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Ty & Shortee Blitz Interview

interview 0033 added 12.10.00 words Riz

Currently working on (and re-working) tracks for their debut album, we managed to hook up with MC Ty and that Chubby Kid, Shortee Blitz, after their last show in Glasgow...
Let's talk about the history of the U.K. scene...you gave a shout out to M.C. MELL 'O' on stage...
[TY] Yeah... I call Mell ‘O’ an uncle. He’s an exceptional artist; he’s been through it all. He’s experienced, and one of the strongest MC’s that I’ve seen, regardless of nationality. So... Mell ‘O’ can do no wrong. We actually did a few shows with him in Amsterdam, with Run DMC and Mos Def.
How does it make you feel personally about Mell'o' coming back?
[SB] The thing about Mell ‘O’ is that he’s been travelling a lot, and now he’s come back and is starting to record. He’s about to make another album, and I love that! So now he’s coming back... not that he left, he was just out doing other things. The last tune I heard him make was with Blacka’nized, and that tune was bad, that was a nice tune. I’d like to see another Mell ‘O’ album, ‘cos it makes the scene look bigger, and also it’s some of the older heads returning to show the younger ones how it’s done...
like Huntkillbury Finn...
[TY] That’s right... Also Icepick. He’s nice, Icepick is NICE!
So, what were your influences when you started out making music?
[SB] My influences were all kinds of music...
[TY] One of the major inspirations for me was Mell ‘O’s 'I Get Wize'... I was like "What the fuck is this?" I had my little Alba radio-cassette deck, and I’d be playing Katch 22 and Hijack. When Hijack came, they weren’t really seen but they were felt. Fucking hell... you couldn’t really see them. It was a couple of years before you could see them in a show... Blade as well, he really influenced me. A lot of dance crews from around my way influenced me as well. like RPM, Norman Cook and all that lot. Monie Love as well... Pogo and them guys. I used to go to jams with them when they were playing and they used to give me the mic and I was just vicious! I used to be this little upstart who was very vicious on the mic, that’s where my aggression on stage comes from.
What about films? Did American films like 'Wildstyle' & 'Beatstreet' influence you, or was it more films like 'Babylon'?
[TY] They did, but films like ‘Babylon’ influenced me just as being a black child. It wasn’t a hip-hop thing, it was more a reggae thing... I think as a British thing, a hip-hop film, ‘Scum’ was very influential! (laughs) "Where’s your tool?!"...
[SB] ... "This fuckin’ tool!" (laughs)
[TY] ... (laughing) That shit was dope. That is our ‘Wild Style’. That’s the stuff that we can all sit down and talk about. Mr Ben, Bagpuss, Chorlton and the Wheelies, that’s where we’re coming from. We’ll be able to sit down at the age of forty and say, "remember them?" That’s what the MC’s and DJ’s need to do when they make their music. They need to make it relevant to where they come from... The U.K. voice is distinct, no less powerful than the American. We need the complete production to represent where we come from. If you come from Scotland, I’m not talking about having bagpipes in there... I’m talking about catching the real vibe, the thickness, of here. We need to take it to that level. They’ve got it for New York, and we need to do the same...
So what's the London scene like?
[TY] It’s tight. There are a lot of hungry MC’s. There’s also a lot of bias, but you’re gonna get that every where you go. There’s a lot of younger crews coming through, and they give respect because they’ve seen that there was nothing, and now there is something. We’ve put on our own jams to give them a chance to do their thing. I’d like to say the names of some crews coming through: O.V.K., Apollo, Profound, Shadow Cabinet, Double Impact, Phi-life Cipher, Brother Ben, Jonzi D, Mikey Supa... so many MC’s.
[SB] There’s a lot of people just bubblin’, puttin’ in work so at the end of the day it’s gonna make the scene healthier...
What did you make of Fresh '98
[TY] You mean the compering thing? It was cool... It was a bit much, to have it all happen in one day, but generally it was very good for me. It was a pity though, ‘cos I read a magazine review which made no mention of the fact that we were hosting it. It was a shame. I think it was good that it came to London... very positive.
It was a nice surprise to see so many British bands there. nobody know that MUD Family were playing, Bury Crew, Gunshot and even Silvah Bullet!
[SB] That’s the way it used to be! There are a lot of groups in England, not just London, and this is a good forum for them to get up and show what they’ve got. Show the world that they can perform as well as be fans...
When you compare (the UK bands) to the U.S., the majority of the noise was made for the British crews. The only American who made a difference was Supernatural... the breakers were all shouting at Masta Ace to play some tunes! They didn't want to hear his poetry...was this good for UK hiphop?
[TY] I think this was good for International hip-hop. Now that I’ve travelled around, I don’t need to kick an American down to feel good. It doesn’t really matter. If you see one of Masta Ace’s shows, he’s fucking tight...
[SB] ...Mad tight!
[TY] ...That show there, he was told to do those particular songs, so he did them. He also brought his ex-DJ who he had not worked with for ages, so they free-styled it. Sometimes you just go into a club and free-style it, so they free-styled Fresh ‘98... So Fresh ‘98 was cool, but there’s other things, there’s other jams like this thing here... This is really positive...
[SB] ...Psy-Phi...
[TY] ...I didn’t expect so many people to be here. The vibe of it, when I walked in from the hotel, it was so cool... It just kind of amped me up. I feel very positive about what’s going on in hip-hop right now, but I feel we need to control things a bit more. We can’t let the media decide to use us for a little bit and then move on to the next thing... I was watching T.V. today, it was Malcolm McLaren and they were playing his song with the three girls break-dancing. That’s cool, but it’s a sign of the times - it’s the hip thing and that’s what people want to watch again. We need to control that.
