BLEU COLLAR  (July 2006) | Interview By: Justin

   

As ever you can read this exclusive Dubcnn interview and we urge you to leave feedback on our forums or email them to justin@dubcnn.com.

..........................................................................................

Full Video Interview available Here
 

..........................................................................................

Dubcnn: This is dubcnn and we're here with Bleu Collar today. For all those who don't know why don’t you give yourselves a brief introduction.

Basik: Bleu Collar. I'm Basik.
Reese One: I'm Reese One, Chuck Taylor, Yosemite Sam, and all that good stuff, still got the yayo for the kids.


Dubcnn: How did you guys link up initially to form the group Bleu Collar?

B: Through a mutual friend. We have a good buddy, a good buddy by the name of Mark Anthony Edwards. He basically just put us together, he just kept on going back and forth between us telling us "I got a homie that can rhyme. I got a homie that can rhyme." We were like “Whatever, whatever.” We started hanging out on some regular stuff, just all three of us kicking it. I was working on some music, asked Reese to come in to do a song with me and it came out real good. We just took it from there. Bleu Collar, all the way live.


Dubcnn: You guys just recently released a mixtape called “Los Angeles Designer Music Vol 1.”. In the past you have also released the "Street Exclusive" mixtape as well as the Bleu Collar self titled album. Why don’t speak about all the music that you've released.

R: We put out our first cd years ago. It was just a self titled album, Bleu Collar. Little while after that, we weren’t ready to do another album, but we had to put out some more music, so we came out with that first little “Street Exclusives” mixtapes. We try to make it a little different than regular mixtapes where people just spew out a bunch of verses over the best shit, we try to pick up pretty good beats and some old school shit, and actually make a whole new song out of the beat,and that’s what “Designer Music” came from, because it was like some of our favorite beats but we made brand new songs out of these whole beats, so you didn’t get no chicken shit mixtape. And we were giving them away for free, we weren’t even selling it. So you get sixteen some songs of us straight spittin for free, and it cost a lot of money to put these things out. That shit is not free for us to make, but it’s free for you to have.

B: It also speaks to the idea of our Bleu Collar group-dom and everything. Designer Music is basically the upper echelon of this west coast rap, or just rap period, excuse me.


Dubcnn: You guys got a new album called “Grand Classic” coming out in Spring (2006). Why don’t you talk about the blueprint of that album, and who you have on the production layout, and what you have planned for that album.

R: One thing, we don’t know if its going to be called “Grand Classic.” We think we can do better than that. I think that we are creative enough to come up with a better name than Grand Classic. Now you can tell them about the album..

B: Basically we are trying to compile that by summertime, by summertime we’re are trying to drop that. Before that we are going to do a Bleu Collar live project. just to keep the name out there. One of our strong points is our performances, so we definitely want to keep that out there, as far as audio and video, we’re going to have that for sale. It’s going to be online. From there we are just going to compile thirty songs hopefully, maybe more, and then cut them down to size, come out with probably the best ten, that’ll be the new Bleu Collar album for the summertime for you to knock.

R: Most likely by July we'll be ready, we got a bunch of producers on this one we got Slant, Eligh, Champ, Cas he got us some slump, [B: Swift D who works with the Pacific Division],.. and Exile. These are people we have actively wrote songs to. We got some shit, that next album is going to be stupid dumb dumb.


Dubcnn: Basik, you’re also an extended member of the Living Legends, like extended family [B: Like Capadonna] Why don’t you speak about your experiences with them, and how you became a part of the family.

Basically, my cousin Eligh who is part of the Living Legends, obviously, if anybody is a Living Legends fan. When he became a part of Living Legends, he invited me down to the Bay where they were selling tapes on Telegraph and everything. Up up to the Bay, excuse me not down to the Bay. We came down here, finally after he asked me a few times, we started making music with everybody, with him, with Murs, with PSC, with the whole crew. We all got along real well, everybody liked the way I was rhyming and everything, they kind of just pulled me in, and its like “Man, stay on board.” but I was headed off to school. I was in Atlanta, kind of far away, but when I came back, I always did music with those guys. They always pulled me in on shows. After all my solo efforts, as far as CDs went and projects went, they always take me out on the road with them and stuff like that. That’s basically how it happened, it’s all through Eligh. We just kept it moving from then on. Same thing happen when I started with Reese doing Bleu Collar. Those are still my folks, they have shows and things like that, they invite us to down to come do songs within their set, or open up, or whatever may have you, and just take it from there.

R: Those are his people, those guys are cool. At first we were pretty much only associated with them, even as far as their website on their forum and shit like that. Everything is still all gravy, we kind of do two totally different things. We all spitters, we don’t rely on them like we did when we first started coming up. They helped us get in there, but now we grinding with our own thing. Eligh still does beats for us, hopefully we get a couple beats from Grouch and things like that. Now Bleu Collar is doing the Bleu Collar thang.

