[News] Paris - In Depth Interview

[News at freedomarchives.org]

NEW AFRIKAN MILLENNIUM
21 OCTOBER 2004



PARIS: IN DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH THE POLITICAL...

<http://www.thuglifearmy.com/Page/194.html>http://www.thuglifearmy.com/Page/194.html 

http://designermagazine.tripod.com/ParisINT1.html

Although Paris is virtually unknown in the UK, his four albums ("The Devil 
Made Me Do It", "Sleeping With The Enemy", "Guerrilla Funk" and "Sonic 
Jihad") are amongst the most important hip-hop albums of all time. If you 
haven't the heard the music you will of course be familiar with the album 
cover of "Sonic Jihad" which featured the image of a passenger plain flying 
directly towards the White House. In this case it truly was judge a book by 
it's cover as the album looked at America post September 11th and 
scrutinizes the Bush Administration and white supremacy since the inception 
of the country.

Ahead of the US Elections Designer Magazine rang up Paris in Oakland, 
California to discuss the fact that Bush & Kerry are different heads of the 
same beast. We also looked at the issues and facts that made up the bulk of 
"Sonic Jihad" and looked to the future of Paris's Guerrilla Funk Recordings 
that are set to drop albums from hip hop legends Public Enemy, MC Ren, Kam, 
J-Kash and The Conscious Daughters in 2005.

Q: Coming from the UK I guess we're seeing a different perspective, even in 
the mainstream media, than the outlets in the US. What are the feelings on 
ground level from the people? Are people hopeful that Bush is going to be 
kicked out?
A: It's pretty divided man. Some people are hopeful, some people want him 
and some people don't give a shit either way because there's very little 
difference between the two (Bush & Kerry) or they're disillusioned with the 
process and feel that no matter who is in office it's all the same 
difference. It's a weird time because of the people who are concerned about 
the outcome, they're very passionate about it. You have people who really 
want to see Bush out of office no matter what and I think 99% of those 
people who are supporting Kerry are only supporting him because they hate 
Bush, not necessary because they like Kerry.


Q: Is there a feeling though of almost what will Bush do next. I read the 
report linked from your website of FBI agents going round black communities 
and neighbourhoods and forcing them not to vote.
A: I don't know. To a large extent Bush and Kerry represent different heads 
of the same beast. They're both pro-war. They're both pro-business. They 
both represent the haves at the expense of the have nots, or at the expense 
of the everyman. Combined with the fact that they're both Skull and Bones 
and they're related. That's disturbing. Out of the 300 million that live in 
the United States for the Presidential Elections to boil down to 2 people 
from the same family, who went to the same school, who are part of the same 
fraternity is more than just co-incidence. I'm not a f**king fool. I didn't 
fall out of the sky. A lot of people would really look at this situation 
more critically if they knew all of the facts surrounding both of these 
candidates, but that's never discussed in the mainstream media and when it 
is it's attributed to some sort of fantasy conspiracy. It's very disturbing 
though. It's monarchical to a certain extent.


Q: As you've said the facts are out there. A lot of what you're talking 
about on "Sonic Jihad" is out there on the net and in books. You just have 
to look for it as it's not talked about in the mainstream media.
A: The information is out there for anybody who's looking for it. The 
internet has been a great equalizer in terms of information dissemination. 
It's just a matter of people taking the initiative to look at it and to not 
discount everything that they read on the internet as being a lie or from 
unreliable sources. Most of what you read in media is from unreliable 
sources. The supposed evidence of Weapons Of Mass Destruction that was 
presented to the UN on behalf of Great Britain by Colin Powell is from an 
unreliable source, obviously, and now we're in a war on false pretences 
based on information supposedly from a reliable source. So you can't view 
everything that you see on TV at face value. You have to look into it 
deeply and you have to be able to discern what is truth and what is not the 
truth. As a rule of thumb 99% of what you see on TV if it's showing the US 
in a positive light is false.

