Even Barbara Blue sounds a little surprised at the talent she gathered together for her latest album, Fish in Dirty H20. While it’s true that the blues belter, a regular performer at Silky O’Sullivan’s on Beale Street, has worked with some serious contenders in the past (including three albums with Taj Mahal’s Phantom Blues Band in the 1990s), she couldn’t have predicted that her latest effort would feature one of the greatest drummers in the history of jazz, funk, and soul: Bernard “Pretty” Purdie.
Purdie’s work, of course, became legendary soon after he first made his mark drumming for Mickey and Sylvia in the New York scene of the early 1960s. It wasn’t long before he was contributing to albums by James Brown, David “Fathead” Newman, Herbie Mann, B.B. King, Dizzy Gillespie, Robert Palmer’s Insect Trust, and many others. Pop fans might be most familiar with his solid grooves on hits like “O-o-h Child” or Aretha Franklin’s “Rock Steady” and “Day Dreaming,” but he also chalked up a number of albums as a bandleader in his own right, now often sampled in hip-hop productions.
Ebet Roberts
Bernard Purdie and Barbara Blue
Cut to 2017, when both Purdie and Blue were performing at the Porretta Soul Festival in Italy. “Porretta is known for these little doughnuts they make over there,” explains Blue. “They’re halfway between a cookie and a doughnut. I’d take ’em to everybody, just to give ’em out. So when I saw Celia, Bernard’s wife, I said ‘Here, I found these, they’re delicious.’ She looked at me with tears in her eyes. She’s Italian to the bone, from New York. She’s got tears in her eyes and says, ‘My nonni used to make these.’ And we’ve been like family ever since.”
She felt an immediate bond with Bernard as well, she adds, because “we have the same musical philosophy on a lot of things.” Recruiting him to cut her latest album was a simple matter. It helped that she had secured time at a studio on Pickwick Lake operated by multi-platinum producer Jim Gaines, best known for his hits with Huey Lewis and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Gaines’ approach to production suited Blue just fine. As he recently told Tape Op magazine, “I try to capture a little bit of live-ness to the music … . I do it today with a lot of bands that work with me. I look at it as if you’re going to see a live performance. That’s the sound I want to hear, except with us in control.”
And that’s precisely what you get with Fish in Dirty H20. To hear Blue tell it, working with Purdie made live-tracking easy. “We drive each other, because we drive for perfection. We had nine one-take songs on this 13-track record. With Bernard, you get it the first time. But I had other great people in the studio. I had [former Stax and Enterprise keyboardist] Lester Snell, I had Dave Smith on bass, and most of the time I had Will McFarlane on guitar. Bernard is cerebral. We’d discuss it, and then we’d hit it. And we had a ball at it.”
Overdubs of horns, background vocals, and other textures were added later. But one overdub in particular took the album in a direction unheard of on almost any blues record to date: a rap by one Al Kapone. “Al texted me and said, ‘C’mon I wanna be on your record’,” says Blue. “And I said, ‘Funny you should say that … ‘ So he sent me back a scratch track. I almost fell to the floor. So Jim’s sitting at the computer, we’re listening to it, and he says, ‘Barbara, I love it. But I’m gonna tell ya, my professional friends are gonna think I lost my fucking mind!’ The cool thing was, Jim had never seen anybody rap like this before. And Al knew exactly where he wanted to be.”
The final product is a testament to Blue’s hard-won life experience, and the gritty power of the blues to convey it. “I’ve been singing in bars since I was 13 years old. I’ve watched people come in who are trying to mend their marriage. I’ve watched people who are having affairs. I’ve watched people who are sending their kid overseas in a Navy uniform. And I can tell you: People don’t always go there because they’re happy.”
Barring a natural disaster, music promoter Peppa Williams will pull off the impossible this weekend. “I plan on making history; this has never been done before,” says Williams of his Memphis Legends concert. Starring rap pioneers Tommy Wright III, Kingpin Skinny Pimp, Gangsta Blac, Gangsta Boo, Playa Fly, La Chat, Al Kapone, DJ Squeeky, Gangsta Pat, DJ Zirk, and more, the event is slated for East Memphis’ Blue Moon Event Center Sunday night, September 2nd.
It’s the first time in decades — if ever — that such a roster has appeared on one stage. For true Memphis rap fans, the line-up is equivalent to Bonnaroo or Woodstock, and the timing couldn’t be better. A$AP Rocky recently sampled Wright’s 1992 song “Shoot to Kill” on the popular “OG Beeper.” Drake is storming the airwaves with homages to local rappers, riffing on Project Pat’s “Out There” for his recent hit “Look Alive,” and sampling DJ Squeeky’s 1995 track “My Head Is Spinning” on the brand-new “Nonstop.” The common denominator for Drake and A$AP Rocky’s Memphic-centric hits is 22-year old Raleigh MC BlocBoy JB, who now joins Yo Gotti, Moneybagg Yo, and Young Dolph as the latest local gangsta rapper to make the big time.
“People are reconnecting to the Memphis rap sound, but it’s never really left,” says veteran MC Al Kapone. “The way producers here made beats — particularly the rhythm of the drums, the snare rolls and the hi-hats—created an authentic Memphis sound in the 1990s. And right now, so many people are coming around to that sound. It’s the perfect time for us to unite and say that we’re all a part of creating it.”
Kingpin Skinny Pimp describes that sound as “underground and hard as hell. It’s a certain style we had, and everybody else is getting up on it now.” Meanwhile, the fast-spitting Tommy Wright III has enjoyed newfound popularity among punk rockers and skateboarders. “Not that audiences in the ’90s didn’t like to get wild, but today’s crowds can get wild without any fights,” Wright says. My audience nowadays is turnt up.”
That international fame came a few decades too late for most of these artists isn’t lost on originators like DJ Zirk, who describes the Memphis rap scene of the 1990s as “an era of just trying: What can we invent that’s different from what’s happening up north and out west? We were working on limited equipment, doing what we had to do, because we didn’t have the technology. With songs like ‘Lock’m N Da Trunk’ and Skinny’s ‘Lookin’ For Da Chewin,’ we were trying to see which one of us could be the wildest and have the most aggressive beats.”
