Get your pennies out. TASKFORCE are releasing new stuff soon – MFTC 4 is on it’s way!! Molly Malone bumped into the brothers McBain in a club in Brighton and although they were a bit unprepared she asked them lots of questions whilst under the influence of alcohol. Check out what they had to say…
MALONE: Which release from Taskforce was personally your favourite release?
FARMA G: MUSIC FROM THE CORNER part 2, that’s very descriptive, and it did exactly what we intended it to do.
CHESTER P: All the MUSIC FROM THE CORNERS, I think they are all good.
MM: What does the term MUSIC FROM THE CORNER mean to you?
FG: We are like surviving and MUSIC FROM THE CORNER is the way we survive.
MM: What is the drug of preference for taskforce? Do u take cocaine?
FG: Nah nah nah, we are all about the green substances ones that grow out the ground.
MM: Do u think your creativity is enhanced by the green?
FG: Nah we used to think that but now it’s just more of such a necessity…
MM: This club is full of like 18 year olds, do you think about your responsibility to your the audience that listens to your music, and would you even think about that when you write or on stage?
CP: I think everything has a responsibility and everybody has a responsibility to something and we should think about that all the time…
“… we don’t work, well how a 9-5 works…”
FG: I always write to please myself, and both of us have got a high standard of responsibility of our own actions therefore I don’t think you will find us on stage talking shit unless we are really pissed off or having a real bad time.
MM: We all grow up with different upbringings, I lived in London, in a big city with nutty hippy parents, how does our upbringing affect the music we make as artists?
FG: We all get very different upbringings, you just got to express you own life and ideas, I’m sure I’ve been inspired by my parents and Chester as well but at the end of the day you only put out YOURSELF.
MM: Having children is a big responsibility what things are important to tell them as they grow up?
FG: Well my boy is 13 this week and I’d tell him he must be himself and to always come from the heart, and if he don’t like something – let someone know!
MM: Err would you ever run for parliament?
FG: No it’s just a novelty idea but really its about opening doors to different ways of thinking, we couldn’t but maybe someone else who has a little bit more *taps head thoughts, could speak a little bit better than we could.
MM: If you could change anything about the UK hip hop industry what would it be?
FG: I would get rid of all the rappers…nah ( *laughing), nah I wouldn’t change any of it, it’s a small little thing and people take it too seriously, it’s only a tiny little thing.
“… we are proud, cos we started from scratch and we never had any help…”
MM: What crews/producers/emcees in UK hip-hop are you into at the moment?
CP: Everyone who everyone has heard of and then a there’s a few people everyone ain’t heard of…
CP and FG: INGENUITY, RANSOM BADBONES , TURTLE STONE, UNIVERSAL SOLIDERS, REMUS, MAD GLC.
CP: Producers you got NAPPA, CHRIS FADER, and MR THING.
*(and a whole load of other people but due to several loud people coming down the stairs of the club corridor I cant make out what the hell the names are… so apologies if you got a big up and your name aint down…)
MM: How long does is take you to produce a tune, -a day a week or different for each song?
CP: It depends, we are never more than a few hours creating, writing, recording a song, but then it’s however long it takes to get it sounding nice.
MM: What kind of equipment do you use?
FG: We use MPC’s, Court Trinity, Court 2000, Mac G5 – yeah we’re moving up in the world it’s nice.
MM: Do you mix it all yourself?
FG: Yeah we just do everything ourselves, we like it like that.
MM: Do you make any money out of it?
FG: Oh yeah, we don’t work, well how a 9-5 works, so everything we do is made through money, I mean everything we are doing we generate through ourselves. So we pay our own wages through making music, so we do alright, I reckon we do alright.
“… I’ve never lost a battle once, not in my opinion and not in most people’s opinions…”
MM: What music have you got coming up?
CP: There’s lots of stuff going on, there’s MFTC 4, there’s YOUR NOT US- it’s an EP recorded with a live band, RAW DOG live band all live instruments, no samples.
CP: Then there’s a thing we are doing with a like 10 or 11 rappers, a singer and a lot of different producers which will be out sometime next year and then there’s gonna be MFTC 5 at some point. Also FARMS has got a couple of solo things coming out, and maybe a video for a song called ‘3 minute movie’. Slippers has got a thing called BARE BACK INSTRUMENT which has just come out – which is instrumentals he’s made with RAWDOG band, we got an endless amount of stuff coming out most of which is available on www.boomkat.com.
MM: Everyone seems to have a live hip hop band these days…
FG: There’s only one live hip hop band in the UK and that’s our band its RAW DOG, there ain’t another hip hop band, others use sequencers and samples and stuff, but our stuff is RAW!
MM: I don’t always like live hip hop bands as you can rarely hear the rapper, what’s it’s like rapping over a live band?
CP: Its different, its lot harder, your voice is a lot quieter you know, it’s a great experience, you get to do what real musicians do and what real singers do, its a different feeling, we always enjoy performing with a live band.
MM: What’s one of your fave gigs you have ever played?
CP: It’s hard to say, but maybe Glastonbury.
MM: If you find yourself one day an old man sitting in your armchair what will you be proud of in your life?
FG: All of it! All of what we done, we are proud, cos we started from scratch and we never had any help.
CP: If I’m old sitting in my armchair I’d be proud that I’d got that far! I’d be proud of everything I’d done to make it that far.
MM: Interviewing Skinny this year he said there was this battle where you two got obliterated by …
FG: I remember reading this! Skinny might have made that up!
CP: I never got obliterated never. I’ve never lost a battle once, not in my opinion and not in most people’s opinions, I mean there was this time with REVEAL, but I was free styling and he weren’t -so there’s a little thing there, but he did win that – but THAT is the ONLY time that I lost.
MM: Some freestyle emcees sometime lose their fire would you still be up for battling?
CP: I think about it sometimes but its probably just a fantasy, some of the young-ins are good at it but none of them are freestyling, and that’s where I would win. If we took it back to where we have 5 subjects and you have to incorporate them in your rhyme, I’d beat people. I don’t know the future-maybe if I practise my skill maybe one day I’ll step back in the arena.
Check out www.musicfromthecorner.com make some purchases – support your UK Hip Hop!