Diamond D and Sadat X interview - HIPHOP.COM

Still Nice with the Verbs

HIPHOP.COM editor ANGUS BATEY catches up with Brand Nubian emcee Derek "SADAT X" Murphy and master producer/rapper Joseph "DIAMOND D" Kirkland for a quick chat about beats, rhymes and staying relevant in hip hop's fourth decade.

Published: May 8, 2009

Sadat X and Diamond D

We're in a new place with hip hop these days. The genre that's always been about what comes next is developing a sense of its own history, and audiences conditioned to prize new innovations over old classics are learning that veterans have plenty to offer. Whether it's Grandmaster Flash merging new recording with back-to-the-old-school block party DJ gigs, Public Enemy playing Nation of Millions in its entirety on tour while spitting out new albums with greater frequency than they did in the early '90s, or the likes of Nas and Jay-Z - figures very much part of hip hop's commercially dominant now - finding ways for their pasts and their presents to live side by side, everyone is learning how to acknowledge their own history while remaining relevant as an artist.

The challenge for the generation of artists who came of age towards the end of hip hop's '86-'92 "golden age" is perhaps more pronounced than for any other era in the art form's history. Not quite long enough in the tooth to trade on being legends of the old school, not quite new enough to have hit the top when hip hop was a mainstream music, they're stuck in a middle ground that looks harder to turn into a decent living from.

For Diamond D, the Diggin' in the Crates founder and producer-rapper extraordinare, and Sadat X, member of the post-golden age outfit Brand Nubian, the answer is to form an ad-hoc partnership. Almost in the style of a comic book team-up, they're touring Europe together, performing sets of their own and each others' material, reminding fans of indelible hip hop hits like Slow Down and "*!*" What U Heard, and sneaking a few of their newer tracks into the mix too (they plan to work together on Wild Cowboys 2, Sadat's sequel to his 1996 solo debut, and a collaborative album is in the works as well). HIPHOP.COM caught up with the pair for a quick chat between soundcheck and show in London.

HIPHOP.COM: You've worked together numerous times since the early '90s, most recently on the track When Ur Hot Ur Hot from Diamond's The Huge Hefner Chronicles album. What is it about each other that makes the partnership work?

Sadat: Well, I've known Diamond for a minute, so we're friends, and that makes it easy. Basically, through the years he's gotten to know my type o' style, so when he does a beat for me, or when he has somethin' to do for us together, he pretty much knows ahead o' time how I'll fall in to it.

Diamond: Yeah. We knew each other since the early '90s. That was from bein' around Jazzy Jay, up at his studio. Brand Nubian had just released their first album, and I reached out to them to get on a song, and...

Sadat: ...just came through an' laid it.

Diamond: That was A Day in the Life, and that's how it started. So, we're friends, and that played a large role into it. I don't really send out some of my beats to too many people these days, but we've got a good relationship.

HIPHOP.COM: The album that track came from - Stunts, Blunts, & Hip Hop - wasn't that big of a hit when it came out, but it's become a real touchstone record. How do you feel about it now? Has it sometimes felt that it overshadows what you've done since?

Diamond: No. It's weird, 'cos like you said, when it came out, it sold, but it didn't fly out of the stores. But it's one of those records that has still sold steadily over time. At the time I didn't think I was makin' a classic - I was just makin' songs and makin' music that I like. So, if anything, I'm grateful for it.

HIPHOP.COM: Was there a sense of competition between you and Pete Rock as the two producer-rappers? I remember wondering if you were in competition even over things like beats, after you both used that same Tom Scott record... [The Honeysuckle Breeze, sampled on Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth's They Reminisce Over You and by Diamond on Raazda Ruckuz's Da Chronic Asthmatics]

Diamond: You'd have to ask Pete that! I don't know. Everybody's competitive: rap is competitive by nature. But I don't go in my studio and make beats and go, 'Yo! I'mma try to top this dude!' I just do what I do and he do what he do. I think I might've put out more work rhyming-wise than Pete...

HIPHOP.COM: You wrote your own rhymes as well...

Diamond: Of course! Of course. I always write my rhymes. I think I mighta put out more vocally than Pete. But I like Pete's beats, I like his rhymes too.

HIPHOP.COM: You took a back seat on production for Huge Hefner, only doing three tracks. Was there a particular reason for that?

Diamond: I've been producin' my own stuff since '92, so I just wanted to just do one project where I didn't do everything. You know? Just sort of take a break, and just see what it felt like just to be an emcee, just focus on that aspect. I didn't wanna wear all the hats on that one project. After 16 or 17 years, I said, 'I can do one project!' But everybody got mad at me!

HIPHOP.COM: Has it got harder to make hip hop records in the way you used to - with sampled beats and melodic loops? Sample clearance is a huge issue - you're maybe not able to put those patchworks together, maybe you can't clear the loops you find and want to use...

Diamond: I wouldn't say it's harder - [but] a lotta producers just wanna hold onto their publishing.

HIPHOP.COM: Because that's one of the things you can still make some money from.