I always say look at who benefits from any piece of information, news story 
and the chain of events that transpire. 9/11, for example, look at who 
benefits from that financially (not ideologically) and you'll see the 
cause. It is not a difficult thing to put together. They were talking about 
forced conflict with Iraq, before Bush even got in office they talked about 
the need to invade Afghanistan and to lay pipeline via Halliburton and to 
access oil from the Caspian sea. That was talked about in several well 
known publications out here, but on "Sonic Jihad" and many online 
publications it was talked about right after September 11th. How can I know 
that evidence is plagiarized in support of the war? How come I know that 
and the mainstream media don't know that? How come I know about this 
pipeline scenario and Halliburton contracts that fleece average American 
tax payers? How come I know about all of these things and they're not 
discussed in the mainstream media? How come I know about the Bush / Bin 
Laden connection and I can read that and connect all of the dots, but yet 
they can't. The fact that the Bush's and Bin Laden's have being doing 
business for years was never breached in mainstream media until Fahrenheit 
9/11.

It's just disturbing that the media is completely corporate owned and 
asleep at the wheel in terms of presenting real information to the people.


Q: How do convince the average person to look further than the mainstream 
media. There is this ritual that you wake up, have 20 minutes to read a 
paper in the morning before slaving away at work. A lot of people naturally 
take everything they read at face value and believe it.
A: You have to ask yourself is it in the best interests of the corporate 
elite to enlighten people truly. And I guess it's not if you want to 
maintain the status quo. We have billions of dollars for wars here to fight 
illegal immigrants and to kill people and control their natural 
resources....but we're always coming up short financially with education 
funding. You have to ask yourself do they really have the intent of having 
an educated populous or do you just want a population of worker bees with 
Wallmart wages that are simply put in place to be consumers. That's pretty 
much the conclusion i've drawn from all of this. There is no desire to see 
the general population progress. If we want to continue to maintain the 
style we've become accustomed to, the disproportionate amount of natural 
resources that America takes up then we have to continue to raid other 
countries and rot on people natural resources. People are slowly and surely 
realizing that in spite of what the media says America really is the bully 
of the world. Not the worlds police, but the bully of the world.

I'm not anti-American. I can't think of anywhere else i'd rather live quite 
honestly. But at the same time i'm not going to sit idly by and live a 
particular lifestyle at other peoples expense unnecessarily. The more I 
become aware of the way things are and why they are the way they are the 
more i'll share through Guerrilla Funk and through what we do.


Q: As you just said "America's the Bully Of The World". Post September 11th 
the world does feel like a more dangerous place. From what we see over here 
America is placed on 'terror alert' every single week. What are your 
opinions on this?
A: I think the War on Terror is a sham. They're are a lot of people who 
feel as I do, that America was the one that was responsible for 
orchestrating the events of September 11th. The concept of manufactured 
enemies or false enemy creation is not something that is foreign to us and 
it's not something that's foreign to general warfare. It's easy to control 
the outcome when you are the enemy. Everything is politically staged and 
everything is strategic in a wag the dog sort of way.

I always ask people how would their perception of the War On Terror and 
everything that's happening on a global scale change if you found out that 
the United States was responsible for orchestrating that attack on itself. 
Well shit, then everything is turned on it's ear. You look at everything 
that has happened in the world since September 11th has happened because of 
September 11th. All these illegal wars, murder, this rampant war 
profiteering has occurred as a result of September 11th specifically. The 
War on Afghanistan - September 11th. The War On Iraq, even though there is 
no proven link between Al Quaeda and Saddam - September 11th. There 
wouldn't be the momentum for people to get behind the war here if it wasn't 
because of September 11th. There needed to be a Pearl Harbour type of event 
to occur to galvanize the populous here to be behind this illegal war. Even 
though it could be argued that there are millions of people opposed to the 
war the government just does what it wants to do.

The fairness of it can just be argued. If you and a handful of your buddies 
did something horrible over here. Would the United States be justified in 
bombing Britain to look for you. That shit is just ludicrous. That's like 
someone coming to Oakland and blowing up Oakland looking for me. Even if 
Britain is harbouring you, that wouldn't be a justification for war, a war 
which was never formally declared. You have 100's of thousands of people 
who have been murdered or impaired as a result of these false pretences.



