Phonte Coleman
Ain’t Gon’ Let Up

If honest lyrics over superb production were enough to sell records Little Brother would be a platinum selling group. But in today’s hip-hop world, artists that portray the glamorous life—money, cash, um, girls—get the seat on 106 & Park while artists like Raleigh, NC’s rap group, Little Brother, are treated like industry stepchildren. Little Brother (which consist of two MCs, Phonte and Big Pooh, and producer 9th Wonder) became underground and internet darlings in 2003 when their critically acclaimed independent release The Listening proved to be a breathe of fresh air.

The buzz surrounding the group was enough to land the group a deal with Atlantic Records. But with major label exposure comes major label drama, and when it was time to push their album The Minstrel Show the group was ushered into the game the hard way. LB’s first video was called too smart for BET. The group was too new for 5 Mics in the Source, and radio was too caught up in the snowstorm that Jeezy started to play LB’s single. Although The Minstrel Show received rave reviews, the album bricked.

But don’t count these Carolina boys out yet. Phonte Coleman, the group’s media favorite, is here to educate IndieStreet readers on the smoke and mirrors of the hip-hop industry, what the Carolinas need to do to make it in the game and why on the next album Little Brother will be getting back to basics.

Even with critic acclaim, why do you think Little Brother is still slept on?
I just think that we’re at a point in time that people just use music as their form of escape. And people use music as a form of entertainment and dance. So when you have a group like Little Brother that’s not just making party songs or our lyrics are not just talking about partying and dancing or whatever, then it’s always going to be a hard sell. I think we’re at a point in the industry now more then ever, where everything is controlled by the youth. Everything is controlled by thirteen year olds. That is the market that all of the record companies and the media outlets are trying to get, [they’re] concentrated on the youth market. When you have a business structure that’s fixated on such a fickle audience that’s why you have so much turnover. Because there’s no longevity in that audience. I mean, you remember what it was like when you were thirteen, you probably had a new favorite group every week. So when you take a group like Little Brother, and you put them in that thirteen year old market, the stuff that me and Pooh rap about, how can they really relate to it? The stuff that me and Pooh talk about is life shit. We’re coming from the perspective of two grown men that are in their 20s. Its like, how can I really expect them to understand a record like “Slow It Down.” How can I get them to understand the references that me and Pooh drop, they haven’t lived it. That’s why I think we’re in the position we are in, it gets frustrating sometimes but you know it’s cool. Because I know that people that get it, they get it.

The Minstrel Show, what would you have changed or done different going into that project that might have helped that situation out better?
Of course hindsight is always 20/20. I guess maybe [I would have] opened up a little more lyrically. Pretty much, me and Pooh wanted to show the audience that we still had it, that we could still rhyme. And so, the thing about it, nowadays we’re approaching the era that the days of the super MC is pretty much no more. The days of niggas rapping about how great of a rapper they are is done. Half of the rappers out now rapping about how they ain’t even rappers. So I guess, the only thing I could see myself doing differently in hindsight is maybe, making more songs that still show my lyrical skills but show them in different ways, you know what I’m sayin’. It's certain things you could think of but you live and you learn. At the end of the day it’s still a record that I’m proud of, and I still think we made a great record. But a year later, I can look back and see what some of the missteps were.

You all were going for the streets with your Separate But Equal Gangsta Grillz mixtape, do you think you accomplished that?
Yeah, I think we did. We pretty much made the same music we always made, but having Drama cosign it, that opened us up to a whole other audience on the strength of that mixtape, that maybe never heard of us or maybe never would have given us a chance and heard it like, “damn these niggas are spittin’.”

Recently, Little Brother has been working with people like the Clipse and Cormega, are you all continuing to work with cats like that to open you up to a new audience?
Yeah, open up to a new audience and then also more than that trying to expand ourselves. You can always be the dopest rapper in your crew, but after awhile you have to leave your safety zone, so that’s what it’s really all about. Cats like Cormega and the Clipse, those are people that I respect. Everything time me and Pooh do collabs it’s with people that we respect, and that we really think we can make something hot together. So with the new mixtape stuff that we’re doing and also some new stuff for the album, we’re just reaching out to some other cats that are in the same position as us but just on a different level.

