Phonte

Jeff Mao

Our guest this afternoon is a member of the group Little Brother. They are one of the finest groups creating what he himself describes as hip-hop.

Phonte Coleman

That’s a touching intro, brother.

Jeff Mao

He is not the official producer of the group, but he has a little something to do with the direction of the sound they come up with. Join me please in welcoming Mr. Phonte Coleman.

[Applause]

Phonte Coleman

Thank y’all. Y’all far too kind. We’re going to keep it live in here today. We’re not going to do the same old dry lecture, we’re going to get into some things, we’re going to keep it popping. This is how it’s going down, we’re going to give it to you raw, nigga. Going to keep it real. This is how it’s going down tonight. I wore my darkest-colored shirt, so you niggas would see me. I’m actually honored to be here, I’m actually a big fan of the Red Bull Music Academy, it’s like the equivalent of being Inside The Actor’s Studio for rap music and shit.

Jeff Mao

Yes, it is. That would make me James Lipton, something I’ve always aspired to be. So, Phonte tell me, where are you from originally and where is the group from?

Phonte Coleman

I’m from Greensboro, North Carolina. The group is from a city called Durham. Durham is a relatively mid-sized town.

Jeff Mao

What’s that area known for?

Phonte Coleman

Durham is known for basketball. Any basketball fans or ACC basketball fans, like Duke, Carolina?

Jeff Mao

We’ve got Carolina over here.

Phonte Coleman

Oh, yeah! It isn’t really known for much though – basketball, tobacco, medicine – that’s pretty much it. And colleges, it’s a college town.

Jeff Mao

So, you attended college in Durham.

Phonte Coleman

Yeah, I was at college in Durham, North Carolina Central University, which is an historically black college, an HBCU, which is a term that means “historically black colleges and universities.” Now, what those are, are colleges mainly in the South, founded mainly for black people. At the end of slavery there were a lot of grants from the government that were started for black kids to be able to go to school. There are still some left today, quite a few left, but I give it about ten, 15 more years. I don’t know how much longer they’re going to be standing.

Jeff Mao

So, the group started out of NCCU, is that correct?

Phonte Coleman

NCCU.

Jeff Mao

And who are the other members of the group, for those who might not be aware?

Phonte Coleman

The other members, because obviously we sell millions of records, are MC Pooh and the producer 9th Wonder. A lot of you might know 9th, he did “The Threat” for Jay-Z, he did Destiny’s Child “Girl,” “Is She The Reason,” and then God’s Stepson, the Nas remix album.

Jeff Mao

The group is from North Carolina. What was the environment like for you guys coming out with the sound you did in North Carolina?

Phonte Coleman

For us, we were an anomaly, like the black sheep, I guess. For those of you who may not be familiar with the South, it’s diverse, but not as diverse as BET or MTV would let you to believe. Pretty much the sound coming out right now is the heavy 808, the crunk or snap music. For me, Pooh and 9th to be coming out with some early-’90s throwback shit was, like, wow! It was a good and bad thing. It was good in the way it got us a look we wouldn’t have got otherwise, but it was bad – and I actually wrote a blog about this – but it was like a backhanded compliment, like a way of people saying, “You know, you’re pretty cute for a fat girl,” or if a motherfucker told you, “For a black guy, you’re pretty smart.”

So, for us it was, “They’re spitting for people from the South.” What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Is everyone in the South barely functioning illiterates and shit? The good thing was if we had been from a Brooklyn or LA or whatever, everybody would have been like, “Aight, whatever.” But the bad thing, at least the way I took it, was on some backhanded compliment shit, like, “Ooh, You speak so well.” But it got people talking, it got me here, so I ain’t mad.

Jeff Mao

You guys are really a product of this age and era, in that you got some notoriety before you signed a deal. Can you explain how that came about, who championed you?

Phonte Coleman

Initially our buzz was on the Internet. I was a big fan of the website Okayplayer – that’s The Roots, Common, Mos [Def]. I was mainly a big Roots fan. I used to go the site just to discuss music… When we started making our music, we put one of our songs on there just to get some honest opinion on it. As a lot of you know, the Internet is good because you can get an unbiased opinion on your stuff, because everybody’s a tough guy on the Internet. I learned that once I started meeting the actual chatroom users. On the net, they’d be, “That shit was wack, that shit was horrible, fuck that shit!” And then you meet them in person and it’s, [meekly] “Hi, I’m B-Boy78 on Okayplayer.”

[Laughter]

“What happened to you? Didn’t get enough hugs as a child?” The Internet can be a funny thing, everybody’s a keyboard thug. But we put the joint out there and it got a good response. The first song, we did was called “Whatever You Say”, and we put it up there and it ended up getting crazy downloads. I guess, we were like the Tila Tequila of Okayplayer. This was before MySpace had jumped off. And that was how it jumped off. We got a call from Questlove from The Roots, he championed the group and came out saying he loved it. Pete Rock was a fan. Pete Rock was actually the reason I quit my job. We started getting props from a lot of places, people that I grew up listening to. It was all breath-taking, man.

Jeff Mao

What were Pete Rock’s words of encouragement and what was your job?

Phonte Coleman

I had a job at Belt, a department store. I don’t know what the Australian equivalent would be, but they sell shirts and tops, china and all that shit. I was working in the Tommy Hilfiger section, selling polos, and I called home to check my messages one day and there was this message going, “Yo, yo, yo, yo, what’s going on, Phonte? This is Chocolate Boy Wonder Pete Rock. Your album is crazy, classic. Yo, I’ve got to get you on this album, son. Peace.”[Looks blank] I had to listen to it again. Beep. “Yo, yo, yo, yo, what’s going on, Phonte? This is Chocolate Boy Wonder Pete Rock. Your album is crazy, classic. Yo, I’ve got to get you on this album, son. Peace.” Beep.

