Mars Ill shares their pain...
05-04-2006
by Brenten Gilbert

The entrance to their website says it best:

"PROPAIN
May 2nd, 2006
533 days overdue
This time the pain is real."

Sure enough, for Mars Ill, the day has finally come and the album that has caused quite the stir is finally in the of hands hip-hop enthusiasts everywhere. CMCentral.com managed to track down the duo of Manchild and Dust for an interview and, after some technical difficulties, we had a good conversation about the music, the culture, the church, the album and much more.

What follows is that discussion, for your viewing pleasure.

CMCentral.com (brenten gilbert): What does hip-hop mean to you?

Manchild: Hip-hop has been a part of my life for a long time now. I look at it [differently than] the next generation of guys looking at it. It's hard for me to imagine that people who are 21 years old were born in 1985. For us, we saw life without hip-hop and then life with it. It's just shaped so much of my life. I can associate every important moment throughout high school and college with some album or some song. It's been important to me in that regard. With regards to being able to communicate how I feel to people, I always was a fairly reserved person. I came out of my shell here and there, but it was really thanks to hip-hop that I was able to express myself, get my feelings across and gain a lot of confidence. So I really owe a lot of my development as a person to the music and the subculture itself.

Dust: For me it was my gateway to art. In the beginning, I was a fan of music. I loved just listening and getting like news reports from different places that you don't see on the evening news. It kind of brought me to a place where I wanted to create and be a part of it. Hip-hop made me really want to be a more creative person, more involved in all forms of media. Now I'm fully immersed in the culture and I can't see my life without it. It's been important in so many different ways. I love hip-hop because it was a totally fresh music genre and I got to be a part of it from close to the beginning, so it's pretty exciting.

How do you guys see hip-hop fitting in with the church and with our personal missions in life?

I think any time there is a medium, it can be used for good or for bad. With that there is no reason it can't be used within the church - it can be used to attract people to Christ. So I think that just like anything else. . . God is so big he just moves across any sort of line whether it be race or economics or whatever it is. Christ can really penetrate into those [areas] if the right people have the vision to help the mission. In that regard, hip-hop can be a great asset for bringing young people closer to Christ. Will it ever be a perfect marriage? I don't know. I just don't know. You look at industry - the Christian music industry, whatever you want to call it - and it's amazing how many people still don't get it. They just still don't get hip-hop - neither the industry nor the churches themselves. We are starting to see now that guys from our generation - late 20s, early 30s - are starting to become youth pastors and they are beginning to use hip-hop in their churches. I think as they get a little older and gain more areas of authority in the churches, we will see hip-hop become more a part of the church.

Sometimes they are. . .

The congregation's not rapping, but they use beats and turntables and it's pretty interesting to see. I think it's going to be more common in the next ten years to see things like that. You look at most church services now and it's pretty common for them to use a guitar, a drum set, a keyboard and all of that, but twenty years ago, that was pretty radical. It wasn't very common then, but it's basically a case of the church catching up with culture. It's bound to happen with hip-hop because hip-hop has been around for about thirty years now. We are all starting to catch up to it.

Definitely. You can even hear turntables in some of the popular worship circles nowadays, too.

Everybody's gotta have a DJ. . .

I've done a few different worship things. People ask me to spin for them. . . I can't say that's it the most fun thing for me to do. Not really a lot going on there . . .

(laughs)

But, if they want to expose their people to something a little different, I'm all for it.

That's cool. You guys are connected with churches a little bit differently than a lot of artists. You actually get some financial support.

Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

I started doing music full time in 1995/1996 and I was with a different guy, he goes by the name Black Soil Project. He was on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) and for about a year or two I was on staff with them as well. The way CCC works is that pretty much all of their employees are supported by raising support, so I did that initially. We traveled a little, but we were kind of based out of CCC. A few years later I left CCC, but kept the model for raising support. Underground Christian hip-hop wasn't a huge market - it's growing now - and we knew that to fulfill God's plan, we needed support. We needed a financial backing to keep us afloat so that we could reach people, tour and put out records without working at Home Depot on the side. I've been somewhat supported for almost ten years now. It's pretty amazing to see how faithful God's been by providing those people. Greg's been doing the same for about seven years.

