AZ is vintage. Not Urban Outfitter-manufactured vintage, but genuine, back of the thrift store vintage. From his classic verse on Nas’s “Life’s a B***h” to his pairing with the QB vet on the Grammy-nominated “The Essence,” the Brooklyn-bred emcee has always embodied the sound of an influential era. Mid-90s New York, to be exact. But with admiration has come alienation for AZ. As the Sidney Poitier to God Son’s Bill Cosby in "Uptown Saturday Night," the rapper has been revered critically while overlooked commercially. On his latest album, Final Call, the artist formerly known as Sosa attempts to reintroduce himself once more to the "106 & Park" set. Before he sits down next to Free for an interview, AZ spoke with AllHipHop.com and waxed poetic about the status of the Nas collabo album, the late Half-A-Mil and Mr. Jell-O Pudding. He even took us back to “Sugar Hill.” How retro. AllHipHop.com: The new album, Final Call. What’s up with the title? You going out like this? You retiring? AZ: [laughs] Nah, basically Final Call is just giving people a final call, the final chance to understand who I am and what I bring to the table and the purpose I serve in this game. If they don’t really recognize this, I’ma fall back and let my artists off my label to do their thing. That’s all. AllHipHop.com: Recently Kedar Massenburg [the former head of Motown when AZ was signed to the label] resigned from his post. Now, you’re a Grammy-nominated rapper and critically acclaimed, you do your part, is there something Kedar wasn’t doing right? Because he was always on the hot seat. Or is it a situation where the labels in general aren’t holding up their end of the bargain? AZ: Well, me, I always want to go to a label where I’m like Christopher Columbus. I want to discover something new there. See Motown ain’t really indulge in hip-hop, you know what I’m saying? So I wanted to go there and break the ice and be the one that set if off up there for all the other artists to come behind. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a clue to what the hell they was doing and they didn’t want to know. Because they was into the neo-soul and things of that nature. So that’s why I left. As far as Kedar, and his getting fired, I guess that’s internally. He’s a good brother with what he do. But I guess when it came to rap, he ain’t have a clue. And I guess his staff didn’t have a clue. But they wanted to learn, but I guess it was just too much on their table. So they left it up to me and I got to make my own moves right now. AllHipHop.com: You used to run with Half-A-Mil…was he ever signed to Quiet Money? AZ: Half-A-Mil was at one time signed to Quiet Money. We did an album. I got a Quiet Money album here that’s never been released with Half-A-Mil, Animal, and me. And then he ventured off to do his own thing and we lost contact. Like since 2000, I ain’t really been speaking to him, he was trying to do his own thing, so when I heard about what happened, it kinda f*cked me up a little bit. I ain’t get the full story, you know? But you know how the ‘hood sh*t go. AllHipHop.com: You ever think about putting that material out as a tribute to honor him? AZ: Um, I don’t know, man. It’s up in the air. I gotta contact his family and things of that nature. I don’t just throw it out like that. But I got a whole lot of material. AllHipHop.com: Right, that’s what I meant: like the paper goes to his family or something. AZ: Yeah I might. Once I get in the position that I need to get to, I guess I’ll do that. AllHipHop.com: People billed 9 Lives as your comeback, but then on Aziatic you had the “Welcome Back” intro and the Buckwild-produced single, “ I’m Back.” Do you think people are looking at this album as another comeback for you? AZ: Nah, ‘cause I ain’t never go no where to come back. I’m just rapping in and out through will, you know what I mean? This is what I want to do. I take time, I perfect my craft and I put it out when I feel put. So as far as coming back, nah. AllHipHop.com: Now back in the day, you were in Jay-Z’s video for “Dead Presidents.” There was Jay, Smooth the Hustler, Biggie, some others, and you. You don’t see an image like that anymore, because rappers splinter so quickly now. In the past it seemed like rappers rolled with rappers. Where now rappers roll with their people and make them rappers. AZ: [laughs] That’s real sh*t right there. You right. AllHipHop.com: Do you remember that day? AZ: Yeah, that was a classic. Jay was shooting that video and he asked us all to come through. I knew Jay; me and Jay went to school together back in high school. And I guess he went to school with Biggie at one time, too. ‘Cause we all got transferred out of the school we was at. So anyways, it was the video, and I came through to do that. It was a beautiful day. AllHipHop.com: On Aziatic, you had a track “Hustler” where the hook mentions hustling as something someone had to do, it wasn’t a choice. As someone who people look for to drop knowledge in their music, I wanted to ask your take on Bill Cosby’s comments regarding poor black people holding back Black America. AZ: Right. Bill Cosby, you know, he’s been rich his whole life, man. Bill Cosby’s been doing it before half of us were born. I see the perspective he’s speaking on. He’s using reverse psychology to make us, as a minority, step our game […]