Back then, there was nothing more aggressive than the “Triggerman” sample, a break that DJ Spanish Fly lifted off a little-known 12-inch called “Drag Rap” recorded by a New York duo known as the Showboys. They, too, will be making a rare Southern appearance at the Memphis Legends show. Thanks to Spanish Fly and DJ Squeeky, “Triggerman” showed up in dozens of Memphis underground hits. It also spawned the dance trend known as gangsta walking, which evolved into today’s jooking.
“‘Triggerman’ was so hot that we thought [the Showboys] lived in Memphis.” Wright says. “It was such a hype anthem, the one that brought the house down. The DJs around Memphis would mix it in, talk over it, create their own versions like ‘Shoot Triggerman,’ ‘Triggerman’s Back,’ ‘Triggerman’s Dead.’ It is a classic.”
Memphis Legends, with Tommy Wright III, Skinny Pimp, Gangsta Blac, Gangsta Boo, Playa Fly, La Chat, Al Kapone, DJ Squeaky, DJ Zirk, Gangsta Pat, SMK, Criminal Manne, the Showboys and more, perform at Blue Moon Event Center, 2560 Mount Moriah, on Sunday, September 2nd. $25.
July 4th is giving you a mid-week weekend this year, and these fine Memphis musicians would like to help you make the most of it.
At Railgarten tonight, Al Kapone headlines the Chill and Grill revue. Before he penned the Official Memphis Anthem “Whoop That Trick,” Al Kapone was the voice of the Memphis crunk underground. Here’s the title track from his 1994 debut, “Sinsta Funk”.
Chill and Grill For A Musical Fourth
Helping Kapeezy fire up your patriotism to revolutionary levels will be Chinese Connection Dub Embassy and DJ Witnesse. Here’s The Embassy performing the Steel Pulse classic “Tyrant” at the FedExForum.
Chill and Grill For A Musical Fourth (2)
Over at Murphy’s, Memphis’ favorite backing band returns to the their three piece roots. The Shieks lay down some hard, energetic garage psych. You’ll want to rev up your coupe and go cat go. Here they are cutting up in front of Shangri La Records, shot by Brian Wells.
Chill and Grill For A Musical Fourth (3)
For the Fourth, you’re asking yourself, for what should I turn down? Lil Jon is at the Horseshoe Casino and Hotel in Tunica to answer, nothing. You should turn down for nothing. God has blessed the America that produced Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz.
Hard liquor and hip-hop music go together like, well, gin and juice. The Beastie Boys’ “Brass Monkey” was named for their circa-1980s cocktail of choice, Olde English 800 malt liquor and orange juice. In 2001, when Busta Rhymes’ “Pass the Courvoisier” climbed the charts, sales of the cognac brand increased by 30 percent. Nine years later, Sean Combs boosted Ciroc’s sales by an astonishing 70 percent when he became a brand ambassador for the premium vodka.
Researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health and the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at John Hopkins examined the 2009-2011 Billboard charts and searched lyrics of top-sellers to determine just how frequently musicians talk about booze. As Time magazine reported in a 2013 follow-up on the Johns Hopkins study, nearly 38 percent of hip-hop songs reference alcohol — more than country and pop hits from the same years combined.
Now, Memphian Al Bailey — aka rapper Al Kapone, known for lyrics like “If I had some Crist’ or some Mo’ then I’d be poppin’ it” — is leveraging his success by crossing over to the liquor game.
Since 2010, Bailey has worked with Illinois-based liquor purveyor Bill Brooks to promote novelty spirits. Recently, the duo collaborated on a pair of brand-new brands, Hustle Vodka and Memphis Heat Cinnamon Whiskey, now available in stores around town and at clubs such as the Hard Rock Café, PurpleHaze Nightclub, and Club 152.
Last weekend, Bailey did a meet-and-greet at Gordin’s Liquor & Wine on Prescott Avenue. The team at West Tennessee Crown Distributing, says Bailey, is setting up more regional promotional dates for September and the fall.
Al Kapone
What was your first drink?
My first drink was the hardest drink, the rotgut stuff — Mad Dog 20/20. I got drunk as hell, and then I threw up everywhere. I wanted to feel what it feels like to get drunk, so I drank a lot. [Laughs] Mad Dog 20/20 has made an everlasting impression on my life.
When do you usually drink?
First, I’m a light social drinker. I might have a drink when I just want to relax at home. And then there are the times I just want to have fun, kick it, and get turnt up. For that, I usually go to the Hard Rock or DKDC.
“Get crunk, get buck?”
You already know.
Any rules about drinking when you’re going onstage?
I drink very moderately before a performance, just enough to knock the edge off. Then I take a little cup on stage with me and take a sip here and there.
Hustle Vodka — how do you like to drink it?
With cranberry juice. It’s a corn-based vodka, and it’s actually pretty smooth. A lot of premium brands give me a headache, but I don’t feel hungover from this the next day, which is a super-plus. Hustle Vodka is for that drink you make yourself after a hard day. You’ve got to hustle to eat and survive in this world, and this brand is meant to be the alcohol that you take to drink and relax.
And the Memphis Heat?
At first, I wasn’t sure about getting behind cinnamon whiskey. I wanted to work with Bill, but I have to like the product, too. My reputation is more important than making money. But the more I tried Memphis Heat, the more I loved it. It’s like Fireball, but I think it tastes better. I drink it on the rocks, or I mix it with Sassy Girl, a cream liqueur, to create a cocktail called the Bonnie & Clyde.
Any other go-to drinks?
If I’m not drinking a brand I’m associated with, Jack and ginger.
What can the public expect when they run into you at the liquor store?
Well, we can’t give away any free alcohol. I’ll be handing out CDs and signing autographs, making it a fun event. You know how I love to represent Memphis!
