Contributed by Alex Viard on 10/23/07

As their crew and label experience a renascence of sorts, Smif-N-Wessun prepare for the release of their latest album, Smif-N-Wessun: The Album. Amidst album preparations and college basketball promotions for ESPN, the Boot Camp Click veterans take some time out with Drop to discuss Brooklyn, the new album, and crankin’ dat Soulja Boy.

How do you feel about the new album, Smif-N-Wessun: The Album, coming out Oct. 23?
Tek: We’re ecstatic right now to be on our fourth album as a group, never no break up shit involved, and the music is fuckin’ phenomenal. We a got a team of producers from over there in Sweden. Ken Ring, Soul Theory, Room Rider, Tommy Tee, and The Cocaine Cowboys. Fourteen solid joints for you.

How’d you connect with those Swedish producers?
Tek: It’s actually a relationship we’ve been building up on a couple of records over a couple of years already. They did joints for the Italian Boot Camp already on the Boot Camp album. They did “Trading Places,” they did “My Timb’s Do Work” on the Smif-N-Wessun Reloaded album. Tommy Tee did a host of joints on the Sean P Monkey Bars album. So this is not just Myspace, over the computer gimmicks. This is firmly built relationships with super team producers that we got.

How would you compare the overseas hip hop scene with what we have here in the states?
Tek: It’s a beautiful thing man. Good music is good music and to make good sounding music… I’m not gonna say that one is better than this one. It’s still new over there, it’s still like a baby like when it first started over here that’s how it is over there now. You know, it’s a beautiful thing.

As one of the most influential components of a very influential crew in hip hop history, what are you feelings on the hip hop climate today versus when you were first coming out?
Steele: We got mixed emotions like everybody else. This is life right here, hip hop is a reflection of real life. Hip hop has been battling for years to get it’s stake in the worldwide pie so to speak and it finally breaks that billion mark and you got people across the world lookin’ at it. A lot of people died for this shit, a lot of people got locked up, and a lot of people did a lot of bad things and a lot of good things. But overall we stand on this great thing called hip hop. Salute Kool Herc, salute Afrika Bambaataa, the whole Zulu Nation, DJ Hollywood and all our forefathers that put it through as far as hip hop. This is just part of what we do. We’re kids that grew up in the urban areas of Bedstuy, Brownsville, Brooklyn. If you know what it’s like just growing in the community just finding things to do, this is our expression, this is our thing that we do here. So it’s our responsibility to make sure that nothing happens to it.

You guys always had Jamaican influences in your music, particularly in the way you speak; There’s definitely a strong Jamaican presence all over New York and definitely in Brooklyn. Is the Jamaican influence in the music being drawn from that presence in the community, personal heritage, or a combination of both?
Tek: A combination of all that.

Steele: Both.

You guys are Jamaican?
Tek: We got family that come from the roots and we just hang out with a lot of dreads, smoke a lot of weed with them and all that, do dirt. It’s all personal, it’s family oriented as well.

New York is very diverse and has a lot of Carribbean and other immigrants from all over the world. How do you guys mesh with those other communities as musicians?
Tek: Music is the common ground. We bond with all those groups. We bond with Jews. We bond with Haitians, Indians, Jamaicans, Americans, Arabs. It doesn’t matter man, we don’t put no stamp on one group in particular and say “we not doin’ music for y’all” or “we not ridin’ for y’all,” it’s all the same. It’s from the heart. This is official tissue right here.

Steele: When you look at the little state of Brooklyn and you go into the blocks of blocks of Brooklyn and you go into a neighborhood like Crown Heights, Eastern Parkway, you’ll see so many different groups. And it’s hard not to blend in with the community. So you kinda get such a deep ethnic schooling when you go through Brooklyn. When you go to the blocks of Bedstuy you have such a deep richness of Heritage that’s in these block , so it’s hard not to get schooled on that by the elders that sit outside and play dominoes by the corner store and been around for years. And they’re watching us grow up from little toddlers and now we grow up and we running the blocks now and we watching the little homies come up now. So it’s hard not to get that lesson and it’s hard being an MC or artist and not put some of that on your canvas.

What kind of music do you guys listen to?
Tek: Everything. A lot of mixtapes, old school Otis Redding, O’Jays, Bob Marley all types of shit.

Steele: The newness, Movado, new hip hop, a little bit of rock n’ roll.

Tek: Ule! We crankin’ that Soulja Boy!

Where is Smif-N-Wessun going at this point in their career?
Tek: To the top baby. Taking over the world!

Steele: Top of the world. You gotta look at the progression. We came from 94 droppin’ Dah Shinnin’ and then we came in 98’ and dropped The Rude Awakening then we went to 2005 and we dropped Reloaded and now here we are in 2007, two years later. So you see the years start to get fewer in between and the pressure starts to increase, and the quality of the music starts to grow and develop. Then you look at the growth and development of hip hop and the digital explosion and you start to know that Duck Down’s being one of the #1 independent hip hop labels in the world. It’s great to be a part of something that has made so many contributions to the hip hop community. And if y’all don’t realize all of the contributions we have made then go to duckdown.com then you’ll see what I’m talking about and you’ll realize what’s to come. Go buy that album, that Smif-N-Wessun: The Album. You can download it right on iTunes cause it’s official, digital explosion is crazy. Duck Down ‘08!

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