Husalah: I just wasn't feeling doing music at that time. I don't do music for the sake of doing music. I don't do music to be rich, I don't do music to be cool. I don't do music as an identity. It's just something that I do that people enjoy. My brother The Jacka was going, he had good momentum with his music, so I was just being supportive. People forget that I executive produced Jack's first records. We look out for each other. He had a lot of momentum going, so I just decided to support him and reconfigure myself and find myself.
I never stopped recording music. I live music. I talk, I walk it. I walk lyrics, I live lyrics, that's what I do. As far as commercially getting into it, it wasn't nothing I was thinking about. I was reconnecting and re-grounding myself.I'm not saying I'm a big street dude and all that shit, but I feel like it's a priority for me to be connected with my people, and not just be Husalah the rapper. I like to connect myself to where I'm from. It sounds cliche and sounds corny. But I still go visit auntie. I take pride in being myself and I think it's important for artists to be theyself. If you want to evolve into something else, that's fine. But if you like who you are and you like the results you get as far as creativity, you've got to connect with what gives you that energy.
To me it's the people, it's my soil, it's my neighborhood, it's the thought process of interacting with people, building with people, sharpening people, shedding light on people, learning from people. That's what makes me me. I love that I'm smart enough to know that about myself.When it comes to your artistic process, in the studio, I remember reading an interview with you in Murder Dog many years ago, you talked about how you couldn't really make music in jail because you thrived on the energy around you. I was curious what your process has been like getting out—"You've got a lot of shit that you're obligated to do as a man before entertaining as a musician. You've got to reconnect with your kids, your family, your grandmamas. You've got to stay in touch with who you really are."
It wasn't about making music. It's just that there's so much other shit that I could be doing. I could be sharpening up on my French language, I could be sharpening up on speaking Portuguese, I could practicing Isometrics, I could be chilling in my beautiful body that I've been blessed with. I could be perfecting my physique, I could be running, jogging, learning yoga, studying, shit like that. Besides—"I got a hundred albums!" What you gonna do with it? You can't release the shit. I had music. It's what I do. I am style. It was something that was bestowed upon me. People running around calling me the champ, calling me a king, calling me a legend. I never tried to reach out to be the champ. I always wanted other people to be the champ.
It depends how I feel. Sometimes music comes to me just through divine conception, I can see it. It's like my art. People say, "how can you do this, how do you do this, how do you paint this shit?" I just look at a blank canvas and I can see it. I look at walls and see anything I want to see. That's the same way with the music. When I hear music, I hear vocals already. It's basically like I'm tracing—I'm tracing my self-conscious. I'm just tracing something that's coming out of me. It's like, oh, I want to draw a naked lady, or I want to draw a mountain, I see it! I see the people, I see the mountain, I see the window.
Jacka passed a couple of years ago. I was wondering what you learned from him and what your memories are of how he helped enrich your life.Read More: Remembering The Jacka, Bay Area Icon
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Jack was like a reluctant big brother. He was like the guy who was your big brother, but you didn't really realize it. He had a certain element, that he didn't speak on or that he didn't run around bragging about that was natural about him. He was a leader. He was a leader of leaders. Sometimes the best leaders are the people that you don't realize is leading. That's what Jack was. We would perpetuate each other as far as how dope we could come. We always was in competition—not competition, but we'd always be like, "man check this out, hear how dope this is, you don't understand!"
And we were both avid b-boys, you know. Sure, we were involved in street stuff, but we knew that the streets was a limitation. The streets is a lane. The streets is not as complicated as people make it. There's a limitation to it. There's a glass ceiling to it. But as far as manhood and life and Islam and music and creativity and art, there is no limitation to that. That's why we got that cult following; that's why it was such a hard loss."We knew that the streets was a limitation… There's a glass ceiling to it. But as far as manhood and life and Islam and music and creativity and art, there is no limitation to that."
But I don't think about it at all, because I know we have a purpose, and I'm a military minded person. I have a rigid thought process. I'm stern. I stick to what I'm supposed to do. This is what I was born to do, this is how I was bred. I was bred without emotions, I was bred to be a soldier, I was bred to be militant.[ He talks to his son.] Where'd you get all those donuts from boy! My son has like five Krispy Kreme donuts.I'm glad you asked me that. This is my first time even thinking about this actually. This is my first time even thinking about the reason of a lot of shit, because I don't think about that shit.I feel like you should be giving TED talks."I was always the fun-loving, fun, enjoying myself, always smiling, whatever, and you look up and you're like, damn, I lost everybody. Nobody knows the jokes we told for 20 years."
I'm an extraordinary guy. This is speaking in third person. Husalah is a very extraordinary person. It would be hard for me to capitalize. I've got a lot of gifts, and I don't really talk to people about them. You can count on your hands how many interviews I've ever given in my life. Because one, when you've been living this way, and condition yourself to think a certain way, you get separated from people a long time ago. I was separated from the masses along time ago, as far as my thought process. It's not many people that would even relate or comprehend—a lot of the shit I think or do or say or live is beyond human reasoning.I guess it translates sometimes to my music. Because people are like, "man I don't know why, me listening to you talk about the streets and all this thug shit makes me a better person." And I guess there's an element to it that's more potent to it than anything else. There's a reason why it's certain songs you can listen to—a Donny Hathaway. You can listen to it at a funeral, you can listen to 'em at a wedding, you can listen to them when you're sad, you can listen to them when you're in love. So it's like, certain people have a certain element about them that translates to it no matter what you do. And I guess that's what I was given. But like I said I'm not here to capitalize on it.I do like to inspire people. That's why when people see me—"Man show us the jewels, show us the diamond necklace, show us the watch"—I'd rather show myself doing some push-ups, man, 'cause I want you to do those. I know that's what's gonna help you. Train yourself to look for pull-up bars everywhere you go. "Look at that, that's a perfect pull-up bar, let me do a set." And it's helping you, it's feeding you. It's not, "I'ma drink this lean, I'ma look at this watch, look at this." That's not gonna do anything for you, man. You living unhealthy. Please your woman. Be productive. Be strong. Raise your vitality. Let me see your vitality level. Everybody rich, everybody got money. But are you rich in vitality.It goes back to hip-hop. You couldn't be a sucka MC back in the days. In the Bronx in the 80s, there was no such thing as a sucka MC. So you know, we snatching ya gold chain. If you're a sucka, oops! Upside your muthafuckin' head, we catch you in your sweatsuit. You couldn't walk down Fort Greene, Brooklyn if you was a sucka MC. So I come from that.