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Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
Retracing His Steps
"When I was younger I had no shame and was drinking, doing mushrooms and acid, popped ecstasy when it was still MDMA back then and not the fake shit that’s flying around now. I don’t do it like that now because I’m older and I got shit to do." Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien was at the top of the pop charts when I was a teenager, propelled to celebrity status through his unconventional first single Mr Dobalina. He’s continued to pop up on the radar over the years, most recently on the Gorillaz’ hit single Clint Eastwood. Del has just released his first album in nearly 8 years titled Eleventh Hour to mixed reviews. It is the first time since the founding of his independent label Hieroglyphics Imporium that Del has released an album on another label, this time choosing to work with his friend El-P’s Def Jux label.
Was Mr Dobalina your biggest commercial hit?
Nah The Gorillaz shit was probably the biggest thing I’ve ever done.
When Mr Dobalina dropped you were only 19 years old. Was it a shock to you when that song became such a big hit?
Yeah but it didn’t really affect me man. My main thing was I just wanted to make records and I’d already been working up until that point. I actually didn’t consider it as big of a hit as it actually was. I didn’t get hella overjoyed when it hit but at the same time I wouldn’t have been too disappointed if it flopped either.
You don’t feel that the first record going big changed things for you? A lot of artists who find success early in their careers at a young age fall apart as a result…
Oh nah man. I’m still living the same way today and I still do things the same way as I did back when I was a kid. And I feel like I gotta keep it that way because that’s what attracted the record companies to me and made people want to sign me and work with me, that’s the essence you know. I even went back to that essence even more with this particular project that I’m putting out now.
I’ve read in earlier interviews with you that you were disappointed with the end result of your debut I Wish My Brother George Was Here. How do you look back on that record now?
It wasn’t that I was disappointed with I Wish My Brother George Was Here, it was just that at that time the hip-hop scene kinda hated on the record. I didn’t understand at the time that they just wished they was in my position. It’s not that I didn’t like the record I just didn’t like the fact that these so-called ‘experts’ were saying that I wasn’t hip-hop, that offended me. So after that I went on this crusade to show people that I really had the hip-hop skills. But that first album though, that’s a classic man! Matter of fact a lot of that stuff was my personal input. A lot of people had me confused, I was confused and I finally just traced it back and asked myself ‘why do I feel bad about this? Why do I feel like I’m not doing it the way I need to be doing it? And I traced it back to that, that was me at that point.
A big part of the press release for your first album was the fact that your cousin Ice Cube was behind the production. You haven’t worked with him since then. Did that album end your musical relationship with Cube?
I haven’t worked with him since then because he started getting into other things. At the time that he did that album with me he was just starting to get into movies. It was a tactic for him, I mean his whole personnel changed, Street Knowledge wasn’t there no more, it was a total restructuring for him. At the same time I had my own crew Hieroglyphics that I was trying to bring up the same way that Cube brought me out. It was just hectic…I just spoke to Cube about two weeks ago.
When Hieroglyphics dropped, you guys were doing so much and really put the Bay Area on the hip-hop map. Since that so called ‘golden era’ things have changed so much musically and industry wise. How have these changes effected a group like Hiero and yourself individually?
I guess the main effect would be that the public aint buying the shit no more. They getting sick of the shit and now it’s at a point where it’s so ridiculous that people are completely over the shit now. Of course that affects us because it affects all rap records. So for me I’m just trying to learn new ways to live in this new era. There’s a lot of anarchy going on, a lot of downloads, people are feeling like if you signed to a major label then you part of the establishment that makes everything go wrong, ya know what I’m sayin’? People feel like if you’re 50 Cent they should just download your shit, ‘fuckit, you’re 50 Cent, you’re rich’, but they feel like that about everybody’s shit now. And I aint gonna say I’ve never downloaded music before, me though, I try to stick to downloading shit that I cannot get any other way. If I see the new Snoop Dogg album up there three weeks before it’s due to come out, it’s tempting but I wont download it. The other thing I try to do is to make some shit that’s really gonna be worth your while, speaking on the audience, I’m gonna make this for y’all, it’s for me too but we can’t have it without one another. They can’t be entertained if I don’t do it and I can’t perform if they don’t wanna be entertained, it’s got to be a partnership. Big record companies are just blood-suckers who’ve been squeezing the public dry for years and years so now the public are just like ‘fuck this shit’. Platinum albums, that shit is over unless you’ve got some masterful shit and really got that push behind you. So the only thing that I can do is really make some solid music, so every day and night I just sit and write songs and make music.
