#fifthpower | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sinceileftyoublog · 4 years ago

Text

theMIND Interview: The World Is Burning

Photo by Bryan Allen Lamb

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Protest music is not “timely” when what’s being protested is pervasive; we’ve seen as such from music as recent as Run The Jewels’ fourth album. On Juneteenth, Chicago-via-Philly artist Zarif Wilder, aka theMIND, released “A Spike Lee Jawn”, a lyrically blistering, musically funky list of righteous demands: “To Whom it May Concern, FUCK 12 and reparations have been due. This song is a 400 year old invoice. Best, theMIND,” Wilder wrote to introduce it. But the song wasn’t written last month. It was three years old. The difference is that Wilder’s now ready to tell the world what he thinks.

Wilder moved to Chicago in 2007 to study music business at Columbia College, eventually forming a production group (THEMpeople) and releasing a debut mixtape called Summer Camp in 2016, the same year he, up until this point, more publicly started to pop up on music you’ve most certainly heard. He had two writing credits on Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book and appeared on Noname’s Telefone and Pete Rock and Smoke DZA’s collaborative album Don’t Smoke Rock. Last year saw his most prominent feature to date, on Jamila Woods’ brilliant “SUN RA”. His name should gain more recognition later this year when he releases a new album called Don’t Let It Go to Your Head, but partially because he’s not afraid to present the truest version of himself. “A Spike Lee Jawn” is not on the record--the only track released from it so far is 2017′s “Ms. Communication”--but its combination of truth and grooves serves as a blueprint for the type of songs that will appear on it, according to Wilder. Even “Ms. Communication” will fit. Speaking to me over the phone last month, Wilder laughed, “It’s kind of crazy to think that the first single in my project was released in 2017. Once people hear the whole project, they won’t be like, ‘Why are we having this callback moment to 3 years ago?’” Part of the cohesion is because of this dichotomy of honesty: “‘Ms. Communication’ is a song about ghosting someone, and I was in the wrong,” Wilder said. “But who knew that a song about ghosting somebody could be a groove?”

During our conversation, Wilder spoke about the context and inspirations behind “A Spike Lee Jawn”, his relationship with the filmmaker’s movies, protest songs, and the limits of streamed performances. Read it below, edited for length and clarity.

SILY: What’s the history of “A Spike Lee Jawn”?

Zarif Wilder: I recorded it in 2017. It’s kind of funny because I was working with Cam O'bi on his project. I was doing a bunch of songwriting for him, and we did a bunch of songs in that time period. We started working on the production which came to be “A Spike Lee Jawn”. We made the majority of the song that day. I came back and added the guitar and bass to it a couple weeks later or so.

I felt like I was poking the bear by revisiting topics like reparations or police brutality or social inequalities in general. I wanted to add to the conversation, but I didn’t want to keep on reopening old wounds. 2020 comes around, and the song is still relevant. The issues are still happening. It felt like I silenced myself back then, that I wasn’t trying to bring any light to the darkness we have in this world.

SILY: Obviously, a song like this in context of the protests surrounding George Floyd, it seems like it could have been written last week or last month, which just speaks to the prevalence and constancy of these issues.

ZW: Continuously, yeah. It’s that truth I wanted to bring light to with this record. I wanted to make sure that at the end of the day, I’m adding to the conversation.

SILY: You’re from Philly--that’s the “Jawn” reference.

ZW: Exactly. Born and raised.

SILY: Is there anything else about the song you think is distinctly Philly?

ZW: I realized after I moved to Chicago that a lot of the experiences were the same [as in Philly]. It’s actually kind of weird to think about people having the same experience at the same time. When I’m talking about literally, “Cadillac with tinted eyes / See my 45 keeps me alive,” and all these different references to cars with tinted headlights. They weren’t just in my city. They were everywhere. All of these references I thought were regional were everywhere.

SILY: What’s your relationship with Spike Lee’s movies?

ZW: [laughs] I love all of Spike Lee’s earlier stuff. I think that somewhere along the line--as most people do--we kind of lose touch with the place that we’re from. The trouble comes with trying to speak for the places that you’re no longer in. Specifically when you make movies like Chi-Raq. Spike Lee is doing the movie from the perspective of someone growing up in Brooklyn. He can do that to a great tee, but to come to a different place and try to paint pictures without directly talking to individuals, it’s a little jaded. But I also believe he’s entitled to his opinion. It doesn’t mean that I have to like it as well. [laughs]

It changes. It varies. I liked Da 5 Bloods, I thought that was a good movie. I enjoyed that. But Spike Lee has his corny moments, as we all do.

SILY: Especially with Da 5 Bloods and BlacKkKlansman, he’s not subtle. He hits you over the head with what he’s trying to say, but at the same time, I feel like it’s almost good in today’s day and age. To a certain extent, what he’s talking about is not subtle at all. It deserves to be spoken loudly.

ZW: Guaranteed. Especially when based on historical instances, we have to be very careful with the creative licenses we take, but also be very open to someone’s artistic expression and how they want to tell the story. I fuck with Spike for that. I think Spike’s a legend and will always be. But that’s the one thing we should get to the point of with celebrity culture as a whole: being able to properly critique each other. We don’t want to get to a point where we can’t critique our legends.

SILY: Why did you decide to include him in the title of this song?

