Wise Intelligent Interview with Art of Rhyme

Can you give a brief introduction for the younger kids that may not be familiar with you yet?

Wise Intelligent:

Wise Intelligent of the legendary Poor Righteous Teachers. I go back four or five albums. Holy Intellect in 1990, Pure Poverty in 92, Black Business in 93, New World Order in 94, a couple of solo works, Killing You For Fun.

Tell us about your album The Talented Timothy Taylor. What should potential listeners expect to hear?

Wise:

A complete and perfect merger between style and substance, something that's rare in the Hip Hop world. Style and substance, it's like a bridge between the two. It's a message to the Gangsta MC, the thug MC and mainstream radio. You don't have to exist with a lack of substance in order to be hood. You can be hood and intelligent at the same time. To the underground MC, I'm telling him just because you're conscious or underground doesn't mean you have to lack style or flavor. It's a merger between those two concepts.

What are some of the musical influences that helped create the album?

Wise:

The heads that I had for production on it were heads I felt were just original at what they do and made music with feeling. Dudes that were making music for feeling not perfection, that's really what I was looking for. As far as the influences, there wasn't a lot of musical influences that I really paid attention to while I was trying to formulate this record. It was more-so the circumstance and environment that I'm embedded in. It was really just me drawing from the circumstance in my personal life and things that surround me in this life.

Who are some of the guests and producers?

Wise:

Oh No of course. Oh no from Oxnard, Cali. He blessed me with a joint called "Go with Me". It's a ridiculous record. A joint called "Set U Free" and another record called "Still Black". He definitely came through. Trackzilla from New Jersey of course. He laced me with the joint for "Police Can't Do". He's an ill personality, he makes ill tracks. He laced me with a lot of tracks, some of which I didn't put on the record. I recorded like seven or eight joints with Oh No and like five joints with Trackzilla that didn't make the record. I have them on file though. Masada, he's like the captain of the have-not shit, Intelligent Muzik. He did a lot of joints on there. He did the "Passing of Time" record, "I'm Him" which is the first single and "Sensi Party." He did a lot of joints. PJ, his partner Paul Little, ya know. He did "Another Chance At Life", "Ganja Smuggling" and "A Genocide". So you know it's a lot of dudes. Ambush from Oakland, California representing the Bay Area. He did the "Momma Cry" joint and the "Intelligent Wise". It's like a potpourri of producers, each one of them has a different style and none of them are the same. I could have easily went with one producer and said, "I want this record to be consistent in sound", as far as not changing so much in the style format. I wanted to make it very diverse, that's why its called "The Talented Timothy Taylor". I wanted to show that an MC can be talented enough to rhyme over any type of production, it doesn't matter. It's all about who you are. If you're comfortable with who you are you can rhyme on any kind of track. That's what I wanted to do.

Are there guest spots on there?

Wise:

I didn't feature any MC's on it. I wanted to focus on the personal aspects of Wise Intelligent's life. With this record I wanted to show some things I couldn't show with Poor Righteous Teachers. PRT has three members in the group and we were what we were about. It was kinda hard for me to delve into those aspects in my life that made me Wise Intelligent. The struggles, the trials, the tribulations and the building process that created Wise Intelligent. With this record I wanted to go back and show that process. I felt another guest or MC couldn't contribute to that in any real way. I thought it would take away from that idea. Maybe on the next album.

Can you talk about a couple of the songs in particular in terms of the content, just to give people an idea?

Wise:

No doubt. "A Passing in Time". That's a record that goes back to my childhood from like kindergarten to an adult. It's really a tribute to my mother who passed. When she passed it was like I said on the record, "I fell out of love with writing". I wasn't really trying to rap and I wasn't really trying to write rhymes. After a while, after getting through that I decided to get back to it. Like a lot of heads sit back and they say, "Yo Wise Intelligent, Poor Righteous Teachers, they haven't put out a record in ten or eleven years. What's the problem? Why can't they put a record out?" Our life isn't just about a rhyme. My life is so much bigger than rhyme. Hip Hop doesn't fit so prominently in my life in the grand scheme of things. Hip Hop is not the end all be all in my life. I'm not sitting back saying, "Oh. I got to put a record out." I'm not worried about all that. I don't do this for a lack of attention.

