Say what you will about their best years being behind them, but the fact that the Wu-Tang Clan are still touring and producing albums speaks volumes about the group’s ability to come together in the face of seemingly insurmountable creative differences and rip the hip-hop world one mic at a time. The pictures you’re looking at were taken during a gig at the Royal Oak Music Theatre on January 4, the halfway point in the group’s latest Wu Fest Tour. Pay special attention to the crowd shots. The group’s first album, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) hit record store shelves in 1993, smack in the middle of what many consider to be hip-hop’s golden era, and if you’ve been reading up on our latest series of hip-hop articles, you know what that particular time period represented to youth culture in America.

It didn’t matter if you were from Brooklyn, Los Angeles or Duluth, Minnesota, the words of Method Man, the RZA, Raekwon, Ghostface and the rest of the crew bounced around your brain like super balls with concrete centers. Battle hymns, kung-fu analogies, drug deals and the O.D.B.’s esoteric pillow talk were all there to be deciphered and studied by young monks looking for something darker and dingier than mainstream rap and R&B. Like NWA before them, Wu-Tang covered dangerous, uncharted territory, but 19 years later, their music remains a hip-hop touchstone, and their presence on stage is legend.

The last time I saw the RZA in concert, he spritzed the crowd with champagne—his preferred beverage—and everyone within five feet of the stage probably sustained a moderate contact high. Par for the course at your typical Wu-Tang show. But you won’t find that bottle-popping mentality in his rhymes, and while your average Wu member has a Ph.D. in flossing, they still know how to keep it grimy. Word is the Clan has a new full-length in the works for this year. Hearsay will abound, members will beef in the press about not having enough control, and RZA will probably make an appearance in someone’s film in the midst of it all, but it will come out, and like everything they do, it deserves to be given its due process.

Words by Rich Thomas (@TheLandfill). Photos by Joe Gall (@JoeGallPhoto).

I remember the first time I interviewed Busdriver after we made our high school re-connection. We met at the Silverlake Coffee Co, talked about his album—which I believe was Fear Of A Black Tangent, still one of the best-named rap albums of all time—talked a bit about our kids, and reminisced about school and who was currently doing what. A few of the guys in this series of stories came up, along with a few mutual friends, but what struck me most was how passionately he spoke about his music, and how invisible the line between his art and his daily life seemingly was. Anybody who’s anybody in the LA hip-hop community knows who Busdriver is, which is why his chameleonic journey—multiple producers with multiple styles on multiple record labels—should be recognized and applauded.

His seventh full-length album, Beaus$Eros, will be released on February 14 via Fake Four Inc, and features the singles “Bon Bon Fire” and “Kiss Me Back To Life.” (Check the video for the latter below.) The press release says the album focuses on “a devastating break-up and personal failure,” which sounds incredibly negative and sad until you realize that Bus has always had a maudlin, self-effacing quality to his music. Like all good poets—and he’s one of hip-hop’s finest—Busdriver recognizes that the best art is born from struggle and discomfort. This doesn’t mean, however, that the music needs to follow the same path.

Belgian-born Loden is the album’s sole producer, and like Busdriver’s previous studio partners—from Flying Lotus and Nosaj Thing to Modeselektor and Daddy Kev—he’s put together a motley palette to compliment the rapper’s off-kilter cadence and non-sequitur subject matter. Beaus$Eros is aural potpourri to the fullest, crafted by an artist who truly knows what it means to take risks. A 2012 tour is in the works, but we got with Busdriver to find out how he was holding it down twenty years earlier.

When did you attend Pilgrim?

Busdriver: Jesus…early ’90s?

Any favorite memories?

Busdriver: Playing basketball, rhyming with my buddies on the playground, weird introductory sexual encounters with frightened girls. But above all, a fight that I got into in which I used only my untested taekwondo skills to lay and unsuspecting classmate on his back. Those were my formative years and I miss them.

What was your relationship to some of these other dudes? What do you remember about them from back then?

