Aug 16, 2009 - 2:43 PM
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Download: Reflection Eternal - "Back Again"
The evening sets in and a breeze begins to pick up at Rock the Bells at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, roughly 30 minutes south of San Francisco. Swaying bodies occupy every seat on the lower levels and upper decks as the overcrowded lawn area shifts closer to the front, sparking the next round of herb. Smoke clouds unfurling with plastic cups filled, the baked and buzzed seated or sprawled on the overcrowded lawn snap out of their kush coma as soon as the blaring horns from “
Move Somethin’” kicks.
Reflection Eternal enters the stage, commanding attention with “Get em up! Get em up!”
The notoriously respected hip-hop duo, Talib Kweli and producer Hi-Tek, are the two halves of Reflection Eternal’s whole, reunited for Revolutions Per Minute, their long-awaited follow up to 2000’s cult classic Train of Thought. Their performance includes new and old tracks: Reflection Eternal’s “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “This Means You,” “Too Late,” and their latest single, “Back Again;” Talib Kweli’s, “Get By”, “Say Somethin” and “Hot Thang;” Blackstar’s “Definition.”
Whisked away backstage from the stuffy press booth alongside the stage, my vision blurs when I take off my sunglasses and affix my eyes on the Reflection Eternal sign taped to the dressing room. Nervous, sober, sunburned and star-struck, I attempt to carry a normal conversation with the coordinator without shifting my gaze toward Black Thought who poses with a fan inches away from me. The door swings open and the manager, Craig (who I had been frantically texting moments earlier to make sure the interview was still on) reminds me that I only have five minutes.
I introduce myself, awkwardly excusing myself for being a geeked-out fan, and sit down on a cooler, giggling that I might need one of whatever is inside. Talib catches me say “hella hot” and laughs. I apologize and jokingly replace my “hella’s” with the more East Coast-friendly “mad,” but he insists I use my own term of endearment, and that the word “hella” has history. Such an intellectual. For the next 10 minutes I’m squeezed in between Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek, bursting into a series of laugh riots over my spazzed-out vernacular.
The name of the album was up in there air for a while, you even asked fans to send in suggestions. How did you both decide on Revolutions Per Minute?
Talib Kweli: I just liked the idea of what "revolutions per minute" represented. That’s how they measure the speed of a record. I just like the idea that you can get a certain amount of revolutionary thoughts and actions off in a minute and the fact that it relates to music as well.
Hi-Tek: Check, check, check 1-2! (laughs)
How did the making of the album come along, hit any bumps in the road?
TK: Working on the album has been a great process. To spend more time in the studio with Hi-Tek after all these years—we worked together on his albums and on my albums—but to actually get into the studio and do it was just a great, positive experience. We started out in Jamaica and now we’re finishing up with Rock the Bells. So it’s been all good.
HT: Yeah, compliments on Kweli, he flew us all out to Jamaica. We just started it out on a positive note just to see where our heads was and from there it’s been about a year.
Do you require anything specific when you are making music?
HT: Weed.
TK: Yeah, whatever gets our creativity flowing.
Hmm, you don’t have a hankering (chuckles) for anything specific, like a kind of herb, food, drank, etc?
TK: Hella hankering! (laugh)
HT: Do you fancy any hella hankerings?
(laughs)
TK: I have a hankering for a hunk of cheese.
(I’m laughing and blushing of embarrassment)
TK: I aint heard that word hankering in like five years! But yeah, you know, everything you mentioned and then some.
HT: For me, it’s weed and vinyl. I love the vinyl feel. I can’t be without digging for vinyl. Even though I use Serato now, I still hella have the hankering for the vinyl sound and feel. But I love Serato though, it makes touring and traveling possible.
Creative peddlers, musicians, rappers, producers, writers and whatnot, have it rough since we all need a job to survive. While you were trying to make it (in the music industry) what was your daytime hustle?
TK: I sold smack to kids at Anthony James High School.
You're lying.
TK: Yeah, nah I didn’t. I worked at a bookstore. I sold literary crack.
HT: I worked at the post office. I only had two jobs my whole life, two legal jobs that is. (Snickering) I don’t want to tell y’all what else I did because I don’t want kids to think that’s what you got to do to follow Hi-Tek and you know, follow everything I did. So yeah, legally, I worked at the post office and at Taco Bell.
TK: (laughing)
HT: Shout out to Taco Bell! Big D used to pick me up from Taco Bell, I’d be up there in some gray pants mopping the floors.
(laughing)
I’d be stashing burritos in my backpack if I worked there. Any words of wisdom for future creative peddlers?
HT: Keep doing what you’re doing, don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t. If you have the passion to do that shit, you can’t let anything stand in your way. Keep doing you.
TK: Creative peddling, huh? Did you write that?
Yes, I did. (chuckle)
TK: I’ll say that you just need to stay focused and keep your mind on the right track. Like Tek said, just do you. Take advantage of your talent by starting now. Like if you have a job, if you’re in college start your business now—your business of creative peddling, that you’re going to do on the side, don’t wait for anyone to tell you. You can “pedal” whenever you want to. Then you can ride off into the sunset. (chuckles)
That was deep. That one was for all the bikers in San Francisco. Anything about the Bay Area that you find especially interesting?
HT: Weed. I haven’t been out here too many times, but I can see that it has its own thing going on. They show us a lot of love when we come out here. They love our music. This is one of the most packed stadiums that we’ve performed at.
TK: The Bay Area, hands down, is my biggest base of support, in terms of fans.
HT: I gotta go because I have to DJ this Slum Village show.
I was just about to ask if that was still supposed to happen. How are you both doing after the shocking, tragic loss of Baatin?
HT: I’m lovin’ and supporting Slum Village right now. They need all the support they can get. I’m there. Rest in peace J. Dilla, Baatin. They’re so influential to what I do. I just feel honored to be a part of their show. I might have to join the group on the side.
TK: I have a lot of respect for Slum Village. They are one of my favorite groups ever in hip-hop and I just have so much respect. I’m also really impressed with how T3 and Elzhi and how they’re carrying themselves and how they’re handling it. They got to be soldiers now. They’ve got to raise the flag and wave the flag. Raise it up, like one of their songs say.
Reflection Eternal's Revolutions Per Minute is scheduled to drop this fall.
Jessica is a 23-year-old pirate-mouthed, chain-smoking insomniac. Indulgences include: shoes, dope art, live music, cheap beer, expensive liquor, drunken banter and bootleg snacks. Oh, and the daily chuckler.
In this blur of a society, Patrick Kawahara strives to capture more than just an image, but to document a rare glimpse of clarity from the grind we call our day to day. See more of his work at www.patrickkawahara.com
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