From the most hedonistically concerned club hopper, to the most obsessively analytical college kid, and everyone else in between, Brooklyn’s Talib Kweli is respected and admired. “Get By,” from 2002’s Quality is Kweli’s biggest hit, and it proved to be a sign of things to come for Kweli. Many who have followed his career felt the song to be a perfect hybrid of the uncompromising substances Kweli is revered for and the head nodding production and flow necessary to garner a wider audience. His unquestioned skills and transcending respect were boldly underscored when one of hip hop’s most universally deified Emcees spit the following line, “if skillz sold truth be told/I’d probably be/lyrically Talib Kweli.” The verse from Jay-Z’s “Moment of Clarity” left all who know Kweli cheerfully affirming, and left those that didn’t hitting Google.com. Recent developments in Hip-Hop, the emergence of Kanye West and a seemingly growing appreciation from the mainstream of potent lyrics, have Kweli poised to transcend his status as superb Emcee, to full fledged superstar. Birth from the fertile, and sometimes divisive mid-90’s underground, Kweli has become an Emcee that will destroy our understanding of what underground and mainstream are suppose to mean. When the dust settles and all the labels, categories, adjectives and genres are gone, there will only be the music, and that’s exactly the way Kweli wants it. AllHipHop.com: What’s the biggest difference between Talib Kweli of 1998 and Talib Kweli of 2004? Kweli: The two biggest differences are experience and resources. I have way more experience and I have way more resources available to me, and that of course, changes how you view the world. AllHipHop.com: Do you feel that anticipation of greatness on the eve of your sophomore album, The Beautiful Struggle? Do you have a feeling like this one is going out of the park? Kweli: Ummm, yeah, yeah. Ummm, out the park I don’t know, but I do feel changes around me as simple as more people recognizing me. I know something’s going to happen, I can’t call exactly what it’s going to be. My success has never been related to records sales, but I have been successful. So even if it doesn’t sell out of the park, I do sense something successful happening with this album. AllHipHop.com: I know that you are very calculated; did you consider any other titles for the album to sum up this opus? Kweli: Umm, the title is something that Mos Def has said around me many times and I’m sure I kicked around some other titles but I can’t remember what they are. Me and my manager, Corey, we don’t always agree with everything, especially titles and stuff, but when I said that to him, he said ,‘that’s perfect.’ So we just stuck with it. AllHipHop.com: Did you consider changing the title after the leak, or did the leak make the title more relevant? Kweli: Yeah, the leak made the title more relevant. Before the leak, I finished the album in three to four months, so the album wasn’t necessarily a struggle to make even though it was about struggle. Once the leak happened, the album then became a struggle to make – as far as having to get the mixtape s**t out, having to deal with the leak situation, and having to deal with the record label falling back on what I thought was its support of the record. AllHipHop.com: Because you are such a deeply personal Emcee, would it be correct to say that your lyrics are directly related to your growth outside of music? Kweli: Yeah, I would say I strive for that. I haven’t always been that but I’ve always ran towards that? AllHipHop.com: With that said, are there any verses in you catalog that you don’t necessarily agree with or even subscribe to anymore? Kweli: Sometimes. A question I use to get all the time was, “Does “The Manifesto” still apply to your life?” That’s a song that I probably would have written differently in 04’ than I did in 98’. I would have made it more clear that the ten point program I said in the song was for me, and not for Emcees in general. The stance I’ve taken since then is, while I am going to speak about the state of Hip-Hop and how upset I am about it, I am going to do it strictly from a personal perspective. Any other way, I feel, just isn’t any fun to listen to. AllHipHop.com: You’ve said that a true fan of the music likes anything that’s dope and doesn’t really get caught up in the labels of underground, gangsta, blah, blah. At one time did you ever get caught up in the labels? Kweli: Oh definitely, the reasons I’ve strongly said those statements in the press, is because I’ve found myself falling victim to that stuff the press creates. I came out of a tight knit independent scene and there were a lot of people in the commercial world who just weren’t around that scene, so they were always viewed with suspicion whether they were being suspicious or not, and vise versa. I found myself appreciating artists, but not realizing that those artist appreciated me. Ultimately ,I just had to get out of that. AllHipHop.com: This leads us into the next question. On one of Jay-Z’s most personal songs, and on what is said to be his last album, he big upped you. Were you surprised to hear that? Kweli: Yeah, I was surprised. Ya know a lot of journalists have asked me that question, but you’re the first one that mentioned the fact that he mentioned my name on a personal song. His lyrics were intensely personal on that song, and that’s the thing that surprised me more than anything. Jay-Z is an Emcee that just never ceases to amaze me. I met him a couple of times, and had kicked it with him a couple of times before he dropped that line, […]