Busdriver: Roscoe was a friend of mine back then. We were in a rap group together called 4/29 that my fellow classmates Rashad West and Billy Chun started when we were 14. I was always impressed by Roscoe’s inexhaustible confidence and genuine hip-hop credibility. He was associated with Redman somehow if I’m not mistaken. There was an emphasis on presentation and camera-friendly swagger in Roscoe’s approach to being a rapper that stuck with me for years after the fact. His understanding of the entertainment component in what I thought was just rhyming for the fun of it had a huge influence on me in retrospect.

Why do you think there was such a creative spark in those early ’90s classes?

Busdriver: I’m not really sure. Hip-hop informing youth culture as it did at the time probably had a lot to do with it.

How much were you actively pursuing music in school?

Busdriver: The pursuit was quite seriously, actually. Like I mentioned, my Kriss-Kross/Another Bad Creation styled rap group 4/29 was fairly active. We would play gigs, record ridiculous songs, submit cassette demos and meet with A&Rs. It was our after-school program.

If you could put together a 5-song mixtape of tracks that really exemplified that era, what would be on it and why?

Busdriver: For me it was “Make Room” by Tha Alkaholiks, “La Schmoove” from the Fu-Schnickens, “One For All” from Brand Nubian and few other songs that I’ve forgotten, but it was mostly what the DJs would play at the dances. We all bloomed during those school dances. It was a seriously competitive affair with the task of dressing fly and having your fade together firmly positioned at the crux of how you were to be perceived. Everyone had their own variations on the dances of that era like the Roger Rabbit, the Kid ‘n Play and the RoboCop. Those subtleties became the flowering buds of all of our unique personalities. It was a fantastic time.

Words by Rich Thomas (@TheLandfill). Kitchen photo courtesy of Daiana Feuer.

Video after the Jump

Click here to download the MP3 for free visit.

Kweli’s ‘Prisoner of Conscious’ album out in 2012 through Blacksmith / EMI.

Stone only attended Pilgrim for his freshman year (1992-1993) and the summer session preceeding it, but he wasted no time making an impact. Icewater credits him as the inspiration for his DJ career, and stepping in as the DJ for the group 4/29 connected him with Umali and Busdriver at a time when both MCs were just getting their feet wet in the rap game. Though he was a loud and boisterous dude, Stone didn’t flaunt his DJ abilities at school, but was always up on the latest groups and hottest cuts of vinyl.

These days he propogates freshness as one-half of the Captains of Industry, a dynamic DJ duo whose mission is to “restore some of the fun and return some of the luster to the craft.” They are, in short, your favorite DJ’s favorite DJs. Apart from a few monthlies and bi-monthlies in cities like Miami, Chicago and Milwaukee, StoneRokk’s schedule is pretty fluid. (See all the Captain’s dates here and download their epic Mas Trabajo mix here.) He admits he’d like to work seven days a week, but as that sort of dance card would place undue pressure on a symbiotic mind/body relationship, he’s content with what he’s got. Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t rack up frequent flyer miles like a boss.

I caught up with the venerable Captain one afternoon to learn a little more about his nimble crew and take a mindtrip back through the small and incredibly cramped hallways of Pilgrim School. Oh, and speaking of throwback gems, if you’re in the market for some vintage Starter jackets, rare Nike Dunks, or some aviators guranteed to up your pimp game, you should check out StoneRokk’s eBay auction site. His losses truly are your gains.

How did the Captains of Industry come about?

DJ StoneRokk: Graham (Funke) and I ran parallel for many years and had a lot of mutual friends outside and inside the industry, but we never connected. It was love at first sight. Tough to find a DJ that can string together a sentence. He was like, “You’re relatively smart and interesting,” and I was like, “You’re into cool shit.” His line is, “DJing doesn’t define our world view, our world view defines DJing,” which is basically like, “If I didn’t DJ, my life wouldn’t be over.” We bond over books and movies and shared interests.

You first got into DJing at Pilgrim, right? 

