The following is an interview I had this week with the NOLA Hip Hop Revival Project, posted on their myspace page at http://blog.myspace.com/nolahiphoprevival

Anyhow, check it out, leave comments, support the movement

Yep.

Don Libido Interview: "Hip Hop is meant to be a mutant"

So, in my first months in NOLA, I ended up meeting this cat through a couple of friends in the back of a coffee shop I frequent, drinking whiskey. Turns out that he happened to be one of the most talented MC's I've been honored to hear. Check out what my man, Don Libido, has to say about Hip~Hop and his up~and~coming in the art...

D~Funk't: So being originally from Los Angeles what brought you all the way down here?

Don Libido: My girlfriend at the time- in '99- has a sister who lives in Biloxi. She visited her sister every several months and of course during those visits there was the obligatory stop through New Orleans. While we were together, she made it understood that she wanted to relocate to the Crescent City. I definitely felt that need for a change of pace, so during Mardi Gras of 1999 she and I made a trip to New Orleans and I was able to get a feel for this piece of the Dirty South. I fell in love with NOLA then and knew I found my new home. By November of that same year she and I moved from Cali, getting an apartment in the Quarter just off the corner of Barracks and Decatur. I regret nothing about moving from the West Coast. After all these years and trauma, I love Los Angeles, but my heart is in the Big Easy.


DFX: How long have you been Emceeing and where did you come up with your name?

DL: I've been into Hip Hop for about two thirds of my life. But my awakening to emcee was when I heard Kool Moe Dee's "How You Like Me Now" back in '87. I still listen to that album today. I wrote some bullshit rhymes then, you know, just imitating the cats who were hot at the time. But yeah, I started as an "artist" as DJ Dyse in 1989 as part of Tricky Tee and The Royal Tee Posse. The whole Royal Tee Posse thing was some bullshit, though and Tricky Tee was a douchebag and backstabbing bitch. But I'm not bitter or hold grudges or anything. That said, I was just geeked about being part of a crew. Obviously, that didn't work out. In high school me and my best friend, Brian Bello, started up the Deadeye Flock. We recorded some shit over other people's beats. Did pause button mixtapes. I went through several emcee names then, none of which I wish to share here.

In college I met up with this cat Alex who went by MC Sketch. He and I formed a group called Left of Center and my emcee name then was Segue. It was cool working with him but neither of us had any set direction. I think we were just so pissed off at the status quo we were happy to meet another soul who just wanted to do Hip Hop for Hip Hop's sake. We recorded a couple of songs, but broke up basically over creative differences. After some disillusionment working college radio Hip Hop promotions at American Records, I decided to retire as an emcee. I then met the girl who led me to New Orleans and yeah, that was that.

Then in 2004 I met Blaknificent at a temp office job. He and I rode the ferry from Algiers to the Canal Street port every afternoon. Started talking. During one of those conversations we discussed Hip Hop. He mentioned he was a deejay and made some beats. I said I once emceed. We clicked. I think he was looking for someone new to work with who felt the same way about Hip Hop. And I was just some cat unfulfilled with the mundane job and needed a means of artistic expression. He passed along a few beats my way just to see what I could write to what he had. I wrote some shit that lit a fire under his ass. He started making beats specifically for me and made me want to up my game lyrically. We had a good working chemistry like that.

My name, Don Libido, started off as a joke, really. I thought about what would be the most egotistical, shallow yet dope name I could imagine. Blaknificent asked me one night what I wanted to call myself and "Don Libido" was my first response. Wanted to change it initially, but that shit caught on. Works for self-promotion, looks great on t-shirts and panties. And then I really became Don Libido, more so than I would have liked. But that's a story for another time.