Bill Brooks has been in the liquor business out of St. Charles, Illinois, near Chicago, for nearly 40 years. Most of that time, he says, has been dealing in the Al Capone of the Roaring Twenties, specifically Tommy Guns vodka. And this is how he got hooked up with local rapper Al Kapone about five years ago. He enlisted Kapone to help promote Tommy Guns, which comes in a tommy gun-shaped bottle.
Their latest collaboration is Hustle Vodka and Memphis Heat Cinnamon Whiskey, produced by Dehner Distillery.
Actually, there are three products being launched: the vodka, the whiskey, and the rum-based Sassy Girl C.R.E.A.M.
Brooks tells me that C.R.E.A.M. is known to mean “Cash Rules Everything Around Me.” On the label of Sassy Girl C.R.E.A.M. is a white woman on one side, a black woman on the other. Brooks reasons that liquor stores can turn the bottle any way it suits them. “It’s the only product that goes after the urban woman demographic,” he says. “And, if not, fine, it’s cream.”
It’s with the same savvy that Brooks has approached the Kapone-related brands. (Brooks says that Kapone told him to find a woman to promote Sassy Girl.)
“He was instrumental on the design,” says Brooks of Kapone. The Hustle Vodka label has diamonds spelling out “hustle” against a gold nugget background. An earlier incarnation of the label was more ornate, with Kapone suggesting they make it simpler. Some versions has the rapper on the label.
The label for Memphis Heat show a skyline of the city, including the “M” bridge, and flames. Brooks says that denotes the heat in Memphis and the “heat” in Memphis — all the cool things like Kapone’s favs the Memphis Grizzlies.
“Al is our promoter,” says Brooks. “We’re using Memphis as a hub. From there, we go to Atlanta, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and Florida.”
Hustle Vodka and Memphis Heat should be in the stores sometime around mid-July.
Al Kapone will host a Christmas jam this Wednesday night (December 23rd) at the Hi-Tone. Performers include Al Kapone, Lil Wyte, Frayser Boy, Lil Riah, Key Money, Ashton Riker, Young AJ Do It, Tune C, Wala Wyse, Tre$, Tori Who Dat, and Hillboy. That’s a pretty stacked lineup. The show kicks off at 9 p.m. and admission is $12 at the door, or bring two canned good items and get in for $10. Check out the classic Frayser Boy track from the Hypnotize Minds album Me Being Me below.
Happy Music Video Monday. Today, Al Kapone takes us to school.
In 2008, Memphis rap originator Al Kapone moved beyond the two-turntables-and-a-microphone, soundsystem formula started using a band for his live shows. His video for “The Music” came out of this fertile creative period for the Mid-South hip hop icon.
Music Video Monday: Al Kapone
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
We’ve reached the final week of our Thowback August, where we look at movies that came out in 2005. From a Memphis perspective, the biggest film of that year was Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow. It was the culmination of an indie film scene that had been brewing in Memphis since the mid-90s, and it’s still the quintessential indie success story: A filmmaker from nowhere with little but raw talent and determination makes a movie about his town and gets the Hollywood machine to take notice by not only winning at Sundance but also getting his star an Academy Award nomination and his soundtrack an Oscar for Best Song.
In the decade since then, Brewer has been working steadily in Hollywood. He has directed two more films, 2007’s Black Snake Moan and 2011’s Footloose, but he has also been much in demand as a writer and producer. Next year, a new version of Tarzan will be released that began life with a script he wrote and was originally attached to direct. He is currently working for Paramount Pictures developing ideas for television series, including an adaptation of the studio’s 1980 film Urban Cowboy which has been fast tracked by Fox to premiere next year. He also just finished directing an episode of Empire, the most popular show on television, which not coincidentally stars Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, the two leads from Hustle & Flow.
Brewer has been a tireless and generous mentor to many in the Memphis film community. He provided extremely helpful feedback and advice during the production of my documentary Antenna, and since then, I have had the privilege of working with him on several projects as a writer and researcher. He is currently in Los Angeles working on Urban Cowboy, so last Sunday, I gave him a call to talk about Hustle & Flow from the perspective of a decade later. Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and relevance, but not for its epic length.
Al Kapone, Craig Brewer, and Terrence Howard on the set of Hustle & Flow
Does it feel like ten years?
There’s times when it feels like it’s really far away, that it happened a lifetime ago. Then there’s some times when it feels like just yesterday. You know when I was directing Empire, and on set with Terrance and Taraji, I felt like I was right back in the saddle doing Hustle & Flow. There’s a rhythm between me and Terrance that I had forgotten about. He’s such an intuitive actor. It’s not so much that you want to tell him what to do, as you want to provide him with options and see what kind of magic there is. I always felt that particular type of directing—I don’t even know if you want to call it directing, it’s more like wrangling—was very much a Jim Dickinson way of doing things. It’s more about getting a bunch of artists in a room together and watching the magic happen instead of specifically trying to hit something that was pre-determined. That’s what I feel when I direct someone like Terrance.
Everybody’s talking about how Empire was the sequel to Hustle & Flow, but maybe we should just do another Hustle & Flow. DJay didn’t become a millionaire, I can tell you that.
But I think for me, what the ten years means to me is, you’re constantly chasing that first high. That’s why I’m getting into doing television. It’s new, you’re racing constantly, struggling to stay ahead, and you’re constantly riddled with self-doubt and terror.
So that doesn’t go away?
No, it doesn’t.
I remember a few years back Hustle & Flow was playing at The Orpheum. I went to see it, because I hadn’t seen it in a long time. I remember sitting in the audience and allowing myself to enjoy the fact that I know Hustle & Flow has kind of made it. It didn’t just become a movie, or win an Academy Award, a lot of people have seen Hustle & Flow around the world, and they dig it. You can quote it, and people know what you’re talking about. There are still references to Hustle & Flow constantly.
I still see “Hard Out Here For A Pimp” references all the time.
