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  Poisonous Poets Interview
interview 0296 added 22.04.05 words: Mehreen
technical:
QED
The Poisonous Poets, aka
double P are as prophetically venomous
in person as they are musically. Their feisty aggression
throughout is in abundance and evident of just how passionate
they are about their music. Whilst they have no signature sound
as yet it is refreshing to see the result of six very different
identities coming together on collective pieces and
individually. Things have may have been quiet for them as of
late, but they are currently planning a takeover…
Brief introduction.
We are the Poisonous Poets. Doc Brown, Lowkey, Reveal,
Therapist, DJ Snips and Tony D (not present). Our mixtape
Poisonous Poetry Volume 1 is out now, Doc's LP is out now and
Lowkey's Key to the Game 2 is out now. Reveal's solo material
drops in June.
Reveal stormed into the UK open mic/battle scene at a very young
age and since then has consistently been proving that he is here
to stay. His legendary battles with the likes of Chester P and
former Rawkus Signee Shabam Sadeeq have cemented his place in
the scene although he has also proven his longevity through the
ability to make thought provoking songs such as “What Estate R U
From? “ which is set for a early summer release alongside a solo
Mix CD.
Therapist made his debut on The Planets “For the Love” 12 “ a
while ago. After meeting Reveal aged 15 through mutual contacts,
the duo began appearing at live shows and recording tracks
together. Therapist has also made a name in the Garage/Grime
scene, formerly part of “Boyz in the Hood” with Durrrty Goodz.
DJ Snips is one of the UK's best producers; currently working
with some of the most established people from both sides of the
Atlantic as well as DJing for Poisonous Poets and spinning at
clubnights several times a week. He has just started a radio
show on London’s Itch FM 105.1 every Sunday from 6pm-8pm.
Doc Brown is long time host of the Deal Real Friday Night Live
open mic sessions where he has performed with the likes of Mos
Def and Kanye West. He’s already a name on the UK hip-hop scene,
thanks in part to a reworking of Gary Jules’s Mad World with
Lowkey and Snips. His debut album, The Document (Janomi
Records), is out now and should be picked up by everyone on
musical merit alone.
Tony D met Doc Brown and Reveal at an open air cipher in Clapham
Common where his bloodthirsty bars blew away everyone. Tony has
gone from strength to strength, showing versatility through his
varied rapping styles.
Lowkey is the new addition to the Poets. Lowkey burst onto the
scene on one of British Hip Hop’s biggest ever tracks, Donnie’s
Lament (Mad World Remix) with Doc Brown. Lowkey’s debut single
Politics dropped shortly after Key to the Game 2 and achieved a
top 5 slot in the BBC 1 Xtra official Hip Hop chart with only
one other British act above it and his next single Lies looks
likely to make even more of an impact.
Poisonous have their 2nd mixtape Poisonous Poetry Volume 2
dropping soon, followed by more solo material from all
members....
Reveal you mention ‘amateur rapping’ in
the Poisonous Poets track on Doc Brown’s album and would adopt
what I see as a specifically domineering tone. Lowkey you
explicitly state in one of your tracks “So many MCs can’t rhyme
its depressing to me…” It appears like everyone wants to be the
best on the scene on their own- directing competition to other
MCs. It’s a very cyclical pattern seen over and over again. Why
such an aggressive tone towards competitors? Why not support
others?
 Lowkey: Where I came into the whole the whole scene and
basically how I got into taking this seriously was going up on
the open mic. So the way I look at it, when I go up to spit on
the mic, I’m looking at everyone else in the room and telling
myself I’m better than all of them. That’s how it has to be.
Doc: You can’t come to the open mic and just say ‘yeh I think
I’m alright’.
Lowkey: You have to come up on the mic and say ‘I am the best’.
No question. I don’t question myself, if I was to question
myself how is anyone else going to look at me and say he is the
best.
Reveal: The thing is you have to have this type of aggression.
We need much more of this on the whole UK scene. Do you know
why? Let’s not lie not everyone is going to be friends. We
didn’t come in to make friends, it’s a very competitive thing
and the way I feel personally is that the crew of people I rap
with we’re ‘poisonous’. We didn’t call ourselves ‘the friends’.
We are looking to poison people, people are lucky we didn’t call
ourselves something worse.
Lowkey: Really and truly it does depress me hearing the calibre
of a lot of MCs.
Reveal: We need to get rid of them. We need to make it harder
for them. The way I got into rap was purely through battling –
from open mics, big battles, warring it out.
