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  Procryptix Interview
interview 0237 added 21.09.04 words: K-Per
technical:
QED
Old school UK pioneers Procryptix are back!
With a new EP dropping this year
ukhh.com took the opportunity to catch up with them and find out what
they've been up to, what the new EP is like and speak on various subjects
from the state of the scene to 8 Mile, Battle Scars, Lyricist Lounge and
more. What's more for the first time in ages, both Sparkii and Naba took
part in the interview, so sit back and kick it as we take a trip down memory
lane.
Best place to start would be what you've been up to since we last spoke to
you and since your last release?
Sparkii: Basically since 'Break in a 950's Shadow', we've sort of
concentrated on getting out and about and expanding our family, our extended
family. We've linked up with some cats out in Holland, Nabs has linked with
some people in France, we've done shows in Japan, in Taiwan, and just a few
low key festivals and then the rest of the time has been spent recording the
new album, preparing the videos.
Naba: Yeah a hell of a lot of videos. A hell of a lot of orchestrating
things to make sure they fall into place later on. Since we kind of started
the ball rolling, whether it be as Procryptix or what we were doing in the
clubs with Lyrical Lounge and Battle Scars, we've spent a hell of a lot of
time making sure everything is planned so that it all goes well for us. We'd
be doing stuff and then there was something else needed in the chain to move
along so instead of working from month to month, let's take a huge chunk of
time out and get everything sorted.
S: Rather then chasing after everything.
N: Yeah so we got everything formulated. We've got a bunch of videos, I
won't say how many we'll keep ya'll guessing, we've also got a lot of
material to drop, potentially we might even drop another EP after this one.
Very possibly because we're now affiliated with a crew out in the Tri
States, in the US.
S: It's a project called Animal Tag Team, ATT.
N: We'll probably end up dropping that sometime, I'm not sure when.
 S: We've recorded a mini album under that name with the crew from the Tri
State, and we've done some filming for that project too. It's been quite a
mad task because at the same time we had publishing to get in hand, we left
Buff Recordings, which was a label we kind of helped co-found, put on the
map to a degree. And at the same time we officially parted from Battle
Scars. I'm still involved to a degree, from time to time behind the scenes.
We've spent a lot of time making sure we get our label set up properly and
it's not just a label in name, it's a label with a stable. We didn't want to
come and say we've got a label and it's just us on it, it may end up that
way but we've recorded quite a few other projects and stuff that we're
interested in releasing, and we've also gathered a few artists we're
interested in putting through the label. I've trained a few producers as
well, there is a guy called Scotts. Another one called Jay Kingz that is
also coming up who we may be interested in doing some stuff with as well.
It's been a growing up time as well as an organising and preparing time.
It's been about thinking ahead.
N: Hence the name of the EP, Heavy Moves.
So the label you're now releasing this EP on, what it's called?
N: Crowd Pleaser Records.
S: It's named after a track on our first EP.
So would you say your sound has matured since your last release?
N: Our sound has always been what we've used on a regular basis; we call it
thinking man's Hip Hop. It's never been the genre as far as what's current
you know? We've had stuff out at times where Pharaoh Monch was the flavour
of the three months, when Jay Z was the flavour, when Pharcyde was, you name
it, Mobb Deep, but we've always tried to do our own thing you know? That's
kind of a cliché but phonetically we've always tried to do our own thing. If
people are doing tempo at 96bpm, we don't really care.
S: We try to follow the music and where it takes us. At the end of the day I
can't say the material as such has matured. To be honest we've done the
thinking man's Hip Hop approach and as a producer I've wanted to come back
and do a few things that are more dance oriented. Not to be a dance rap
group, it's part of it and we love it still. So I took time out from doing
the slow paced tracks to do some more up-tempo stuff again. But in this EP,
other then two cuts, most of the songs were written and demo-ed when we
released our last EP.
"...It's been a
growing up time as well as an organising and preparing time.
It's been about thinking ahead...”
So I'd say the real preoccupation in maturing our
material has been the sound quality. I've had a long think about it, I've
done some big projects from jazz to rap to reggae to rnb and stuff like that
and I enjoyed the really small and intimate sound of the first EP. The
second EP it sounded like it should have been bigger to me. It sounded like
it had been produced on a budget. So it was on me to get my studio up and
get the best sound quality I could out of it, which took some time. I'm glad
I did it though because we've put 11 tracks on this EP, and we want to give
people value for money and at the same time avoid people complaining about
the sound quality.
 You can never please everybody can you?