[Laughter]

I’m not going to lie, there are a lot of people – oh, shit, [knocks microphone]. Let me move my ice out the way – the ice in my teeth keep my Cristal cold. I’ve been through a lot of shit, I’ve seen my children born, but when Pete Rock called me that was the first time I actually came close to fainting. At the risk of sounding like a groupie, fuck that, but I had Pete Rock calling my house, man. It was at that moment I realized I didn’t want to work no more.

[Laughter]

It was around the holidays and in the States we have Black Monday, it’s basically the Monday after Thanksgiving and that’s the busiest shopping day of the year, shit is insane. I’m talking about motherfuckers lined up outside Toys R Us.

[Points to something in the room / laughter]

That’s why I’ve never done this shit, this is some new shit, it’s so provocative. Anyway, Black Monday, I was supposed to work and I just didn’t go. They were like, “Phonte, we need you.” But this was six in the morning, six in the morning and I had to be there at five to open the store. “Who the fuck is buying Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirts at six in the morning? Are you fucking crazy? I’m gone, you niggas will never see me again.” I just didn’t show up. It was just a leap of faith, I had my rent due, but something told me to step out on faith, and I just did it and it paid off.

[Applause]

Jeff Mao

So, that was after Little Brother’s first LP came out. So, after Okayplayer and Questlove’s attention, you got the deal with ABB [Records]. Tell us a bit about the reception to the album. Obviously, some of your heroes gave you positive feedback, but if you could talk about the Internet, getting an honest response, and the idea of buzz, of hype.

Phonte Coleman

Hmmm, buzz, hype… The key thing I’d say to everybody in here, no matter what your skill is, don’t believe your own hype. A lot of the time, as artists, you live in an echo chamber and you’re around like-minded artists, so a lot of the time you’ll hear, “Oh, this is dope.” You hear it all the time, so that creates a false sense of security in yourself and in your art. You think, “Damn! Maybe I am really that next shit?” It might be justified, not saying it’s not, but all of us we are not the norm, we do not represent the tastes of the vast majority of people. I mean, yeah, we’re geniuses and we create and expand the limits. But we’re not the motherfuckers voting on American Idol or buying Now That’s What I Call Music Volume 40. Those are the masses. You’re feeling me? A lot of times when you’re on the Internet and you’re reading journalists and there’s all this praise about you, you kind of start to believe your own hype.

And if there’s a lesson to be learned from the Little Brother saga, moving from ABB, which is an indie to Atlantic, which is a major, that would be the lesson learned – don’t believe your own hype. The Listening came out and it was “a breath of fresh air,” we were getting four mics in The Source, write-ups in XXL, we’re going on tours and everyone is toting you as the next big thing. Then you make the move to a major and it’s like, “OK, we’ve got a fan base, we’ve got this, we’ve got that. We should be good to go, we’re going to take over the world.”

Then the first week sales notice came out and it’s, [pretends to make a phone call] “Hi, this is Phonte. I know I quit but I was wondering if there are any openings in the Tommy section. I heard you got the new fall line in and I wanted to help you out with that.” It was a wake-up call, going from our first record, which was The Listening, which got tons of critical acclaim and buzz, then moving to a major label for our second album, The Minstrel Show, which got the same critical acclaim and buzz, but… we believed the hype.

Jeff Mao

Let me ask you something before we even jump into that. Was there any hesitance on any of the group’s part even to go towards Atlantic? I mean… I know everybody wants to reach more people that are like-minded, expand their audience, but was there any consideration taken of that? I remember there’s a lyric on The Minstrel Show where you say, “I had cats telling me I shouldn’t rhyme / To drop an album that people couldn’t find.” Tell me a little bit about the sort of environment being on ABB and the decision to go from there to Atlantic.

Phonte

Pretty much, man, we started out on an indie label, ABB, and the good thing about indie labels, which some of you may have worked out already, may be familiar, indie is a good thing because they say, “You can do whatever you want. We are all about the artist, we are all about the art and the art of the art! You can do what you want!”

Then it’s like, “OK, well, pay me.”

“Well, that’s, uh, we don’t do that, don’t be having money for that yet, but this the art.”

That’s the kind of give-and-take of the indie situation. The money may not be crazy, but you can do whatever you want to do. Now, the flipside about that is that on a major label, yeah, the money is better, but at that point you’re kind of controlled by corporate interests. It’s safe to say, if you name your album The Minstrel Show, that chances are you’re kind of going to cut yourself off from a lot of things.

Pretty much, from ABB, it was Benny B, he’s from Oakland and he still runs the label. We still stay in contact, we still do business, and we actually brought him on in our Atlantic deal to handle our vinyl, because we still thought it was a good point for us to keep that grassroots connection. Being with the indie is just kind of like, on an indie label, if I bring the album to my indie label on Monday in January, Tuesday in March we can have it out on sale. Major label, I bring it to the label on a Monday in 2005, y’all might not see it till damn ’07, ’08, ’06 at best. It’s a lot more red tape, so that was something that we kind of had to get used to, because it was like, on an indie, it’s just go. Like, “Yo, you want to press this up? Let’s do it!” “Yo, I just finished this on my laptop last night, nigga, let’s get it out!” “Ooh, word up, let’s do it!” On the majors, it’s like, “Yo, we got this song, we think it’s wonderful!” “Yeah, uh, I don’t hear a single, yeah, just take that back. Work on that some more.” It’s a different ball game.

I can honestly say… We were talking last night, I can honestly say that I would not have wished it to go any other way. I’m glad that things happened the way they did with our second album, because looking back in my life and just where I was, I honestly can’t say.… I can honestly sit here in front of all of y’all and say that I was not ready for a hit record. I just wasn’t.

Jeff Mao

Explain what transpired with the second album, what was the concept of it? It was called The Minstrel Show, maybe you can explain what it means and the concept of the album and how that might have affected things?

