My moment with Zion I Pt. 2 - The Interview

Photo: Peter Graham

As promised, here's the interview transcript from my interview with Zion I. They were so down-to-earth and so inspiring. Check it out for yourselves.

What has kept you motivated throughout the years?
Zumbi: I think that ever since we started making music we always took it as adventurous, we always try to do different stuff on every project, or maybe sometimes each song - we always try to switch it up somehow. I think that keeps the creativity and inspiration there. Just being true to the music and really staying in that creative space instead of ‘oh let’s do that formula’ ‘no that one works better’ and just doing it all night. We try to push the limits and see what we can do.

Amp: Just try to stay current and keep things innovative. I mean, there’s so many different types of music out there and so much different stuff – it’s just a good time to make music because there’s so much to pick from. You could do all kinds of stuff as long as it’s tight.

For writing lyrics – is there anything in particular that you pull from?
Zumbi: I probably do 95% of them, he kind of edits my stuff and sometimes gives me different direction. I think I pull a lot from the world, looking at the state of things and how people feel and don’t feel, you know what I mean. I just try to take an internal perspective on things not be here because of the external material world so much. Just trying to get a different window than what people normally see.

Anything recently?
I think in general, I think the world is heating up. We always talk about it all the time. I don’t know what it is, but this recession is world-wide, we have our first black president and there’s war raging across the world, so I feel like this is an important time right now. I’m not sure what’s happening, but there’s some sort of slow boil to the world and its climbing– natural disasters – all this stuff is going on and they kind of sweep it under the rug but I think there’s something to all that. I’m trying to figure out my own perspective on it and just basically experiment and probe what I feel about it and keep going.

You’re always mixing different genres – how do you pick the beats?
Amp: Well, I like the stuff. I grew up with a very diverse background of music so just through the past few years I’ve been able to bring it all up and said f*** it, I’m just gunna do what I feel. I definitely feel like music is just an expression – you don’t have to just do hip-hop and you don’t have to be just a hardcore trance-head. I feel like it’s all from the same thing – it just matters what voice you wanna use. I mean, I grew up with hip-hop, so that’s within me, but it’s like other stuff too. It’s hard to put it in a box – kids these days are listening to everything and I think it’s tight because people are more open to different types of music and it helps – if you just listen to hip-hop and then you listen to classical music and then come back to hip-hop, you’ll probably see a lot of stuff from classical music inside the hip-hop that you didn’t realize before so I think it’s good to keep it open and expand. Jazz especially.

Why’d you guys move here?
Zumbi: Well we went to school in Atlanta – we met at Morehouse, we went to college there and then after we graduated we got signed – you know all that stuff – so you know how it went down, it didn’t work out so I came back out here because I loved the independent scene like Living Legends and Hiero and all them who were really doing it independent. The independent scene was kinda new back then in like ’95- ’96, so I knew there was something going on here, so I came back because my job was hella wack – and I came back and I saw how it was moving out here and I hit him up and I was like dude, you gotta come out here and do some new music out here. It took maybe like – he had to get his money and everything, move out – like 8 months later he moved out - we stayed at my parents house for maybe like 8 months or 4 months, I can’t remember how long – just to jump start and get signed out here.

Yeah and you started up your own label out here, right? Do you have anyone signed right now?
Amp: Yeah, Live Up Records
Zumbi: Well kinda, but nothing on paper. It’s like – we have different artists.
Amp: The definition of a label has changed it’s more like a marketing company or a production company. You still have to have marketing dollars – it is open for indies, but if you don’t have people in the office taking phone calls and follow up. If you don’t have the marketing dollars to advertise – it’s like the same thing.

What is the role of Deuce Eclipse in Zion I?
Zumbi: He’s not in the group – he’s like, we went to high school together and grew up together so he’s like our homie, he usually rocks with us. It’s kind of like Zion I is a platform for him to get his music out. But at this point we’re trying to change it around because people started thinking he was in the group because he’s always with us on tour. Right now it’s Amp, myself and Codany Holiday on stage. In the San Francisco show, we’ll probably bring out Deuce for freestyles, but we’re trying to change it up a little bit at our shows because we’ve been  throwing it like that for years and with our new album we’re trying to create a different experience.

What’s the direction of the new album? What are you trying to say?
Amp: It’s sort of all over the place. It’s very direct but very experimental too. It’s pretty straight to the point – I think, I don’t know.
Zumbi: It has like this spiritual tint to it, but like he said – the concepts are pretty basic though – so you can get it on different levels, but the beats are like – it’s kind of like a mixture of all our albums into one album. So there’s some experimental stuff, there’s some straight bass, there’s that up-tempo electro club-like stuff.

I mean “The Takeover” is kind of a powerful statement:
Amp: It’s supposed to be taking over your whole body, like all of our albums have lead up to this. This is like the big album–
Zumbi: This is the culmination. The magnum opus.

