courtesy of Morgan Leigh Kennedy
God-Des and She are a female Hip-Hop duo that breaks the mold of what a female rap group is supposed to be. They are two white women with an urban sound from Madison, Wisconsin. Their music mirrors their personality--you can't put them in a box. God-Des and She are Hip-Hop, Soul, Dance, Pop, and more.
I spoke with the group recently about the release of their third album appropriately titled, Three.
SS: How happy are you that you escaped Wisconsin?
God-Des: (laughs) We are extremely happy that we escaped Wisconsin! Although we love the Midwest the weather in Austin, TX is definitely a lot better.
SS: So you relocated to Austin?
God-Des: Yeah.
SS: Is Madison the best city in Wisconsin?
God-Des: I think Madison's the best city in Wisconsin. But I think a lot of people would tell you that Milwaukee's better (laughs). Madison is really low key and artistic. It was a great place for us to get our start because it's smaller and people are down with supporting local talent. It was a good place to build and learn our hustle.
SS: What was it like working with producer Brian Hardgroove on your new CD Three?
She: I think it was amazing to work with someone that has such a vast knowledge of music. He really let us have a lot of control. He would be like, "That doesn't sound right," and we would be like, "Well what should we do?" He would say, "Well I don't know, what should you do?" Like a Zen master kind of dude. We had to figure it out. He's an amazing guy and he really helped us find our sound and layer up the music in a way that we hadn't done before.
SS: There's a song on the album called Love Machine. Can you explain exactly what your Love Machine is?
God-Des: (laughs) That's a really funny question. We like to leave that up to the imagination. It was just kind of fun at the beginning because when I first heard the melody of the song (hums melody), and the only words that kept coming to my mind were love machine. I just kind of starting laughing at myself like, what a funny idea--to use the idea of a time portal or a car as a metaphor for sex. With each line I was cracking up more and more. It's really fun and catchy. The writing process was actually really fast. Sometimes our best songs are songs that we don't marinate over for days and days. A lot of times the best songs just flow right out in a couple of hours.
SS: Was there a concerted effort to make the new album Three more Pop?
God-Des: I don't think at the time when we started that we wanted to make the album more Pop. It was more like a lot of the beats that we like were kind of unique sounding and not your typical Hip-Hop sound. Love Machine is the first song that we wrote for the record. Once we realized that we could do that kind of sound the more beats we got that were a little unique. We figured out a way that we could ride with that sound and it was definitely an effort to make more upbeat songs. For years when we would perform all we had was slow and mid-tempo songs. We made people want to shoot their eye balls out because they were really depressing songs (laughs). The world is so depressed right now and we don't need to add to that anymore. We wanted to make this record inspirational and fun and when people listen to it they can get a release from the everyday stresses of life. So that was well thought out. We wrote what we felt and wrote to what we grooved to more than anything.
SS: What's your favorite part of performing live?
God-Des: Both of us really love when we see that we can affect people. We try to make a conscious effort to make our show a roller coaster experience of emotions--kind of like a real reflection of life. We definitely have a lot of fun songs and we lead into some real serious songs. We always want people to walk away feeling inspired and feeling they can be whoever it is they want to be. We want them to feel good about themselves and walk away like, "Man I feel incredible and I want to take this energy from the show and spread it throughout the world." That's something that we've been able to do for a long time. You can feel when you have that connection with the audience.
SS: Do you have a lot more groupies since Lick It came out?
God-Des: Oh my gosh, astronomically. My favorite story to tell is that we're saving the American marriage because a lot of our fans are construction workers and play that song at work. One of our fans told us that a guy came up to her that she works with, I like to call him Bob. He said, "I'd like to thank you for playing that song at work, it saved my marriage." We're literally saving the American marriage with that song and we plan to continue to do that and make women happy across the world. 'Cause if women are happy across the world the whole world is gonna be a better place.
SS: That's so true.
God-Des: Isn't it though?
SS: Yes. OK, give me your craziest road story.
God-Des: Do you have 10 hours for that? We have a couple of books we could write about that. Some of ours are so horrific its scary to tell.
She: Sometimes we have really magical shows where the whole energy is perfect and everyone is feeling it. We had one of those recently in Indianapolis where these girls came and were super affected by us. We turned into the Grateful Dead of the Hip-Hop world and these girls followed us the whole tour. They came to every show because they wanted that feeling again. The last show that we had we rolled up on them tailgating for our show. They were drinking beers and grilling and we were thinking how do we make this an event at every God-Des and She show? Like a football game! That's dope. It would be kind of like Phish but paying homage to Wisconsin with beer and brats that are God-Des and She brand.
That's a cute story. All of the funny stories are like, awful. Tragically funny (laughs).
