GroupThink

Blue Scholars Interview Transcription

*This interview transcription is completely unedited.

Blue Scholars Transcription
December 9, 2004
1 p.m. @ Fort St. George Restaurant, Seattle, Washington

Interviewed and transcribed by Janna Chan for AsianAvenue.com

To read the resulting article from this interview please click on this link: Getting Schooled

After the introductory small talk…

Me: So tell me how this all got started. How did you two meet?

Geo: We met at the UW, the student hip hop organization of Washington (SHOW), in 1999. But I don’t think that it was until late 2001, early 2002, when I first started hearing Sabzi’s beats. There was a CD circulating to get feedback.

Me: How was it?

Geo: I was feeling it. We started recording but we had no intentions of being a group or putting out an album. None of that. We just wanted to record a few songs and see what happens.

Sabzi: We weren’t that serious about the whole thing.

Me: Was there a certain point when you decided that you wanted to make a career out of music?

Sabzi: I have a feeling that technically what I was doing was a hobby, but deep down we wanted to be better musicians. But we were taking baby steps—we didn’t want to get ahead of ourselves.

Geo: Yeah, we wanted to first get comfortable with the recording process even though we were using really ghetto equipment. Once we got that down we would listen to our songs and we thought they were really tight. Then we played it for some friends and they were not as down with it. They recommended we work on our shit. The people who supported us gave us some confidence and the people who critiqued us gave us a blueprint—guidance on what we needed to work on.

Me: That’s cool. Well when did everything start coming together? When did you guys have your first show?

Geo: Shit really started happening around winter 2003 but we did our first show in summer 2002. Our first show ever was in Portland at the Ash Street Saloon with the Typical Cats and Prime Meridian. It was the “The Urban Architecture Tour.” IN fact, I think it was sponsored by AsianAvenue. I remember the date and everything: July 27, 2002.

Sabzi: We hopped on two of their tour dates. Geo had a relationship with these groups through the SHOW. They were our Chicago family. It was a good bill and crowd during those first shows.

Me: How did you feel during that first show?

Sabzi: I felt really really nervous even though there were only 20 people there.

Geo: That made me more nervous. We were essentially performing for our family and friends who had never seen us before but knew we were a hip hop group. It was kind of like a private rehearsal for them to see if we could impress our own homeys.

Sabzi: …and I wasn't 21 yet so I had to sneak in.

Geo: Driving three hours to do your first show is horrifying.

Sabzi: We listened to these beat CDs and were rehearsing the whole time.

Me: Well, what happened after that show? Did it pump you guys up?

Geo: We had a good unit of friends and family that gave us good feedback that gave us motivation to stick with it. Maybe six months later in January or February 2003 is when we started to get shows on our own merit without the homey hookup. People started to hear about us. There’s a correlation between our longing to want to make our live show tighter and when we started working on the album because the first 10 to12 songs we put together we performed maybe 4 or 5 of them in a set and we weren’t satisfied with them. We got sick of them real fast. Early that year is when we started hitting the beats really hard.

Me: What changed?

Sabzi: I think it was the fact that we now had an outlet to share our creative material with the community. It boosted our incentive to improve. I started to manually play beats on the turntable and Geo would MC over it and that was well received by audiences as well as with hip hop nerds who understood the craft. We started to purposefully analyze music and that was a major factor in our metamorphosis into musicians.

So we wanted to really have a dynamic show that incorporated the DJ and MC instead of someone just pushing a mini disc player in the background and an MC who would just stand there. We didn’t want an album advertisement. We wanted to do a show. I started to purposefully analyze the music/hip hop a lot more. Through a lot of study I started to notice more and more the differences between where we were at and where our influences were at. The quality of the sound itself. I started sampling more raw breaks instead of just programming electronic drums. No one samples as much anymore in the mainstream. Now I work with strictly vinyl samples. I take pieces of old records and rearrange them. Like RJD2 or DJ Shadow. There are no programmed drum breaks. We take multiple samples from various sources.

When we started we were just taking one sample and looping it and played a drum beat over it. That’s what most mainstream hip hop is doing. I just got more involved with the production. We started developing.

Me: Well this leads me to the question about complexity in hip hop. You guys have been complemented and criticized for your straight forward style. Does hip hop need to me complex to be truly underground or high quality?

