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Montana: How did you and Hawkeye hook up?
Phife: When I put out my first solo album in 2000, there was a rep for the label out in Toronto. She was from Trinidad just like I am. She sent me a bunch of compilations from Greensleeves and I was listening to everybody, I liked everybody, but for some reason, that ‘twingy twang’ record just caught me offguard ‘like what the hell is THIS?’ I just kept rewinding it. This dude’s style is crazy right here. So, I got w/my man Jamal who is a friend of Rasta Roots and myself and he gets all the reggae updates first and I was like, ‘yo, can you hook us up with Hawkeye’ and he was like, ‘yeah!’. So, we flew him to Atlanta and we put it down with him. We did that record right before Christmas 2001.
Montana: Oh, is it that old? Are you going to anything else with him?
Phife: Oh yeah definitely! We’re really trying to get him to sign w/Smokin Needles or even if he doesn’t sign w/Smokin Needles we’d like to get him a deal.
Montana: Yes, I’d definitely like to see more dancehall artists signed to labels who can get them more exposure in America.
Phife: Yeah, cause Sean Paul is doing his thing. Sean Paul definitely won this year.
Montana: It just goes to show you what good representation and marketing can do. What do you think of Sean Paul? Do you like his music?
Phife: Yeah, I think he put out the right singles. The album is cool, but the singles he put out were my favorite songs on the album, so I thought it was perfect execution. He pretty much reminds me of Supercat. His voice.
Montana: Yeah?
Phife: I mean, nobody can be like supercat, don’t get me wrong , but everybody gets something from somebody. Like, (sings) “I’m not suuure anymore” and he came with his own little style but it was kind of similar. Plus they both love the ladies.
Montana: Yeah, I guess they’re both ‘girl dj’s’ but Cat can flip it up you know? You heard any of his (Supercat’s) stuff that’s supposed to come out w/ the Neptunes?
Phife: Naw, I’m waiting to hear that. He should win. Cat is tight. But what I think would be important is to let Cat be Cat at the same time. Let him keep the same vibe that he’s always had, and then give him some new and improved with the whole Star Trak/Neptune production. If it’s just totally watered down it’s not gonna be cool. He should be alright though.
Montana: What do you have coming out video wise?
Phife: We may do something for “Diggy Dialect.”
Montana: Cool. Are you thinking about shooting it in Trinidad or Jamaica?
Phife: Woooooooo! That would be hot! That would be real hot to do it in Trini/Jamaica, but I wouldn’t mind doing it in Toronto or Miami.
Montana: Awwww… A lot of people in the Dancehall world are waiting for another video shot in Jamaica.
Phife: I don’t think they really should complain because what they really don’t know is that you gotta pay so much money to shoot in certain places. In Toronto they don’t really kill you with it, the permits or whatever. Plus there’s a large West Indian community in Toronto as well as Miami, and Brooklyn and certain parts of DC or whatever. I don’t want to shoot another video in New York ever again and I’m FROM there! It’s not because I’m disrespecting New York or whatever, because that’s where I’m from, but they charge you a LOT. If you watch most videos, most videos have been shot in New York, so they’ve captured just about everything you can capture in New York. You know, like how Snoop went to Brazil, let’s take it elsewhere. LA and New York have been used enough. I want to go to somewhere like Oakland where it’s like real grimy and put it down or somewhere where the scenery is beautiful. Miami has been used enough, but you can never get enough of Miami.
Montana: You can do a
video like Wayne Wonder in Jamaica if you’re trying to cut down production
expenses with a sheet behind you the whole time.
Phife: uhhhhhhhh… that video’s kinda uuuhhh, you know what I mean, other than the dancing. But I like the whole Sean Paul video in the basement with the house party vibe. Everybody’s getting their groove on, enjoying themselves.
Montana: Yes, people are tired of the bling bling in dancehall and are ready to bring back the fun, dancing vibes. What vibe do you think is going on in hiphop right now?
Phife: I always say that life is a cycle. It’s going to come back around to what it was. It doesn’t have to necessarily be considered an ‘old school bitter feeling’or anything like that because a lot of people complain like the old school rappers complain because the new school rappers are doing this, doing that. Only thing I’m mad w/the new school rappers is they ain’t talking about shit. Everybody is duplicating each other. Biting is pretty much cool right about now. I know the difference between homage and biting the next man’s shit without any remorse. I know the difference, yall know who I’m talking to, but that’s neither here, nor there…
Montana: Naw! Tell us! Who are you talking about?
Phife: It’s a bunch of them! I’ll be here for days talking about it.
Montana: I’ve read a quote where you say that there are ‘too many biters and not enough innovators’. Who do you think are the top innovators?
Phife: I think innovatively speaking, I gotta go with Eminem, Nas, Jay-Z-he made a niche for himself. A lot of people complain that he quotes Biggie a lot, but hey, that was his man. You really can’t get but so mad at that. That was his peoples, so whatever. Buster’s always been creative. That whole crew, Kardinal Official, Socrates and him bredren. Outkast definitely. They’ve always been in their own world. There’s a couple more that I can’t think of right now. Other than that, there’s been a lot of biting going on and it’s not cool. You know what I’m saying? It’s like, create man, that’s what we’re here to do! You want people to buy your records, reinvent yourself! We tend to get comfortable. I was guilty of that with the last couple of Tribe albums. And at the same time, I really didn’t want to be involved with the last couple of Tribe albums and I’m not going to make any excuses. I was very content and comfortable and I’m not going to make any excuses.
