all we have is time

One of the holiest elements of life is time. Time has no beginning and no ending, therefore time is infinite and eternal, two elements in which most religions describe is God Like. Time is a force that will make the thief steal and a priest pray; it is only a matter of Time before you set out to do what you are meant to do. You cannot see time, but you know it exists. If nothing else exists time will always exist. When we refer to the Alpha, we refer it to the beginning of time. If time did not exist, nothing would exist. Its 4:40 am and I awoke to this theory that I have been trying to work on for some time now, pardon the pun.

And to be in the deepest of meditation it is known to be with time, to stay with time. Inhale deep.

Vishnu Allah-Din Shabazz El

The embodiment of the universe manifest into a MC. Vast Aire 1/2 of Cannibal Ox, all of Vishnu Allah has been one of the most unorthodox MCs to grace microphones. I got to ask Vast about a few of his philosophies on Life, Death and the Supreme Alphabet check it out.

Question; Do you believe in evolution or creation?
Vast Aire's Answer; Self Creation, Man is the Mind.

Q; If creation, who or what would be the creator?
A; Allah, was self created, then He Multiplied himself into billions of off spring. This is why "God" exist in all, Allah is the All in All.

Q; Describe the Supreme Alphabet and what it means to you.
A; IT'S A CODE! Based on Alphanumerical understandings. each letter and or number is connected to a divine principle.
A = ALLAH, B = BE, C = UNDERSTANDING OR "TO SEE". It's a great way to use to english language to break down the Universe! ( U = U-N-I-VERSE )

Q; Where did you get the name Vast Aire?
A; I AM Moorish Native American {CHACTAW INDIAN}, so i always wanted a name like big cloud, flying hawk, mad lion etc..a good friend of mine, name Ohciruss Cloud, He did the art work for Cold Vein. he gave me the name, he gave me VAST, he said it match my size and my wits {understandings on life}. about a year later I myself added Heir, like a prince, over time heir became AIR, AND ABOUT afew months after that AIR, Became "AIRE". THUS; VAST AIRE {IT'S MY CHACTAW TRIBAL NAME}

Q; Where did you get the name Vishnu Allah-Din Shabazz El (All praises to)?
A; That is a name that i develop over my many years as a student of SUFI ISLAMISM and BUDDHISM. Im also a Moorish God Body. I study all things in life-

Q; Describe to us the beginning of Vishnu-Allah.
A; Vishnu is an ancient indian God that dreams up all creation! Allah is the same God, its just an Arabic term-

Q; Describe to us where Vishnu-Allah will be taking us in 2010.
A; Im dropping a book, im also getting ready to finish up my new record OX 2010 due by the summer!

I look forward to the book as well as the new LP.

http://www.myspace.com/vastaireofcanox

Rapper Big Pooh: You write cautious I flow nauseous.

Rapper Big Pooh Quotables:
1. Youngan you write cautious I flow nauseous.
2. I mean who the fuck is you to wanna criticise me?/I never back down, I never cop pleas/Staring at a stack of these carbon copies/Niggas emulate, got me really unease
3. Momma always said to me tell the truth so why rappers now lie in the booth?
4. I’d like to welcome yall to the heart of the city/ where the people cold and they show no pity/ better have a team or get stuck by committee
5. Aim fire. I aspire to be the fastest driver in life’s 500.

Its lap 2010 and Rapper Big Pooh is well in the lead.

When props are due I will be the first to give them. Rapper Big Pooh, 1/2 of Little Brother, definitely deserves props as he has been spitting lyrical goodness, educating, inspiring and entertaining from 2003 and beyond. If you have been sleeping on Little Brother, if you have been sleeping on Rapper Big Pooh, you have been sleeping on some of the best hip hop of the post 90’s hip hop era. My first exposure to Little brother was from the Okayplayer compilation True Notes Vol 1, released 2004, and then I back tracked to their first album, “The Listening” then “Chittlin Circuit 1.5”, then “ Minstrel Show”, It came to the point where I asked myself, are these cats ever going to fall off? I am not a pessimist but a realist and realistically whatever goes up must come down.

They never fell off, it was worse, they split up. C’est la vie, all good things must come to an end. But the ending of one of the best hip hop collectives since Tribe, led to the beginning of 2 (or 3, depending on how you look at it) blossoming solo careers. For Rapper Big Pooh it contains “Sleepers”, “Delightful Bars”, “Rappers Delight (mixtape)” and the “Purple Tape (mixtape)”. I had the extreme pleasure of speaking with Pooh a day before the release of the “Purple Tape”. After hearing him in my headphones, in my car speakers, and at my DJ sets, I enjoyed him the most when it was uncut and raw on the phone.

Interview conducted January 11, 2010.

Yash: Which artist (dead and alive) would you like to work with?