Phonte Coleman

Are any of you familiar with what the term means? It refers back to a form of American entertainment that took place in the late 1800s, early 1900s and it was a form of American entertainment when you had black people dressing themselves up in black face and performing for a white audience. Now, it was pretty much one of the crude, most racist forms of entertainment, but it also served to form a base for most forms of entertainment in the US. Out of that came vaudeville, which brought the modern theater, which pretty much got us here today.

There’s a lot I can say about that, but you’re pretty much dealing with an art form, which involved black people playing out black stereotypes for a white audience. “Yeah, of course, black people are dumb. Look at them shucking and jiving and shit.”

Everyone understand that, does it makes sense?

So, to link that to current-day hip-hop, it was just me thinking about where the music was going and a lot of stuff I was hearing. Hip-hop was just doing the same thing. Instead of being an instrument for positivity, telling people they’re beautiful and to build them up, it was destructive and there were a lot of images we were seeing around the time, that were kind of, “Damn! Enough is enough.”

I like 50 Cent and Lil’ Jon as much as anybody else, but at the time there wasn’t really a balance of anything else being heard on the radio. If you’re going to play 50 Cent 40 times, then play Oddisee 20 times. Just counterbalance it out a little bit.

That was the concept of the album and it was a parallel to our careers. We were three rappers signed to a major network called UBN, which is U Black Niggaz Network, and they sign to this network and put on this show called The Minstrel Show. So, on the album every song served as a musical sketch, it was set up like an episode of Saturday Night Live. You can tell by the way I’m explaining that it sounds quite crazy, so when we gave it to Atlantic they said, “We love it, it’s great. The way you’ve put it together is wonderful, but we don’t hear a single.” My thing with radio, particularly for artists like us – I don’t get to travel abroad too often, so I don’t know elsewhere – but there’s no place for artists like us on urban radio. It’s not going to fucking happen, not in a million years.

In urban radio, and in entertainment in general and entertainment, period, the law is to appeal to the lowest common denominator, to appeal to peoples’ most basic interest. So if the No 1 song in the country is some motherfucker spelling A-B-C-D, then anything above that doesn’t stand a chance. Often you’ll hear people in radio saying, “We’re just giving the people what they want.” That’s something I’ve always questioned because you have to look at the people in relation to the media which people they’re speaking of. It’s not you and I, it’s fucking kids, seriously. I’m not talking teenagers, like 16. I’m talking nine-, ten-year-olds. Someone in the business told me once, “If my five-year-old can sing it, it’s a hit.”

That made sense. I’m all for repetition, recall, let people sing along. Nobody wants to hear a song they can’t sing, I understand that, but if you’re using a five-year-old to dictate the tastes of the adult American public, shit, five-year-olds watch Barney! In the case of artists like Little Brother, I think radio is pretty much over … you can’t try to take a person who’s been fed verbal baby food all their life and then put a steak in front of them be like, “OK, eat that.” They can’t process it, it’s too foreign for them.

Jeff Mao

You say you’ve no regrets about how being on a major label transpired, but do you think maybe you were a little naive going into it?

Phonte Coleman

Actually, I should’ve been more naive. Going from an indie, we had a lot of distribution problems, we’d be getting calls going, “Yo, man! I love your record but I can’t find it. I’m in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and I can’t find it.” So, when we went to Atlantic we were like, “OK, we’ve got the machine behind us, they’re going to give us the push, it’s going down.” No, it didn’t go down. In retrospect, I think I should’ve been more naïve, a little more jaded, more cautious. My philosophy is: You never know until you try. I’d much rather make a decision and then look back and be, “Damn! I fucked up,” than wondering what could’ve happened. “What if we’d done this, what if we’d done that, we could have made it, I could’ve been the greatest nigga.” It’s better to just take the chance, take the hit. Just man the fuck up. In retrospect, I’m happy we made the decision to sign to Atlantic because it armed me with so much more knowledge of how this business really works.

Jeff Mao

If there’s folks who’s not familiar with the music of the group, maybe there’s something that you want to play? If there’s any stuff that you want to play from the group, anything…

Phonte

I could play a couple jams.

Jeff Mao

Just to give an idea of what type of stuff they actually create.

Phonte

I’ll make it quick. I’m going to give y’all the Little Brother megamix. I think this is the one that’s [music plays and stops]… Yeah. We got the slow joint on here. This is actually the first song that we ever recorded. It’s called “Speed,” and this is a song that was basically just us talking about our lives at that time. We were all working jobs, trying to figure out how we was going to work jobs and still make our music, you know what I’m saying? You’d be up in the studio until like five in the morning, and got to be at work at seven, you know? It was kind of a rough time in our life. It was a bittersweet time, looking back on it, and listening to this shit now, it sounds so young and shit. Maybe I’ll do it, like you listen back on some of your shit and be like, “God, I was so young,” and you sound so naïve and shit, you just thought your art was going to change the world and then you just get fucking crushed [laughs]. “Fuck yo dreams, nigga!” This is the first song we ever recorded. It’s called “Speed,” and this is me singing the hook on this.

(music: Little Brother – “Speed” / applause)

From that same album, this was the first song that we put up on Okayplayer that got us the buzz or whatever. The buzz… This one’s called “Whatever You Say.” This is a song that actually... There’s a saying that artists are often the worst critics of our own work, and I kind of believe that’s true sometimes, because this was a song that, once we did it, we finished it and it was just like, “OK, all right, cool.” Album cut. “All right, cool.” We just threw it up on the Internet and people went crazy about it, and it was like, “Damn, really?” Then, on the other hand, you’ll have that song that you spend hours on, and you feel like it’s just your life’s... your all-encompassing pain and struggle, and motherfuckers be like, “OK, yeah, that was aight. That shit was cool, man!”