At this point I consider myself a straight-up musician, my background is hip-hop and funk but I can make stuff so I’m looking into other opportunities, like I can score a movie. So I’m definitely moving more in that direction. One thing I’ve noticed though is dealing with people for that kind of thing, they don’t want to deal with no samples, they don’t want to deal with potential lawsuits and that kind of thing so one thing I’d say to upcoming producers is try to learn some music theory, learn how to make your version. We can elevate the artform and make it an artform with some real class but a lot of dudes don’t want to move away from using samples and we cant do that forever, they know about that now.
So in saying that you consider yourself more of a musician now, does that mean you consider yourself less of a rapper?
I consider myself to be a rapper, an MC definitely. Get me on stage with my DJ or any DJ for that matter and I’ll let him do what he gotta do and I’ll deal with the crowd like a real MC. I can rock any crowd, I don’t care if I don’t got any material because I can get out there and start freestyling if I have to. That’s definitely part of me but I’ve grown from there. Now I can definitely say that I am a musician, I was always making beats but now I know what I’m doing.
I guess you always have been quite brave with the kind of music that you’ve been involved with from you’re on experiments through to the collaborations with acts like Deltron and The Gorillaz. Would you say now that your audience is less of a traditional hip-hop audience?
Honestly, my fans come from all walks of life man. There are people who don’t even like hip-hop that listen to my shit, probably very few but I’ve heard people say that “I don’t even like hip-hop but you’re tight”. Cats that listen to reggae, rock cats, people that listen to top 40, all type of people, ghetto cats that are looking for something a bit different, I’m not surprised by that, when I make my music I try to give it that universal vibe. I’m not trying to make music where you have to be in the hip-hop ‘club’ or into the whole lexicon of hip-hop to get into it. I make all my music funky and funk is universal.
Tell me about the decision behind doing this record with Def Jux?
First of all they had an opening for me and I know El-P. I feel like they have a machine operating over there that is running very well. I’m proud of El-P and the way he’s got his hustle on, I know where he’s come from and the fact that Rawkus Records built their whole ethic around El-P and Company Flow and where he ended up when Rawkus tried to go to Priority Records and fucked their whole shit off. Rawkus basically just played theyselves but I’ve seen El-P just bump from there. He got Def Jux crankin’ so I’m like ‘OK I’m gonna roll wit you’, and it’s going good, all these interviews that I’m doing now are because I’ve got that support and that backing from Def Jux. Right now with Hiero we don’t have that motor working like that, we don’t have a plan in place to get it crankin like that. Plus we got a lot of stuff on our plate, we been putting a lot of stuff out and I didn’t want to get lost in the sauce, so to speak. The A Plus album just came out, Souls’ album is about to come out and Hiero is still pretty much our first priority.
So you still stay involved with the Hiero label even though your own music is now out on Def Jux?
Oh yeah, because it’s my label! We’re all part owners in the label so I’m gonna be involved to some degree. We’ve been working on this new Hieroglyphics album and it’s almost done and the new Souls of Mischief album has been produced by Prince Paul and is ready to drop.
With such a lengthy career behind you, is there a particular period, or event that you look back on as the highlight?
