Jedi Mind Tricks interview 2: the Jus Allah edition

You’ve been back in Jedi Mind Tricks since 2007. What brought you back together?
It was a matter of me saying, yo, it’s time to get back to making good music again. And Vinnie is the homie, so it was easy to come back.

Was there ever some sort of beef?
Yeah, there was, but not really. At the end of the day I’m right here, you know what I’m sayin. So it doesn’t even matter.

So you’re back and the first track you made was there chemistry all over again?
Ah, definitely! We’re older now, so it’s a little different, but it’s still the same vibe. It’s just making music with the homies, with someone you grew up with.

You did a solo album called “All Fates Have Changed.” Do you have plans to release a solo record again?
YEAH! I’m going to work on another solo album. Me & Paz gonna hit the lab when we get back home.

Do you already got some sort of idea for that?
There’s no real concept. It’s just whatever happens in the studio that day. Whatever rhyme I think about that week. I don’t really like to look to far into it. I’m just trying to make music you know, not try to over think it.

You were a part of Jedi Mind Tricks in 2000 and you released “Violent by Design.” When you look back at those days, making the album in a bedroom, how did that album come together? People nowadays consider it a classic. Do you?
Yeah, yeah. Definitely! It’s one of my favourite albums. That kinda stuff happens, because the most talented people, probably don’t have the biggest, deepest pockets with money to buy the best equipment or anything like that. But it’s like the love is still there. That’s what kinda made the album. It didn’t matter what we recorded on. It was always going to exist. It just mattered that it was there. It was already there before it was recorded.

Do you feel you made a difference with that album?
I don’t know if we made a difference, but we were able to do what we wanted: express ourselves pretty much to the fullest on that album. Everybody put a 110% into it. The hard work reflected more than anything. We weren’t really trying to change anything, we were Hip-Hop cats who all grew up listening to the same shit and we put out an album together. So that’s what it sounds like when people who love music, put music together.

Last year in 2008 you made “A History of Violence.” How did that come together?
We went back to the old days with the vibe. It was just like, yo bring your nicest rhymes, we have a hot beat, I mean Stoupe killed it on the beats. So it was pretty easy, especially when you got someone like Paz like right there. And I just bring what I got to the table.

I asked Vinnie this same question, but I’m also wondering what your opinion is on this issue: you’re known for your violent lyrics, but there are also some socially conscious lyrics on each Jedi Mind Tricks album. How do you match the two?
All that is one, you know? It’s not really a contrast. There’s all that kind of stuff in the world and we’re just trying to express it. And we’re three different people with three different views. We each have our own opinion about what’s going on. We’re not a group with one message and that’s what makes us unique.

Do you always work around a concept or do you just let the pen do its work?
You can’t really have like, yo it’s going to sound like this all the time. You got to allow new ideas to float through you, before you put it on paper. It also depends on the beats off course.

If you got to explain to somebody what kind of rhymes you write and this person doesn’t know about Jus Allah or JMT. What would you say to him?
I just try to channel that energy in me that wants to rap. I don’t even know anymore, because you do it and you don’t want to put a label on what you do. But yeah, I just try to channel that energy in me and that translates into a rhyme.