Diamond: Right. That's... that's a hundred per cent right! It all depends on how bad a [sampling] artist wants to use the sample. Some [sampled] artists might ask for 25 per cent, some samples're gonna ask for 50, some're gonna ask for 70. It depends on the artist.

HIPHOP.COM: A lot of those tracks you're going to be playing tonight are classics - songs people have lived with and loved for years. Is it hard to get people to react as strongly to new material when you've got that body of work?

Sadat: Well, you can't force it on people. A lotta times, people don't know the song and they're just standin' around, so, you know, you try to ease in some of newer stuff. You've gotta start somewhere with those newer songs, to make those [into] classics. You can't force-feed people somethin' new: you know what I'm sayin'? You gotta give 'em baby spoons, and feed 'em like that.

HIPHOP.COM: Do you get a little bit frustrated sometimes that people wanna hear old material?

Sadat: No I don't, because that's what they remember, and that's what got you to where you are now. So you've gotta give 'em that. Sometimes I wish I could do some sets with a little more newer stuff, but it just depends what venue you're at, and where you're at. But those older songs are always gonna come into your act, definitely.

HIPHOP.COM: The second record you made together was probably the most controversial of both of your careers: the Brand Nubian single Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down. Sadat - how did you feel about the way that was received at the time, and what're your feelings about the lyrical content of it now?

Sadat: I mean, I didn't really feel it was all that controversial. I guess people twisted the word 'f----t' around and stuff like that - you know, that's just what it was at the time, man. That's how we was feelin', and it came out as such. Some people protested it, we caught a lil' flack for it, but nothin' to stop the movement of it. When I said 'f--- up a f----t,' I didn't mean it in the sense of gays really like that: that's just a word that we called somebody soft.

HIPHOP.COM: The thing that struck me much more was the line afterwards, where you said 'I don't understand their ways and I'm not down with gays.'

Sadat: Yeah, and I mean, I was young then, and I wasn't down with the gay people, and that was just comin' from a young mind. I mean, you know, I'm still really... I'm not gay, but if somebody is gay, that's their prerogative. That's the way they choose to live their life, and I can't... I can't do anything about it. You know? In my circle of people, I just don't have any gay friends or anything. That I know about.

HIPHOP.COM: When you perform that song now, do you change the lyrics?

Sadat: Sometimes, dependin' on the crowd, and the feeling of it. I can usually tell where I can get away with that, and where I can't get away with it at. You know. It's just a feeling - I can't even explain how I do it, I just know that, 'OK, I can say that here,' whereas opposed to some places I can't say it.

HIPHOP.COM: As you grow as a human being, do you look back on things you've done as an artist and think, 'I could've done that better; I could've said that better'?

Sadat: Sometimes I guess I could've phrased that differently, or said that differently. But you gotta understand, a lot o' that was comin' from a time where... shoot, we was a couple o' years outta high school, we were young, you know? I wasn't exposed to travelin' around the world meetin' people: I was still basically in New York, an' I was just reactin' an' writin' on what I saw and what I knew. A lot o' times you say things outta... I wouldn't even say it out of ignorance, but you just say it out of what you know and what you see around you. When you learn an' see other things, that's what shapes your mind. Once you learn, travel, go meet different people, it changes your mind. Like, they said that in the 5% Nation we hated white people, we was callin' white people the devil, this and that: we was callin' black people the devil too! It was just that at the time we had to save our brothers before we could save anybody else. It wasn't that we was separatin' ourselves from white people - it was like, 'Well, let us get our brothers right first. And then once we get our brothers right, then we can go out in the world and do that.' And like I said, we went out in the world and met people, and learned to judge people for their own merits.

HIPHOP.COM: In the 5% Nation you have this idea of consulting different sources, examining things from different angles - does that impact on the way you approach writing rhymes or dealing with music?

Sadat: I would say some artists are deeper into it as far as puttin' it into music than others: you know, Busta Rhymes is 5%; all the Wu-Tang is 5%ers - it's how you choose to bring it out. I throw in references, but in the 5% Nation it's your belief in yourself as God, and knowing and understandin' that you're the original man. We believe we're the original man, we believe we're the first man; and knowin' and understandin' that I'm the original man, I don't always have to throw it out there like that. I know who I am - you understand? I know who I am, my brothers know who I am, so a lot o' times I don't have to throw it and scream it out to the public as such. Sometimes I just sprinkle it in there.

HIPHOP.COM: We touched on the idea of competition earlier - do you listen to what other people are doing or do you just get on with your stuff and ignore everybody else?

Sadat: Well, I listen to it as like, sometimes I hear somethin' and as opposed to top it, I be like, 'Damn, I wish I coulda made that,' or, 'I wish I was on that track.' But I don't bring it to the level of, 'I gotta go top that,' because I make the music that I make, and I'm happy with myself, and know within myself that I can make good music. So I don't dwell on that - I just clock in and do what I do. And it's been proven that I stood the test of time: there's not that many people that came out when we came out and that's still here and that are still viable. I think I've remained, over these years, viable off doing what I do.