Or “Hard Out Here For A _________”
You’ve been meme-ified. That’s the highest compliment an artist can be paid in 2015.
And everything that’s happened with the Grizzlies, with the audience chanting “Whoop That Trick”… I was sitting there as the movie was beginning, and I was watching it differently than I had ever watched it before. I wasn’t wondering, ‘Will this moment land?’ I’ve been in audiences where they didn’t clap after “Whoop That Trick”, and I’ve been in audiences where they do. But I didn’t do any of that. I was sitting there thinking, “OK, you know movies. Try to figure out why people like this film.” I think I kind of came up with two things, primarily. I don’t think there’s anything more addictive than watching people create something. Whether or not you’re into that particular thing, be it music or pulling off a plan or building something, you’re seeing their excitement and struggles. It’s very accessible. A lot of people on this planet, and some time in their lives, say “I think I want to try to pull of this particular thing. Then you struggle, and you doubt, and you have mini-successes, and you have collaborators who become friends. And you might get a victory, or you might not. But there’s something about watching the effort of art, the effort of creation, that is pleasing. And I think in Hustle & Flow, watching them make “Whoop That Trick” and “Hard Out Here For A Pimp”, and performing “It Ain’t Over For Me”, and watching them build their studio is exciting.
The ‘Whoop That Trick’ scene.
The second thing that I figured out about the movie—and this may sound obvious, but I wasn’t aware of this was happening while I was writing it—is this up-and-down nature of the character of DJay. You start off, and he’s saying this monolog that sounds kind of profound, and you kind of like him, then you realize he’s a pimp and he’s talking some naive prostitute into climbing into a car with a guy. You see him get together with Anthony Anderson and they start building a recording studio and there’s all this excitement, and they make a song, and you think, ‘Here we go!”. Then he comes home and throws Lexus and her baby out of the house. And you think, ‘Why’d he do that? I don’t know if I like him any more.” Then you see them try to make “Hard Out Here For A Pimp”, and they’re trying to get a sound our of Shug, and maybe he’s looking at her differently, with some respect, and love, and there’s a victory. But then they need a microphone, and he needs Nola to go in and service a guy at a pawn shop, and you’re like “Ugh. I hate him again.” It’s this up and down of “I like him, he’s disappointing me. I like him, now I hate him. I like him, now he’s doing something stupid.” Then you get to that point where he pimps Skinny Black into taking his demo, and you’re like, “Finally!” And to hear the groans in the audience as they’re pulling the tape out of the toilet is so pleasing! “I can’t believe I’m here again! I was so happy! Our guy did it! And now he’s about to mess up again and beat the hell out of this guy.”
It’s been extremely influential, much more than people realize. Have you seen Straight Outta Compton yet?
No, I’m going tonight.
Well, they copped one of your shots.
What did they get?
Skateland.
Really.
Yep. There’s a big track through the Skateland parking lot. You’ll recognize it immediately. But it’s not just that. There’s Empire. At some point, when they were getting the cast together, it had to come up in a meeting. “These are the Hustle & Flow people.”
One thing I’m still disappointed about—We were an MTV film. At the MTV movie awards, I always wonder why we didn’t get Best Kiss. I still think Terrance and Taraji’s kiss in Hustle & Flow is one of the best kisses ever. It’s soulful. They’re just devouring each other. That’s how people kiss, not this ‘movie kiss’ shit where they do a little light peck. You see tongues. Those mouths open up.
Shug and DJay’s kiss.
Have you had moments where you see it coming back at you from the culture in an unexpected direction?
I always like it when I see people make a play on the title. To my knowledge, I don’t think “hustle and flow” existed before I made it. I don’t know that anyone had ever put those two words together. Interestingly, it had a different title when I wrote it. It was originally called “Hook, Hustle, and Flow”. Then after a draft or two, I realized I was calling it Hustle & Flow, so I dropped the “hook.”
So Aldo’s pizza will do a poster with “hustle and dough”, the Memphis Roller Derby will have an event called “Hustle and Roll”. They all do the same poster design. I met Elijah Wood for coffee one day in Venice, and I walked right by a sign, “Hustle and Flow Fitness”. So I walk in there, and they’re like “Can we help you?” And said “No, I’m just the guy who made Hustle & Flow.” And they were like “Are you going to sue us?” And I was like, “No.” So they said “Here’s a free towel!” So I’ve got a towel with Hustle And Flow printed on it.
I was watching Run’s House, when Reverend Run had a reality show. And there was this one moment where he was talking to his son, and he said “You’ve got to get control over this. Remember when we were watching Hustle & Flow and he put his hands on the wheel and said ‘We in charge!’? Let me hear you say it.” I’ve heard that a couple of times.
Laura and I do it all the time.
It’s a sweet story, but I hope my mother will forgive me for telling it. It’s nothing bad against her. I had just proposed to Jodi to marry me. We were living together in my parent’s house in Northern California at the time. I had written a directed a play that was premiering, and Jodi didn’t show up. I wondered where she was. I saw my parents after the show, and they told me she was in a car accident that night. “She’s fine, a little shaken up, but we all decided it would be best to tell you after the premiere.”
So I go home and see Jodi, and she’s emotional. Her car is totaled. It was a head-on collision with this old guy who hit her. So I said, “Maybe you should have just told me.”
And she started to cry. “I didn’t know what to do. It was a big night for you. Your parents were saying we should wait to tell you until after the show. I just didn’t know what to do.”
So I took her hand, and said “Look, you’re gonna be my wife. You’re going to be making decisions for me when I’m not around, or if I can’t make the decisions. So if you’re uncomfortable with something, you need to speak up. You’re in charge.”
And she said, “I know, but…”
And I was like, “I need to hear you say it. Say I’m in charge.” And she said it. So it was like a thing between us. We’re going to be making decisions in our life. We’re in charge of each other.
‘We in charge.’
Are you the “Hustle & Flow Guy” in Hollywood?