You never know how shit can go, and that’s kind of the beautiful thing about art, is you really know, anybody that says they know they have a hit, they fucking lying. It’s been stuff that, I’m sure you’ve been in situations when you’ve heard some shit and you be like, “Word up, I think this is it.” You have that feeling, but at the end of the day nobody really knows, man. Nobody knows. This is a song, “Whatever You Say.” This was the first song that we put up on the Internet that kicked off our buzz or whatever.

(music: Little Brother – “Whatever You Say” / applause)

Thank you. That was the first joint we put up and people really reacted to it, it kinda surprised all of us.

Jeff Mao

One of the things that struck me when I first heard your music is there’s a certain ease in the way you do what you do. There’s a soulfulness that is, or was, refreshing. I guess, it’s an intangible thing – and if you have it, you have it, if you don’t, you don’t – but can you articulate why that’s there with you guys?

Phonte Coleman

A lot of it just has to do with us being from the South. For those of you who may not be familiar with the American South, the North – Boston, New York, Philly – it’s a faster pace: go, go, go, whereas in the South things are a lot calmer, quieter and you have time to think. I can open my door and see birds and see the sky, it’s refreshing. The thing that made Little Brother work was the fact that we were coming from a region that had no musical precedents and really wasn’t a music city. So you got away with getting into your own zone and doing your own shit. You don’t have to worry about your A&R man and random motherfuckers getting up in your shit. You can just do your shit in your zone, hone it, perfect it, nurture it. And then, when it’s ready, take it into the outside world.

In one of the bigger music markets you’re under the microscope from the jump, so from the conception of your career you’re trying to keep up with the Joneses. Then also, I was talking about this with Waajeed, the cost of living in North Carolina is very low, so when you know your mortgage ain’t too expensive, you can hold your dick a little bit. “Fuck y’all! I ain’t doing that shit, I ain’t selling out, I’ll never sell out.” You can afford to do it because, you know, if I just make $1,200 this month, I’m good. But in the North, that isn’t happening, you’ve got to make that money. I think that’s what it is, the ease of the South, the slow pace, just the conversational nature of the South. People in the South are known for our honesty, our warmth, I guess, and we try to articulate that as much as possible.

Jeff Mao

Now, when you guys are in the studio you’re not the official producer of the group – 9th Wonder is the musical producer of the group – can you describe what the process is like for coming up with compositions and concepts and structuring the songs, because you also do other vocals besides your rhyming?

Phonte Coleman

In the studio I’m a producer but not a beat-maker. Though, I guess, you could say I’m a producer in the Quincy Jones sense, getting people together, mapping things out, sequencing – more organizational. For me, it starts with the track. Me and Pooh will do the track, sit down, start with some concepts. I’d say 90 to 95% of the time, I come up with the hooks. A lot of times I may write a hook but Pooh’s voice sounds better saying it, so it’s, “I’ll write something but you say it.” That’s pretty much how it works. Once we get into the studio, that’s when the production happens, putting it all together, making it all make sense, that’s pretty much where I’ll come in.

Jeff Mao

Do you want to play any examples of the stuff you sing on?

Phonte Coleman

Yeah, aight. Yeah, I’ve got some shit. If there weren’t cameras rolling, I’d play it. We’ve got some singing, the “Phonte sings in the shower” album.

Jeff Mao

Or even the song that was a surprise for you guys.

Phonte Coleman

This is the song. Rewind [rewinds record]. Y’all still with me? This is a project I did called the Foreign Exchange, with my homeboy Nicolay. The way we did this record was, we did it all completely over the internet, this was back in ’04. Essentially, he’s a producer I met from the Netherlands and I loved his tracks and I was like, “When are we going to start doing stuff together?” He said, “Cool!” We started trading some files and we had a whole album. The name of the group is Foreign Exchange and the name of the album is Connected and this is one of the singles we put out off the Connected album. The name of the song is “Nic’s Groove.” This is me singing the hook, me and this chick named Rhonda Wimbush.

(music: Foreign Exchange – “Nic’s Groove”)

I don’t think I’m going to play this for you, man [fiddles with mixer]. I’m going to play this…

(music: Zo! & Tigallo – “Steppin’ Out 08” / applause)

I fuck with that shit. That’s the kind of shit, if you were working in a retail store and they’d have the AM rock station on, you’d hear all the white people’s songs, you’d learn to like that shit. You’d be like, “Damn! I’ll fuck with that shit, nigga… that Jessica Simpson shit is bangin’… [Sings falsetto] ‘Since You’ve Been Gone…’” You’ve got to listen to what they play. You got to listen to what they play. Joe Jackson “Steppin’ Out,” that’s one of my favorite AM songs, that shit is magic.

Jeff Mao

You sing on a good portion of things. Not everybody is able to do that. Can you go into your singing background?

Phonte Coleman

It’s always odd when I get compliments for my singing because I don’t consider myself a singer. I sing, but I don’t sang. There’s a difference between a singer and a sanger. I grew up on sangers, Luther [Vandross], Patti Labelle. They’re sanging. I can sing, but they would be sanging. With me it was in church. My grandmother was into the church, so Sunday morning comes around, you’ve got to go, whether you feel it’s justified or not. You couldn’t play sick. If you play sick in church, then you’ve got to be sick the whole day, so afterwards when your boys come to the door and you want to go out and play, “No, you’re sick. Go, lay down.”

So, in church you’d sing in the choir, I’d do my little solos. And then the first form of music I actually got introduced to is R&B, I didn’t get into rap until I was seven or eight. When I was growing up the music my mother played was Luther, the early-’80s breakdance shit like Shannon “Let The Music Play,” Newcleus, that early-80s breakdancing and roller-skating shit. That was my start.

Jeff Mao

Ironically enough, the song you guys are internationally best known for is one with you singing on it.

