Wise Intelligent: Poor Righteous Teachers Got “Rock Dis Funky Joint” From Spike Lee

What's wrong with everyone? I'm Soren Baker here at Single Access Entertainment and as always, hit that subscribe button right there. It's free and that allows us to keep visiting you as often as possible with as many interviews as possible with as many game icons as possible, so please hit the subscribe button there, it's free and that's it. you know, share our content as such, talk about it, today, man, we have the honor and the privilege of being accompanied by an all-time great in the game. a phenomenal artist and it is a great honor and privilege to have you join us today

wise

and

intelligent

thank you for coming sir thank you for having me yeah man it's amazing I have so much.

I wanted to ask him about how to get it back, so with the

poor

. Righteous

teachers

and holy intellect that I wanted to obtain from you, um, in the era of 1990 to 1989 before the album came out, what was your feeling and thoughts? What was happening in New Jersey from New York up to that point, of course, had been so dominant. Did you feel any pressure? Something outside looking at something? Being in New Jersey at the time. A bit. You know it's New York. You know it's New York. from an outside look or an outside view from the inside it was also a level of admiration it's like new york was the big brother you know in new york you know you're admiring new york you know everything new york did you knew it's like you know , we held on to it, you know, uh, I mean, we waited for the new releases, we held our breath, we waited for the red alert mixes to come, you know, we'd be awake, we'd have our recorders ready, you know, that's how it was. always about New York, you know, uh, and it gave us, set limits, you know, set necessary limits, you know and examples of the culture and how you know the art, the craft must be addressed, you know, um, so yeah, definitely, okay and then like uh. you three culturally free guys and father shaheed were coming together, like when and why tony d was added to the mix and how that helped elevate you guys, especially sonic, well uh tony d pretty much came onto the scene in the the beginning of our um, our entry into commercial hip hop, you know, building it, you know, we started building an album for commercial release, uh, that's who Tony D came into play, uh, neo culture had been

rock

ing for years We've been working together for years, of course. we're from the same neighborhood, same projects, uh, shaheed lived on the other side of town, we connected with shahi and started recording music, you know, we were in the studio.

Tony called one day and he said: Hello, everyone in the studio. I got beats, you know, it was the studio he used all the time, so we're in the studio, I guess the engineer, you know, the engineer let him know we were there and, um, he was like, hey, I got leads, do you? What's wrong? But we had, we had. I've been working with Tony, you know, putting beats together before going into the studio. So the coach introduced me to Tony D. You know, Tony D wanted to wrestle me as MC, so it was weird. He brought Tony, he used to be around a lot so he came, wait one day and the coach said wait, let me get my boy, so I went out, you know, and Tony says a little rhyme or whatever and after that we start working.

Again, let's put it that way, after that we started, you know, working on music together and then we kind of went on hiatus, you know, because you know we were moving into something different, into a different kind, into a kind different. Vibe, I think most of the groups that Tony was working with um and uh you know, some things with uh another label that he was working with happened between us and them and uh and we paused for a moment and then we went in . At the studio we went to we were like yeah we're ready to go in so we went in and that's when Tony called and he said he had tracks and we like what's good so he brought some tracks and we ended up recording. uh the first time to say peace, time to say peace, which was a sign that the culture made the culture brought that sign to the table uh and Tony brought the word is sign of bond and the butt, the booty, the blessed sample for the first single and that's how that was wow and then with um talking about admiring new york when the profile was getting interested in you guys, I mean he's running mc, that's dana dang, that's rob base, ya they had so much iconic music, were you guys what were the initial interactions?

I like it for you with the profile um we were more excited we were young we were young we when we were we were hip-hop artists you know we were we were artists we weren't businessmen you know we weren't businessmen We weren't, uh, we didn't understand how how the music industry or the music business works, so the fact that he ran DMC Dana Dane Special ed Sweet Tea King Son and all the other artists were on the label, you know, we were more excited. that we were more excited about having label mates that we were listening to on our way down the turnpike, you know, so it was, it was interesting, it was interesting, it was an exciting time, you know, it was king, son, uh, special. ed, yeah, and it was right at that moment that DJ Quick came on, it was, it was just, it was a good time, man, it was a good time, you know, it was a phenomenal list, now back to Tony D from the battle, he I did.