Yes. And you know, it’s funny, because I feel like I’m part of a special club of directors. I don’t mind addressing this, because it’s a double-edged sword. John Singleton’s known for directing Boys In The Hood. There’s a lot of directors out there who, no matter what you do now, you’re still known for that first movie where everyone went “Wow!”
I was talking to someone the other day about Black Snake Moan. It’s the most confusing movie in my career. When it came out, nobody went to go see it. The reviews were polarizing. You either loved it or you hated it. I didn’t know what people were thinking. But now I’m older, and I realize that’s actually a good thing. You don’t want some humdrum movie.
But what’s confusing about it for me right now, is that a lot of people know it and love it. They don’t know how hard it was for me to deal with it after Hustle & Flow. That second movie, that sophomore effort, is something that is a formidable foe. It happens with every director who has a breakout success. That second movie, or that second season of a TV show, is being judged against magic that was lightning in a bottle. But I have to say, I’m still immensely proud of that movie.
Did I ever tell you the Piggly Wiggly story?
Tell it again.
It’s funny, because I just filmed the Marc Gasol video on this very spot. It’s Cash Saver now, but it used to be Piggly Wiggly. That’s where you when to go pay your late phone bill.
I think you can still do that there.
You had to wait in line right next to the doors. I was working at Barnes and Noble, and I got a phone call from a producer who was trying to get Hustle & Flow going. He said that Fox Searchlight really wanted to meet with me. They wanted to fly me out. I felt so excited. It was my favorite studio! I went running out onto the Barnes and Noble sales floor and cheered. “I’m going to Hollywood!” I worked in receiving, with the hardbacks and the calendars. I was back there all day with a boxcutter in a windowless, cement box unloading various tomes. I was so excited. Here I go! I wrote something, the studio responded to it, they said it was the most authentic thing they had ever read. I’m going to go meet with them about making it. Then three days later the meeting was cancelled. I was devastated. The producer told me they found out I was white, and they couldn’t bend their mind around that particular detail.
I’m older now, and I can kind of understand it better. Movies that are done at a certain budget, you need a hook to sell it on. You won’t have a movie star, so you sell the director. They couldn’t see why I would write a movie like this. And it was just because they found out I was white. They didn’t know me at all.
I was so depressed. The producer told me there was an African-American director out of USC that the studio was interested in, so maybe I should sell Hustle & Flow and they would have this director from USC direct it. So I agreed to do it.
Then, I was late on my phone bill, and I was standing in line at Piggly Wiggly. Below a certain economic line in Piggly Wiggly, we’re all equal. Black, Mexican, white, we’re all in line at Piggly Wiggly trying to pay our late bills. And there was this guy who looked at this long line, and looked at me, and said, “Man, this is some bullshit.” And there was something about that that just clicked with me, and I went off on this mental rant. Who are these people to tell me I can’t tell a story about my own city? I decided right then and there that I wasn’t going to sell the script. That was giving up more money than I had ever known at that time, and an additional two years of misery trying to get the movie made. I really felt whenever I was challenged on that particular thing—and I still get challenged on it, and I don’t think people are wrong to challenge me on it. I’ve been called a culture bandit, and racist, and misogynist. The one thing I do feel I was right about, and that other filmmakers like Spike Lee came to my defense about, is that I really wanted to be a regional filmmaker. I wanted to make a movie about Memphis, like I had done with The Poor And Hungry. And that’s what I held to. I live in Memphis, Tennessee, and we’re a very complicated city. Sometimes the things that people wish could be changed in our city, the bad things, actually produce really good art. That’s a story that’s been going on for decades.
Since W.C. Handy got banned by Boss Crump.
You’re getting all my Hustle & Flow stories. I’ll tell you the best compliment I ever got. I was at a screening in New York City with Chris Rock. He came out, and he was just so great to me. I’m a huge fan of his.
He said, “Man, when DJay goes into the strip club, and he’s arguing with Lexus, and she says ‘Man, I haven’t even made payout yet!’ I knew you knew your shit. I have heard so many strippers say ‘I have not made payout yet’. You just made a ghetto classic. Ten years from now, you will not be able to grow up in the projects without seeing Penitentiary, Shaft, and Hustle & Flow.”
Taraji P. Henson and DJ Qualls.
My 1995 movie was Friday, and I see a lot of influence from Friday to Hustle. I had never really thought about it in context of the 90s indie film revolution. But it’s absolutely Clerks.
Oh yeah. Seeing them go “Daaaaam!” That’s right out of Clerks. When I saw Top Five, that movie Chris Rock did just last year, I felt like I was watching 90s indie cinema. It had been a long time since I saw that. We’re gonna get all our friends together and make something fun, something out of the box. The lo-fi elements are some of the things you really dig about it.
Ice Cube was able to get more money together, because he’s been successful in music at that point. But what he was doing was not significantly different than what we were doing five years later. So here we are, fifteen years into the digital revolution, and you came out of that scene. What do you think about now, looking back? What do you think about the whole “indie film project”?
I am sad, because the further I get away from it, the more I realize that it was a unique time in culture. I don’t see the same energy or interest in the younger generation, meaning 15 year olds. They’re not running out to see Slacker because they read about it in a magazine. Or Down By Law, or Woman Under The Influence. The flip side to it, is that they can watch it on Netflix now, but they can also get a phone call in the middle of that Netflix viewing. They’re not getting the same experience. There’s that bitter part of me that’s thinking. I’m turning into that greying, cantankerous older man who’s saying “Oh, it was so different back in the day.” I do look with a great deal of optimism towards independent expression in this generation that we didn’t have. It’s just going to morph into something else.
But a good movie still works with a young mind. I walked into my daughter’s room, and she and my son were watching Mad Max: Fury Road. Now, she’s seven years old, and a lot of people think that movie is not appropriate for a seven year old girl. But she was hitting me with all these questions: “Why is it all desert? Why is there no water? Why is there no gasoline? Why are they fighting over it?” I explained what a post-apocalyptic movie was, and compared it to Hunger Games. Then she turned to me, and her expression was just priceless. She said “This is the greatest movie I’ve ever seen!”