That time it took me to put that record out, the record "Passing Of Time" is explaining to the Poor Righteous Teachers fan base what took so long to put a record out. It wasn't that we didn't have producers, or good producers, dudes are sending me beats by the shit load. My inbox is flooded with beats. My mailbox, my P.O Box is flooded with CD's with beats of heads. It never was a problem with beats or production, none of that. It was just things i was going through in my life outside of Hip Hop. Heads don't understand. With that record I wanted to show heads what I've been going through and what I been doing in that time. It wasn't even about rap for me for the last ten years or Hip Hop. I wasn't even listening, right now you can go in my car and there is no Hip Hop in my car. The last Hip Hop album I purchased was last month, and that was the last Hip Hop Album I purchased within like five or six years. It was actually the latest Redman record. With this record I just wanted to go back to show cats what took so long for me to come out. What was the building process, what I was doing in those ten years. It wasn't that I couldn't make a record. A lot of heads are under the impression that it took me ten years to make this record. It didn't take me ten years to make this record. This record was done so fast and it was done so long ago. This record was done in 2005. It's just sometimes I sit back and consume myself with other things, like I said, there's more in life for me than just a rhyme.

Are you touring for the album and are there any videos coming?

Wise:

Yeah, we are definitely gearing up to get the video out to the people. "I'm him". We are going to shoot that and we are going to shoot "Go With Me" and a couple others off the record. With youtube and stuff like that we can let them off however we want, when we want. We don't have to wait for MTV, BET and all these other video outlets for the music. We definitely putting the videos out. As far as touring, I've been running around for a minute. I just got back from Toronto, Canada. I was out in Scribble Jam, Pittsburgh. I'm on my way to Boston this weekend and from there I'm on my way to Richmond, Virginia. From Richmond to Raleigh, North Carolina I believe. Just running around promoting the record, you know?

I read that you turned down an appearance on CNN recently. What were the details surrounding that and why did you choose to turn it down?

Wise:

Because I don't think CNN offers a solution orientated format. I think it's a conflict orientated format designed to increase their ratings and continue with the agenda of the mainstream America's media and politics. I just didn't think it was a place for African Americans to come in and discuss their issues and come out of it with a solution. I thought it would be more of a situation where Hip Hop was represented by Wise Intelligent and the St. Sabina church of Chicago- the black church of Chicago would've been pitted against each other. When we are actually in the same struggle and believe and feel a lot of the same things. I felt that if we are going to discuss this issue, I would rather have this meeting in the cafeteria or the basement or the lobby of the church, as opposed as having it on CNN or in the Projects of New Jersey. How about we have the pastors come in and we talk about the problems that surround Hip Hop in the Black community? I don't feel we should allow the eyes of CNN into those types of discussions, because they never, ever have our best interest at heart.

You wrote an article about how people claim that mainstream Hip Hop isn't "real", which you consider to be false. So would you agree that there's not necessarily anything wrong with the music being pushed, just the lack of alternatives?

Wise:

Right. It's a lack of alternatives, because if you take the music off the airwaves, it's going to exist regardless. Not only is it going to exist but the concepts and ideas that created it are going to exist. I mean prostitution and pimping has been going on for five thousand years before Hip Hop, it has nothing to do with Hip Hop. It has everything to do with the the environment we are embedded in. The violence and all of those things, we can't just sit and diss Hip Hop cause you see those things in movies in literature, you see those things everywhere. What I'm saying is just the lack of balance. I know because I was there. I was on the road in the so called "Golden Era" of Hip Hop, and I was on tour. When I was on tour with Poor Righteous Teachers and X Clan, Ice Cube and Too short were on the same tour. We don't get that in this day and time. We have not seen a tour yet with Common, Kweli, Jim Jones and 50 Cent. On the same tour we don't get that now but we had that back then. I mean Sister Souljah and Yo Yo on the same bill. That's what we're not getting. That's why people are believing this is all that Hip Hop has, this is all that Hip Hop is, gangsterism. But we don't control the propagation of the art form. It's people that have other agendas controlling the art. Therefore they are controlling the imagery and they are choosing to promote certain artists.

