Bishop Lamont interview

What’s up Bishop? How does it feel for you to be back?

It’s great man! I was drunk last time. I’ll be drunk again and just have a blast. Seeing good people, good energy. They like the music and I like the music, so thats it... Space cakes!

You are doing masterclasses overseas, without even having an album out. What does that say about you as an artist and the impact that you have?

It’s a blessing. It just makes you recognize the fact that you’re doing the right thing if it brings people together a billion miles away from where you come from. You’re over here and people actually take their time be here, be present, and listen to what you gotta say. So it’s a blessing!

How important are events like conferences for hiphop, both in the US and over here?

It’s very important because it’s not just nationwide. It’s international and brings different schools of thought, different music and different movements together to make even a bigger movement for those who are going to collaborate and do something great together. So it’s necessary.

I saw this track on your MySpace, called ‘Friends,’ where you adress the issues of your childhood friends turning your back on you. At what point in time did you first see that change occur?

It was before and after the deal. It’s just about the fact that everything changes. A lot of people try to say you change, when it’s them. They look at your circumstances and feel inadequate, made smaller, by those circumstances. They believe that you’re bigger now, and they’re smaller now that they don’t see eye to eye with you anymore.

Jealousy comes, betrayal comes, envy comes. It’s a vicious plague, but it repeats itsself in every persons life, in whatever aspect. It doesn’t just touch rap. It touches sports. It touches just a normal person having a normal job and getting a promotion while the other person is not getting a promotion. A person gets a new car and they still got the old car. So it just shows, from the human side, what people are capable of.

I mean, niggas are riding round in dirty Honda Civics, got 5 million kids and they’re mad because you’re doing your thing. But they know for a fact that when you were 12 or 13 you said “I’m going to do this music thing.” Thats all you know you love and you stick to it. Then they get mad cause they didn’t want to believe. And now they see it happen and they know they can’t be a part of it.

Another track, one of your favourite tracks as well, is ‘Grow Up.’ You said you wanted to grow up and change things. At what point in life did you decide to flip the script and become succesfull in your life?

I think that just happens when you go on the path of trying to become succesfull. Things are put away and new things are brought in place, so it’s an exchange. I can’t do THIS anymore if I want to do THAT. It’s just a natural thing.

I think sometime it’s subconscious for me. I try to be as conscious with it as possible, with that evolution. But most of the time its just from the spirit, just from looking at your circumstances. Just from saying “I can’t do things like this anymore, when it comes to doing music and having a carreer.”

People are watching you. You are in front of the camera’s, having people watching you, looking up to you and emulating what you do. You have to be a better vessel and a better person for the world to see in a young comunity. And even for yourself, before God. It just happens naturally.

On the track ‘Grow Up’ you also rhyme; “wack beats, catchy hooks and some little ass kids. Add a dance to it and it’s gon’ be big.” The first thing that pops up in my mind is ‘Soulja Boy.’

Yeah, but you know what? With ‘Soulja Boy,’ people wanna come down on ‘Soulja Boy.’ I don’t listen to ‘Soulja Boy’ his music, but I appreciate ‘Soulja Boy.’ Because that is what he is doing for HIS generation, people HIS age. ‘Soulja Boy’ never ever said he was the illest nigga since Nas or that he was iller than Biggie. ‘Soulja Boy’ is just ‘Soulja Boy.’ He’s a young cat, he’s a kid.

People make formula music. I call it ‘fast food music.’ They’re putting no soul in it, no creativity, and they be like; “Okay, I’ll just put autotune on the hook and a catchy dance with it, cause that’s what’s going right now,  I can have a hit too.” That’s what I meant by that.

Allright. I wanna go to ‘The Reformation.’ What’s the status regarding your solo debut?

September/October, thank God! We have finally gotten to the end of the road for the world to recieve what has taken me 4 years to create. Especially with pushbacks on the releasedate.

What can we expect from it as far as content and topics on your album?

Really, with ‘The Reformation’ it’s about rebuilding, reforming, reconditioning. It deals with social issues, political issues, spiritual issues. It deals with me growing up, my childhood, different phases of my life, sharing it with the people. It’s about to know about struggles, know about poverty, to know about being in a one-parent home, to dealing with the police, dealing with the streets, dealing with the world.

Everything is on there. I tried to put human experience into the album, in every shape or form. And then as well just crazy ill records on the lyrical side to bring back that hiphop aspect. Crazy bangers of every sort you can think of.

In my mind, what I was going for was a cross between ‘Life After Death’ and ‘All Eyez On Me.’ With a touch of a Keith Murray or a Pharaohe Monch. I mean, it is a lot of different ways you can go. I looked at what Biggie did with ‘Life After Death.’ It was so lyrical and conceptual. At the same time, it was stuff to dance to, stuff that made you think, stuff that made you feel. Same thing with ‘All Eyez On Me.’ Stuff that made you think, stuff that made you feel. I just love the potency of both of those albums. Those albums were both double albums.

Does that mean that you’re also dropping a double CD? Is that what you’re planning on doing?