One time we did a New Year's gig for this lecherous guy in Chicago named George. He put us up in this awful hotel that had roaches all over the bed and the wall. We called him like, "George there's roaches all over this place it's disgusting." He was like, "I DIDN'T KNOW THERE WERE ROACHES!!!" I told him I didn't care if he knew there were roaches or not, he needed to move us. And then he tried to feel up God-Des' butt later--before he paid us! He was so awful.
We played a death metal bar once and a death metal guy that looked like Jesus started to break dance.
SS: That's crazy.
She: It is. Can you imagine playing with all these death metal dudes looking at us crazy and we're white and rapping? It was nuts but they really responded because we're honest and put on a great show. You don't have to like the music that we put on because the energy speaks for itself. It's contagious and fun. We're not pretentious and we don't take ourselves seriously. We're just good soldiers spreading love, positivity, humor and equality. If every artist would set that example it would be a whole different ball game.
SS: On the song Radio Up there's a lyric that says "Music is no longer human," explain what that lyric means.
She: Well God-Des wrote that but here's my take on it, it's basically that when you go into a studio they can change everything about how your voice is. They can change the pitch, the modulation, the timing--everything about it. The human voice that goes into that microphone is completely changed over by the technology that we have these days. The feeling, warmth, and the soul is lost in that. We're just trying to be conscious of those things. If you hear us on a record its really good but if you see us live you'll kind of lose your mind--it's amazing. It's two powerhouse women getting up there and making you get goose bumps all over your body the entire show--its awesome.
We're lucky that we're doing this because we do affect so many people. It's a blessing. As much as we possibly can we're trying to bring humanity back in to music and get people to not be so interested in the pomp and circumstance of how you're supposed to look, be packaged, and what box you're supposed to check musically. If we can break through then how many other people can break through that don't fit in the box that are amazing and can bring joy and love into the world?
God-Des: I just feel like music has become such a business. We have been given this gift since the beginning of time. Humans, animals, and plants will respond to music. Before people just did music because they loved it. They sang or played from their heart and their soul and music is owned now. It's such a commodity and a product. When you look at an artist like Britney Spears she's truly just a business product. I think that has made us lose so much of the realness and feel of music. It's really hard to hear music today and feel something from it. It's hard to evoke emotion anymore.
SS: What inspired the song Spin The Bottle?
God-Des: Man I love spin the bottle that's where I got my first kiss! Reina Williams did the beat. She's awesome. We met her at a show in Baltimore and two days later she came to New York and stayed with us for four days and we started creating music together. Something about when we first heard the guitar part that she laid down it was like, "We should write a song about spin the bottle!" It was just the sound of it, we're bringing spin the bottle back. We had the music done and the idea before I even wrote a word. People really respond to that song and everybody over 35 jams the hell out of that song. If you're over 35 that's your favorite song--it has a retro 60's feel. It has a Beach Boys sound to it.
SS: When was the last time you actually played spin the bottle?
God-Des: You know it's been a long time. I was trying to do some throwback stuff. Now I'm a little more worried about playing spin the bottle. Back then you didn't think about all the things you could catch from kissing the mouths of people but it's been a while--probably college. People are now playing it at our shows.
SS: What kind of adversity have you faced being a lesbian Hip-Hop artist?
God-Des: You know it's funny because we really haven't had anything hateful said to us. It's been maybe one or two times out of the five thousand shows we've played. I think people want honesty and realness and they can smell when something isn't genuine. The fact that we are genuine and talented people don't really have stuff to say to us. It's funny when people ask us that question because what works against us the most? Being women? Not looking like Britney Spears? Being gay? Being white in Hip-Hop? What? We're so far from the norm its like can you really pick out one thing?
I played at this Hip-Hop conference in Madison, WI in 2000. They had guys from the Nation of Islam speaking on panels too. This one guy was in a wheel chair, he was an older dude maybe 55 or 60 and after the show he wheeled up to me and said, "I just gotta let you know sister that I respect you. The fact that you're so real and you're out and open. [Forget] what everybody else says, just do you. I got a lot of respect for you for that." That kind of affected me. I'm just me. When people focus on that its stupid to me. We make music for everybody and who cares who I like and don't like?
SS: That's true but Hip-Hop has historically been very homophobic and not accepting. There are a lot of people in the closet...
God-Des: That's the thing! Come on, 75 or 80% of the famous female rappers are gay. I really think times are changing. If you write a hot song people are gonna play that song. Sadly I think being a woman and being gay is easier than being a gay male and trying to perform in the Hip-Hop world.
SS: Why should the readers of Examiner go out and cop the new God-Des and She album Three?
God-Des: 'Cause it rules! It's so genre bending and unique. There's a song on there for everybody. What was a true test to me was asking people what their favorite song was. Almost everybody says a different song and to me that's really great. That means we don't have just one good song on the album. It's a unique sound that is appealing to everybody. 2-year olds and literally toothless grandma's have listened to our record--there's something on there for everybody.
For more info: http://god-desandshe.com/
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