Pooh: Um I always wanted to work, or would have loved to have the opportunity to work with Biggie. I just love the way he, not only put words together, he made his songs and his lyrics appear to be melodies or another instruments on the track or whatever track he was rapping on. I think that’s an ingenious thing like there’s very few people who make their voices or make their rhyme patterns sound like a part of the music and he was one of the rare people who could do that. Also DJ Quik, I say this in every interview, I have always been a fan of DJ Quik if there was no Dr. Dre he would be the king of the west coast. Marvin Gaye, I just love the way his song writing, how he made you feel whatever pain he was going through or whatever he was trying to or emotion he was trying to get across in his music he made you feel as if you were him. I think that’s something that artists period don’t do these days. They don’t evoke that emotion in you, that music was supposed to and uh between that and his song writing and just his melodies, I think he had the best melodies in the game period. Even to this day. Those are like my top three, right there.

Yash: Have you tried to approach Quik?

Pooh: I met him actually once, and he was gonna mix a record for me at one point in time but that fell through due to a third party misunderstanding but um I think you know I have some people that I work with now that are kinda close to him and hopefully the opportunity will arise but as of now, no.

Yash: What’s your favourite Little Brother track?

Pooh: That’s hard man, that’s like asking who’s your favourite kid, favourite child. I don’t know.

Yash: One that always resonates in your head, or is on your playlist or CD player.

Pooh: That’s the problem, I’m one of the rare few who, I don’t really listen to my own stuff at all. I broke out The Listening album for the first time since 04, a couple months ago. I don’t listen to Get Back, I don’t listen to the Minstrel show, I don’t listen to anything.

Yash: You’re missing out on some good music if you don’t listen to your own tracks.

Pooh: I don’t know to be honest with you, I don’t really have a favourite. Because it just changes all the time, like when we were working on records, whatever we were working on was my favourite. It just changed every time we decided to work on records, it’s like something on the new record became my favourite song and I don’t know for me I don’t really have a favourite cause it changed from week to week like when it was the get back era it changed from week to week. I had a new song week to week, I don’t know I can’t really pinpoint and say that’s my song or that’s the one. If I really had to pick one at gun point, it’ll probably be “Hiding Place” off “The Minstrel Show”, because that track meant so much more than just rapping, that was the track that we were supposed to have the late, great J Dilla on and due to time schedules and what not it never happened. And it’s really special to me because if you notice on the beginning of his track I say his name. Because me and him, like Phonte and Elzhi were going back and forth that’s how me and Dilla were supposed to end up. That would have been, you know, that would have been like a dream come true, I got to work with Pete Rock, I got to work with some of the artists that I have always grown up and admired and that would have been another one. You know it never happened but just knowing that it was moments away from happening, it will always resonate with me.



Yash: What’s the realest line or verse that you have ever spit?

Pooh: I think for that man, I’m gonna have to lean towards, I’m gonna be honest with you, alot of the stuff I remember my songs once I hear the first bar with the older stuff but, imma stay with some new stuff here. I think the first song that’s gonna be on the “Purple Tape” when people hear it I actually put some of these lines up the other day, uh cause some people were listening to the song and were like “you weren’t really saying nothing” and my first 4 bars or six bars is some of the realest shit I have ever said. People checking for bars they overlook metal, settle for plastic cars we enamel with stars who enamel with flaws we disregard cause they don’t sound like ours. Them bars were like, that’s like the new cars that come out today are made of plastic, the new mustangs, all them new cars that Ford and shit are made of plastic. Them real deal cars them old school ’64 and ’67 them old cars are made of metal those were real cars, those were like you hit some shit your car is not gonna fold and crumple into two pieces you know what I’m saying?
That’s what that rhyme was about they like the new little pretty plastic shit and that the simplistic rhymes that’s the what I like to call the t bar punch lines the easily setup where you can dictate the next line that’s coming in the sentence and they overlook the real like not the real shit but they overlook the people who are actually saying something, like the people with real metaphors and then the we enamel with stars who enamel with flaws part that’s talking about how we the people are so wrapped up in the personal celebrity that we, everyone has problems, whether it’s a drug addiction, a vanity problem, a money problem or whatever we are so wrapped up in a person’s celebrity that we overlook or we accept you know whatever problem they have as being ok, because it’s not our particular problem. And that’s wrong, like oh that’s ok he’s got a drug problem but you know he is a famous rapper and that’s ok. And that shit is not ok. And that whole verse, I was saying some crazy shit as I go back and think about it in that verse, that I didn’t put in plain sight I didn’t set it up there and say yeah you want the real lyrics but you overlooking for the other lyrics and you know what imp saying. I think that’s some of the recently, that’s probably some of my strongest writing that I have had.

Yash: And that’s on the “Purple Tape”?