Hahaha. I definately got enough material for that. I just think I give the people the amount of medicine that they need. I don’t want to overmedicate them. I don’t want to overdose them.

Does it sound like a westcoast album, with Dre behind the boards?

It’s not just Dre behind the boards. Rest in peace to Dilla, I got a crazy Dilla record on there. Lord Finesse, Black Milk is on there. Offcourse Focus, that goes without saying. Khalil, DJ Quick. There are so many cats on there. The sound is so diverse, but sonically it all strings together correctly. Scoop DeVille. Drama is on there. Just all kinds of amazing cats that you never expected that do beats, or cats you haven’t seen in a while. So it’s a musical gumbo, but it works!

Dre is working on ‘Detox’ right now. Hi-Tek wants to be on ‘Detox.’ I see you with a Hi-Tek beat. Same thing with Khalil. Is anyone of the producers working with you because they’re allready in the studio with Dre, working on Detox?

No, we actually started before the Dre thing even came up. Most of these cats I’ve known for years. We’ve seen eachother for years. Khalil is my big brother, Focus is my big brother. Hi-Tek is my big brother. I’ve known him for years. So us working is just us working. That is top priority, but at the same time there are other priorities. So we just work.

Every day they are not in the studio with Dre. Everybody is not always in the studio with Dre. We have to do other things as well. Like eating space cakes in Rotterdam, which we surely will do!

Word on the internet was that you said that Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg weren’t as supportive of your career as they should be. So maybe you can clear something up as far as that situation.

Yes pimp. Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube said some things about me in a couple different interviews. And I’ve known Snoop for years. Snoop actually gave me my last rap name, the Lamont on Bishop Lamont. I’ve known his whole family. So for Snoop to feel that way about me, I was really offended by that. Because he told me I was going to be big and succesfull. So that’s what it is.

Since then things have been reconciled as far as me and Snoop goes. It was never an issue of ‘Fuck Snoop Dogg, I hate Snoop Dogg.’ It is like we are family in this shit, and he’d disrespect. It shouldn’t be a compatitive thing on this level.

What was it that he had against you. What did he say?

He said “who is Bishop Lamont? These young cats, they ain’t got their heads screwed on right.” You know what I mean, just going in on us like we don’t deserve the shine, we shouldn’t be here. And I was like “wow, you know me!” 

Ice Cube said the same thing about me with similar lines. But that’s all talk. That’s like basketball players talking that shit on the court. But then the media and the internet are blowing things out of proportion, and make it a movie when it’s not a movie. You never can tell with these cats. In that rap world I be like whatever, I go home and be normal.

The book called ‘Ancient African Civilisations of Europe’ gave you inspiration for the writing and recording of your ‘N*gger Noize’ mixtape. What was the influence of this book?

Just things that you never knew existed. Just things that were taken out of history about Napoleon, for one. I focussed on that so much ,with the ‘History’ record on ‘N*gger Noize.’ Another thing is the presence of black saints in the churches. They later took those down. There were black crusaders for the churches. A lot of different things, just on that level that blew my mind. We were over here as well. Everyone was together, even in the viking times.

But they just want to think that you were in Africa throwing spears. You were enslaved, you came over here to pick cotton. That’s it niggers! So to read this kinds of things is amazing. It made me just want to expand my mind and read and write so much more and adress the issues of racism.

Because, no matter how you look at it, everybody is the same, everybody is one. That’s bullshit. Different colours makes it more exciting. If everybody was the same colour, shit would be boring. It’s like when everybody had to drive (Toyota) Scions. Or everybody had to eat fucking macaroni. There has to be a variety.

So it’s just about knocking down the walls of ignorance. And that’s what ‘N*gger Noize’ really is all about. It’s making fun out of these idiots who tear up perfectly good bedsheets to put them on and run around, get gas and light crosses on fire. But they’re supposed to be Christians. They bomb churches, but they’re supposed to be Christians. It’s just to make a mockery of them and be like; Dude, if you’re still racist in 2009, you’re a fucking loser. Get your space cakes, drink, party!

There is one last question I have to ask you before the end of this interview. Last time we met you were out on the road with your brother Mike and your mother/manager Loraine. What is the importance of your family to you, both as an artist and as a human being?

It’s very important. Because, what better feeling is it to achieve your dreams and have your family present to experience that and see it trough to be able to experience the fruits of the labours of that, because they’ve sacrificed for you. I want to be able to take care of my family and let them be able to enjoy that with me. Everything that I am comes from them.

My brother was the first one to bring Outkasts first album ‘Southernplayalisticcadillacmuzik’ home. My brother was the first one to bring Too $hort and NWA. I would never have heard this music if it wasn’t for him.

My momma was playing all the oldschool records. Whether it be Al Green, Luther Vandross, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack. I got education from all those aspects and she learned me how to be a good person.

Check hier het interview dat wij eind vorig jaar met Bishop Lamont hadden als deel 3 van de Caltroit Special

Caltroit Special deel 3: Bishop Lamont interview