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Villains Interview

interview 0022 added 14.08.00 words: DJ Precision

Just introduce each member and summarise your role in the group?
IMD - DJ and Producer
Late - Vocalist
Tricksta - Co-Producer, deejay, backing vocalist
Proffesah 194 - Vocalist
How did the Villains actually come together?
Late: In about 1996 I decided to start a group. I’ve always rolled with Tricksta anyway so we started it together. 194 joined the group, and we started searching for a producer. A guy called Nugsta (Birmingham producer) hooked us up with IMD. That’s when it all happened. Soon after that though, 194 went to prison.
Tricksta: As soon as we hooked up with IMD, 194 got locked up. So what you had is four people in a group, and two of them hadn’t even met each other, which was quite strange. But obviously before the end of the album he got out and managed to get on some tracks
How long has it taken to get to this stage now of the album ready to be released?
IMD: About 2 to 2 and a half years now.
Tricksta: That’s from nothing, to 20 tracks, finished and mastered. When we first started with the idea of an album we couldn’t even master the stuff because we couldn’t afford a DAT machine. We was always borrowing a DAT machine off next man. Then we had to buy microphones, recording equipment and everything. None of us are working so it was a fucking struggle. It’s tough when you’ve got no money and your trying to record an album.
And what obstacles have you had to overcome to get to this stage?
Tricksta: It all revolves around having no money. Every problem revolves around having no money.
IMD: I think the bottom line is that it’s taken this long to get the album out because, like we said earlier, we’ve had to borrow bit’s of equipment, and it’s taken this long just to get our own equipment together so we don’t have to rely on other people’s.
Can you just break down the sound and the theme of your album, ‘Welcome to Wolftown’?
Late: The only way I can explain it is it’s a soundtrack to our lifestyle. For example IMD came up through the old school so there’s the funk and rare groove elements in the album, and that’s all down to him.
Tricksta: Production wise it’s a diverse album. Musically it touches on different things. There’s deep atmospheric tracks, there’s more jump up ones, there’s raga influences, jazz influences. There’s influence’s from all genres of music that were surrounded by, but the foundation is obviously hip hop. Lyrically it touches on different subjects as well, from personal experiences to stories.
That leads well onto the next question well. The production covers so many different styles. You’ve got traditional bass heavy UK production, American west coast style synths, and even American deep south style bounce tracks. Was this a conscious decision while you was producing the album?
IMD: Urm...
Late: No, we just make what comes to us at the time
IMD: Yeah, we just go with the flow. I guess being in Britain, your very lucky in a sense that in America, everything’s zoned, east coast, west coast all have different flavours, whereas in Britain we’re just bombarded with every possible style. We’re (The Villains) all deejays, and have been for years, so we’ve seen styles come and go and it’s just all the influences around us. I mean if we wanted to we could have done literally bare striped down just beats for the album, but then it would just have been like, another album

villains with labelmate high timez

Late: Like take ‘Get Out My Way’ that was written when we we’re all under a lot of stress so it was a heavy track. But something like ‘Coming Through’, that was written after a quarter of skunk and it was just laid back, so what’s going on has a lot to do with the sound as well.
IMD: I think what we’re trying to do is reach out to everybody. I mean the amount of people I’ve played the album to who aren’t even into hip hop who have really loved the album...
Tricksta: Yeah Yeah, it’s a hip hop album, which will appeal to hip hop fans, but should appeal to people who just like and appreciate music, because, even the ‘dark’ tracks have got musicality...
IMD: There’s something there for everybody.
Tricksta: And they’ve got hooks, because there proper songs, there properly composed. For example we try to keep the melody in the same key as the emcees voice rather than just rapping over a beat.

...we ain’t bothered there ain’t a scene in Wolverhampton anymore cos we’re trying to take it worldwide.
It’s obvious that the Lyrics deal with the reality of life. Someone actually told me after they listened to some of your tracks he was scared to come back to Wolves! Is this the affect that your trying to achieve or are you trying to inform people?
Late: It’s just telling people about life how I see it.
Tricksta: I mean you live in Wolves, you see what goes on, you read the papers. You’ve seen the gun violence and the drug problems. And it’s the same in Birmingham. (Just to point out that IMD is from Birmingham) It exists, you know what I mean? And people think... like people in London might think the people from the Midlands are a bunch of farmers, but there’s some dark shit that goes on over these sides, just as it goes on in Manchester, Edinburgh, London, it’s all the same.
