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On your latest 12" you ask how many real British hip-hoppers are in the house right now - what's your opinion on that?
D: I don't really think that's any of your business is it really? [laughs]
Shy: It's just like taking the idea that KRS did on that album 'how many real hip-hoppers are in the house right now'. Basically that quite a lot of the British people that are doing and listening to rap aren't either 100% into being British/listening to British rap or they're still thinking that rapping American and about American things is the key, and that just pisses us off. I mean this is something we've been going on about for a long time now and we'll keep on about it. I mean how many of them are there? Not that many at the moment.
So who are you feeling at the moment?
Shy: Well I've got two birds on the go at the moment.
Sp: I'm feeling myself - I feel gorgeous.
Shy: I think the only person who's impressed me recently is Roots Manuva.
D: Yeah he's always impressed me y'know.
Shy: I can't really talk about anyone else 'cause no one else talks about us.
D: I tell you what about him right - he's always been there right, in the background, but he's always done his own thing. He's a nice geezer, his lyrics are good, his flow's nice. That's it really.
You've done the record business both ways now - through a major label with all that comes with that, and on a lower budget with an independent label...
Shy: When did your career actually go downhill? [wails!]
... nah nah - what are the good/bad points of each?
Sp: Like the label loot - could do with that, but there's the freedom - being with a major label they put so many restrictions on your arse, want you to do flower lyrics and all that shit and you're not really into that bollocks. I mean if you want a muppet band go and create one. Y'know, we were doing our own thing before, and we're going to keep on doing our own thing, so it was like 'later man' 'cause we aint into this puppet control shit.
Shy: I mean I think that's the crux of the matter - we can do everything now musically that we could do then, but the reason it all went pear-shaped when we were with them was they wanted us to do stuff we didn't want to do. So we didn't do it. That's why we left. Of course we'd like to be getting a wage out of it, but we're not. We're just doing what we've got to do to make the ends meet until... until whenever.
Do you reckon even if a major label like Virgin or whatever created a muppet UK hip-hop band, would it sell anyway?
Sp: There's no market for that y'get me. 'Cause there's really hungry MCs & DJs out there that would just shun that. The only people that's done that is that fucking 'Five' bollocks - they're making a mint. That's it.
D: That aint even rap though y'know what I mean - that's silly music - that ain't real. The thing is with England, you couldn't do it on a massive scale like America 'cause it's such a bigger country and people are really into it.
Shy: We just haven't got the social outlet or the demographics in this country to make it work. The majority of the people in this country just want to listen to pop music and get pissed on a Friday night. They don't want to listen to rap music.
What do you think about people going to go out and buy Warren G or Busta or whatever when people like you are much more relevant to them?
Sp: It's an ignorance thing - if we go up there and do a 2 minute set we're going to get buckle
D: if a yank comes over and does a 2 minute set they want to y'know suck his dick and say 'yeah wicked show', even though it's only 2 minutes - 'yeah he was here, I saw him in the flesh'.
D: It's a 'who carries prestige already' type thing. These people have already sold big in the states, so the press goes wild about them here, MTV goes wild about them here, they're superstars in America, so they get all the focus, all the prestige, 'cause they're already superstars somewhere else. We're not superstars, we ain't even fuckin Super Tennents - it just don't happen.
Shy: I mean there could be a UK artist who could be exactly the same as Busta, who could have done what Busta done before he did it.
D: Can you imagine him walking down Deptford High Street? 'Oh My God yes Oh my god' - fucking loony - lock him up. Imagine a UK rapper all dressed up like that.
Sp: Fur coats n' everything - lock the brother up - lock him up!
D: Like 'what a wanker - look at that cunt trying to be something he aint'.
Sp: It's a backwards situation y'know, we going backwards instead of going forwards.
Shy: Well we aint going backwards.
Sp: But over here I mean, other man.
Can you see a way forward though - is it ever going to change?
Sp: Yeah - hopefully...
Shy: Personally I can't see a light at the end of the tunnel but I'm just carrying on doing it 'cause I just love this shit. I believe, as far as major labels are concerned, the whole thing about having some sort of longevity is that every 4 years or so major labels start signing British acts, they just do. Over the last 12 years you've had people like Caveman, Cash Crew, London Posse, Wee Papa Girl Rappers even. It happens every now and then. When we got signed Silent Eclipse got signed, Kaliphz got signed...
D: It always happens. Every now and then record companies think 'ooh - what's happening on the black scene', but because of drum n bass that's like making so much money they don't even need to do that, but look at Photek, I mean they're fucked now. Major labels don't know what the fucks going on, but they do know how to sell music to people without any brains. But people with brains who're making music, they don't know how to handle them. But the Internet will change all that anyway.
Shy: That's why all these major labels get busy with licensing and distributing other people's shit. They know they can't handle these other areas, so they just leave it to people that have an understanding of it, and just exploit them, But someone's getting paid somewhere down the line. I mean who're Skint with - is it Virgin? Anyway someone's licensed them, and the 2 people who run Skint, they got paid, but you can be sure the artists didn't. What it's done for the sales who knows, but it's done the major label no end of good as far as prestige in the industry. They can go to the next A&R man & say 'Oh, I've got Skint now, that's mine.' 'Oh damn - I wanted Skint. I'm going to have someone else. I'm going to have Ninja Tune'.