Back in 2002, the mixtape scene was rapidly launching little-known New York City rappers into the forefront of the hip-hop game. Names such as 50 Cent and Joe Budden were dominating the streets with various freestyles while making bootlegs by the likes of Kay Slay and DJ Clue must-haves. One MC whose name appeared alongside 50 on many of these releases was Jamaica, Queens native Grafh, but unlike his fellow Q-borough chart-topper, Grafh’s debut album has yet to see a street date. While his buzz rang heavy through the five boroughs, Grafh’s exposure had been limited to endless mixtapes due to inevitable label drama. 2003 saw his future flirt with potential success, with his signing to Sony/Epic in preparation for his official long-player, AutoGrafh. Unfortunately, his story’s pages continued to turn for the worse, as problems with Sony led to further delay for his album. Possessing unique talent backed by confidence and focus, Grafh continued to cement his Blackhand family’s name into the minds of listeners with a stream of independently issued music. Now in 2004, Grafh’s career is at its most exciting point, as he and Blackhand have inked a deal with Roc-A-Fella Records. With Dame Dash and The Roc cosigning, Grafh is ready to finally capitalize on his hype and prove to the world that he has next. AllHipHop.com: You’ve been on the grind for awhile, with little help behind you. So how does it feel to be a part of the Roc-A-Fella family right now? Grafh: It feels good, man. It feels good to have a strong label behind me that feels what I’m trying to do. It feels good to have somebody behind you that feels the music and sees the vision, because at Sony they couldn’t see what I was trying to do. They don’t understand my kind of music. I tried to bring somebody a record that’s different and that nobody has done before. It might seem like the future and it might set a trend, and they can’t see and understand it. To them, it’s not hot because they are only used to what they have heard before. AllHipHop.com: How did this deal between Blackhand and Roc-A-Fella come about exactly? Grafh: At first, we had a film deal at Roc-A-Fella, and we have a movie coming out called Inside Out, that should be out by the end of next year. So we had that already. They felt the music over there and understood the vision, and they actually wanted to do the deal before Sony but they had so many artists to put out first that it wouldn’t have been the best move at the time. Plus, I was in a big bidding war at that point, so I was just feeling out everybody. Sony won the bidding war because they were talking that million dollar talk. They made it seem like they were gonna do what they were supposed to do, but they don’t know how to do rap. Sony is history now. So Roc-A-Fella came out through the history they have with Blackhand. I’m the president of Blackhand, but the CEO is my man Chaz and he had a relationship with Dame Dash. We did the movie deal, and after that it just led into the music. AllHipHop.com: You touched on this a little already, but why do you think Sony wasn’t able to handle your project? Grafh: I think they will never break a rap act at Sony unless the artist is on some real sweet s###. I’m not B2K, you know, they don’t know how to market me. It’s not like my music is mad underground. I do s### for the hood. I make big records, and I have hit songs that they just couldn’t seem to market. A lot of the records I brought to them they couldn’t understand cuz I don’t bring you what you have heard before. They were looking for records that sounded like what was on the radio already. I’m innovative and I do new s###, and you have to get with me or just forget it. I’m never gonna bring you a record that sounds like somebody else’s. That isn’t gonna happen. I’m not gonna bring you some B2K-sounding sweet s### cuz I don’t do that. A lot of labels don’t understand that you have to market the artist, not just the record. You can’t just sell people a record, because people buy artists. You can have a hit, but nobody knows who the artist is, and that’s why n##### don’t sell. People just like the song but they don’t know who the f### made the record. AllHipHop.com: So what’s going to happen to the AutoGrafh album you recorded for Sony? Grafh: The album is still gonna be called AutoGrafh. I made so many records that I have like three albums, man. I’m just weeding through the songs and making sure everything goes together. When I recorded the album, the theme was just me, my life, my struggles, and my introduction to the world. Every song is basically from the same point of view. It’s going to be a cohesive album where everything makes sense. So what I’m gonna do now is weed through the songs I got, and keep making more records with the Roc-A-Fella producers. The album that Sony has, they can keep that s###. I don’t need it. “Bang Out” and all that, they can keep it. It’s in the streets already and n##### love it. AllHipHop.com: Can we expect any collaborations with the Roc-A-Fella artists to prepare for the album release? Grafh: Yeah, we definitely gonna do some things. I don’t know what yet. Kanye West is my man, and I got mad joints that I did with him before he even blew up. Two of them are on my mixtape out now, The Oracle, the songs “Damage Is Done” and “We Ridin’”. I like Beanie Sigel, and I did something with Juelz Santana already. I’m working, not just […]

