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Given their heavy usage of militaristic metaphors, the terminology of violent uprise or the imagery of empire-building, it's clear that both Rap's emcee fraternity and the media who document their activities enjoy a burning infatuation with the romantic idea of war. Indeed! Whereas references to commandos, assassins, snipers, militia, tanks, guns, samurais and their swords dominate the rap lexicon, hiphop media loves speaking of acts and perceived movements as "pioneers, young guns, vanguard's" and "revolutionaries." Well….As long as rappers continue to enjoy their depiction as hardened warriors and as long as the press that serve them are indulged in their fantasies of being embedded frontline reporters, there seems no better way to describe Blade, an emcee with over fifteen years' worth of active service, than as a "Veteran." Blade's continued longevity is ample qualification for "Veteran" status but having weathered so many years of trials and tribulations only to find himself repeatedly pushed back to square one, perhaps a more appropriate analogy for Blade's stubborn soldiering on would be the legendary plight of Sisyphus. Much like that mythical figure condemned to forever push a heavy bolder up a hill, Blade's born the mantle of UK hiphop single-handed, born the brunt of industry politics and personal hardship single-handed and never buckled under the weight. That said, whereas Sisyphus was forced to push that bolder as a punishment from The Gods, there's no obvious explanation as to why Blade has chosen to persevere for so long no matter how many times he's been knocked back, down and seemingly out. If you want in-depth accounts of what Blade has achieved since the late '80s, I strongly recommend you check out Sam Seed's and Mr Hiz's excellent Blade Interviews. If, like me, you're interested to learn why Blade has continued to do what he's been doing and why he continues to put himself through what he's been through since the late '80s, read on.
This interview not only covered far different territory to that which I had planned but it also went on far longer than either Blade or I had anticipated - but please bare with us because Blade had plenty jewels of knowledge wisdom and understanding to share with you and me.
Yo whassup, this is Blade for ukhh.com
I suppose an easy place to start would be to ask, how did you get involved in the CALM Urban Games?
Well to be honest, like most artists now, we have our agents. Obviously they got approached by the organisers to put us on and that's as simple as it goes. I guess that's the most truthful answer I can give.
Are you interested in doing more charity and issue-related gigs?
Ah definitely! Obviously I've got people that I've got to pay when we go on tour so it's always nice to see that we get some money to ensure that our expenses are covered. If you're with a record label or something, if they cover all the expenses in situations like this. Unfortunately, being independent, as I'm sure you're aware having spoken with all these independent artists doing their thing, it's not always easy. If you haven't got money and if you're not loaded, it's easy to end up in serious debt. So it's always nice to see that expenses are covered and once they're covered, it's not really about earning further profit in situations like this. To be honest, touring has never been about profit; it's about going out there and letting people know what you do. Whenever it comes to charity events and whatever, I'm always up for stuff like that. If you go back to the early '90s or late '80s before anyone even knew who I was, when I was building my name I used to be beatboxing and stuff and people used to hear me and they'd be calling me up saying "do you want to do a charity gig?" Or whatever so even before I was making records I was doing that sort of stuff.
What was your favourite bit of the event (speaking as a fan)?
At that particular CALM Event? I'm not going to say what my favourite part was - I've got a personal favourite -
[at this point, a smoke alarm goes off in Chateau Blade]
Sorry one second…That's what happens when you've got people smoking weed all the time. Not me! Just the people around me heheheh. My favourite part is more of a personal thing because I had my son there and whatever. Apart from that? I would say it would probably have to be….let me think..what was the best memory I was left with? One line that Si Phili said. I was in the audience taking photos of Si Phili rhyming and he was freestyling (as Phi Life Cypher do all the time ) and he just kinda put that into his freestyle like "The man with the camera, his name is Blade!" So that left me walking away thinking "Excellent!" It's shallow but it's impressive because he was freestyling y'know? But there were loads of highlights all day. I thought Yungun and Mr Thing were wicked. I thought Jehst was wicked but unfortunately think the rain took a few of the audience members away when Jehst was on - which was kind of weird because he was performing under the weather at the time hehehe.
Good timing?
Perfect timing. It was all really good. I think it was a really positive vibe all round.
And speaking of the crowd, it was quite unusual for a rap gig in that it was quite family-oriented. What did you think of that - especially since you're a family man yourself? - It must be very different to what you're used to playing?