S: Yeah. You always get the people going like 'UK Hip Hop don't sound any
good', 'people don't put enough money in their music' or 'if the EP is too
long it don't sound no good' so it's been about the right balance between
all these things and trade offs. And we had to have the right quality that I
was happy with as a producer. Nabs did his work a while back and laid down a
lot of the vocals so in that sense if people are feeling it now then we can
say 'we're a little bit ahead of time' or just the fact that we ignore time.
We can come and go as we please and we try to make timeless material. Which
was the same thing with the last EP, it was done a year and a half before it
came out.
N: And that was full of the Indian/Turkish type of music influences before
Missy and Timbalaand started to use that. We didn't do it to create anything,
a trend or whatever; people end up using sounds when everybody else does, so
it was just a coincidence most probably. And that's a good thing that people
come up with similar ideas in music at the same time in different parts of
the world. It's good to be able to make something and not evaluate yourself
until it's made and gone out. We've always done that but this time we've
tried to be a bit more orchestrated about what we put together because it's
like a football team, you've got to know who's the right player for the
right time, where everyone's place is. I don't know jack about football, but
you know what I mean? The more you've got the harder it is to let go.
S: On this EP there is a track called Eye To Eye, which is the track that
the ATT came out of. You can hear one of the MCs on there, Amadeus. In
another way it's also been about broadening our horizons, I don't want to
get all arty on this but I deal with a lot of music, I've worked with
different orchestras over the last years and it's helped broaden my musical
conceptions and how I approach music as a producer and a musician. And same
for Naba, he's been exploring different realms of lyricism, languages and
styles and we like to experiment and reflect that in our work.
"...if Hip Hop just
stayed in its area code we would have never heard it...”
Have some of those influences and new horizons come from your touring as
well?
S: Yeah but also from sessioning, I do a lot of session work and a lot of
workshop leading. I really enjoy playing live. I'm one of the unofficial
pioneers as far as playing live on stage with samplers, hardware and
computers and not just pressing play and going to the back of the stage. So
you do that for 5-6 years on the road and it means you're equipped to do
anything. It's why we love the live stuff so much because it's a different
edge.
In a way you've avoided the sort of tunnel vision that some people get stuck
in by just doing Hip Hop, listening to it and not opening up to anything
else. And have you got any guests on the EP then?
N: We've got Riddla on there, who's done a track called Sick with us.
S: A guy called Bastaard, who's originally from the Verbalists.
N: That was our original crew. He came and dropped some more thoughtful
lyrics on a track, nothing crazy.
 S: So yeah Riddla, Amadeus as well, we've rotated a few DJs too, Pogo and
Random essentially. As well as Jay Kingz who has also done a few production
bits. And also a couple of cuts on there feature Bizniss too. As far as
lyricists we did some stuff with an up and coming singer called Ivy, who's
Cash Money's sister. She lives in London and so we've put here on some tracks
with us and some of the ATT tracks too. To be honest we're pretty
organic in our work, it's who can chill with that we work with. The music
comes out of the chilling. We're not like 'we want him or her, so let's get
them on the phone' you know? If we don't connect with people on an everyday
level, chilling etc. then the chances of going in the studio and doing
something are very low. But in turns that means we've worked with a lot of
like-minded people, which I feel is the best thing to do.
So would you say all these collabos have helped you diversify the sound on
the EP a bit, instead of having you produce and you rhyme?
S: Yeah definitely. Being a duo, with me only rhyming every once in a while,
adding other vocalists to the mix really changes the dimensions of each
track. So in that sense we've really varied the music. There is also another
guy I forgot to mention who is more or less the real third member of our
group, a guy called Lucas who we call Chairman Lizard. He's been there
making sure things kept running and the vibes were right, and to be honest
he's been a big influence. He features on backing vocals and choruses, as
well as on Crowd Pleasers from the first EP.
N: We've worked with other people too, but like I said before because we've
got so much material on ice it's hard to pull them out of the hat sometimes
when people ask you what you've done, you know? And not forgetting one of
our oldest affiliates, somebody that Sparkii and Pogo brought out in this Hip
Hop field, a guy called Rolla Rocka aka Shy Rock and he's in a crew
called the Postmen who are doing quite well. I think they've been gold two
or three times now out in Europe. They're a Dutch based group. I've done a
lot with those guys, a lot of tracks sitting on hard drives and it's just a
case of what to do with them. But there's been a lot of building. A lot of
it in Japan especially, and in NY and now it's getting close to the time
where we can offload a lot of that and scrutinise what we've got. We don't
get a chance to do that much because we've got so much else going on outside
of that already.
