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TTC Interview

interview 0017 added 28.07.00 words 2-Hip

Our first interview with a French crew and it just happens to be topical since they're (allegedly) about to sign a deal with Big Dada. 2-Hip caught up with Teki and Cuizinier to find out all.
First off, tell the heads out there basically who you are and what you have been up to the past few years

TTC
T.T.C.

[Teki] TTC is Tido, Teki Latex and Cuizinier, we're a Parisian crew down with a collective called L'Armée des 12 Singes which also includes La Caution and the beatmakers from [CrO2] Ozome. We're three MC's with three distinctive styles and approaches. We released a single called "Game Over 99 / Trop Frais" independently a year ago, by the way it's still available at Mr Bongo's for those who live in the London area. We appeared on dozens of french mixtapes and compilations, we're about to start working on an album with production by mostly Flash Gordon, as well as DJ Fab and Nikkfurie from La Caution. We're cool like that. Love us.
So then growing up in France, did you have much different musical influence or was it similar to your usual hiphop upbringing?
[Teki] I think our background was similar to any other hip-hop head's, except that in addition to the mostly-US groups we were listening to, we also had the opportunity to hear a lot of hip-hop in our own language very early since French hip-hop developed itself early, and fast. I personally discovered hip-hop through some of the first French rap records.
[Cuizinier] I also started listening to hip-hop through the first French rap records at the very beginning of the 90's , then later on I opened my ears to hip-hop from all over the world. I'm 20 years old so I practically grew up with hip-hop... when I started listening to music seriously in 1990 when I was 10 years old it was hip-hop right away... before that, I wasn't really into any particular kind of music. I was just a regular kid listening to the radio from time to time without really paying attention. The only artist I really listened to back then was Michael Jackson, I think the first record I bought was a Michael Jackson record.
I’ve heard some of your past material, one samples an old computer game. How did that come about? and what games did you used to play or still play?
[Teki] Well there was no real strategy behind that computer game sample. Flash Gordon produced it, it sounded dope, we decided to use it, point blank. We did it way before the actual "video game sample frenzy", way before Cocoa Brovas, Benefit etc. decided to sample video games. The beat isn't even based on a computer game loop, except for the chorus. Flash just used computer sounds here and there, we were always fans of video games. For my part, I love the old school games like Space Invaders and Arkanoid... I’m also a big fan of platform games on 8 or 16 bits systems... I like Bonk's adventure on NEC PC Engine, all the Mario games on Nintendo, the Shinobi series on Sega was dope too. I can't stand Playstations and Dreamcasts, they make feel dizzy... all that 3D shit makes me wanna throw up, I cant play Golden Eye/Doom-type games, I get lost all the time and I run into walls. I like Tekken though...
[Cuizinier] I'm a killer at Tetris. I used to love sports games on the Super Nes, I own a Nintendo 64 but I’m not really using it that often.
What's the forthcoming album called and what can we expect?
[TTC] We didn't think of a name yet... expect incredible beats, complex flows and dope lyrics you won't understand since they'll be in French. Expect the death of all competition. Expect the anti-"MC Solaar". Expect the unexpected.
The team up with Big Dada, how did all that come about and do you have any plans to do collaborations with any of the Big Dada or other UK artists?
[TTC] We technically haven't signed anything yet but it's almost done, everybody knows about it already, for example Fred, French "rep" for Ninja Tune is already introducing us to people as the "new Big Dada signees". Working with those guys is an honour and we really feel lucky, we're big fans. Our producer Flash Gordon got in contact with them while he was spending a few days in London, they liked Flash's beats and our 12", they were interested, they called us back, and that was it. We had the opportunity to meet New Flesh, Roots Manuva, Ty and Mike Ladd separately when they came to Paris. They're all dope artists and interesting people and we would love to work with them all... As a matter of fact Mike Ladd laid some vocals over a few Flash Gordon beats while he was promoting the Infesticons album in Paris. Other than that we're tightly connected with DJ Vadim, Killa Kela and some of the former Scratch Perverts members... we have multiple collaborations with Vadim and Kela in the works, some of them should come out this fall already. Collaborations with my pimped-out homeboy Koaste from 360 Physicals are also in the works. There are loads of UK groups out there that we would like to hook up with... acts like Taskforce, Numskulls, Deftex...