It's just like Ralph Nadar wanted to be in the presidential race but he was blocked out of the presidential race. The green party or whatever it was, the independent party, whatever. He wanted to run under that. They said no and blocked him out of it. How are they going to block him out of it if it's supposed to be a free country? They created choices for you and gave you choices, either John Kerry or George W. Bush. So we are not really controlling the choices. Someone else is presenting the choices for us. Where is the real balance at? We need real balance and that's what's wrong with Hip Hop. I think Hip Hop's greatest problem is the lack of balance, you know? Hip Hop has always had its mediocre rappers, always had its gangster rappers, it's gaudy jewelry rappers, its fancy car rappers and self-proclaimed ladies man rappers. I think it's a joke to single out a certain idea in Hip Hop or a certain perspective in the Hip Hop spectrum and say, "this is why Hip Hop is how it is", when it's not. I'm just not one to start a witch hunt on the mainstream rappers when I understand who controls the propagation of the art. Back then we had the balance. Although we had Just-Ice's "Booga Bandit Bitch", we had "You must Learn" to balance that. Although we had Luther Campbell with "Move Something" and the girls shaking their assess in the video, we also had Public Enemy with "Fight The Power" to balance that. So there was a balance. That's what made Hip Hop great because you can find E.U., the go-go band doing "Da Butt" with Poor Righteous Teachers in the same party. That's the problem to me. It's not that Hip Hop is dead or mainstream Hip Hop is not Hip Hop. If we say mainstream Hip Hop is not Hip Hop, then we would have to say KRS-One is not Hip hop. At one time he was the number one MC on mainstream radio. He was the number one commercial guy in the videos. KRS-One was the guy being propagated at one time, as well as X-Clan and Poor Righteous Teachers and so on and so forth. At one time we were the guys in heavy rotation. So it's not the rapper that's in the mainstream, it's the people that control what get showed and what goes out into the mainstream.

What's it gonna take for mass media outlets to support artists like yourself that are creating intelligent music with an actual message? Do you think it will ever happen or are we too far gone?

Wise:

I think we see something happening now. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing right now, with Common Sense's new record doing as well as it's doing. He's a socially relative and a politically conscious MC in my perspective. He's a great MC and he makes great music. He's commercial, he's viable, he's getting the sponsorship and the commercials and things of that nature with the major corporations like Gap. He got the Gap thing popping off and he's got the movie thing popping off. He's a real MC according to underground fans I guess. The question is, we don't want to have all Common Sense's running around on the radio. See that's the question. If the pendulum swings all the way to the left and the radio becomes Common Sense, Kweli, Mos Def, Wise Intelligent, Immortal Technique, so on and so forth and we are those new guys in heavy rotation. Now with the gangsta guys they are like, "Oh we can't play him, they're too vulgar". We are just recycling the problem. You can suppress the art, you can't suppress the expressions. That's what I see happening, you know,? You got major companies dropping their sponsorship. You know like Gwen Stefanie. Verizon pulled out of her tour cause she has Akon on the tour. You have McDonald's dropping Twista off a tour talking about the language is vulgar and so on and so forth. Come on man, these guys are not hiring what they're about. You seen their records, you seen who they were, what they were about, you already knew this. The thing is when the conscious guys become the new poster boy for McDonald's, or the clean guy becomes the new guy to get the Verizon sponsorship or whatever other deal it may be, do we exclude the Gangsta? Do we take that out the Hip Hop format? Do we censor them? Do we ban their message? Do we ban what they are trying to say? I'm not sure. I wouldn't suggest it because I'm not for censorship in any form.

With record sales declining do you think that will make it even tougher for positive Hip Hop to get major label support,since perhaps labels will be less likely to take risks?

Wise:

You know, the records declining is something that the major labels created themselves. The lack of balance created the decline of record sales. If I go and buy one major artist's album, he has guest appearances from all the other mainstream artists on that album. I only need to buy one of their records to have them all. They have the same producers making the beats, they have the same guy singing in the hook, they have the same guest appearances rhyming on them. So If I buy one record I have everyone's record. I know that there's a track on there by Scott Storch, I know there's a Just Blaze track, I know there's probably a Rockwilder track, I know who's doing the beats. I know there's a Kanye West song and I know there's Nate Dogg singing in the hook. Everybody has the same record and they are talking about the same things. So what do we expect? We can't eat Crispy Creme donuts for breakfast, lunch and dinner. After a while we are going to get tired of buying Crispy Creme and we're going to say,"Yo, I need to buy some fucking broccoli. I need some grub with broccoli and rice! Something!" [Laughs] You know what I mean? That's what happened. Now we see the record sales declining because people are jaded by what's available. Just like with voting. It's no different than the whole voting system. People are jaded with voting and people are like, "Yo, this shit ain't working!" [laughs] "This shit it not working! I'm not fucking voting". Voting is declining just like record sales are declining because people are jaded by the choices they are given.

You use the phrase "It's no longer smart to be dumb". How do you think we can get that through to the youth?

