Brian Coleman says that his work writing his Check the Technique Volume 2 book, which details the making of revered Rap albums, made him appreciate Company Flow’s Funcrusher Plus more than he already had.
“I was fortunate to have covered the group, on a radio show I was doing on WZBC in Boston and also in CMJ magazine – early-on in their career in the mid-90s, with their early, pre-Rawkus singles on Official Recordings,” Coleman says during an exclusive interview with HipHopDX. “So I felt like I knew a good amount about them. But there was so much more I learned by interviewing all three guys for the book chapter. First of all, just how different all of their backgrounds were, coming into the group, both in their younger years and also in the more recent experiences they all had in the music industry. A lot of those industry experiences shaped their outlook as to how they approached making and distributing their music, especially El-P. They used the term ‘Independent As Fuck’ to describe how they went about their business and it wasn’t just lip service. Once they got to their deal with Rawkus, they were in charge, they knew what they wanted. And if they didn’t get what they wanted, they would have just walked away, because they knew they would be fine on their own as independent artists. It was a lot different than some other artists, who just want a record deal at all costs. By the time they were making what would become Funcrusher Plus for Rawkus, they were experienced vets in the game in some ways, even though El-P and Len were still young. Bigg Jus was a couple years older.
“And beyond that, the music on Funcrusher Plus, from the early stuff they included to the newer music just for the album, was pretty revolutionary,” Coleman continues. “They were trying to shake up the Hip Hop status quo, they knew that they could make abrasive, forward-thinking music on their own terms. And they did. That indie spirit influenced so many other artists that came after them, some of them on the record label that El-P would run in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, Definitive Jux.”
As he worked on the chapter covering The Coup’s Steal This Album, Coleman says he was impacted as a fan of the group.
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“Knowing how much bad luck Boots had with record labels for the group’s first three albums really made me respect him even more as an artist,” Coleman says. “A lot of artists with less conviction and emotional fortitude definitely would have just thrown in the towel at a certain point. That being said, with many of the artists I have covered in my books, there are obstacles that they have to face, and true artists can’t help but keep creating and staying with their dreams. Sometimes the obstacles appear early-on, sometimes later in their careers. They don’t sit and whine about them, they just figure out how to move on from them.”
Once such artist is MF Doom, whose group KMD released the Black Bastards album which Coleman covers in Check the Technique Volume 2.
MF Doom’s brother Subroc died in 1993 and KMD was dropped by Elektra the following year, before its Black Bastards album was to be released.
“Most artists would have just gone off the deep end and faded out of sight, never to be heard from again,” Coleman says. “And Doom did indeed take some time to grieve and deal with some incredibly difficult circumstances. But the second chapter of his career, as Doom — after the Zev Love X days in KMD — starting in the later 1990s, has been a pretty damned impressive and unique one, to say the least. Of course most artists don’t mind being famous and making money, but I think people need to realize – and they are hopefully reminded of this in most of my chapters – that emcees and producers are unique types of individuals. They are creators. It’s almost not a choice – if you are a creator you can’t help but to express yourself. And fans are the beneficiaries of all that hard work.”
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Coleman’s work has led to his series of West Coast events to promote Check the Technique Volume 2. The first event is scheduled to take place today (November 11) at the USC Taper Hall for the Humanities in Los Angeles from 7-8:30 pm PST.
Coleman says that the events, which also include stops in San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland, have a common thread.
“I would say that they all are linked by a theme of ‘I get by with a lot of help from my friends,’” he says. “Some of the friends I’m dealing with – in LA: B+, Oliver Wang, Brother J – go back many years. And some of them, like Adrian Younge II and USC’s Professor Josh Kun are newer connections for me. But overall there is a lot of respect there. What I’m looking forward to most with all of these events is that they will all be group- and conversation-oriented. It’s not me making presentations or speeches, it’s about all of these great people gathering together to talk about how all of the artists in these books inspired us, as fans and – with many of my peers – as artists themselves. There are no set questions or themes, we are all going to show up and celebrate the Golden Age of Hip Hop.”
Brian Coleman photograph by Mary Galli
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