Abstract Rude has been a mainstay of the LA independent rap scene for a long time. Some even say that he and his comrades from Project Blowed, Tribe Unique, and Massmen invented the indy rap scene in the mid-nineties. More than a decade later he continues to grind, innovate and morph into new phases of self. 2008 finds Ab with a new record, and a new look….
Interview after the jump..
Sunday's Best:When did you start your locks?
Abstract Rude: I started my locks back in August of '91
SB: Is there a reason that you started them then?
Ab: Basically. I was inspired by the Native Tongue movement in hip-hop, how all those cats in the video had them, and the Rastas around the way. Mainly Tribe Unique, who are my big homies, Zulu and Ebony Prince, initially it was us trying to separate ourselves from the typical image of the younger cats who were around us. There seemed to BE the Muslim brother who had the suits with the bow ties, and shaved heads who were selling bean pies and The Final Call news papers. That was one from of black consciousness, then you had the Rastas with the dreadlocks and the red, gold and green tams selling incense in the foil, puffing the sensi herb, that we called the hootie bang, back then (laughs)
Then of course you had Def Jef and the Soul Brothers, who influenced me
SB: Wasn't your hair also part of the way that your name came about?
Ab: Yeah, Zulu and Ebony had started Tribe Unique, back in 89 or 90, then they came at me, I was kinda like the young shorty around the way. I had a crazy dance style so when I joined Tribe Unique, they gave me the name Abstract. Then there was this shop called Know Thyself, up on King and Normandie, kinda like a reggae shop that sold tapes, and incense and cool books and soaps and oils. The cats in there were the first ones who told us how to cactus our hair by extracting the juice form the cactus leaves, and how that aided in the early process of locking and getting your hair trained to accept the lock. Strengthening it and naturally conditioning it. When we first cactused, the brothers in the shop saw my hair and said "His are gonna be rude!". Later on that night, Zulu and Ebony were trying to get me into this club (I wasn't of age yet). They told the bouncer,"Yeah, this our manager right here, Abstract." The dude was like "yeah, ain't that Q-tip's name?".(Laughs)Cause he had started calling himself the Abstract Poetic at that point. But I was officially calling myself that before I knew about that and I didn't have any intentions of changing my name. I remember Ebony was like, you should add something else, just to make it distinct so people won't get y'all confused. Since the Rastas said my locks were gone be rude, we were like Abstract Rude and it just clicked!
SB: So you started in '91 and grew them for 16 years…
Ab: Yeah, almost sixteen. It would have been sixteen in August. I heard it said that if you are gonna cut em you should do it in seven year cycles. I guess I went a year and half or so longer than that (laughs). You know when you have locks for that long, your hair's gonna get a certain weight at the ends, and the thinner your roots are, the more timely it is to re-grow and shed that set. No different than a tree that sprouts out, fruit comes and the limbs grow longer. It goes through a maturation process. Those limbs break off and the tree grows new ones. I already feel like I'm re-growing them. The stronger you keep your roots, the stronger your locks are gonna be.
SB: How hard was it to shed them now?
Ab: It wasn't really something I thought about. People would ask me about it all the time and I wouldn't have an answer for them. I would tell them that nothing lasts forever. I doubted that I would have the same set of locks on my head forever, it would have been nice to grow grey with them, but it was sort of like a maintenance issue. I still have a healthy head of hair so I wanted to treat my scalp really well and revitalize and if I like the way that its going I can easily grow 'em back out. You can see right now, I didn't shave my head completely. I'm just taking advantage of the chance to rejuvenate the energy that I'm getting from shedding the old ones and enjoying the lightness and I'm excited for the next phase.
SB: Are you also entering a new phase for your career?
Ab: The change really had nothing to do with my career. It was strictly an assessment by myself and a sister named Ke-Ke aka The Oracle Jayne Doe that I like to call my locktician. She and her mom own a shop called Totally New Waves and Braids up in the Valley. She first treated our locks for the Renaissance video back in 98 or 99. Ever since then I've always gone to her to treat my locks. I actually just had her come over to twist my hair. We assessed and it turned out that the smartest thing to do was to regenerate. It really had nothing to do with the music, but just naturally, you know, how things go in the universe, its coinciding with this new album that I have coming out.
SB: Tell us about the new record.
Ab: You know its been interesting. Though I've had a few cool campaigns before, this'll probably be the most thorough as far as trying to get the most out of this whole independent scene. The cats at Rhymesayers seem committed to trying to do as well they could do with this project.
