"W e’ve played Dublin and Belfast and we always have fun in Ireland, I grew up in Chicago in a poor urban background – growing up with this music, we never realised that one day it would take us round the planet. Wow, man! I know how privileged we are.

People are still growing up poor in those same areas. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But at least, doing what we do, we can speak out against it, know what I mean? I got into hip-hop to change my life, so if I help to change other lives I’m grateful for that.
When I heard Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, Sugar Hill, Run DMC and LL Cool J, I thought ‘I can do this’. So if, in turn, there are people out there doing it because they heard me doing it, that’s great, man. It’s pretty cool.

MONEY
I like to have direct contact with the fans, especially now that hip-hop is all over the planet. It started out from urban struggles, and for a long time corporate America tried to avoid it. But once they figured they couldmake millions of dollars from it, it became a household culture – and that’s helped change people’s lives. But you can’t jump into it just for the money. That makes for superficial music.

VIOLENCE
A lot of the violence has gone out of hip-hop, and that’s good. But I appreciated people like NWA because they were from the west coast talking about a side of urban America that other channels weren’t addressing. I appreciate people if they’re tellin’ what’s true to life, whether they use
straight talkin’ or double entendres or metaphors or what. Good music will make its way in the world no matter what.

GREAT HIP HOP
The Power In Numbers album was different for Jurassic 5 because it reflected the growing we did, both individually and collectively, with the need to say something that mattered.
We did a duet with Nelly Furtado because we had the song ‘Thin Line’ with a male-female perspective and we thought it’d be cool to have a female singing on it. And we thought Nelly would be tight as far as her voice is concerned.
At the same time, one of the guys from our label was talking to her at a grocery store and she told him she was a big fan of ours, so we asked her, she said yeah, and it worked!
We also toured with Outkast. Those guys are great hospitable guys, really creative. There are so many great hip-hop acts in America that I hope the Irish people get to hear, like Dilated Peoples, Twista, Blackalicious. There’s so many, man!

PERSONAL STUFF
A lot of our lyrics are about our real lives. If you talk about a situation that you went through as a human being then it’s easier for other people to relate to it rather than if you just made it up. I’m doin’ a solo album now called Fish Out Of Water and there’s a bunch of things on there that are even more personal to me, like super-personal, like about my past. And when I listen back I wonder should I have said that?
One of the songs is about my cousin who died last year in a fire in a Chicago club. It’s hard for me to listen to it. I’ve a song called ‘The Righteous Way’, which talks about the cycles I went through with my family, my father leaving, me taking care of my brother and sister, and, later on, having a child. It was therapy for me. But the people out there who went through the same things will relate to it.

LAND OF THE FREE
But I still wonder if it’s ok to say all that, man. The United States is supposed to be the land of the free. We’re supposed to be able to speak. But what happened to the Dixie Chicks for talkin’ out about George Bush?
I’m not happy with what’s going down right now, the contradictions and the hypocrisy, and I want to express these things through Jurassic 5."

Jurassic 5 play the Electric Picnic on Saturday, September 4, in Stadbally Hall, Co. Laoise.