WHEN THEIR debut album Niggamortis was released three years ago, Gravediggaz were credited with inventing horrorcore tough New York hip-hop spiked with imagery so bleak it made Edgar Allen Poe read like Alice Taylor. The rap conglomerate (featuring De La Soul producer Prince Paul, Wu-Tang Clan mainman The Rza, Stetsasonic founder Fruitkwan and former Brothers Grym rhymer Too Poetic) spawned more pale imitations than Morticia Addams. However, with the release of their second (and highly recommended) album The Pick, The Sickle And The Shovel, the group are trying to lay some of those stubborn old ghosts to rest.
When we came on this one, we didn t want to have the same stigma of that so-called horrorcore , explains Too Poetic. A lot of people copied us on a superficial level. We had to let that whole thing blow over, we had to preserve the artistic unpredictability of Gravediggaz, you know what I m saying? Perhaps on the first album you had to do a little research on different philosophies and religions, so with this one we tried to bring more of the substance to light in a way that wasn t hard for people to pick it up.
If the group were intent on shaking off the their morbid image, why didn t they stick with the album s working title, Hidden Emotions?
Well, I was kinda outvoted on that one, the rapper admits. But I m comfortable with it because the Gravediggaz concept has always been about dealing with the mentally dead , trying to stimulate that dead brain. In that kinda operation, the first thing a surgeon would do is cut off the hair with the sickle. Hair could be symbolic to the grain that grows on the earth, the corn or the wheat or what-have-you. The next thing would be the skull, which would be symbolic of rock. To get through the rock, we use the pick, we chip away at it until we finally break through.
After we break through, however, the debris from us chippin could ve fallen into the grave, so then we scoop that out with the shovel. Then the operation begins. The scars that are left are the two holes in your ear because that s where we penetrate, that s where we dig, that s the tunnel we go through to stimulate your brain with challenging concepts. That s why I m comfortable with The Pick, The Sickle And the Shovel, because, conceptually, it will make somebody ask the question and I can explain it the way I just did, as a conversation piece.
NUCLEAR BADLANDS
Tracks like What s Goin On off the new album are packed with credit card conspiracy theories, New World Order hypotheses and disinformation paranoia. Are these subjects popular ice-breakers at Too Poetic parties?
Those are situations I follow, he confirms. From the Visa cards to the EZ Pass that we have now in New York, where there s a magnetic strip that you put on to your car visor and you can just go through the tolls, but also if you have any criminal records tied into motor vehicles, you get snatched up because of that. You have to be aware. People might not know you know, but you know, you know?
Er, I think so. I mention Irish writer Colum McCann s studies of the mole people, the homeless New Yorkers living in tunnels under the city.
Now see? Too Poetic exclaims. Twenty years ago that s the stuff they was puttin in science fiction movies where the world dooms itself by nuclear waste, and out of the nuclear badlands you have all these semi-barbaric tribes of people that live underground, and they still got the computers goin and it s a struggle for food. And then you got the people that live above the surface, law enforcement and governments who ve got fresh water and air enclosed in domes, all these little concepts.
See, some of it is science and some of it is fiction. The problem is, you never know where to draw the line. And when you see things building up to what they were portrayed as 20 years ago, you gotta go Hey look, this must be a plan. They predicted how it s gonna be. Even with puttin your thumbprint up as a code to open a door, or your retina-scan, all this is going back 20 years already, to the sci-fi movies. Even with cable vision and fibre optics and all that, anything that can transmit a signal can receive a signal. That s all I got to say about it. n
The Pick, The Sickle And The Shovel is out now on V2 Records.