DFX: Tell me about your relationship with Blaknificent

DL: Blaknificent was my deejay and exclusive producer of the early Don Libido material. Almost all of the pre-Katrina shows I had were with him as my support. He has a good ear for music and isn't afraid to let you know when you sound like shit, either. He's also one of my best friends and I will always have his back. In fact, if I were about to become a father, I would ask him to be one of the godparents. He is a good soul and a real man. If he still lived in New Orleans, I'm positive he and I would still be recording songs and doing shows together. After Katrina, he had to relocate to Houston and look out for him and his family and I respect that. You have to take care of yourself and your wife and kid first. We are New Orleans Hip Hop, but Hip Hop isn't something you have to keep to a specific region. He is doing his thing in Texas and if I moved out there we'd make it happen again. But we each got our lives to live and I'm still in New Orleans and likely headed to Canada. Blaknif and I are still going to record songs and when we have the opportunity we'll do shows together. He's family. Period. No matter where in the world he and I might live.



DFX: How did you get hooked up with Good Children Records?

DL: Good Children Records is more of a vanity label, started up by blues guitarist John Mark Turner and I. We just wanted something set up in case what he and I recorded had play on commercial radio and for legality's sake we had to be concerned over getting paid for that play. I'm presently talking to a couple record labels about album distribution.


DFX: Your bio talks about how you came down here in '99 and was "appalled by rap coming from the mainstream and the underground", what exactly had you feeling this way?

DL: When I moved to New Orleans, hell, I wasn't even really listening to Hip Hop at that point. The period that inspired me the most was dead and over, so I felt. And what I heard around the turn of the century didn't interest me. My influences really come from about 1987 through 1996. With a few exceptions, the artists who blew up following '96 really didn't inspire me, didn't light a fire under my ass, didn't concern me in the slightest. Seemed like there was a train of some generic bullshit artists, post "G-Funk Era" crap. If I hadn't met Blaknificent, who wanted to record songs that captured the spirit of what we held as the Golden Era, well, I don't think I ever would have returned to the microphone.


DFX: Describe your relationship with Hip-Hop from when it started to how you feel about the current state of our lost art.

DL: My earliest influences far as Hip Hop music goes were Run DMC, Kool Moe Dee, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions and the Beastie Boys. I have clear memories of mimicking their lyrics and gesticulating like a big time rapper guy when I was 11 or so. Started off as more of just a supporter through buying the tapes and especially the vinyl. However, Hip Hop has been such an important part of my life, a means of escape, a way to heal and to learn, that it naturally became a means of self-development. And so I switched from just a supporter via capital to an artistic contributor. I was probably about 14 at the time. And it has been a bizarre world ever since.

I hasten to add that I don't think our art is lost. The parameters of what we regard as Hip Hop just need to be reset. We can't let corporations or anyone foreign to the culture decide what Hip Hop is. And I see the art is alive and well in my fellow emcees and deejays. So long as we're here Hip Hop music can't be dead or lost. There's nothing we can do about what some bullshit record label or individual "artist" does so far as releasing mediocrity aside from not support it. Don't buy the records, don't see the shows. But more importantly, do give heavy support to your local underground artists! Fuck getting on the "guest list" or expecting a free CD or t-shirt just because you're friends with the emcee outside of the music scene. As cliché as this sounds, all we got is us. Sorry, love, but just because we fucked or did blow together way back when doesn't entitle you to a free Don Libido CD.


DFX: What inspires you to keep writing?

DL: Women. Half of my debut solo album, The Under the Influence Sessions, is about women I have loved, lusted for and lost. Kind of a blues record, really. There's this song "Hydrocodone," which isn't about the pill but about a girl who was my pain killer when times were harsh. Sex with her was always mind blowing and therapeutic. Hope she's reading this right now and might be inclined to call me. Hint, hint. Then there are songs like "Abrasive Angel Dusted," "Futon" and "Trifling (Live @ The Peach Kitten Lounge)" that are about someone who was my best friend and an amazing sexual partner. As free spirited as I am sexually, I would've been loyal to her no question. We broke up due to complications. Nowadays we don't even speak, but she remains a muse nevertheless. Hell, I still love her. Crazy, that.

