“They nice, that’s why they Sweden,” says Psycho Les
sagely, nodding his head with a weeded grin half-formed on his mouth “‘cause
they ass is sweet.”
Les and his half-open chino eyes, redded and looking
ready to fall asleep at the table, makes a strong argument against weed at
roughly 3pm on a Tuesday afternoon, his bluntness blunting the wit that
might have been present. It’s air-conditioned in Alphabet City’s Bar 7B
though and it’s almost enough to make everything okay, everything being a
stoned slow interviewee and a city-wide non-smoking policy (which the
over-controlling politician’s of Toronto recently mimicked). This fine
afternoon nearly every patron in the bar steps out to smoke something. A
little something if you’re the Beatnuts.
They’re relatively prompt though, this small fact alone
separates them from masses of emcees and producers who’re coddled in every
way, late every day and have the attitudes of primadonna’s that should have
them as stars on the underperforming Italian squad that saw an early exit
from the Euro Cup. So word – say word – the Beatnuts is good peoples for
this reason alone.
World Famous? Yes. And your boys the Beatnuts are world
travelers, full of insightful commentary. They’ve been spreading their
message across continents, hitting spots far beyond the reach of your F’s
and E’s, your numbered trains, your M’s and A’s like the aforementioned
Sweden where JuJu says the women are devoid of flavour, or Australia, which
JuJu finds the words to praise. “It was a fat-ass convention in Australia.
Like the ass would be like, the most white bitches have fat-asses in
Australia.”
And they’ve been doing it for 5 albums. Their message?
“I’ll say it right now, I don’t got no fucking
message, there ain’t no fuckin’ message in my records,” says a far more
boisterous JuJu with a grill full of braces. This The Beatnuts have made
clear in perhaps every interview they’ve ever given, is reason not to take
them seriously.
So it’s the music you must focus on with Los Nuts.
Their often empty raps (and occasionally not-so well timed raps) are the
focus of teenage sodomites (Sodom of course, being the embodiment of a
society concerned solely with selfish pursuits and over-consumption) and
tut-tutting moralizing P.C. music “journalists”.
So let’s forget the lyrics and the flows, giving them
the respect of allowing they’re distinct and consistent like John Olerud, or
a hardworking stripper who works the pole nightly to make her papes. Where
The Beatnuts make their noise and an impact is behind the boards, on the
production. Whether horny horns, flighty, floating flutes or aromatic
accordions that stink of dank, The Beatnuts are, as JuJu once claimed “The
battery pack that start moving everybody.” Simply put, your body better be
in a wheelchair on some Stephen Hawking (SP?) get beat by your minder if
you’re not moving shit.
The Beatnuts have crafted a distinct signature sound
that is mighty refreshing next to the much of what passes for creativity or
passion in production in the homogenous hip-hop market. Les breaks it down:
“I can only please myself. I only know what’s hot, and if I think it’s hot
and we think it’s hot, then y’know, the whole team we roll with thinks it’s
hot then that’s what we put out.” And he’s right, all that matters in this
world is you and your brain, you and your conscience, what’s there in the
quiet moments when you’re trying to fall asleep. If you can answer your
conscience in regards to whatever it is you’ve got on the brain: beats or
booty, you’re good.
Sadly, bringing the hotness and being perennially under
the radar, The Beatnuts are ripe for rapping. Call it a coincidence, but a
month after the Beatnuts positively inspired “Gimme the Ass”, the witty
satire on candy-coated R&Bish tracks dropped, the not-so lyrically gifted
and bland Will Smith came with “Men in Black”. That’s blatant honesty to
yeasty blandness over Patrice Rushen’s “Forgetmenots”. Years later Jenny
from the Block (what block is that?) and gang snapped up “Watch Out Now”.
Determinedly laissez-faire Psycho Les believes “What
can I do, that’s how the whole game works, everybody bites off each other.”
JuJu, on the other hand, who’s still animated at the
early hour of 4pm either in spite of or due to drinks ain’t havin’ it. “Yeah
man, biting is wack man. Them niggas is just cheque chasers, that’s all they
are. They shouldn’t even call themselves producers and shit, niggas are just
cheque-chasers, that’s all they are.”
And The Nuts aren’t cheque chasers sonny. They love the
music, period. Hardrocks – strictly hip-hop listeners – will be dismayed
their beloved Beatnuts deign other music worthy of listening. “I listen to a
bunch of different kinds of music, though, I’m not just on some hip-hop
shit,” JuJu says. “If you dig for records you automatically get to listen to
a bunch of different genres and shit.” Surprise, surprise, your boy digs
anything from Interpol to the Smiths. And no, the Smiths weren’t on the Mr.
