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The Rebel Yell Interview

The Rebel Yell Interview
Interview by DJ Rahdu
Intro by Norman Mayers

If Gnarls Barkley had an orgy with Bjork and Prince, the resulting screams of pleasure might sound something like the Rebel Yell. This exciting new project from James Poyser features the eclectic vocal style of SupaStar and the dope flavor of Kahri Mateen. Hard to classify, this Philadelphia-bred project drips with sexy electro pop, hip-hop sensibilities, and raver fits of ecstasy. One thing is for certain, with their debut album Love & War the Rebel Yell are making moves with their propulsive future sound.

Nu-Soul: Thanks for making some time for us at Nu Soul magazine. I know things must be hectic with the album dropping so soon. So let’s get right to the meat. Who is The Rebel Yell?
RY: Me, you, anybody, everybody; Anyone that’s looking for a difference or a change. There’s a lot of partying to be made on the new album Love & War, but there’s also a lot of serious social commentary, and food for thought that may open and tap into some youngster and have him be the next leader.

Nu-Soul: As far as the physical members of the group who get the checks, who comprises the Rebel Yell?
RY: The checks go to myself: Domini Quinn SupaStar, James Poyser, grammy award winner and A-list producer who‘s produced the who’s who in the industry, and a young phenom named Khari Mateen. We make up the Rebel Yell.

Nu-Soul: Alright, well since we have you on the phone, it’s always great to find out a little background on the artists whose music we enjoy listening to. How did you get started in this industry? I see that you’re quite varied, gimme a little bit of your background.
RY: I don’t wanna bore you with it but I’ve been in and around the game of music for a little while now. It started with a hip-hop group called Three Times Dope in the late 80s. I was having a conversation with a friend the other day at The Roots studio. There was seriously something in the water in Philadelphia in the 80s. Not to even drop names but my inner circle of friends back in the late 80s were, and this is before there were any record deals for any of them, everyone from Boys II Men Wanye, Nate, you know Michael was in my 4th grade class. Three Times Dope, EST lived in my neighborhood which was funny because me, ES, and another kid named Larry Lar who later came out with an album on Columbia/Ruff House. Larry Lar was the first artist on Ruff House before they even signed The Fugees. We were rapping in neighborhoods, and ES wasn’t even a rapper, he was a beat boxer for me and Larry. So when I moved out to LA, Will put me on Fresh Prince of Belair, I can see myself on reruns, crazy reruns of Fresh Prince of Belair looking crazy with dreadllocks, not that dreadlocks are crazy, I just look crazy. So you know, I have a rich history in my hometown. I’ve lived in New York, I lived in LA but I’m in Philly right now and my friends range from the Jill Scotts to the Roots. All the traditional hot stuff that has come out of Philadelphia, they were my inner circle back when we were coming up in our formative years. It just really felt like something cosmic going on round about then.

Nu-Soul: You mentioned your MC-ing background but as I mentioned before, your creative stylings are varied, you also, I don’t know if you still are, but you were a video director at one point…
RY: Yeah, I consider myself an artist, and I think everyone who participates in art should do so. I was just always a part of being interested in technology and what you could do with film work, and what you could do with digital images. Ten years ago now, I had started another band in LA called Jack Herrera, it was myself, Jon B and this other kid named Whitey. Because of Jon’s celebrity, Jon back then had sold about a million and a half records, and because of his celebrity we were kinda able as Jack Herrera to tour the world. I bought a camera back then and just started filming everything we did, and instead of looking more like home movies it almost felt like it was edited, actually what I would do was edit on the fly. So that kinda spawned me looking towards film and television as another part of my artistry as a viable way to sustain my artistry.

Nu-Soul: I hate to interject the Rebel Yell interview, but what happened to the Jack Herrera album man?
RY: No! That’s what’s up, that’s hot! The craziest part about it is I know that through the years, you know pop culture music, there’s been tons of music that’s been left on the shelves. The truth is man, I can pound for pound say we probably had one of the greatest albums that have never been heard even though there are some people that have heard it. Long story short, it was very political, we were at Edmonds Record group, which is Tracy Edmonds and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, and quite frankly they were just afraid to pull the trigger. I don’t have any ill will towards them at this point in time in my career because I feel like when one door shuts the other one opens.

Nu-Soul: True.

