Black Truth News: That’s interesting. Because I was just watching an Interview that Afrikka Bambaata did, and I found out he was the one who came up with the label hip hop for the culture. He was talking about, how everyone was involved in it, not just the rappers. I just want you to take the time to elaborate on the distinction between rap and hip hop?
T-Mann: I just went to Red Bull DJing competition. And this was the world competition. Its cats from Brazil, cats from Jamaica from all over, and they wasn’t spinning nothing but hip hop music. It takes so much to come up with a hip hop show. And everybody who is there is hip hop, so the sound man, the light crew, to the people who doing make up. All those people are hip hop. I was lucky; I came up in the era of hip hop where I was lucky to meet people like Erick Sermon. That’s my mentor, that’s my brother in law, that’s my idol. He taught me hip hop. I grew up under Redman and Keith Murray and I saw Hip Hop. So when I came back to Chicago, all I was thinking about was black owned and keeping everything hip hop. Like you said hip hop is the culture, it’s just not rap music. Hip hop is breakdancing, graffiti, its all of that.
We wore timberlands; we made timberlands world famous; you know what I’m saying. Shout out to Chris Lighty. Chris Lighty was hip hop. Chris Lighty taught people how to brand they self. He told Busta Rhymes, if you drink Courvoisier, we going to get a check. He told Nelly, if you going to say Air Force Ones; we going to get a check. He made 50 the nigga he is now. Everything 50 put his name on now, he is trying to own it. The same way with Jay Z; anything he put his name on, he trying to own it. These niggas are hip hop. Because anything you do, you got to try to own it.
If you running around saying you rapping all this other stuff, then you got to brand yourself. It’s all about branding you. Its book out there called 32 Laws of Marketing. You can go read it. One of the first laws in there; is that it’s better to be first than being the best. That mean if you the first at it; you going to be known, that means you already set your mark. So that mean everybody that comes after you will be follower; even if they do it better. So that’s what you got to do is brand yourself. Everybody who out there now, Mike Jones for example; how he got out there, is he went to the DJ’s in the strip clubs. He would asked them to play his songs, and they would be like who are you, and he would tell them Mike Jones. They would ask what the name of your song is and he would say Mike Jones. He not the best rapper, he far from the best; but his marketing game is stupid. You got You-tube, Facebook, everything. Brand yourself, make yourself a name
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But now there is a need for Chicago artist to unite. We need that movement. We need that Down South Movement. That East Coast Movement, that West Coast Movement; we need to unite. We already know how to mob. We know how to organize. We don’t gangbang, we organize crime, the south side they bang (laughter) but we organize crime. So we need to organize and get this rap shit together. We got everything on lock already. All we have to do is organize. Chi town as a whole and that’s what we’re doing over here. We got everybody coming out from over the city, we got the suburbs, and everyone is coming out. We are the outlet. Hip Hop needs an outlet. I’m older cat but I know Hip hop and I know what these cats need man.
Black Truth News: Once again in closing. I want you to let the people know who you are, what you about and how you are providing that outlet to the people?
T-Mann: You know God is good. I was cutting your hair and my people were telling me that Sadat X was coming through. You were telling me how you write for the Black Truth News an Online Magazine. I’m like, that’s what we need. So we hook it all up. You got blessed because you were interviewing a legend. I got blessed because you were in there interviewing a legend. That’s Hip Hop, because I know you from Rap. So when you came back to interview me; I’m like I know you from 10 years ago. So it’s all love. We just are connecting it all together. So every Wednesday it’s going down here. We got spoken word, hip hop all types of entertainment on the West Side of Chicago.
This Article First Appeared in The Black Truth News Volume 3 Issue 10 October 2012