Who’s your favorite person you’ve ever collaborated with?
Amp: The Grouch.
Zumbi: He’s a cool dude, he’s a cool cat.

What’s one thing about the Bay Area music scene that you wish would change or disappear?
Zumbi: I wish that more of the younger artists or just artists in general, really – not the veterans, not the Hieros and the Quantums and the E-40s, but everybody else – there seems to be a lack of information about how to approach the music industry. I wish that would change because it seems like we’re really confined to the Bay Area whereas other spots like Chicago, LA, New York – their stuff is all over the country. Whereas the Bay Area stuff -  I think because of a lack of information, it stays way more regional and I wish that would change for us.

What do you think is the best way to go about changing that?
Amp: I think right now we’re lacking labels and production houses.
Zumbi: When in the indie scene when it was popular like in the early 2000s, it was different. You had like a bunch of independent labels and they would take their artists like on tours and all kinds of stuff and now it’s just artists putting their stuff on the internet. It’s easy out here to build up a scene, but then you think you’re on top of the world, and you’re not. You gotta travel.

Amp: I don’t agree with that totally – a lot of the independent groups that I’ve talked to and seen, are starting to bubble, they are definitely traveling. It’s just hard nowadays because of the money and then also, you just gotta start it slow. People you know always go down to LA and think from LA you start meeting other artists and stuff and you start on the West Coast first, but I don’t know – I think it’s more of a money issue. Then also, the venues too. Certain venues will only book certain types of music and stuff. People are so scared of hip-hop, so a lot of us are restricted.

Why is that?
Zumbi: Because you have one show and somebody gets shot 10 years ago and then all the rest of hip-hop is the same thing basically. Or maybe not, maybe nothing ever happened – some of it is pre-prejudice, but some of it isn’t.

Who has been the most influential Bay Area artist for you?
Zumbi: For me, it would probably just have to be Too $hort. Just growing up in the  80s and hearing Freaky Tales on Born to Mack – that’s classic. He was the first dude, like for me, even before Hammer, he was like independent for real. Like I remember his records before he was on Jive being passed around and people bumping it and then when he got on Jive he was blowing up even more. It was like a really hometown-pride type of thing. People weren’t really dropping records – it wasn’t easy to do in the 80s. He was like the first cat that laid it down with the pioneer stuff.

Amp: I think like Too $hort, Hiero because they basically made themselves like a staple  for hip-hop, just like real – like this is our zone, indie hip-hop and stuff. The Bay Area’s got a lot of pioneers and stuff.

Do you ever think about writing other stuff besides music?
Zumbi: Yeah, that’s my next thing. I wanna do this short story thing first. Like a collection of short stories from over the years. Just start like that. Most of them are like weird sci-fi, weird concepts. More entertaining – it’s not like deep, dark, depressing, it’s just experimenting with different ideas.

If you could collaborate with anybody, dead or alive, who would you pick?
Zumbi: Bob Marley – can’t lose. That’d be interesting.
Amp: I would say that I’d like to work with Prince or someone like that. Just something crazy.


What’s next for you after this album drops?
Zumbi: Yeah, I’ve got another project called the Burnerz with this dude, The Are from Texas. It’s like almost ready to go, it’s like classical hip-hop. But it’s dope.

Do you guys ever take vacations?
Zumbi: Nowadays, you can’t really, the market’s crazy right now. We sell fine and everything’s cool, but you gotta stay on the grind. Especially as an independent artist, you used to be able to. Cats would just make a record and sit back for a year, make a record. But now if you look, everybody releases a record at least once a year or does something. You have to do something or else people forget.

Do you feel like that hinders the creative process at all?
Amp: No, I think it makes it better. I mean, I think musicians for a while – it’s making it more like a 9-5. You just have to consistently put out music and stuff, you just can’t sit on your ass. I feel like a lot of people whatever. Sort of like they do an album and sit on it for a couple of years. I mean, not everybody, but just I’ve been noticing people are starting to get lazy with their shows and stuff. I think this is putting people on their toes, like if you really wanna be successful in this, you’re gunna really have to work hard. 

For people who don’t know who you are, what’s something you want everyone to know about you?
Zumbi: What? Who doesn’t know about us? Nah – one thing about us they should know is that it’s soulful. Our music’s always been soulful, I think. Soulful hip-hop fused with hella other stuff. Gumbo is like the basis and then you can spice across the world.

What is Zion I? What does it mean?
Zumbi: We chose the name because we was talking about the spirit of God within all of us, like Zion. We always talked about what Zion [was], in the Bible it’s where during the end times, the last days, that’s where all the righteous souls go. We always took that to mean that the music was that pure space for us – that creative space that’s within us. Then “I” is also a back-reflection of ourselves as well as the audience. So basically, it’s like a reminder that the divine spirit is within us and that keeps us on track musically.