D: And all your ideas of 'major labels suck' - I mean if someone offers you £2m for a label you set up for a grand, different thing you know - you're thinking 'all my artists are going to get looked after, the distribution'll be sorted'.
Sp: But some man don't even think that though, they just think 'yeah, wicked, bank'. Like Russell Simmons - selling Def Jam
D:Yeah I mean all those smaller labels except Master P, they've all got like Columbia or someone in their corner y'know.
What about breaking yourselves in the states? Can you see that?
Sp: Well like I said, when you got to compete with that kind of shit y'know what I mean... D: The only way like I can see it working in the states is coming through from the underground, which would be good, and I think it'd have to come from California. I've been to both coasts and I think that Californians are more open to music. Yeah in New York all they want to hear is New York
D: Yeah, very much like London really in a lot of ways But California, I went over there to a conference, and they knew who the Brotherhood were. I mean when I came out of this room, with these young Thai boys, I was holding the album in my hand and this kid says 'I've got that album man' and when I told him I was something to do with the Brotherhood he was asking me all sorts y'know what we're doing n' all that. And they knew loads about it, they liked the samples, the different sound. But if you played it in New York they'd be like 'Yo but what's he saying? Where they from? Oh - you got rap there?'.
What about Lewis Parker? He's selling units over there, on tour with Massive Attack...
Shy: Yeah well I'll tell you how that works right. Massive Attack's manager manages Trevor - The Underdog - who basically has his thumb really high in Lewis's arse. So anything that Trevor tells Lewis to do, he's going to jump on any Massive Attack tour he can do. So it's a nice little click 'cause they're in the pocket of the manager too.
D: I mean I don't care if Lewis sells units in the states, Big Kwam sells in Japan and the states, Phoebe 1 whatever, I don't give a fuck, not 'cause I don't like them but because they sound like Americans selling to Americans. You're selling sand to the Arabs.
You think Lewis Parker sounds American?
Sp: No doubt
D: Yeah Lewis tries very hard not to - but at the end of the day, I mean I've known Lewis for a very long time, but I've spoken to him about that and he says 'yeah that's the way I like it with my music'. I mean I get on with Lewis, Chris [Spyce] don't, I get on with him I think he's cool, but I'd never work with him, 'cause of the ties he's got.
Sp: with that accent shit you do what you got to do y'get me.
D: we haven't got a lot of time for that y'know...
Sp: I mean we've been on tour with Cypress Hill, Group Home and we get on stage and rip them out of the water man.
D: But we weren't hanging out with them and being like 'yo man smoke some blunts man'. Funny thing was the only time you hear us talking American on that tour was when we were taking the piss out of them. They were shit scared of us then - they've never come across anything like that before - they couldn't get with it. They hear about football hooligans and think nothing of it, but when they hear us singing football songs and getting pissed and getting a bit stupid n' that they're like 'yeah right, yeah right, ha ha '.
Shy: Yeah singing the national anthem out the top of the tour bus in Paris.
D: Yeah we had like a festival on one side, a brothel on the other and we were out the top 'Rule Britannia...' and they were standing there like 'what the fuck??'.
Shy: It's a different mentality. Unfortunately some people here have what we call a New York state of mind, where they really think they're out there. They watch MTV till 5 in the morning when they see like Meth and Jay-Z and they wake up and open the curtains and they don't see Battersea Power station, they see the New York skyline. They're still in MTV land.
D: Until people see you on TV, they don't see you at all. I take my little girl to school, and Virgin used to send limos to pick us up - I mean we ain't going to say no are we! - so they'd pull up with the windows blacked out and all that, and everyone though I was a dealer. Then when we went on tour with Cypress Hill the teachers & other parents asked my girl 'where's your daddy gone', and she says 'oh he's gone away - he's gone on holiday'. So they took that to mean I was on holiday at Her Majesty's Pleasure basically. But then she told them I was on tour with a band, they saw us on the black music awards and then they're like 'ohhh I saw you on teevee'
Sp: Yeah, I mean our videos never got daytime play on the TV except One Shot a couple of times.
D: We went over to Paris which was a right laugh...
To promote the Operation Overlord compilation?
D: Yeah - so when we got on the bus, there was quite a lot of animosity between people for stuff we've said. Well that I've said really. So there was Funky DL there and my seat was something like 3CA, and his was 3CB, but by the end of it we all got on cool. But the funny thing was that amongst all of us - there was us, Blak Twang and some others, and DL was the only one who didn't rap in English - he was rapping American. But when we did the radio stuff he switched his accent totally - he had to really, he'd've stood out if he hadn't - and he was fuckin good rapping with a London accent. But then it was totally gone. I said to him 'why don't you do that all the time' and he was like 'ah that ain't my thing'. I mean I can't tell a man what to do, so good luck to him.
It's a shame, people like him they've got skills, they've got good production behind them and they don't represent where they're from.
D: Yeah that's your opinion and that's the opinion of people in this room.
Shy: But there are more people in this industry who think that the way ahead is just to rap yank. I mean how many British singers sing with English accents? They all say 'dannce' except Chris de Burgh who says 'I want to daarrrrnce with somebody'. Then there's Scary Spice with her 'alraaht chuck' (in appalling Yorkshire accent) and Catatonia like 'rrroadrrrage' (in equally bad Welsh accent!). But generally it's been happening for years with all different kinds of music, and in the end you can get away with it singing. But rapping no way. It just doesn't come off right.
  
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