DJ StoneRokk: I was always really interested in technical stuff and building things. My dad is an architect, so I used to build RC cars and model boats. When I was a kid, my parents divorced, and when I’d go see my dad we’d have movie nights where he would pick a movie and I’d have to watch his shitty movie and then I’d pick a movie and he would have to watch my shitty movie. He was a lot more liberal with the things I could watch and listen to. At the time, my mom didn’t let me watch the movie Juice, where the main character was a DJ. So it came out on tape, I watched it with my dad and was like, “That looks awesome. This is something I might be interested in getting into.” I’m 12 years old at this point. My birthday is December 23rd and my parents were pretty good about separating my birthday and Christmas, so they were like, “What do you want for your birthday?” I said, “Two turntables and a mixer.” I got that for Christmas ’92 and I started DJing.

And you taught yourself?

DJ StoneRokk: I figured out that music is just based on math, so I learned where to insert songs and where to come out of songs and how to make it seamless just equating it to math. But music was never an impetus to DJing. It was more the technical aspect. I say this often: I don’t like music. I like DJing. A race car driver might like to drive really fast and win races, but he doesn’t necessarily give a shit how the car works. He might learn because he spends so much time around a car, but he doesn’t give a shit about clutch and transmission and cams and stuff. He just wants to race cars and I just want to DJ. I don’t care about making music and what it entails or any of that shit.

Did that suit your way of thinking? Were you an analytical dude in school?

DJ StoneRokk: My freshman year grades did not reflect this, but yes. I was always better at any class that required me to formulate the solution. Any class where I had to memorize nonsense—history, geography—I was awful at. 

So where did your dry wit come from?

DJ StoneRokk: I don’t know, man. It just kinda developed. (Laughs)

Your Twitter is a constant source of amusement for me.

DJ StoneRokk: I resisted that for a long time, but then I found my voice: aloof asshole. (Laughs) That’s what it boils down to. 

Did you play any sports at Pilgrim?

DJ StoneRokk: I tried out for football the next year, but I ended up not going back to Pilgrim. I wasn’t really into sports. I played soccer growing up, but there wasn’t a soccer team, and when I left, I ended up playing basketball at Pacific Hills where I finished my high school. 

So how many of these cats did you know?

DJ StoneRokk: Regan (Farquhar, Busdriver) I met through Rashad West because they were in 4/29 together. Roscoe (Umali), I still see him around now and then. Rodney (Sino-Cruz, DJ Icewater), I saw him a few times randomly at a party here or a club there and he actually told me that I was the reason he started DJing, which blows my mind because I wasn’t vocal about my DJing. All throughout high school, I wasn’t presenting myself as a DJ. If you came to my house, you’d see that I had turntables and some records and I would play something for you, but I never DJ’d dances or anything like that. It wasn’t until I graduated high school that I was like, “Let me go try and do this.” It was just a thing that I did at home, and at the time, it was something as obscure as fencing. People wold come over and their mind would be blown. “What is this thing?” (Laughs)

So what do you remember about Roscoe from back then?

DJ StoneRokk: I remember he had a really cool Asian haircut and he was definitely doing the rap thing. I don’t think he was in 4/29 initially. I think he got recruited after the fact. Maybe they dropped a member or something and then he got put on. If I remember correctly, we bum-rushed a dance at Marymount, the all-girls school, and I’m pretty sure he got on the mic there. Like he somehow finessed the DJ to give him the mic. But yeah, we were all wearing really shitty clothes back then. 

Long live the Cross Colours Era.

DJ StoneRokk: Cross Colors, Pro Unity, All that shit was going on back then. It was a really confusing time. 

What do you think it was about those years that allowed kids to flourish creatively?

DJ StoneRokk: If you talk to the guys coming up in the ’80s, they’re gonna tell you that was the golden era of hip-hop, but to me it really got its legs in the early ’90s because there were more groups doing different things. You had the NWA’s and the Ice-T’s, then you had the whole Native Tongue thing with Tribe and De la Soul. You couldn’t get two groups that were more polar opposite than Tribe Called Quest and NWA, and they were both doing the same thing but they represented completely different things, and that was the popular music at the time. You could go be gangster dude or you could be Native Tongue dude. It made for an interesting group of kids running the streets. 

