Interview w/Del The Funky Homosapien & A Plus
By: Justin Rizzio

Del Tha Funky Homosapien; this man really needs no intro. But, for those living in seclusion their whole lives, here we go…as a founding member of Hieroglyphics, Del has been putting out records for almost 20 years. (Yes, 20.) Del has long secured a spot as a permanent staple in the underground hip hop community. He also enjoyed some commercial success with his first album because of the hit single “Mr. Dobalina” and also as a collaborator with the platinum selling group, The Gorillaz. Now, eight years after the release of his last full length, Del finally gives his fans the new record they have been more than patiently waiting for. With that out of the way…onto the interview that took place at the North Star Bar.
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215hiphop: You’ve performed in Philly a number of times. What do you think about the city?

Del: Philly’s tight. A lot of my favorite rappers are from here. EST, Hilltop Hustlers (for instance.) Nowadays I listen to Beans, The Roots, I listen to Peedi Crack a lot. I fuck with Peedi Crack. Some people I know be on some elitist shit, but I’m like, he’s tight though. He’s versatile. I’ll work with any of those cats.

215: Your last album came out in 2000. Why so long between releases?

Del: I basically had problems. There were some serious problems, some life threatening situations. I had to get them out the way and handle that. I was also studying music theory and trying to get better at my craft. But that’s not what took me so long to come out. That alone wouldn’t have toke that long. I was doing that while trying to get out of my problems. And then I had a hard drive crash and had to start the album over from scratch. But, it’s here now.

215: 11th Hour is out now on Def Jux. Why wasn’t it put out on your own Hiero Imperium label?

Del: I needed that push, man. I’ve known El-P for years. I’ve always been down with his movement and what he’s trying to do. I’ve seen him take Def Jux to where it is now. I’m impressed with the machine he got. He was like, “I got space open”. Oh, ok, I could fool with you. If it was another company I might not have did it. But since it was El-P & Def Jux, I felt my project was safe in their hands and that they was gonna treat it right, you know what I’m sayin? Basically, I wanted to get it out with more publicity & more visual presence. I just didn’t feel like our company could do it at this point.

215: How much involvement did El-P have with this record?

Del: He actually didn’t do nothing. The album was done already. He just gave me the outlet to put it out for real. But we are thinking about doing a Del-P album, so that’s in the works. Now that I’m working with him, it brings us closer in contact so we can do these other projects.

215: What about your new label mates?

Del: I can dig it. Personally, Aesop Rock and Mr. Lif are my peoples. Especially Mr. Lif. I’ve known him for years, that’s my family. I’ve known Aesop as well. Yeah, I can dig it. El-P, you already know. And I’m a fan of El-P. What I do is sort of in the same lane, I just do it my way,

215: You’ve been putting out records for 17 years. Why is Del still relevant today?

Del: I’m still relevant because I got something to say. I’m not living in the past, you know what I’m sayin? Most people probably don’t even know how old I am. But, on the same token, I go back. I know a lot of stuff. I’m a professional at this hip hop. For real, I’m not hating on anybody out here doing their thing. But when it comes to me, I been doing this for a minute. It’s like a proven artist. I’m not gonna give you no weak stuff. It is what it is though. Some people might not feel me. I say take a listen, ’cause I feel like I got something for everybody. Not that I try to please everybody, but I feel like I cover a wide spectrum of ideas and music. You gonna like something, I feel.

215: Also, as far as being out for so long, fans have put you at this sort of cult / icon status. How do you feel about that?

Del: On one side, it’s cool. I like the accolades and stuff like that. On the other side, fans try to put you in a box. They can’t accept when you do other stuff. I got fans that want me to keep doing my second album forever. They might not even realize that my newer albums might have elements of my second album in it. It’s not like I abandoned anything from that. You just got people that are particular about things, so that’s the downside. But on the upside, it’s cool. I’m like “buy my records so I can keep on making music for ya’ll.

215: What about Souls of Mischief? Still relevant?