ZW: It’s still an homage to him. He’s one of the super great filmmakers. Spike Lee’s production company is called 40 Acres and a Mule. [Editor’s note: The chorus of the song starts with “I just want my 40 acres, fuck the mule.”] I fuck with his rise and his look, the way he kind of looks at creating a path for himself, especially in a cis white male-dominated industry like film-making. He was constantly pushing through to tell stories of people who look like him.

SILY: The song’s very pointed, but the instrumentation is funky. You can definitely dance to it. Was it important to you to make a “protest” song you can also dance to?

ZW: Guaranteed. Recently, there’s Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright”. When that song first dropped, someone said to me, “This is it. This is gonna be the song for the movement.” I was like, “Man, are you serious?” And they were like, “I’m telling you, this is the one.” The next week afterwards, it was everywhere, at every protest, at every march, people were chanting, [sings], “We gon’ be alright!” But it was still a banger. I don’t think protest songs should be sung. They should be chanted. They should be something that pushes us to keep moving, not this super sad thing you want to sit down and say, “Man, the world’s fucked up.” You want something that makes you want to fight.

SILY: Have you been to any of the recent protests?

ZW: Yeah, I went to a bunch, and I went to a bunch of food drives after the CPS shutdown the food program.

SILY: Did you notice any other protest songs that were prevalent in your experience protesting?

ZW: It was mainly the chants we were familiar with, not the song chants at all. Chants of solidarity, like, “It is our duty to fight for our freedom, it is our duty to win.” I wouldn’t go to a protest and start to sing my own song. [laughs]

"A Spike Lee Jawn" (ft. Krystal Metcalfe); Single Artwork by fifthpower

SILY: Can you tell me a little bit about the single artwork?

ZW: It’s done by my friend fifthpower, and it’s based off the Quasimoto [Further Instrumentals] cover, in which Quasi is sitting inside of a house and it’s burning outside, but it’s in L.A. It also reminded me of the “This Is Fine” meme with the dog sitting there with the hat. When we kind of started this year off, with the end of last year, I was in L.A. during the fires. There was ash coming down. Me and my friend were having brunch, and literally, ash was falling, and I was like, “What is this? Is this snow? What’s happening?” And they were like, “That’s the ash from the hills burning.” And I was like, “Y’all are just okay out here eating brunch?!?” It kind of brought this revelation to me that the world is burning around us, and we’re kind of sitting around and saying, “This is fine.” Some people are yelling and screaming, but the majority is like, “This is cool.” I wanted to point to that, and the best way I could do that was have my two cats staring out the window watching it burn.

SILY: Your debut tape came out in 2016. How have you grown as an artist in the past 4 years?

ZW: I’m not afraid of my own reflection anymore. I don’t know if that makes any sense. Summer Camp was super metaphorical. I was afraid to dive in to topics I really wanted to talk about because of painful memories. As I grew, those topics, I couldn’t escape them anymore. I couldn’t think of the metaphors anymore. If the world is burning, I had to say, “The world is burning,” rather than, “I smell smoke.” There are so many different ways to dig deeper into my art. I’m comfortable being naked in front of the audience that listens to my music more so than I ever was before. The self-love I was yearning for on Summer Camp came to fruition. I’m still working on it, but a lot of the parts that made me uncomfortable who I was, telling those experiences, hoping that somebody else can find themselves in their journey as well.

SILY: Tell me about the video for “A Spike Lee Jawn”.

ZW: We dropped it on Juneteenth as is. It went under the radar purposefully. It went up at 11:00 AM, and the way we kind of promoted it was kind of like a teaser for the song and not a full-blown video.

SILY: What else is next for you? Have you planned somewhat of a roll-out for the upcoming record?

ZW: Yeah, I have. I’m super excited about it, specifically with this project. A lot of these fears I had on the first project were addressed on this one more directly, talking about it.

SILY: Have you planned any live streams?

ZW: The crazy part about this is I went on tour--I’ve been touring my new project for the past couple years, honestly. I went on tour with Ibeyi and a European run with Noname. Throughout that entire time, I was trying out songs I was playing. Of course, I was playing a lot from Summer Camp and a lot of my features, but I was pushing a bunch of these other songs. The response was good from the crowd. I want to do something, but a streaming concert just doesn’t look cool to me right now. I don’t know how to do it right. [laughs] One of my favorite things about performing is feeling people’s energy, and doing that through a stream is really tough. I was talking to my friend Jamila Woods, and she was saying that her stream was a bunch of other artists you could see on a Zoom call, and they were hyping each other up. So that was a cool idea, playing a festival and you could see them but not the audience.

SILY: The time lag is a thing, too. I’ve seen a couple performances where some bands were playing live in different rooms, but it was pretty heavily edited.

ZW: Exactly.

SILY: If people are hyping each other up, though, at least it has some of the energy aspect you’re talking about.

ZW: Exactly. It’s hard to replicate that. I know people who can’t perform unless they hear the crowd.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been reading, watching, or listening to lately that’s inspired you, caught your attention, or comforted you?

ZW: I’ve been trying to stay off of everything, but I’ve been watching documentaries. At the beginning of the video for “A Spike Lee Jawn”, there’s a clip of farmers from the Ivory Coast who have never tasted chocolate. They never even knew that the bean they farmed turned into it. So there’s a small clip of them eating chocolate for the first time. They’re older guys. It completely blows your mind. But the analogy between that and where America is, as far as all of the people who helped build this country not being able to participate in the beautiful aspects the American Dream supposedly offers.

I’ve been having conversations with individuals as much as I possibly can, to gain as much perspective from people as I can.

youtube

0 notes