Diplomats
Interview By Black Dog
From Murder Dog Vol. 10 #2
What neighborhood are you from?
Jewelz: I’m from Harlem, 151st, 153rd and Amsterdam Avenue. That where I grew up.
Harlem has this rich history behind it. It was, at one point in time, the cultural center of the African American world.
Jewelz: Harlem is everything. It’s just a fly place. It’s always been known for being fly. I mean we set the trends…we do everything. Right now the game is a little bit different now, but like back in the days people had to come through Harlem for everything. If you was a real nigga then you had to touch basis in Harlem because it was the spot for the parties, it was the spot for the clothes. Everything went through Harlem. So when you come from Harlem, then you got that pizzazz with you.
Speaking of Harlem being the spot where you had to go, it’s interesting to note that Harlem
was
the one place that a lot of Southerners would come to during the great Southern
Migration. Are any of your people from the South?
Jewelz: I got people from the South, but they are still out there. But you’re right a lotta people came out here from the South. Like I said they heard about a fly place and they had to come here and see it for themselves. You can’t come to New York and not come to Harlem.
What was it like for you growing up?
Jewelz: Like I said in a lotta of my interviews, I’m from the street so I went through the average thing that a nigga on the street went through--hustling and shit. I don’t like to glorify that because I feel that we’re all from the hood and we all pretty much have the same story. You know struggling to get out you did everything that you could possibly do to get out. I done sold the drugs, I done held the guns, but, you know that’s the life….that’s the hood life. You know how some people get in their interviews and say yeah you know I had the guns. I had the block on smash. That’s the hood life. You ain’t nothing special B. The regular hood life is hard man. I was in the streets everyday holding guns if I had to, just doing me. But everything that I did in the streets I did so that I could get out of the street. My [goal] wasn’t to stay in the hood and be in the hood forever. Don’t get me wrong, I love the hood for sure. That’s my place, that’s where I grew up but it’s like man, I did everything that I could to get out the hood.
You came up in the 80s. That was a golden time period for Hip Hop.
Jewelz: That was a golden time for everything…for hustling, for Hip Hop for everything. That was the time that you should have been in. Everything was changing. In the 70s, you had coke, you had a lotta different things going on at different times. In 80s everything was going on at one time. Then everything sorta coincided. You had the hustlers getting into the music. The music was into the hustlers…everything was just coinciding.
That’s when the music really started to reflect the grimy side of the street. That was the transition from the party Rap to hardcore reality Rap.
Jewelz: That what was going on during those day so you couldn’t really knock the party Rappers for what they were doing. That was their reality. In the 70s that’s all that there was to do was party. Everything was a party. But in the 80s things got tight economically and everybody started taking everything real seriously.
Let’s talk a little it about your experiences with music coming up. Being from Harlem where there is a deep Hip Hop tradition dating all the way back to Kurtis Blow, I imagine that you listened to a lotta of the classic coming up?
Jewelz: Man I listen to all of the classic Hip Hop legends: Kurtis Blow, LL Cool J, Afrika Bambaattaa, Kool Moe Dee. I listened to a lotta old school Rappers because I grew up around a lotta older brothers so, you know, they was like putting me on to the classics. You know like when you’re young and there’s a new Rapper and you think he’s the shit and your older brother tells you to listen to this. I remember when we used to put on old school r & b. My parents used to play it a lot. That’s why you hear it in a lotta our music. We’re so used to hearing it that when we hear a beat with an old school sample we go hey that’s hot.
I like the way you used those old R & B samples.
Jewelz: Yeah, man our album isn’t just a put together album. When we talk about our music we call it powerful music because we talk about how we feel. When we get into the studio it’s gonna be real and it gonna be family, ya know what mean. Everything all comes together and it comes together real well. It’s not like we’re in there playing –oh let’s make a hit for the radio. The things that happened in our lives we want everybody to feel so when we Rap we try to come across real strong so we just express things with [emotions].
Another thing that I like about the album was that every track seems to fit you all’s flow perfectly. A lotta times MCs have problem picking the right beat for their flow. I was wondering how do you go about picking a beat. Is it the rhyme and flow first and then the beat or do you pick a beat and then let the beat dictate the rhyme and flow?