Softie tip “that shit was mean, y’know, it just, the shit was like, no
matter what the fuck he’s talking about, that’s a eerie sounding record, so
I was on some dark shit really,” JuJu clarifies.
Les sees more pragmatic and immediate reasons to peep
other genres. “I’m into all kind of music. Just the other day, not for
nothing, we was in fuckin house club, they was playing fuckin’ house. Little
Louie Vega was in there with Tony Touch, we was just hangin’ out, y’know.
‘Cause you know the girls love dem house clubs.”
And furthermore, JuJu’s doesn’t have the patience to
suffer fools who’d front on other genres and want to stay tough: “You’re a
fucking dick if you think that shit because hip-hop evolved, what you think
you could go to a record store and say ‘lemme hear a hip-hop record’ back in
the days? Niggas used to turn shit into a hip-hop record.”
At the end of the day, that’s hip-hop: taking disparate
sounds and art forms and bringing them together to create, not chasing a
cheque mimicking and certainly not being closed minded (this being the
recipe for fast-food). Bottom line? “We really love music man, we really
love what we do, y’knowhati’msaying, we have an incredible respect for the
music and the people that do it right and those are the shoes that we try to
fill,” JuJu says. “It’s not just a fuckin’ game to us, it’s not just a pay
day, we really love this shit for what it is.” Essentially, the feeling
dudes get from working with people like Ghostface or Big Pun or Jurassic 5 –
that makes it all worth while.
It’s certainly not the relationship they have with
their label that keeps them moving. Reiterating what he told Pound years ago
JuJu says “Nah man, fuck Sony. Niggas is robbin me ever since the beginning
of my fuckin career, pieces of shit. Fuckin’ Relativity they got 4 major
acts, Common Sense, Fat Joe, MOP and Beatnuts and in like 7 years they
couldn’t break one of those groups, they fuckin suck man, fuckin Sony,
they’re idiots. For real though, look at the acts I’m talking to you about,
in all those years you couldn’t break one of those fuckin groups? Niggas
have gone on to do Platinum fucking records and have incredible sales and
shit.”
And employees need to be happy JuJu isn’t running the
show over there. “Whoever’s in charge. They’re the ones, whoever the
president of Relativity was, that’s the fuckin dick, you know what I’m sayin?
And the niggas that he got workin his shit, ‘cause after the first two or
three years with those groups I woulda fired everybody and re-staffed, if
they were smart. Niggas are all accountants, man, that’s what it is, it
ain’t about the fuckin music man. Niggas ain’t A&R’s, they accountants.’
Keep the conversation to music and the art form and
you’re good. Drift naturally into other areas and The Beatnuts will make you
laugh, ‘cause they’re lubricated, and squirm, ‘cause, well, some things are
best enjoyed in the company of a few. But it ain’t like that ‘cause the
nature of an interview is, well, you print what people have to say.
The landscape has changed since The Beatnuts popped up
on the scene. The Beatnuts sound has continued to come solid. Perhaps you’re
familiar with the toast “Here’s a Drink”: “Shady niggas just react/we don’t
think”. This appears to be truth at least part of the time.
Age may have Psycho Les a little more blunted but he’s
just a little wiser. “Just the other day I was on stage performing and I did
something to a shortie and she like attacked me and shit, f’real. Actually
we got some girls on stage dancing and I just, y’know, I just smacked her
skirt up and the whole crowd was going crazy so her girlfriend from the
crowd, like some lesbian chick, jumped up and attacked me, like ‘yo’,
pulling on my shirt. So I pushed, I mean, I got her off me, and she kept
coming I was like, I was about to smack her with the mic but I thought, yo,
if I crack this bitch in the head, they’re gonna sue the club, they’re gonna
sue me so, getting back to you gotta think sometimes man, handle it a little
more professionally.” Ladies, you may now act stink without fear of what
fate may befall you.
And here’s the problem with The Beatnuts. Bullshittin’
with them, they’re jokes and their more offensive shit is funny. On the
subject of the cheque-chasin’ boriquan with the booty, JuJu’s ready to hold
court. “Yeah, yeah, whatever man. Puerto Rican broad, whatchu want, whadya
expect, all Puerto Rican broads be looking for the fuckin drama. A bitch
ain’t nobody.”
All I know if I was Ben Affleck I’d’ve beat that bitch
and got my fuckin’ ring back. She knows who she be doing that shit, ‘cause
she woulda did that shit to a Dominican motherfucker? Nigga woulda whip her
ass and took that fuckin’ ring back. Nigga gonna leave her with that crazy
rock and then that bitch gonna marry Mark Anthony.”
