Souls Almighty

Have you ever had a band introduced to you that, from the second you heard their music, you were a new fan? That is exactly what happened when I first heard Hieroglyphics in 1990. I remember my friend asking me if I have ever heard of an MC by the name of Del Tha Funkee Homosapien. Hearing my "no," he was quick to throw I Wish My Brother George Was Here into his tape deck. At that naïve age I wanted to like it because this cool older kid was really into it, but it didn’t take peer pressure for me to become a new fan; in fact, the original beats and crazy lyrics were enough to have me hooked to this day.

One thing that initially really turned me on about Del’s crew, Hieroglyphics, was that they all collaborate with each other to write, produce and handle the business end of their music. Their first few records were put out by other companies, but when artists don’t make radio hits or dance songs so the people can shake their asses in some club, record execs tend to not promote the band properly. That is alright for shitty, cookie-cutter bands, but when your music is not made for the MTV teenybopper generation, you have to take matters into your own hands and start your own company. That is where Hieroglyphics Imperium came into play.

Before I go any further, let me introduce to you the many members that make up the Hieroglyphics crew: Del (Hiero’s great granddaddy), Casual, Souls Of Mischief, Pep Love, and two of the illest DJs, Domino and Jay Biz.

This Thursday, the 5^th Souls of Mischief is going to be performing at The Brick Works along with Pep Love and X-ecutioners, so I had a talk with Tajai from Souls about their new album Trilogy: Conflict, Climax, Resolution and the shape of things to come in the world of Hieroglyphics.

Probably "Danglin" and "Last Night."

Hopefully we are going to do some stuff with like Roots Maneuver, The [Alcoho]liks, and the Cali-Agents. We have an album coming out with the Pharcyde called "Mighty, Mighty Python." Basically, just a group of us decided, since we were always doing shows together it would be cool to put some stuff down so that is what we ended up [doing].

We are about to go on tour with the X-ecutioners. It is going to be like 34, 36 cities in the U.S. and Canada.

It’s cool. It is just free promotion. Hopefully if you are a real fan you are going to buy the record anyways. I don't mind you getting it. The only way you can get our latest album right now is through journalists because they are the only ones that have our record right now. What do I think of Napster? Napster is cool. What do I think of people that leak my record? That is not cool. But hey, that is free promotion.

We like doing underground hip-hop tours. It would be cool to get some exposure some of these other tours, but I like hitting our core audience with a show because they can actually appreciate it. It is cool to win fans or whatever, but I’m not really searching to impress people who aren’t down with the culture. I am trying to hit the people that are really down with hip-hop.

I would like to see people stop being ignorant, like shooting each other and shit, but that is not just hip-hop; that’s in general.

Pick up Trilogy and support independent hip-hop. Check out our Web site at hieroglyphics.com and watch out for us when we come to your city.

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