BRAND KUSTAN
Method Man once said, "We form like Voltron," in reference to the
Wu-Tang Clan. However, this statement may more accurately apply to
Grand Puba, Sadat X, Lord Jamar and Alamo, the four components
that make up the hip-hop phenomenon known as Brand Nubian. After
their classic 1990 debut LP, One For All, the members parted ways and
put out a total of five individual albums. Each of these records had their
strengths, but none packed the power of the fully-formed unit. Now, in
1998, they're reunited and ready to wreak havoc on the weak-minded
and uncivilized MCs who have attacked their hip-hop throne.
T54: So why did you choose right
now to get back together?
Puba: We decided to get back togeth-
er like two years ago, and it's just com-
ing out now. We've been doing this for a
few years, and it's time, as far as the
direction of music and everything.
Was that the motivation for get-
ting back together, or was it
money-related?
P: It's a little bit for the money, but the
time just came around when we all just
clicked and
doing
doing shit,
I and thought, why not? I wasn't
wasn't doing shit, Jamar
wasn't doing shit. I mean, we were
doing shit, but it just felt like it was time.
What was the reason that you
went your separate ways in the
first place?
P: Different ideals.
as
What do you see as the major dif-
ferences in hip-hop now,
opposed to when One For All came
'90?
P: The game is basically the same.
It's
just that the topics are different.
Now we're back to the fat gold ring
era, but it's changing back around to
the more conscious thing. I've seen
all stages, so it's not a shock to me
or anything.
It doesn't seem much different to
you right now, even in terms of the
amounts of records being sold?
P: There are more people in the game.
Hip-hop on the whole is bigger. The game
still works the same. You gotta sell records.
And it seems like especially in the
last few years, people from the East
are selling a lot more records,
whereas in the past it was just peo-
ple from the West who were really
selling platinum levels.
P: Everything changed. It started
with the East first.
Sadat X: Run DMC was selling a
lot of records back then, and that
was East Coast. Then it went to the
West, and then it came back.
Everything's a cycle.
Do you think that the conscious
vibe is coming back? Obviously
that's the main vibe of this
album, but it doesn't seem like
that's really dominating the
industry right now.
P: 'Cause we ain't out yet.
S: It's definitely coming back, when
you have people like Erykah Badu,
Lauryn Hill, even the Fugees, who can
come out and go triple platinum. They
sold so many records because it was
just different from everything that was
out at the time. They set it up for us to
come out and dominate with it.
So you think the cycle is going to
be completed? The more commer-
cial stuff is going to go away as
record?
start
a result of your new
P: The focus might
change.
to
S: It's not going to go away. But not
everything in hip-hop is commercial.
What they're focusing on right now
is commercial, there are plenty
of underground groups that have
been doing their thing and keep
doing their thing. The focus is what's
going to change.
But do you think that the focus of
what constitutes commercial is
also changing? In a way, the
thugism in East Coast hip-hop has
become a commercial sort of thing,
whereas before that wouldn't have
been considered commercial at all.
Do you agree?
P: It's more acceptable now, and a lot
of those records from back in the day
were thug records too. Lately, people
use familiar records for everything, and
now anything that's an unknown loop is
kind of thuggish, because you don't
know that record offhand.
Do you subscribe to a theory that
there's a difference between hip-
hop and rap, or is it all the same
to you?
P: It's all the same shit to me.
So anybody that's rapping is
hip-hop?
P: No, what I'm saying is the form
of the music is the same.
S: When I think of hip-hop I think of
rappers too. Hip-hop is straight from the
heart, something that you live every
day, that you were born into, came up
from a shorty into and grew into a man
from. That's what I did. When I was in
third and fourth grade, I always knew I
was gonna do this and I took pride that
I grew up with it. Hip-hop's when you
take pride in what you're doing. When
you work at lyrics and you're writing it.
And then rap is something
that somebody's doing just to
get money.
P: Yeah. But then you got some-
body rappin' who loves rappin', so
it's really hard to say. He's a rap-
per. He's ain't doin' it just for
the dollars. He loves doing that shit.
It's really just semantics.
What are your favorite cuts on the
new album?
P: All of them. Hard to pick. I like
them all.
There's no standout cut that hits
any of you harder than all the rest
of them?
P: depends on your mood. I might
play "Love vs. Hate" the whole day, and
then I might be in a charged mood
where I'll play "Back Up Off the Wall."
Every song has a different purpose.
S: I might've smoked some weed and
I'll play "Foundation."
This album is well-rounded and has
many different flavors; One For All
was kind of th
of the same way and
that's why it was so successful.
Was that in your mind when you
were putting together this album?
S: We just did it from life, man. The
songs just fell how they fell in the daily
path of our lives.
P: It's the mood swings..
What do you guys think about Bill
Clinton? Is he a player or he is just
played out?
S: He's human.
P: He's doing what everybody else
is doing. We all can appreciate
where he's at.
Alamo: A little sideline ass, nothing
wrong with it. It's the American way.
Lord Jamar: Everyone has been in that
situation-maybe not as blown up as
his, but it's a situation that's familiar to
more than one man.
You're in the public eye; if you
found
und yourself in a situation where
you got exposed like that, would
you try to handle it a different way?
S: Once you lie, and I'm just speak-
ing from experience, if I'm caught and
I lie from day one, I'm taking the lie to
the grave. I'm not changing no testi-
mony. You can see how it worked for.
OJ, right?
-True 54
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