LATEEF THE TRUTHSPEAKER

As co-founder of the hugely successful indie label, Quannum Projects, Lateef the Truthspeaker knows a few things about the music business. Established in 1992 at UC-Davis, the hip-hop collective, which also includes key players Lyrics Born, DJ Shadow, Chief Xcel and Blackalicious’ Gift of Gab, led the way in terms of independent record labels. To date, it is one of the only labels still 100 % independently owned and operated. Lateef’s material both educates and enlightens. From his work with Lyrics Born in Latyrx to his project with Gift of Gab in The Mighty Underdogs, you won’t hear braggadocio lyrics about blunts, bitches or Bentleys. This is real hip-hop. His newest solo album, Firewire, is filled with a fresh, futuristic sound comparable to Afrika Bambaataa or Kraftwerk yet brimming with classic hip-hop. I got a second to chat with Lateef about everything from Toro y Moi to Black Panthers.


I was surprised to read your new album was heavily influenced by bands like Toro y Moi and Radiohead. What do you take away from those bands?

I just like the sound. With Toro y Moi, I enjoy the mood and the feeling he’s able to accomplish and achieve. I feel that both, especially Thom Yorke, are able to achieve moods without being super specific. Like you won’t even quite know what it is they’re talking about and yet you still are like, ‘but I totally feel you.’ Then the song will start to mean something to you that may or may not be what they were intending.

The single “We The People” has a lot of synthesizers. It sounds a lot like Kraftwork. Were you in love with synths this time around?

I’ve always been in love with synthesizers. There’s a bunch of different producers on the record. We The People is produced by Chief Xcel. Then there’s stuff by DJ Shadow, Dan the Automator and Headnodic who did The Mighty Underdogs record.

Oh [laughs], he’s a friend on my Facebook page.

Only you, you’re his only friend. Wait, that’s my Facebook page [laughs]. But, yeah, that was the vibe I was going for, kind of futuristic. I just wanted a cohesive sound, but I still wanted to show all of the different things I could do. Like I wanted it be similar to way “Planet Rock” is. I would even say that song was a touchstone for where I was trying to go with the record a little bit. The bass is there and it’s the perfect beat.

You’re no Luther Vandross, but you use your singing voice a lot on this record.

[Laughs] I have done it a lot actually. I’ve had pretty good success doing it like with The Mighty Underdogs and stuff, but obviously I’m not like D’Angelo out here and crooning it out, but it’s something I just really wanted to do. I like to blur the lines.

You and Lyrics Born have obvious chemistry on the track “Hardship Enterprise.” Is that because of all the Latryx stuff you’ve done together?

We have a natural chemistry and we’re able to communicate about song content on a pretty singular level. I get along with Gift of Gab really well too, but with Lyrics Born and I, it’s a little bit different. We’re a little more one-minded. We can really lock in. We mesh our minds together until we’re one. Lyrics Born and I are doing another Latryx album together. That’s my next project.

How do you think hip-hop and skateboarding coincide?

It’s funny, it’s always been that way. I used to skate back in the day. I was one those guys with the Tommy Guerrero board with the flaming dagger on the bottom [laughs]. I had the Caballero with the dragon, too. That one was really good for ollying. I had the Soul Power Peralta. I thought I was really cool. I was skating during the grip tape era when you had hella neon-colored grip tape. What’s crazy to me now is that you have a tail on both sides. And no one uses rail guards anymore. I stopped skating when I went to college. That’s when I really started focusing on Quannum Projects.

You guys were kind of pioneers in terms of indie labels. How do you feel about your contribution?

It is what it is. I’m glad we were able to serve as a blueprint so many other artists to be able to do their thing and see their vision through they way they wanted to at a time where it would have been very easy for hip- hop to become one dimensional and I think that it didn’t. I think that we had a had in that. Here’s something to trip off of. When we did our record, there was a label on the East Coast that wanted to model our record label. They had these artists that they thought they could do it with. Some of the artists were Company Flow, Mos Def and Talib Kweli. The label was Rawkus which is now no more. But they launched the careers of some of the most popular and most successful hip-hop artists and they called us up when we had our little office by Cal Berkeley. They were picking our brains asking us how we did it.


What’s the most disturbing thing you’ve seen on tour?

Oh man, you don’t even want to know this one. It was sooo bad. It was disturbing. We were on the road with Del the Funky Homosapien. This was years ago. I think we were in Dallas. There was a fight that broke out in the crowd. It was one of those fights that broke out so quickly, so quickly that we couldn’t even tell it was a fight. There was this piercing shriek, you could hear it over the music and it stops. Del was like ‘uh, somebody figure out what’s going on.’ The people that had been fighting had knocked over a woman and when she fell, she had broken her pelvis. Oh man! I had never heard anyone scream that loud. Her scream stopped the fight. I’ll never forget that scream.

Your parents were affiliated with the Black Panthers. How did growing up in that environment affect you?

I think it just informs my person and personality in how I look at the world. I’m not really preachy. I don’t think I am, anyway. At the same time, on almost every record I’ve done or been a part of, there’s always some social commentary or some type of “consciousness” about it. Lyrics Born and I both share that feeling and mentality about stuff. We talk about things that are going on in the world. We figure someone needs to talk about it. One of the things to me as an artist is to connect with all of these people in the world that you don’t know yet you’re able to write these songs, evoke these moods, say these words that communicate these thoughts and ideas to reflect the reality you live, and someone hears this, it resonates with them so strongly that they decide to spend time that they have on this earth that is finite to listen to it and be like ‘I know exactly what you’re talking about. I feel what it is you’re talking about it. I feel you.’ When you choose not to include the truth, you lose that opportunity to connect with someone. Now some kats don’t talk about that and shouldn’t talk about that [laughs]. They should not have an opinion about it.