POETIC of THE GRAVEDIGGAZ -EDITED STORY

by Miguel D'Souza

For Poetic, Fruitkwan, the RZA and Prince Paul, 1994 marked the
beginning of a concerted campaign to employ the music industry to claw
back space, money and respect. The mortuary tag on the foot on the back
cover of the Gravediggaz debut album Six Feet Deep could have
(metaphorically speaking) been attached to the careers of each one of
the Gravediggaz. Within Six Feet Deep’s intoxicating miasma of rhythms
beats and lyrical attack, and on into 1997’s The Pick, the Sickle and
the Shovel are the coded dogma of four individuals burying their careers
with Tommy Boy, Tom Silverman’s groundbreaking, but despised carrier of
hip-hop’s early and best catalogue. With Prince Rakeem (the RZA) and
Stetsasonic (Fruitkwan and Prince Paul) and De La Soul (Prince Paul),
Tommy Boy accentuated the bitterness that, channeled into the
Gravediggaz, has resulted in a clearer focus for the four, the ‘second’
time around. But Poetic suggests a broader focus for the Gravediggaz
message, citing the case of producer Prince Paul, with the New York
based independent, WordSound.

"When he owned his own label, Dew-Doo Man thrugh RAL (Rush Associated
Labels) and DEfJAm, they owed him alot of money and he really got stuck
into a position as a producer where he wasn’t producing for a couple of
years because he was waiting on Russell (Simmons) waiting to do some
things. that left him frustrated, angry and kind of vexed. He’s very
creative, so naturally he wanted to translate that feeling back into his
music, so during that period he was making a certain type of music and
he decided that he wanted to get a crew together so he could vent
against the music industry. So he called on people that he was working
with: myself, Fruitkwan and RZA as vocalists who he felt had the same
opinion of the industry and how they were being treated unfairly... he
put it together for that express purpose."

As happens when things ‘blow up’, the agenda was altered somewhat; "what
was going to happen was that each of us would collaborate then do solo
things, but as the universe would have it, the first time we got
together we ended up making a song...it was like the case that the
underdogs got together and became the overlords."

But considering the personal histories of the people involved the idea
of the Gravediggaz seemed a more useful metaphor for cloaking their
commentary on the industry. But ‘gravedigging’ is more than a simple
metaphor for a narrow agenda of attacking the industry.

"It stems from, first of all, looking at it from the standpoint of
musical depth. It’s funny how when you’re alive and well and this is
your livelihood you got people calling you for interviews, you’re doing
shows, you’ve got the interaction from your fans and it’s good. When
that situation is cut off, you feel some kind of musical death, like
‘damn....." Poetic pauses, adds some drama "I’m not even alive anymore
in music’. Critics turn on you now, people try to influence you to doubt
your own ability because they have doubts about it. There’s a lot of
things to contend with, so the first grave we had to dig was our own. We
had to dig ourselves out though and we figured if we could be involved
in a situation where we could dig ourselves out, then we’d look at the
situation on the streets where people were mentally dead, cause we all
were in our years that we were cut off - from the same label by the way,
we were all on the same label at different times. But we all our little
death sentence on that label you know what I mean ...."

But what has happened from Six Feet Deep to The Pick, the Sickle and the
Shovel is that the metaphor has been expanded, the decay, the death, the
afterlife that Gravediggaz talk about is the living death of inner city
black communities. It seems that the metaphor has been expanded from the
colonialism of America and the enslavement to American authority and
corporatism suffered by black people.

"It’s the government versus the meek and the poor, the poor people of
this world far outnumber everyone else... It goes beyond just black and
white shit. It’s the powers that be don’t care what you are. If you’re
poor, they don’t care. If you’re poor and you don’t have a solid voice
in the government, or enough finances to influence the voices in the
government, then the world is against you right now and that’s the
honest truth. That’s not rhetoric, that’s not metaphorical or
allegorical, that’s real. And that’s all over the world, not just
America."

"The problem is that we’re involved in a system. Once you’re in the
system long enough you realise the confines and limits and boundaries of
that system. You can go against the system but you have to weigh up the
consequences, will it be your own demise? If I could speak to four or
five hundred thousand people on my records now, as opposed to a million,
shouldn’t I just be content to speak to those four hundred thousand who
are going to be there consistently for me, than by going so far against
the grain that I jeopardise being able to do that. It’s a consideration
that’s real and you have to have it. It’s going to take so much for me
to try to stand up in the middle of a tornado and try to push the wind
or try and stand in the middle of a tidal wave and try to push the wave.
If I can’t change the wind and I can’t change the sea, then I’ve got to
change the sail. Make sure it’s lucrative enough for me - I can still
make my money to do and finance whatever else I believe in. If I ruffle
too many feathers, lose that opportunity" Poetic lets the deduction do
its work - the irony is that without the industry, there are no
Gravediggaz and no means of delivering the message "....I’m going to
butter that biscuit ‘til that butter roll off! Keep rollin’ ‘til I can’t
roll no more."