Ents and Arts: Music

 

We’ve written and recorded a new album, basically. We were on the road for some of it, still touring, but gradually we got it all written and we’re all ready to go with a new single, new video and a new album.

 

 

We’re both very excited about it still – Dan still seems to be able to make beats that excite me and I seem to be able to write stuff that works over it, so it seems to work nicely. I think the way we write together – or apart, as it were – stops us having any issues or doing each other’s heads in too much. Dan writes all his beats ready and then emails them over to me in Essex and I record and email back. So we do it all quite separately, so it seems to work really nicely.

 

 

To be fair, I think there was a lot of variation last time round, but I think Dan’s developed over the few years of touring – we get to see a lot of acts and be influenced by them.

 

 

I guess so. It’s a tough one – because we don’t fit into a traditional hip hop bracket I can kind of understand it. I think at the end of the last album campaign, when we ended up doing a track with Posdnuos from De La Soul, we were saying that we’re definitely part of hip hop. In a way we’re more viewed as part of hip hop in America than in the UK, where we kind of sit in a dance-indie-hip-hop niche. One of the things that excite me about the work we get to do is that it doesn’t really fit into one genre. We’re not decimating hip hop, we’re approaching it from a non-genre specific angle. It’s not the end of the world; there isn’t any pressure to be hip hop.

 

 

Yeah – there’s so much good hip hop out there, so many variations. One of the reasons I’m often reluctant to refer to us as hip hop is ‘cos it’s viewed differently by so many different people. A lot of the general public will see 50 Cent and Kanye West as hip hop, whereas it goes far deeper than that. There are acts like Atmosphere and Aesop Rock who have been doing a lot of really thought-provoking and challenging hip hop for a long time. We’ve got more of an affinity with those guys – and then your Mos Def’s, your Talib Kweli’s, your conscious stuff. We’ve more connection to them than to what a lot of people might brand as hip hop.

 

I think he’s really good. I do think he’s a very solid rapper but it’s how prolific he is that makes him stand out. He writes and records so much – there’s going to be some crap in there along the way but there’s also really good stuff. The way he approaches things – he is often quite gangsta, but happy to be quite sentimental or light-hearted, to not stick particularly to any rules as to how he writes or what he writes about. On one of his mixtape tracks, half way through he drops in out of nowhere with, “When I was five my favourite movie was The Gremlins / They ain’t got shit to do with this but I just thought that I should mention”. He’s mental.

 

I don’t think he’s the saviour of hip hop, because I don’t think there’s anything that particularly needs saving, its cycles. A lot of people say commercial hip hop has no soul behind it now, it’s just bragging, but they forget that when hip hop came around it was exactly that a lot of the times, with people like Grandmaster Flash. Then it happened to come round to a cycle where KRS-One, Public Enemy and Rakim were at the forefront with the commercial acts, and they were more conscious. Now it’s gone back to perfectly good hip hop with people like Kanye, but not particularly content-filled. Sure, at some point the cycle will come round again – there’s a guy in America called P.O.S who might be the start of it. But there’s no need for saving, because these acts have always been about and always will be, existing on the underground, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

 

 

I had a solo album out before I worked with Dan, and at some point I’d like to put another little project out, but every time me and Dan work together he puts together such amazing stuff. I think if I ever did put another solo album out it would because it was stuff so uncommercial – before getting back to the third album with Dan. People often ask me if I still write solo stuff, but that’s not how it works. Most of the time if I write something and feel its good I’ll be on the phone to Dan going, “I need a beat, quick”. I don’t think, “That’s in the Scroobius Pip folder, and that’s in there…”

 

 

Yeah. [Pause] It’s very fashionable at the moment to moan, and the point of ‘Get Better’ was to talk about these subjects and be positive about it rather than saying, “These kids are little shits”, to try to motivate rather than put down or complain. There’s two or three on the album; ‘Get Better’, ‘Great Britain’ and ‘Stake a Claim’ in a way are all quite critical stances, but saying, “Look, you’ve got the power to change things if you want to”.

 

 

I think it’s partly rooted in the time of writing the album, when all the BNP stuff in the European Parliament was going on; it’s hard to ignore that. I’ve always tried to write about what’s around me, but I think there are a few points on this album where I’ve tried to be more direct about it. On ‘Angles’ I’d discuss social issues but wrap it up in a story or in a fable, a Letter from God or Commandments. There are still tracks where we do that, a lot of messages woven into stories, but there are a few where I’ve decided not to beat around the bush. It’s never, “Here’s my views, they’re right – listen and correct yourself accordingly”. I’ve always had the awareness that I’m just a kid from Essex, I don’t have all the answers; I’m sure a lot of my views will change in six months time, so its more about providing subject matters to have open debate, to bring them to the forefront.

 

 

Yeah, it annoys me a little bit how in indie and pop, it’s really fashionable now in interviews to talk about social issues and wars, but in the songs they’ll generally go back to singing about partying. Ten percent of their audience will hear the interviews – if you’ve got these issues and want them raised, I feel it’s worth raising them in the song, as long as you can do it in a way that’s still enjoyable. It’s still music, its still entertainment. Hopefully we don’t cross the line into boring finger-shaking, and we’re still accessible but a little bit thought-provoking.

 

 

I guess that’s the case. You have people like Bono, who makes everyone shudder when he opens his mouth now, but then you have people like Billy Brag who’s always been politically active but remains relevant. I want to open discussion, and at the end of the day, if that does have any negative effect on my appearance then I have to take that on the chin. It’s more important to get these things discussed and moving than worry about how I’m going to come across in a year’s time.