Do you have any pre or post show rituals or any funny stories from tour?
Zumbi: Yeah, there’s always a funny story at a show. Sheesh. That’s a bag of worms. As far as rituals, we always pray before the show. After the show – if it’s a good show we just kinda say yeah, good show. If it’s bad we kinda just talk about it for a quick second.

How do you know if it’s bad?
Zumbi: You just feel it, either I’ll or him will be like oh that was weak we gotta stop doing that or we feel the crowd – like we’ll be rockin and you’ll do something or maybe I’ll talk too long and you’ll feel the energy go down. You just kinda feel what’s happening – you just kinda take notes because you don’t wanna keep doing something that’s bad over and over again.

Any funny stories from tour?
Amp: When we were in France – we were on tour with Souls of Mischief and Greg Nice, from Nice & Smooth. And he went on before us and he did this 10 minute beat box.
Zumbi: No dude, he did like a 40-minute beat box. Acappella beat box with raps and call backs. He was trippin out.
Amp: The crowd got mad. We had to like go in and reel them back in, they were pissed though.
Zumbi: It was the weirdest thing ‘cause they were like kinda with it for like the first 5-10 minutes and were like yeah and then after like the first 15 people were like jesus Christ and then there was like 20 more minutes of him beat boxing. He would do a verse from a song with no beat and then go back to beat boxing…
Amp: Actually he was doing call and responses with beat boxes so he was like doing every call and response –
Zumbi: He just kept going and going and everyone was like what the f***…. We came on and the crowd was just like ugh – and even at that show Deuce and I were rapping and Deuce stepped on my mic and the mic fell out of my hand and broke some glass in front of the stage – it was like a weird show, but then people seemed like they liked it afterwards. It was just a weird show.

What’s your most memorable?
Zumbi: The wackest one was when we were driving through upstate New York to go to Canada and we were going through this small town and I remember I was asleep and Amp was driving and all of a sudden it was like yo, these cops are following us. And were like what? And we looked out the window and all these cops were following us and we were like whatever, we’re driving the speed limit and everything. We were driving for like half an hour trying to get out of this little town, and finally we get out to the road – the main freeway and like 3 cops converged on us. They get us out of the car. They each put us into individual cop cars, searched through the back of the car, right, while we’re sitting in there. And I’ve never been to jail before, I don’t plan on going, so it was a very disturbing feeling for me. For like 20 minutes we sat in the car and they pulled us out and they were like oh, sorry guys, we got a tip that you guys were smuggling drugs duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. And we were like, what? And while this is happening, I have my camera and when they came up to the car the first time, I was filming and he’s like turn the camera off, turn the camera off, so I got the footage and everything. It’s just kinda f*ed up to be profiled like that. They said somebody – we stopped at a convenience store and somebody said they saw us shuffling big bags and what happened was Deuce was getting his passport out of his backpack. It was f*ed up. It’s wack, it’s a terrible feeling, like it’s our country and that never happens to us in Europe.

What’s your favorite track?
Zumbi: Ever? I like a lot of songs. Just off the top though, probably Inner Light or Silly Puddy.
Amp: We got this new song called DJ DJ. It’s on the new album. It’s probably the most DJ-oriented song that we’ve ever made and it’s just direct. I’ve spun it at clubs and it’s just like immediate tight response.
Zumbi: It’s got a different technique to it. It’s not just me rapping. It’s like he took my verse and cut it up and placed it and it’s kinda like the whole song has this structure to it and it just comes off different than most of our songs. It’s interesting.

Why Silly Puddy then?
Zumbi: I think Silly Puddy just because I was just hella zoned out in those days, just super focused and I really feel like those songs just captured the moment. They’re not like my favorite songs like I play them every morning but just like artistically –

Who do you think should be on this list [Bay Area bands you should know]?
Amp: I would say Deuce Eclipse, he’s got a group called Bang Data – they’re definitely like.
Zumbi: I would say Ice Life – he’s like a young dude coming up on things.
Amp: Couple of artists – Codany Holiday but he’s getting a lot of interest. He’s like a soul artist like old and new school. And then K Flay – you’ll be hearing about him soon. Oh, and this group called Cataracts. I mean a lot the scene is mixed now, so it’s not really like rock, retro, hip-hop. A lot of these groups perform with each other and I think that’s what’s cool.

For someone who’s never been to one of your shows, what’s one thing that they should know?
Zumbi: Just get involved. The wackest thing is when people go to hip-hop shows and just watch and spectate because hip-hop is all about interaction and community and like everybody’s supposed to be involved in it. So, when you come, sweat it out, move around, bob your head, put your hands in the air, do all that stuff. It enriches the experience and what you’re doing because it really is like a culture. 
 

Photo: Peter Graham

Hope you liked it. Peace.

*Julie