Phonte Coleman

Yeah, the “Make Me Hot” one. Can we get a power plug? My laptop is losing power, I thought I had enough juice in it and I didn’t burn anything on CD. While he gets that out I’ll play you something.

[Fiddles with mixer / music starts and stops]

Jeff Mao

Was that a surprise, because that was really just a skit on the album?

Phonte Coleman

The shit was a joke, literally. Basically, it was a joke track with me singing and a cat from the UK named Yam Who? took it and made a ten-minute megamix off that shit. It was long as hell, it was funny [sings] He did that shit for ten minutes, but when we come overseas cats would be like, “Appreciate that homie, appreciate that.”

[To sound technician] What’s your name? We’ve got to get some texts. [Technician shouts “Glyn”] Give it up for Glyn everybody.

[Applause]

Wonderful job on the floor you guys, you guys make it happen, that’s why you make the big bucks. That’s you… no, not him, you…

So, singing that shit, I just did it as a joke and my singer’s alter-ego name was Percy Miracles. I say it was, because now Percy is dead.

Jeff Mao

Percy’s dead?

Phonte Coleman

I ain’t told you about it? Ah shit! I thought you knew.

Jeff Mao

Well, play it anyway.

Phonte Coleman

I’ll tell you about it, then we’ll talk about the death of Percy. It’s not my singing that’s dead, just my character Percy. OK, let me go here, Little Brother. This is off our first album and basically it’s a joke track called “Make Me Hot.” Our producer 9th used to work with a lot of cats around the way and shit. Motherfuckers would come to the studio unprepared, not knowing what they wanted to do, and we called it the “Make Me Hot” syndrome. “What you want to sing about?” “I don’t know.” “What’s your hook?” “I don’t know. Just make me hot, man, just make it hot.” So I wrote a song about it, just joking, and it became a phenomenon.

(music: Little Brother – “Make Me Hot” / applause)

That was the spark of the Percy revolution. Percy was my alter-ego, an amalgamation of my favorite blues singers and all my old uncles. Percy’s first appearance was on The Listening, then when The Minstrel Show came around the album was set up like Saturday Night Live and Percy was my musical guest and so his song was called “Cheating,” which was my attempt at an R.Kelly/Ron Isley duet. Again, this is all just jokes and shit. So, this is “Cheating” from The Minstrel Show, Percy Miracles featuring Mr Diggs.

(music: Little Brother – “Cheatin’” / applause)

Jeff Mao

Now, that’s not easy to do.

Phonte Coleman

It really is, man.

Jeff Mao

To simulate that type of R.Kelly track?

Phonte Coleman

It’s easier than you think, man. It really is.

Jeff Mao

To do it that precisely?

Phonte Coleman

Well, thank you, I appreciate that brother.

Jeff Mao

I always thought that could be released as a single.

Phonte Coleman

And that is why Percy’s dead, that’s why I had to kill him. It’s over. The thing is – and I wrote a blog about this on MySpace – the thing is we’re in a different day. Percy Miracles is someone I created to do the wild, crazy, stupid outlandish shit I like to do. So, I did the “Make Me Hot” shit, I did “Cheatin’,” and the funny thing is, after it was over I sat back and thought this was some of the most ignorant shit ever. That was supposed to illustrate the point of The Minstrel Show, of what music has kind of become.

We did “Cheatin’,” and I’m thinking I have the ignorant crown, then two weeks later R.Kelly came out with “Trapped In the Closet.” Next to “Trapped In the Closet,” “Cheating” sounds like fucking Luther Vandross, it sounds just like a regular song. It was at that point I realized that was one. But it’s a hard line to do parody, particularly with black music and hip-hop and R&B, because very often it parodies itself. The thing about Percy is if motherfuckers don’t think it’s a joke, then the joke is on you. And I ain’t going out like that.

Jeff Mao

Otherwise, we would’ve invited Percy.

Phonte Coleman

Then Percy could’ve come. I don’t know if his visa is right, he had a couple of warrants out on him, couldn’t cross the border. But it’s a different era. You have kids now that... When we was coming up, “The Humpty Dance” was... we had our novelty records too. We had “Humpty Dance” and “Whoop (There It Is)” and we had those kind of fun novelty records too, but those were the exception. Nowadays, the novelty records are the rule, so I just decided it was just way too dangerous for me to play on trying to mock and trying to parody that stuff, because a lot of the shit on the radio now is a fucking parody. I had to be more responsible, I guess.

Jeff Mao

Let me ask you something, because just going off of the experience with Atlantic and everything, you had mentioned not slipping into the trap of being so-called the “angry rapper,” the “mad rapper,” a bitter sort of critic, and the thing about an album like that, to me, is, even though you have a track like that, it’s not a track that’s complaining about everything. To me, I don’t get that from your music as far as it being just a gripe session all the time, so I don’t know. Is there something you can speak to about being wary of that and falling into that kind of persona? I think it happens with a lot of underground cats.

Phonte

It did. I guess with now, which a lot of y’all know, one of the biggest words in the music vocabulary that I just fucking can’t stand is the word “hate,” or “hater.” It’s like you can’t have a fucking opinion, you’re automatically, “Oh, you a hater, son. You hating. You hating.” It’s just a word that’s used to dismiss and to excuse a lot of bullshit, and it’s just like, “Dude, if I don’t like your music, that’s not hate, it’s just…” There’s a lot of stuff that sells that I understand why it sells, and I get it. I understand that there’s a market for it and I understand why it moves, so when I say I don’t like it, it’s not that I’m hating, it’s just not for me. It’s not intended for… I’m not the demographic for that type of record.

As far as us being like, “hip-hop haters” or whatever, being seen in that light, I think it’s like, for you, because you know the music, you get where we’re coming from, because we’re from the same era, more or less, but the casual music-listeners now, “hate” is like a part of their vocabulary, so if they don’t see you just falling in line and doing everything that everybody else is doing, they assume you’re a hater.