Geo: The term mass media, mainstream, implies that it reaches the widest audience possible and in order to do this you have to touch on universal themes that can reach out to various communities and crowds. You would be surprised at how interwoven all of our experiences are.

The easy route is to use a popular formula and duplicate that over and over again. We kept this in mind when we were putting the album together—that there was this mainstream music—but we also recognize that a lot of the stuff that’s mainstream now was once innovative and groundbreaking before it became formulaic. Through recognizing that we weren’t going to try too hard to copy a formula. We definitely would study it and take the good elements and add a little of our own. For example, with Sabzi, there was a break between the beats that I first heard him make and the stuff he was producing before the album came out. He just got mad experimental and made some tight and not so tight beats, but all in all it was a learning experience for him.

For me as an MC, when I met Sabzi I was still a closet MC and was more into spoken word so I was at the time just blending the two and not caring about if it sounded tight or not. Once I came to the realization that there was an audience out there that was programmed to listen to hip hop in a certain way we both became aware that we shouldn’t pander to these people but keep it simple and real. I touch upon a lot of complex issues in my lyrics and as long as they are accessible it’s all good. Accessibility is key because if people don’t understand where you’re coming from it defeats the purpose. Some people want to be really eccentric and still expect to gain a mass audience and that’s not very realistic. You can’t do one and do another. Well, maybe you can after your dead.

Me: Do you guys have a target audience?

Geo: I’ve never done this before in an interview but I’m gonna try it now [While saying this Geo is drawing a circle on a napkin that resembles a bull’s-eye]. We have a concentric circle. It’s us in the middle and our music is radiating out. We do have a core audience [as he points to second circle from the center] but that’s not all. We want to reach these people out here [he points to the area outside of the circle]. We would like a wider audience. Mass appeal. But if we don’t get it it’s all good. It feels good to preach to the choir because it’s more self-fulfilling than actually going out and trying to reach and influence other circles.

Sabzi: Our Friend Marc said that “Blue Scholars’ music is good music that takes the form of hip hop.” I agree with that. Of course it’s more than just that. It’s certainly hip hop because it was born and bred within a hip hop context. We set out making a hip hop album. We didn’t say, "We’re going to make a good music album with hip hop influences."

If you ask any real successful producer, or anyone working behind the scenes with a long career in the industry, they will tell you that all music is really the same. For the most part within this culture nothing has really changed since the Beatles. Musical concepts and what’s pleasing to someone’s ear are universal and they’ll tackle different forms from different genres. I think a lot of our music has certain things that are simply pleasing to the ear and the style is determined by our own personal style.

Our goal, first and foremost is to create a quality product. We want to live up to our potential as musicians. We didn’t set out to specifically sell 10,000 units to these people because in doing so would influence the creation of our music and the only thing that we want to do that is our lives and the music we listen to.

Me: You guys mention Seattle landmarks and history throughout the album. Is it realistic to expect people outside the city to relate or even be interested in your music?

Geo: I spoke with Nasty Nes who co-produced Sir- Mix-A-Lot’s breakthrough album, "My Posse’s on Broadway," and their aim was to reach just the Seattle audience. They wanted to make an anthem for Seattle folks because everybody [here] knows where Broadway is. What they didn’t anticipate was that the album would be a huge hit and that people all over the country could relate to the Broadway in their hood or an equivalent. There’s this universal element. A lot of the things we talk about may seem very Seattle-centric on the surface but it has a universal theme. I talk about Chinatown, specifically in the International District, but there’s a Chinatown equivalent in almost every other major city.

Sabzi: There are also universal principles that apply to every Broadway, Chinatown and University District in America. Everyone’s got a University Ave.

Geo: A lot of these East Coast rappers talk specifically about their boroughs and their projects and I ain’t ever been there before. I’ve never visited. When I was listening to these albums as a teenager I had never been to any of these places they rap about but I could relate to it. You know, like a core of crazy people all cracked out on the corner or roaches scurrying across your living room. I related to that. The more you touch upon your life experiences you’ll find people who can relate to it indirectly.

Me: I’m gonna back track now because I’m unorganized and that’s what I do. Tell me about how you guys came up with the name of the group? Where do you guys come from?