Montana: You regret being involved in the last couple of Tribe albums?
Phife: No. I pretty much regret being comfortable and not honoring my craft like I should. I’m not here to disrespect whoever. I’ll let it be known. I was human too, I made my mistakes. But nowadays, it’s like cats really don’t care. Cats now it’s like, “whatever. Lemme get in, get out. By using this cat’s style-he sold 4 million with it, so maybe if I take his style, I can sell 7. Naw. Reinvent yourself and you can probably sell 30!”
Montana: Back to the “Diggy Dialect” Single, how did you all go about writing that? Did you write it all, or did you split it?
Phife: Did me and Hawkeye write it? What happened was, I wrote my rhyme before I decided to put Hawkeye on it. We sent him the track and he wrote the hook and he wrote his verse.
Montana: Oh, so he’s the one who came up with the ‘Thugs for life’ concept, so I guess I can blame him for that one.
Phife: (laughs) You wasn’t happy about that?
Montana: Naw, I don’t really want to hear about thugs in dancehall. We have too many thugs running over in the hiphop game right now…
Phife: Yeah, I feel you on that, but I mean, ‘thug’ can mean so much
Montana: That’s what I was gonna ask you. What ‘s your definition of a Thug?
Phife: We coming into the club to have a good time-but it’s the way we do it. We don’t care about the nigga that’s hatin. If they want to take it to the next level, we can take it, but we’re really not thinking about you. We’re in our own world. We’re thuggin it for the women and about getting our drink on and having a good time. Not as far as starting shit or frontin like we the new Tupac or nothing like that. Tupac was pretty much of an intelligent Thug. He had his moments where he got in trouble with the law, but you could tell he was a caring dude! So, thug isn’t always a bad thing, just like the projects isn’t always a bad place to live... I’ve never bust a gun in my life, so you know what I’m saying.
Montana: How does dancehall compare to hiphop to you?
Phife: I love dancehall more than Hiphop. I always have. I love sports more than music! Even though where my parents come from Trinidad/Tobago, that’s calypso, but I’ve always taken to the whole dancehall thing. I grew up around a lot of Jamaicans back in Queens and in High School, my father used to play soccer with them. I just attached myself to their culture for some reason. Not discrediting Trinidad at all, I love TnT by all means, but I just love dancehall. Beyond Bob Marley, like Elephant and Shabba and Baby Cham and Spragga-everybody. Everybody got they own style. That’s what I love about dancehall. Dancehall reminds me of back in the days when you had crews like the Juice Crew. Cool G Rap was the criminal of the crew. Big Daddy Kane was the metaphoric king/ladies man of the crew. Master Ace was like the Professor, like the kid with the 400 IQ nigga. Craig G was the freestyle king, spit at the drop of a dime and Biz Mark was the clown of the crew, but everybody got their shine, one way or another. Same thing with WuTang when they first came out. Everybody was different, but everybody shined in their own way. EPMD, Tribe, Rakim, LONS had a whole new different type of style… I think the bitin became crazy right after Das EFX came out. People started biting them so much that they couldn’t even come out with they own fuckin style! Excuse my language, but that’s when I saw bitin really take off… Now it’s like this cat sounds like this cat sounds like this cat. It’s like, ok, enough is enough.
Montana: Maybe we’ve exhausted all of the styles?
Phife: Naw man. If you love your craft like that, you should always be able to reinvent. Know what I’m sayin? I grew up lovin Grand Pubah and Tip and Ali used to always tell me, ‘yo you sound like that nigga you sound like that nigga’ and I had to listen to myself be like, ‘yo I can’t be doin that!’ It wasn’t done intentionally, but I did love Grand Pubah and I thought he was the illest. It was like between him, Slick Rick, KRS and LL. And as a group, you couldn’t tell me nothing about EPMD, DeLa, PE and Run DMC. So, I took a little from all of that, and tried to just be Phife.
Montana: What about KRS, he was one of the originators who kind of mixed a little dancehall flavor w/hiphop?
Phife: Yeah definitely, him and Pubah. Growing up as a child of West Indian decent I felt that they wouldn’t really accept it or whatever, Just Ice too, as a matter of fact, I was like ‘yo! That shit is hot! We can win with that shit’ and I know I’m nice as far as doin that, so I started to incorporate it a little bit, but you know, tribe fans, they just want Tribe. So, I couldn’t do it too much, but as a soloist, there you have it. It doesn’t make sense as a soloist to just do the regular Tribe thing. Had to reinvent myself as a soloist, so now, here I am, Mutty Ranks, the alter ego!
Montana: Ah, so you’re still Mutty Ranks?
Phife: Definitely! I plan on doing a dancehall album one day. I just have to get better at it. I definitely don’t want to disrespect the art, so I have to have to down pat before I decide to do a whole album on it so right now I’m still playing around, going in and out with it, you know what I mean? I’m still an MC though.
Montana: Are you working with other people production wise aside from Rasta Root?
Phife: Right now I’m bout to go back to NY and start on this new Tribe album. I’m about to link out w/my man Maceo from DeLa, we’re going to do an album together. He has a company called Beer Mountain Entertainment. We’re going to link up the two labels and put an album out together… my next solo project I’m still working on.
Name of the Solo Album is ‘Songs in the Key of Life, Hymnal 1”
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Interview with Phife
Dawg, formerly of A Tribe Called Quest: July 2003