Q: When you released "Sonic Jihad" there weren't many people in the hip-hop 
community expressing the same thoughts.
A: For the people that know they don't get to shine or have the ability to 
reach people. I'm a little bit different. I run my own production, label 
and website independently from the majors. But for the people that get the 
benefit of major exposure as a result of being affiliated with a major 
label, none of them are political. Most hip-hop artists quite honestly are 
apolitical. They don't know and they don't care to know. They're removed 
from the political process and they're removed from commentary on certain 
issues. They have a sort of dogmatic tunnel vision when it comes to things 
they don't know. It's all this tired gangster imagery that you see over and 
over again. There's a place for that, but that cannot be presented as the 
only option and at the moment that's being presented as though that's all 
there is.


Q: Do you think they don't know or they chose not to know?
A: I think they don't know. Most people in America don't read so they get 
all their information from popular media. And when you do that it's easy to 
mould the perception of the population in anyway that you choose to when 
something like 85% of people get their information from Fox News. That's 
kind of disturbing, but it's true. These people in America deserve what 
they get. They f**king deserve George Bush. If you don't do anything to 
rectify the situation in the face of all these lies and in the face of all 
these revelations of rampant wrong doing then it's on you.


Q: In know the album was released independently, but how hard was it 
getting an album out like "Sonic Jihad" with the barrage of criticism that 
follows from newscasters and the media. For example, the "unpatriotic" 
label that Michael Moore got after Fahrenheit 9/11.
A: I had a pretty solid support base as a result of the website. Once word 
started getting around that this record was coming out and there was 
controversy surrounding the cover. The "What Would You Do?" single was all 
over the internet, it was getting airplay and once that momentum kicked in 
it ended up not being as difficult as I thought it would have been. Had I 
approached Warner Brothers or something I knew the answer to that before I 
even asked the question. I knew this was something that was going to be 
released independently from the onset. I'd been down the censorship path 
before with "Sleeping With The Enemy" with "Bush Killa". There was nothing 
that took me by surprise.

I was expecting a lot of adversity from the press especially with "Sonic 
Jihad" and the cover and stuff, but I think that got squished pretty early 
on. I did an interview with Fox News and they tried to attack me with Alan 
Colmes on the Hannity and Colmes Show. He's one of the leading Conservative 
Talking heads, kinda like Rush Limbaugh. He was completely unprepared 
before the interview and basically got ridiculed on his own format. The 
people who were in opposition to me at that point basically began to ignore 
him. What they do, and i've seen them do this a lot with hip-hop, is they 
pick on the indefensible so they make all of hip-hop look bad. So they go 
to Eminem and say "Eminem, don't your lyrics talking about raping your 
mother". Then when they ask me about Eminem what am I supposed to say. Am I 
supposed to defend that shit about raping his mother? You're not gonna get 
this out of me. It's easy to pick apart easy targets like when Ludacris 
went for his Pepsi endorsement. It's easy to pick that shit apart, but it's 
not easy to f**k with me. When they realize that it's not in there best 
interests to pursue someone like me who will pull the sheets off of them, 
rather than continue and try to refute what I say they just ignore it all 
together. When I talk about the falsity of the Patriots Act and how it 
impedes on our civil liberties and can go into specific details about what 
provisions of the Bill Of Rights have been trampled on by the Patriot Act 
then that gives em shine because i'm on their network. It's easier to sweep 
it under the rug.


Q: So there was never ever a question of going to the majors, like Dead 
Prez who released records on Sony for example
A: I think they released records on Sony. I don't know whether they still 
have the ability to do that. They were at war with Sony for a long time 
regarding content issues, artwork and their vision for what they wanted to 
do. Ideally it would make sense for Dead Prez to be on Guerrilla Funk...but 
that's another interview (laughs)



Q: With Guerrilla Funk you're working with a lot of artists. You're 
producing Public Enemy, Ren, T-Cash, Conscious Daughters. Working on four 
albums at a time must mean you never stop
A: We're recording here and there. It's a creative process where we record 
a load of stuff and then pick the best. I want everything to be coherent 
and address specifics. I think for people who still love hip hop and are 
not interested in that 14/15 year old girl demographic that hip-hop seems 
to focus on they want more than what's being talked about all day on MTV. 
So the records have to be stand alone and timeless and I don't want to make 
anything that i'm ashamed of or can't listen to a few years from now. That 
being said it just takes time to craft the records correctly and be sure 
they're as good as they can possibly be.