It's a cycle...
[TY] It’s a cycle, but last time we let it go. This time we need to keep hold of it. I was speaking to this guy in London who was trying to create some kind of forum for breakers, so they can have the unity that when T.V. people approach them they get paid one set rate...so they don’t get underpaid or exploited. If you’re into hip-hop, this is one thing in your life that you will always listen to, regardless of what you do. This is the music that you’re grandchildren will be forced to listen to, like we listened to pop records or soul records that our parents played. You know, "Listen to this Craig G tune, you don’t know the feeling this gives me... I met your mum, listening to this tune!" (Shortee laughs) You will be doing that! So, I’m really passionate about it and I don’t want to see it dashed away the way it was in the late ‘80’s.
Do you think the resurgence in the old school in America has influenced the rise in tide in UK hiphop? It seems to be the strongest it's been since the days of the Demon Boyz
[TY] I don’t think so. I don’t think American or U.K. audiences are aware of what we do. It’s because of all this over-looking, our acts have become tighter. We’ve seen their mistakes live, we’ve heard their mistakes on the radio... we’ve been able to watch what’s going on and become tighter. It’s like if you beat up someone or ignore them, what do they do? They go away and train and come back with muscles bulging out their eyelids! (laughs) What do you do? You have to notice them, and that’s what’s happening. Before, people used to pick on the production or the MC’ing, but now they can’t. Part of what’s bringing the resurgence in hip-hop in the UK is that people kept the break-dancing alive. More so in Europe and the UK than in America. So American people come here and see the real sense of hip-hop again. They see the real hunger, the real passion, because we live it and enjoy it. They see us being into graffiti, b-boying, DJ’ing and MC’ing so much that when people come over they’re like, "Oh, shit. I forgot. I used to love this."
So British hip-hop has done it off of it's own back...
[TY] Yes. It can get bigger though. The problem with it at the moment is distribution. I don’t even know if our records got to Scotland...
Certainly 'I.A.A.D.' did. Previous to that the last thing the Message boys heard was '3 the hard way', on the I.G. Culture thing...
[SB] (laughing) Really?
[TY] Shit! See? That’s what we need to establish. When we travel now, we sell mix-tapes, and we put our numbers on there. It’s a network thing. When you come down to London, you should be able to phone me, hang out... see if we can help you with anything. We need to establish some link so when we put a record out, or you put a record out, we can do all in our power for that record to be heard. That’s what we need to do, to be honest. That’s what I mean by control. We need to control the elements or some guy off the street is going to walk in and be like, "Yo-yo-yo! Come to me, I got money, this is how we’re going to do it... you need to lose your dreds, you have to lose this, you have to lose that, get some women in your videos!" (laughs)
Like Son Of Noise's 'Mr Sell-me-out'?!
[TY] The way Shortee and me look at it is like this... We have the vibe that, in general, he (Shortee) is the uncle to my children. Do you know what I mean? And I talk to everyone else like that. It’s not like "Oh, you can’t talk to us". If we create a business link, then that’s the type of outlook we’re gonna have for the future... a solidarity, as well as success and profit. I am not with this particular thing going on in England, where there’s a white boy scene and a black boy scene. It’s like the trendy scene and the underground scene, where they keep things amongst themselves... I mean, we’re surprised we got this gig!
So the magazines need to do more...
[TY] Well, NME and Melody Maker normally cater for a different sort of music. The fact that we’ve come up and pushed them in the back so many times and said, "Yo! Hip-hop! We’re here, we’re here!", they’ve had to start reporting on us. It’s gonna be slow. We need to turn things around to the point where we’re selling mad units ourselves, we’re creating dances ourselves, so people come to our clubs and be like, "Wow. This is really a culture". Right now they consider it a fad...
[SB] ...We need to take it seriously...
[TY] ...Yeah. We need to take it very seriously if we want the media to take it seriously. With regards to hip-hop publications, they’re doing their job but they’re following in the vein of American magazines. Like "We like this, so here’s a report on our friends...our people." They need to realise that they have the responsibility to report hip-hop to the masses. If someone is smashing it up, don’t ignore that. Let the public know. Even if you don’t like that guy or girl, them succeeding is good for you. A lot of magazines just report on one particular artist.
What about London versus the rest of the U.K.? Band from outside the big smoke complain they don't get the same coverage...
[TY] I think the thing is that a lot of journalists just don’t travel. They only check out certain jams, whereas they should check out every jam. I break it down like this... When I was doing ‘Ghetto Grammar’, I used to tell MC’s to look on their job as being a researcher. When I told them about their accents, a lot of them were like "Fuck you! Who are you to tell me about my accent?" I tell them to travel to all the areas which they wish to be a don in, where they want to sell records. Go and research their audience, find out what they like. They will see that if you travel and you’re doing the right thing, people will back you. They will feel an affiliation with you. A lot of the time when they hear an American accent they will check for it, they’ll get a vibe, but they won’t affiliate. So I tell them, "Look, if you did the research you would find that people just want you to be yourself, so be yourself! That’s what you should be looking at if you’re in it for the long term. Know what I mean? (laughs). I just need to say to people: Live your life. As far as U.K. talent? It is now international - please treat it as such.
[SB] Big shout to Scotland. They’ve shown us love every time we’ve been here, so we need to show it back! That’s why we came here, we just loved to do the show. So, respect...
Ty & Shortee Blitz' debut album 'The Nonsense' will be released on De La Soul's 'Bear Mountain' label in 2001
Ty's solo material will be released on Big Dada, the single 'Break The Lock' is out on November 6th and the album, 'Awkward' will be released on January 28th