Late: That’s what we were trying to show. We don’t live in Chester, where it’s all good. I’ve been on the dole fucking ten years, and I’m 28. I’ve seen shit.
But unlike a lot of American emcees, you don’t glamorise your lyrics to make the reality lyrics sound a good thing. Do you think emcees glamorising crime life cheapens the message you’re trying to put across?
Late: I dunno, I think it’s each person’s different personality. I don’t think any of the stuff we talk about that’s going on is good. But if them mans want to big it up they big it up, that’s there style. You can’t knock a man for his style. The only thing you can do is just not buy it, if your not feeling it just don’t buy it. Don’t run around to the next man moaning about it, just don’t buy it. Hip hop mans have got this fucked up attitude at the moment that they’ve gotta hate the next man. England is a nation of playa haters! We love to run things down. (if you don’t like it) just don’t support it! I’ve been to Germany, and you know what hip hop mans there said to me? He said “England makes me laugh, because when we get a hip hop star in Germany, we keep him there. We keep him at the top, people support him. But in England I’ve heard people slag emcees off who haven’t even blown yet!” That’s why we get hip hop crews in France and Germany who are signed to majors because the public support them, but in England they just hate on you. I’ve had people in Wolverhampton hating on me just for dropping hip hop tunes. To be honest, I support UK mans, even if something’s shit I’ll buy it, just to support the scene.
Tricksta: You have to support the scene. I’ve heard mans in London talking about Uzi’s and Tek 9’s and to us we’ll find that humorous, but I’ll still buy it just to support. I’m a man that like’s hip hop, I don’t listen too much else, and I like all aspects of hip hop. I ain’t a man that’s just living for Rawkus label tunes and that’s it, I got this other CD the other day (shows a CD), and this is just the man chatting about God, and that’s just his style. That ain’t gonna appeal to every man, and I’m not a religious man, but it’s just good to peep what he’s doing and it’s like a next style. And all these styles like Master P, Tupac, to DITC, to 57th Dynasty, to Sian Super Crew in France, there all different styles of the same game, and that’s what makes hip hop as a culture, that it’s got so many styles.
IMD: The rap thing, recording your talking about 20 years old, but it’s grown. It’s like dropping a pebble in a pond and the ripples have got bigger and bigger. In that time your bound to have different styles, as Tricksta said, like Master P and Sian Super Crew
Tricksta: Some of the stuff they do is fuckin heavy, and I can’t even understand what the man’s saying and I think it’s good, cos I know the emcees can flow, and I know the beats are tight.
Late: I listen to all styles. I like to get jiggy with it with that stuff. I’m not gonna go to a club and stand there with my rucksack on thinking ‘Awww... Dilated Peoples, wicked!’ I wanna dance, and get drunk, get off with a girl! I don’t want to ‘wow, listen to the beats and the lyrics!’
The album has a sense that you are putting out music, that you yourself as hip hop heads enjoy. For example the Profesah194 freestyle would be appreciated more by heads who understand the concept of freestlying and emcee skill rather than next man who wants an album to show off to his mates. How did you compile the album and what were your priorities in make the tunes and the album as a whole?
Profesah194: I’ve just gotta say though. See those freestyles, couldn’t have been done without Late anyway, or Tricksta, or IMD, it’s a together thing. I couldn’t have got the beat without IMD, or I couldn’t have even had the opportunity without Late.
Late: The format of the album, we didn’t say ‘right we’re having that track there, and that track there, and a track like that for that crowd, and on for that crowd’. This is just like us. What we want to make. There’s no set format. Some tunes have been made based on how I felt when I got up in the morning.
IMD: I think the only thing I can say we have done deliberately, is that we wanted to have our own distinct sound...
Tricksta: Yeah, a lot of tracks we did didn’t make it on the album, because were trying to concentrate on developing a sound. Call it ‘The Villains’ sound. And that sound, it’s diverse, but every track gels together, and you can tell it’s the same vibe.
Well if a record label told you right now you could get to number one in the charts, airplay on Radio 1, instant fame. But you had to change your style to imitate some Eminem ‘Real Slim Shady’ Style would you do it?