Wise:

By making the youth understand that to be intelligent and hood, or intelligent and street or intelligent and real are not mutually exclusive. The two concepts are not necessarily oil and water. That's what the 5 Percent nation brought to Hip Hop. Because the kids that had knowledge of self were corner kids, the same kids on the corner with the jewelry. Look at Wu Tang Clan, these are the coolest cats I ever seen in a video. They have Ghostface the Wally champ, with his medallions carrying on, he's straight from the hood. This guy is from the hood but he's intelligent at the same time. That's what needs to be presented. Like I said the lack of balance. Poor Righteous Teachers are from the projects just like Lil Wayne is from the projects. We are just saying its not un-cool to be from the projects and read a book. It's not un-cool to be on MTV cribs showing your home and having a library. There's nothing wrong with having a study! You watch MTV cribs and nobody has a book! The one guy I saw that had a book, this dude had bookshelves at his home but he had trophies on all that shit. The bookshelf was all trophies and shit. I was like, "Where the books at?" Where the books at in all this? Read something. That's the thing, it's okay to be on MTV Cribs but have some books sometimes in your house. Lets us know your doing something besides money, clothes and hoes.

If you weren't involved with Hip Hop what do you think you'd be doing?

Wise:

I would be exactly what I'm doing now, dealing with the youth a lot you know? Working with a lot of youth programs in the community around the country from Trenton to Camden to Pittsburgh, all over, just running around and building with the youth. Trying to help them get their mind right and let them know it's no longer smart to be dumb. You can think that dumbing down is profitable. Jay-Z might have gave us the impression that if you dumb down your lyrics you can double your dollar. At the same time we are dumbing down the lyrics, we are doubling the death rate. We are doubling the homicide rate, we are doubling the HIV-AIDS rate, the teen pregnancy rate, so we have to really think about that. That's what I would be doing if I wasn't doing Hip Hop. I mentioned on "Another Chance At Life", I was like, "If I could do it again, I' probably not rap I'd open schools abroad". I'd probably be running around doing what I'm doing now with the youth, just much more aggressively because I would have that time where I would normally be in the studio, recording music, traveling around and performing and promoting that music. Most of my performance is to address a lot of these issues. Like I said I would probably be doing what I'm doing now, just not with the music and without the CD's on the shelf.

What are your thoughts on the upcoming election?

Wise:

[Sighs] The upcoming election. My view is this. It's all decoration. It's all just decorations and table settings. Regardless to who wins the agenda will remain the same. The evidence of that is that the democrats control the house and they don't see no end in the war on Iraq. They all campaigned on, "We are pulling the troops out! If I get in and we take control of the house we are pulling out of Iraq." The troops still haven't been pulled out of Iraq and Bush still has the troop service he wanted. He still has the money. He wanted to continue whatever is going on over there so they approved all of his policies. Once they got into power they kept things going the same way. It's all decorations. The Democrats and Republicans are two heads on the same snake. It is what it is. Regardless of who becomes President he will have to continue with that particular agenda or policy or his ass will get shot. That's just what it is. As far as the election goes, the fact that they have a minority in Hillary Clinton being a woman and a so-called black man. This is a last ditch effort to rebuild the people's faith in the system, so they can say, "See!! The system does work. Who would've thought a woman would've ever became the president of the United States?" or "Who thought a black man would ever become president of the United States?" Shit. if that's not a faith builder in the system for equality what would be, you know? [Laughs] So either one, Hillary or Barak, whichever one of them wins the presidency its a win-win situation for the system. Because It's going to reinforce the idea that everything is equal and everyone can participate and acheive in the system when that's the furthest thing from the truth.

What's the status of Poor Righteous Teachers and what will you be working on after this album?

Wise:

Poor Righteous Teachers, we are talking right now. We're throwing some things around trying to get everybody's schedules on the same page. That's just the difficulty of the whole Poor Righteous Teachers life. Because Culture's in Tennessee, Shaheed's up in Brooklyn. So we are running around doing what we do as individuals but we are trying to pull this thing together and get another Poor Righteous Teachers album out before we're dead. After this record I'm releasing another Wise Intelligent record. This first one is the first out of a seven CD set. My goal is to release seven records within the next four or five years. Seven Cd's. A collector's set of Wise Intelligent solo albums and it's called Back to School. The Talented Timothy Taylor is the 1st period. 2nd period will be "Wise Intelligent is - The Uncomparable Jesus Jones". After that will be "Wise Intelligent is- El Negro Guerro". So it's going to go on and on and on. You get the picture.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Wise:

Log on to myspace.com/wiseintelligent to find out the latest of what's going on in my life, Poor Righteous Teachers, the whole Intelligent Muzik movement, or you can hit us up at www.intelligentmuzik.com . That's music with a "Z" and a "k". Check us out and find out what's going on. And remember it's no longer smart to be dumb. Cop the record, Wise Intelligent is - The Talented Timothy Taylor in stores now. You can order it off Itunes, online, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Target, whatever your preference is, cop that record.