Then there are the drugs, alcohol, lapses of sanity and New Orleans that have been my influence. I feel like some of the best shit I've written and recorded was when I was drunk, fucked up on cocaine or on a bipolar roller coaster ride through the city. However, I'm doing a bit of a detox now- limiting alcohol drinking to weekends and am abstaining from sex and red meat for 60 days- and I quit cocaine altogether. There was this one night where I came really close to publicly pistol whipping the shit out of some guy for insulting this girl I was hanging out with. Cocaine and firearms do not mix, especially with machismo. When I came to my senses I knew I had to stop it with the nose candy.

The other local emcees inspire me to no end, too. I'm blessed to be surrounded by so much talent. I mean, where else in the country are you going to get so much diversity and skill as what you have with Know One, The Able Chris, Truth Universal, Soapbox, D.O.N., Caligula or Impulss? The list goes on and on. And take Impulss as a prime example. Mark my words: that dude is going to blow up on a national scale. That shit is inevitable. These cats redefine and direct the game of Gulf Coast Hip Hop music. I'm honored to have my name associated with them and feel there's a Golden Age renaissance going on here and now.

DFX: When was the 1st time you realized Hip~Hop was getting too commercial?

DL: I remember some television ad for, I think it was Fruity Pebbles, and Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble are rapping about breakfast cereal, wearing dookie gold chains and I thought, "Wow, what is this shit?!" And I think- not necessarily that specific commercial but that advertising trend- set a divide between Hip Hop music and what is commercial rap, or ©rap. As it goes, I don't have a problem with people using rap music as a means to sell products per se and if a corporation paid me to perform a jingle for something I support, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I just wouldn't call it Hip Hop. It's like that KRS One saying goes: rap is something you do, Hip Hop is something you live. That said, rap music is an effective means of conveying easily understood messages to simple minded people, which- hell, let's face it- are most Americans. When I saw Rakim rhyming about some football video game recently for a television ad I thought, "Oh hell yeah! I'd do the same exact thing."

DFX: Where do you think Hip~Hop will be in the next ten years?

DL: Hip Hop will be something I don't necessarily recognize as Hip Hop if things go well. Hip Hop is meant to be a mutant, the music is largely a youth culture, really, and the cats coming up now are going to be the ones defining it after I step away from the mic. I'm leaving my impression now and hope it influences others, but it's like my brother Caligula said, "Nobody wants to see an old rapper on stage." I'm doing this shit now and will bow out gracefully when the time is right.

DFX: As far as New Orleans, what ways do you think that we can bring a traditional hip hop scene back to the light?

DL: I think what Impulss was doing with the emcee battles last year and earlier this year and the shows put on by the Guerilla Publishing Co., Soapbox, Private Pile, DJ Skratchmo and The Able Chris at Kajuns Pub and the Hi Ho Lounge are definitely keeping things lively here for a traditional Hip Hop scene. Additionally, DJs Tony Skratchere and Beverly Skillz are holding things down with a Hip Hop night every Friday at Handsome Willies. We really need to work on expanding the demographic, though. Getting the word out to more than the regular supporters is essential. I always see more or less the same crowd at most shows and weeklies. And while it's cool that there are cats giving constant support, we need more people for the scene to thrive. I'm happy to do street team for free- of course- for any of these guys as well as other local Hip Hop artists. I'm definitely open to suggestions on ways to expand, too.

DFX: What do you think Hip~Hop can do to revive New Orleans?

DL: Local Hip Hop artists have an obligation to use both music and graffiti art as a political tool. Get the word out about what incompetent and uncaring douchebags we have on both the state and federal level. And I mean use Hip Hop to call out everyone from that piece of shit Attorney General Charles Foti and what he did to Dr. Anna Pou to George W. Bush, who only comes through the post-Katrina Gulf Coast for photo ops. DJ Beverly Skillz hipped me to this article on rebuilding New Orleans in the August issue of National Geographic- which by the way should be essential reading for everyone- and we have a duty as artists to make it clear what the conditions are like and what we need as citizens of the United States. As it stands now, I'm so fucking disgusted with the American government that I'm looking to expatriate to Canada within a few years. Who knows, I may be representing Vancouver by 2012.

