J. Rawls recently linked with Brand Nubian’s Sadat X for the collaboration on the track “Face It,” a cut off the producer’s latest The Hip-Hop Affect. While the two hit it off on the musical tip, they ended up bonding more over their common of love hip-hop culture.
Speaking on their shared respect for hip-hop, J. Rawls explained how music is his life. “Hip-hop is everything to me. If you pick up the album The Hip-Hop Affect, you’ll know exactly what it means,” he said. “Everything from Brand Nubian to Poor Righteous Teachers. Everything from KRS-One to Diamond D, Digging In The Crates to Hieroglyphics. Every time I heard something new, it gave something else to me and helped me grow. That’s what it is.”
Sadat X also noted that hip-hop has connected him with the world. “It’s affected me. It’s afforded me opportunities to see the world and to go to different places and to meet different people,” he said. “It’s changed my views on people. It’s broadened everything. Especially with the advent of the internet, it’s connected me with Europe and everywhere. I’ve grown with hip-hop.”
The two initially met while J. Rawls was on tour with Copywrite several years ago, though Rawls has been a lifelong fan. “First time I heard Brand Nubian, my man DJ Booka brought that record over and he let me hear the song was called Brand Nubian. Who remembers that one? We didn’t know if it was the song, that was the name, what is it? We didn’t know what it was. I think it was my man Ace, my man Dwayne, who said, ‘Who’s the dude with that voice?’ You know who that voice is, that’s my man Sadat. From there, it was everything.”
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Sadat returned the love. “J. Rawls is definitely one of the dudes that I listen to,” he said. “A smart dude, and it’s good to see how you can see how hip-hop is a part of his life, but he still is able to integrate that into his daily lifestyle where he’s a teacher and he’s going in for a master’s. It just goes to show nowadays where people expect you turn the off button for hip-hop, but there is no off button. We came up with this and we’re growing with it.”
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