SB: Are you working with any of their producers?
Ab: Not for this particular record, well sort of because I'm
working with Vitamin D for this record ( but no Ant, etc.). I knew about [Vita]
through this crew he used to be down with called Source of Labor from
SB: When did you first start rapping?
Ab: I was making pause tapes and trying to rap on em back in 90 or 91. I was really heard in LA for the first time on wax in '93. When we put out the Project Blowed tape. If you had a tape with art work and bar code back then you were official (laughs). We made it to tape and cd around '94 which coincided with us opening up the workshop which is thirteen years in the making.
SB: That brings us to this question: A lot of cats were rapping back then and a lot of cats have come and gone since. How is that you think you were able to maintain a state a relevance after all these years?
Ab: Well you don't necessarily have to make a thousand songs. Some people make the same impact off of ten. Not to say that me making a thousand makes me more noble, other than the fact that it gives me a lot of practice (laughs). There's a lot of different routes and paths to get to the same goal that we all have which is to get your music heard, get your message out there and making a living doing it. When you come form that underground school, there's an emphasis on not compromising what you're about. Somehow me and other cats like Acey, 2Mex, Busdriver, Awol, Medusa, we've somehow done all those things and stayed active enough to stay relevant and spread out wide enough to keep it fresh and stay out there. Its also about understanding what its really about, which is connecting with fans and staying true to the brand that you put out there even as you evolve. It’s also about putting stuff out there all the time. You got the solo records, the ATU stuff; the mix cd's that I've put out, the Haiku D'Etat stuff the A-Team stuff, Codename Scorpion and all that. It’s about diversifying. Just following a natural path. A lot of that stuff was just freestyled and we just stumbled into it. And luckily we've been fortuitous.
Look out for the Dear Abbey LP, and the re-release of South Central Thynk Tank with a companion DVD featuring all of ATU's videos in 2008. [Editor's Note: Ab was serving one of his homies viciously in NBA 2k7 while participating in this interview…]
Open Mike Eagle
Look like this is working, what do you think? http://bit.ly/zlink716
Posted by: SmoonjuffGolf | July 16, 2011 at 11:55 PM
It's funny goodluck neto wendel pthc >:-OO cp pthc index gzy pthc board post pthc posted by :P nadia pthc %-DDD ftp pthc mpg uatcj ranchi alexx zeps myqeg preteen x pthc uyswf pthc bigp kvlktp waldmeister pthc owa young girls pthc 8D girls pthc %-)) bbs forum kds pthc =-[[[ pthc lsm r ygold jbdrp pthc kds preteen topsites stoor pthc sex yahoo briefcases 04877 pthc cp board qnwa webcam 12 pthc ashely 22120 ranchi gateway bbs 181043 pthc vicky girlscout 02108 pthc pedo shylolita :-OO
Posted by: Tnpqwfqg | February 09, 2010 at 03:54 PM
7ykUFH http://cry82Nqp94NsW0sl2VvqhJ4m.com
Posted by: tomphson | January 06, 2010 at 09:17 AM
i'm gonna make my own journal i
Posted by: Domestic T Spanking | December 02, 2009 at 07:08 AM
This site is crazy :) animal man fucks 576 fuck horse spunk pee gag 1757 pics of dissected animals 427520 women having sex with animals pics wlxs funny pic's of animals 153990 free animals fucking women movies 227453 free homemade pics girls and animals 8(( chixk getting fucked by a horse gbn girl fucked by horse dies =O free sex with animals galleries >:-( pics of boys n animals >:-DD tiny teens fuck horse 8-[[[ young girl fucks animals okbqqw tigon animal pics iioch animal mateing pics %OO free adult animal pics stor 667 pics of animals in tajikistan 278 watch animal sex for free nka pics of animals on african savannah 011054 animals mating movies 877373 animal movies vtc free preview animal sex movies 379 fuck with animal phgn service animals free pics %-OO pic of animal cell 421169 beaten and neglected animals pics 774271 animal tranny sex free =-P hybrid animal pics 446 365 animal free sex 86027 free previews animal sex 3326
Posted by: Wrwutvua | October 01, 2009 at 02:58 AM
YeVaLi http://gok9ejqnFfglrk63mdg.org
Posted by: samanta | September 19, 2009 at 11:16 AM