Lowkey: You can’t be nicey nicey.
Reveal: It wasn’t an easy thing. I’m not going to let any guy
just walk around if they’re mediocre.
"...the
crew of people I rap with we’re ‘poisonous’. We didn’t call
ourselves ‘the friends’. We are looking to poison people…
[Reveal]"
Doc: When we first came up it was the era where rappers still
used to get booed off stage. They had chants in the crowd. When
someone was whack, twenty five people would be chanting ‘Get
off’. Also everybody raps and I mean everybody raps. You might
have one place where you have to be heavy to get on this mic,
but for every one like that there will be twenty where anyone
can do anything.
Snips: When we’re at Deal Real you’ll have someone come up but
he’ll be so terrible but he’ll do it in a jokey way and people
will be like ‘this guy’s funny’. That’s not acceptable.
Doc: All we can do is keep making quality records and if your
record doesn’t stand up to ours then you’re a joke.
Snips: That goes for producers too.
Doc: At the end of the day we’re representing ourselves. We’re
not here defending anyone or leading a movement or anything.
Reveal: We are here because we think we can make a
difference on the scene and if that means taking certain people
out that means they should be ready to get taken out
Do you think such fierce aggression
with everyone else is healthy for the scene?
Reveal: What’s the flipside? That everyone’s good? That will
leave us in this hole UK hip hop has been in. UK hip hop evolved
from this situation let’s get together and appreciate this art
form coming out in America. Now we’ve taken it over.
 Lowkey: Forget the Americans; I’m talking about the Americans
too.
Reveal: Its becoming the grassroots British culture of UK hip
hop coming up. These people here from the old wave, their little
cosy gatherings with their old friends, when they use to go
break dance on the linen – that’s getting threatened. There are
new fresh faces coming up.
Lowkey: We’re hungry and we’re not begging for any of them. We
don’t need any of them.
Reveal: People need to realise first you need to destroy
something to rebuild it.
Lowkey: You need to be able to differentiate between what is
good and what is bad and the majority of what I hear not just UK
but US I don’t rate none of the rappers.
Reveal: in brackets Lowkey is currently holding the mic…!
Snips: What these guys have said I would agree with but at the
same time it’s important to point out people like Skinny who’ve
come through that old wave. He’s managed to adapt and move
forward with the new wave as well.
Lowkey: Skinny is someone from the old wave who has kept
concurrent all the time. When we’re talking about the new wave
we’re talking about all the people we’re work with like Stylah
like Spellz, all of the people who are around us. We rate all of
them. The people we don’t work with we don’t rate them.
If you had to listen to bad music 24/7 it would depress you.
Doc: It doesn’t mean we don’t support the idea of a UK scene or
community, trying to bring the scene forward. At the same though
I don’t see why you should have to support whack people.
"...These
people here from the old wave, their little cosy gatherings with
their old friends, when they use to go break dance on the linen
– that’s getting threatened... [Reveal]"
Lowkey: It’s about quality control. Give them a spud and move
on.
Reveal: Not everyone has to be a rapper or a producer, its just
as important to be honest and support good music. That’s the
bottom line.
Doc: We don’t have a lot of fans in this country because
everyone feels they can rap better than you.
Snips: If you go to a jam the whole audience is full of rappers
and producers or a DJ.
 Lowkey: Foremost everyone who is a fan of UK hip hop has tried
to be a rapper, tried to write a rhyme – whether they admit it
or not.
As a group you all appear to come from
very different social demographics. You’re not all Black, not
all British, not underground - what is your identity?
Doc: It’s London. You don’t see a group of guys in London now
that are all one colour.
Lowkey: Even if they are the same colour, their different
cultures.
Snips: It was never an intentional thing to get somebody who
would represent all cultures. It’s just the way it happened.
There doesn’t seem to be much of a
scene outside London there is massive crystallisation of the
scene within London.. Grime seems to have taken off nationwide,
there doesn’t seem to be that depth or extension with hip hop
yet. Why do you think this is?
Doc: Its like that thing I said to you earlier, everyone’s a
rapper. In grime there are fans. When someone comes out of their
hood they proper big them up, rate them en masse.
Reveal: This is what poisonous represents. We are rapping for
the whole of the UK.
Lowkey: The unrepresented people.
Having said that you have one of the
tracks on Poisonous Poetry Volume 1 entitled ‘It’s a London
thing’…
Reveal: because that’s where we are from, if we were from Bognor
Regis the tune would be called “it’s a Bognor Regis Ting” innit!.
