AGR Interviews GFE's Foul Mouth Jerk & Adam Strange

Foul Mouth Jerk (FMJ) and Adam Strange (AS), two MC's from the locally-brewed but nationally touring hip-hop/funk band Granola Funk Express, share their thoughts on music, politics and culture. Adam Strange highly recommends listening to Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" while reading this. AGR: What are some of the problems that hip-hop culture needs to be working on? FMJ: The fact that now that it makes so much money, the corporations are basically dictating what hip-hop is, like MTV trying to subjugate and take the parts of hip-hop they want, that they can use for commercialism, and just dump off all the rest. And they're trying to separate hip-hop and rap, it's ridiculous, it's like separating shoes from footwear. AGR: If you guys could be on MTV, would you get one of your videos on there? AS: Oh, I'm sure. FMJ: Yeah, sure. AS: I'd rap on a SpiceGirls song right now (laughter). And even if that's bad, it's like, I mop floors for a living, so as a job, it's fine. Integrity–it's still getting your message out. You still can, like Del got to hit that Gorillaz song, which was a Top 2 on MTV, but it's still Del, and Del still gets to be out there, even though it was MTV, it's like you don't have to go on MTV and sell your soul. FMJ: We wouldn't go up there and do some sucker-shit. We'd still get up there and do what we do, and it's money. Any musician that puts as much time into writing, recording, touring and all this shit, like we do, if they tell you that they're not interested in making money, they're full of shit. AS: And it's not like MTV plays videos anymore. FMJ: Maybe get us on M2. AGR: How's hip-hop been at addressing the issue of sexism? AS: It depends. I got to say, hip-hop's too big, it's like saying "how do humans do it?" I still say, when the ghetto's messed up, then hip-hop reverts back to selling drugs and fucking, and that's what happens when the economy is gone, sex is free, so fucking is going to be in, and women are stripping, because women need money too. And that's going to be the dichotomy of hip-hop, will there be songs about the stripper, or just straight sex, whereas, when people have their basic needs covered, they're going to start thinking, philosophizing and going farther out, like hip-hop did a little bit during Clinton. AGR: Do you guys see a regression in hip-hop then? FMJ: I wouldn't call it a regression, but I think that everything goes in cycles, and that certain things are going to come back around, because they always do. And you can't throw out the baby with the bath-water. There's still good shit going on in it today, and even a lot of the shit that people don't like as far as real flossy, jiggy hip-hop; there's even aspects of that that are really good–it's entertaining party music. I think that there's going to be a lot of the good stuff that was going on in the 80's coming back, and stuff from the late 70's, stuff like that, it'll come back, but who knows how popular it'll be again. AGR: Have you guys had problems with racism in the community? Do you think hip-hop has helped overcome it? FMJ: It's definitely not overcome. It's America, everything in America is laced with race. Whether how big of an issue it is, or how small of an issue, depends on where you're at and what the issue is at the time, but everything in America involves race, whether you like it or not. AS: I've never had a black person from the Asheville hip-hop community ever have a problem with the fact that I'm white. If I get up and rhyme, I get daps afterwards, like they respect it, always. It's been years since somebody called me Vanilla Ice, since that's come up. They have. I've been called Vanilla Ice before. FMJ: Everybody in Asheville, and in most hip-hop communities that I've been in, it's just skills that are respected. If you got skills, you're good. If you don't, then no matter what race, color, creed, whatever you are, if you don't have skills, fuck you basically. AS: The white MC, it's kind of a thing now, it's not like a party trick or something fancy you don't see anymore. It's like, people expect it; there's a white guy, he can rap, of course, he's been living in rap since he was born, just like any black kids can. FMJ: Yeah, exactly, it's less of a thing. You don't get points just for "oh my god, he's white and he can rap!" AS: Well, we definitely get it from white people more than we get it from black people. AGR: Do you feel like you have to be tough in your culture? FMJ: Not in our shit. We describe, basically, what real hip-hop is in any sense, which is an accurate depiction of how you live. And honestly, as long as you can do that–no matter how you're living–if you can accurately depict that over good music, then there's people out there that live that lifestyle and will relate to that, and there's a market for that. So we don't have to pretend to be anything that we're not, because we just talk about what we are. AS: We're going to sell less if we act differently. AGR: What do you think our generation's biggest issue is? AS: No control whatsoever over our own government. I think that's really a big one, and it's going to be for awhile. It's like we've lost all hope. The 60's and the 70's, they thought they could get back into politics, and make a change, and all of us; there's no way we're going to get control of our government. If we vote for somebody, they're going to put somebody else in, it doesn't matter what people say anymore. FMJ: Yeah, there's definitely a general loss of faith, even amongst people who want to go about changing shit. I mean, how many people really believe that the last election or two, or maybe both of them were even stolen? Everybody knows that the 2000 election was pretty much a fraud. So many people voted in both of the last two elections and saw nothing that they wanted to happen really happen, so there definitely is a lot of apathy. Even amongst those who want to change things, there are very [few] people who are willing to believe that things can change. AS: All hope is lost with our generation. AGR: How about all of the recent protests–immigration, against the war–has it been effective, anything good come out? AS: Not the war. The war, it doesn't make a difference, the whole country could flip and they're not going to stop. FMJ: Also, I think the whole immigration issue suddenly popped up and became this massive thing when there was just a whole landslide of things crashed down on Bush. The war in Iraq, the Katrina issues, the scandals between Halliburton, Enron, and all the people in his cabinet who've just been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, the Valerie Plame incident; Scooter Libby went and turned against Bush and Cheney themselves, and all of a sudden, it was like the next day almost after that happened, they were talking "should he be impeached for that," and they were like "oh, immigration is a big issue." I heard somebody say something the other night on a news program that I thought was real true, that immigration isn't an issue that politicians want to fix, it's an issue they want to run on–it gets them into office by talking about it. But it's just a fraud to me. AS: Even Republicans and Democrats are both on such a 50/50 split about immigration where nothing's going to happen… it's like "the only way to fix that is to ignore it, and just debate it." It's like they say–drugs in the country, legal marijuana needs more debate. Like, 40 years is enough, it's debated! AGR: Any hints to getting through tours? FMJ: Merchandise. Lots and lots, as much recorded material and T-shirts as you can, because that'll get you through on the spot. Club owners are always going to be shady, most of the time, the vast majority of club owners are not going to deal squarely with you. But even if they're not, for the most part, if you can sell merchandise, that's money that goes directly from the customer to your hands. Also, it creates buzz for while you're gone, so there's more crowd for the next time. Starting in places where you do it, either have family or friends, whether it's because you want to stay with them, or because you have some buzz in that area, and you move outward from the areas where you already have some love, whether it's local for you, where you grew up at or whatever–that's always a good thing. AS: Bring an air mattress, so you don't have to pay for hotel beds. And don't start arguments that aren't important. Just let an argument go if it's not important because you're going to be in the van for five more days with those people.