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SWAGILISH Salomon and THEillUZiON BY KATIE CERCONE When I asked Salamon Faye of the illUZiON if I could interview him about the syncretism of the spiritual and the political in hip hop, I didn’t know that I’d end up having to take a look at myself. Like always, I was in hot pursuit of some magical-liturgical projection amalgamating hip hop scholarship, rap glitterati boundary transgression in the spectacular and my own perceived lack. I thought if I tapped my heels together three times and dove into a sea of rappers, I’d find GAWD. And then I did, both inside myself, and mirrored back in the illUZiON’s hand symbol, or mudra, “the code” Salomon says. It translates to LOVE FAITH AND GRATITUDE. Interestingly, it’s the exact same symbol we make with both hands outstretched during the Kundalini sacred prayer Japji, which causes a profound experience with your own Soul bringing tremendous personal balancing and connection with the Infinite. It is about understanding the Wizdom of God. A few dayz following my request to Faye, I was whisked away to the mountains (yo we was flyin’) by Joshua aka Insane the Rebel aka Enasni Leber (sh*t is backwards yo!), half of THEillUZiON, for a group interview with a few more of the Bushwick-based Apostrophe Collective. Joining us was the visual artist Ryan “Bock Haus” Bock, who’s currently collaborating on a video with Salomon titled “Quest.” Looking out over a majestic green valley from an ivy draped castle filled with beautiful women (roaming in the yard was the illustrious singer Elira Roe) and psychic dogs (all dogs are psychic), we got down to bizzness and talked about where we all comin from and why we all artists. Call it a Transcendental Summit; you could say we held Spiritual Court. KC: How did you come up with the name illUZiON? SF: For me the name THEillUZiON was to represent how we were gonna try to lure people in with what they were accepting at the time but once they’re like “oooh this is cool” SMACK you with the truth!! EL: We live in a world of illusions and we are the product of various illusions – we identify by that. KC: Does it relate to the Hindu concept of maya, translated to illusion, veil and simply “not that?” Maya means that the universal truth cannot be translated to a simple concept the ordinary mind can manipulate. We use the word “maya” to keep the mind from attaching to incomplete reality, any thoughts? REVOLT Quest, video still, 2013, collaboration between Salomon Faye and Ryan Bock. SF: It is a truth that I’m trying to convey but I try to be it more than to speak it. It’s hard to really speak about that using words without things getting lost in translation. The way I try to promote it is really trying to demonstrate how I practice self-mastery and how I apply that truth in my life. KC: Your song Fools Gold – I read the title and lyrics as a metaphor and commentary on the American Dream – can you explain more the song’s message? SF: We’re pointing out the false values that people have. We’re not just simply trying to rhyme and show our rhyming ability - we can do that - so like we’re just trying to make points and that song ac curately interpreted is a point made. EL: It’s a where we come from kind of song. We come from the fool’s gold. When you grow up in the hood you see these false fantasies that everybody has to escape the reality. The poverty, the broken apartments, that’s all it is in the hood, yet they think everything’s cool, they spend a lot of money on clothes, grow weed, bottles – and it’s just a false fantasy. That’s the illusion that people want to live and that’s what we came from, you know? And we’re getting out of it. Salomon says “slept on the A train woke up on my A game,” that was our life then and now we’ve broken away from the fools gold. SF: Wanna try a little fools gold, if you wanna vibe with the rebel God tribe put a hand up… it’s not like that reality is far from us too. For us to be able to identify the illusion we once had to be consumed by it. EL: There’s a choice. A hustler makes a sacrifice a good book or a paradise - you choose your reality. Some people say they need to sell drugs to survive – at the end of the day you do what you want to do, right? You can live the illusion – or you can make your own reality. KC: I feel ya. Some critics have described this track as “true school” and “revivalist,” can you trace THEillUZiON back to the golden age of hip hop in the South Bronx of the 80s and 90s? What is the true school and is there a particular hip hop lineage that you follow? EL: As for influences my pops used to breakdance and do graffiti. I grew up in the Bronx in the 90s so that’s hip hop to me. When I started listening to hip hop 50 cent was out, Dipset was out, all these people they were doin their thing. I always listen to 90s stuff, 80s stuff.. cause that was my thing but honestly I don’t know everybody gets influenced I listen to jazz I listen to Rock n’ Roll… I’m Dominican and Ecuadorian so Spanish music is a big influence in my life. SF: I get influenced by what I like, shit I don’t like. What I don’t like might make me make a certain decision or approach something a different way. There’s a point where Wayne was an influence to me but DUDE! The music I make is nothing like him tho I can’t deny that influence that he had at a certain point in my development so I would just say life experiences, what happens to come my way naturally. Me and Rebel we haven’t been really trying to replicate a golden age or a golden era. <strong>Magazine</strong> Number 4, 2013 44
RB: I think it’s very natural. Until very recently hip hop as a whole has been very stagnant it’s been in this bit of a drought I feel like and until just recently, younger artists are emerging and without even really meaning to are sort of bringing back this early 90s golden age of hip hop sound. The way that I see it is that it’s not even a conscious situation but it’s also very natural it’s like this wave – they go up, they go down. EL: WORD – yea a lot of people are like “I want to rap like the nineties I love the nineties, nineties this nineties that - ” SF: It’s not even about that. EL: I can’t tell you I make nineties music. I listen to Led Zeppelin, I listen to Anthony Santos I listen to Tribe Called Quest I listen to Lil Wayne I listen to Kanye College Graduate. SF: I listen to Chance the Rapper EL: I listen to Jay Z good music era y’all gonna - SF: Open Letter, all my niggers like 3 Hunna EL: I listen to GBE - you know! SF: Pretty Flocka EL: And some cats be like that’s not real hip hop SF: What