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« on: January 23, 2007, 03:03:25 PM »
Below is an piece from an interview with The Formula.
ThaFormula.Com - With the way Hip-Hop production has changed since you first stepped on the scene, do you feel pressure to keep up with today..s production?
9th Wonder - No, I don..t because there is a generation of people that is out there that is my age and your age who still love soulful, jazzy loops and beats. We are still out here. If we are not, that means that nobody was born between the years of 1968 and 1980. The problem is the radio does not speak to us. The radio is geared straight for kids. The sound they use, the stuff the talk about in their songs, although I feel like some kids don..t need to hear that. It is geared for ages 12 to 20. BET..s target market is girls ages 12 to 16. So my job is to get the people that I grew up listening to music with, the same guy that I sat with in 7th grade cla** listening to Public Enemy with is the same guy I..m trying to reach ..cause nine times out of ten, he thinks the last De La Soul album is ..De La Soul is Dead... There..s a generation of people out there that wants the music that Little Brother makes, they want it. Are we put in a place where they can get it, no. Do you know why? Because they got kids now man and they got husbands or wives dealing with real life situations. They don..t have time to sit on the Internet, they don..t have time to see what..s on Sandbox Automatic, they don..t have time to got to the record store. All the time they got is to run into Best Buy, look under New Releases and leave, that..s all they got. But what..s under the new release rack? It ain..t Dilla, it ain..t Madlib, it ain..t Little Brother, it ain..t ..Kids in the Hall,.. it ain..t none of that. It wouldn..t have been Common either if Common wouldn..t have gotten on Interscope and did the joint with Kanye. Am I right?
ThaFormula.Com - Yeah, that's true...
9th Wonder .. It..s not to denounce Kanye or Common at all. All I..m saying is that there is still a generation, or there is such a thing now as ..grown-up rap music... There is such a thing now. Rap is 33 years old, so as long as I can still pull the loyal A Tribe Called Quest fans who don..t know where Tribe is right now, I..m cool. That..s a whole new market, that..s a brand new market. That..s a true school market. For me, if a kid tells me, ..9th you talk like somebody..s daddy.. or ..your beats sound old or dated,.. well at least I..m acting my damn age! That..s for damn sure. And if you say I..m acting like somebody..s daddy or my music sounds old like somebody..s daddy, somebody needs to show you what a daddy is. So that..s my point. I don..t have to change nothing. If I..m gonna change my stuff up man, I..m doing it cause I want to and I..ve always been like that. That..s how I got to where I am, doing me. But I notice everyday, there is a 34 year old woman or man saying ..man you make the beats that I..ve been missing... I..d rather be a role model to a kid and try to show them where my generation is instead of trying to bring my generation to kick it with his. Nah! It don..t work like that. It didn..t work like that with my parents. When you were little and your parents would have a cookout, what music was they playing. Were they playing rap music?
ThaFormula.Com - Hell No...
9th Wonder - Hell no, they told you to ..take your music and go to the bedroom with that, out here we are bumpin.. this, we don..t bump that. You go with your friends to bump that,.. but now you got cats my age, they playing what the kids are playing. NO!! You don..t do that. You tell that kid the real, ..yeah you are ..Chicken Noodle Soupin.... and all, but what we out here playing is EPMD, either you can get with it or you can..t. Take your little ..dancey-dance.. music or whatever you call it and go in the bedroom. Out here we listen to Salt-N-Pepa, Mary J Blige, EPMD, Guy, New Edition, etc. That..s what we..re playing out here. We are grown and that..s what we do... So that..s where I am with mine.