RY: Frankly, they didn’t have the balls to pull the trigger and it’s funny because Jon related a story to us back when we first started Jack Herrera, and told us that Kenny was like “Yo, you throwing your career away”. Me and Whitey were like he’s hating the project that much? I still got love for Kenny, don’t get it twisted but at the same time, this is something that was related, so it got real political. I don’t believe they really wanted Jon to step out outside of his solo career and quite frankly in retrospect I think they signed us so that we would never come out. That’s what I think man, I could be wrong, I wanna reserve my judgment on that, but at the same time my gut tells me that they signed us so that we would never actually come out and it would preserve Jon’s solo career.

Nu-Soul: Well you know, funny enough, I actually work for the radio station here in Birmingham, and we brought Jon B to Birmingham. He actually hung around afterwards and I played some Jack Herrera and he almost lost his mind. So it was just funny to see his reaction especially knowing that the project never actually came out, and as you mention it is one of the great unheard albums that are out there, definitely that! Another reason I mentioned the video directing is because I think that it may be directly correlated to your current position in Rebel Yell. I know that you directed the video for The Roots’ “Birthday Girl” and you ended up singing on the Tipping Point.
RY: Yeah, but actually they came in reverse order though. Again I’ve known The Roots since they were the Square Roots and before The Square Roots, you know what I mean, I’ve known them since me, Tariq, Malik B and a whole host of our crew would go to house parties at the University of Pennsylvania, then go up to the Wa Wa on the corner and steal candy bars, that’s how long I’ve known them. To put it back to Philadelphia, I got back in with my childhood friends and I was fortunate enough, I should say, that they allowed me back into the crew in terms of not just being down in terms of the day to day homeboy, but just in terms of them letting me into their business. They allowed me to sing on The Tipping Point, quite honestly, the check that I got from The Tipping Point sparked so much other business. I was able to buy some technology that I needed, I was able to buy some proper film equipment actually.

So The Roots man, it’s funny because I was just with one of the rappers who’s sang on the past three Roots’ albums, this kid named Porn who’s about to be signed by Jay Z. Last night we were in the studio he was actually doing a session, we were talking, it was me, him, and Dice Raw and he was just telling Dice Raw how we all bleed Roots blood. We all bleed Roots and it’s true, that’s our foundation. While I had a little bit of inertia with Jack Herrera and I love the fact that I have a history with that project, people do love that music, the ones that do have it, but I do pretty much bleed Roots. Just to kinda finish the thought on that, The Tipping Point came first it was something that Dice wrote, he asked me to sing on it, Tariq loved it, and before I knew it I was in the alumni of singing on Roots albums which we know is a very coveted alumni… and then a few years later they had already known about my film work, they knew of me doing videos for Jack Herrera, then I did subsequently something for a solo project that I was working on, and they called on me last year to this video for “Birthday Girl”. It’s just an honor, all the way around. On the album credits for instance, I don’t do a lot of thank yous, I thank my parents and The Roots! (Laughter) Just to let you know where it’s at.

Nu-Soul: So how did you meet James Poyser?
RY: Well it’s funny because you know Philadelphia, well I have a saying about Philly… Philly has only one degree of separation and in Philly, James again was a part of that crew that was drinking that water. Back in the early 90s, maybe around ‘91, me and James both were just trying to keep our heads in the music business, trying to make sure we could get paid to be in the game. While we were trying to do that we both had regular gigs in downtown Philly, and we would see each other and you know how you see somebody that you know around town, but you may not have necessarily been introduced to them. You kinda give that head nod, that acknowledgement… so me and James would do that for years literally. There was this one crazy incident on the train, though [edit], that’s kinda how me and James started actually speaking instead of just head nodding.

There’s actually a Jack Herrera connection as well because in 2000 when the label let Jack Herrera start working with some “name brand” producers we came back to Philly, we were based in LA but we came back to my home town to work with The Roots, James Poyser, Andre Harris and Vidal Davis. That’s how our professional relationship actually started. From there I’ll just give you the quick run down ’cause I’m sure your next question is how did we start the Rebel Yell album. I kinda look at it like a college scenario, in 2004 The Tipping Point came out and I was singing on that album and I was hanging out with The Roots real heavy. In 2008, after being here hanging out with those cats for four years real strong, James gave me the embryonic stages of what was the Love & War album. I looked at it like that was my thesis and this album coming out is my graduating diploma.