Interview By Black Dog
From Murder Dog Vol. 10 #2
What neighborhood are you from?
Jewelz: I’m from Harlem, 151st, 153rd and Amsterdam Avenue. That where I grew up.
Harlem has this rich history behind it. It was, at one point in time, the cultural center of the African American world.
Jewelz: Harlem is everything. It’s just a fly place. It’s always been known for being fly. I mean we set the trends…we do everything. Right now the game is a little bit different now, but like back in the days people had to come through Harlem for everything. If you was a real nigga then you had to touch basis in Harlem because it was the spot for the parties, it was the spot for the clothes. Everything went through Harlem. So when you come from Harlem, then you got that pizzazz with you.
Speaking of Harlem being the spot where you had to go, it’s interesting to note that Harlem
was
the one place that a lot of Southerners would come to during the great Southern
Migration. Are any of your people from the South?Jewelz: I got people from the South, but they are still out there. But you’re right a lotta people came out here from the South. Like I said they heard about a fly place and they had to come here and see it for themselves. You can’t come to New York and not come to Harlem.
What was it like for you growing up?
Jewelz: Like I said in a lotta of my interviews, I’m from the street so I went through the average thing that a nigga on the street went through--hustling and shit. I don’t like to glorify that because I feel that we’re all from the hood and we all pretty much have the same story. You know struggling to get out you did everything that you could possibly do to get out. I done sold the drugs, I done held the guns, but, you know that’s the life….that’s the hood life. You know how some people get in their interviews and say yeah you know I had the guns. I had the block on smash. That’s the hood life. You ain’t nothing special B. The regular hood life is hard man. I was in the streets everyday holding guns if I had to, just doing me. But everything that I did in the streets I did so that I could get out of the street. My [goal] wasn’t to stay in the hood and be in the hood forever. Don’t get me wrong, I love the hood for sure. That’s my place, that’s where I grew up but it’s like man, I did everything that I could to get out the hood.
You came up in the 80s. That was a golden time period for Hip Hop.
Jewelz: That was a golden time for everything…for hustling, for Hip Hop for everything. That was the time that you should have been in. Everything was changing. In the 70s, you had coke, you had a lotta different things going on at different times. In 80s everything was going on at one time. Then everything sorta coincided. You had the hustlers getting into the music. The music was into the hustlers…everything was just coinciding.
That’s when the music really started to reflect the grimy side of the street. That was the transition from the party Rap to hardcore reality Rap.
Jewelz: That what was going on during those day so you couldn’t really knock the party Rappers for what they were doing. That was their reality. In the 70s that’s all that there was to do was party. Everything was a party. But in the 80s things got tight economically and everybody started taking everything real seriously.
Let’s talk a little it about your experiences with music coming up. Being from Harlem where there is a deep Hip Hop tradition dating all the way back to Kurtis Blow, I imagine that you listened to a lotta of the classic coming up?
Jewelz: Man I listen to all of the classic Hip Hop legends: Kurtis Blow, LL Cool J, Afrika Bambaattaa, Kool Moe Dee. I listened to a lotta old school Rappers because I grew up around a lotta older brothers so, you know, they was like putting me on to the classics. You know like when you’re young and there’s a new Rapper and you think he’s the shit and your older brother tells you to listen to this. I remember when we used to put on old school r & b. My parents used to play it a lot. That’s why you hear it in a lotta our music. We’re so used to hearing it that when we hear a beat with an old school sample we go hey that’s hot.
I like the way you used those old R & B samples.
Jewelz: Yeah, man our album isn’t just a put together album. When we talk about our music we call it powerful music because we talk about how we feel. When we get into the studio it’s gonna be real and it gonna be family, ya know what mean. Everything all comes together and it comes together real well. It’s not like we’re in there playing –oh let’s make a hit for the radio. The things that happened in our lives we want everybody to feel so when we Rap we try to come across real strong so we just express things with [emotions].
Another thing that I like about the album was that every track seems to fit you all’s flow perfectly. A lotta times MCs have problem picking the right beat for their flow. I was wondering how do you go about picking a beat. Is it the rhyme and flow first and then the beat or do you pick a beat and then let the beat dictate the rhyme and flow?
