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8/3/2006 What's up? Armanni: Peace! Sharp: We're good. Everything's good right now. What's the Mental Sharp 101? Armanni: Mental Sharp has become a collective over the years. It started off with two MC's from completely different worlds. Sharpness is from Baltimore and I'm from Blackwood. We were doing a lot of things in drum-n-bass but we're grounded in our hip-hop roots. We're building a movement with our music trying to give people something they're not used to. Sharpness: We basically came together because we were doing the drum-n-bass thing. In that scene, there are only a few MC's who are trying to do anything. Armanni and I were in the same places all the time and we both had the love for hip-hop. We were trying to do something different other than what we were doing professionally with the drum-n-bass shit. People accepted it right away and it just snowballed into what it is now. We have a few mixtapes out now and we're working on an album. We're doing shows all around the tri-state area and out west. It just snowballed on its own. It's dope, man. How do you guys work together? Armanni: We work crazy together. We have a whole collective. Mental Sharp is a gathering of all forms. We have tattoo and graffiti artists, we have DJ's and other MC's in our collectives. As far as Sharpness and I are concerned, it's a natural connection. If I hit it from one angle, he hits it from another angle. We hit everything from two different aspects no matter what. That's how we do it. Sharpness: The chemistry between us has been so smooth. It seems to be a lot harder for other people. We're usually around the same place when we hear a beat or have an idea. Recording a song might not even take that long, it's just that we pick at it as much as possible after the initial recording. Armanni: We work hard and we make sure that everything we do is something that can stand. If I don't like something, I tell Sharpness and vice versa. A lot of people can't do that. We've been in this grind way before we started doing this hip-hop project. We were doing the things that needed to get done way before this so it's almost as if we have a head-start. Sharpness: It's really about doing it instead of talking about it. You guys have a lot or raw energy on tracks. Sharpness: That's because of the drum-n-bass music that we do professionally is 98% live performance. You have to look at how you project your voice and everything else. We took that edge into the hip-hop thing. Even if you don't like what we're saying or if you don't agree with everything we're saying, you're definitely going to feel the passion we're bringing. We never try to downplay that, whether it's some party shit or some deep shit. Armanni: We like to think and our lyrics are in the words of the common man. You're going to at least feel where we're coming from. You may not like it at first, but I like that. You may have to listen to our tracks a couple of times to really get it. It's about bettering yourself and knowing you are a warrior of the light and nobody can be perfect. It's really about raw emotion. It's really about music. For somebody else, it may be different. You have a hip-hop and DnB background. What beats do you look for? Armanni: To be perfectly honest with you, we thrive on versatility. It can be a club track one day and a grimy track the next day. We've been lucky to have drum-n-bass and to be able to travel all around the world so we've seen a lot. We look for the vibe. We're not looking for what's going to be the next hit tomorrow, especially with the state of the game today. I'm not complaining about cats getting their money, but we're building things from the ground up. How important is it to do what you want regardless of trends? Sharpness: It's really not important to not follow the trends, but you have to do what you feel. If I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it because I feel it's the right choice to make. Hip-hop is a reflection of what you represent and how you feel. A lot of times you're not getting accurate representations. It just so happens that some of my choices are against the grain. You have to just do you. Armanni: Being we have the fan-base we do have, we owe it to the fans to be honest with them. We don't want the fans to think that we're doing something different just to be different. The ones who do something different just to be different are just following trends by bitching about the game. We've experienced different forms of music and have been able to talk to people from all over the world. It's not so much about not following the trend but just doing our own damn thing. That's what we do. Fuck everybody else. How do you balance DnB and hip-hop? Sharpness: That's a loaded question. Armanni: Rolling with TekDBZ with Photek and Ho-Chi, DJ Craze, MC Dre, the thing is, drum-n-bass is a different thing. It's a very eclectic vibe. You have people from rock and roll, reggae, and people from all over. You have some hip-hop heads. Anybody can be in a drum-n-bass party. When you make a drum-n-bass track, it's really about the vibe and the music. We're trying to change the sound with TekDBZ. It's not that much different between the two genres, it's just that the format changes. Sharpness: The vocals are in drum-n-bass just to add some more flavor to the track. It gives it that extra push of emotions. It's more about the beat. Hip-hop is more about what you're saying and the direction you're taking the song. We really try to put the lyrics back into the music in everything we do. Guys like Papoose are bringing back the lyrics and the delivery. A lot of cats forgot what made it work. That's why we hit all our aspects from writing to performing. You get all of it at our shows. Anybody can make beats and say something over it and have guest appearances, but that's not really our style. We want to focus more on the lyricism and what made it an art-form. Can it be hard to break into hip-hop with a drum-n-bass background? Sharpness: It's always going to be a challenge, but at the end of the day, if your project speaks for itself, usually everything else falls into place. I think once people hear our shit, people will realize we were hip-hop before drum-n-bass even came into the picture. That's just an avenue I got into because I love the music. If people want to pigeonhole us and say that, it just means that our project has to be that much stronger. Armanni: We also realize that drum-n-bass caught a very bad vibe in America because it was attached to house and techno and cats couldn't