With regular performances around the NYC Barack Yalad's been building a rep for witty word play and socially consciousness lyrics. He released his first full-length album, "A Loss For Words," in November 2007 on Rawkus Records and gained critically acclaim for his politically aware lyrics. Riding the attention garnered by that album Barack has been opening up for respected acts like The Roots, Mos Def and KRS-One, as well as getting on compilations like "The Boondocks" soundtrack. I first heard him on Hot 97's Who's Next mixtape where his song 'Bewitched' stood out. When talking to him what also stands out is his views on what it means to be a Hip-Hop artists.

Plateau: So where are you from?

Barack Yalad: I grew up in Boston Massachusetts, then moved to western mass in an area called Springfield. That's were I lived a good portion of my life before I ended up here in Bedstuy Brooklyn.

P: When growing up there what influenced your musical tastes? What did you acquire from growing up there?

BY: I was always into intelligent hip-hop. So a lot of the music that I listened to there was the same music that was pumping in NYC. I was listening to Eric B. and Rakim, KRS-One, Organized Confusion, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest... The list goes on and on and on.

P: So when did you first get involved in Hip Hop?

BY: I actually got started at the age of 14. I was listening to KRS-One. I was moved by a lot of his lyrics, and I said, "You know what... this doesn't seem to difficult to do..." so I just decided to start rhyming words... I realized that it became very easy to do. From there I just kept it going, kept it going, and I kept excelling. It was kinda funny cause my friends and my cousin had time believing that I could rhyme, because I was such a school kid. They were like, "Naw, you can't rhyme. Naw" and I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, I could do it." Then one of my cousins asked me to say something and I just blurted out whatever I had, the first verse that I had. It just blew them away. Their reactions was, "oh wow. you do have something there." So, from there I just kept it up and starting battling a lot. Then from the battling I started working on songs. Battling is one aspect, but being able to form a song is another art form. That's when I crossed over and started working on songs.

P: That's an interesting remark. How would you define the difference between a battle Emcee or freestyle Emcee and a song maker?

BY: For a battle Emcee it's no holds barred. You have a very competitive nature. You're looking at how someone walks, how they talk, to what they're wearing, and you use that. You can do research on the person you're about to battle, take that and use it to smash his character. That's what a battle Emcee does. Being a person that creates songs, that's a whole different talent in itself. Though you have a lot of labels that are quick to sign a battle Emcee cause they won competitions, but then at the same time they have no idea how to form songs because they never worked on a song in their life. To be able to form a song is like writing a story; you have to have some kind of a subject to deal with. With out a subject the song is pointless...

The first thing people catch in a song is the beat, so you gotta have a nice beat. Second is the chorus, most people latch on to a chorus, so you gotta have a chorus that people will be able to catch on, and cling on to. Then, of course, is the lyrics and how they wrap around the chorus. All that takes time, to be able to perfect that. Nowadays everybody thinks they can do that. People call themselves Hip-Hop artists but they tend to lose the understanding of what an artist is. An artist is someone who creates, but now you find a lot of people mimicking. You got a lot of mimics now and they just take what they hear and what the industry say is hot. That really takes the artists out of the person and it's monkey see monkey do.

P: I found out about you from the "Who's Next?" Mixtape but I'm curious about what you've been doing lately.

BY: I've had a chance to form a unit called The Black Caucus which is myself, and B.A.M., another up and coming artist who's really doing his thing out here in New York. I'm also working with two brothers who are a part of Duck Down. They are actually working with 5 footer part of Blackmoon and have since formed a unit called Militant Mindz. These two brothers known as Double S, or Supreme Sniper, and M3 are also part of The Black Caucus. We're working on an album right at this time and we're focusing on getting distribution through Fat Beatz. Things are going pretty good right now. Just to add to that, right now I'm working with M1 from Dead Prez and Bizarre Royal, and we're all trying to put this 27 city tour together called "Ghetto Medals CMJ." Right now it's looking to be a pretty good year. I'm pretty excited about the whole thing.

P: It's interesting to hear you working with all those other underground cats. I've heard some pretty interesting things about the New York underground scene - some good, some bad - and I'm wondering what your perspective in on it.

BY: You know what? There are a lot of artist here and it's sad that they're not getting the light they should be getting. I go to a lot of shows and the thing is that there are a lot of fantastic Emcees that I deal with on the regular. At the same time, though, when you're doing these shows and you see the artists who want to come in and perform it's sad, cause like I said before, there is no creativity with some of these artists. But as far as the underground talent that is established... man... I could go on for days. There's too many hot artists that are doing the do. A lot of these artists are touring overseas, or throughout the US. As far as the new artists coming up, and are trying to be discovered, many do have what it takes and some are trying to score a major deal which I think is a big boo-boo cause they're is no freedom of creativity. A lot of them feel "in order for any major to recognize me I must come out with this sound." I've been seeing some of that on the scene.

P: What are your ultimate goals music wise?

BY: Ultimately to get my music out and eventually what I wanna do is setup a youth center to help teach awareness about culture, politics and our music because music is our heart. With it going the way it is now, it takes what the culture is about, who we are as a people.