Q: The thing I notice about your four records to date is that as well as 
the strong lyrical content, the production on it is classic hip hop and 
it's got the hook in there as well. You understand the value of getting the 
perfect hook on a track
A: That's my criticism of a lot of people who are like-minded who talk 
about the things that I talk about. A lot of times their production falls 
short because you still have to have something that's entertaining. If I 
want to be preached at I go to church. You have to understand that the 
medium is hip-hop and it has to be something that is appealing to the ear 
and that can hold up to repeated listening. That means taking a very 
analytical approach to putting records together. It's easy to put a hook 
together and it's easy to make a dance track and put it out there, but is 
it something you're gonna want to hear 10 years from now and therein lies 
the problem. I always do my best to craft it.

Nowadays I listen to music I like differently than I used to listen to it. 
When you're involved in making music on the level that i'm involved in it 
you don't really listen to music to enjoy it. You listen to it to pick it 
apart. When I listen to the Neptunes or Dre or PremiereI'm more or less 
analysing the process, the different original sounds and the source 
material or if it's an interpolation or a sample and really seeing how it 
works.


Q: Do you see each album you do as a separate entity?
A: I do feel it's a separate entity and obviously the longer I do it the 
more I learn. "Sonic Jihad" is the only album i've done where I wouldn't 
change anything. Everything is a progression as technology changes. Now 
everything is recorded in a digital domain and its infinitely tweakable. I 
can have 60 tracks whereas back in the day it would take 3 2" machines to 
get that or a lot of 2 track bouncing. Now the digital domain makes it 
possible for large multi-track productions to take place with total recall 
in the mix. It's much more productive to the creative process.


Q: How did it compare making "Sonic Jihad" to "Guerrilla Funk" or "The 
Devil Made Me Do It"?
A: "Sonic Jihad" is very specific and there are certain songs on there that 
deal with subjects on a very specific level. Like "Awol" is about minority 
recruitment in the military. "What Would You Do?" in an indictment of the 
Bush Administration. "Evil" is basically a synopsis of white supremacy 
since the inception of America. There are songs that talk about specifics 
on "Sonic Jihad" whereas before, outside of maybe "Bush Killa" and 
"Assatta's Song", there was more of a generalization of anger and despair 
and wielding not too much in the way of specifics.

Now as things go, for example on "Sleep To The Slaughter" on "Sonic Jihad" 
i'm naming people that are directly benefiting from the War On Terror. I 
want to talk about Toby Keats, John Woods, Arnold Schwarznegger who are 
pro-war, but none of them want to fight or none of them are able to fight. 
It's easy to be pro-war when you know you can't fight and when I name these 
people out it's a very specific statement. Bruce Willis phoned up George 
Bush and said count me in...that's the bitchiest shit i've ever heard 
because you know that can't be. It's easy to poke your chest out and be a 
war hawk when you know you can't fight. All these young Replubicans and 
Neocoms, all these people that are pro-USA and ra ra ra about the war still 
are not willing to fight. If you're not willing to get in the trenches then 
shut the f**k up. Who the hell are going to be in the trenches? Young 
people of colour. Disproportionately young people of colour are going to be 
the ones that fight these rich white wars. We've got to speak out.


Q: "Sonic Jihad", as you said earlier was a very specific album. Is the 
next album going to carry on getting focused and more specific yet again?
A: Yeah. I think that's what people are coming to expect from me. I can't 
make albums of generalizations anymore. Not every song is going to hit you 
over the head with topics, but I want it to be value added. I want it to be 
something you can relate to now.


Q: When you're providing a viable alternative to the pop-fluff hip hop of 
Nelly and 50 Cent that's aimed at the target market of teenage girls 
there's strength in numbers when you're hooking up with Public Enemy and 
the collective of artists we mentioned earlier
A: That's the idea. When Def Jam first started I knew that I wouldn't be 
disappointed with any record that I bought that had that logo on it. In the 
late 80s / early 90s I was never disappointed. Def Jam was the label to be. 
That's how Tommy Boy was for a long time when they first started off. It is 
possible to achieve that same status now.