It's definitely a unique way to work. I think it's one of those things that is pretty important because it allows you to really focus on what you are doing, rather than worrying about where the rent payment is coming from for that month. Like, "Oh gosh! If we don't get out and tour for two months straight then we aren't going to be able to make it."

As churches start to get behind and understand exactly what the ministry is, then I think you'll start to see it a little bit more. You look at the Roaring Lambs philosophy, for exampl. If somebody wanted to go to Bible School and somebody wanted to go to art school and they both ask a church board for some financial support. If this church can only fund one of them, chances are they'll fund the guy going to Bible School. Our culture really needs to be. . . "infiltrated" isn't the right word, but we need to have people working along side the arts and in the arts, breaking ground in every different expression of art. Hip-hop is no different than that.

Your average rapper has a great opportunity to spew whatever he wants to spew on kids. It's an amazing platform that is misused and abused 90% of the time. We feel like it's important for Mars ILL to have a voice within that culture because without Christian emcees, how is God going to be represented? He's not. I think a lot of our supporters get behind that. They really feel like they are investing in kid's lives in return. It's a cool thing. I wish there were more Christian emcees, DJs, or anybody in music or the arts who had the opportunity to do it. It's great.

You hear a lot about churches shutting the door on hip-hop and other aspects of art. I think it's great to hear that we do get it right sometimes.

Yeah, my home church here in Atlanta, Calvary Chapel Stone Mountain, has embraced me wholeheartedly. They really believe in what I do. They've done so much for me. I feel really lucky and blessed. I have a church who gets it, to a degree. My pastor will still ask me if I'm going to rap for the church, though.

(laughs)

I'm not a rapper, I'm a DJ. So he still doesn't quite get it, but he understands it to a degree.

The bottom line is that our supporters know us. We've been able to express to them what we are doing and they have enough faith in what God is doing there. And they've seen the fruit of it that. You wouldn't necessarily see them in the front row or any row of our concert, but they still can get behind it because they know that it's effective.

That's really cool.

Another thing that's been really cool is that in the last three or four years, since we've actually had somewhat of a fan base as Mars Ill, we've had some really great fans support us as well. So not only do you get somebody who believes in your ministry and who you are, they also get the music side of it. That's been really great because they feel like they have a piece in Mars Ill, the music and stuff.

Why don't we go ahead and talk about Pro*Pain a little bit. We've obviously been waiting a long time now for this release. How are things different now with the album than when it was originally scheduled to release?

The obvious differences are the three songs that are not going to be on this version of Pro*Pain but were on the original. "All Out," "Loud," and "Moment" were taken off, but we've added two songs. One is called "Glam Rap" featuring Prince Po and the other one is called "Too Strong to Change" featuring Cappadonna from Wu-Tang Clan. There were also about six songs that were kind of worked on a little bit. We tweaked them, pulled some samples and made them more "lawyer friendly."

(laughs)

That is the music side of it. I would say there were a lot of great things that happened this go around, since we are working with a manager that is really great.

he's alright

yeah he's alright

(laughs)

We also have two videos that we shot which will be great to have. That's for "More" and "Sound Off". Check for those.

The "More" video was on the "Hip-Hope" compilation last year, right?

Yeah, I think it made it on Hip-Hope

That's a pretty cool video.

"Sound Off" is going to be the official single that we are going to push off the bat. We may have like one or two other videos coming down the pipe, depending on if Gotee still loves us after a month.

(laughs)

Are you still as excited about the album as you were two years ago?

I think we are. The wind came out of our sails for a little while, to say the least, but the bottom line is that Pro*Pain is still the best record that we've ever made. To me, that's kind of saying something.