Doc: if we we’re doing that with every track that would be an
issue.
Lowkey: Rev’s track ‘What estate are you from’ the remix has a
rapper from Birmingham and a rapper from Nottingham. On my
mixtape I worked with A-Bomb and Eyezofman who are from
Leicester and they’re two of the illest in Britain.
"...It’s
about quality control. Give them a spud and move on... [Lowkey]"
Reveal: We work with everyone. It doesn’t matter if they’re not
from your ends. Big up all UK crews countrywide, I seen
maaaaaaad talent at some of the jams iv performed out of London.
Doc: I was just going to say on an artistic level if you are
talking about where you come from and doing it well and the
tune’s good then it’s not an issue. Whose heard a Nas tune where
he doesn’t talk about Queensbridge?
Lowkey: and no one says to him your not rapping to the brears
down south.
In terms of fan base, do you think that
people outside of London find it difficult to identify with the
inner city mentality a lot of hip hop is about?
 Reveal: We represent for everyone.
Snips: In Rev’s first tune ‘What estate are you from?’ is
evident of that. The main tune talks about where your from and
London and the remix has representatives from all over talking
about their area.
Doc: Its just universal topics, as long as you’ve got universal
topics it doesn’t matter what your talking about or where your
from.
Lowkey: There is talent all over the world.
Snips: Well and truly London is a bigger version of Manchester,
which is a bigger version of Birmingham which is a bigger
version of Bristol.
Reveal: We have to forget that its only all UK stuff. I have
done tunes with Iranian rappers back in my country; I’ve done
tunes with people in Brazil.
Lowkey: Look how big London and England is on a world scale.
Doc: You could fit 10 of them in Texas.
Reveal: We want fans in Palestine, Iran, Thailand, Bhutan, in
places we haven’t even heard of. Maybe even an alien!
Grime has not been around as long as
hip hop, yet its picked up and taken off in a bigger way. Are
you envious off its status?
Reveal: over to our resident grime expert Therapist…
Therapist: It’s a hype thing. Hip hop has been around for a long
time, its been going in the US for years. So we’re competing
with them, grime isn’t. Grime is opening doors for a lot of the
younger ones, because its selling. It’s just good music.
"...UK
hip hop seems scared to go beyond. It’s like a little boys club
they have set up, people are scared to share and are holding
back a lot of talent... [Snips]"
Snips: People from the grime scene are talented and people from
the hip hop scene are talented. The more you merge the two
together it raises the bar. A lot of criticism goes to grime
saying that its not lyrical – but the talent in it is obvious.
The more the two genres merge the greater the standard.
Therapist: Kano is very lyrical. When I listen to him spit there
is structure to his lyrics and metaphors. I understand him.
Grime seems to have created something
new like the eski beat; UK hip hop doesn’t seem to have invented
anything of its own yet…?
 Lowkey: all they are doing is making good music and bringing it
out. The media puts labels on it and pushes it back and says
‘you call it this’.
Reveal: when you do it, its art because you are being creative,
once you’ve done it its science. You can’t plan something. If
you want to aim to do a grime eski beat London tune it won’t
work. Your going to do something and people will hear it and it
will sound different but what do you call it? That’s’ when you
get the labels.
The innovators will move, the imitators will recreate that and
that’s when you go wrong.
Snips: There are so many tags, sometimes people like music
because it has a tag. Most of the time if you just take away the
‘label’ you are left with good music. There are so many talented
people in the UK. The hip hop scene out of all the genres of
music in the UK is by far the most closed minded as to working
with other genres of people. You can’t do certain things because
it will make it sound too much like R’n’B or you can’t have a
singer on your track as that’s too commercial.
That’s the attitude you get because UK hip hop seems scared to
go beyond. It’s like a little boys club they have set up, people
are scared to share and are holding back a lot of talent.
Final big ups?
Reveal: big up the ukhh.com forum users! I’ve read some mad
things on that forum…some mad twisted tings! you lot are deep on
the streets!
Lowkey: watch out for Spellz Overdue mixtape, Stylah’s Treading
Water, look out for The Adventure’s of Nutty P and new things
coming out from Wordplay. Watch out for all of us and our
affiliates, it’s a Poisonous Takeover.
Watch out for the Poisonous Poems Volume 2 as well as all
their solo releases. Doc’s album ‘The Document’, Lowkey’s ‘Key
to the Game volume 2’ and Reveal’s soon to be released “What
Estate R U from”...
-
Mehreen
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