BHF11: Rappin' With Chairman Mao Part 2

Brooklyn Bodega: You’re an avid crate digger. You were deejaying before you were writing. I feel like DJs are the new black actors. I say that because in the 90s when all of the rappers started getting black acting jobs, it was more difficult to get seasoned, trained black actors to get roles in major movies. Studios could justify putting a rapper in a role because they sold x number of records and have a loyal following because more people might come to the movie and they’d sell more tickets.

CM: Right.

Brooklyn Bodega: It seems like within the DJ culture there’s some similarities now. You have guys on reality shows getting huge DJ gigs because of their following from TV. Or you have pseudo models getting gigs because they look good. And you have rappers now who have expanded into taking DJ gigs.

CM: I think that’s an interesting parallel. I’ve never been likened to a black actor before. [Laughs] In some respects, I can definitely see it being a fair comparison. I think it sucks, man. People used to be DJs because you were the person that was into the music. That’s how most DJs became DJs. It wasn’t like, “I’m gonna be a DJ.” It was like, “Oh, you’ve got the records. Why don’t you be a DJ?” Or, “Oh, you’re the music guy. Why don’t you DJ or make me a tape?” It was just an organic thing. It was just an extension to what you were already into. Yeah, of course you were going to wind up DJing because it was something you were passionate about. If you could turn it into something more than a hobby and actually make a career of it then all the better. I think all this fake, phony DJ/model/actor/fill-in-the-blank is a bunch of bullshit. There’s no two ways about it. There are people who can definitely DJ that made the transition. If you’re serious about learning the craft of doing something, then you should apply yourself and be really good at it. You’ve got to work so much harder than you used to to try to maintain any kind of regular thing as a DJ -- which is not necessarily a bad thing. But the unfortunate part about it is the populace is not educated or informed enough or cares enough at all because of how technology interprets the music so they can’t even tell you who’s a shitty DJ. There’s no sadder reflection of that then what’s happening in New York City.

I’m looking forward to doing Salute The DJ because it’s an event. You want things to feel eventful when you do them and I feel that’s part of the problem with nightlife in New York. The best DJs in the world are here. Having to hustle harder as a DJ to maintain something is not necessarily a bad thing. Competition, in theory, is going to raise the bar. Quality wise, things would be better. But unfortunately, we’re not in an era or time or place where the audience is discerning enough or interested enough. The trust factor of someone being there and allowing [a DJ] to do their thing doesn’t exist as I see it. At least not in the city. It’s really depressing. It’s demoralizing.

I deejayed at APT [in the Meatpacking District] for nine years as the resident on Saturday nights. I had a lot of freedom to do whatever I wanted there. Initially, it was a pretty hip spot that was known for being a music place. They really encouraged the DJs to be themselves and do their own thing. Part of the reason I haven’t tried to pick up a residency anywhere else since is because I get the feeling that that’s not in demand anymore. At least not to the degree it was as far as that venue being what it was. I go out and here friends DJ sometimes and I see what they have to deal with and it’s really demoralizing. Not to say that there’s not people out there doing their thing or that there’s not successful parties, but as a general thing, it’s just not what it was. Part of it is technology and how people consume music. The fact that some of these other folks get hired to do gigs instead of people of who’ve actually been doing it for a minute and are good at it is kind of a drag.



Brooklyn Bodega: Do you still keep up with the artists that were on The White Rapper Show? Do you follow their careers and what they’re doing?

CM: For a while, [we did]. I know Persia’s still in New York and we hear from her. John Brown, I think he might’ve moved back to the West Coast. For a while they were doing these internet videos and putting out mixtapes and stuff like that. I saw a few of the Ghetto Revival guys last year at a couple event. I haven’t heard from John Brown. I don’t know if anybody else has in a minute. I haven’t really stayed in touch with the majority of them, though. I don’t think anyone has. But Persia’s still in New York and we’ll hear from her every once in a while.

Brooklyn Bodega: John Brown was pretty decent. He was pretty nice [on the mic].

CM: I will tell you this one thing, though: I will say the best fucking reality show ever done was The White Rapper Show. At the time I used to say that the best book ever done about Rap -- I think there’s plenty great books done about Rap -- but at the time, The Book Of Rap Lists encapsulated an era perfectly. And I take great pride in that.

But definitely The White Rapper Show. We got so much flack for doing that. I had to do these call in radio [promotions], you know. The VH1 people were like, “You’ve gotta do some promo for the show.” So I had to call into this morning zoo radio program in San Antonio or some place and they were just like, “Yeah, your show is just a bunch of clowns.” We caught a lot flack from people. “You’re desecrating Hip-Hop!” and this and that. When did that show come out? In like, 2006, right? And we’re desecrating Hip-Hop?

READ FULL INTERVIEW @BROOKLYNBODEGA.COM

BHF11: Rappin' With Chairman Mao Part 1

It was an all an accident for Jefferson “Chairman” Mao. The Source cover pieces, the Vibe Magazine features, the XXL “Chairman’s Choice” column, the nine year DJ residency at APT in Manhattan’s posh Meatpacking District -- an entire two decade legacy forever etched in the talisman of Hip-Hop culture was little more than a product of circumstance. Then, he was just an NYU film student with a jones for crate digging and a chance meeting with a couple other future journalistic luminaries, Sacha Jenkins and Elliot Wilson.

Word is, Jenkins invited Mao to contribute to his current endeavor, Beat-Down Newspaper, where Elliot Wilson was already a contributor. When the publication folded after a falling out between Jenkins and his partner (Haji Akhigbade), he and Wilson founded the seminal, Ego Trip Magazine in 1992 and brought Mao along from day one. Ego Trip’s subversive tone and geeked-out attention to detail spawned 13 issues, two books (Book Of Rap Lists and The Big Book Of Racism) and two television shows (The White Rapper Show and Miss Rap Supreme) of unforgettable Hip-Hop reverence.

