Article 31 > Only what is right

I paid my rhymes and now they pay me

By Claudio “Sid” Brignole and Paola Zkr Zukar
AL May 17 / June 1996

We are always in the same place and the third time we meet at the Burghy near via De Amicis in Milan and unfortunately it will also be the last one since next year the fast food chain will be called Mc Donald's with the knowledge that we will no longer be able to eat the Big Burghy within a few months (with good peace to vegetarians and guys terrified of crooked cows) I sit down together with J-AX, JAD and the other side of Aelle Zkr at an outdoor table to begin this new interview with Article 31, the only group to have appeared three times on Aelle already (and even that is a record they must add to the many they have already collected). Quite a few fries have passed through the fast food fryers since their first album, and you can feel it both from the increasingly preponderant smell in the air of the place and from the duo's latest work, “As It Is,” which reaches new heights with this work. I always recognize the convinced, passionate spirit of JAD and the lucid inventiveness-narrative of a great communicator such as J-AX. We have already chatted quite a bit and among the recurring topics the ever-present problem of Hip Hop's communication with the general public has popped up several times, Zkr shakes us off from our ramblings about Aelle, Chicken Doré, the importance of the cell phone to always be trackable (horrible prospect for me) and brings us back to reality, stepping in decisively, turning on the recorder and starting the questions...

Zkr: Do you think that if more records were released that everyone could listen to, the Italian rap market would be larger?
J-AX: In my opinion they are all listenable by everybody, I don't like to tell other people what to do, I do what I think is right, what I feel, I think what you do is defined by your taste if you know you are a b-boy and what you feel you like, surely what you feel is Hip Hop and therefore there is no problem.

Zkr: However whatever you do there are always those who are not happy....
J-AX: Definitely there is always someone complaining. As LL Cool J also said in the last issue of Aelle there's a lot of conservatism, there's a fear of experimenting, of doing new things thinking you're going to lose respect. Moving forward means measuring yourself with new things in life in general, and even in music it is like that. No one can accuse you of being ignorant if tomorrow you do a piece contaminated with reggae when this thing you do Heavy D is fine, if someone in Italy tries it there are those who turn their nose up at it. Everyone has to follow the path they feel most, always doing the same thing doesn't make me feel comfortable and it shows very well in our works, the fact that we try a mess of paths. You have to understand that we live in a country where people have a different ear, where we have a different ear, until I was 15 years old I also used to hear Celentano, Battisti and such singers, like everyone else.

Sid: Hearing your third lp I sense that you are more and more connected to the daily Italian reality....
J-AX: The first lp was also my first recording experience, in the second one we tried some things that we saw worked. Abroad, by playing some of our pieces, they would tell us, “this stuff sounds just like Italian music” mainly because they liked to hear the music, the sound in general, on the contrary the more hardcore pieces, always sung to us, they didn't like, they didn't say anything to them because they were similar to what they were already used to hearing plus they didn't understand the language. When new De La Soul styles or what they later called ‘white style’ produced by DJ Muggs came out, there were new sounds and concepts that were identified as coming from another ethnicity or social history. Like them, we have a social situation and we have a different musical base, totally uncampionable, however, our biggest achievement is to be able to have the sound that we like coming from there.
JAD: Unsampled, however if you work on it you can do like in America they sample George Clinton, I sample Mino Reitano and that is the originality, not the Italian group that samples George Clinton for me, I did that too but over time you understand many things. In America a song with him everybody sings it even those who have nothing to do with Hip Hop, in Italy a song like “Gianna” by Mino Reitano has the same effect, everybody knows it and sings it.

Sid: this choice of yours seems important to me will bring more and more people in a simple natural way closer to Hip Hop
J-AX: Three years ago many people turned up their noses when we talked about educating the masses, that after “Touch Here” there would be more consumers of Hip Hop, now the results are seen, no one can dispute them anymore, there is much more audience, people who three years ago didn't understand shit now are parties that rock to reppare. We have found the way, the spaces are there, the major radio stations have rap programs.
JAD: DJ Enzo who works in distribution told me that three years ago they were dreaming of selling the pacate of American Hip Hop records, now they are selling them, it means things are moving, people are tired of the same old stuff, now everyone knows at least one piece of rap.
J-AX: We did a tour where all dates were sold out, at least 2,000 people per concert with in Rome 4,000 for two dates, in Milan we had to leave a thousand people outside because the venue was full, with the next tour we hope to find adequate spaces that can accommodate everyone.