really get with it at first. We basically represent American MC's in drum-n-bass. People haven't really gotten it yet, but there is a large group out there who does understand and that's why we do what we do. We take the culture of hip-hop and drum-n-bass and try to redefine it. you can see the progression in the music and it just keeps on getting better every time. The more people who climb on, the more times you get producers trying new things. I talked to Roc Raida from the X-ecutioners all the time and we talk about how hip-hop mixes in with the drum-n-bass. Roc Raida and the Beatnuts see the energy and they want to get into it. Cats understand the vibe of what a drum-n-bass party is and you can't match the vibe. When you mix in the street vibe, it's unstoppable. It's more street than anybody's ever realized. It's easy to knock if you don't know anything about it. Where do you see hip-hop production going in the future? Sharpness: I think the hip-hop production is on its way up. I think it's really getting better with time. I think producers are paying more attention to sound quality and they're being more careful with sampling. More producers are using their intuition to make better beats. I think that's unfortunate because rappers are slacking right now. There aren't too many people who can carry a track unless it's a dope Timbaland or Scott Storch-produced beat. How many times in the last four or five years have you liked the beat but not the lyrics? What the fuck is that? How come the beat is hot but the lyrics suck? That's corny to me. I can't tell you how many times I've been in the club where they're just playing the instrumentals. We're trying to bring back that syllable wordplay with deeper meanings where you have to listen a few times to get it. Armanni: I'm feeling a lot of the production now. I like a lot of the production out right now. The music as a whole, I'm not going to front, I'm kind of disappointed in it. It is what it is. It will work itself out in the end as more people step up to the plate. I'm feeling Kanye West's stuff right now, Ghostface's album…When you get into the point of who I'm actually feeling, it's really an MC thing to me. Wu-Tang, Papoose and Planet Asia, those are cats who have something to say. I like the music and I listen to everything in the club, but I don't put the club shit on when I'm smoking and playing video games. It's cool in the club but it's a problem to me that that's the only place it's cool for. What's TekDBZ? Sharpness: TekDBZ is an all-star cast of cats who are affiliated with drum-n-bass and hip-hop. Drum-n-bass is predominantly listened to by people in Europe. In the States, we have DJ Craze and Photek who's originally from London. TekDBZ is basically all of us getting together. We've really developed our own sound. We also got Ho-Chi who is a sick producer. There's Infiltrada and MC Dre. Free MC Dre! There's Johnny Johnson out in LA. TekDBZ is really spread out and it's hard to link up with everyone, but we're working on taking our music to a worldwide status. We're trying to bring hip-hop and drum-n-bass together, which isn't throwing lyrics on a drum-n-bass track. We all have a hip-hop background and what's coming out is a new type of sound that people aren't used to. We did a show out in November at the House of Blues. It was Craze, Ho-Chi, and KRS-One. KRS was tripping over it. The vibe was dope. Craze flipped his drum-n-bass set into a hip-hop set and you can get both vibes and it's perfect. That set up KRS perfectly. Hip-hop and drum-n-bass have been separated a lot, but the shit works together flawlessly. People have to open their minds. America has everybody so brainwashed and Clear Channeled. The underground isn't even the underground anymore. You have to make sacrifices. That's what we've been doing and that's what we're going to do until people get it. What's next for Mental Sharp? Armanni: We have the TekDBZ project which is going to be a double-CD. There's going to be a lot of different tracks on that. We're also working on our fourth Mental Sharp mixtape, Above the Beats, Below the Bass. We've been dropping them every six months with a lot of tracks from people all over. There's all original production from cats like Ho-Chi and Craze. We get original music and make an album. We take the 2Pac approach where we make as much music as possible where if I die tomorrow, people will still be able to understand what I was talking about. We're also working on a full-length straight hip-hop album. That's going to take a little more time. It should be out early next year. It's called Epiphany. We're just working on a lot of projects and we're touring. We're just making music every day on the grind like we're supposed to be. How does Mental Sharp fit into the Philly scene? Sharpness: The great thing about Philadelphia is you can't put a certain sound on it. When you have talent, people recognize it. There's still politics, but the good thing is people recognize talent. There are so many rappers out here who are good and have talent. In Philly, if you're trash, they'll let you know fast. Armanni: There's a lot of versatility. Philly's been on the grind for awhile and we're overshadowed by New York. Philly has a chip on its shoulder and it will always have a chip on its shoulder. I don't think we get the respect we deserve. I put us in the top-five cities of all time. What do you want to say to everybody? Sharpness: I just want to tell the people to support our music. We're doing something for the greater good of hip-hop. Ride with us. We're giving you what you need. Armanni: Be yourself. We don't make music just to make it. We don't water anything down. Remember those times when cats were actually saying something? Come check us. We're working for cats in that everyday life whether you're in the city or the 'burbs. We've seen all walks of life. We're all in the same struggle. That's what our music is about. That's what cats need to understand. We have the MC'ing, DJ'ing, breakdancing, and graffiti artists together. There's so much in this movement. We're not backpackers and we're not thugs. If you understand what it is, it's all good. We're trying to hit it from all angles. It's all about the partying, having a good time and keeping true to yourself at all times. We're all soldiers and everybody has to be a soldier in their own life. Download Mental Sharp's mixtape here: http://killahertz.com/mentalsharp_negative3.zip Make friends with Mental Sharp at http://myspace.com/mentalsharp

By Brian Kayser

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