Hip Hop Icon: Classic Interview with Slick Rick

In this classic Insomniac Magazine interview with Slick Rick, the legendary emcee speaks with Israel “IZ-REAL” Vasquetelle about his start, struggles and triumphs in Hip Hop.

I: Tell me a little bit about how you mastered the art of storytelling, and when did you first decide that you wanted to do your songs like a story?

Rick: Well, I was good in English when I was going to school and I used to like to tell and write stories. When rap came out, it was basically the same thing as telling a story, just matching the last words to the rhyme scheme you know. So I just basically adapted the style of telling stories, but in a rap form, and it caught on. I guess with the accent it helped, it didn’t hurt. It made me stand out a little bit. Plus, being born in England…the age of eleven was when I came over here. I had different schooling. The schooling system in England is a lot better. The vocabulary is a little better.

I: Regarding your style and an artist with a similar style, Dana Dane, where you friends?

Rick: We was down together, we went to school together- High School of Music and Arts. You have to pass a special test to get in. You either had to be good at art or good in some kind of music, instruments, singing whatever. Me and Dana were good at drawing. We used to play around with the rap; we called ourselves the Kangol Krew. There were like four more members, a bunch of guys and a bunch of girls that used to rap. When we left high school and my records did good with Dougie Fresh, the label that Dana was assigned to wanted him to sound like me. Throw the English accent on him and all that type of stuff. It was almost like politics to a certain degree. Dana definitely could carry his own weight with his own stories. But he just threw the accent on cause that’s what they wanted.

I: Were you ever signed to Reality Records with Dougie Fresh?

Rick: The only label that I was ever signed to was Def Jam.

I: What were circumstances that got you on a record with Doug?

Rick: Back in the mid eighties they used to have a lot of battles to see who was the best rapper. I used to compete, Dougie already had a deal and everything and he was at one of them and he liked what he heard so he told me maybe one day we should hook up and make a record together. And I was down with it; we played around and did a couple of shows. He would do his beatbox and I threw my story rap on top up it, “La Di Da Di.” It caught on people loved it. They taped it before it was even a record, the tape was released underground all through New York City and then we said it’s best if we just make this into a record and we threw something on the flip side we called “The Show.” To both of our surprise it took off and gave us world recognition.

I: When La Di Da Di came out everyone had a big anticipation to hear Slick Rick, but it took about three years after that for you to come out with your own record “The Great Adventures of Slick Rick.” What was the reason for that?

Rick: The real scenario was that we went our separate ways and when I got on Def Jam it was a new thing to me cause I never experienced doing a whole record by myself. A lot of pressure was put on me. The label had me working with different producers and I didn’t like what they were giving me, so they kind of said that I was hard to work with. So we went through our little conflict and the label kept putting me on the shelf. After finally coming to an agreement we finally got to finish the album. Not to sound conceited or nothing, but the ones that I made by myself did the best, which was like “Children’s Story,” “Mona Lisa,” “Hey Young World.” The other ones did good too, don’t get me wrong. There’s more to it, but that’s basically what was going on.

I: Tell me a little about Vance Wright?

Rick: Vance Wright was my DJ; he did all the scratches. We grew up together in the Bronx, so when we went to the rap shows and battles he would play the records for me and I would do the raps. He had a good ear for what the crowd liked.

I: Who was creating the music?

Rick: I did all the beats and Vance did the scratches.

I: What drum machine did you use?

Rick: The DX.

I: I never heard of the DX, I heard of the DMX it was black and blue, by Oberheim.

Rick: Right, the same thing, I think the DX probably came out first. The Mirage organ, synthesizer.

I: Yeah, we used to use that to trigger samples.

Rick: Right, the Ensoniq. Those two instruments and an eight-track board, and we was good to go.

I: Did you record that album at one of the bigger studios or did you do it at home?

Rick: We recorded at home first and then we took it to the big studio.

I: This time frame was probably the essence of the heart and soul of Hip Hop. Tell me how it felt to be a rap superstar in the golden era of real Hip Hop- the mid to later ‘80s?

Rick: It was a great feeling. Coming from being a regular mail clerk, library clerk making like two hundred and sixty dollars every two weeks, to going to making five thousand a show. It was like a big jump; a lot of attention being brought on you; a lot of people smiling and happy to see you. Nice toys, different things, you know what I mean. A nice life; almost like a dream come true. Especially being in Madison Square Garden for the first time, in front of large audiences and fans screaming and autographing. It was a great feeling.

