Hip Hop has changed so much over the past 20 years that if you turned on the radio, even the most popular song would lack the true essence of Hip Hop. You would have to search high to low to find that organic sound that made you fall in love with Hip hop to begin with. I have found that sound in a group from Tuscaloosa, Alabama and their name is Pen Pals.
Listening to Pen Pals kinda took me back to when Hip hop was at its peak. That’s when you had acts such A Tribe Called Quest, Souls Of Mischief, Keith Murray, KRS-One and you had producers like Pete Rock, Premeir and RZA dominating the mixing boards, when Hip hop had that golden sound and every other genre of music wanted to associate with. Pen Pals lyrical ability is far from mediocre. Don’t be surprised if you find your ears doing a doubletake to catch some of the tricky and witty wordplay. Here’s one song that grabbed me from the 2013 Secret Stages Sampler in which they were one of the featured groups to perform. http://secretstages.bandcamp.com/track/punch-line-poetry-prod-by-pumpkinfoot
Since I’m a newbie to Pen Pals music, I decided to take a different approach and interview them. Here’s what they had to say.
Who are the Pen Pals? Pen Pals consists of 2 emcees, Fathom (Ian Brooken) and sLanguage (David Redwine)
How did you meet and how long have you been emceeing?Me and Fathom started running into each other in random places, then actually met through the 2 other emcees I rapped with before. They were hosting battles on the UA campus and he came to one. Started kickin it and freestyling. The rest is history. Fathom started rapping in high school, and I’ve been doing it since I was about 7. My family has a musical background, and picked it up from my dad and my aunt I guess.
Who are you influences? There are really too many to name. We’re both influenced by a ton of stuff from different genres. And those influences tend to change as well, so that’s really hard to answer specifically.
In your opinion, Is Hip Hop dead? Neither of us believe hip-hop is dead, but as Fathom says “it may be in a state of emergency”. For the most part, I think hip-hop, or true hip-hop anyway, is as alive and thriving as ever. There’s always going to be really bad stuff force fed to you. Just comes with the territory. But if you’re willing to search even a little, and shut out the mindless stuff, you realize quickly hip-hop is doing well.
What advice would you give up and coming artists thats fresh in the game? STAY TRUE
If there was no money in music, would you still record? Most definitely. We don’t really eat off it now, and we love it tremendously regardless.
What would you be doing if you wasn’t doing music? Not really sure about that. We’re both into a lot of other different stuff, so it’s hard to say where life would be taking us if music wasn’t what we were choosing to pursue
If you could change anything about today’s music, what would you change? There needs to be a more defined balance between artists of substance and artists who are just cashing checks and doing whatever, within the mainstream. That’s the most prominent issue to the both of us.
With this new era of artists, who would you say is still holding it down for hip Hop? TDE (Kendrick, Ab-Soul, etc) , PRO ERA (Joey Bada$$, Capital Steez, etc), Blu, Homeboy Sandman. This list is humongous for real, so we’ll stop there. There’s a lot of people really doing different stuff with the music, that stand out for one reason or another.
If Hip Hop was structured similar to the government, Who would you nominate for President? GZA Genius
How do you feel about other artists from your state and what should we all be doing collectively to push more Alabama artists to the mainstream? We have a lot of respect and love for other Bama artists. The main issue I think we come across is the fact that most people see their musical peers as a stepping stone rather than a building block. If we could better unite, it would be really hard to hold Bama back from getting it’s deserved shine.
What’s your favorite place to perform and why? Bottletree in Birmingham is definitely the favorite spot. So much hospitality from the place itself, and the crowds (for the shows we’ve been a part of, at least), have always showed a lot of love and respect for what we do. That means a lot to us because all our shows there have been with bands of other genres. It’s always eclectic, and dope to be a part of.
Does life imitate music or does music imitate life? It’s definitely a combination of both. Without life there is no music. And music IS life for a lot of people.
Who should I plug next? The homies RMVBM (Rocket Man vs Better Man) out of Auburn!
You can show your support by following, sharing, liking and checking out Pen Pals on various social media sites
https://www.facebook.com/penpals205
https://soundcloud.com/pen-pals
https://twitter.com/PenPalsHipHop
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