SF Weekly article on the Honor Roll Crew

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Sicc OG
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Dec 29, 2008
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The Honor Roll Crew is the West Coast's Wu-Tang Clan
Comments (8) By Phillip Mlynar Wednesday, May 5 2010
The Honor Roll Crew could be the Bay Area's version of the Wu-Tang Clan. Headed up by Trackademicks, the eight-member collective of rappers, producers, DJs, and singers follows RZA's playbook for the Clan: An umbrella group takes in numerous artists, all free to pursue solo endeavors at will. But if the Clan's mentality was to tap into a lo-fi sound inspired by sampling dusty soul records, the Honor Roll's agenda is strictly forward-thinking. These artists plan to usher in a new strain of Bay Area hip-hop, creating music that comes with a fresh perspective.


The Honor Roll story begins in 1997, when three friends who had been rapping as the Diverse Roots enrolled in Oakland's Youth Radio program. Trackademicks, MoxMore, and Mike Baker the Bike Maker met a fellow student calling himself Whiz Kid, who suggested they pool their talents. The original trio ditched its old group name, and was gradually joined by Josie Stingray, Spank Pops, 1-O.A.K., and DJ TAP.10. They decided to call themselves the Honor Roll Crew. The common link was their voracious appetite for new sounds. As Stingray puts it, "We make progressive music that people might not expect to hear coming from the Bay Area."

Hitting shuffle on a playlist of Honor Roll songs backs up her claim. It's as likely to offer up a melancholic cover of the Cure's "Love Cats" as sung by 1-O.A.K. and produced by Trackademicks, as it is Spank Pop's soulful but straight-up hip-hop track "Make It." That could be followed by Stingray's fierce and funky Baltimore club–styled collaboration with Jack Davey, "Doing My Thang," or Mike Baker's "Espionage," which drops cocksure rhymes over a beat that includes a snippet of a tough, well-sampled Rufus Thomas break. The collective's output is eclectic, reflecting a group of people with genuinely broad musical appreciation.

As Baker explains, "Whiz instilled in me the ideal of being comfortable with listening to whatever you want to listen to, as long as it's good. Then you let that influence the music you make." So when the crew interpolates the chorus to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" on Spank's "Orchestrate," it comes over without hip irony or deliberate kitsch. You get the impression they're simply reflecting their listening habits. The word "breezy" often comes up when any of the members are asked to describe the Honor Roll sound. Listening to the buoyant synths and mellifluous chord changes on Trackademicks' "Top Sidin'," the tag seems apt.

Trackademicks is currently the crew's most recognizable face. He has produced most of the Honor Roll catalogue, released a solo single ("Enjoy What You Do," on Fool's Gold), and has a portfolio of remixes that includes E-40, Zero 7, and Chromeo. He has no qualms about taking on the burden of the RZA role. "I definitely put my foot out there first, and a lot of things that happened to the crew have followed in my court," he says. "But the crew is diverse, and a lot of things that we have individually are soon going to come to life and shake it up."

The next wave of the Honor Roll's ascent involves three releases by the end of summer. Baker is finishing an expanded version of his Now or Never EP. Stingray has the Preview project, plus some guest spots with higher-profile artists she's coy about naming. And Track's State of the Arts has him "pretty much rapping all the time, so more like an artist than just a producer."

After that, the various factions are concentrating on the debut Honor Roll album proper, which Track promises will materialize before the end of the year. They talk excitedly of the collaboration, with Stingray gushing about a "phenomenal" song titled "Roll with It" that was produced by Track, features 1-O.A.K. singing the hook, and has Baker and Spank as MCs. Stingray isn't on it, but she doesn't mind. "It's okay," she says. "I've got other tracks that other people want to be on. We're a crew, after all."
 
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SFBG article on Ise Lyfe

Renaissance Man


When I meet Ise Lyfe in downtown Oakland, the 28-year-old MC is sporting a button-down shirt, slacks, cardigan, and a purple and pink tie. Put a Wall Street Journal under his arm and he might blend in with the lunchtime business crowd. He's fresh from a meeting with one of the distributors of his company, Lyfe Productives, hence rocking business casual.


Seeing Ise "in character" is appropriate, given his latest endeavor: a theatrical show, Pistols & Prayers, and the book of the same title (available on iUniverse) on which it's based. After a successful one-off performance at Berkeley Rep — and a tour involving the show, book signings, and rap gigs — Pistols returns for a three-night run at Oakland's Fox Black Box Theater benefiting nonprofit Youth Movement Records. According to Ise, his pitches of the book to African American studies departments have resulted in 21 course adoptions.


"You have good books in universities, like Can't Stop, Won't Stop, but not contemporary texts from a hip-hop artist," he says . "My book's a collection of prayers, poems, journal entries, essays, anecdotes. But it's also palatable for hip-hop heads. You can sit down and blaze through it."


As Ise suggests, Pistols is an eclectic affair. Its unity comes from the author's political sensibility. The poems recall the late-1960s explosion of African American poetry documented in anthologies like 1972's New Black Voices, even as Ise updates the frame of reference. Most compelling are the nonfiction prose meditations, recounting, for example, his visit to Ghana, the murder of Oscar Grant, and his ambivalence about Barack Obama.


Such material might easily prove resistant to dramatic presentation, but Ise is no stranger to the stage; he has performed spoken word since age 17 and rocked HBO's Def Poetry Jam in 2006. While loosely following the book, the stage version of Pistols is a genuine theatrical experience. Using a minimalist set, spotlights, and a video screen, Ise brings Pistols to life with support from DC of KMEL, folksinger Melanie Demore (who punctuates the proceedings with African pounding sticks) and celloist Michael Fecskes.


"It's a collage," Ise says. "We bring together hip-hop, folklore, spirituals, and [Fecskes] playing the cello brings in this Americanized background. You're able to see the clash of it onstage."


At many rap-related theatre shows, the cast members are actors who fail miserably at hip-hop. But Ise is a real rapper. When comparing the state of contemporary hip-hop with its golden age, he can rip a verse from KRS-One's "Ah Yeah" with all the furious swagger of the original before dropping into a comically tepid rendition of Drake's "Best I Ever Had." He also has acting chops. Seeing Ise transform into one of his characters, a dope fiend named Uncle Randy based on addicts he knew as a kid in Oakland's Brookfield neighborhood, is impressive: his eyes go glassy, his face and body contort with tics and twitches as Randy delivers his satirical, cracked-out observations on America.


Artistic ambitions aside, Ise has turned to theatre and books as a way of getting more exposure in the overcrowded, blinged-out rap landscape. Make no mistake: Ise Lyfe gets around. He tours nationally, is a commissioner of arts and cultural Affairs in Oakland, and counts among his fanbase luminaries like Alice Walker and Dave Chappelle. He has two nationally-distributed albums under his belt, spreadtheWord (Hard Knock, 2006) and The Prince Cometh (7even89ine, 2008), which has moved more than 30,000 units. Still, he admits, "We have a hard time getting the same coverage as my counterparts."


"Normally I'd be recording my next record," he says when asked about the two years since Prince Cometh.
 
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