Yeah, we are definitely excited about the album coming out. I think on paper I would say, "Yes, I am so excited. I think this is just as good now . . ." But I'm not as excited because it has been two years and the songs are getting old. But I always just think of it in the light that 99% of the world doesn't even know this album exists. Our real hard-core fans obviously have been waiting, but we feel like we've yet to really tap into our true market. The music is not trendy music, so I don't think we've missed the moment or anything like that.

What would you say is the driving force behind the album as far as purpose?

Well the name Pro*pain is kind of two-fold. Dust always talks about the meaning being an explanation of the pains of being a professional in the arts and rap music in particular. Obviously, some pains have come with this record. But on the other side, we are pro-pain. We understand Christ's suffering and that it had to happen for His grace to be available to us. In the same sense, there is some spiritual value associated with suffering. If you can embrace it and you can offer it up for those less fortunate than yourself, then we are all for pain. I know it sounds kind of strange, but that being said, there is an underlying theme in a lot of the songs, which is the normal Mars ILL message of trying to get people to go out and change their communities by loving their fellow man.

I think that is well said.

Well, he already spoke on your behalf, so that's good.

(laughs)

So maybe everybody is asking you this - maybe no one is - but I think in light of the struggles you faced in getting this album out, it kind of begs the question: why sample music?

Yeah. We like sampling.

Well I like it too. You guys do it well. . .

(laughs)

There is a texture and, like I said, there are some producers who get around it, but all the great producers on my list use samples so I'll probably stick there for a long time, unless I learn to play the oboe.

(laughs)

I love that line where you say that you "build a future sound off the backs of the classics". . .

Yeah, and that's how we feel. Obviously, you can tell that from Dust's response. It's kind of like building a robot out of like old vacuum parts that people aren't using anymore. Of course, that is hard to explain to lawyers. But like you said, it is beautiful to revise something. And a great percentage of the time, you'll never know where it came from. Of course, there are some record nerds out there who can find part of it. But Dust can use what he finds in such a non-conventional way, that it is tough to discern what he's done. I'm confident in that. "Breathe Slow" is a big loop in a lot of ways, but I'm not worried that anybody will ever find it because I've heard it and there is no way that I would have ever known it came from where it did.

That was before. Obviously with Backbreakanomic. . . Shhh! Don't tell the lawyers, but there are a lot of samples on there.

(laughs)

They know

In a lot of ways, it's a lot more sample heavy that Pro*Pain ever was. I don't know why it happened that Pro*Pain got in so much hot water so fast, but it was kind of a wake up call for us. I think it needed to happen. Future Mars Ill records will be iron clad lawyer-proof.

that is the name of the new record. . .

"Iron Clad Lawyer Proof." Nice ring to it

(laughs)

Okay, this one's mainly for Manchild. There's somewhat of a legend going around that you showed up to the DeepSpace 5 sessions without any lines written and that you freestyled all of your verses on Unique, Just Like Everyone Else.

(laughs)

That's false.

(laughs)

I showed up with nothing written, but so did a couple of other guys. Playdough, Fred, Siv and Sev probably showed up with nothing written too. Pretty much all of us guys can write pretty quickly especially me, Playdough and Sev. Oh, and Listener as well. We can all write pretty quickly. The only guy that was pulling from his stash was probably Sintax and maybe Sivion. And that's just because they are a different kind of a writer. I think if you listen to what Sintax does and recognize how intricate it is, you can understand that. There's been times when he'll come to the table and be like, "Hey, let'ss do a song about this," because he's already written his part.

(laughs)

But no I didn't get in and freestyle what I did. I wish I was that talented. I am one of the faster writers in the crew though, so if there is a song to be done, I can probably knock out my parts pretty quickly. On this record, I wrote a lot of the hooks. I generally do - me and Playdough do a lot of the hooks on these records. The toughest part is not really the writing on when I'm working on a DeepSpace 5 record. It's having to take charge in certain ways which is not always the popular position.

I don't think this last record really worked because everyone is such a different places. The hardest part of this last record was that everyone's kind of grown up and I don't think that anyone really wanted to have a leader per se. . .