How do you feel about the current state of hiphop and its scene in France?
[TTC] Hip-hop, globally, is so huge right now that even though a lot of the stuff that's coming out is garbage, one will always be able to find good groups and nice music. Concerning the French hip-hop scene... well there's no real French hip-hop scene anymore... there's a big fat juicy corrupted French rap market with a lot of money involved, but no space left for creativity and originality. A few groups here and there manage to maintain a certain level of skills and very recently a few interesting acts started popping up but we can't really talk about a "scene", there's no unity and no exchange between individuals or crews. There's like, this big mainstream scene making mad money on one side, and on the other side those so-called underground crews that are just trying to reproduce what the mainstream is doing, with smaller budgets. Everybody sounds the same, it's pretty depressing, but at the same time it motivates us to come up with something really personal and original.
Another certain French group have been getting loads (and some would say too much) good press in the UK's music media. Why do you think this is - I mean, what do you think it is that the UK finds so appealing about one French group and not about the umpteen others?
[Teki] I believe the group you're talking about is Saian Supa Crew. They're doing their thing, they're signed to Source/Virgin, their album came out in the UK on Wordplay, which is the English branch of Source. Virgin and Source are obviously investing a lot of money in promoting their stuff in the UK... I guess they found Saian Supa Crew had an R&B-Ragga vibe with a party-hiphop twist that would appeal to the UK audience, i don’t know, it's all marketing really, they are being marketed as "the underground saviours of french rap" when their music is actually very mainstream-sounding and conventional. Virgin are using the Saian Supa Crew as a part of their strategy of invasion of the UK hip-hop market, and I heard that Virgin and its french sub-labels Delabel and Source wanted to invest a lot into UK hiphop... Those people made a lot of money with French rap since the early 90's by signing acts like IAM & Alliance Ethnik, right now I guess they found out they could potentially reproduce the French situation in the UK, they are putting a lot of money and effort into it. Through Wordplay they are trying to re-create the French hiphop explosion in the UK in order to be able to make mad money with UK hip-hop, but the problem is, that French hip-hop explosion was really a bad thing since it resulted in the total disappearing of creativity in our scene. This so-called "explosion" created monopolies and right now you cannot sell records without being affiliated with a certain group of people or without sounding like a certain group of people. Everybody in France wants to sign, blow up, and go gold by any means necessary, not caring about the quality and the originality of the music anymore. It's up to true UK hip-hop heads to be careful about what the media or the major labels are trying to sell them. It's all about good music, not marketing schemes.
[Cuizi] I don't know the Saian Supa Crew's work that well, I only heard a few of their tracks, I saw them live and they put on a very well organised show that people seem to appreciate a lot. Personally they are not my cup of tea, like Teki said, Virgin is making moves on the European hip-hop market. After all it might open doors to French hip-hop but people have to be aware that this group does not represent French hip-hop music as a whole.
The UK scene has many problems and most dismiss it as being shit, what are your honest thoughts and feelings about the whole UK hiphop scene?
[Teki] I believe the UK hip-hop scene is still slept on even though no-one can deny it is really about to blow up. You guys have the best hip-hop scene in Europe in terms of creativity. UK hiphop has a strong identity and people aren't afraid to try new stuff and push hiphop's limits while other European countries' hiphop scenes are just trying to imitate stuff that's happening in the US. In the UK, sellouts and fake American thugs get laughed at while they would probably blow up and get away with their wackness in a country like France, Germany or Sweden. Maybe British hip-hop doesn't sell a lot right now but it's better for it to take its time than to lose its identity like it's happening in France. Right now UK hiphop is building itself strong foundations, soon it will start growing in terms of money and if the foundations are solid enough, then creativity and quality won't get lost. I think artists like Roots Manuva, Lewis Parker or Blak Twang have the potential to sell a lot of copies world-wide with their forthcoming LPs if they manage to maintain a high level of quality. UK hip-hop reached the point where it can only grow and get better, in my opinion it's only a matter of time before you guys get world-wide recognition.