I remember that feeling, of seeing something different, of being inspired. My son and my daughter, after watching that movie, were saying “We’ve got to make movies.” They were just so solid on it. People like Mike McCarthy, Morgan Jon Fox, Kentucker Audley, Chris McCoy, and Laura Jean…we were all of this time. We were inspired by independent cinema, and we wanted to be a part of the movement. It didn’t require success. You didn’t have to sell your movie at Sundance. You wanted to be an independent filmmaker, and you struggled and went into debt to become one. Nowadays, a whole movie can be made, cut, and uploaded on your iPhone. The way that things can get out there, it’s so easy. I still wonder, though, is the craft of cinema being exalted, or is its growth being stunted by technology?
I think it’s being pushed in different directions. Back then, all of us, at the same time, gained access to technology that allowed us to do what we’d been trying to do since we were teenagers. So what we did was, we took that technology and applied to towards creating inside this paradigm—feature films—that we were familiar with. But that’s a paradigm that evolved from a very different technological situation. It was hard to make moving images, so you had to gather all these resources together, and once you made it, then you got a whole bunch of people into a room to watch this big presentation.
But now, these kids…and I see it all the time with the Black Lodge tribe, for example. They’re very inspired by the movie image, and they want to make it, and they understand it, but they’re not constrained by two hours sitting in a movie theater. They don’t have to do that to get an audience to watch their movies.
But now, I spend a lot more time in theaters than I used to, because of this job. I like being in a movie theater with people. Even if they’re annoying.
Me too.
I wouldn’t want to sit here for ten hours and watch Game Of Thrones with them. I just had a good audience experience watching American Ultra. It was like we were seeing something cool that everyone else was overlooking. I had a great audience experience watching Straight Outta Compton. When Easy-E died, I thought people were laughing. But I looked behind me, and there were these two big black guys who were sobbing because they were so moved by that moment.
Now you’ve got me waxing philosophical.
That’s what I do.
Taryn Manning as Nola
Do you know where the first screening of Hustle & Flow was, ever?
Muvico Downtown?
No. The First Congo theater!
You showed it at the [Digital Media] Co-Op?
I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I would have gotten into so much trouble if something went wrong. It was around November, 2004. We had just locked the edit. We were going to show it around Hollywood to people before Sundance. There was no music edit, no color timing, nothing. I was going home from California to Memphis for a week. So I told my editor that I wanted to take a copy home with me. And he was like, look. Soul Plane with Snoop had just been bootlegged. It was everywhere on the street. And it completely killed that movie at the box office. Everybody that was going to see that movie had a DVD already. Piracy was a huge problem.
So my editor, and I hope I don’t get him in trouble, he gave me the movie in two parts on two DVDs. So I took those two DVDs to my little editing suite back in Memphis and stitched them together in Adobe Premiere, and dumped it off to tape. I called up Morgan [Jon Fox], and said I want to have an underground screening. Literally underground. You’d go down the stairs at the First Congo church, and the theater was in the basement. I showed Hustle & Flow to about 70 people to the first time. It was special. There were some people who were going, “I don’t think this is going to work…”, and people who loved it. I remember Morgan being a big supporter of it. But there was a moment where I was talking to everybody, and went over to my digital deck to get the tape, and it wasn’t there! I freaked out. But it turned out that Morgan had taken the tape out, because he knew I was so freaked out about the piracy. But boy did I fucking freak out. That would have been a tragedy.
Holy shit. Well, it all worked out for you. I’m glad you’re working on Urban Cowboy and Empire.
I just watched the cut of the episode I did for Empire. It’s so good. I’m so pleased with it. You gotta remember, I’m a big fan of the show, regardless of Terrance and Taraji. I’m just into it. And I got to make one! It’s fun.
With that and Urban Cowboy, it’s a lot more material on your plate than a feature film, right?
I’ve got other feature films and TV shows I’m working on, but right now I’m just trying to stay focused on Urban Cowboy.
That’s what I’ve learned, working with you. You gotta keep a whole bunch of balls in the air at once in the hope that one of them goes somewhere.
Oh yeah. When I was working on Empire, Attica Locke, who wrote the episode, was hearing about all the projects I had going. She said, “How do you have all those jobs? You’ve got like eight projects!”
And I said, “I don’t have eight jobs. I have eight hustles.”
A month or two ago, people started wearing T-shirts that read ‘Memphis As F__K.’ It wasn’t long before Al Kapone was wearing one, and shortly thereafter he recorded a song with that slogan as the title, featuring up and coming Memphis rapper Tori Whodat. Perhaps the next logical step was last Friday night’s Memphis As F__K concert at the Hi-Tone, featuring DJ Witnesse on the ones and twos, and an all-star cast of Memphis rap artists, including the Trackmen, Tori Whodat, Knowledge Nick and of course Al Kapone, who was aided and abetted by his hype man Tune C as well as a stage full of Memphis legends, including Skinny Pimp, DJ Zirk and Mr. Sche. Altogether, it was a night of Memphis rap nostalgia as well as a pep rally for those who really love Memphis. Slide Show!
If there was a table designed exclusively for the forefathers of Memphis rap, Alphonzo “Al Kapone” Bailey would be among the artists seated at the head. With the release of several albums and compilations, he’s managed to sell thousands of units independently, and is viewed as one of the most respected artists within the underground rap movement.
Penning rhymes since the sixth grade, Al Kapone began to obtain musical notoriety as a teenager with his song, “Lyrical Drive-by.” This led to his debut album, Street Knowledge: Chapters 1-12, which secured a spot on Jet Magazine‘s Top 20 Albums chart and solidified his presence within the Memphis rap movement. Underground albums such as Pure Ghetto Anger, Sinista Funk, the compilation Memphis to tha Bombed Out Bay, and Goin’ All Out, followed soon after his debut, and expanded his fanbase from the South to the West Coast.