I’d have to say that the first album really sticks in my mind as one of the best feelings, best vibe. That album came together so tight, I was with Cube and stoked and ready to work, Pooh was there and he was hella funny, he had me crackin up every single day, Cube was Cube ya know what I’m saying, with the Cube face and he was clowin too. The people that was around were straight gangstas some of the time, but it was cool to have that gangsta vibe too and they would deal with me as Del, they were like ‘OK you aint no gangsta but we feel you, you’re kinda crazy but that’s cool’. Meeting George Clinton and the Brides of Funkenstein and being able to work with them on my first release. It was so big I didn’t even know how big it was back then, I knew them, I felt them, but not to the degree that I do now. Now that’s my whole basis for me doing shit.
That was a big time and another big time for me was when I was doing this album because I got a lot of that good feeling back that I had working on my first abum. So I’ve just taken that feeling and been able to bring it into this era that we’re in now and update it. I’m just glad that I was able to update when so many artists haven’t been able to do that. They lose their way somehow, along the way they forget their inspiration because they’re so lost in the sauce of the game. For me, I was able to recapture that through studying music and music theory, that made me remember how fun it was to work on music.
I read that there was a gap between your album releases of several years because you got caught up taking a lot of psychedelic drugs and dropped the ball. Is that accurate?
That’s bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, when I was younger I had no shame and was drinking, doing mushrooms and acid, popped ecstasy when it was still MDMA back then and not the fake shit that’s flying around now. I don’t do it like that now because I’m older and I got shit to do. My inspiration was never really that and it certainly wasn’t my downfall. My downfall was basically a bitch that I was fucking with for a minute! That was damn near my downfall and it put me out of the game for about five or six years, that was a dangerous, hazardous situation but that didn’t keep me from working on my shit. It was harder to work on my shit because I also had to get the windows fixed or stop from fighting with somebody or dodging bullets or get out of jail. But that’s right now, before, the wait between albums was because we was on the road most of the time so when do you get the time to work on albums? That was one thing I had to figure out, I had to just slow my roll, pump my breaks on going on the road and stay home to write the albums that get you on the road in the first place.
How do you describe this album?
It’s like a return back to the roots. It’s about getting back to the dirt and letting you know what Del’s all about. Taking the mothership out of the sky and returning it to the earth. I didn’t try to overcomplicate things and I’ve tried to be direct. Also musically I’ve tried to keep everything tighter and more funky. I’ve tried to create a signature sound so that from now on you’re not going to buy a Del album wondering what the hell might pop up. A lot of people might buy an album from me because they just like one song. From now on I’m leaving Deltron for Deltron and whatever for whatever, everything concerning me I put on Del.
Back
Nah The Gorillaz shit was probably the biggest thing I’ve ever done.
When Mr Dobalina dropped you were only 19 years old. Was it a shock to you when that song became such a big hit?
Yeah but it didn’t really affect me man. My main thing was I just wanted to make records and I’d already been working up until that point. I actually didn’t consider it as big of a hit as it actually was. I didn’t get hella overjoyed when it hit but at the same time I wouldn’t have been too disappointed if it flopped either.
You don’t feel that the first record going big changed things for you? A lot of artists who find success early in their careers at a young age fall apart as a result…
Oh nah man. I’m still living the same way today and I still do things the same way as I did back when I was a kid. And I feel like I gotta keep it that way because that’s what attracted the record companies to me and made people want to sign me and work with me, that’s the essence you know. I even went back to that essence even more with this particular project that I’m putting out now.
I’ve read in earlier interviews with you that you were disappointed with the end result of your debut I Wish My Brother George Was Here. How do you look back on that record now?
It wasn’t that I was disappointed with I Wish My Brother George Was Here, it was just that at that time the hip-hop scene kinda hated on the record. I didn’t understand at the time that they just wished they was in my position. It’s not that I didn’t like the record I just didn’t like the fact that these so-called ‘experts’ were saying that I wasn’t hip-hop, that offended me. So after that I went on this crusade to show people that I really had the hip-hop skills. But that first album though, that’s a classic man! Matter of fact a lot of that stuff was my personal input. A lot of people had me confused, I was confused and I finally just traced it back and asked myself ‘why do I feel bad about this? Why do I feel like I’m not doing it the way I need to be doing it? And I traced it back to that, that was me at that point.