Sabzi: Here’s my short family history. My father comes from Iran and my ancestors in Iran were farmers in villages…They came from nothing and became successful and then had it all stolen and now that side of the family is in the United States and trying to achieve the American dream. Then my mom is from the projects of Beacon Hill in White Center. I grew up mostly in Lake City and the Kenmore area. My mom is White. All I know is that my parents have worked their entire lives with wage, and not salary jobs.

Me: [Directed to Sabzi] How did you get into music?

Sabzi: I’ve been writing music and composing since I was 6-years-old and my mother sings. They’ve been supportive of it in terms of, “If he takes piano lessons he’ll do better in school.” I had to stay inside and play piano.

Me: Being a DJ is very different from playing the Piano.

Sabzi: It sure is. My mother continuously says with disgust, “I can’t believe that you studied piano for so long and you’re not doing anything with it.” I try to tell her that I am. The piano is such a universally applicable instrument that taught me everything about music.

My dad was supportive of it as a hobby but never as a career until just recently when all of these articles about us started coming out. That goes for the rest of my extended family.

Me: Well, I know you and Geo met while in school. What degree did you end up getting?

Sabzi: I got an economics degree. Can’t say that I’m really using it now. I think that, al least, all those years where I was “working for free” for SHOW and spending late nights driving other artists around or picking up food for the catering at the shows is finally paying off. I don’t think my family understands what we do at all.

Me: Have they come out to see you guys?

Sabzi: No. They saw us once or twice when we were doing something for a community center. I mean events that are just so far form the scale of things we’ve been doing recently. It’s kind of like when you have a friend who really likes a band and takes you to go see them and you’re like, “Yeah, this sucks.” I think for a long time they thought that that was the level that we were at. To be fair, my parents work all the time so it’s hard for them to come and see us. I also wait for those times when we do those nice family style shows where I can bring them out.

Geo: I say about 80-90 percent of the shows we do, my parents would not dig it at all. If I even curse once on stage my parents would be so disappointed. I think the one show they came out to was one of those family oriented shows. My family works all the time too so they can’t really come out and see us.

Me: [Directed at Geo] How many shows have your parent’s been to?

Geo: Just that one. It was a family-ass show on a Sunday afternoon at the Langston Hughes Community Center. They still think it’s a hobby for me. I’ll tell them about a show in Florida and my mom will be like, “Is your work okay with that?”

…But getting back to our roots, I was an army brat. We moved around a lot.

My whole family is working class as hell. I got uncles and cousins who are working construction in the Middle East. My mom was a maid in Italy, that’s how she met my dad. Just growing up I’ve been exposed to nothing but people who work hard for very little. All that got accentuated in Hawaii. We lived on the Navy base and we were poor put we didn’t know it because everyone around us was in the same situation. It wasn’t until we moved to the mainland and you go to school and you have a whole bunch of people from various backgrounds. I was always conscience of that especially being an 80s kid. I was always bugging my moms and pops to get me a Nintendo or a Transformers and they could never afford it. I would have to wait for a special occasion and even then I’d get the bootleg versions of them.

Me: [Directed at Geo] Are both your parents Filipino?

Geo: Yeah. Both are first generation too. They are very Asian and they do not like this hip hop music. I remember coming home from school one day and all my tapes were gone. I actually got suspended from school once because I had an NWA tape and they had to come in and get me. They just hated hip hop after that. One time they found one of my Del The Funky Homosapien tapes and on the back of the liner notes he’s lighting a joint up and they were furious.

Me: When did you start listening to hip hop?

Geo: It’s funny, especially after telling you about my parents, but my dad got me into it. He likes a lot of mainstream music. He’s one of those guys who doesn’t know too much under the surface of music but he listens to the radio a lot and watches MTV. It’s funny because sometimes he’ll just bust out singing some hip hop song and have no idea what he’s saying. He got me my first tape. I didn’t know about this hip hop thing. I was just listening to 80s pop music. My dad got me one of those generic tapes like “Rap’s Greatest Hits Volume 11,” or something. It had the Fat Boys, Run DMC and the Beastie Boys. That blew me away. I just rocked that tape over and over again. After that there was no turning back. I was buying tapes once in a while but around 1989-90 I started stealing tapes from the Tower Records because that’s when that whole Tipper Gore and Parental Advisory sticker thing came out. I remember going up to the counter with two singles and the dude said I wasn’t old enough to buy them. I was like, OK, and started stealing them. Funny how that had a negative effect.