Aside from creating underground classics, Al Kapone is a talented songwriter and producer. He co-wrote E-40’s “U and Dat,” Lil Jon’s “Snap Yo Fingers,” (which both charted on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop section), and “Hustle & Flow (It Ain’t Over)”, the theme song to the 2005 Memphis-based film, Hustle & Flow, and more.
I got a chance to speak with Al Kapone about his music career, what attendees can expect from his performance at this year’s Beale Street Music Festival, songwriting for E-40 and Lil’ Jon, what led him to create a song that supported past Congressional candidate Republican George Flinn, rock music, and more.
I was into storytelling. It went from that to writing stories to actually writing songs from the stories. When the hip-hop craft stage kinda took off, I fell in love with it. Even though I love all forms of music, I just fell in love with hip-hop to the point that that’s what I wanted to do.
I got into just the whole hip-hop scene and the whole culture. It was more than just the rap part of it, it was the DJ-ing, the breakdancing, the graffiti, the fashion. It was really the whole culture of hip-hop, but I ended up sticking with the rap side more than anything.
What made you choose the name Ska-Face Al Kapone as your rap moniker? And why did you eventually drop the “Ska-face” part?
I was living in the Lamar Terrace projects at the time, and I was looking at this old black-and-white movie called Scarface Al (Scarface, 1932), it was basically the old version of the Al Pacino Scarface.
I remember seeing that and Scarface Al just grabbed me. It was at the time when NWA was poppin’, so the gangsta rap scene was real hot. And I knew I wanted a name that was gonna be edgy, so when I saw Scarface Al go across that screen, I was like, ‘That’s it. That’s the name.’
And actually, this was before Scarface from the Geto Boys had kinda ran with his name, because I think at the time, he was going by the name Akshun. So it was before him, but that leads to the reason I ended up dropping Ska-Face because when “Lyrical Driveby” popped off for me on a solo tip, I was still going by the name of Ska-face Al Kapone. I added the Kapone part because I began noticing that the Houston rapper Scarface was starting to get popular, and when I did out of town shows, people were starting to get me confused. They were asking me where Bushwick [Bill] was. So I thought, ‘Okay, I’m gonna go ahead and drop the Ska-face part because it’s starting to create confusion.’
At what point did you know music was something that you could fully rely on as a way to provide for you and your family?
When “Lyrical Drive-by” popped off. I was working at Red Lobster at the time. When I was going back and forth to work, I started to notice cars going by blasting that song. It was like several cars, and that’s when I realized, ‘Oh shit, people recognize me now.’ That’s when I started getting calls to do more shows. At that point, I was able to leave Red Lobster and actually start doing shows full-time, and that’s when I was able to start providing for me and my family.
In 2003, you released the album Goin’ All Out on E-40’s label, Sic Wid It Records. How did you link up with E-40?
My main connection to the Bay Area was initially with this magazine called Murder Dog. They featured me in a lot of their publications, and from that, as an independent artists, I started networking with a lot of the independent artists out there. And from that, E-40 took notice, and then, he reached out to me. From the independent artists to E-40, I really established a strong Bay Area connection.
My connection with 40 came in the late ’90s. Like I said, he’s originally from Murder Dog. He just started noticing my name a lot through Murder Dog and the independent scene. He reached out to me to be apart of a compilation that he was working on at the time called Southwest Riders. It was a lot of independent artists from the West and independent artists from the South.
How did you end up signing with Sic Wid It?
After I ended up doing that compilation with [E-40], just through my connections with independent Bay Area artists, I did my own compilation called Memphis to tha Bombed Out Bay. What I did was, I took a Greyhound to the Bay. I had a cousin who was staying in Sacramento, and I still had my Murder Dog connection. So I took a Greyhound out there with all my product. I just went out there promoting blindly, didn’t know, all I had was straight ambition. I rented a car and was getting directions from people and literally driving from Vallejo to Oakland to Frisco to Sac Town [Sacramento] to even smaller towns in between, from Richmond…it was crazy. It was before GPS. I was strictly going off people’s directions from the highway, and I was actually getting there.
I ended up running into E-40 in Vallejo. It was a picnic that he was having, and again, I was out there promoting Memphis to tha Bombed Out Bay, and he just noticed, ‘Damn, dude just came all the way from Memphis and he actually has a line of people he’s signing autographs for at my picnic.’ He sent his brother over to let me know that they were going to pick me up and bring me to his house. I was staying at the Murder Dog house at the time.
His brother came and picked me up. I went to 40’s house. He was working on some music, and he said, ‘You feel like you can jump on this song?’ I was like, ‘Holy shit, he wants me to jump on a song!’ I immediately wrote a verse like in 10 minutes and jumped on the song and at that point, he was like ‘I’m gonna be reaching out to you. How you feel about signing to Sic Wid It?’ And after I came back to Memphis, he reached out to me and we made it official. He sent me a contract and we sealed the deal.
You did some writing on E-40’s album, My Ghetto Report Card. How did that come about?
That was one of those amazing times. Not burning bridges allowed me to. I wasn’t signed to him at the time. This was like some years after the contract had ended, but we kept a good enough relationship that he reached out to me when he was working with Lil’ Jon and wanted me to come to Atlanta and [work] with them on some music. It was kind of a blessing to be in that particular space and time to offer some of my writing skills, which out of that spawned the “Snap Yo Fingers” song that Lil’ Jon had.
When you’re songwriting, are you actually writing verses for artists, or are you contributing ideas?
It’s more of contributing ideas. Coming up with ideas and concepts and writing hooks to give the song the direction that it needs to go into.
What are some other albums you’ve had a hand in that people may not know about?
Off the top of my head, I know I did something on the Stomp the Yard soundtrack. I did something on the Cadillac Records soundtrack. That’s a couple I can think of off the top of my head.
You also wrote a couple songs on the Hustle & Flow soundtrack.