Ab Rude and I were remembering how diverse the curriculum was at Pilgrim, and not just the elective. The required classes, as well.

DJ StoneRokk: That school was very…I don’t want to say progressive, but it was advanced. When I went there, I definitely had a hard time with it. For example, I didn’t have English class, I had Mythology class. I’m fucking 12 years old reading about this shit and I’m like, “I’m not interested in any of this.” You really had to come from a special place to succeed there, and if you were succeeding and absorbing what was going on around you, you were gonna win. Now you’re lucky if you come out of high school with a freshman level education in english and math. Yes, I have to give allowances because they’re 18, 19, 20 years old, but they’re retarded, man. They don’t even know how to write English words. If you go on Twitter and follow some of these people, they’re not even speaking English. Technology is only making people more stupid because now they can only speak in 140 characters or less.

What was your best memory from those days?

DJ StoneRokk: I discovered The Source (magazine) at Pilgrim. Maybe that’s what kept me interested in DJing. Records would come out on Tuesday and Wednesday we were talking about ’em. It would be, “Did you see so-and-so perform on In Living Color the night before?” or “Did you get the new Source?” If you had The Source, you were the guy. It’s weird that you’re writing this article and the one thing I remember from all of that is the music. What I remember the most was how much music was the influence for everything.

Words by Rich Thomas (@TheLandfill).

Roscoe was everywhere back in the day, and the dude was always talking. He knew how to handle teachers, even the ones that tried to rub him the wrong way. He spent entire lunch periods shooting the breeze with the comadre that ran the food truck that pulled up outside our school. He was an athlete and a performer, and as long as I knew him, he had his sights set on music. The inset photo above was shot at a school assembly—that’s a young DJ Icewater standing beside the tree—and the quote below was pulled directly from a section in the yearbook called Student Superstars.

“Although he loves rap, Roscoe “The Original” Umali says he is also interested in R&B and classical music. He is currently working on various raps to put on his future album. Some of the raps that Roscoe has completed are called “Pause 4 Da Cause,” an educational rap supporting various causes like D.A.R.E. and safe sex, and “How Did U Like Da’ Show (Flip & Funky, Good 2 Go),” about how anyone can make it “in the business” no matter what race they are, as long as they put their mind to it.”

Talk about telegraphing a punch.

Today, Umali’s resume reads like a hip-hop who’s who—collabos with E40, Snoop, Talib Kweli, Ice Cube and Akon, just to name a few—and with multiple visits to (and co-signs from) the World Famous Wake Up Show, his freestyle flow is 100% battle-tested. Umali is currently involved with an international project called Sun Zoo, a group featuring Drunken Tiger, Yoonmirae, Styliztik Jones, Illmind and Pilgrim alumni James Jung, a.k.a. DJ JHIG. (Stay tuned for the reality show.) In the meantime, follow him @RoscoeUmali and check the interview below.

I remember you were one of the OG Pilgrim students!

Roscoe Umali: I went to Pilgrim from kindergarten through 12th. I was what they called a “lifer.” Graduated in ’95.

What were some of your favorite memories from back then?

Roscoe Umali: My favorite memories of my high school days all involve the relationships that I formed with my lifelong friends. Pilgrim is where I first developed the relationships that have helped me develop the career I have today.

I know he was only there for one year and one summer, but do you remember Mike Stone (a.k.a. DJ StoneRokk)?

Roscoe Umali: DJ StoneRokk was the homie! He was a grade lower than me and was the DJ for our group, 4/29, which consisted of me and two other Pilgrim alumni: Rashad West and Regan Farquhar (a.k.a Busdriver). Regan and I met in junior high. He and Rashad (were already in) 4/29, which was named after the date of the Los Angeles riots. He and Rashad asked me to join the group after one of the members dropped out. That group was my first experience in the music industry. Under the direction of Regan’s father and uncle, Ralph and Kurt Farquhar—who were both very established names in the TV and music industry at the time—we went on to record several songs and did shows all around the city. I’ll always be thankful to Regan for introducing me to the music industry and exposing me to the in’s and out’s at a very young age.

What about Icewater and Ab Rude?