It wasn’t until I met up with a group of friends that was really hip hop centric, like into breaking and tagging, that I got seriously into hip hop. This was a identity formation period of my life, like junior high, and we became more conscience of who we were. Before seventh grade I had all kinds of friends—black, white, Asian—but once seventh grade hit I only hung out with Filipino kids for some reason. Even though it wasn’t political at the time I think that it was definitely a politically motivated thing that happened. You know, sticking to people who you were familiar with, that looked like you to avoid racial conflicts that were happening at the time. It was around 1992-93 that hip hop stopped being just a hobby. I wasn’t just a spectator anymore. I was studying the culture and staying up late listening to hip hop shows like Rap Attack and reading rap magazines. We all started putting our money together and I remember pitching in $5 with like four other people to get the 1994 DMC world championship tape. We all made recordings and passed it out to each other. The early 90s also happens to be the era of hip hop that influences the Blue Scholars the most.

Me: Does it hurt to not be black when making hip hop music?

Sabzi: At this point, in regards to access to different audiences, not so much. I think in the mainstream, yes. Like Jin is one example. As much as he tries to ride that line between representing his ethnicity while making ethnicity a non-issue—he can’t. When people look at him, they only see an Asian rapper.

Geo: It’s hard as hell to blend in. But in the underground I would argue that that scene is majority white. The rappers, and artists and promoters that run the game—it’s white dominated. I mean, Eminem didn’t just blow up. He made a name for himself in the underground. He was accepted more because of this. He had a core audience.

There are also different genres of hip hop. The mass media likes to project black/urban hip hop as Nelly, Ja Rule, Ludacris, and it’s hard for anyone who isn’t black to come out.

Me: Off topic again. So I heard that you guys recorded and produced this album yourself. How much did it all cost?

Sabzi: Under a $1000.

Geo: What about the pressing costs?

Sabzi: That doesn’t count. That’s a distribution cost. Not a recording cost.

Me: Has there been any buzz from the music industry? Do you guys even want to be on a major label?

Sabzi: Maybe, but we don’t really care.

Geo: From what I hear, there’s interest from industry peeps. Like so and so from Capitol Records likes this and that and stuff.

Sabzi: Personally, when I hear stuff like that it’s not nearly as exciting as when, like, when I went to Milwaukee. Three people bought the CD from me. That’s way more exciting. The fact that we have a chance to personally connect with a fan is mind blowing.

Me: Aren’t you guys afraid that the costs of being a musician might catch up with you?

Sabzi: There has been a track record of other artists who were able to sell 2 million records without major label support. Like Ani DiFranco. Not to say that we can sell 2 mil by ourselves, but I am much more impressed with that. IN fact, if I had to make a statement right no I would say: “Fuck major labels—We’ll do this ourselves!”

Me: Well, what’s next? I know you guys are re-releasing your first album with additional tracks. When can we expect a second album?

Geo: We’re working on it. We’re really excited to showcase who we are and how we’ve grown.

Me: Do you guys have a picture of your ideal future?

Geo: Definitely. I want to be a direct influence on the younger generation. I mean, not like that we think we’re all that, but it’s like, we have respect for our predecessors and it would be nice to know that we impacted our younger equivalents.

Sabzi: I want self-determination. I’m sick of being forced to buy back my time. I would like to be of some importance. I certainly don’t think that we’re pioneers in the scene but we’re also not new jacks.

It would be great to continue connecting with the community. I think that cultural arts can change the world.

Me: Now that you mention that, I read somewhere that you guys maintain a healthy relationship with a lot of community groups. Can you tell me a little about that?

Geo: As a group, we have facilitated workshops through the Wing Luke [Asian Museum] and the Langston Hughes [Performing Arts Center]. We talk to kids about the history of hip hop and we have demonstrations on to use turntables and other aspects of the culture. We want to encourage social consciousness while exposing these kids to new ideas.

Me: What age group do you guys mostly work with?

Sabzi: Primarily teen and adolescents.

Me: What part of your presentation gets the most response?

Sabzi: I think they're more excited to meet the turntables than they are to meet us. It’s cool though. It helps me remember my childhood.

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The re-release of the Blue Scholars’ self-titled debut will be out in Spring 2005. For a comprehensive list of concert dates, album info or general information about the group check out, www.bluescholars.com

Posted by MissPicklez at February 1, 2005 05:14 PM