Most definitely. That was another one of those space and time blessings that you don’t see coming. It was all again, not burning bridges, because I knew Craig [Brewer] way before. He was doing independent films and having them distributed through Select-o-Hits whereas we were doing the independent CDs, so we knew each other from that time. And I always kept in touch with him.
I just so happened to randomly call like I normally do, and it doesn’t have to be about no business, just to reach out to people on a personal level. So I was just reaching out to him one day and seeing how he was doing, and that’s when he informed me about what was going on, that John Singleton was going to get behind the project and John was going to be in town the next day. They were looking for a particular song. John really had his mind set that he was going to let Three 6 [Mafia] do everything, but they were going to give me a chance to present something. It was almost like, ‘He’ll just check it out’ but his mind was pretty set.
I went straight to the house and wrote the Hustle & Flow theme song. When John came in town, he came to the Cotton Row studios. Me and Niko [Lyras] had just finished producing the music and I dropped all the lyrics and everything. When he came, he heard it, he said it was on point…the whole subject was on point with what they were looking for, and I was in.
From that, he wanted to hear some other songs that I had been working on personally. That’s how he ended up hearing “Whoop that Trick” and “Get Crunk, Get Buck.” He was like, ‘damn, we need to work with those songs too.”
Over the last few years, you’ve incorporated more of a guitar-infused style into your music, especially with your album Guitar Bump. You’ve also branched out and collaborated with different bands and musicians. What influenced you to take a different lane with your music after creating that more gangsta, buck sound for so many years?
My initial reason [for] going into the live zone of music rather than staying in the crunk zone was because the rest of the country made up in their mind that Atlanta was known for crunk. Even though we had the proof, nobody was going to dig into the truth enough to give us credit for it. The rest of the country saw it as we would be the followers, even though we weren’t. We were the originators. So instead of fighting against it, I wanted to do something that was uniquely a Memphis thing. I started thinking about the live sound of Memphis as far as Al Green, the rock side and everything. I started thinking, let me go more into that direction and see if I can incorporate live music with the Memphis sound and see how that would be received.
My main thing was to show the hip-hop culture of Memphis. Even though y’all don’t want to give us our credit for the sound, give us credit for at least our musical roots, and that’s really why I started going in that direction. But in the process of recording that type of music, I ended up having to perform it live, and I actually fell in love with having that band on stage. It was an amazing feeling to have all that live music. It was like another level of performing, so I kinda ran with it. There’s nothing like performing with that live instrumentation on stage.
Have you always been interested in guitars and the rock genre?
Even though I was into hip-hop earlier on, I was always into soul and rock. From Ozzy Osborne to the Black Sabbath, I was always into it. When Nirvana hit at the time, I was heavy into that. I was heavy into Metallica. If anybody really followed my music career and they listened to some of those old songs, you would actually hear songs that had the rock element or the soul element to them. It was always there but when I went with the band, it kinda stood out more.
You’re performing at this year’s Beale Street Music Festival. What can attendees expect from your performance? I read you’re working with some live guitarists for the show.
If you’ve never seen a live performance from a Memphis rap act, my goal is to always give you a concert. Not just go up there and rap the songs, I want to truly entertain you with the whole spectrum of the music—from my performance to the musicians adding the instrumentation. My goal is to give you an experience where you can walk away and say, ‘You know, I don’t really listen to rap but I enjoyed that show. That was a good show.’
An eye opener for a lot of people was when you created the song “George Flinn” that encouraged Memphians to vote for Republican George Flinn as Congressman for the state’s 9th district last year. What persuaded you to endorse Flinn?
I did it because I felt like he supported not just me, but through his station [George Flinn owns several radio stations that cater to such genres as hip-hop, classic rock, Christian, and country], he supported the Memphis rap scene.
When I go to different places, I notice that a lot of radio stations do not support their local music scene. For us to have a station here that really supports and plays local music at times when the rest of the country had kind of stopped supporting Memphis hip-hop, I just felt the need to show support to someone who was supporting the music scene that I came from.
Did you worry about receiving any backlash from endorsing Flinn?
I did think about [receiving backlash] before I did it. I didn’t feel like the black community would embrace that I was supporting a Republican. The way I saw it was, if I don’t do it, it’s not because I don’t wanna do it, it would be because of what other people think. And at that point, I realized that I didn’t want to look back years later and say, ‘I shoulda did that and the only reason I didn’t was because I didn’t want to be worried about what somebody else thought.’ When it’s all said and done, I can’t live by what other people think. And at that point, I felt like I was supporting him regardless.
You’ve released all of your albums independently. What has caused you to avoid going mainstream for so many years?
The thing about being independent, you’re pretty much in control of what you want to do [and] release. That’s the biggest thing. You have total control. As long as you know how to budget and try to keep some consistent releases out there. You can kinda maintain some pretty decent cash flow to come in. But your main thing is your freedom to record what you want and release when you want to. You’re able to design your own artwork. But it does require work. Being independent is not just the freedom. It’s a serious work ethic that goes along with it. And I always had that drive to grind. I actually love the hustle of promoting and working on that level. I also love to write and produce, so it works out for me because I enjoy that whole hustle.
I had situations where I could’ve signed some major deals here and there but it was never in my favor. The thing is, you can lose a lot signing the wrong type of contract. You can sign away your rights. Right now, I own pretty much all of my catalog, so I can release it whenever I want to. I have a whole catalog of music that I haven’t even released digitally yet that I’m in the process of releasing. If I would have signed to a particular major [label], I wouldn’t have had any rights to release none of my previous music.
What’s next for Al Kapone?
I’m finishing up this album. It’s back to the roots of that straight underground Memphis rap. I did a song called “Memphis Pride” that pretty much represented the whole Memphis rap scene. So basically re-representing the original Memphis rap sound. That early Memphis sound. I got a project representing that sound but it’s today, but it’s still that sound at the same time. That’s the next project I’m [about] to drop. I’m thinking I’m going to drop that some time in May, so look out for that.
Ebet Roberts 
John Shaw 