Sid: But do you think everyone who comes to your concerts are b-boys?
JAD: There are always those who do it for fashion, those who come because they like us as guys, Take That style but most are people who are intrigued with rap and follow everything we do as maniacs.
J-AX: There was a moment between the first and second album in which some forces in the music business tried to crush us. Since we are an independent reality, not tied to any big label, we needed a real force and at that moment the fans came to help us. At a time when the radio stations didn't pass us ,we made a song (“I Want a Filthy”) that was successful anyway just because of the loyal fans of Article 31, and that doesn't happen with a showcase band.

Sid: It also seems obvious to me, since you are now on your third album, whereas hit-and-run bands do one and then that's it.
JAD: You know very well, you know me before AX and you know that I have never given up and I will continue.

Sid: Consistency always rewards.
J-AX: For me this is like the fifth album, like there are two in between. I find myself very much changed as it was meant to be in the beginning, this album is as it is as we are.

Sid: I sense a new confidence and awareness on both the lyrical and musical side.
J-AX: We studied a hell of a lot to make this album, plus we were facilitated by all the experiences we had and the connections we made by going around Italy and even America. We saw that things were the way we thought they were, we got away from the temptation to speak ghetto to an elite audience. In this album even when we speak strictly to b-boys we do it in a way that everyone understands, basically I don't like to give myself a slang that I don't have, I don't like to pretend to be what I'm not, this is an attitude that so many people take to differentiate themselves from the one who maybe until a year ago had bell-bottoms and now does what he understands about it, however this happens; it bothers me too but this happened with Public Enemy in the 80s and it happens every day thanks to Lunitz to Articolo 31 to Coolio. The proof that one really believes it is there after five, six years, when one starts sleeping in stations because he has to go to parties and he doesn't have the money.
JAD: On the musical side “Messa di Vespiri” was a bit of a crossover of genres, in the end I realized I had to change some things, I don't regret what I did, it was always an experience. Now I sample but I don't sample everything I try to find mainly Italian sounds but I don't take loops in their entirety anymore, it's too easy to do the basics like that, you have to be the creator of the musical part and I came to do just that in the last album.

Sid: Were the singing parts written and arranged by you?
J-AX: It is all written by me except for the song that Lucio Dalla sings in “L'impresa Eccezionale” which is taken from a song of his from the 1960s.

Zkr: Also in this latest LP you combine more harcore pieces with easier pieces.
J-AX: We are like that, one is not the same every day, I don't believe the bullshit that one is pissed off all the time, so the lyrics reflect my mood on the day I wrote them, then I ask
Jad an appropriate basis for what I want to express.

Sid: Tell us for example about the piece “2030” is it a pessimistic piece?
J-AX: At first listen it may seem however it is a piece that has a great confidence in the present, he says, “I am so nostalgic for the 90s when the world was at the ark and we were Noah” in the sense that if there is something to change it is to be done now. I want to scare the shit out of people by showing them what things could be like if we don't get a move on now. The positivity of the piece is that it makes it clear that we still have several years before 2030 and we still have ways to change things. With music we have one of the most powerful weapons to let today's kids know what is wrong. This is also the time to use the power we have to talk to young people, now we have a certain responsibility to our listeners.

Zkr: After “Oh Maria” to hear you talk like that makes me very happy.
J-AX: When one makes records that sell a lot you get to a point where you either take responsibility for the people you talk to or you don't; I want to take responsibility because tomorrow there will be people who could be my children or my family who will have to be proud of what I did. Even in this album I talk about the trumpets (reeds), the thing is, it's not I don't extol them as a way of life because in the end that's not what we actually are

Sid: Did the album title “As it is” come to you naturally?
J-AX: Yes writing the lyrics of “As it is” is against the music business however I say, “now I am there and I am the insidious, the exception that invalidated the rule.”.