Now, it’s incumbent upon me to point out the Beatnuts
words are to be taken with salt. They’re serious. They’re not serious. You
figure that out for yourself, but my guess is with they’re leering grins,
the intoxicated demons, Dominican and Colombian, aren’t looking to spark
beef.
Speaking of marriage, how ‘bout that JuJu? “No, might
as well be, I’ve been with my girl for like 13 years now,” he says with
dismissive bluster.
These functionally medicated Beatnuts, what separates
them from the Chi-Ali’s, the Kurious’, the P-Diddy’s and the DMX’s? What
makes them different, what keeps them moving just outside the spotlight in
the hardscrabble industry, continuously putting out product that sells,
gives them almost unheard of longevity in this fickle world and keeps them
out of the headlines?
Focus, yeah. A shared love for beat-making and acting a
fool?
Focus and a little luck ‘cause they’re not immune from
the brain cramps that affect too many in the industry. One was on the run,
one just disappeared after a nice album, another blew up like Martha Steward
and another smokes rocks and demos cars and pisses where he pleases and
stars in shitty blockbusters.
As the chorus of Intoxicated Demon’s “Psycho Dwarf”
goes: They ‘just want to fuck, drink and smoke some shit.’ They’re not
asking for much. “That’s all we do,” JuJu affirms. Driving too.
"Drunk driving is selfish, dangerous and it kills," the
micro-managing Mayor Bloomberg said in a press release. "Last year, there
were 1,971 DWI accidents in New York City and 34 fatalities. If you are
thinking of driving drunk, don't, because we will take your car and send you
to jail.”
Like the rebels in a bad 80s movie or actor cum rapper
David Hasselloff, Los Nuts just got to drive ‘cause even though they’re
getting zooted and juiced regular, sometimes you just don’t know that’s
going to happen and you have to drive. “I’m like on my 7th car
kid, yeah. I had a Civic I crashed. I was with Les actually when we crashed
that one. Then I had my impala that I crashed. I had a Buick…I smashed that
shit drunk, dropping Edison’s little sister off.
The way JuJu tells it, it is shits and giggles to demo
your car. “Well, y’know your drunk so it’s like, the Buick, I smashed that
shit waving goodbye and I just smashed into a parked car. The Honda, we were
just flying down the BQE and I was taking les home and I wasn’t used to
going that far on the BQE so it was like an unexpected turn and I tried to,
I just tried to cut that shit and we went tumbling into the y’know…”
JuJu’s not bad though, he’s quick to point out the
other half of the dynamic duo is not going to let JuJu swerve that road all
by his lonesome. “Les, almost killed himself, that nigga went under a fuckin
truck. Nigga went under a fuckin’ truck, he fell asleep in the car drunk.
He’s lucky, ‘cause the car under the truck under on the passenger side,”
JuJu says.
Awakening at the bar Psycho Les corrects him “My side,”
he says with some effort “Only my side.”
“You’re lucky nigga,” JuJu says, corrected. “I thought
that nigga was swerving…that shit will take your head off.”
A natural extension of this is the kiddies. JuJu, who’s
got several kids and remains unmarried though he “might as well be, I’ve
been with my girl for like 13 years now,” isn’t looking for his kids to
follow his direction. “I tell them man, I been cursing for fuckin forever,
that’s why, you can’t follow me as an example, I’m telling you it’s wrong to
do that, so you do what the fuck I tell you to.”
This annoying contradiction, an inability to be
straight, is almost always at work with The Beatnuts. While they’re quick to
point out the Beatnuts are the Beatnuts, what you hear is what you get and
there’s no persona, it’s human, erring on the side of juvenile, high-school
machismo and bullshit, this of course, coming from two grown-ass men. Could
the Beatnuts grow up on wax?
Oh, and given theme of this issue, what do you think
The Beatnuts would find worth fighting for?
Psycho Les says, “My kids, my family, y’know, my
peoples that I roll with, I try to put them on. My thing is really
production, y’know I’ll grab the mic just to have fun and just bullshit, I
got niggas that’s really nice that just spit. They’re on the album, little
sneak previews so people can start getting familiar with them.”
JuJu, on the other hand says, “Probably our freedom
man, civil rights and shit,” and I should point out the man digs Dead Prez.
The good news then and the reason for this whole piece
is The Beatnuts are dropping Milk This. This means they’ll be doing
some performing and touring which means dudes won’t be driving and their
message-less music will enlighten and entice you in performing whatever acts
of foolishness your dumb ass desires.
Might Toronto be on the map? JuJu replies, “I would like to,
I got a nice piece of ass out there that’s waiting to see me.”copyright Jeremy Relph 2004
Originally published in