There are many many people that are involved in hip-hop and the music 
industry for the wrong reasons. A lot of people act as though pursuing a 
career in hip-hop is like winning the lottery. If you're doing it just for 
the money or the girls or the fame you're doing it for thewrong reasons. 
You have to do it because you love the music and you're passionate about 
putting out good material. The difference between now and the era that 
preceded this is that everybody couldn't make records. Now everybody can 
make records and 90% of shit that's out there is terrible.

I came up on P-Funk, Prince, Rick James, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye - 
all these acts that wrote their own material and performed their own 
material and were classics in their own right. I also had the benefit of 
coming up in an era where hip-hop was completely different, where if your 
shit was terrible you got told it was terrible and you never got heard. You 
would get rushed off stage. And if you talked about shit that was negative 
to the community you would also get rushed off stage. Now it's the 
opposite. 99% of the shit that's out there is derogatory to the community - 
misogynistic, unnecessarily violent and glorified debauchery and drugs. 
They do what they think labels want to hear, not what the streets want to 
hear, because labels dictate the street. I come from an era of hip-hop 
that's 180 degrees from what's happening now.


Q: And the Guerrilla Funk website links in with this sense of community. 
The fact that when you log on to the website the product comes secondary to 
the news source and information
A: The idea is to make it bigger than just me. They're are a lot of people 
who subscribe to Guerrilla Funk who don't even like rap, but they come 
there because the information is counter to what they get on TV all day 
long. There is no such thing as a liberal media here. Conservative music 
outlets are all that there is here. Air America, which Chuck D is on, is 
inconsequential to the behemoth of corporate conservative media. The object 
of Guerrilla Funk in addition to the music was to provide information and 
then with Guerrilla News Network along with Guerrilla Funk was to provide 
information that you don't get anywhere else. Of course you can get it on 
the web elsewhere, but to do it in a way that is visually appealing because 
everything has an entertainment spin on it.



Q: With all these albums in the pipeline are you looking to come over to 
the UK and Europe and take the show out on the road
A: I've got a tour manager who's based in the UK and Germany so we're 
looking to bring out a package tour. Ideally it will be me, Cam, Public 
Enemy, Conscious Daughters, Ren and probably T-Kash. There's strength in 
unity and having a tour like a Fresh Fest situation where everybody's on 
the same page and everybody's coming from the same place. We haven't had in 
a long time and there's no better time than the present.

Having Dead Prez on the bill would be ideal, but again that kind of package 
we would be talking 10,000 seater rather than 1500. It has to be something 
that makes sense. I'm willing to forgo my fee if I can have all the 
merchandising because merchandising is where it really is because the 
profit margin on a T-shirt is the same as on an album. It's 2 days to make 
a T-shirt and 2 years to make an album bro, but I understand there's no 
justification for the T-shirt if the albums not cool.

Nothings coming out till the first quarter of next year. February 15th I 
think is when the first record is scheduled. Once everything kicks in to 
high gear it's going to be a completely different situation. We've got some 
records on Guerrilla Funk that are going end peoples careers. Really. It's 
going to make people look much more closely at what they've been listening 
to. A lot of the shit that is successful now is only successful because 
nothing else is out.


Q: One of the major releases on Guerrilla Funk is going to be Public 
Enemy's "Rebirth Of A Nation", produced by yourself. What are you looking 
to add to the PE sound, is it going to be your own commercial production 
added to the mix
A: It's definitely going to be polished, but it's going to be very 
forceful. What I love about Public Enemy, especially when I first started 
listening to them around the "Nation Of Millions" album, was the production 
and that sonic onslaught that it had. There is a way to present that to 
people nowadays without sounding dated. It just takes time to execute well. 
The albums still in the skeleton stage, but it's not due out to this time 
next year. There's a lot of shit that's coming out before that.


Q: What are the first albums you're dropping next year?
A: Mid to late February is the first set of releases. Kam and Lynch Mob and 
T-Kash and the Daughters. It's all going to depend on what's ready first 
and what's slamming hardest. That's another reason why out the gate i'm 
only dealing with established artists. New acts are too difficult to break, 
especially for a fledgeling label. After we bill against some of the bigger 
name acts we can look at giving some supportto new and upcoming acts

**************

"Sonic Jihad" is out now on Guerrilla Funk
For more info on Paris and Guerrilla Funk Recordings / Guerrilla News
www.guerrillafunk.com
**************

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