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  Chain Of Command Interview
interview 0519 added 16.07.07 words:
Exzes
technical:
Spoon
Coming out of South London, Speakers Corner regulars Chain of Command are a hardcore collective of MCs, DJs and producers known for their commitment and dedication to the scene. Fresh from touring the UK alongside US heavyweight Saigon and Scram Jones, I caught up with the group to discuss their upcoming album, their influences, free Hip-Hop, and have a look inside the minds that mainstream media outlets overlook in favour of the more conformist artists...
You’ve got your group offering dropping in July, entitled Rogue State EP. What can we expect hidden inside?
[Conflix] Dark, Raw, Hard hitting & Heartfelt.
[Syanyde] Undiluted hardcore uncompromising gimmick-free shit in its purest form, it's raw as fuck
Which non-CC artists are involved in the EP?
[Manage] Which non-CC artists are involved in the EP? Well CC goes more than just the emcees...it branches out to people like Snuff and Chemo...but that’s it...and as far as anyone outside of the immediate click then its only Beatbutcha who done a couple beats for the project.
[CLG] There are no non-Chain of Command artists involved, it’s all in-house.
[Conflix] Yeah that’s about right, I mean we got the Speakers Corner Quartet & I.AM.ILL featuring but they’re CC affiliated pretty much.
You’re known collectively as a highly-militant and pro-active group, speaking on anything from global affairs as seen on ‘Not In My Name’, as well as social commentary and the almost riot inducing words in the aptly named anti-G8 track ‘Riot’. Is there anything you’re opposed to but would not put down on a track, or are you exhibiting an outright free speech policy in your tracks?
[Manage] It’s not like mans sit there & think oooh what political topic shall we cover next...a lot of the shit on the EP is social standing kind of shit...how we’re feeling...I know peeps have pigeon holed us and that’s all good, we do what we do and I suppose we do deal with issues that some ignore...its definitely not a handicap. A lot of the time it just flows...from tracks like Stress & Truss it’s obvious ...then Rogue State and Not In My Name are a call to arms vibe. It’s music to fight to.
[Conflix] I don’t want to feel caged by what society deems politically acceptable, so no fuck that, I don’t feel there’s anything we can’t talk about. You can’t please everyone, we do us, Chain of Command, there’s probably loads of people out there who think what we’re speaking on is a load of bullshit and think we should lighten up! On the other hand there’s also a fair few people who can relate to our views too…
[Syanyde] Nah, if I believe it then I'm going to say it & people can either like it or leave it alone, censoring our own shit or holding back might get us more sales but it won't do nothing for us long term because the people around us know what we're about & wouldn't want it any other way. Mainstream radio don't really fuck with us anyway, Channel U definitely don't fuck with us, we haven’t got the money to buy features in these backwards magazines so we just do us & represent ourselves, we got this far without them so fuck it, we aren’t part of their agenda & vice versa.
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Dark, Raw, Hard hitting & Heartfelt
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Any ongoing atrocities not yet featured in your tracks that we can look forward to in the future?
[Conflix] I can’t say, we don’t draw a list of them like “oh for our next track we will rap about this, and next week we will talk about this” you know? I think we’ll just go with the flow and see what happens. I need to read.
[Syanyde] I got a short film I'm working on about the British prison industrial complex that's going to be aimed at the youth but apart from that & this EP I want to leave the political shit alone for a minute until I got a deeper understanding of it, I kind of took it to where I needed to musically & vented my shit for now as far as that goes, I got to take some time away from it, evolve my way of thinking & map out solutions & shit, one thing heads can't take away from us is we always backed our talk with actions & stood up for what we believe, the music is just a stepping stone to something much bigger but whether we get there or not depends on many variables.
Where do these thoughts and feelings stem from?
[Conflix] Thoughts? For me recently I think it’s just been over time, becoming aware. I think the more aware you become of your surroundings the closer you get to realising who you are and where you fit in, in this world, and then deciding if you’re happy to fit in. One needs to do his/her own research, I’ve had people tell me some proper outlandish stuff about what’s going on in our world today, but I’d rather find out for myself than take their word for it. Feelings? They stem from too many sources to mention. A few that come to mind. I get annoyed by what I see on the news and think I’m watching a Soap Opera sometimes. I mean who really give a flying fuck if Prince William dumped his girlfriend? In fact what is the purpose of news programs? To let us know what goes on in the world I guess? Or to let us know what they want us to know? Oops I’m rambling like Snuff. Recently though something that really riled me was hearing one of CLG’s songs from his forthcoming EP. He was speaking about a person he knew who got murdered and how his killers got away with it and were never brought to justice. The more I thought about it the more pissed I became.
[Syanyde] That's a deep question & it’s not really going to fit into a paragraph because everybody's got their own story, we're all over 25 so that's over 100 years of collective experiences. Believe some of the thing's my team's gone through would make most people cry, some of it is so fucked up heads wouldn't believe it anyway but to put it in basic terms I got a need to understand why certain things are the way they are & I always been like this from young, we're just lucky enough to have a platform to air it out so sometimes we use it.
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Snuff's basically saved live London Hip Hop
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You’re obviously very in tune with what’s going on in the world around you, and personal observation tells me you know a helluva lot and have very strong opinions. How important do you feel it is to express these thoughts and educate those that either don’t know, or don’t care?