Cuizinier

[Cuizinier] I don't know much about the problems in UK hip-hop because I’m not that up-to-date with UK hiphop politics but I have the feeling that there is a true underground scene in the UK. There's a lot of good stuff, Vadim, Roots Manuva, Deftex, I heard lots of UK groups but I wouldn’t be able to give you all the names. I know Ali G too, he's dope (laughs) Westside!
What do you think the UK and French scenes need to improve? and do you think more connections/collaborations between UK and French artists and labels would be a good thing?
[Teki] The French scene needs to get back to the time when creativity and originality were the key values in hip-hop, after all it's a counter-culture which was created to go against pop music, not to re-create its standards. Hip-hop's essence is to be alternative, and the French scene is too conservative, I don't like that. Concerning the UK scene... what can I say... Recently there's been a lot of focus on producers... those UK producers are working mainly with American MC's, I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing since it's giving UK hip-hop some exposure. I just hope those producers will collaborate more with UK MC's in their future work. On the other hand maybe some British MC’s could improve their flows, there are a lot of UK groups with brilliant producers and turntablists, and technically mediocre or just average MC's. The percentage of wack folks isn't as high as it is in France though.
[Cuizi] More French/UK collaborations would be a good idea. Globally I think that hip-hop artists should take advantage of technologies like the internet to link with artists from other countries. The world-wide underground hip-hop scene should be united.
Given the existence of a similar law in French broadcasting, do you think Bandit of MSI & Asylum is right to campaign for minimum quotas in terms of UK "Urban" airplay? Isn't there always the problem of just say 60% shit music being played?
[TTC] Well at least that's what's happening in France where they have quotas for French music (not particularly urban music, it's just that radio station peeps found French rap was a good way of following these quotas and still manage to appeal to the youth)... Actually it's not even 60% it's more like 99% of shit music. It helped the French rap market develop, then the artists started competing, fighting for airplay, watering their shit down to get that damn airplay... record companies grew bigger and radio stations started unofficially asking for incredible amounts of money to put tracks on their heavy rotation playlist. "Getting played on the radio" became the ultimate goal for French rap groups. So basically it fucked up the whole thing... I think those things should come naturally... If someone forces the radio stations to play UK stuff, they are obviously going to play the most commercial UK groups, the number of groups might increase, but the quality will slowly disappear.
Tell us a joke.
[TTC] We love R&B and the Saian Supa Crew and Trevor Nelson.
When growing up, what is the most stupid thing you did?
[Cuizi] I can't think of anything right now...
[Teki] I wore my trousers backwards once, KrissKross style... it lasted half a day. I used to go hunt for frogs in the countryside too. I would then throw them against trees, it was cruel and stupid but I was into it, it was like a sport to me.
How do you feel about France's recent Euro victory and are England really that shite at football?
[Teki] I don't give a shit about football... I’m more interested in how many people will get killed on the Champs-Elysées during the riots following our victories. IT'S MURDAAAA
[Cuizi] The French team is very skilled, we proved it once again, no-one can test us, and right now it's undeniable that French football deserves respect. England isn't bad at all at football, you guys have dope players... Shearer, Beckham, Ince, Owen is a psychopath, he's a real killer. There was always some dope football clubs in the UK.
Are you in favour of the single Euro-currency? I mean won't it be better to have a unified Europe?
[Teki] Yeah definitely... for example I know someone from Slovenia who was having mad problems getting a visa to study in France, since Slovenia is not a part of the European Union. That type of problem may sound irrelevant but when you're confronted to it and you actually realise human beings are not free to go wherever they want, even when they didn't do anything illegal, it sucks. Borders are useless.
I said before about a unified Europe, do you think there is ever the chance that we could become one huge country? I mean that would really piss the Americans off cos we would have loads more power than them.

Tido & Teki

[Teki] Seems like "pissing the Americans off" happens to be British hiphoppers' favourite sport! (just kidding). In my opinion it's not about having more power than the "Yanks" or anything like that, it's just that the whole world should simply become one huge country, it would make things a lot easier.
[Cuizi] I love those "Pret a manger" food stores you guys have in London. I really do.
Well finally give us a quick breakdown of what we can expect in the future from you after the album, maybe a tour or some other stuff?
[TTC] Probably a tour and more material from our crew L'armée Des 12 Singes. I'm also working on my own compilation kind of tape, with guest appearances from various French crews + Kela and Koaste from the UK. We'll be appearing on Kela's album with L'Armée Des 12 Singes, Kerozen (which is our manager's independent label) is putting together a compilation with TTC tracks as well as tracks from the whole collective. I (Teki) am also featured on Flash Gordon's first single as a part of the group Psychotron. Psychotron is Hi-tekk Le Receleur from La Caution and myself.
Any shout outs or any final thought type shit?
Don't sleep on TTC!
Vive la Grande Bretagne!
Shout out to our crew L'Armée des 12 Singes, all our friends and family in France and everywhere else... let's make it a UK shout out special, shout outs to everybody @ UKHH.com, thanks for the opportunity and keep up the good work! 2Hip, Flat4, Koaste (Ray BENZino), Sumo... shout out to Will, Pete and everybody @ Big Dada & Ninja Tune... DJ Vadim and Yarah, Vanessa, Talita, all our British peeps, Deftex, Jamie @ Hombre, Fink, Dynamic Syncopation, Brad Baloo from Nextmen, Only Child, Phi Life Cypher and the Jazz Fudge staff, Mad Flow, Part2, Mr. Thing, First Rate, of course The Amazing Killa Kela, everybody we know in the UK, everybody @ Deal Real, Mr Bongo & Selectadisc, by the way the 12" we released a year ago is available in the stores I just mentioned so cop it!
also check out our websites http://www.kerozen.net & http://www.flash-gordon.net