It's May 23, 2024, 05:31:52 AM
Great!!! Gonna read this later on. Props, Lunatic.
RAPTALK.NET: Your answer plays perfectly into my next question. The track has a real old school feeling to it. How is that you’ve been able to maintain such a consistent sound throughout your career and still remain relevant?I appreciate the sentiment. Staying true to what I do. I think when people look to me for the music I make; they look to me for a very specific sound. They look for socially relevant content. They look for music that is consistently along the same vein of what they’ve come to expect; rarely do you get surprises from me. I pretty much stay in my lane when it comes to what I do when I make Paris records. The music is almost always funk and rock inspired hip-hop and the words always reflect the times. I always reflect the needs for continuing the fight for social justice and for wanting to see us do better. RAPTALK.NET: Rarely do we get surprises from Paris, but I think your one of the few artists out there that has a fan base who doesn’t want or need any surprises. You give them what they expect of you. It’s always creative and unique in its own way.Thank you, I appreciate it. There’s no worse feeling than taking another artist’s project that you love and followed there entire career; getting home and they go off and a tandem that is so far removed what you expect that the project falls flat for you. Ofcourse everybody wants to grow and as an artist you want to grow and do different things and experiment with different sounds and techniques; ofcourse you wouldn’t be an artist if you didn’t want to grow - but never lose sight of what people are into you for. I always keep that in the back of my mind. For the people who have followed me my entire career, and dig what I do – I mean I’m almost four million records deep independently, I have to recognize the fact that they expect certain things of me when I make records; I always keep that in the back of my mind. I always keep that in mind. RAPTALK.NET: The second track on the album is entitled “So what” and you show off your storytelling skills on this one. Tell us how you come up with the concepts for your music and do you feel like today’s hip-hop artists lack such story telling abilities?Not necessarily; there are plenty artists who tell better stories than me, honestly (laughs). Again, I wanted to create music that has this ongoing threat of consciousness throughout it. It could be a kind of story telling song like on “So what” which basically showcases different scenarios in a community and the pressure that a lot of people feel within’ the context of our community. It could be something that is just an up-tempo, feel good song like “Don’t Stop the Movement.” There different approaches to getting to the same place – and really that place that I’m trying to get to, is make life affirming music that people can feel good about and I won’t be ashamed of in a few years. I can say I did my part. There are hella’ people in the game that can’t say that. There are tons of folks that make music when they look back on in a few years and wonder what the hell they were doing. The shit that they talk about is stuff they’ll call into question when they get a little older or wiser; they’ll look back on it. A lot of things are going on not only in hip-hop, but in entertainment in general that people will look back on and wonder what the hell they were doing. RAPTALK.NET: Especially artists who just follow trends.Yeah; or reality show hosts (laughs).
RAPTALK.NET: That’s very honest of you to admit you wouldn’t be doing it today if you were a new artist trying to break in.Well it depends on what your motivation is. I love music and I love hip-hop when it’s done right. I probably would do it, but I would not do it on the level that I’m doing it now. I just did a deal with Universal for Guerilla Funk so were distributed globally. There going to have different licenses in different countries for there specific markets. I don’t know if I could achieve that doing it if I was just starting. It’s easy for me to say OK I got this new Paris record, let’s ship it and ship X amount of units based on my previous sales and based on the fact that I have a name; but if I was brand new and coming out the gate trying to do it, the odds are almost insurmountable.