Taking that into consideration for the next record, it was just, we’re working on the new album now, and the new album is called Getback, which we’re supposed to have out in the spring. It’s kind of like taking everything that happened with The Minstrel Show, internalizing it and really making sense of it all. Looking back on the record, I still think it was a great record and I’m still proud of it, but I don’t like the way I handled it. I think I took a lot of stuff to heart when I really didn’t have to. I started caring about shit that didn’t matter.

I would encourage you, if more and more of you go into the business, one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard is from a singer called Eric Roberson who was a singer out of Jersey, and he said, “Man, the main reason why we do music is so when we do, it feels like the first time.” And to me that summed it up perfectly because that’s the reason why we do it.

Looking back on my career and the dips and the dives and the curves in a short time, I started caring about shit that didn’t matter. I was watching SoundScan, reading radio spin charts, doing all that shit. If you’re a businessman you have to protect your business and get into it, but as an artist, why the fuck am I reading this? I’ve never read Billboard a day in my life. Why the fuck do I care and why the fuck am I looking at charts and sales figures? That’s for my label to do, not me.

And so with Getback, the new album, it’s just about us – or me personally, I can’t speak for the whole group – but when I first started writing rhymes I didn’t sit down and say, “Yo! If I write this rhyme the right way Clear Channel is going to play my shit all day.” Or, “BET is going to have my video on smash.” I didn’t care about that shit, and so when I found myself starting to think that way I had to fall back and take inventory. That’s what I’d say to each and every one of you [to audience]: to keep whatever is in you that wants to make music, to keep that close, keep it as pure as possible because once you lose that, it’s a wrap.

Jeff Mao

I just want to open this up to questions, Phonte, pass the mic around.

Audience Member

I want to ask about the BET situation a year ago, when they said they refused to air your video because they deemed it too intelligent for their target audience. They stepped back and played it on the late-night show. How do you view that situation one year later?

Phonte Coleman

Man, the BET situation. For those of you who may not know, BET is Black Entertainment Television in the States and we did a video for our first single from The Minstrel Show called “Lovin’ It”, and the video for me was normal, but they didn’t play it. The word that we got, the word that circulated on the Internet and everywhere, was that they didn’t play it because it was too intelligent for their target audience. I’m not making this up, I swear to God.

So that was it. If ever there was a time when I realized The Minstrel Show was not going to do that well, that was one of the moments. Look, I swear to god, so many times, I’m not a big believer in omens, but there were so many omens right from the jump. The first day we came to Atlantic to promote the album on its day of release it was raining. We were up in Atlantic, 28 floors up, looking out over the city and it was gloomy and stormy, it was all fucked up.

Then the BET thing jumped off and nobody from the label came to our rescue, nobody in the building fought for us. What ended up happening, BET issued a statement saying, “We have the right to play what we want to play. We can’t confirm that that was said.” Basically, giving niggas a stiff -off. So, the single dropped in August; sometime around October, November they played the video for a week, just to prove a point and then the shit was over. By that time it was a little too late because the record was out. Looking back, I look on BET and outlets like that the same way I look at radio.

Was my music too intelligent for their audience? I don’t think so, but if you take “Laffy Taffy,” “Chicken Noodle Soup,” “Peanut Butter & Jelly,” “Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It” and “Lovin’ It,” what stands out in this picture? But for me, I’m done with complaining about the media outlets and the radio. They’re going to do what they’re going to do, I’m more concerned with trying to find other outlets, taking it into our own hands and building up some shit for people like us. Let them niggas have that shit [waves hand dismissively].

Audience Member

First up, much respect for your work. It’s an honor and a pleasure to have you here. On that note where you’re just explaining I’m wondering where you are now label-wise.

Phonte Coleman

We’re still on Atlantic. We had meetings with the label a couple of weeks ago. Going into the new record everyone’s aware of the mistakes that happened on the last one. They’re aware of where they fucked up, we’re aware of where we fucked up. At least this time, everyone is going into it with a clearer picture. I didn’t want to turn this into an Atlantic records bitch-fest because it’s not, they don’t deserve that. They certainly made mistakes, but so did we. Going into this record it looks like things will be better, but we’ll all just wait and see. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, man, or you’ll be assed out. That shit be over.

Audience Member

I have a question.

Phonte Coleman

No, son, no.

[Laughter]

Audience Member

Why would you [do] me like that on TV? [Laughs] No, how much of a factor do you think payola has to do with an artist like yourself not being played on urban radio?

Phonte Coleman

Payola, if you don’t know, is an old-school term that basically means pay-for-play. If I know [Jeff] Mao was the hot new program director at Hot Foxy 109.7, then I’m coming in going, “Yo, Mao, how’s it going, brother? I’ve got this new Oddisee record for you man, and I’ve got a little something for your troubles.” [Passes over envelope] It was basically just paying for play. People have different views on it. I think people should do whatever they want to do to get heard.

If you want to give a DJ some money to play your record, then that’s what you want to do, but the problem is the little guy gets taken out. The golden rule is whoever has the gold makes the rules, that’s how that shit works. That’s one side. Another side, that I think a lot of people aren’t aware of, is some records do get through the cracks, but the thing is it’s a question of demographics.

Radio isn’t about selling music, it’s about selling silence. To advertisers. So at the end of the day, I don’t give a fuck how great your song is, you may have written a great opus that’s going to change the world, but if 14-year-old girls aren’t ringing up my phones requesting that shit, I don’t give a damn. I’m trying to sell tickets to the Summer Jam and I’m trying to get this advertiser to buy some more time, so if they aren’t reacting to it, sorry. You can pay me all you want. It’s double-edged; payment does happen and repetition is law, the more and more you play something, it’s going to catch on.