In the Land of Milk and Honey, where everything isn’t always so sunny, it seems like it gets more difficult for musicians – especially Hip-Hop – to find the keys to longevity. Jurassic 5, however, one of West Coast hip-hop’s pioneers, has figured out how to allow six individual voices to stand out and stand together as they venture out but not away from. Charlie 2na, a faction of one of the underground’s favorite throwback groups, is sounding off as he takes his turn at letting his voice be heard as he tells us how J5 has maintained and how he as a man has grown. AllHipHop.com: So what’s up, you the latest to fly solo? C2: Well it’s a sole venture, It’s not like I’m going solo and leaving my crew because without my crew I wouldn’t even be here. We ain’t finished making music together anyways. It was just one of those things where something had been brewing inside me since the conception of me being an mc and just going one day I would like to just get this off of my chest and today’s the day. AllHipHop.com: How is what you have to get off your chest as an individual different from what you have to get off your chest in the group? C2: Well, it’s a lot more personal and a lot closer to home. It’s a lot more audio-biographical if you feel what I’m saying. It’s like a lot things that have happened in my life to shape me into being who I am are being exposed on this album. Along with a lot of collaborations I’ve always wanted to do with Jacks but wasn’t always necessarily able to pull off being in the group because you know being in the group and having six minds having to bounce around these ideas, it wasn’t something I was immediately able to do like working with Beenie Man and Raphael Saadiq and for me it was more than just getting to work with them, I’m a big fan of their music so it was really big for me to finally be able to do it on my solo project. AllHipHop.com: Tell me how you would classify J5’s sound versus your own sound or style. C2: J5 is unadulterated hip-hop. People always try to make us out to be like we’re the alternative’s of hip hop today when in actuality I feel like a lot of these cat’s out here are the alternative’s to hip-hop. But to sum us up it’s a line in the song we got called “Break This” that says we paying homage as well as returning favors and that’s basically what Jurassic is. We draw from the past and we draw from the future as well but we just try to acknowledge what happened in order for us to see where we’re going. With my stuff, I’m 1/6 of that conglomerate that makes that unadulterated hip hop so I’m basically showing you that percentage of Jurassic. That 1/6 of what I bring which is a little different from what everybody else, because all of us are on different levels as far as bringing different things to the music but with me like an extreme dancehall lover and house music, salsa music and stuff like that where as Mark 7 or Zaakir will be into real live old school soul like Marvin Gaye and Al Green, I believe my influences really show on this album. This album displays all the different facets of me from all of the different side projects I’ve done, which displays all of the different music that I like. Each song is different in that aspect because it covers all the genres of music I’m into. AllHipHop.com: So what are we going to learn about you that we don’t already know about you? C2: Well your gonna get a little history on my Mom and Pop and my son. I have a song called the righteous way, where basically it’s like those little Russian puzzles that are shaped like a person and you open it up and there’s another little person on the inside of that. Well that song is basically about me from that perspective. It’s about my father which is the first me and all the things that he had to go through to raise me and the second verse is about me and all of the things I had to go through to become a man and the last verse is about me as parent and all the things that I’ve had to go through to raise my son. AllHipHop.com: I might not be a man but I can so relate to that right now, so was this kind of like a therapy session for you? C2: Definitely, I’m glad you said it like that, I appreciate that. AllHipHop.com: Well I understand, what’s the album called and when is it dropping? C2: It’s called A Fish Out of Water and it should be dropping around the beginning of October. AllHipHop.com: What are your immediate plans? C2: Just finishing up the album I’m gonna be touring and doing some promo dates for the album and we’ve already started working on a new J5 album, we’re about 5 songs deep into that one. And you know we’re just gonna tour like crazy once that’s done, that’s what we do. AllHipHop.com: As one of the more culturally conscious groups around would you like to share any of your opinions on the upcoming elections? C2: Well I wrote this song with Ozomale that’s called “who’s to blame” and there’s a line it that says “while wars are waged over pathetic turf, we elect leaders with no regard for planet earth” and that’s how I feel about it right now. These cat’s aint really caring about life. They’re caring about money and things like that. I’m not a super-duper active cat when it comes to the voting process because I know people […]