(At this point an argument breaks out about whether Eminem’ sold out’ or not)
Ok I was just using Eminem as an example...
Late: As for the question you’re asking really. To copy someone else, I don’t think that’s the answer to be successful, the way you should get successful is from being original, and any record company that says ‘we want you to sound like Slim Shady to sell’ aren’t doing there job and they shouldn’t be doing what there doing...
IMD: Sorry to cut you there, but that is the problem with Britain, because, and this is going across the board, anybody in any creative field in Britain, they won’t pluck you out and say ‘right, we’re gonna make something original out of you’. They’ll just leave it on the shelf, until someone in America does something, then they’ll pick someone in Britain who does something similar to it then they’ll try and rinse them out. They always do it.
So what emcees/groups are you into at the moment? On a worldwide level?
Tricksta: Masterminds, Cali Agents, Zion 1, underground shit that’s hard to get in this country. And of course all the UK crews, who’ve got tunes out, because anyone who gets a record on wax has done well.
Late: I’m into stuff that you can’t get, like a cassette of my bredrins brother beatboxing and rapping... that only 2 copies have been made of. Same way as I like Rawkus, I even like the odd DMX track.
IMD: The way I listen to music, being a producer, I listen to everything. I can find the hip hop in everything. For example a couple of years ago a young rap crew was slating all the old funk, soul, rare groove tunes. And I said if your gonna start creating beats where are you gonna get your samples from? Most of the records you’ve got I can tell you exactly where the samples come from. So you have to appreciate and listen to all music because every tune could potentially be sampled for a hip hop tune.
From the lyrics on the album, you represent Midlands hard. Are you proud of the fact you come from the Midlands?
Late: Yeah, I think sometimes it’s good not to be surrounded by that London bollocks. But we also know it’s tough because London is where most thing’s go on. And with us having no car... For example we had to go up to London to sort out about being on a compilation, and it had to be a whole day ting.
IMD: I think living in Midlands is a good and a bad thing. We’re not from London, we’re not having all these American artists dropping in for one night and stuff like that. You could say we’re being overlooked, so in a sense it’s given us a chance to sort of develop our own sound...
Tricksta: That’s why there’s twenty tracks on the album, cos we work twice as hard as any other British hip hop crew. Cos we fuckin have to cos were not from hip hop hotspots. It’s even getting trendy to come from Bristol or from Nottingham. There ain’t really no-one that’s done it from our sides, not at the level that we’re gonna do it at anyway.
IMD: But everybody’s sort of sitting up and listening now to other areas.
So how do you feel that some hip hop fans will be ignorant to any UK emcees except the ones they hear of that are coming out of London?
Tricksta: Yeah we’ve had that. I’ve walked into record shops to try and sell our records, and they wouldn’t stock it because it wasn’t from London.
IMD: Before, London was the centre of UK hip hop, and people outside London were never taken seriously. But now, they’re starting to sit up and listen. There is an industry, and now with the Internet and everything, There’s a big difference now.
Tricksta: Take Wolverhampton for example. There might not be a club scene, or a pirate radio station that’s blasting out pure hip hop. But there’s mans who’s feeling them rhythms, and there into it. Just there ain’t a club to go to... I mean you could put a hip hop night on in Wolverhampton and get 250 people. Now, where did they come from? I don’t see them any other time apart from when there’s a hip hop night on. So, there is mans over these sides that are feeling hip hop strong.
How do you feel about British rappers that put on fake American accents?
Late: I don’t really hate on any man. At the end of the day they ain’t gonna sell, because people are gonna pick up on the accent. Don’t sweat ‘em...
Tricksta: Do you want to hear my thoughts on this? OK, it’s gotta fucking drop now this US accent thing because it’s getting ridiculous. Every interview we have, same question, ‘What do you think about fake US accent’s?’ Now I’ve heard French and German rappers rap in American accents, but because they rap in German or French people don’t notice it. Buts that’s OK because they ain’t rapping in English language. But if it’s OK for them to do it... When next man steps on the mic and he’s got a slight American accent but he’s chatting about british shit, and he’s got a slight US accent cause he don’t listen to much UK hip hop, because he can’t go into a fucking shop and buy a CD, because only 3 albums come out (on CD) every year. It’s obvious that mans are gonna be influenced by American shit. Now we don’t rap in an American accent, (puts on broad Wolvi accent) ‘but if you fuckin rap in a Wolverhampton accent loik your records aren’t gonna fuckin sell’... Do you know what I mean? They ain’t gonna sell, people are just gonna say ‘what the fuck is that?’. So you have to, what I call it, is step into character. An emcee has to step into a character, he has to have some kind of voice, cos he can’t rap how he talks.