Actually seeing as how you've mentioned all this work abroad and linking
with all these crews in Europe and US, to me it kind of gives me the
impression that you don't really fit the usual UK Hip Hop tag that people are
given these days, you know? Would you really consider yourself that when you
think of all the things you've done and got going?
S: You know it's a really funny question to ask me that. I released my first
record in 87, with Monie Love, MC Mello and Pogo. And I helped found one of
the first independent UK Hip Hop label and I stuck to that for years, I work
in London, my influences come from here. You can look at it like our shop is
in London, but whether or not we sell to Londoners is a different matter.
Now for me, I consider myself one of the vertebras of British Hip Hop. You
know vertebras make a ladder, and whether or not people hold on to me on the
way up I don't really care. But I'm there, since 87 and it's really weird
because in the same sense as this question, this year there was a run down
of the 50 greatest UK Hip Hop tracks in Undercover magazine and number 1 was
a track of mine, number 6 was my track from 87, number 13 was mine and
number 18 was mine too! (in the 50 top tracks from 87 to 95) That's four
tracks in the top twenty. And that's not including albums I did, so hell
yeah I'm British Hip Hop! British Hip Hop comes from me!
Ahah, I see what you mean. Not being British I don't know a lot of the
history, but I guess I meant the question more along the lines of do you see
yourselves fitting the kind of pigeonhole people put around UK artists?
S: To be honest I don't think it's the pigeonhole we want to fit in. We
always said that if we were to affiliate with any island as far as musical
influences, it's going to be Jamaica. In terms of sound system, microphones
and ghetto ingenuity, it's got to be that.
N: And that's where I'm from.
"...To be honest
we're pretty organic in our work, it's who can chill with
that we work with...”
I was speaking to Ty last year who was quite verbal in saying it's not about
UK Hip Hop, it's about Hip Hop in general. And coming from France I see
similarities with the UK scene where people feel the need to put a brand on
it, when at the end of the day it's beyond the brand. It's getting to a
point where UK Hip Hop is really coming out of this branded stigma and
talking to you about your actions and what you do I was curious to see if
you even considered that UK brand phenomenon at all?
S: I know what you mean. In some ways I wish more British groups thought
like us in the sense that if Hip Hop just stayed in its area code we would
have never heard it! You got to be proactive. And in all honesty it's not
about name recognition in our town for us. Especially when it's one of the
smallest markets out of them all.
N: If you think about the undercurrent of what is supposedly Hip Hop, like
b-boying, well you don't talk about it in terms of UK b-boying, US b-boying
etc. It's just b-boying in the same way it's just Hip Hop. It grates the back
of my fucking brain having to hear people put these two letters in front of
it. I'm not ashamed of the two letters; it's just a local. But at the same
time there are people in the middle Afghanistan maybe right now that are
b-boys and they don't do that, so why should we? People in Korea do Hip Hop,
not Korean Hip Hop. It's not about locations. If you look at it in football
terms again you have an English football league but its not necessarily
English football, or you wouldn't have a World Cup.
 You've got to see the global picture, the whole of the culture.
S: It's not a bad question, it's a great question.
Yeah it's just that at the minute I see the similarities between what
happened in France with the scene here, and it's just more tags to try and
sell it to people and get it out when it should be about the music.
N: Because when you put the letters in front of it, it doesn't make it good!
Exactly!
N: You can say London Hip Hop but it don't mean it'll be good!
S: And sometimes British Hip Hop gets stigmatised because of that.
Yeah, you always read about people saying there are UK artists working hard
and not being recognised as much as they should, because instead all the
money is being pumped towards the same crap you hear over and over. The
whole UK Hip Hop thing seems to play for and against the music and culture at
the same time.
N: A lot of it is marketing at the end of the day. It's a PR game, and it's
not a surprise now because Hip Hop is the biggest selling music medium. But
when I started spitting we couldn't even get a club to play the record. It
was not important where you were then; the situation was the same for
everyone. It was about doing it, getting down and connecting.
S: But in the other sense, I've got to say this because I don't really do
interviews much nowadays, you've got a big publication like Undercover and a
chart in there about top 100 UK tunes, four of which are mine, including a
number one and I don't get no phone calls! I still get cheques for these
records but the respect stopped a long time ago. Cheques pay my rent I don't
care, but you see one producer get a number one and they're the latest thing
all over the place. I've been making hits for two decades now in this
country, representing it internationally. They need to pay respect, I want
my props for that, I'm demanding them.