I: I saw you about a year before the release of “The Great Adventures of Slick Rick” at a concert in City College. I remember that you didn’t perform, but Dougie did. He brought you up on stage and introduced you. At that time people knew your name because of La Di Da Di, but they didn’t know what you looked like. Then your album came out and you were the hottest rapper out; you had become more famous than Dougie Fresh. Did this bring any tension between you and Doug?

Rick: It might of put a little bit of a strain on the relationship, because I was a guest on his ship. I had received such major attention and then the problem of the money, as far as it’s your ship why should I get more than you. I guess it was a little strange here and there, I think is was best that I branched off in my own way to avoid any conflict.

I: “The Great Adventures of Slick Rick,” in my opinion is one of the top ten Hip Hop albums of all time. How difficult was it to go from that point in the history of Hip Hop to the tragedy that happened two years later. We’ve all heard stories about what happened. To clarify, I’ve heard that you had a problem with your cousin because he was your bodyguard and you weren’t doing as many shows, so you tried to let him go, and he wasn’t having it. Is this what happened?

Rick: That’s pretty close, a little more than that. My cousin’s loyalty wasn’t genuine. A lot of us run into the same mistake, instead of hiring real security, licensed to carry and the whole sha-bang, we end up hiring the neighborhood thug. The neighborhood guy we respect because of their reputation for shoot ‘em up, killin’ ‘em, whatever the case. And I fell into that trap even though it was a relative. I fell into the same trap. These people make a living doing the wrong thing, like robbing people, all kinds of crazy stuff. So when this person felt that without him I’m nothing, then he tried to play that type of a bully ish roll on me. It got to the point that he was trying to set me up with his friends…to have me robbed because he knew I had all that jewelry, and if he’s not watching my back, then I’m just a sitting duck.

He did a couple of moves like that. Being young and naive, you know how they say, “take it to the streets…” I figured the only way I was going to fight this guy is with the same fire he’s fighting with. I know this guy was the type to pick up a gun and shoot to kill. If I don’t play it on his terms, or if I don’t play that route, then I’m just going to be a sucker or a rat or whatever you want to call it. So I fell into the trap of the vigilante death wish sh*t. I went and tried to take the law into my own hands, and I shot at him. I shot a couple of rounds and an innocent bystander got shot in the foot. So I had to go to jail for that.

I: Let’s talk about those days, it had to be rough, it had to have changed your life. How rough was it when you had to go in from being a superstar, to becoming just another person in jail?

Rick: Like when I wrote about it in “The Moment I Feared.” I had never been in jail before, I had just assumed how it was and I just wrote stories that I assumed how horrible it was etc. Then when I went in, it was a totally different experience. You got your thieves; it’s more condensed in there. It’s like you take all the bad people in the world off the streets and you put them in one place, condensed. So, now you have a lot of gangs, a lot of con games, a lot of extortionists, a lot of thievery, I was placed in that environment. It was definitely scary. I was only weighing about a hundred and change…So it was definitely a scary experience, people tried to extort me here and there. But I tried to hold my head up, and I never gave nobody nothing or anything like that. I’m not trying to say I was a tough guy or nothing. I know the rules to a certain degree, know what I mean. God must have been with me because I made it through in one piece. My thing was being small and only having one eye. I’m not trying to be blinded.

I: How were you treated, did people respect you because of your celebrity status or did they try you because of it?

Rick: It was like fifty fifty… I think I got more love than problems. Everybody thinks your rich, so they try to extort you… It’s like a shining penny in front a whole lot of dull ones.

I: How did you pass your time? Did you try to take your mind off of the rap game?

Rick: Yeah, plus I had a lot of hope that I would be released early if I stayed out of trouble. They have different programs like work release that you get after a certain amount of time if you don’t give any trouble. So I was trying to reach these goals. I had hopes of reaching these different goals, like two years pass, you might get this. And when two years pass and you don’t get it at least I only had two years to go. All together from 1990 to 1996, I’d say a little under six years.

I: I know that those last two albums during your jail stay were rushed, when were those made?

Rick: When I was first arrested. I was bailed out after eight months; I was only out of jail for about three months. In the three-month period we tried to make two albums, so they were really rushed. When I came out again in work release for about another three months, they brought me in again, not for a crime, but because of immigration reasons. When you are not from this country you can’t be on the streets until your whole immigration procedure is cleared up. In ‘91 I was bailed out in March and sentenced in June. And then I was put on work release in ‘93 and put back in after three months. I tried to start doing some more new records. If you combined that little bit of time and that’s when we made two albums out of.

I: So you weren’t happy with those?

Rick: No, I thought they were garbage. Rushed, you really couldn’t understand…it’s something I would not have released to the public like that.

