 Rap artist Unknown has become a fixture in the New York City music hustling scene. From mix CDs to full-length albums his hunger is easy to recognize, to the point where the Village Voice has written about his nearly constant presence at Fat Beats, asking anyone passing through to take a listen and buy. Influenced by emcees like Chuck D and Rakim, William "Unknown" Tate is aggressively working to be heard. In Man of Tomorrow that hunger becomes his best asset. This debut solo LP represents the ordinary man of today; working hard to catch a break in life, sometimes stumbling, but trying hard not to be deterred from his goals.
Applying his life's lessons to music, Unknown wonders about how to carry on the tradition of your forefathers while leaving something for the next generation to build on. For Unknown, this means understanding your worth as a person, the potential you hold and working non-stop to truly become a man of tomorrow.
Plateau: For those that don't know you, can you tell us a little about yourself, your music and the years you've been pursuing and developing your craft?
Unknown: I got involved with this music at the age of 9. My sisters introduced me to the music and it went from there. I was intrigued from the beginning. I didn't start out as an emcee, I started out as a B-Boy. That converted into dance recitals and then I realized that I could get more involved in (hip hop) and rhyming at the age of 12. My first rhyme was inspired by Chuck D and it Takes a Nation of Millions (Public Enemy's sophomore classic album) and then, basically, I started to develop my craft. I started listening to serious emcees at the time, like Rakim, to understand how to put words together - a certain science, a technique, a procedure - as I started to become more prominent as a battle emcee. When I was 16, I was into battling and I became prominent in that nature. Then I started to take a step further, as life got more serious and I started making songs that were more serious... [I] used battling as a tool to escape.
P: That really reflects on your solo album, Man of Tomorrow, especially on songs like B.L.U.E.S. (Blacks Lose Under Experimental Studies). Could you please elaborate on that, and what the purpose of the album is?
U: The album is like a conception, of being able to take what great individuals of the past have left behind and being able to build on that. Like my pops, for example, lived in a time period where everything had a lot more meaning to it. How people associated themselves, with everyday living. Doing a different thing. So for me, its about carrying on that torch of greatness, carrying on that torch of [those from] the past who have done something significant, something substantial for the future. Change is inevitable, but [let's focus] on positive change. The album is about the individual struggling to find that balance and its like, to be able to carry on that torch, to carry that existence of the people of the past. This consists of me being the man of tomorrow and leaving something behind for my kids to pick up.
P: Talking about the magnitude of the music, on your myspace blog you state how you agree with Nas that hip-hop is dead. What do you feel has killed hip-hop?
U: Well [laughs] wow, I wrote that in a bitter frustration, but it's true. What I think is this -- It's kind of like a duality to me and Nas brought that out. A lot of people associate themselves with this, especially a lot of people that are not of color, right now. It's not that I'm against white people doing anything. The way I look at it is that they're trying to wipe people of color out. It's almost as though we don't have any position. You have fan bases that don't want to credit the black race, or the people of color. For example, you have people doing these television shows [like the white rapper] - why can't they just be emcees ? They're putting a significant amount of time and energy to promoting white emcees . Everyone is playing a part of this, you understand? You have people that say they want to see a change in the music, but they don't want to promote or correct the circumstances, to say, "I don't want to accept this type of music for myself," but they [still] go out and buy it and they'll listen to it and then complain about it... MTV filmed me and my crew hustling CDs in the summer, for a few weeks. Then they decided they were not going to use this film, because they decided it wasn't valuable as far as marketing [was concerned]. They felt it wasn't marketable, that wasn't viable for them to put it out. So I was like, Ok. But yet, it is marketable for VH1 to put out this white rapper show. I mean... you can't show a bunch of black dudes or people of color making money in the system they're supposed to make money in. Because hip-hop started out in the streets, making money, selling CDs in the street. You're out there filming it and then you don't use the material. You can't put it out there, because cats are making money off their craft and basically defying the industry, by not being under an umbrella, or under a label, making money.
P: So do you feel rappers in general should take the more independent route? Take more ownership of their music?
U: If they want to succeed in the long run. To be happy in the long run...Well, let me not say happy, but if they want to be more satisfied, you know, in a better situation, you should go the independent route. You have more control, why wouldn't you want more control, of your career? Man, CDs are not even going to exist in a few years, the way the internet is going. My fans can directly get my music, through myspace, through iTunes, all these different online distribution companies. Pretty soon, distribution places like Target, like Best Buy, they are not going to carry any more physical CDs. CDs are going to be like Vinyl. Like in Britain, people love Vinyl, because it's a collector's item. The same thing with CDs. Most people don't even care about that, most people just want to pop it in their iPod. Realistically, CDs are going to be a thing of the past. So, why wouldn't you want to take advantage of this market? Of these online distributors? The industry knows that it's changing, the whole structure is changing. You have labels that are going broke. Labels that can't afford to invest in an artist unless he goes platinum. You had a lot of artist that used to go platinum, but that's now going to be a thing of the past. Independent artists can sell records and make as much money.
P: Any last words for our readers?
U: Be true to yourself. Make sure that there's nothing that you can look back at and feel that you should have done differently. Whether it was a mistake or anything, make sure that all the things that have happened in your life, to see that they've happened for a reason, for you to become a better person. That helped make you a better person and that you can face yourself at the end of the day. |
