Jurassic 5: Power Players

[Myrealname]

CDNOW: Power in Numbers definitely pushes the social agenda strongly. What inspired a song like "Freedom"?

Charlie 2na: Well, when we first heard that beat and then the chorus, we couldn't resist. I mean, the chorus was like, "Hold on to this feeling. Freedom." And we were like that shit is mad catchy. So we kept in the concept of the chorus. But when people talk about "freedom" it is so cliché. What does freedom mean to you? We were trying to make the song interesting. So we just addressed it to everyone else. What does freedom mean to you, whether it's good or bad? We just wrote it, and I'm really surprised at that. I'm glad we were able to bring back that feeling like when cats did songs like the "The Message."

How do you feel about being labeled as conscious and placed in the same category as such artists as Common, Hi-Tek, etc.?

Soup: My thing is, I don't mind being meshed with certain people. Sometimes, other people I'm not too cool with. I know they would say Common, because he makes political statements. I understand why they would say Talib [Kweli]. I have no problem with that. It doesn't bother me that much. Actually, when it first started out, I was like, "That's good." Because I was like, "They're mentioning me with cats who I respect." But now it's kind of becoming wack now, 'cause it's like, "When are you going to decide to make us individuals as opposed to lumping us into one group so you can kill two birds with one stone or six birds with one stone?"

Eventually, we do stand on our own two feet. We sound nothing like Mos Def. We sound nothing like Common. We sound nothing like Black Eyed Peas. So can you eventually just let us be J5 and roll with it like that? That's only because we don't talk about what's the norm. If we talked about what's the norm, they wouldn't label us. And since we don't, we all got to be in the same bag. And I don't like that too much. But it is what it is.

"If You Only Knew" seems like a response to those who boxed you in those "conscious" categories.

Soup: Oh, yeah. Most definitely. But it's not so much of lumping us with the conscious cats. It's basically lumping us up with, "Oh, you guys are the backpack movement." What the fuck does that man? I'm like, "Come on now." And you see us in a show, and we'll blow a kazoo, and we'll bring out instruments, and then you hear, "Oh, they're corny." No muthafucka, when you pay your money, you're not gonna get J5 to come up there and scream at a muthafucka for an hour and a half, and not give you the proper show you deserve. It's a trip to do show for people, and they complain.

See, you spend your money and just because I want to give you something different, and something that you can hold onto, you got a problem with that. That is the craziest thing to me in the world, man. I flip out on that shit. I'm like, "Yo, we're trying to give you a show, something you're not used to, and you complain about that." Then if you see Rakim performing, and Rakim is singing over his songs, you complaining about that. If you see LL Cool J up on stage, and you got girls shakin' they ass, then you complain about that. What the hell do you want? So we're going to do us. And if you get with it, great. If you don't, great. 'Cause I don't have time to cater to everybody.

How did collaborating with Big Daddy Kane and Percee P on "A Day at the Races" come about?

Soup: I love Big Daddy Kane. He was, if not the first brother, one of the first dark-skinned brothas to inspire a dark-skinned cat like myself and have the women on him. He made it acceptable to be a chocolate brotha like that and still get love. And I got a big nose too, and these big-ass eyes. So I got a few things working against me [laughs]. But it was cool to see the brotha come up and all the ladies love him. He was a thin brotha. He wasn't massively built. It was cool to see that, and plus, he was dope as hell. That, for me, was a dream come true.

Charlie 2na: Percee P is just really a cat that is majorly, majorly talented who didn't get his fair share. And I was like, we got to get done with Percee P. Cut Chemist met him outside a show of ours when he was trying to sell Cut Chemist his tape. And when Cut Chemist saw it was Percee P, he was like, "Get outta here." When that beat was done, the first person out my mouth was Percee. And Percee is one of the most humble brothas that you will ever meet. He's almost like timid. And I love that about the guy. And I was like, "He needs his just due because people don't know about the brotha." And he was always hot, and he still is.

How did you hook up with Nelly Furtado for "Thin Line"?

Charlie 2na: Actually, we heard through the grapevine that Nelly [Furtado] liked us. And when we found that out, we were like, "Cool." Then it came down to her saying, "I would like to do something." We were like, "Great." Then we said if we do this, it has to be done tastefully. It can't be done like the label made us put Nelly on a J5 record. But when you hear that song it definitely doesn't sound like it was contrived, because the content of the song is way different. The content is something that the majority of the people in the world can relate to, having a friend, a male or female, that you are totally cool with. You hang out with her. We have good conversations. We go out to the movies. We go out to eat. I can talk to her or him about my problems. But everybody is telling you, "Yo, maybe you should look at her as your girl." And you're like, "Nah, man. I don't want the relationship to go wrong if it don't work out." I think everyone can relate to it.

And Nelly came in and nailed it. She gave us so many takes and kept saying, "I'm going to give you guys as much as you want so you can play with it." I was very impressed.

You guys also had beats from Ju-Ju of the Beatnuts ("If You Only Knew," "One of Them"). How did that come together, considering the Beatnuts thugged-out image and J5's clean-cut reputation?

Soup: But wasn't that crazy though? I met Ju-Ju a longtime ago when the Beatnuts were on Relativity. At the time, we had a demo deal with Relativity. It didn't work out, but those were the first guys I really liked. And I was always cool with Ju-Ju. I don't know if he'll remember that but Ju-Ju was the first quote, unquote "hardcore" cat that came and was like, "I like these dudes." And I always liked the Beatnuts. I got every record they done made, so I always liked them, and for Ju-Ju to step up to the plate and say that made me feel good. It was like, despite what all these people thought, it's not a difference between when people just love good music. They never once said, "Ya'll from the West Coast, and we're East Coast, and we can't like ya'll." They never once said, "We make hardcore murder rap, and [you] make that old nice bullshit." He was just like, "Let's do a song, a beat or something." And the first beats we heard were the "If You Only Knew" beat, and when we heard that, we were like, "Yo, we gotta use this one."

And then, the next thing you know, he came with another beat, and we wrote another beat that didn't make it on this record, but we definitely want to bring that out. Then he made "One of Dem Niggaz," and we was like, "Yo." But I remember us wanting to get him on the "If You Only Knew" beat, and he was like, "Nah, nah, man. That shit ain't grimy enough for me." And this is his beat. And then when we did "One of Dem Niggaz," he was like, "Now I can get on that." So we was like, "OK, bring that gangsta shit." And Big up to Ju-Ju.

How do you deal with all the different personalities in the group when making a record? How do you find room for everyone to shine without someone being offended?

Soup: Well, when you're dealing with six people, you just gotta be realistic. You're gonna offend somebody. I'm gonna offend you whether we just hang out together. I'm gonna offend you because I'm black, and ya'll white. Whatever. But we're men. We're in the business. We're business partners. And for us, if you're wrong, admit you're wrong. If you're right, I'll dap you on that. If you're out of line, your ass will get checked. And I've been a victim of all of them.

Can fans expect a Wu-Tang-style scenario where you all break up into solo sets, but stay loyal to J5 and reunite?

Soup: I think that will happen, or if that doesn't happen, you'll see other people branching out. I was just in an episode of this new series on Fox called The Fast Lane. So you'll see stuff like that. You'll see us doing solo things. And once you get in the game, you gotta branch out. You can't just stick to your own tree house.

Charlie 2na: I'm also working on my solo album. I just have a lot to bring to the world. But I am always going to be a part of J5. That's where it all began. That's my family.

[Scribe]

Thanks for that, it was a good read, can't wait for 2na's solo album to drop.

[Kill]

Yeah good read homie

[SICK DOG]

GOOD SHIT