A big part of the press release for your first album was the fact that your cousin Ice Cube was behind the production. You haven’t worked with him since then. Did that album end your musical relationship with Cube?
I haven’t worked with him since then because he started getting into other things. At the time that he did that album with me he was just starting to get into movies. It was a tactic for him, I mean his whole personnel changed, Street Knowledge wasn’t there no more, it was a total restructuring for him. At the same time I had my own crew Hieroglyphics that I was trying to bring up the same way that Cube brought me out. It was just hectic…I just spoke to Cube about two weeks ago.
When Hieroglyphics dropped, you guys were doing so much and really put the Bay Area on the hip-hop map. Since that so called ‘golden era’ things have changed so much musically and industry wise. How have these changes effected a group like Hiero and yourself individually?
I guess the main effect would be that the public aint buying the shit no more. They getting sick of the shit and now it’s at a point where it’s so ridiculous that people are completely over the shit now. Of course that affects us because it affects all rap records. So for me I’m just trying to learn new ways to live in this new era. There’s a lot of anarchy going on, a lot of downloads, people are feeling like if you signed to a major label then you part of the establishment that makes everything go wrong, ya know what I’m sayin’? People feel like if you’re 50 Cent they should just download your shit, ‘fuckit, you’re 50 Cent, you’re rich’, but they feel like that about everybody’s shit now. And I aint gonna say I’ve never downloaded music before, me though, I try to stick to downloading shit that I cannot get any other way. If I see the new Snoop Dogg album up there three weeks before it’s due to come out, it’s tempting but I wont download it. The other thing I try to do is to make some shit that’s really gonna be worth your while, speaking on the audience, I’m gonna make this for y’all, it’s for me too but we can’t have it without one another. They can’t be entertained if I don’t do it and I can’t perform if they don’t wanna be entertained, it’s got to be a partnership. Big record companies are just blood-suckers who’ve been squeezing the public dry for years and years so now the public are just like ‘fuck this shit’. Platinum albums, that shit is over unless you’ve got some masterful shit and really got that push behind you. So the only thing that I can do is really make some solid music, so every day and night I just sit and write songs and make music.
At this point I consider myself a straight-up musician, my background is hip-hop and funk but I can make stuff so I’m looking into other opportunities, like I can score a movie. So I’m definitely moving more in that direction. One thing I’ve noticed though is dealing with people for that kind of thing, they don’t want to deal with no samples, they don’t want to deal with potential lawsuits and that kind of thing so one thing I’d say to upcoming producers is try to learn some music theory, learn how to make your version. We can elevate the artform and make it an artform with some real class but a lot of dudes don’t want to move away from using samples and we cant do that forever, they know about that now.
So in saying that you consider yourself more of a musician now, does that mean you consider yourself less of a rapper?
I consider myself to be a rapper, an MC definitely. Get me on stage with my DJ or any DJ for that matter and I’ll let him do what he gotta do and I’ll deal with the crowd like a real MC. I can rock any crowd, I don’t care if I don’t got any material because I can get out there and start freestyling if I have to. That’s definitely part of me but I’ve grown from there. Now I can definitely say that I am a musician, I was always making beats but now I know what I’m doing.
I guess you always have been quite brave with the kind of music that you’ve been involved with from you’re on experiments through to the collaborations with acts like Deltron and The Gorillaz. Would you say now that your audience is less of a traditional hip-hop audience?
Honestly, my fans come from all walks of life man. There are people who don’t even like hip-hop that listen to my shit, probably very few but I’ve heard people say that “I don’t even like hip-hop but you’re tight”. Cats that listen to reggae, rock cats, people that listen to top 40, all type of people, ghetto cats that are looking for something a bit different, I’m not surprised by that, when I make my music I try to give it that universal vibe. I’m not trying to make music where you have to be in the hip-hop ‘club’ or into the whole lexicon of hip-hop to get into it. I make all my music funky and funk is universal.
Tell me about the decision behind doing this record with Def Jux?