Roscoe Umali: Rodney Sino-Cruz (DJ Icewater) was the homie also. His sister, Glenda, was in my class. Rodney was always very knowledgeable about hip-hop. I remember talking about music with him and being impressed with how much hip-hop trivia he knew. (Laughs) We were really cool. I asked him to scratch on some records that I did. Dope DJ. Aaron Pointer (Abstract Rude) was older than me and we didn’t have much of a personal relationship. I always looked up to him though because he was always rapping and singing in the hallways at Pilgrim. The thing I remember most about him was when he rapped his speech at an assembly meeting. He was the student body president and I thought it was dope that he had the balls to get up in front of the whole school and rap his speech!

I’ve been asking all the other guys this question, but what do you think it was about that particular time that allowed each of you to flourish?

Roscoe Umali: I really can’t pinpoint what it was about the era or the school that influenced us. Pilgrim didn’t have a very traditional music program. I think we were just products of a golden era in hip-hop music. We loved it! We influenced each other in the way we dressed, what we listened to, and how we talked. The fact that Pilgrim was such a close knit family gave us all the opportunity to collaborate and compete with one another in a comfortable setting that promoted creativity. Being involved with 4/29 gave me a jump start in the music industry. We were fortunate enough to be exposed to it at a very young age, and I’ve been actively involved in the industry ever since. I look back at the era and I’m still amazed.

Like Icewater, Roscoe came with five key joints from our era that heavily influenced his style. This is the list he put together.

Poor Righteous Teachers – “Rock This Funky Joint”
The first rap record that I ever memorized by writing the lyrics on paper. Once I saw the lyrics on a piece of paper, it revolutionized the way I viewed rap lyrics.

The Pharcyde – “Passin’ Me By”
They embodied the hip-hop movement of LA at the time. As an aspiring rapper from the same region, I looked up to them and their movement. They showed that you didn’t have to be super gang banged out to be successful.

Souls Of Mischief – “93 ’til Infinity”
Bay Area lyricist movement. Big influence on me.

A Tribe Called Quest – “Check The Rhime”
I was so into Tribe that I thought I was in the group myself! I wanted to rap like Phife!

Black Sheep – “The Choice Is Yours”
This song was from my favorite album of the era, A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing. Back when the Walkman had the auto reverse feature, no other album had heavier rotation in my headset.

Words by Rich Thomas (@TheLandfill).

After graduating from Pilgrim in 1996—two years after myself—Icewater moved to the Berkeley, CA where he appeared on seminal hip-hop shows “The O-Zone” (from ’96-’98) and “The Beatdown” (from ’97-’00). In 1998, he and fellow turntablist DJ Mpact started a student-run course at UC Berkeley called “Turntablism 101,” the first of its kind at a public university. Over the next few years, he would tour with Living Legends alums Grouch & Eligh, Japanese American MC Shing02, and the Pharcyde, all the while serving as one of the Bay Area’s most in-demand recording engineers.

Icewater currently resides in Brooklyn, NY where he continues to work as an audio engineer and DJ. Drop in on his tracks, mixes and current projects at www.djicewater.com.

What are some of your favorite Pilgrim School memories?

DJ Icewater: I spent a lot of my time playing sports for the school, so those are my fondest memories. Bus rides to and from games were spent trading and listening to tapes and CDs of whatever we were into at the time. I heard a lot of my favorite music for the first time on those rides.

A lot of these guys played sports with you, right?

DJ Icewater: I’ve known Roscoe (Umali) since the very beginning. We’re damn near cousins. I remember him being a very, very funny guy. Roscoe was a good freestyler too. I always thought he could rap. From what I recall, Mike Stone (DJ StoneRokk) was at Pilgrim for only one year, but we were good friends during that period. He actually was the first person to introduce me to turntables when we were in the 9th grade. It really motivated me to become a DJ. I used to play basketball after school with Aaron Pointer (Abstract Rude). I remember him being a pretty good player. When I was in college, I interviewed Ab for a small hip-hop magazine and we made the Pilgrim connection. Since then we’ve run in a lot of the same circles and worked together here and there. I mainly remember Reagan (Busdriver) from French class where he would always fall asleep. He was a real reserved and quiet guy so I never expected that he would develop such an intricate rap style.