So tell me about the Hall of Justus album you all are working on now.
It was just something that we put together to showcase some of the other talent that we got coming out of the camp, Joe Scudda, Chaundon, Jozeemo, L.E.G.A.C.Y.. It was just a way for us to get them acts out there, and let people hear them. It was really long overdue, everyone’s been asking us for a crew album. We finally gave them one.

I interviewed Darien Brockington, and his album drops on the same day as the HOJ album. You produced his album, he was telling me that we’re going to get some Percy Miracles stank on his album.
[Laughs]. Yeah, Percy showed up, he threw a little stank on it. Darien is a dude that I have an incredible amount of respect for, and he’s an incredible talent. Working with him was a way for me to, once again, expand into something else, and get my songwriter hustle on.

Tell me about your show in Fayetteville, what happened out there?
The Fayetteville show, it kinda got blew out of proportion. Basically, we were opening up for Summer Jam out there, it was like, Young Dro, Young Joc, Three Six [Mafia], Rick Ross, Da Muzicianz, and I think the Clipse were there, and then us. So we kinda like the fish out of water in the line up. And so I wrote [on myspace] about how we didn’t really get the response from the crowd. It just seemed like cats were just looking at us dumbfounded. Like they had never heard of it, so they didn’t know how to make a decision on it. Like they didn’t boo, like I’m from the school where if you don’t like a nigga just boo.

What was your reaction when all of the xxlmag.com columnist started jumping down your throat?
Man, the thing about that shit is, whenever people are going into your comments like that and saying things...I’m a firm believer in, no one pays attention to bullshit. When you make statements, and somehow, someway everybody finds a way to talk about what you’re saying, then you know you’re on to something. You know, regardless, when I see the xxl niggas doing they’re thing, that let’s me know I’m on to something. That lets me know that what I’m saying is provoking people, it got people thinking, it’s got people reacting, and that’s always a good thing to me. I welcome that, keep my name in your mouth.

And it seems that your name is in the media a lot, more than what Pooh is. What’s Pooh’s stance on the media?
Well, Pooh is just kinda by nature a much more a shy person, and a much more reserved person. Me and him, we see eye to eye on a lot of things. And some things we don’t see eye to eye on. Even in our music, I’m a lot more open and kinda putting myself out there, where as he’s a lot more reserved. He just don’t open up like that, that’s just kinda like how he is by nature.

Is that the reason you did the album with Nicolay?
Yeah, with Nic man, I just wanted to do something that was a little different than what I had been doing. I just feel like you always wanna branch out on each project and do something else. So with Foreign Exchange that was just me branching out, saying that okay we’re doing hip-hop but let’s see what other elements of other music we can involve in a hip-hop context.

Do you have plans to do another album with Nicolay?
Yeah, we’re going to do another one. We’re just focusing on getting this Little Brother album finished now, having that ready by December and looking at a release date in the spring. So after that’s done in December, me and Nic will probably start the next Foreign Exchange album.

The next Little Brother album is entitled Get Back, why did you all call it that?
Well, the title, for me at least is about getting back to that original place in your heart that made you want to rhyme. Just speaking for me personally, going through a lot of stuff we went through with the Minstrel Show, and the aftermath of that in a way it felt like it kinda sidetracked me. And I started caring about a lot of shit in the grand scheme of things, really didn’t matter. When you get in the game, you get in the game as the person who just wants to make music, that just wants your stuff to be heard, that just wants to be appreciated. And then as things go on and on, as you kinda get corrupted and you get industrialized, then you start watching Sound Scan numbers. You start reading radio reports. You start looking at spins and shit. You kinda get sucked into this whole world, that’s not really your world. It pertains to you because it’s your music, and you want to see how it’s doing. But in the grand scheme of things man, when you first started rapping or when you first started singing or dancing or whatever, nobody sits down and writes a rhyme hoping that they’ll get critical acclaim. Or yo’ maybe I’ll get 5 mics in The Source. Or if I write this rhyme, the niggas at Clear Channel will play my song all day on the radio, or if I write this rhyme then BET will run my video all the time. Nobody does that. So I kinda saw myself getting away from where I originally got in the game for. I didn’t get in the game just to be a star, and have my name over everywhere. Of course we wanted it to happen and God willing it will happen, but that ain’t what I started rhyming for. So the new album Get Back is getting back to basics, of what you really do this for.

