The Independent Weekly, out of Durham, NC, has a great interview by Derek Jennings with ?uestlove who’s in town tonight for Hip-Hop Sampling Soul with 9th Wonder and Mark Anthony Neal who teaches in Duke University’s Women’s Studies program.
Duke’s whitey white but they have some serious black academics and students over there and the University does support Black History Month with some great programming.
?uestlove drops a lot of beautiful musical and political knowledge and experience, so do check the extended interview, but here’s some business bits.
?uestlove on Okayplayer.com and thinking long-term:
"One of the reasons I created okayplayer.com was to be sort of a life raft or safety zone, just in case there was some sort of tsunami in the future. A lot of folks, especially in hip hop, think in the near-term. Most think, "I’ma tour from May to August … after that, I don’t know what I’ll do." I credit Chuck D [of Public Enemy] for giving me that long-term outlook. He’d say, back in the ’90s, "What do you see yourself doing in 2011?" He was thinking in decades instead of years."
On working in the mainstream music industry:
"I never saw the old system of selling records as a way to provide any type of survival or career sustenance. And I see it now as simply a way to promote the group. If there’s a way to let three million people know that a Roots album is coming out on April 29 without going through all of this, I’m all for it. But for now, this is what we have to work with; this system that has robbed, stolen from and used up our artists for the last 100 years…"
"I’m not particularly saddened now that the bottom is falling out…But it does affect us, slightly, and I’ll tell you how. You know that The Roots have never really lived off of record sales…other acts are starting to tour more, kind of infringing on this live show playing field that we’ve more or less had to ourselves for 16 years. So the game—circa late ’07, now that we see all these other cats in our lane—is to think, "Hey, don’t we normally do Howard University around this time of year?" and actually call them up. Because there’s more competition now. Between ’92 and ’06, we were just about the only option. So I look at it as us having to go to Plan C. We’re Will Smith in the back of the taxi, tryna figure out that Rubik’s Cube."
On success and realness in the rap game:
"The thing I want people to know, the reason I’m so open on okayplayer about my personal life, is just to let people know that you don’t need some kind of hyperbolic, over-inflated existence to survive in hip hop…"
"I think it’s possible for an underground emcee, if he’s hustling, to make around $200,000-$300,000 a year. An unsigned rapper may be able to pull down around $1,500 per week. If a manager of an establishment can make and survive off of that kind of money, so can you. But if you’re making $1,500 per week and you want a Bentley coupe, then that’s different. You’ve got a problem."
"It says a lot about our perspective when we can view a doctor as a success pulling down around $300,000 but we see the rapper making the same money as a failure. That’s why I reveal all of the details of my life on my site, in interviews, etc., even to the level of why a muhf*cka can’t have a successful relationship and a career. That’s what I see as realness."
If you’re serious about a career in music, be sure to check for ?uestlove’s thoughts on building a musical movement involving other artists as a conscious process.
Plus, ?uestlove’s down with Obama, sick of Reagonomics and says he’s "working on a film project…starring Sam Jackson and Bernie Mac. It’s a musical film by Malcolm Lee (The Best Man, Roll Bounce). Since it’s a musical film, I won’t be straying too far afield in terms of my role."
Big ups to ?uestlove for his honesty and his ability to build in a positive manner. We need a lot more of that in hip hop music and business.