Do you think Pilgrim had a major influence on everyone’s future careers? Why was that time special?

DJ Icewater: Our “pop” music was golden era and underground hip-hop. We bumped (A Tribe Called Quest’s) The Low End Theory the way young people today bump Lady Gaga. It felt like everyone was into music at the school so it really fostered an artistic environment. I’m not so sure it was our school specifically but more our generation that created this environment.

How deep into music were you at Pilgrim?

DJ Icewater: At Pilgrim, I was trying to be well rounded so I did everything from athletics to student government to the arts. I studied piano and guitar throughout parts of elementary and high school. I bought my first set of turntables in the 11th grade, and from there my interest in hip-hop grew tremendously. It was my new obsession and addiction.

After our interview, I asked Icewater to list five tracks that really exemplified that moment in time: school, sports, radio…everything that was percolating back then. This is what he put together.

De La Soul – “Ring, Ring, Ring”
My favorite group of all time.

The Pharcyde – “Passin’ Me By”
One of the first non-gangsta West Coast records. Before then, I didn’t think this type of sound could come out of LA.

Brand Nubian – “Wake Up”
Grand Puba was always underrated to me. I like this song’s unique structure because it doesn’t really have a hook, but it’s arranged in a way that doesn’t feel like one long verse. The song still builds and grows with every bar.

Del Tha Funky Homosapien – “Catch A Bad One”
I could be wrong, but I remember warming up to this song at home basketball games.

Ras Kass – “Remain Anonymous”
Underground West Coast anthem, especially for my fellow hip-hop nerds.

Words by Rich Thomas (@TheLandfill)

“I do think it’s about reality setting in,” Evidence says in his dressing room before hitting the stage at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre with label mates Atmosphere. “It’s just based on my mom passing. My first record ‘The Weatherman LP’ was like a big exhale; I had to get that out, say shit. It was like therapy to do it, but then as reality set in and the actual things like paying my mom’s bills every month, having to go through her storage and do shit that I hadn’t had to go through yet. Then there was the recession and remodeling my house, spending a fuckload of money and then money not coming after that. Then realizing, ‘Hey I want more money,’ so I’ve got to hit the road. But I wanted to stay home and make a record.”

Cats & Dogs

Evidence found some solace while recording “Cats & Dogs.” It’s a revealing, personal album, one that allows him to discuss the highs and lows of his life, all while not getting bogged down by the substantial setbacks he experienced.

“It was an interesting time for me,” Evidence says. “They say you can’t control when it lands on you and it landed on me, so to speak. It was like a bad acid trip a little bit, but I felt like after the high dosage started to wear off that I started to get through my trip a little bit. I think there’s a lot of positivity and a lot of moments of, ‘I’m going to make it.’ But then I broke up with a girl for the first time. Do I talk about this or not? Hey, that’s happening on top of all this other shit. A song like ‘Well Runs Dry,’ a song like ‘I Don’t Need Love,’ it’s like, ‘Do I say this or I don’t say this?’ I decided to say it.”

He also decided to remain true to his roots by keeping his album sharp, both conceptually and sonically. “Where You Come From?” with Rakaa, Lil Fame and Termanology is a clever biographical exercise, while “Fame” with Roc Marciano and Prodigy features the three rappers looking at fame from three different perspectives. There’s also the DJ Premier-produced “You,” a braggadocio gem that works well with his other solo material.

“I went through an interesting period from when ‘The Layover’ left off to this period,” he says. “Without trying to put my whole life on a record and be emo, I felt like I still couldn’t lie about things that were happening. So instead of saying, ‘Cowboy hats are wack,’ I said, ‘I’m going to wear a Cowboy hat this time.’ So it’s kind of a for better — for worse type of record and I do think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel to all of it.”

Words by Soren Baker (@SorenBaker)

The Life Feat Bun B (Prod. by 14KT) by ChinaShopMag