IMD: I think argument with people talking about rapping in an American accent is this. The voice is an instrument as well, it’s another layer along with the production. So whether you want to tune your voice to a Cockney accent, or a Brummy accent, but then you’ve gotta live with the fact if you rap in an American accent and people slag you for it, you’ve gotta...
Tricksta: I mean there’s some mans out there in the UK that do blatantly take the piss. And it’s hard to give love. But at the end of the day the mans just doing his ting, he’s having a go. He’s not sitting on his arse going ‘Oh my man raps in an American accent’, well what do you do? ‘well, I rap, but I’ve got 8 bars on my mates mixtape.’... He’s having a fucking go...
IMD: I’ll give you an example, like I said earlier, I could have made just stripped down, hardcore beats, just copied off what the Americans are doing now. But when people hear the beat’s come in, the first thing they’d be looking for is the American accent. That’s why there’s a no win situation because everything we do in this country is scrutinised so hard ...
Tricksta: We talk about emcees, but we can talk about producers here as well. If a producer goes and make a blatantly American sounding beat, isn’t that just as bad as an emcee rapping in an American accent? It is in my eyes, it’s the same fucking ting.
In my experience of Wolverhampton, hip hop, especially UK hip hop is second rate to music like Garage , Just to use the example of London again, an upcoming group could go to a hip hop night any day of the week and get on the open mic any day if they wanted, whereas here there aren’t any hip hop clubs...
Late: We’ve tried to put hip hop nights on in Wolves, all of us have. They don’t want it. It’s the same thing every time, you get 250 people and that’s it. So we ain’t bothered there ain’t a scene in Wolverhampton anymore cos we’re trying to take it worldwide.
What I was trying to say is that has no hip hop nights made it harder to get known to the local area?
Tricksta: The local area? Fuckin Ruby Red Records in town won’t even stock my records. They ay they want them on sale or return for 2 quid each. I couldn’t even give them to a distributor for 2 quid each. And I worked at that record shop for 5 years! And the man won’t put my records in the so. So that’s why I can’t have no love for Wolverhampton, because the man in Wolverhampton who’s the key man, who I worked with won’t even stock my fucking tune.
Late: Playa haters... there again
Tricksta: Get me? That’s why I’m... forget Wolverhampton, forget England, let’s take this shit worldwide. Our records are selling in Sydney, Tokyo, and San Francisco. We’ve had a review in an American magazine, our ‘UK Sound’ single got number 7 in (a list of the) top 13 independent tunes in an American magazine. That’s what I’m on about... not selling 3 fucking copies in Ruby Red’s.
IMD: This is something we’ve spoke about a couple on times. We’ve realised that we are gonna have to blow up outside of the West Midlands and then move in. And then once in it’s blown up outside we can move inwards. Then we’ll have local people bigging us up and saying ‘yeah I’ve been down with them since day one’. If we try and work with them from the inside outwards... forget it. We’d get nowhere.
Tricksta: We’re getting love in mad places. A shop in Dublin had 20 copies of ‘Gotta Get the Cash’ and sold out the same day.
I think it’s also that when you get to area’s where there is no scene, they appreciate hip hop more than an area where it’s rammed down their throats...
Tricksta: Yeah, true... I think hip hop mans as well like to discover something new. Like ‘check this, you don’t know about these do ya? Don’t know about Villains? Your sleeping bredrin.’ That’s how hip hop mans go on. And what keeps us going is that those records are selling on merit. We haven’t even got the money to promote in England properly. So in Japan, the man is having the record in the shop, it in the magazine or on the radio, it’s just in the shop, and the man’s gone ‘yep I’ll have one of them, there’s my money’. So again, that keeps you going, knowing your record are selling on merit without promotion, and that’s what we strive for.