What’s going to be the difference in this album compared to The Minstrel Show?
For this record, as of right now, the production is going to be a lot more varied this time around. 9th does have some tracks on there, but we also got some stuff from Khrysis, he came through with the heat. Seems like we’re going to be working with Nottz again. Primo [DJ Premier] reached out to us and was like we gotta do something for the next album. We gon’ probably be doing something with Just [Blaze]. So it’s like we’re reaching out and kinda varying it a little more. The first two albums were just all 9th, it’s like 9th and some other people [on the new album].

Let me ask you a Carolina question. South Carolina wants to know why Little Brother doesn’t come through more, especially since we’re NC’s neighboring state?
We get this question everywhere, not just about South Carolina but just about every state. Why don’t ya’ll come to Kansas, why don’t ya’ll come to Tennessee, why don’t ya’ll come to Jersey? The thing I want to put out to people is that, as an artist you go to where there is a demand for you, and 9 times out of 10 most artists go where they are requested. So a lot of times, particularly in the case of South Carolina, there just hasn’t been a lot of requests for Little Brother from any of the media outlets down there. The last time we were actually down there was years ago and we did the show in Charleston. It was us and Hieroglyphics and the show was dope, we got a lot of love it was crazy. We’re a touring group, so if we’re not touring we’re recording. We have nothing against doing promo stuff, just showing up for free just for the love and doing it. But if people ain’t requesting you, and you don’t have a link down in a certain area, I ain’t just gon’ drive through a city blind and just pop up like what up South Carolina I’m here. You gotta have some kind of link or connect down there. I just think that in the case of South Carolina it’s just that we really don’t have as many strong connections there as we would in some of our other markets that are big markets for us. It’s not a diss to South Carolina, I know they’re people supporting [us there]. I got homeboys down there, my man Dan Johns, he’s down there doing his thing. It’s just for us, it’s a hard market to try to get into.

Another Carolina question, why has it been so hard for South and North Carolina to get on in the music business?
I just think in North Carolina, our biggest problem is we don’t stick together. Everybody in the Carolinas wants to be known as the ones that put the Carolinas on the map. And if you want to do that, that’s cool. But at the end of the day that’s not what’s going to move us all forward. When Little Brother came out we were reppin’ North Carolina, we were shouting niggas out on every song, but the whole mentally that we’re running this NC shit and all that that never came into play. It’s like, [we’re] the first ones to walk through this door, I’m making it so that all of you can walk through. Because at the end of the day I can’t keep shining by myself, if I just wanna shine by myself all the time motherfuckas is gon’ get tired of me. So a smart person is thinking, the best way for me to shine is to let my light shine through other people. That’s why we did the Hall of Justus album, to put some other cats out there. Because you got to pull other people up, you got to extend that helping hand. But the biggest problem I think we’re facing in North Carolina is that nobody wants to do that. I can tell you straight up, when we go through sales of our records, I don’t think North Carolina is one of our top 10 markets and we’re from North Carolina, you feel me. We sell like crazy, New York, LA, Chicago, Baltimore, DC area, Philly, we sell but North Carolina is hardly ever in the top 10. So when you look at it like that it’s kind of a problem. We’re the first ones other than Petey [Pablo], to really rep NC hard, it’s like damn we can’t get ya’ll to stand up for us. That’s the problem that Carolina is gonna have, no unity and no standing up for each other. Cause at the end of the day all that matters to these labels...labels don’t scout talent anymore. Them motherfuckas look at spreadsheets and fucking BDS reports, and mixshow reports. And so and so has a hot record, lets sign them niggas. That “Peanut Butter and Jelly” joint got crazy spins, let’s sign them nigga. That’s pretty much how the game is now. So us in the Carolinas, if they don’t see us standing up for one another, none of us is going to move. That goes for everybody from the fans, the listeners to the DJs, all the way up to the program directors. Until we start supporting our own, niggas ain’t going no where. It’s all in the hands of the people.

Randy Exclusive
Staff Writer
IndieStreet Magazine
www.indiestreetent.com
randy@indiestreetent.com