I: Do you feel that your audience cut you some slack and didn’t hold those albums against you because they are so fond of you? Normally when a popular artist has an album that’s not all that, people might tend to dis them. I don’t think that happed with you. Did you get that feeling, or were you out of the loop?

Rick: I know they could have been harsher on me. I think rap fans as a whole gave me that leeway, let’s cut him a break cause he is going back and forth in the system. I’m really glad for that leeway.

I: Hip Hop has changed a lot since 1990, I think it’s changed for the worst, I don’t think it is what it was before ‘90. What’s your opinion?

Rick: I agree, I think it’s gotten too gangster, too rah rah ish. It’s not happy…. I mean I agree with freedom of speech, don’t get me wrong. But, when we as a whole are just promoting death, promoting the sale of drugs. It’s not even like it’s done in a way with any kind of character, it’s just done…just reckless. It just don’t make no sense. It makes our people look like a whole big giant ignorant race. Know what I mean.

I’m not really feeling it, I’m not with this Blood, Crip tip. I understand that’s something that they started back then, I’m not even going to get into that, that’s their thing, that’s something they got to work out. Whatever’s clever, I’m not going to knock it. I’m not even going to get into it. That’s all up in New York now and the East Coast, and too much promoting stealing from each other. Since when was it ok to steal from each other. I just can’t get it; we look ignorant.

I: Where do you think that came from?

Rick: It came from the greed. Greed of knowing that rap is so successful; a lot of companies let anything fly loose. The door’s wide open. What it needs is order. I say, we need order. We’re allowed freedom of speech; we’re allowed to say anything we want. Ok, now that we’ve said everything we feel, now we have to take a stand and say, “ok this is ridiculous.” It’s only hurting us. It’s only making us look stupid.

I: Why do you think that the masses have embraced that type of negative rap so much?

Rick: It’s almost like we are looking for someone to look up to… Being a lost race, coming from slavery, we don’t know what religion to follow, this, that and the third… These guys are saying this is how you should be: reckless, don’t give a f*ck, get all this money. But I’ve been with all these cats, and everybody that says all this stuff on their records; if they do one of those things, they’re in jail for like stupid time. I’ve been in there with people that did everything these guys are saying on records. One of them [crimes], not five, six and they are doing like fifteen, twenty-five, sixty, forty-five [years]. It’s silly, when Tupac and Biggie got killed; it slowed down for a split second. Everybody was on some real positive for a hot second, then it went right back.

I: In my opinion, I think the people out there would accept Hip Hop for what it should be, if that music was given a chance. I don’t think it’s given a chance by the major labels- who are the ones that have the money to control what people like by putting all the money in advertising and promotions behind it.

Rick: The labels really don’t care; the labels just want what sells. Whatever’s selling, that’s dandy. If it’s selling to say satan is god, then let’s start selling it. The labels are just business, strictly business that’s it. It’s not a moral character sitting on top of a hill… it’s just strictly money, politics.

I: What’s your forecast, do you think it’s going to go back to what it should be?

Rick: Even the Black race is tired of the bullsh*t. We’re tired of being looked at as an ignorant race. That’s exactly what we look like with all this silly rah rah going on… The Black public, the core communities as a whole is looking for a change. It’s served its time.

I: Let’s talk about your new album “The Art Of Story Telling.” What is Slick Rick doing, what is he giving the public?

Rick: I’m giving them substance. I think that my records give more substance. Each record has its own different direction it takes you in; it’s own visual picture, it’s own visual humor… In my first album I was able to make people visualize stuff, bring them in. Let’s say you’re going to work, because that’s what it’s all about, working and making your dough. You go to work in the morning and you want to hear something on the radio that’s entertaining. Or if you’re at work, your busting your work out, nobody wants to be at work, but at least the radio will make it more enjoyable. So you hear something on the radio that’s entertaining, humorous, makes you laugh, makes you smile, pulls you in like a story- like a movie, Titanic or whatever the case. You also have the kind of records that make you dance, move your feet, make you feel good about living. That’s what I try to bring to the table. I bring good spirits. I make people feel good. I got records for stories, sexually explicit, no disrespect… We’re adults, we’re men. We want to be entertained as grown adults. Let kids talk about rah rah sh*t. Let adults be entertained on their intelligent level.

I: I noticed that on this release you featured guests, something that you didn’t do on “The Great Adventures of Slick Rick.” Is this due to the change in times or was it your label?

Rick: It came about through the label. It’s a good thing; it’s good to hear different changes in voices etc,. It adds variety to the album. You don’t want to hear the same tone or voice throughout twenty records; it’s good to break the monotony. Plus, you get to hear different people’s culture, their style, their flow, their outlook on life, the way they do their thing. Different characters paint different pictures.

