for the rest of your life and never die. We have to support each other in this hip-hop community. Don't just support what you hear on the radio. Say something that has some meaning to it. There are children who buy these records and asking their mothers or sisters and brothers to buy these CD's. At four or five years-old, they know how to repeat what they hear. Not everybody has to do what I'm saying, but you know what I'm talking about. Stand up. Cats can't be coming out and disrespecting the Scriptures and talking out on God and all that. First of all, that's blasphemy. Don't be biting anyone's style. Be original, man. You can do something and let people know what you can do. Where's the originality right now? Niggas need to be original. The album is coming out and I'm about to drop the single. Fabrizio Sotti did the single and the b-side. He's over there working with M1. Everybody who heard that knows what I'm talking about. I also have a Sunz of Man song on my album. It's called "Chapters" and it's crazy. You know that's got to be crazy. It's 4th Disciple and it's Sunz of Man. It's going to be crazy. The album is crazy. I'm happy right now.

By Brian Kayser

[29] REACT TO THIS INTERVIEW