Pooh: Yeah that’s on the “Purple Tape”, that’s the song “When I’m done”.



Yash: Tell us about the “Purple tape”; is it all Black Milk and you?

Pooh: It’s all Black Milk beats, he put out the beats awhile ago, and everybody who keep up with Black Milk they probably have them, listening to them. And I got them, I got them fairly late, when he put them out but I just decided that I wanted to do something I wanted to put out some music in preparation for my solo album coming out at the end of the year and I just thought that that was perfect, uh I didn’t want to create an album with some shit that you never heard before and just some shit that could sound like another album I wanted to use the beats that I know have been out for awhile. Cause people heard the beats already, but it’s very few people who have heard people rap over all of them and you are familiar the beats and you are familiar with the songs that were sampled to make those beats and I just think it created a nice little project you know it came to my attention post me creating the “Purple Tape” that you know it was some other artists out there that created their own version of the “Purple Tape” and rapped over all the beats or whatever and that’s cool, power to you I’m not shitting on your existence, I’m not shitting on what you did or what you accomplished but you know that’s you and this is me and this is my movement now this is what I’m doing, you know?

Yash: So when is the Purple tape set to be out?

Pooh: Tomorrow (January 12, 2010)

Download the Purple Tape

Yash: Dope we will definitely check for that. How have you developed as an artist from “The Listening” to “The Purple Tape”?

Pooh: Just getting better man, with practise. It takes practise to be perfect like, and how you practise is how you play and you know I spend alot of time working on songs I spend alot of time studying you know the craft of creating songs and just going over my work as I do it to see where I might have errored to see where I think I can do better and just you know overall trying to become a better song writer and a better writer period. And I spend alot of time doing that I have many, many songs that people have never heard before and it’s not because I like hording music it’s because I like working on music to get better. Because if I didn’t work as hard on creating music, I would never get better I would never have progressed. It’s just me trying to progress to become a better artist.

Yash: Who is the most influential person in your life?

Pooh: The most influential person in my life has been my mother. She always supported whatever I wanted to do even though she may have had some questions on some of the decisions I made or some of the choices I decided to make. My grandmother, who is no longer here, she always stood behind me and supported me, whatever decision I made. As far as music is concerned, probably my manager Big Dough, if it wasn’t for him there probably wouldn’t have been “Sleepers”. If it wasn’t for him I don’t know if I would be probably doing it right now like he kinda made me see the greatness in myself that I didn’t see when I first started and it’s rare that a person would help you with your own confidence but he is one of the people who helped me with my confidence as I came along.

Yash: There was four different versions of Delightful Bars, and they all had a candy bar theme, what’s your favourite candy bar?

Pooh: Imma have to say, Snickers.

Yash: Which female star would you like to turn into a Candy Bar?

Pooh: I have a couple, Imma go to the cougar category and pull out Halle Berry imma go to Scarlett Johansson, I still love Megan Goode. Who else would I pull out, hmm? I think I would make like a bag of M and Ms with many young ladies who I would pull out celebrity wise to be candy.

Yash: What’s your pick for the top 5 albums of 2009?

Pooh: Woo, Quik and Kurupt Blackout album, Raekwon Only built for Cuban Links 2. Hmmm its crazy cause I had this problem the other day, I was trying to figure out the top 10 albums, Im trying to think of these other records, I had them right there awww shit, I can’t get them out. Aww man, I like the Rick Ross Album. Let me see hmm. I would have to go look at my ITunes and look at my playlist, it’s sad but to be honest with you last year, as far as music is concerned, like, to me it wasn’t that good. Of course there was some albums dropping, there was some albums dropping that I have never even heard the album so I would hate to not state a case on those when I haven’t heard them, but it wasn’t exciting, that excitement wasn’t there like the early 2000s or the late 90s was for me but I mean that’s not to say there wasn’t alot of good albums out last year, but there probably wasn’t alot of good albums that I didn’t hear out last year.

Yash: Will we ever hear a Little Brother plus 9th wonder CD again?

Pooh: No (pause), No.

Yash (Heart drops): Aww shit.

Yash: Last question pertains to the track that you recorded with Kanye West and Consequence, did that track get released? Was it the Chitlin Circuit mixtape?

Pooh: It was released on the first Chitlin Circuit mixtape, but when we did the shit with Koch, we never got Kanye clearance for the release, cause that had been done awhile before that had even came out. Kanye came down before "College Dropout"; he was down for a conference. Him and consequence were down and I ended up meeting him at the conference and we ended up kicking it the whole weekend and he came over to the studio we wanted to get in and record so I called ‘Te up 9th was with me already and we went over to the studio and just went to work. It’s been the underground, best kept non release of 2000 was the Little Brother, Kanye West I see now track.

Yash: So it’s all cause you never got clearance?

Pooh: That’s the Politics of the business right there.