I: I place you in a category of only a handful of emcees that are making music that also appeals to a more refined listener.

Rick: The rah rah is all a younger mentality. If you think about it, where can throwing a rag on your head lead you to? When you hit the age of a parent you look stupid promoting robbery. How can you rob somebody when you like thirty, forty, fifty years old. It sounds stupid. It’s like superheroes, like superthief and super drug dealer, eventually that plays out and you have to entertain a higher crowd.

I: It’s funny cause I’ve been a fan of yours for quite a while and it’s positive to hear how intelligent and well spoken you are. I interview so many different artists who can’t even speak the English language. The ghetto is no excuse for that. That’s where we are from, yet we can communicate.

Rick: They’ve fallen into what they feel is the right thing. They feel everybody looks at them like a super hero. Everybody looks at them like they are the god that is to be followed, like idols, like icons. When you got hundreds of people coming up to you asking for autographs and they don’t give a f*ck if you spit in the corner, pee in the elevator, cutting people, robbing, whatever the case; admiring you for the wrong reasons. You start thinking you the icon and you have to live up to a certain image. That’s what killed Tupac. That’s something we could’ve learned from Tupac and Biggie. If you want to live that image, that’s where it’s going to take you.

I: I don’t feel that there are going to be too many rappers after 1990 that people will still be talking about in twenty years. Let’s talk about the money then and the money now. When you signed to Def Jam in ‘86, what was the money like compared to someone that is signing to a major label today.

Rick: The money then was like peanuts. Sh*t, if you get a couple thousand dollars worth of jewelry, you think you the freakin’ man. If you get a lease for a Benz, you think you’re the Don. Nowadays, these guys are getting million dollar deals, not leasing, buying the damn Bentley, ten Bentley’s.

I: How do you feel?

Rick: I feel good. I’m glad God blessed me to still be able to play the game. Maybe going in preserved me. A lot of my peers…

I: They’re not around.

Rick: Exactly, I don’t know what it was, but I’m glad I’m still here.

I: How does it feel to know that people still listen to your older music.

Rick: It feels good. I was always a good guy. A lot of people painted a bad picture of me. I always felt that I was a good person. I was always trying to make people happy, that was really my only goal. Trying to make people happy, make them smile, make them laugh, and enjoy themselves on the floor. I can make myself happy, then I should be able to do the same for somebody else. It lasted and it worked.

I: It’s good to see you’ve been through so much and you are still in one piece especially mind-wise. There are so many people out there whose brains aren’t where they need to be.

Rick: It depends on what you are following. If you don’t have good morals, you’re just going to get lost in the wind, especially when you get older cause it just looks stupid to be in your thirties and following immoral bullsh*t.

I: How did you loose your eye?

Rick: When I was one year old a window broke, and glass got in my eye.

I: I’ve heard so many rumors about that. Do you feel people have a lot of misconceptions about you?

Rick: Yeah, a lot of people thought I was conceited, ‘that’s good for you that you went to jail, you shouldn’t have been the way you was you arrogant f*ck.’ But in all reality, I was never a mean, nasty person. I might have made a bad judgment hear and there.

I: Would you consider Russell Simmons a friend or just a businessperson?

Rick: I’d guess you can say fifty fifty. I’m still feeling it out.

I: Did you get a lot of support while in jail, a lot of visitors?

Rick: Yeah, I got a lot of letters. Being so far up in the mountains, you’re not going to get too many visitors.

I: What facility were you in?

Rick: I was in a whole lot of different spots. One called Governor, one called Watertown, one called Woodburn.

I: All in upstate New York?

Rick: The closest one was two and a half hours away, the rest of them were like nine hours, seven hours.

I: Did you make friends that you still have today?

Rick: Yeah, I have a like a couple. I still have like two or three. The people that I knew were going to stay out here in the streets, they stayed out. Others going to college also trying to stay out of trouble. A lot of times brothers tried them, embarrassed them, but they overlooked it, because if they fed into it, they would’ve been doing more time. Two of them, of everybody I remembered are living at home, married and doing good.

I: Your persona was always jewelry and the flash. Is that still Slick Rick?

Rick: People want to see a Liberace, they want to see a star. You give ‘em a star and they happy, it puts a smile on their face. Jewelry now is platinum and ice. It’s not gold and diamonds anymore. I don’t run around the streets now, that’s silly, but when I do a show…I’m sure the public don’t want to see me walk out on stage with a paper thin chain on. They’d be like that’s not the Rick we love. They want the gaudy Rick, the flamboyant Rick, extravagant Rick, and that’s what I give ‘em.

Interview by Israel Vasquetelle