But I think it’s more to do with your snap records, your real simple “Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It,” things that are really easy to remember. A song like “Lovin’ It” or “Don’t Feel Right” by The Roots or “Kick Push” or “I Gotcha” by Lupe Fiasco, I don’t care how much you play them, it’s still like you’re trying to feed steaks to babies.

I have a friend, who works in a radio station, and they had an online contest to vote on what song would go on rotation. One was an “underground artist,” one of us, I guess, and the other was a New York street rapper. Of course, it was online so the underground guy won because all the nerds come out in full force, “I’m voting ten times, fuck that!” So the underground guy won by about 80%, so they go to the program director and say the underground guy won. So he asked where he’s from.

“He’s from New York.”

“OK, where’s the other guy from?”

“He’s from New York, too.”

“Who do the kids like?”

“The kids like the street guy, I guess.”

“OK, we’re going to put that on rotation.”

So, once again, it all comes down to advertising. Even though the guy won the popular vote, it was on the Internet. And I guess that comes back to the popular hype and believing who you are.

If I’m a radio program director, am I going to believe more in a bunch of geek motherfuckers just spamming on the Internet or am I going to believe those 15-year-olds calling in, “Yo, put that on rotation”? It’s fucked up all around. Payola does still exist, but from where I’m sitting it’s not as black and white as it is, particularly for stuff that we do. It’s just a different ball game.

Audience Member

You mentioned earlier that you spent time looking at charts and things that you didn’t need to. What did you do to switch off from that? Because I think, in the UK, it’s quite a small net of DJs and they’ve got their favorites and sometimes they’ll be supportive, but then for no reason they’ll switch. I think that’s just DJs anyway. Sometimes you don’t want to make music for them, which you shouldn’t do anyway, but if I see them out…

Phonte Coleman

You mean there’s going to be a problem? Consequences and repercussions?

Audience Member

Yeah, sometimes I just start to hate every DJ. How do you switch off from that and still keep making music?

Phonte Coleman

The thing about DJs in the commercial radio you’ve got to understand, they’re fucking employees. DJs do not break records no more. Getting mad at a DJ for not playing your record is like getting mad at the nigga who works at McDonald’s for not making a bun with no sesame seeds on it. It’s like, “This is in the McDonalds textbook. Every bun has got to have sesame seeds on it. Every Big Mac is going to be two meat patties, there’s your sauce, there’s your cheese, here’s your pickle on a sesame seed bun. You want me to take something off, I can take it off. You want me to put something on, you want a Big Mac with bacon on it, I can’t do that. That’s not in the Big Mac handbook, baby. I can lose my job, nigga.”

That’s essentially what radio DJs are, they’re fucking employees. They’re told what to play, when to play it and how often. So as far as wanting to choke a motherfucker, just realize their position. Dude, at the end of the day, you’ve got a job to do. I’m not going to tell you how to do it, I’m going to find my own shit. With all the media shit and the advent of MySpace. YouTube is pretty much like my MTV 2 now. I see shit on YouTube that I’d watch on TV. Shit like that, until it eventually gets gobbled up and becomes some corporate shit, but we’ve got it for now.

[To sound technician] OK, Glyn, I’m not taking questions from her [laughs].

Audience Member

I was just wondering why you’re called Little Brother.

Phonte Coleman

Why? I normally fault people who ask that question, but you get a pass because I’m overseas. Normally, it’s journalists and I tell this long drawn out story about having a baby brother who died from leukemia and they believe me. They’ll be crying and I’ll burst out laughing, just having a little fun. When we were thinking of names, we just thought of shit that looked good on paper. We wrote down a load of names. Little Brother, that works.

Eventually, it came to have the meaning of us being the little brothers of all these groups we grew up listening to from my era. Public Enemy, NWA, Geto Boys, Tribe, De La, all those groups are like our bigger brothers in the game, we grew up watching them and idolizing them. Once we got the ball, and could run the game ourselves, we were like the little brothers following in their footsteps, just following the tradition of making good music. That’s where the name came from.

Jeff Mao

It’s not the anti-Big Brother.

Audience Member

Who or what is blowing your mind right now?

Phonte Coleman

I listen to so much shit. I listen to so much stuff, so it depends what kind of mood I’m in. This is one of my favorite songs from an unlikely source. Anyone who can guess what this is, I’ll give them the CD. [To Jeff Mao] Not you, I know you know. He was big in the ’80s, but his ’80s stuff was kind of pop, though he had some good songs. But in the early ’80s he had some joints, this was one of my dance joints, my stepping out shit.

(music: Billy Ocean – “Night (Feel Like Getting Down)”)

Anyone know who that is?

Audience Member

Billy Ocean.

Phonte Coleman

That was before “Get Out Of My Dreams, Get Into My Car.”

Jeff Mao

That’s on the Jane Fonda Workout.

Phonte Coleman

Are you bullshitting? I don’t know if the cat from Fat Freddy’s Drop is still here. This is actually a remix that Jazzanova did of a song of theirs called “Flashback.” People ask about music that blows my mind, well, Jazzanova and the whole Sonar Kollektiv family, their shit is kind of mind-boggling.

(music: Fat Freddy’s Drop – “Flashback” (Jazzanova’s Breathe Easy Mix))

That shit is hard-nosed.

[Music stops / applause]

This a trumpeter from Finland whose name is Jukka Eskola. The name of this song is “1974” and when my man sent this to me I really thought it was from 1974, but it’s only two years old. This is like salsa dancing, this is my salsa shit.

(music: Jukka Eskola – “1974”)

That’s that fire… Shit like that is inspiring to me. Now, I listen to all my art shit, the “good fight shit,” but at the end of the day I am a black man from the South and you’ve got to remind someone once in a while. Sometimes I feel like being just that, I’m bumpin’ this.

