Insomniac: Do you acknowledge the hypocrisy of Hip Hop? So many people claim they love the old school, they love the forefathers, however, they’re not doing anything to keep those virtues that Hip Hop was born from alive.
Bam: I know for a fact that there has been secret and hidden agendas. Money has become the god for the Hip Hop people. They’d sell their souls for money. I notice the people who don’t make money their god they keep more of the culture alive because they know they can have some money, or they don’t have to have money. If they have money they can make things happen, even if they still don’t have money they still try to still make it happen. Those are the ones I look at as truly keeping the true culture of Hip Hop alive. You have those that are all about the Benjamin’s and they will sell their momma in a second.
Insomniac: When you were first making records it was a different landscape in Hip Hop. How do you feel about the ugly things that go on in Hip Hop now?
Bam: Things go in cycles. One minute we can be talking knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and Hip Hop. The next thing we can be talking about shake some booty and let’s have sex tonight. Next thing we can be talking about something from the past or the future or the next thing it could the gangster rapping. I take it all as a whole, knowing that it is always a negative or a positive, a yang or a yang, or a disagreeable or agreeable. That’s just human life.
Insomniac: Do you think that Hip Hop overseas has stayed more truthful to old Hip Hop rather than here that glorifies the negative street mentality?
Bam: I consider it all out there to be Hip Hop. They’re being true to keeping the breakbeats alive, but also giving you innovative, new types of sounds added to old rules and breaking bass line. Even if you hear the phone ring you add it to a beat. So overseas they experiment more rather than the people here in America who are scared to go out of a certain trend or they might be rejected. So the people overseas say, “the hell with it, I’m going to try this out and put it out there.” Then there are a lot of independent companies that say whether the majors do it or not we’re going to stick it out there. I give props to all people that are trying to put their talent out there and use it in the jungle, the electric funk the, Miami bass out there against all odds to see if it’s going to be a commercial hit or not. Then let the people decide.
Insomniac: How do you spend your time?
Bam: I spend my time doing a lot of things. Traveling, trying to wake up people, reading a lot of books trying to gain knowledge, trying to see what is going on in life and I’m deeply into the universe. I feel I’m a cosmic child- a star. I want to know about Mars, Venus, and Jupiter, and how they deal with our star system, and the nebula, and the cosmic energies, the vortexes, and what is going on with earth. You know on our world, within our world, and subterranean worlds and around our planet. We disrespect mother Earth, and mother Earth is getting tired so she’s spitting people out left and right. We have to respect mother earth or otherwise we can forget it.
Insomniac: Do you try to involve yourself more in the industry so you don’t have to be dependent on any other source?
Bam: No not really, because people consider me a danger and a threat, so I like being the Farrakhan of the Hip Hop community. I shake them up every now and then or organize things secretly without any press or anybody. Or, when any problem arises between any of my brothers or sisters in Hip Hop bringing them together to sit down without the press and take care of our own understanding so we can over stand and be victorious against our enemies.
Insomniac: How effective do you think that can be when it comes down to money?
Bam: You deal with Satanism versus God. You’re always going to be in that struggle. There’s people that want to control you with their money. They have their Lucifer thinking ideas. And the people with little money are always trying to uplift people or do something for people.
Insomniac: Do you think that Hip Hop can survive twenty years down the line? And can it be as enlightening as it was back when you were coming up?
Bam: With the rave scene happening…you need to get the ravers out of the drug culture. I see a lot of them experimenting with music. I see a lot of the scratch DJs playing a lot of scratched records. They’re bringing back a lot of the true school and old school groups back to playing at these raves. I see a lot of b-girls and b-boys and even the skateboarders. I see different styles of Hip Hop happening at these raves with the heavy metal sound, or the party sound, and go-go sound. I still think it’s whole.
Insomniac: Do you think about the parties and spirit of Hip Hop back in the day at Bronx River and 174th street? Do you think that’s going to happen again?
Bam: I always do, it’s history.
Insomniac: What do you see as the future for Hip Hop?