you talkin bout! What is real hip hop? EL: I just like music I like all types of stuff. EL: Yo there was wack rappers in the 90s. There was a stagnant era in the 90s you know you had Biggie and Tupac but you also had Too $hort. You had all these other people that were sayin some bullshit too. Even Biggie, Biggie wasn’t sayin much of anything positive. You had Tribe Called Quest. On the west coast you had people rappin slow on the east coast you had people rappin fast down south you had people rappin, say com’on what’s real hip hop? People in New York are gonna say rap from New York in the 90s is real hip hop people in the south are like that shit is wack! past 30 years. Do you feel part of a cohesive Hip Hop Nation that is - as Afrika Bambaataa would say - “speaking truth to power?" SF: People can call it what they want. I’m not really for being against or rejecting another thing, I try to either understand it or overlook it. As far as being a part of a cohesive hip hop nation I’ll say hip hop is cool right now, very diverse, it’s a platform where everybody can be themselves. I just play my part in that. KC: Where do you situate yourself and the iLLUZION crew in relationship to the global hip hop diaspora? Can you talk about the evocation of style and guts in hip hop as a type of transnational, spiritual swag politicizing youth and raising consciousness worldwide? SF: Through hip hop? Yeah I mean that’s great. I’m working with a few artists right now in other countries. I think it’s dope to expand the connection - the consciousness - and everybody’s working together. As far as politics I don’t really include much of that in my hip hop. My music is all my artistic expression of truth. I don’t look to attack or limit the expression of the government or whatever might be behind it. That’s being spoken about by others. I stick to my task, which is just being the light. Somebody spiritual they’ll call it that, somebody not spiritual they’ll say “in the zone” or something but it’s this trance state where something does come over you, or go in through you. It happens to me all the time freestylin’ there’s a certain zone of comfort where the message and the words just seem to come out almost as if I’m watching it happen. It is a state of mind, a form of meditation. I’m sure it’s like the same vibe or frequency that people are getting into in African dance or it’s whatever some people call it. Sometimes I say it’s the vein, like getting in the vein – it's God flowing through you. It’s being able to let go of everything and just move – woosh! As far as lyrics and the creation process of the art and unraveling truth, it’s funny to watch. Writing or making something with such concentrated thought or energy, feeling that you’re creating that world manifesting from inside to out. I understand myself more going over the things I come up with because it’s more than me, when things are at their best. Because you know when you’re like looking for some inspiration or thoughts you’re digging, you’re digging from options, things from right there to pick from and then when you stop digging it’s just coming. It’s a spiritual experience - this is life - it’s always there that vibe it’s just if you’re present to it. God is always PRESENT KC: And how is illUZiON pushing the borders of the genre and carving out a new space in today’s hip hop? EL: It’s authentic, and we don’t even try. If I were to try I could make some 90s shit I could make some west coast shit I could make something trill. I could make some trap shit, I could make a trap album, what? Trap Supastar! But I don’t try to make “some shit” I Just do what im inspired to. SF: I don’t even like being narrowed in to only being looked at as a hip hop artist. A lot of rappers put themselves in that box and limit themselves. They become album after album, mix tape after mix tape, uh-uh son, niggas want to write plays! This is where we at right now, the foundation of where we started. We started out rapping well, we started applying thoughtful things about life to our ability to rhyme and now we gotta push it further. Rap is too easy now it’s not just about rapping or rhyming a word. So we not tryin to carve hip hop. Hip hop is what it is and we a part of it because we’re artists that emcee and we’re doing our best to become better artists and have that be a part of the influence and the identity of our culture, nauuughmean?? KC: The Hip Hop Nation has been called a ‘couterrepublic’ within the United States, it’s also been said that hip hop has been at the forefront of every youth social justice movement worldwide for the Salomon Faye, photo credit Dakota Blue Harper. KC: You do put messages in your work and that’s political, you just don’t talk about politics is what you’re saying? SF: Yeah KC: I like to think about hip hop in terms of earth and sky awareness. The drum beat is about our roots, breakdancing draws energy up from the earth through the feet. Hip Hop also links back to the practice of “possession dance” in Africa where to dance is to literally transcending human form and becoming one with source. I like to think of rappers, particularly the freestyle or the flow as a type of cosmic verbal divination. Salomon I noticed you dropping some pretty nu age bars, talking about the sun god, the sky, the third eye and rapping as your “divine purpose” or as you called it before “unraveling truth” – can you say more? SF: It’s about being so wrapped up in something you love that the force - that will power- it drives through you to where it is a spiritual experience. EL: You got to get lost in it, right? Even the first time I write a song you know you got everything you want to say and even at that you know I find out months later the shit that I wrote made so much sense… that shit just came out and now I listen and I’m like that shit so dope. You got to sing “If you wanna vibe with the rebel God Tribe” like 5,000 times and you almost forget what the song is about… I may have not even gotten it while creating it. SF: The message is not just hidden in the result but also the creation process. Yo, that shit is God’s language to me, art is just an analogy to be able to bring together how this higher consciousness that some people call universe, higher force, I call God - this is how it communicates - within and through, outside, around, what is. What isn’t. We understand what it is whenever we come to that point of understanding. KC: I’m interested in the significance of the party in hip hop and in your video. There is this apocalyptic
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