Yeah and it's one of those things. It's tough because we are all good friends, but when you have ten different visions going into something, even though everyone has a common purpose, we just have a different way of getting there. Everyone has recorded so much material on their own and they have a way that they work. But when you are all trying to boil that down to a sound and a record that makes sense, it's a lot of work. I look back at it say, "Wow, it came out really good. I'm really proud of that record." Everyone really gets a chance to shine. But the nuts and bolts of getting it all together, choosing what songs are going to make the record, what beats we are going to use, and who's on what song. . . that's like pulling teeth sometimes.

It's political, but it's good, though. We have two sides of a fence. . .

Don't air our dirty laundry

(laughs)

I won't say who's on what side of the fence, but there is kind of like a split sometimes. I think it is a healthy thing, though because both sides kind of have a different energy. . .

just a different way of going about doing things.

Our music tastes [are different] and I think that's what makes DeepSpace 5 so nice. We have the different sounds that are in the band. If we could just rein everybody in to make the decisions - that's the hardest thing, trying to make a decision when there really is no central [leader]. We don't have just one guy who says, "This is how it is going to be." For the first record, Greg was able to do that because I don't think anyone thought much of the record. Not to say that we didn't like the music but we didn't think it would have a voice, as much as it did. The second record, I think all of us knew that people were going to be listening and checking for it. And that was a good thing. Everyone kind of brought their "A" game.

So the next one is going to be a 2 CD release called "Both Sides of the Fence"?

(laughs)

I hope not. I think that one side would just make an extreme kind of record and one side might get boring, quite honestly. Maybe not, but I think it takes both sides hashing it out and getting it done to ultimately make a good record.

Honestly, I think the next record - the third DS5 record - will be the best record. Simply because we are going to have a good mixture. For the second record, guys wanted to have more of an impact, but they didn't prepare as much as they wanted to. For the third record, I know everyone is going to be coming with their best stuff.

In terms of the mood of tracks and the production because Dust came with a lot and a lot of other people had other things going on - projects they were doing, et cetera. Beat Rabbi, for instance wasn't very present on this album, which is different, because he just has so much good material. He has this other album called DeepSpace5oul that's going to be coming out. . . sometime

(laughs)

But, he's got all of us on it and he was really focused on that record at the time so he ended up kind of left out. If he had submitted beats from that record for Unique, it's safe to say that a lot of them would have made it on.

Plus, I think we were really shook up about samples and stuff like that at the time. Not that we wouldn't be for the third record, but if we were releasing it on a different kind of label, it may have had a little bit different kind of sound. We really tried to be careful about sampling and Beat Rabbi is even more of a purest than I am when it comes to production. I think everybody will just take it more seriously in advance, which is a great thing. It's going to mean more competition for me, but it'll be exciting. Who knows when that record will happen though.

Yeah. We've been going around and around about that so far. Some guys want to get started and some guys want to wait so we'll see what happens. We kind of refuse to do the whole "through the mail," typical, big-crew thing where I send my verse to you, you send your verse to me. . . We don't want to do that. We think these records are special because we are all in one place doing it together.

It's like a rap camp, you know?

(laughs)

So what's next for Mars ILL? You've got the album coming out.

Pro*Pain.

(laughs).

Any tours planed? Is Mars Ill going to tour some homes like Listener?

(laughs)

No tours of homes. I guess we will just have to wait and see what the record does. No tour is planned really at this point. We are trying to live normal lives, in some ways, at this point. We have really have backed off of touring in a lot of ways. At this moment we are just trying to see what happens with Pro*Pain basically.

Sounds good. Anything else you want to tell the readers.

Just keep believing in this kind of music. Hip-hop, especially the kind of hip-hop we do, is a hard thing to maintain. So if you are a believer and you like our music, please support it. Go to MarsILL.com and check us out. We always have neat things going on over there.

Yeah, support the cause.

Buy our records. Love God.

Don't believe the hype.