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2/20/2006 How are you doing Kool? I'm doing good. We're about to drop "Reality Check" as a single. That's produced by DJ Premier. We just finished the b-side with Bronze Nazareth on the beat and Kool G. Rap as a feature. That one's called "Reckless Eyeballin'." How did that song come about? We were working with Bronze for awhile and we just wanted to flip some street shit. Once we knew Kool G. was down to flip on some shit, we just ran with it. It's definitely one of our best joints. How did Verbal Threat come together? In '92, I came out to California from New York and hooked up with my boy Reppond. We had love for the real shit. That brought us together. We were on Gangstarr, Brand Nubian…we were just real infatuated with that real shit. Once we saw the game slipping and getting more commercialized, we felt the need to get involved and bring the game back to the things we came up loving. From there, we've just been building. In the last couple of years, we've been taking it seriously and we've been fortunate that we've been able to work with the people we came up idolizing. We're trying to flip it back to the '88 to '92 shit with a 2006 sound. How do you guys work together on a song? We feed off of each other. We have that mind-state of trying to bring the game back to what we love. We have high standards. Every time we get in the studio, we lay out concepts and flip verses. We critique each other so deep. We're in the studio 24/7, banging out concepts and writing verses back and forth. If we don't feel it's up to par, we scrap it. We compete against each other and try to bring the best out of us. You guys dropped the "Under Pressure" album in 2003. How did that do for you? That was an experiment. We've been MC's for a long time and we've done shows and battles for so many years. A lot of times you'll have dope street rappers that can't make songs. With us, we were at a time in our career when we had to make that transition. We were working with our first producer, Clark Davis in Atlanta. We put that together in a four-month span out in LA. That was our first experience recording and doing what we felt was correct. What can you tell us about your DJ, DJ Flict? DJ Flict! We got hooked up with him out here when we were rocking shows. You have to have DJ's rocking back there too that knows what they're doing. MC's can only do so much on stage. We got hooked up in '99 and he's been down with the team. He does his CD's on the side. He's been dabbling in production and he's our main man whenever we have scratching on a song. Why is it so rare for artists to have DJ's now? The game is a sad story. Hip Hop is really big right now, but the pioneers who really cared about it, nobody gives a shit about what they stood for anymore. Everyone's going to CDJ's and Serato. Everyone's looking for shortcuts. To me, that affects your whole show. The instant replay is fine, but you have to have somebody back there cutting that real shit. How did "Reality Check" with DJ Premier come about? That was years in the making. Me being from New York, I was going at Premier for a long time trying to get hooked up with him. Finally, after years, it just seemed to work out. My people connected with his people and the relationship grew. When he'd come out to LA, we'd be in the same spots. When the time came, we were able to connect our schedules together. We flew back to New York to do it. That's also when we got on tour with Kool Keith. Premier came out to Cali working on Christina Aguilera's album. We were putting the finishing touches on our song and Nas came thought and Primo introduced us to Nas. After a couple months, we had "Reality Check." What was your inspiration for writing "Reality Check"? We were so fed up with the game. With us, our whole vision of getting into Hip Hop music was to work with Premier. If it was up to us, Premier would do all of our albums. We know how Premier feels about the game getting sold out. We had real production and we were going to come in with the real shit. The game needs a reality check. Real beats, real lyrics, real scratches. That's what we're coming with. How involved was Primo in the making of "Reality Check"? He was playing a lot of songs trying to find one that would match our style. That's what I appreciate about him. He didn't just tell us to rap over one beat. We were listening to the song and we came up with the title "Reality Check." Primo started laughing because he had done a mixtape two years ago called "Reality Check." I asked for a dope introduction and he definitely surprised me with that slow piano at the beginning. A track with Premier gives you instant credibility. Yeah. We had been trying for so many years. My man says this in a verse: "It took us thirteen years for a single." We had to get ready for this. Was there ever a time in those thirteen years when you thought about giving up? Oh yeah. When you're doing your music and everyone else is doing some commercial shit, you start to have an identity crisis. Should I switch it up and get played on the radio and make money? It paid off for us because we stuck to our guns. That's what you have to do and hope that it works out. On "Reality Check," you shout out greats like DONDI, how important is it to remember legends like him? I used to come up to New York in '85. I was inducted to the game then. We would break on cardboard and all my boys were graffiti writers. Coming up in that whole era, DONDI was the whole king. Us shouting him out is showing our love and appreciation for that aspect of Hip Hop. That whole movement is very important to me. Are you still writing today? I freelance designs for Wildstyle Technicians. That's a clothing line in San Diego. They'll also set up some walls for me to do some wildstyle pieces. Me and my boy did a piece in Hell's Kitchen that came out dope. My involvement now is doing a piece maybe two or three times a year. Most of your songs have a real focus to them. How important is that? It makes your album more interesting. The first time you hear people flip dope lyrics, it's cool, but it gets tiring after awhile. If you listen to Gangstarr's catalog, there are always dope concepts throughout their albums. The first time we get to the studio, it's always easy to flip metaphors, but it's dope if you can flip dope concepts with dope lyrics. It makes the song more complete. If you can hit the concepts, it shows your maturity and versatility. We want people to look back on us as really laying it down and being one of the best. You guys have toured with legends like KRS, how was that? It's dope. One minute we finished "Reality Check" and then we were on the road with KRS, Guru, Kool Keith…it was dope for us to be able to hop on a tour with no new jacks. We were running with cats that we idolized. Filthee Immigrants were doing their thing. Blackalicious hopped on the tour too. KRS is the largest in the Hip Hop game to me. It was dope to be hitting venues like Arizona where the room was packed. It was dope to see support. It was a dope experience. Is the stage show dying out? It depends. Cats have to really work on their live show. I was so mad at their shows that I stopped going out. Nas and Jurassic 5 can really put it down. If you have a DJ, MC's, and a live drummer, those are avenues that can keep people's interest. There have been shows when I want to fall asleep. I have never been to a wack KRS show. It really depends who you want to see. I've always been impressed with Guru. New cats don't feel they have to put a lot into the stage show. They think just being on stage is enough. That's when you see the difference between a real MC and a commercial motherfucker. When are you going to drop the album? We're looking at putting it our right before the summer. Probably in May or June. We wanted to record about thirty songs and then weed it down. Right now, we have ten joints recorded. I'm trying to see who's on our level and what guest appearances we need. We don't need a lot of guests. We already have DJ Premier and Kool G. Rap. Anybody who is on our level, production-wise, we're looking for. We want that real solid production. We don't want the motherfucker on the corner who's hot right now. I'd like to see what's up with Mathematics, Pete Rock…we want to keep it on that same plane. Are you looking for a major label right now? We're signed to an indie label right now, Throwback Records. We have a couple majors that have been interested, but at this point, our main focus is just trying to put out the best Hip Hop that we can do right now. It's coming through right now. What should be watching for next from Verbal Threat? We're trying to shoot a video in New York in the next couple of months. Premier has his radio show on Sirius and he's been banging our single. We're going to come through on his show and do an interview. We're also working on a tour in the next couple of months. We just have to decide who's going to go on tour with us. When we go on tour, we want the other people to have the same style. We have the single coming, the b-side with Kool G. Rap. We're just trying to get the single out and we're working on the tour for the summer. What do you want to say to everyone? Cop the album and cop the single when it drops. We're trying to bring that '88 - '92 back with the 2006 sound. Right now, I'm still not satisfied with Hip Hop. We're finally getting into that driver's seat to bring it back to that real shit.

By Brian Kayser

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