RAPTALK.NET: On “True” you rap “I’m a threat ‘cause mainstream rejection didn’t spook me, rappers tried to make me switch and couldn’t move me.” Do you think rappers are too quick to conform to what’s hot and what the current trends are?I think that’s so evident in the pool of producers that people pick from than it is the shit that they talk about. That’s the direction I see music go in. For a long time now, you’ve had a hand full of producers that are doing everybody. It started in R&B a while ago when Teddy Riley was doing everybody. Those same trends have become reflective in hip-hop. Now you have a hand full of hip-hop producers that do most of the music you hear on the radio and it suffers because certain trends develop that other people follow because they feel like they need to adopt these same techniques to be heard and to be relevant in the game; like this T-Pain talk box thing that I hear on everybody’s record now. That’s not necessary man. It dates you and makes all this material sound similar. I don’t need to hear Mariah Carey sing through the T-Pain talk box. RAPTALK.NET: I interviewed an artist the other day that said when T-Pain did it, was creative and agreed that is now just getting out of hand.That’s the point that I’m making. You have people that can sing. I don’t even know if Mariah did it, I’m just throwing that name out there. Really that effect is a pitch corrector for people that can’t sing; that’s supposed to get you in tune. The more gurgling and shit you hear, the more out of tune these people are signing when there are people that don’t need that that can make music that won’t irritate you; when I hear that now, I’m irritated because I’ve heard it too much. It’s something that people are utilizing as a crutch. I understand staying in your lane and wanting to be safe but what it boils down to is, what do you work for? Are you doing the art because you want to move people? Are you doing the art for yourself? Are you doing art for other people? Are you doing art because you have something that you want to say or are you just going along for the ride? That’s what it boils down to. I could make gangster rap records or party music all day long; whatever at the time was in vogue. I could have made those records all day. It’s second nature for me to make music at this point – I’ve been doing it for so long. If I wanted to chase trends and take the easy way out and make music just for the sake of making music, I could have sold even more records and gone even further in my career than taking the stance that I take which is really swimming upstream in this environment where it seems that people want to lose themselves
and it amazes me when I hear people say that I’m capitalizing on misery with records like Acid Reflex, Sonic Jihad or Bush Killer; some say that I am capitalizing on this revolutionary thought that is these themes that I talk about. Like there’s some huge financial windfall by doing what I do. (Laughs) I’m choosing the hardest route to take when it comes to making music. When people say that, I just look at them like they don’t know what the heck there talking about. RAPTALK.NET: That would be an incorrect accusation to direct at you.I got it a lot with Sonic Jihad. People said I was capitalizing on the 9/11 tragedy and all this shit. I had a lot of people actually say that to me; especially with the album cover of the airplane going into the white house. I got questioned for it and accused of just trying to make a quick buck. Nobody has made a bigger or quicker buck than the US government when it comes to 9/11 especially with it being a self-inflected wound. I point to that fact; nobody has profited more off of tragedy than the US government.
^props dre-day for your in-depth comments on the interview!
Laconic, read this: http://www.dubcnn.com/connect/index.php?topic=104193.0 anyway, about the sheep; i know why you and D~Nice really want more people to check out Paris' music, but as i've said so many times before, quantity don't equal quality some sheep deserve to get slaughtered.so i'd suggest that you keep providing the platform there will always be a few people that want to give Paris a try.
Quote from: Dre-Day on October 14, 2008, 03:03:13 PMLaconic, read this: http://www.dubcnn.com/connect/index.php?topic=104193.0 anyway, about the sheep; i know why you and D~Nice really want more people to check out Paris' music, but as i've said so many times before, quantity don't equal quality some sheep deserve to get slaughtered.so i'd suggest that you keep providing the platform there will always be a few people that want to give Paris a try.Thanks for the link. I'll have to look into that when I can And you're right-quantity doesn't equal quality. However, IMO the music people listen to sincerely reflects the their views on life-whether they be social or political issues. With that said, it's not hard to reach the conclusion that most people are indifferent or completely apathetic to what's going on. When the masses of people continue to do so, it effects my family, my friends and myself. I, as well as everyone else, only gets one go around at this life and we're all in this together. Therefore, my previous statement that we'd be better off if there were many replies and hits and purchases to relevant and revolting music today is substantiated. I'm pretty much saying that I know what's coming towards us and so many don't even know or don't even seem to care. So yeah, the sheep will definitely be slaughtered but so will the non-conformists. The more aware we are=the better for everyone.