So no one called you about this?
S: No one called me about anything. To be honest one of the tunes was
credited as D2K and one tune was credited as MC Mello. Now you only have to
look at the sleeves and the line up to see my name is there.
 N: It's like they're archaeologists with no shovels! But more power to the
person doing it, because they've got love for it and they're trying to do a
chronology of it.
S: This is how it goes to put it plain and square. Lyrical, our unit, Jonzie
D who ran with him, our unit, Enforcers, our unit, No Parking MCs and
Cutmaster Swift our unit, Trouble, our unit, London Posse, our unit. Ty and
Blak Twang out of our unit. All these were people we helped and advised and
brought through.
N: Floetry.
S: Floetry got their deal from a show our unit put on. The amount of people
who got light from Battle Scars and from Lyrical Lounge is quite large.
We're not necessarily always at the front, doing interviews and trying to
get props for the clubs, because we're providing clubs and venues with
nights to let this scene flourish. Even when you're not seeing me I'm
meeting managers, funders, and I'm promoting British Hip Hop to make sure
that certain things can continue to function. As Procryptix we've played in
all types of venue and places like Festival Hall, and it was full.
N: To the rafters.
S: We're into that, we're into opening scenarios for people like that as
well you know? Bringing people to shows who might not be into it and let
them discover it and turn their family to it and so on. And at the end of
the day, these people are customers, local ones at that. I think that in a
sense people need to respect British Hip Hop and what's come before them and
get out there and continue to help it flourish. The point being get out!
Back to the football, the defence doesn't stay behind! You have to run out,
get out and advance. That's what certain people need to do instead of trying
to be king of the mini jungle.
Is that how you view the state of the UK scene then?
N: Not just the UK scene. For me a lot of people have always looked at NY as
like a Mecca for Hip Hop. I'm a New Yorker, and I can meet a thousand MCs
that flow well, a thousand producers that make good beats on whatever
equipment, but at the end of the day, what's being played on the radio and
the TV ain't that hot anymore. I came up in NY in the days before Hot 97 was
king of the radio and I put a pin in that moment where we totally lost the
reigns. And the pin I put in that moment is when the people who own Hot 97
bought Kiss, and Kiss got changed from being a rival to Hot 97. You had Dre
and Ed Lover, Wendy Williams and Paco Lopez on Hot 97 and Red Alert and
Flash or Melle Mel, one of those guys, on Kiss. And one afternoon we're
sitting outside getting blazed and I put the radio on in my car and I heard
"the all new sounds of Kiss, rnb where rnb lives".
"...I'd say the
real preoccupation in maturing our material has been the sound
quality...”
And I was like 'wait a
minute, what's going on? Where's the show man?' And that was the moment when
there wasn't a rivalry between those two stations and it became one chunk,
one square and then rnb bled over into the Hip Hop shows on Hot 97. And
people lost their slots and to me that was a defining moment when people
shouldn't have been focusing on 'what are we doing?', but on 'what is going
on around the world with this rnb and Hip Hop thing?' New York has had
innovation verbal innovation, DJ innovation and production innovation and
England sold out. Not in the sense of Hip Hop but in the sense of making
music. All the studios, barring one or two, got all their lovely, warm
analogue gear ripped out for a digitized age, when people were hailing the
age of the CD and death of the vinyl. But in NY we kept our analogue shit,
and then suddenly people are saying 'you make songs in England but it don't
sound right!' And that's because we sold all that stuff that gave a more
organic sound. Things change because of technology but we've always been the
wildcard, because we do what we want regardless of what the industry wants
to make happen.
S: At the end of the day you could say we're afro-futurists, you know? We
pillage the old shit to make the stuff for the new generation. The Hot 97
and Kiss story is so weird because you can transpose that story right back
to the UK. Because our Kiss was one of the best pirate stations and when
they got the licence everyone thought it was going to get better, and it
became Kiss, the home of house. I saw Norman Cook open the Kiss launch party
and I couldn't believe it, not as someone who'd listened to it as a pirate
for years! The Kiss Westwood came from? No!
N: The thing is now we've lost that edge. People from the US would come to
Europe, go to a show in France and they'd be a little arrogant and rude, it
doesn't matter that they have 24 platinums, because they'll get the shit
kicked out of them and run out of town. You hear about the stories in Paris
all the time, people don't take no shit there. So the artists have to come
with a little respect and they will be respected.
Continue on to
Part
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