The thing is it's good, because it's expanding out to a wider audience and it's becoming more and more accessible. It just means that nowadays - well when you hear certain rappers, they come out with pretty aggressive lyrics or they're swearing left right and centre - it's going to be hard for rappers like that, battle rappers or whatever that just use abusive language. It's going to be difficult for them to get shows but in general, I think it's a good thing for kids that are coming up. It's bringing more awareness. AT the end of the day as well, you've got all the other stuff going on like the skateboarding, the biking, whatever; that's what the whole "Urban" thing is about. The whole "Urban games" is about that and the music stadiums and everything. It's not just about the music, it's about the whole culture that's connected with the music. A couple years ago, everybody used to associate Rock with skateboarding and stuff whereas now you can associate it with Rap as well. It all just goes hand in hand. So I think the whole vibe of it with the family being welcomed just opens hiphop up to a bigger market. Unfortunately, I don't think there was that many people there at the event to justify it -
Probably not…I think there was about 300?
I think overall you're looking at a little bit more than that. Probably another 100 on top of that. But the important thing is that the vibe was good and everybody got a good response. The only thing that I was gutted about was that I didn't get any Jerk chicken -
Oh I did, it was lovely -
Aaaah! I went there and the guy was like "I'm not taking any more tickets. You guys haven't paid up for it yet" so I was a bit gutted about that… I'm jealous of you now heheheh.
How do you prepare for stage shows?
To be honest, it's just a case of…Well as long as you know your lyrics… You don't really plan anything in particular. You just go there with the intention of putting on the best performance you can. You've got a few barriers you need to cross because of certain people out there. Things have changed a bit. Three-four years ago, people were more open minded to accept that "OK, it's a club night, there's an artist coming on stage, let's give them a chance and see what they're doing." Whereas now, people have their favourites and stuff and they'll give them more of a chance than anybody else. It's a bit more cliquey and closed up now. But in general, I don't go out of my way to prepare for any one show in particular unless there's a reason for it. Like if they suddenly say "You've got to do Trevor Nelson tomorrow" then you start to think "Shit! What am I going to do? I know, I'll wear black trainers for it." But generally, you don't really go in prepared for anything; it's all kinda off the cuff you know what I mean? But once you've been performing for as long as I have, you get the vibe of knowing. You've got your tunes, you've got a running order, now's the time to analyse the situation before hand and see if you want to take any tracks out or put any new ones in or whatever. And if the situation calls for it, you make changes, if it doesn't, you don't.
How did you pick the playlist for that gig because I noticed it was mostly tracks from the new album but there was one really old song and one song from The Unknown?
At the moment, for me it's important to make sure that people are aware that I've got a new album out. Thing is, I don't know if you heard but the distribution deal I had went pair-shaped. I was signed to 3MV with a distribution deal but they went bankrupt. See when the album came out, they were pushing it as much as they should and it was doing really well and everything but then within three weeks of the album coming out, they went bankrupt and I've had no one pushing the album since. It's been really difficult because I don't have the stock myself or anything. So really it's like, with every opportunity we get, we go on stage and the idea is to promote as much of the new album as possible but also to let people know that we have got a history behind us. I could stand on stage and perform for three hours with the back catalogue and all the material I've got but I don't want to kill the audience with boredom. So I just keep it simple and do the one consider to be a blade anthem Survival of the hardest working, and the one which they all know me for which is The Unknown which is more sorta open to the rest of the world than say anything off of The lion goes from strength to strength or Lyrical Maniac. And! I don't have instrumentals for those old tracks.
Did you find that old and new Blade tracks go down equally well or do you find they attract different people and divide your audience?
I think basically things have changed. The whole scene and the way people listen to and accept the music has changed. People's attention span is a lot less than it used to be. There's a lot more options out there. Once upon a time, you'd have ten UK artists…now you've got ten thousand UK hiphop artists. There's a lot of internet rappers as well and they're going out there and getting their name about via the net or whatever. But in general, I think a lot of the kids that's into hiphop these days, are young (like 15-16 years old), who were brought up with the notion that somebody like P Diddy is "Hiphop" or that somebody like Jay-Z is where Hiphop ends. Then again you've got the opposite side of the scale which is basically…well I don't know…"Hiphop is all about backpacker music…who can say the most absurd thing going and who's got the deepest rhyme about nothing?" You know what I mean? I'm just saying that I think that a lot of intelligent stuff gets missed out as well. It surprises me that when I talk with people about hiphop, they haven't heard of groups like Phi Life Cypher. To me that's a bit of a shock - Phi Life Cypher!? You've gotta know who these guys are!? They're amazing - that's just my personal opinion but I always try to make sure that people are aware of them. There's so many groups out there (obviously you know because you write for ukhh) but you've got Taskforce, Jehst, Lewis Parker, Mystro (he's funny) and so many other up-and-coming emcees. But there's so much out there.