Zkr: Let's talk about the pieces that make up the album.
JAD: There is the novelty that in a song I also rhyme, this is the first time but also the last time because I am not a rapper but a DJ and I am proud to be one. AX wrote the rhymes but the concept is mine.
J-AX: ”Un urlo” and “Tranqi Funky ”were written right after “Messa di Vespiri,” so they are pieces from a year ago “Così Cosà” was prepared just for the previous album but we got the rights to the sample of “Gianna” only now because they are just from BMG, the other pieces are quite recent.

Zkr: Sometimes vicevented on very difficult topics as above mentioned “2030”...
J-AX: For me in some respects we are already in a cyberpunk future, and things that you see in movies like “Strange Days” can be seen very well in the city like Milan that is getting more and more ugly. All winter long there has been a gray atmosphere with a constant drizzle, with kids indoors and little desire to be together with no reason to congregate. On the contrary Hip Hop is getting bigger, everything else is deteriorating.

Sid: Even in Hip Hop I see a certain ugliness, especially in cities like Milan.
J-AX: I reacted to the bad things in life by joking about them. What would I do if I met a demon to make him shit his pants? I would ask him for an autograph. A DJ on a radio station once said something very right about us, “the strength of Article 31 is that they have fun in a tough context.”.

Zkr: Tell us a little bit about your last trip to New York?
JAD: We did the mastering at the Hit Factory and you know very well what studios they have; we wanted to have the best of the best and we chose the person who had done the sound on the records that we had liked the most. The satisfaction we got was that he really liked our LP and found it original.
J-AX: Then we shot the video, the video of “Tranqi Funky” with Burnt Toast Film who shot the videos of Fab 5, KR1, Smiff and Wesson, Channel Live, all very professional, we shot from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. and they even had us acting.

Zkr: Now you have changed record labels, can you tell us how it went and if everything is okay now?
J-AX: Now we are Best Sound with BMG distribution but it is a team effort, there is a BMG staff for us and there is a team at Best Sound that works 24 hours a day for Article 31. We get along very well with BMG, which has fallen in love with our hardest songs; unfortunately it was never so much the promotion that pushed us but our most popular songs that kind of overshadowed the others. In this latest LP there is a more polished elegant production that has to be supported by a team, not of boors, but of people who are used to working with serious music and who are very competent so it has always been Best Sound that saved us in the past and like BMG today. When Flying used the strength and credibility of the Article 31s to make productions that blew the whole thing we wanted to change. We were bargaining chips with other people. We took a frightening disappointment because it seemed that from an independent reality we could grow and progress, in the end we came out winners and they paid the price for what they did.
JAD: The satisfaction we had with BMG is that they appreciated even the hardest stuff we had done. Now everybody wants to produce rap because they see it's going, they used to not do it and that makes my balls spin.

Sid: What about the Spaghetti Funk?
JAD: This is the name under which all the rap productions of Best Sound are grouped together i.e. us, Solo Zippo, Space One, Chief associates.

Sid: It seems to me that you two always get along, is it difficult for you to always stick together in the choices you have to make?
JAD: We've beaten each other twice but that's the beauty of it, if you don't fight you don't know each other well, there are certain negative moments certain positive moments but good or bad the things we do bond and together we are a force.

Sid: Do you always live in the place where you grew up?
JAD: I always live in Garbagnate and AX in Cologno, not because I became famous I go to live somewhere else.

Sid: It is important to stay connected to your roots...
J-AX: I get along very well with the people in my neighborhood, and for your friends if it's always the same, it's treated the same way they've always been treated, while the rest of the people look at you differently.
JAD: The important thing is to stay the same.

Sid: To conclude?
JAD: I've said this in past interviews with Aelle as well but I want to say again to those who do Hip Hop one important thing: don't jump in, study, study, study and then if you really believe in what you do, get into it but don't rush it.
J-AX: All the other answers to things you'd like to know from us can be found in the latest album “As It Is” and-we're out!