Nu-Soul: You mentioned putting it down back in the day with Larry Lar, EST, you dropped names like The Roots, and then we have this Rebel Yell album, you also mention putting it down with Jack Herrera. So you got your hip-hop in its various manifestations, then you have the Jack Herrera project which is great soul music, not to say that this isn’t, but this is what we call misfit R&B. How did you go about creating that, why this instead of hip-hop or soul music?
RY: It’s funny because I try to have an intention behind most things that I do, with that said what I call this music that T.R.Y. aka the Rebel Yell does is I call it electric hip-pop. The reason I call it that is because the sound is electric, it has a hip-hop sensibility, and it’s more than likely destined for a pop audience. The sound is different, and the moment James played me the first track it was a simple meeting at The Roots’ studio. James came up to me one day and was like “Yo man, I got something real different that’s not readily available right now and I wanna see what you can do to it.” I told him I hope it’s different because for me right about now R&B stands for redundant and boring. I’m just sick of the same ol thing, I’m sick of the same subject matter, I’m sick of the same way that we… even to the extent of the way that we formulate songs; 1st verse – chorus, 2nd verse – chorus. I just kinda was over, especially at that moment in time, the cookie cutter scenarios of music. It goes beyond just our music, I’m not trying to bash us because you know at the end of the day, black folk, you can credit us for being responsible for most of America’s pop culture music. From jazz, to rock & roll, you know obviously hip-hop and r&b.

He told me he had this real different project and he wanted to see what I could do with it. I went right home right after he gave me the cd, and got right to it. I would say maybe 48hrs later I had what we call Heartbreak 101 and it snowballed from there. He gave me another track like every couple weeks if not every couple weeks like once a month, depending on whether he was in town or not, and I would just knock it out accordingly. Half way through the album he was like “Yo man, there’s some people kinda murmuring, there might be some things happening, you know just keep doing what you doing, we’ll see how it works out in the end.” That basically is how the Rebel Yell was born.

Nu-Soul: It’s funny it’s always like a movement of some sort, like with The Foreign Exchange’s new album “Leave It All Behind“, have you heard that?
RY: Yeah.

Nu-Soul: What did you think about that album?
RY: You know what, I haven’t heard enough of it to really… like I’ve heard a few of the joints but I never like to give an opinion unless I can really have a full understanding of what it’s all about. So I’ll reserve judgment but you’re right, it’s a movement jumping off. It’s them, there’s acts like this kid named 2 Face here in Philly, there’s other kids here in Philly like Nikki Jean and Patty Crash who were actually on the Rebel Yell Love & War album. There’s definitely a movement crowding up and it really sounds electric. There’s a lot of electric sounds jumping off right now.

Nu-Soul: One of my favorite tracks on the album is “The Revolution” where you pay homage to the purple one himself…
RY: Yes sir! It’s funny because there’s like a fraternity of cats at the Roots studio, and we’ve been talking about Prince lately especially in respect to Michael dying. We were talking about how Prince kept it together, don’t get me wrong there is no disrespect to Mike, Mike is the king, is the architect. But it’s just funny how you never really heard any mess about Prince, really ever! You know what I mean, he just kept it above the fray, and I really really respect that. There’s no doubt that he’s had a serious influence on my sound, so has Michael. I would definitely actually have to say Mike first, Mike, Stevie, Prince, Bjork, you know The Beatles. These folks definitely have imprints on what I do and I’m sure James would say the same although I’m sure he has his own.

Nu-Soul: So, what do you want people to get or take away from Love & War?
RY: Well if they listen #1, we tried to make an album that would be commercially viable because as artists we wanna live. I, definitely as far as the lyric and melodies try to straddle the fence, and if it comes off right you know it will have sold millions of copies, and also millions of people would’ve gotten some messages. We living in some serious times and songs like “The Revolution” unapologetically speak about the times that we live in. You can put “The Revolution” on in the club and folks may just dance and never even listen to the lyrics and that’s okay, because sooner or later they’re digging the music they’re gonna be like what is this actually saying? They’re gonna get a full course lesson on what’s jumping off in 2010.

