TASW
is one of the few MCs who
get underground love on
both coasts, especially if
they're coming from the
left one. He flips tight
rhymes and punchlines
that get heads open from LA's Crenshaw to Harlem's 125th and almost every street corner in
between. Taking time off from recording with his group the Alkaholiks, Tash has finally
snatched the mic to host his own show: a cocktail of drunken party anthems entitled Rap Life.
So hide your forties and your sisters and make room for the Catastrophe.
What's your favorite song off your new album?
My favorite song would have to be the one I did with Kurupt. To
me they're all equal; that's just the one I rewind and tweak off.
I like "Fallin' On"; that beat is hot. Missin' Linx rocked the
same beat-were you salty when you heard that?
Nah. That was just one of those things where I got the beat from
an East Coast producer and I didn't hear the Missin' Linx cut until
I had already done my song. And then-you know, politics-the
release date kept gettin' pushed back and they came out first. I
even talked to Al Tariq and told him I was gonna have that beat
on my album, but everybody was cool and nobody felt like the
other was biting or anything. Plenty of hip-hop producers end up
using the same beat. The beats are there for everybody to rock to,
and I still like both songs.
Tell me about your progression as a rhymer. It seems like
over the course of the three Alkaholiks albums you went
from being overshadowed by J-Ro on 21 & Over to busting
out on Coast to Coast and Likwidation and now you're
going solo.
For stuff like that there's really no explanation; when we did the
albums we didn't fight over who had more lines or anything. Half
the time when we're making an album we're drunk; you know, it's
an Alkaholik thing. It was never intentional that we were gonna
make Tash shine on this album or J-Ro on that one. That why I
felt like I needed a solo album; I felt like I would get everything off
my chest and then go right back and make another Alkaholiks.
album. What I tried to do on my album was step not up, but step
over and do a different sound for the Alkies. It's cool because
everyone in the crew has their own sound; us, Xzibit,
Defari, King Tee everybody fits their own lit-
tle niche. Tash is on some flashy-Tashy
stuff, while the Alkaholiks are more B-
boyed-out, hardcore lyrics. But it's
still
family, so even if I'm opening
up for Raekwon or Mobb Deep,
most likely E-Swift, J-Ro and
Xzibit will still be up there with
me clownin'.
What two MCs would you
like to see in a battle?
Flavor Flav vs Humpty Hump.
I noticed that Natas
Kaupas did the album
covers for the last two
Alkaholiks records; how
did that come about?
We hooked up with him.
when we did the Warped
tour, but I haven't really seen
him since last album.
Is there anybody that
you've always wanted to
record with that you
haven't yet?
Well, when I was coming up I
always wanted to do something
with LL Cool J, but since then he's
gone on to have an incredible
career, and it doesn't look like that's
gonna be happening. I'd like to
do a jam with Ice Cube and
one with Nas; that would
be good for my
career, someone from the West Coast and some-
one from the East. As I get along in my career I'm
getting more open-minded. I used to only like
underground hip-hop, but now, if you listen to my
album, everything doesn't sound so underground.
That's because I put some other directions on there,
because that's what I'm bumpin': club songs and
jams that are catchier.
The industry is changing; every third song
on the radio is by Jay-Z or someone from
his camp, people who were once consid-
ered underground artists.
But that's not a bad thing. The underground is still
out there, but the underground are the ones.
fronting on the underground. Underground heads
might talk shit about Jay-Z all day, but when a
hardcore underground album comes out they
don't even make their artists gold. You can say
what you want, but meanwhile your favorite
artists' lights and water are being cut off by the
city. Luckily the 'Liks are one of the more suc-
cessful underground groups, but we still never
went gold. What I'm trying to do is step away
and get this other audience and then bring
everyone together. You'll see it in my new video;
it's 20 steps above what any 'Liks video looked
like. I still support underground to this day. I
don't care if you start hearing my stuff every
third song on the radio; I'm still gonna do stuff
like the Rock Steady reunion we did a cou-
ple weeks ago, 'cause all of that still
counts. The underground just has
to start supporting its own.
-True 54
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