B: That’s something I’d like to add as well is the fact that we started our own lane. The people that promote and do tours and show for people like Living Legends, they kind of listen to us or look at us as a little bit too mainstream, I don’t know if that’s the word, but too mainstream for that crowd. The mainstream promoters and tour cats look at us as too left field for their crowd. We were pretty much forced, which was not a problem, to show that we have a fan base, show that we have a lane to run, and that we have created a path for ourselves. If you come to “99 cent Special” or any of our shows, ..Temple bar shows.

R: Any show we ever do. We did The Viper Room. That was just off our plug, that was off our people around us, Jaime, Jason, us, hustlin and getting them plugs, we gets busy. You put us in somewhere we are going to rock it.


Dubcnn: Now Reese I know you began rhyming at early age and you were heavy on the battling circuit, how does that help you develop as an MC to where you’re at now?

Shit, thats just my style, its kind of agressive rap style, just because I did used to battle a lot. Coming up through high school, that was what was in at the time, cypher circles and shit, I came up through the ranks, the Project Blowed, the Good Lifes. Those are west coast underground spots and things like that. Even when /gabah/ used to have their battling. I even had my ass handed to me a few times. It developed my style, more of a battle style. I wasn’t never like a really hip hoppy type of person. I just knew how to rap . It was just kind of like hood shit, mixed more with hip hop shit, like Ice Cube ran into the Souls of Mischief. That’s my style, Its hip hoppy, its edgy, its aggressive, its battly, I used to listen to Alkaholiks a lot. I used to love the way Tash rap. He was hard but he was still hip hop. He wasn’t talkin about no space ship shit, because I couldn’t stand that type of music. I couldn’t stand motherfuckers talking out of their head, pullin big words out of his ass. Tash was still hip hop but he had a nice sort of bounce and cadence to his shit, and that’s just how I kind of spit now.


Dubcnn: Basik you also have released two albums before, “Apex Predator”, and "At the Mercy of the City" and also contributing to the "Righteous Brothers Project". How do you see yourself as evolving artistically or musically through these different albums and till now?

B: Basically all I do, a year or so later after you make those projects, after you’re high off yourself, “I’m finished with the project, and it sounds dope” and all that kind of stuff, you go back and you listen to it and then you start seeing the flaws within the music. You listen to certain people, theres certain people that I like as MC, and I say “What do I like about their flow or their music?”, and then I go back and listen to my old stuff, and then say “Well, I’m not doing that”. Not necessarily writing the actual lyrics, just the way people rap, the cadence they hold, the styles they choose, how many times they switch up their style. That goes through my head. It’s all a part of song making. You can be the best lyricist, but you need the best beat, and you need a good hook. You need all that kind of stuff. What are the little things that can compile all of that stuff? That goes into mind. I listen to those old albums kind of like a boxer would watch old fight tapes of himself, “So this is where I mess up, so the next project I don’t want to do that.” What I do is refer back, right now what I’m going to do is listen to “Los Angeles Designer Music”, when I listen to that, “How was I rapping on there?” On certain songs I don’t like this, I don’t like that. Make sure that its trump tight for the next Bleu Collar album, thats how I go about it.


Dubcnn: Considering that your music isn't geared towards the gangsters, nor the backpackers like you were saying before, do you feel that it helps to appeal to a wider audience or has it created setbacks?

B: I think its real life. I think thats the most human thing to do. People are mainly in between, a lot of people really aren't one or the other. Most people like some ignorant type stuff. and they also like some positive things in their life. Thats just human. Thats what made 2pac so famous.

R: You know what I think though? For some reason, everybody likes gangster shit. If we went full fledge gangster, it would probably be easier, even the nerdiest nerd wants to look in the mirror and rap some gangster shit, but this is for the normal people. We make music for people that got sense in they head. Get a little ignorant, get a little smart, its your everyday struggle.

B: Like I said its the most human thing that we can convey. The fact that sometimes we can talk about some hard stuff, some shit thats violent, whatever may have you, ignorant, carrying on, thats human, thats what everybody does. Then we can get on something thats considered conscious, considered in depth, and all kinds of innuendos and complexities, thats just life, Everybody is like that. You know sometimes you sit with your boy have a deep conversation. Sometimes you're all just clowning and collar poppin. That's what we do, we talk about actual life. We don't act like we tough all day. We don't act like we rich all day. We don't act like we playing guitar and hugging trees all day and talking about moon stars and quasars. We talking about what we do, and that’s a myriad of things. I think we're the most honest group to come out in hip hop, period.


Dubcnn: With the radio and television generally overlooking west coast hip hop, taking in case the recent cancellation of "Friday Night Flavas", as an up and coming MC, what are some of the obstacles that you guys have had to overcome?