First of all they had an opening for me and I know El-P. I feel like they have a machine operating over there that is running very well. I’m proud of El-P and the way he’s got his hustle on, I know where he’s come from and the fact that Rawkus Records built their whole ethic around El-P and Company Flow and where he ended up when Rawkus tried to go to Priority Records and fucked their whole shit off. Rawkus basically just played theyselves but I’ve seen El-P just bump from there. He got Def Jux crankin’ so I’m like ‘OK I’m gonna roll wit you’, and it’s going good, all these interviews that I’m doing now are because I’ve got that support and that backing from Def Jux. Right now with Hiero we don’t have that motor working like that, we don’t have a plan in place to get it crankin like that. Plus we got a lot of stuff on our plate, we been putting a lot of stuff out and I didn’t want to get lost in the sauce, so to speak. The A Plus album just came out, Souls’ album is about to come out and Hiero is still pretty much our first priority.
So you still stay involved with the Hiero label even though your own music is now out on Def Jux?
Oh yeah, because it’s my label! We’re all part owners in the label so I’m gonna be involved to some degree. We’ve been working on this new Hieroglyphics album and it’s almost done and the new Souls of Mischief album has been produced by Prince Paul and is ready to drop.
With such a lengthy career behind you, is there a particular period, or event that you look back on as the highlight?
I’d have to say that the first album really sticks in my mind as one of the best feelings, best vibe. That album came together so tight, I was with Cube and stoked and ready to work, Pooh was there and he was hella funny, he had me crackin up every single day, Cube was Cube ya know what I’m saying, with the Cube face and he was clowin too. The people that was around were straight gangstas some of the time, but it was cool to have that gangsta vibe too and they would deal with me as Del, they were like ‘OK you aint no gangsta but we feel you, you’re kinda crazy but that’s cool’. Meeting George Clinton and the Brides of Funkenstein and being able to work with them on my first release. It was so big I didn’t even know how big it was back then, I knew them, I felt them, but not to the degree that I do now. Now that’s my whole basis for me doing shit.
That was a big time and another big time for me was when I was doing this album because I got a lot of that good feeling back that I had working on my first abum. So I’ve just taken that feeling and been able to bring it into this era that we’re in now and update it. I’m just glad that I was able to update when so many artists haven’t been able to do that. They lose their way somehow, along the way they forget their inspiration because they’re so lost in the sauce of the game. For me, I was able to recapture that through studying music and music theory, that made me remember how fun it was to work on music.
I read that there was a gap between your album releases of several years because you got caught up taking a lot of psychedelic drugs and dropped the ball. Is that accurate?
That’s bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, when I was younger I had no shame and was drinking, doing mushrooms and acid, popped ecstasy when it was still MDMA back then and not the fake shit that’s flying around now. I don’t do it like that now because I’m older and I got shit to do. My inspiration was never really that and it certainly wasn’t my downfall. My downfall was basically a bitch that I was fucking with for a minute! That was damn near my downfall and it put me out of the game for about five or six years, that was a dangerous, hazardous situation but that didn’t keep me from working on my shit. It was harder to work on my shit because I also had to get the windows fixed or stop from fighting with somebody or dodging bullets or get out of jail. But that’s right now, before, the wait between albums was because we was on the road most of the time so when do you get the time to work on albums? That was one thing I had to figure out, I had to just slow my roll, pump my breaks on going on the road and stay home to write the albums that get you on the road in the first place.
How do you describe this album?
It’s like a return back to the roots. It’s about getting back to the dirt and letting you know what Del’s all about. Taking the mothership out of the sky and returning it to the earth. I didn’t try to overcomplicate things and I’ve tried to be direct. Also musically I’ve tried to keep everything tighter and more funky. I’ve tried to create a signature sound so that from now on you’re not going to buy a Del album wondering what the hell might pop up. A lot of people might buy an album from me because they just like one song. From now on I’m leaving Deltron for Deltron and whatever for whatever, everything concerning me I put on Del.
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