Nu-Soul: True. There’s one more track that’s not on the album; “Everything She Wants”… Man whose idea was it to drop that gem?
RY: I tell you what, that doesn’t have as much of a story behind it. Truth is I was up in New York with one of the label publicists and we were going to one of the industry parties and kinda do some press. She was like “Yo it would kinda be cool if you could give us something to drop on the public before the album actually came out.” I agreed with her, it would kinda be nice to have something, kinda like a precursor I should say. Me and her both got to throwing around ideas, Zenobia is her name, she was like remember that George Michael joint *singing* “Somebody tell me”. I was like “yo that’s my joint”. So it pretty much came from a conversation and strategy to get some inertia behind the record. I’m not mad at that, because at the end of the day I knew that Love & War has real substance to it, whether it was listening to the political stances that we pick, or listening to it to have a good time. It’s a viable record and I just wanted to definitely make sure that we get some attention towards it. I thought that the Wham cover would definitely draw some ironic attention, like I’m the streetest dude in the universe, so when we cover a George Michael joint, I know, even in my own crew it raised eyebrows… I know in my own crew, which is first and foremost who I look to for that seal of approval, I got it from them, and once I got it from them I said “Aight, let’s go and give it to the label ad just see what people think about it.” I wasn’t trying to out do what George and his partner had done because that’s a classic joint. I was just trying to call attention to the fact that you know what we we’re gonna do as the Rebel Yell, don’t think you know what it will be, you know what I mean. We’re here to break the mold, reset and let someone break it again.

Nu-Soul: Alright, you dropped several names on me man during the course of the interview, why did you decide not to feature that star power on this album?
RY: Well, for most of the reasons I’ve been articulating is we wanna come with something fresh and new. It’s been a tradition in the industry, you know it’s ironic too because the Jack Herrera album that was never released I had asked Tariq personally to be on the song called Silver and Gold. Tariq is on that album, Will.I.Am is on a song called Jack Shuffle. There are mega names on the Jack Herrera album, and I intentionally wanted to incorporate some kids that I knew were dynamite, up and coming, and about to make their mark so that we can go ahead and create this music for a whole new generation to call its own. For my money, that was my decision, James and Khari had nothing to do with that. When it came to just writing the lyric and melody and inviting some artists to appear on the album with me vocally, you know they left that up to me. So I invited Patty Crash, and Nikki Jean, and Karma on the album because I know that they have bright futures ahead of them. Nikki Jean actually just signed to Columbia…

Nu-Soul: How can your fans pick up this album?
RY: Well, we live in a digital age and while they can go to the typical outlets like a Best Buy, and actually pick up a physical copy, don’t hesitate to download the album onto your phones. We living in a digital age, you can buy this album digitally. The way it was recorded was strictly on a digital age level. After the first cd that James gave me with just Heartbreak 101 on it, with the music for it, you know the rest of the album he would simply email me the tracks, and I would put it into my protools on my lap top! Get that, on my lap top! Like yo, this album was recorded on a laptop, period! In all honesty we mixed it in a big studio, yeah we mixed it at The Roots’ studio, but I recorded it on my Shure microphone in my apartment on my laptop, plain and simple. I think that that fact kinda needs to be blasted so that the kids understand that you don’t have to spend a million dollars to make it happen. Just put your voice down, get your ideas down and put it to the world. The deal came also as a result of us just getting visible with it, James told me, let’s shoot a video and direct it. So I did that and that was even before we signed the deal. It’s all about being proactive, we do have the resources. I feel like we have a window right now of creativity where as you can really just make it happen for yourself and then the big boys might wanna jump on and then you can kinda tell them your price. I dunno how long that window’s gonna be like that. The deck is being reshuffled, and once it is reshuffled I don’t know that we’ll have the same autonomy, but for this space and time we doing this thing all digital. The sound is digital, the way we made it happen is digital, and the way the people can buy it can be digital as well.

Nu-Soul: Alright, how can your fans get in contact with you?
RY: They can contact us at TRYdoinbiz Or TRYmanagement@gmail.com If they wanna contact us for shows, just to say whaddup, you know we love your music, they can also go to our myspace which is www.myspace.com/TheRebelYellRevolution They can check out our music there, they can see our video blogs called Talking Atoms which features the Rebel Yell but it also always features a guest artist, you know Tariq from The Roots, or Nikki Jean. It’ll have us playing live somewhere in the world… but the best way to stay in contact with us is digitally, that’s where we at!

Nu-Soul: Well man, thank you for putting time in with us here at Nu-Soul magazine, we appreciate it man.
RY: Rahdu I appreciate you, man. I appreciate you taking your time out to even wanna talk to us about the album man.

www.myspace.com/TheRebelYellRevolution

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