R: Well my man, Flossy Jason Brown, has sent out a petition to get "Friday Night Flavas back on the air. In one night, over a period of a day, over a thousand motherfuckers have signed the petition. There's all kind of obstacles coming up in LA, being independent...they just not going to play you. All you can do is stay on your mash, keep making good music, until they are forced to play you by other people, until the public says "You got to put that on the radio. You gotta do this you gotta do that." I mean L.A., being from here, from the land of everybodys on the fuckin guest list, don't nobody really wanna hear your shit. So for us to even accomplish the shit that we've accomplished, as far as having residencies and shit like that, and packing them out every time, is fucking crazy. Because everyone in L.A. is a star, and they got their own agenda, and I love my city, but not everyone's a star. We need more fans, less stars. More fans. If I couldn't rap, I wouldn't be doing it. I would be supporting somebody else that actually knew how to do it. I don't know how to fuckin dance, so I'm not going to try to start a dance troupe. I'm not fashion forward, so I'm not going to start a clothing company or anything of that nature . Just don't do what you don't already know how to do. or w hat you been doing for years, because then you fucking it up. We don’t have an agreement, everyone split. That's an obstacle that everyone thinks they're important. There’s not that many important people.

B: It’s no secret you gotta pay to play. You got a bunch of money behind you, you can probably get a whole lot further than we have right now in a week, than we have in the past three, four, five years. But to me, I mean we’ve never, even the people that surround us that work with us as a team, we never been the ones to have all the super duper high up connection, so we really have to work for what we get. I’m really happy for the position we have now because it shows that we’ve really been on our grind, Whether between us, or our whole crew, whether we’ve feel like we’ve worked hard enough or not, we've worked harder than a lot of people out there that are trying to get their name out. We really get what we deserve basically, its tough, we ain’t got a lot of money behind us at all. It’s all grind, it’s all word of mouth, we're old schoolin it. It’s off true talent, that’s it. If people like our stuff, it goes further, if they dont, then it doesn’t get past their mouth or mind. So that’s how we kinda putting it, we puttin all our marbles into it, that’s how we doing it, so hopefully people pick up on us. So far it’s been working, we have a good fanbase, larger than a lot of people that seem to be closing to signing records deals. People that have signed record deals, haven’t put in nearly as much work as we have.

R: We’ll always be around, we’ll always keep that integrity. We’re not going to pull some bullshit stunt to get on a radio. If that means we top out at selling 75,000 to a 100,000 records of each release, that’ll be what it is. We'll all still live and eat, our kids will go to private school and colleges. We’ll always be around. We'll be Frankie Beverly and Maze. We’ll be fifty years old.

B: I’ll say it right now. I told Reese this, I told my man Jaime this. I told them “If we are not the people that change hip hop and come out and be as big as Dre and Snoop were when they dropped The Chronic, we'll be the people that spark the dude to be the biggest thing to come out as Dre and Snoop were when they dropped The Chronic.” Thats it, Bleu Collar man. I’m serious, its like the bidness


Dubcnn: Attending a few of your live shows, its refreshing to see a hip hop group with as much energy and stage presence as you guys. I also like how you guys often trade verses with each other back n forth, it reminds me of the classic hip hop tracks, what qualities do you think make you stand out?

B: That, what you just said, all of that stuff. The quality of our show. As far as technology has come these days, anybody can make CDs and make music these days. Its pretty simple for people to get down, make a beat, make a rap, and put it on CD and present it to anybody on the streets. There’s all those other elements in that, there’s the show, the cadence, the switch off, that really shows you’re a team. I’m really a hip hop enthusiast. I look at the old school, like Wild Style, I watch the Furious 5 all those cats, Grandmaster Caz, and they go back and forth. They do things together, they switch off and its without a hitch. They’re cool, there’s no denying it. I try and Reese try as much as possible to make Bleu Collar the biggest cohesive unit on stage, between us and Phyz Ed on stage, we make it like “Man, these dudes must have practiced for ages to make this show this hot.”

R: Going back to one of your previous question, like how we came up through battling. When you was in a circle in high school, you were putting on a show. Like when you was battling, you was rappin, you were spittin your verse you were putting on a show . In essence, we’ve been putting on shows for years, just not together. A lot of people just started rapping, and didn’t come up doing that. They don’t have that presence, so when they get in front of people, they stand in one spot, and deliver their little song exactly as it sounds on the radio, and thats that, but we’ve been performing forever. When we get together, and we get to mashin, it’s all rockout time. That’s the best part, that’s the funnest part of this whole thing is doing the show. I ain’t no nigga liking to sit in the studio all day, but when it’s show time, that’s fun, that’s when all eyes on you.

B: That’s your direct interaction with your fans, or people that are not your fans that you are trying to convert into your fans. That’s the first time they'll ever get to see and hear you without a video. They can actually touch your hand, they can see how you are, they can see how you move, they can see you mess up. That’s like the realest situation ever. It’s not just somebody putting a CD into a car, like “Listen to my homies,” everybody got a cd like I said before. This is really show and prove. Are your songs tight? Are your verses tight? Are your hooks tight? Is your stage presence tight? What I do, and I know my man Floss J does this a lot too, if I ever go to a show or a concert of someone I want to see, I’m looking at it because I want to enjoy it, but at the forefront of the mind, what are they doing right? What are they doing wrong? If it was the livest show in the world, what did they do that I never did in my show. If it was an okay show, what did they do wrong that didn’t get me into this show? I really think about that kind of stuff. I’m really like an athlete. I’m really trying to practice and make sure its all the way tight.