(music: Project Pat – “Chicken Head”)

Fuck, that’s my jam.

[Applause]

Jeff Mao

I think Steve had a question.

Audience Member

Yeah, I’ve got a question. What were the terms of the deal at Atlantic, if you don’t mind talking about it?

Phonte Coleman

The terms? Pretty much that we’ve got this album and then after that, who knows?

Jeff Mao

A couple of days ago, when Cut Chemist was here, he was talking about not having an option on the next album and how that affected some of his push, because the label didn’t feel like they had something that was going to pay off towards the next one. You know how a coach who’s in the last year of their contract, people feel like they’re a lame duck. With you guys it’s early in the process but…

Phonte Coleman

We still have albums up on our contract. They guaranteed for us to do two records. They guaranteed us that, then it goes to options… We’ll put it out, and the way the game is now, if this one does good, then we’ll have another record on Atlantic. If it doesn’t, I don’t think we will, quite honestly. The thing that made labels great in the past, was every label had a superstar that finances all the flops. Interscope has a Black Eyed Peas and a 50 Cent that helps pay for all the Interpols of the world.

But now, the sales are down so much they’re ain’t no more superstars and the superstars that are out there ain’t selling what they used to sell. So every label is counting the pennies because the whole thing of this guy financing all the little guys, well, this guy isn’t even financing his own record anymore. So it’s become even more dog-eat-dog kind of cut-throat thing, because the labels are just hemorrhaging money from all over.

So with us, I just think it’s going to be a thing where they’ll see the reaction we get and go from there. For me, I just know the music we make and the stuff that we do, no matter where we land, I’m going to land on my feet. Whether it’s at Atlantic or Homeboy on the Corner records, I’m just going to do me, do whatever I do.

[Applause]

I want to do this as a challenge. This is a song that I really love and I want to offer a sample challenge to anyone who’s a producer. If y’all want to take this shit and chop it up, see if you can make something dope, we’ll do a song, try to do something. I love this song, but I don’t know if you’ll think it’s gay, can’t be chopped up. This is by a group called Free Design, from the late ’60s/’70s, like an East Coast answer to The Mamas & Papas and they did a cover of “Light My Fire” by The Doors. I’m a big fan of harmonies, and I want to see if we can chop this up.

(music: The Free Design – “Light My Fire”)

That shit feels you’re on top of some shit… This is my jam right here, of everything that’s out right now, some may consider it a guilty pleasure, but I don’t believe in guilty pleasures because why should you feel guilty about something you’re getting pleasure from? This is my jam right now, there’s nothing topping this now.

(music: Omarion – “Entourage”)

When we go the club, who was the DJ in the club last night?

[Several hands raise]

Can you just run that by for me tonight one time? Are you in the club? [inaudible comment] I gotcha. Round of applause for Judith, everybody.

[Applause]

Hey, love what you’re doing, that’s why you’re making big bucks, I took them from him and gave them to you. That’s music that makes me feel, the “SexyBack” song, that’s supposed to be really sexy, but it doesn’t affect me like that Omarion. That just makes me want to put water on my chest and watch it glisten.

[Laughter]

Or put a light on me and get a pedicure and walk barefoot through some sand. As soon as that shit comes on how can you all sit still when that beat drops?

[Plays wrong track]

Jeff Mao

That one, too.

Phonte Coleman

Just watch that sexy look that comes on their faces. You can’t front on that shit.

(music: Omarion – “Entourage”)

It’s undeniable. You’re gonna playing that tonight? I’m gonna step hard.

Jeff Mao

Does anybody else have any questions?

Audience Member

On the next Little Brother album, do you think you’ll have many guests?

Phonte Coleman

Well, we do have one that I think is going to surprise a lot of people. The song we came up with is really dope. On this one, we’re probably going to reach out to a couple of people.

Jeff Mao

Too early to say?

Phonte Coleman

Too early to say and then, too, we’ve still got to build up who we are. It’s kind of hard to get the crazy big names and work that as a single because people still don’t have an idea of who Little Brother is. So, it’s hard if you put out “Little Brother featuring Justin Timberlake!” That’s going to do more for Justin than it’s going to do for us. Just using him as an example, I don’t know him. We are going to have a few key guests but other than that it’s going to be kind of spare. A lot of outside production, though, a lot of new producers. Not new, but you know.

Jeff Mao

Outside of 9th? What’s the conscious decision as far as that goes?

Phonte Coleman

We’ve got to grow. There’s a lot of cats we’ve always wanted to work with, like Premo, he reached out to us. Just Blaze is a real big fan and big supporter, Nottz from Virginia, Alchemist. There’s just so much more. I think with all of our past records they were defined by the sound, the sound kept it together, but with the new record I think it’ll be me and Pooh are going to be the glue that keeps it all together, so it’s going to be a different experience. We’re six tracks deep in so far and I’m having the time of my life.

Audience Member

Are there any future collaborations with Nicolay?

Phonte Coleman

Yeah, me and Nic are talking about that, we’re pre-planning the new Foreign Exchange record. We’ve got to finish the Little Brother album first, by about December. We’ll probably start a new FE record by about February, but we’ve definitely got plans to do another one.

Jeff Mao

Anybody else?

(music: Omarion – “Entourage”)

Phonte Coleman

That shit’s cold, y’all know it. Any more questions?

Jeff Mao

Alright, if you got more questions, you know that he’ll be around. Thank you.

[Applause]

Phonte Coleman

I just want to say thank y’all. Y’all too kind, thank you, thank you. No, I’ve always wanted to do something like this. I was telling Jeff [Mao] earlier, I shy away from things like this because I feel it’s kind of presumptuous and big-headed to assume a bunch of motherfuckers want to hear you yammer for an hour. So I try to keep it interesting, keep it fun. But I thank you, this has been an incredible experience.