Bam: I believe my vision of Hip Hop is going to be universal. It’s going to be changed into some other type of form. But I strongly believe it’s going to deal with the other planets as we become a galactic universe, definitely global. Anyone can see that we’re getting ready for space. And it’s going to be crazy as hell. We hope that all the negativity and craziness goes away. I know that Hip Hop is going to go past the stars.
Insomniac: What makes you happy?
Bam: Knowing that there [are] people using their minds and thinking. That’s the main thing that makes me happy. We need more thinkers. More people to go out there and be doers of the world.
Insomniac: Do you consider yourself as optimistic or pessimistic person?
Bam: I’m a more spiritual person.
Insomniac: Some people complain about the media being at fault for stereotyping Hip Hop, but isn’t it the labels that are releasing and marketing the music?
Bam: It’s not all the media, but most of the media is all about negativity. It has a lot do with the companies, it has a lot to do with the artists themselves and where their mentality is at because they can’t make you do what you don’t want to do. It’s back to the Benjamins, the money. When you make money your god. You can always be sought and bought. When money isn’t your god, you can make demands.
Insomniac: How do you feel we can change our minds about people today who sell out?
Bam: It’s all about organization, unity, and movement. You’re not going to have the Young Lords or Black Panther party or the Nation of Islam. You only have one person, the king, with the ideology, with the other people that are speaking it, and getting the people to unify. When Jesus came, it was to a group of specific people. But when all the messengers spread it around, it then became a universal message. The same is with Hip Hop. They came through the father of Kool Herc, me, and Grand Master Flash. As we progressed it became a universal thing. We started a movement, but then money came and it became crazy. We all need money to live. Not when money becomes your god, forget it, because you can be bought. If you know you can have money and it’s not your god, then you can take it where you want to take it. Nobody can buy you out because you just won’t do it. You got to die; you have to stand up for what you believe. Elijah Muhammad was teaching for all of these years. Mr. Farrakhan telling Blacks and Latinos to take their resources, talents, and skills and put them together. But all these churches and Mosques that we have that could have been streaming our own music. All these people sell you out so they can get money. They sell their momma down the line. They jump on these companies and it’s not about the struggle any more. So that has a lot to do with our own people our self. You can have momma and papa store days or the bodegas supporting it and helping it get big. No, we’re not supporting our own people. So when you don’t support your own self, then you’ll see what happens. So when you don’t put in stores or organize your own community, there is other people looking to step in and you can’t do anything about it. You’re being sucked on the pressure of your own people.
I see a lot of negativity going on. We really need to sit down and get our people to become thinkers again, and organizers, to have agendas. Some people just live day to day. They don’t think of the future, and that is one thing we need to explain.
What happened to make us drop so low when we were the mothers and fathers of civilization? Who broke that up and told us to stop having unity within ourselves? We’re having a hard time trying to find out who we are. Are we Latinos, true Africans?
We have to go back in our ancient history and look at the Mayans and the Zulus to find out who we are. To take back our roots in history and put it back out there. That is why I hate when our brothers and sisters argue with the Latinos about their identity. That turns me the hell off. Or, using names in jail for the different types of people- that corner being the German people, that corner the Black people. It’s the cops who came and divided us up. We are the original people of New Orleans. We have to recognize who we are…
Insomniac: What causes people to be ashamed of who they are?
Bam: We have to stand up. When we have strong leaders like Mr. Farrakhan or Dr. Monica C. Young, we have to get behind them. I want to know who my Puerto Rican Farrakhan is. Who is standing up for our Latinos? We have to get other groups out there. There are strong voices out there. They have to link up and organize to stop the foolishness. Then we have to find where we should lead our people to. We have to look for the age of the provocateurs because everyone is selling us out. That’s why they want microchips in everybody. They want everybody’s DNA… It’s getting deep now. Technology is getting very advanced. We have to get our technological advances together. This is happening on this planet. They’re already thinking beyond space. They’re already into Mars and looking at Jupiter. It’s time to wake up.
-I. Vasquetelle