I don't know at first, but it's funny now that you say that because I always thought, Can I start? This didn't fit much with the rest of the album and having it first was even stranger to me, so how? how and why it ended up being the first song and even appearing on the album because it was the last song, so we put it as the last one that we just finished, you know, and Tony was like, "I gotta beat them all." I'm gonna let me rhyme or what they're gonna let me run with what so he's like okay let me go let you steal move on so you know that's how it happened okay it makes sense so of course everyone loves

rock

in this

funky

place and It's an amazing song in my opinion and one of the things I wanted you to talk about on the rap side is that I loved dealing with the production with stopping the music on a penny and then how to do acapella and that type. of flow and style since that was, of course, in the 1990s era, you know we had more of those kinds of things that were prominent in the singles and all these different types of songs, but from the writing side and then from the production, do you remember how that came about and why that stood out so much uh well actually we were on we had tony d's and we were just listening to the records we were listening to came he was playing records and uh and he played the war slipped into the darkness shows e I immediately started rhyming it, I immediately started rhyming it and um, Tony D's response was everyone likes this track, he said everyone likes this sample, he wasn't the sample, you know he was just like you guys. everything like that you say yeah absolutely and the culture was the coaches were like uh obviously you can't hear what he's saying on this track so we like it let's do it so we looped it and um that was the production side , that's how that came about and then the lyrics and the title of the song came from uh Spike Lee, do the right thing, believe it or not, we were in, we were watching the movie, we were in the theater and there's a scene where the mayor says he's at the store and he's buying beer, he's buying beer and they don't have the beard he wants, he didn't want a highlight for something for me and he said everyone better have a good life in this

funky

place , TRUE? that's what he says and after the movie, you know, you think it was just a movie, then the culture started saying you know we were recording or whatever we did, it was at his house recording because it's like, well , what you do is not right. but I know you better rock this funky

joint

, you know you rock this, you better rock this funky

joint

, so I said I got you, so I wrote on it and made the song to make it work and then Shaheed applied the scratch.

For the choir, should I put together the choir? You know, Shahi was a genius at putting together backing vocals. Scratch courses. You know, that worked. Yeah, that was something that initially, as a kid, attracted me to rap. It was all the scratching and of course, Of course, it was usually more prominent in the choruses, so to the

poor

and fair

teachers

, I think a lot of people think of you in your lyrics and all the teaching and lessons you gave, but at the same time in many of their songs throughout the different albums. You did a lot of scratching throughout your career and it wasn't just because of holy intellect, so I wanted you to explain to me the meaning when scratching faded from records and then also when sampling became prohibitive why you kept doing it, yeah, you know, you know, we wanted to be as true as possible to the foundation of the art form, you know, uh, and dj, the dj is an essential part of the art form, you know, and scratching means the dj, you know, that's the dj, you know, so, um, we, we.

We always want to be true to that and the feeling of a scratch is just, you know, it's incomparable, you know, it's an incomparable sound, an effect, a mood and an emotion, so I still like scratches in music you know in hip-hop and you know, in sampling and you know we just like samples, you know me as an artist, as a writer, as an emcee, I'll write any type of track, it doesn't have to be a sample, it doesn't have to be a sample, it doesn't have to be uh boom, you know I'm, I'm all for everything I'll do, I'll try everything, I'll go the extra mile like an MC, you know, I feel like an MC should be able to rhyme with anything, so we, but we just wanted to stay true to the base, you know, in terms of samples, things of that nature, so, you know the culture, shahi and tony d, you know they were sample magicians, shahid was one of the most prolific samples , I mean, Shaheed Shaheed in sampling, Shaheed was different, I mean, he was different, he could listen, he listens to records, he listens to other artists' albums and records and he can point out every snare, every hit, every hi-hat, where they got it from. you know if they cut it right if they cut it you know he was a scientist when it came to hip-hop production and samples so yeah and it definitely seemed like the chemistry was amazing and with the title track with Holy intellect What I wanted to say was that it was a much faster tempo at least up to that point in the album, so how did you discover at that point that you were approaching writing things faster at faster or slower or softer tempos?

Did you find if your writing was effective in terms of any of the themes or how you would try to change the phrases and words? um, it never really affected the topic, um, it didn't affect it, it definitely would have if it had. It affected the flow, you know, because I always was, I never liked, I never liked to rhyme the same way over and over, you know, every rhyme pattern and flow I like, I like, I like to be so diverse and different in each song like me. Possibly so, that's why you know poor writers, teachers seem to have a wide variety of styles and concepts of pacing, none of that was the same really because I get bored quickly, I guess it's Aries, you know?

So I get bored quickly with things, so I'll be, I'll do something different and I like to use production that will get me out of the last box, out of the previous box, you know.