DFX: Who are some of the artists you have collaborated with in New Orleans?

DL: Well, obviously I've worked with Blaknificent. I've recorded with guitarist/producer John Mark Turner and worked with MCs Impulss and The Able Chris, DJs EF Cuttin', Quickie Mart and Skratchmo. I've also done a couple recordings with electro clash artist MC Shellshock!

DFX: Anyone you haven't callabo'ed with you would like to?

DL: Soapbox and I have been talking for a while about doing a song. One of these days we'll get around to it. Something political. Same thing with Know One, maybe he and I'll do a love song about nymphomaniac soccer moms. Slang Angus put out an amazing album recently and I hope to record something with the lead vocalist in that group, C.O. While I never see it happening, it would be hella cool to work with Mannie Fresh. I have a ton of respect for Mannie as a producer and businessman. I'd like to work with Prospekt. That cat has some sick ass beats. I'd also love to record with several non-Hip Hop artists and bands in New Orleans as well, namely the Zydepunks, Liquidrone and the White Bitch, if they're available and interested.

DFX: Any current projects or upcoming shows?

DL: Going to wrap up my solo album, The Under the Influence Sessions, with the help of Impulss and The Able Chris on production and ideally have that out before the end of this year. My focus for late 2007 through 2008 though is promoting and recording with my partner DJ Tony Skratchere for our group, The Slick Bastards. Our album is called The Crawfish Circuit, and our mission with this project is simple: to bring some good old fashioned used car salesman chutzpah sleaze and lowlife hustle to Hip Hop. I'm also set to appear on Tony Skratchere's Levee Breaks Mixtape, which I'll go right out now and say will be the raddest throwback mix you'll ever hear, promise. I should be recording something with ATM, who is one of the sickest freestyle lyricists in New Orleans and my money is on him anytime there's a battle. I should be recording with vocalist Rita LaGrange of Mark Twain's Magical Moustache Ride and TRASH TRASH TRASH, and that'll be awesome. In a few months I'm headed up to New York to record a couple tracks with Bi®d, who is from New Orleans but has been doing his thing in Brooklyn for a while, now, and hopefully get some music done with MC Hype of the Jersey Bound Trunk Crew. Lastly, me and Caligula should be recording together on some intellectual 2 Live Crew vibe, music for strippers and sluts with MENSA brains to dance and fuck to and maybe even work on directing a couple porno films with him. I feel both Caligula and I have a good sense and vision for making high quality yet utterly sleazy and depraved video nasty.

DFX: From your start, five most influential people in Hip-Hop, in your opinion.

DL: Ah, from my start. Well, there are my personal influences and then there are those cats who shaped Hip Hop on the whole. On a personal level as just a lyricist: Big Daddy Kane, Kool Moe Dee, Kool G. Rap, Dres of Black Sheep and Bosco Money. Far as those who shaped Hip Hop music as a whole: KRS One, DJ Q-Bert, Public Enemy, Dr. Dre and Jay Z.

DFX: I ask everyone, can we get a shout~out for the hip hop project?

DL: Definitely. In fact, if you have a banner I can put up on my website that would be sweet. I'll give you a shout on the mixtape and album, too.

Most definately gotta thank Mr. Libido for the blessings in doing this interview, I told you I'mma get everyone out there!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think next week I'mma do two of these bitches! 4sho most definately look for an Interview with Psychoward's Skruface tha Don, and there is a certain DJ bubbling in NOLA who goes by the name of Ms. Bomshell Boogie I'm trying to get to share a little of her world with us, look for that next week people, I'm out!

Peace, Love, & Hip Hop Ya'll,
D~Funk't

~If you or an artist you work with would like to be interviewed, please feel free to drop me a line on here, or at Dfunktxpression@hotmail.com