A-Plus: We grew up as hip hop fans. The fact that we came out as artists that people recognize is the ultimate blessing for us. I think one of the reasons we’re still relevant is that a lot of the acts out now, they peeped our stuff back in the day. So now they shout us out in the press. We’ve been out now hella long and we aren’t commercially viable because the scenery has changed. A lot of artists now; like Outkast, Eminem, Talib, Mos Def, Kanye, Lupe…a lot of these cats don’t have to say nothing, but it’s a great honor for us for them to mention us as an influence. Hiero has never *not* had an audience. It’s just that the climate changed in hip hop so our particular audience is now below the radar as far as visual representation. It costs a grip to get your video played. It costs like a quarter-million dollars to get your single played nation-wide for a month. We don’t have that kind of money, so we don’t have that visibility anymore. Basically the fans and the connoisseurs of music kept us in the game, and some of them have become artists in their own right. I like to quote Kanye on this, who said, “I’m a fan who got too close to the stage, hopped on the stage, and nobody said get off”. There’s a symbiotic relationship between music makers and music lovers. We can’t get on stage with nobody there, just like you can’t go to a show with nobody performing. It’s the music lovers that kept us in the game. People still check for Hiero and my big brother Del, the godfather of Hiero, my best friend in the world…and the music speaks for itself. And shout out to Nocturnal (Philly skate shop.)

215: You mentioned Nocturnal. Since the start of Hiero, you’ve got a lot of support from the skateboarding community. Was that a planned target, or did it just happen? Do you feel you got pigeonholed by it?

Del: All those kids…I used to hang around all those kids back in the day.

A-Plus: We were there at the beginning of the fusion between extreme sports and underground hip hop. We just happened to be in the game at the same time when they embraced hip hop. And we skateboarded back in the day. We did all that so it was a natural fit when it happened. But don’t get us wrong, we fuck with gangster music too.

Del: It’s just the bullshit now when people start segregating stuff. Like back in the day, when N.W.A. came out, we never really tripped off of it. A lot of people were shocked by it. I was never shocked. “Gangsta, Gangsta”, stuff like that, that’s my cousin. He lived in L.A., so I been in L.A. Gang activity was not new to me.

215: You could have gone either way, as far as writing raps for gangster rappers. Was it just not something you wanted nothing to do with?

Del: It’s not that I didn’t want anything to do with it. It was a few reasons though. One of the main things was a lot of people around me was haters and they was talking shit about me. It made me feel hella depressed and bad about myself and I felt like I had to change everything that I did. Another part of it was that I wanted to express myself. I had different ideas that I wanted to express that I didn’t express on the first album. Honestly, that first album, was the bomb to me. There wasn’t anything on there that I didn’t like. “Dobalina” I actually produced. I did that in my mom’s house. But people was hating and it made me feel bad. And that’s how No Need for Alarm came across. But, I wrote a lot for Cube and I wrote a lot for Yo-Yo. But it wasn’t like a hella majority. I wrote a few for both of them, mainly ’cause Cube was trying to get my feet wet in the game. I wrote partially for him. Like “Gangsta’s Fairytale”, he had a verse already. And we would always read each other our raps. I seen “Fuck the Police” on paper.

215: And Ice Cube would write for you as well?

Del: Cube wrote “Dr. Bombay”. He wrote that and “Pissin’ On Your Steps”. A lot of people think that me and Cube is so different. We not that different. I just talked to him maybe a few weeks ago. I would go see Cube out in L.A., but he was at a certain age, so he would be runnin around with chicks. And I was still young, so I wouldn’t see him. So I started kickin it with Sir Jinx. He basically showed me everything about writing songs and conceptualizing the music. I made my first few real songs with Jinx, he was like my mentor. So I would just kick it with him.

215: In EgoTrip’s Book of Rap Lists, “Dark Skin Girls” was named as one of the top ten most racist hip hop records.

Del: That’s a joke though. But the statement I was trying to make, was something about…if you ever seen School Daze, it’s basically the same thing. I just got sick of it. I got sick of hearing people call people African booty scratcher and all this ignorant ass shit. I was just like fuck it. Fuck light skinned girls. Period. That’s not even how I feel. That was just a song to make a statement. And in the song, I say, “This don’t apply to everybody with light skin, just the ones with they heads up their rear end”. Feel me?

215: You mentioned earlier about getting hated on for being different. Are you really just a normal guy?

Del: Pretty much. Basically, the way that I look at things, is different than the average person. I am like that, I’m from Oakland…I grew up like everybody else. I just had some elements going on in my life that gave me another point of view. I just try to make sense of it. So that’s pretty much it. When I was younger, I was hella weird though. I had green hair, I was into punk rock. I was into a lot of stuff that black dudes wasn’t into. I might have been perceived as weird. Now, I’m more regulated. I still have all the experiences, I just don’t walk around with them on my shoulder like I used to, know what I’m sayin?

*Edited by: Tom Williams

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