[Manage] Knowledge is power...If we accept the mundane lifestyle we’re force fed we will never truly be free...and I as one can’t accept going through my life without at least fighting and having a chance at mine and my loved ones freedom. Revolution starts in the mind. I hate the fact some people take it as joke when a man talks about revolution like it can never happen...so if u think like that your falling into the hands of the enemy who want u to think like that...that kind of opinion just pushes us down further. I’m a follower in the belief of...if you haven’t got anything constructive to say...then don’t say anything at all. All fires start with a spark.
[CLG] As any teacher will tell you, it’s difficult to educate people who don’t care, so that’s not the aim. To me, our music is more about connecting with like-minded people and giving them a voice.
[Conflix] I don’t see it as important. Listening to us spit venom about society & the system is hardly going to enlighten a person who has no interest in the subject. Our aims not to change a persons state of mind, that’s a choice only the individual can make. I speak for myself but I don’t think I’m particularly that educated about stuff, I’m just touching the surface.
[Syanyde] If somebody doesn't care then it's a waste of energy even talking to them about it, you can't make a person care but if they do care then they probably already got their own opinions to bring to the table, that's cool because we can build off it & use it as a jump off point to move forward, I'll build with anybody who's serious whether it's musically, politically, spiritually, business...whatever, it's all progress.
Hip-Hop is the art of the socially aware, but also one of good times and unity. Do you feel sometimes your tracks may be too centred on the politics, or could be perceived so from the outside?
[Syanyde] It’s really not a big deal, we’re not in it to win votes or please the majority…we know we have a fanbase and a place in the bullshit marketing system...were pure marmite...love it or hate it! But either way you can’t ignore it.
[CLG] It’s easy to make such a judgement based off of listening to a couple of tracks, but once the EP drops, you’ll appreciate more that we don’t just rap about politics.
[Conflix] I mean to be honest don’t expect that much change in the overall feel of the EP, but on the other hand every song is not about politics. I see the Rogue State as a defiant voice spewing abuse regardless. As solo artists though we’ve all got our own different sound believe me, we just happen to all agree with each other on the issues we’re speaking on in this EP, and that’s how the Rogue State’s been realised.
 [Syanyde] If you look at our previous work, the majority of it isn’t political, yeah certain people say we're political rappers, it just means they're real late catching onto us. My team eat anything we go at on track & it's been the same since day, don't make a difference whether it's other emcees,, the whole industry, the media or the government we eat them same way…patterns, punchlines, concepts, eat them, sometimes we just like to pick real big opponents to fuck with.
Manage recently came with his first album, ‘(Live) In Protest’, which correct me if I’m wrong isn’t his first release? Are the other members working on any solo output?
[CLG] I’m putting out an EP with a producer called c0mplex titled ‘Time in Moments’, which features Chain of Command on one track. I’ve also got a collab with Kyza on there too.
[Conflix] Time for some Connie stuff, I’m working on another EP with The Last Skeptik at the mo. I been doing my Character Assassin CD’s every other year, so Volume 3 is coming 2008.
[Syanyde] Yeah I'm working on a solo but it'll be done when it's done, not really in a rush to get it out but it's got to be right when it drops & it's got to be a solid product, there's a lot of politics going on behind it that's fucking me off but it'll be out when it's out.
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We’re pure marmite...love it or hate it!
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For a while now, you guys have been involved in both the set-up and hosting of what is undoubtedly London’s hottest free monthly event, Speaker’s Corner. Was the aim always to showcase up and coming acts? How long has that been going now?
[Manage] How long has that been going now? 2 & a half years now its been running...Yeah the idea was to promote grass roots hip hop music to the masses… music with a message too...we could easily of got some swanky place uptown & charged a tenner to get in & played bullshit R&B…but we would never really feel complete like that...Hip Hop needs places like Speakers Corner in this country because I see a dying culture out there only being kept alive from certain corners and everyone else is trying to drain that last piece of blood from its vein... please people let Speakers Corner be something of a blueprint ...go forth & set up Speakers Corners in all your towns & cities, the culture needs it. Fuck wearing a T-shirt as a badge...fuck paying X amount on the door to be disappointed...fuck no Open Mic policy...and fuck clicky little circles that want to be the greedy spoilt fucks and not share...we show love…don’t hate!
[Conflix] Yeah Speakers Corner is Snuffs baby! I’d like to think Speakers Corner has showed love to all up and coming acts throughout the years it’s been running. No cliquey shit here you know what I’m saying? Street Ciphers, Open Mic, DJ sets, Bashment room, Hip Hop acts…dopeness.
How important is an event such as Speaker’s Corner in the UKHH scene?
[Conflix] A free event like Speakers Corner is good for the scene, come along and you’ll see for yourself.
[Syanyde] He won’t say it because he's a humble dude but Snuff's basically saved live London Hip Hop & gave it a future at a time when it was dying out, he created a place where established heads can network with the next generation of artists wanting to bust through & made it accessible for everybody without the bullshit politics & fuckry surrounding the rest of the scene. Only other place I ever saw like that was Deal Real, without those 2 platforms it would probably be dead because 90% of promoters I encountered haven’t got a fucking clue what they're doing.
The Rogue State EP, CoC’s debut collective album, drops through Merciless Records later in 2007, with the album launch party at the September 7th Speakers Corner event in Brixton. Entry? Free, as always!
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