You were saying about the internet…Do you think that the whole CDRs, the Soundclick pages and the people doing their own little demo label albums is good for UK hiphop? I ask because it has been good for US underground hiphop. Do you think people doing it on a DIY basis is going to be just as good for UK hiphop?
I don't think it will be because the market's way too small. You're looking at a scale where…well I was surprised to hear that someone like Too $hort sold a total of seven albums in Europe last year but in his own neighbourhood, he sold two million. I think that because of the scale ratio, it's not going to make that much of a difference. If anything, it's going to ruin stuff rather than build it. People now burn their own CDs and sell them for 50p or whatever and little by little, people stop to care. It's laziness and like I'm saying, the shrinking attention span. You're getting a hundred different CDs thrown at you every week and y'know you're basically gonna say "Well I can't afford to buy one hundred records so what I'm going to do is, I'm going to by the cheapest CDs going." And a lot of people out there are only interested in the music. But there are still the select few who don't want the music unless it comes with a cover with the original artwork and liner notes. Those are the people that are keeping the scene alive in my opinion. Then you have to ask yourself, is this about the music of the image and the way the music is packaged?
One thing I noticed from your live performance, you seemed a lot happier performing over the newer, self-produced material than you did over the Mark B track. That's quite unusual for an artist to enjoy self-production more than rhyming over somebody else's beat?
Yeah I was a lot happier to perform to my own stuff. I don't think it is a case of performing on an egotistic level like "Hey! My own music is better than what's on The Unknown;" I just felt a lot more comfortable with it because I think it was more me - if that makes any sense to you? Also when I recorded my new album, I tried to do something that I think a lot of artists don't really do that is - well when I hear a lot of artists, they make music mostly for the clubs or music to try and be overly deep like "hey I went to college and I can show you how clever I am." Whereas I'm more sort of like an LL Cool J. rapper, more in your face. I say what's on my mind. When I record my music, I always try to record it so that it works live. It's all about what you can do on stage and you want to be able to bring the whole album to life on stage if you can. I personally think that The Unknown wouldn't have done what it did if it wasn't for the live performances kicking it into action. I often don't think it would have been the same if Virgin hadn't been behind it either. I think a lot of external factors helped to make The Unknown what it was and what it became. I'm not knocking The Unknown in any way with that statement; I'm just saying basically, when you work with producers, a lot of them are just kinda like "it's all about the beats" whereas when you work with an artist it's different. Like when Rakim did a few of his own productions, he was more interested in bringing himself across as this lyricist. My thing is the live performances. So I try and work it so that whatever I have and have made works live. I want to make sure that every track I've recorded, I can bring a different attitude to the track live on stage. There might be one live version where I'm angry, another where I'm smiling, another where I'm like "Oh shit! The kebab's doing my stomach in, I'm off to the toilet!" - Sorry I only said that because I had a stomach ache on stage the other day..
You're kinda known for wanting to strike up a personal relationship with fans or to communicate with your audience on a personal level. And then at the show you said "I'm not just an artist, I'm a fan too." Do you find that the line between Blade the performer and the real human being behind "Blade" gets blurred sometimes? Is there a tension there sometimes?
Ah yeah there is sometimes. I always try to be as good to people as I can but sometimes it seems like there's a bit of a cold barrier. How can I put it? Some of the fans you meet as an artist, they're not sure how to greet the artists that they've looked up to and see them as people. I can go and walk past somebody in the street and they'll shout out "Oh my god! What's up Blade!?" but then I could be just walking past someone to get a can of coke from the machine and they're like "oh my god…what do I say…oh no!…doesn't matter, he's gone." Do you know what I mean? Some people do get kinda scared to meet the people that they've looked up to and everything. Other people are more accepting of it and they just appreciate the fact that an artist is a down to earth human being that's got time for them. Even if they never buy their records, they have that memory that "hey! That guy was safe." That's what's important to me. It's not a case of trying to win people over just so I can sell more records. It's in my nature to chat to people and to be as friendly as I can. I mean you know. I came and approached you and said "look I've been hearing all this stuff…Let's sort it out"
Yeah but what I mean is, do you find that people find it difficult to differentiate between you the human being and you the on-air persona? Do you think that some people mistake you or misunderstand you along those lines?