“I was interested in music and I used to read a lot of music magazines when I was a kid,” Mao told BrooklynBodega.com during this feature interview for his upcoming set at Salute The DJ as part of the 2011 Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival. “I got into it just to get the free records.”

CM: The thing about [music journalism] is, even when we were doing it -- and I guess you could argue this from the beginning -- it’s never really been respected by the industry as a necessary sort of thing. It’s always just been seen as something used for promotion.

When you look at how The Source started, it was really like kind of a ‘zine and then it was a champion for Hip-Hop because Hip-Hop was an underdog. That was really necessary at the time, but then at a certain point, I remember when we were doing Beat-Down, people started to feel like they needed other sources of information. People would complain about the record reviews in The Source or something like that. Even though The Source was like The Bible as far as the magazine documenting the music and the culture, we started to move past the point where Hip-Hop needed a cheerleader on it’s side. It needed some critical distance as well and that’s when you had sort of this gene explosion with Beat-Down, Ego Trip and a ton of other homemade sort of ‘zines sort of done through a lot of blood sweat and tears. And then Vibe really stepped up the professionalism and managing editors and writers and a lot of journalistic integrity and became very slick but there was always an element of that.

Now everything’s changed. The way media is dictated. I guess you could look at it like it was subversive in that respect as far as Ego Trip because we were contributing to these publications. They were putting food on our table and paying our bills and we sort of had an outlet to do our own thing and be an independent voice so it’s kind of an interesting dichotomy, I guess. But it was a unique situation, especially when some of the guys had pretty important positions at Vibe and The Source but that was how Ego Trip was able to survive: because it was something we were just doing because we wanted the outlet. Really in the entire time of it’s existence, it only really existed because we wanted that creative outlet, that outlet to express ideas which you couldn’t do at these other magazines. The same for the TV shows we did and the books we did.



Brooklyn Bodega: You alluded to it now, but you’ve spoken quite a bit in previous interviews about Hip-Hop needing tough love at the same time Hip-Hop not really being able to take tough love. You’ll have different artists complaining, “How you gonna diss my record?” That to me seems extremely prevalent now with the internet and so many different online publications. It seems like there’s even less tough love now despite that you have so many different voices.

CM: I’d say yes and no. In some respects you have more “tough love” than ever because everybody has their own platform. Everybody has an opinion and a platform to express it now, so whether it’s their own blog or Tumblr or Twitter account or expressing their opinion in a comments section or a message board. It’s the sort of thing that spurs debate because people have a lot of passion and enthusiasm for it and there’s a competitive aspect to it -- it always has been -- so it’s almost like sports talk radio as far as how people offer their opinions.

Yeah, I guess you could say that because of the internet there’s less of an established bar for journalistic integrity. That’s sadly vanished. Journalistic standards, that’s definitely vanished with the internet and everyone having a platform, but I would say that, as far as people being able to be critical, to me, anybody can write a comment as dismissive or informed or ignorant or whatever so you have more critical thinking. You have more critiques than ever because everyone is a critic and everyone can be a self-styled expert without necessarily having labored or come up through the ranks and written for different publications and what not. Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one and a lot of stuff that people put out on the internet is not well thought out. But that’s the appeal and that’s the conundrum. It’s like, the gift and the curse. It’s access and people being able to have the freedom but it’s totally unregulated so you have to take the good and the bad aspect of all that together. It’s great that it’s unregulated because you can find all kinds of stuff and you can learn about all kinds of stuff. But it’s not regulated so it’s no context for anything.

Coming from a time where you’re old enough to remember before the internet -- I talk about this all with people who are into music all the time -- if you’re a music fan, you have access to so much stuff. If you wanted to hear old tapes, you had to get tapes from people you knew or get them dubbed for you. But now you can hear almost anything, so you have access to all this information. The rarest records that exist, you can download them off of where ever. You can get anything if you just Google Mediafire or Megaupload search and you can get a thousand dollar album or something someone uploaded to their blog. You can hear all sorts of stuff on YouTube. You can see things, things that shaped your mind as a child. Some TV clip from the early 70s is on Youtube now. But I think it’s overwhelming for people, too. You think like, “Oh, you have access to all this stuff. People are super educated.” But now you have the opposite problem. It was a problem for us to try to seek out information and learn about things because you were hungry for just more. You had to know somebody to know somebody. You had to know somebody to know what the sample was on that interlude on A Tribe Called Quest’s first album. Now you can just Google it. You had to know somebody who knew somebody who knew but it was all word of mouth. It was just stuff that you learned. It wasn’t like, “Oh, OK, I’ll just access all this information.” But I think now, people have too much information. There’s so much information that they’re inundated and overwhelmed and it’s easy to get discouraged. So even if you have access to it, you can’t necessarily educate yourself in the way that you would think. I don’t know. That was kind of a long and rambling answer. I don’t know if I even answered you’re question. [Laughs]



Brooklyn Bodega: [Laughs] Well, I think you touched on all the major themes. There’s two sides to the coin. There’s always been two sides to that conversation. There’s always been the critics and there’s always been people responding to the critics. The difference is now, the people responding to the critics and the people reading the critiques have a place where they can go say exactly what they think about that. You can just go to the comments section after the article you read or the album review and express your opinion publicly on whatever you just read. Before you just had that same conversation amongst a much smaller circle of people and most likely you knew them.


READ FULL INTERVIEW @BROOKLYNBODEGA.COM