Not really because… Well you know some people have their images and stuff? I don't think I've ever been one for an image. I am just me. What you hear on record is what you get in real life. So it's either you take it or you leave it. Some people relate to me and some people don't. Some people like it and some people don't. I'm not going to pretend to be something I'm not because that's not me. The best thing I can do is just go about my business and be honest with myself. That way I don't think there's going to be any blurred visions of me or anything. Sometimes you're walking around and you feel like your nose is itching and you want to scratch your nose but someone might be watching you and will write an editorial about "I saw Blade picking his nose!" You've got to watch out for things like that. So every now and then you've got to be a bit of a false character but it's nothing major.
Coming back to when we spoke at the festival, you were saying how you make music primarily for yourself and this struck me as a bit odd because (especially with your older material) your music tends to be rabble-rousing or thud-thumping. The rhetoric has more to do with grandiose triumphalism and rousing people to do something….Sure the latest album's a lot more personal but do you have like a specific mission or agenda and has this changed over the years?
When I was recording this album, I reverted back to what got me into music in the first place and the thing that got me into making music in the first place was the love of making music y'know what I mean? It was nothing else other than "Hey! I love music and want to make more music." I've said a lot of things that I've wanted to say in my music and sometimes, regardless to who you are, you're going to repeat yourself. For example, Whitney Houston can do an album and every song on that album is a love song. So regardless of who you are, at some point in your career, you're going to repeat yourself. I can name at least ten tracks where Rakim has said "All praise is due to Allah." He's like my favourite emcee of all time but everybody repeats themselves at some point. My idea wasn't to go round rabble-rousing like you said; it was just I've got personal things that I would like to put into music. I've got issues that I need to deal with - crushing those demons typa thing y'know? I'm sure you have and I'm sure everybody has. The idea behind this album is that if people take the time out to actually listen to the music, they'll realise that even though this album might be more autobiographical, at the same time it isn't. Anybody can relate to this album because we all go through the same issues. It's just a question of whether people are after that or whether people just want to go to a club, dance and not care about what's being said. When the album came out I was reading reviews saying I sounded angry or pissed off or whatever and I just don't think those people have listened to the album properly. How can you say that about tracks like Reflection, I wonder, the Journey - and even in a track like What have we done? It may sound aggressive but it's really just addressing issues saying to the government "You've put us in a predicament now and I have to explain to my son that bwoy, this could be the end of the world." I'm looking for answers in that track. But then again, you've got tracks like Slapping egos where I'm just rhyming for the sake of rhyming. So thing is Sumo, you could wake up one morning and you could turn round and say "hello" to someone and just mean it as "hello" but then someone else could choose to interpret that as "he told me to fuck off." So everybody's going to perceive the same things in different ways because everybody has their own way of hearing things. I know what I meant with the LP and that's what's important to me. That's the kinda theory that I use every time I write a song. I'm not really concerned with what people are going to think about it because I think if you're going to record for the public then you're just fooling yourself and you just end up being a mug to yourself in the end. Just do what you do, if others like it then that's a bonus but if they don't, well then at least you're happy with your material and that's what matters.
© CD Goldie for ukhh.com 2004
interview 0242 added
26.09.04 words: Sumo Kaplunk technical:
Spoon
Have you ever gone out shopping with one set of items on your list only to return with a completely different assortment of purchases in your bags? Nah, me neither - but this interview is a bit like that. I had set out originally to catch a few quick words with Blade about his involvement with the CALM 2004 Urban Games but the conversation soon turned into something much bigger and better….
"...
When I didn’t like LL Cool J’s I Need love, I didn’t go around saying “It’s shit;” I just didn’t buy that record
...”
"...
The whole scene and the way people listen to and accept the music has changed
...”
photo's © Wayne Pilgrim for CALM or Mr Quiz