Update: This article has caused some controversy that I would like to address. Transparency within hip-hop journalism can be a rare thing when plenty of blogs that attract a ton of traffic are just there to just blast out music videos fed to them by PR agents. A lot of nerdier (and as I qualify in this article, white) journalists have embraced a more emphatically analytical style which, when embraced by someone like Combat Jack who is highly experienced in the game and is deeply concerned with black social issues, is the best stuff out. White people are not better at writing about rap than black people. But there is a lot of non-traditional, analytic rap journalism that nerdy people with desk jobs at blogs that are often caucausian write. With Combat Jack's show, you have all of the honesty and transparency crucial to good journalism, plus it comes from an authentic and experienced place. I find that highly refreshing (and the best example of rap journalism today) and that's what I was getting at in the interview. -PatrickIf you’re not familiar with Combat Jack—the former Def Jam lawyer who has represented talent like Damon Dash and Clark Kent, who then became the managing editor of The Source, and now runs what is absolutely the best hip-hop podcast on the Internet—then you’re kind of fucking up in the “find great content on the Internet” department. To bring you up to speed on all things related to the Combat Jack media empire, I chatted with Combat Jack over the phone for a very reasonable amount of time. We even got to chat about my own personal business bullshit, but all of that has been cut out. So, here you go. Enjoy the relevant stuff.Noisey: It’s interesting that even though there are so many voices in the hip-hop media, the majority of it is definitely spoon-fed by like press releases and PR agents. And to be honest, I believe that most of the best rap journalism has been coming from nerdy white guys. That is, until your show came around. Your team comes has a very authentic, New York perspective and you personally have a ton of experience in the hip-hop industry, it’s very refreshing.
Combat Jack: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate that. I worked in the business for years and I got burned out because I saw myself as a therapist to all these rappers and producers, just from hearing about all of their dysfunctions. I originally left the industry with a bad taste in my mouth.I think that rappers, black males in particular, become either some super-bad nigga, or some incredibly hot lover, a bad guy through the media. You don’t get to see what our daily lives are. We live the same shit, we breathe the same air, we go through the same girlfriend problems, we go through the same neuroses that everybody else does, and if we could just really cut all the bullshit and examine that, then I think that’s the new form of rap entertainment, man.Agreed. I was hesitating to draw a racial divide when it comes to hip-hop journalists, but it’s true. There has been a significant lack of like transparent, honest black dudes (not to say that they don’t exist) doing hip hop journalism and I guess that can be blamed on ego? Your show is interesting because the episodes are long and you don’t put up any fronts, so it’s just like hanging out with any real black person in real life, because it’s your reality. No one on your show is trying to put on a disguise and your guests go along with that.
Right, and I don’t think that’s just hip-hop in general, I think it’s society in general. If you look at television, black actors either are playing the bad guy or the sidekick or you’re the screwup or you’re the super nigga! That hurts us as a whole, because with those stereotypes people say “Oh, those are just roles on television,” but you know, I fucking hate when I walk in the subway and there’s a white man who looks at me because I have my hoodie on. All of a sudden I read instant fear and panic on his face. And that saddens me because I am not you. You have not had a chance to connect to my humanity. I’m an instant monster to you. So my mission is to demystify and once again humanize our culture. If I can do that in some way, then I’m doing my job.I believe you’re accomplishing that. I’m obviously fascinated with your show, but I also I want to get into your own history for readers who maybe don’t know you well. You came into your hip-hop career as a lawyer right at the beginning of the hip-hop industry itself. In that position, what was the most frustrating experience you dealt with at that very early stage of hip-hop?
My first gig was at Def Jam, and my biggest rap heroes at the time were Public Enemy, they had sold millions of records, they were definitely the voice of young Black America at the time and I was just getting to learn what contracts were. When I looked at what their contract was at the time I was like, “Oh shit, these guys are getting nothing!”I was just blown away by the appearances you see in the videos or on the records, and you think of your heroes as these superstars… and it’s like, “Oh shit, they’re not super rich. They’re not infallible.”I remember going to a party and hanging out with the Bomb Squad for the first time, and I was just amazed at how these guys were so super intimidating with their productions, so super intimidating on their records. But these guys are nerds! You know what I mean? Initially it was a little disheartening but then it was like, “Yo that shit is kind of cool, because it gives a sense of hope to the rest of us nerds.” [Laughs]Yeah man, also, meeting your musical heroes is always a very bizarre experience. You kind of build these narratives up for artists, where you expect them to be just like the characters in their music, but oftentimes they’re simply not.
It’s funny though man, going back to demystifying or humanizing hip-hop… when I was growing up I would commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan and I was a big comic book head. I’m a big comic book head and I’m a big hip-hop head, those two worlds are not mutually exclusive. But I found that if I’d be reading my comics and some homeboys would come on the train, I’d suddenly hide my comics because I didn’t want to be a victim. So I was always kind of ashamed of being a comic book head. But now I’m talking to the likes of Sean Price and whoever else, and all of us are comic book heads! And I’m like, I spent all that wasted time and energy hiding the fact that I’m a comic book head when we’re all comic book nerds?Yeah! That’s funny. The Wu-Tang Clan’s aesthetic is very comic bookish, Ghostface calls himself Tony Stark… the comic universe is really built into the DNA of hip-hop.
Exactly. I think black men carry the extra baggage of living up to the myths, when we could get rid of those myths and just fucking breathe, man.Word. You’ve famously written about the Damon Dash controversy. Since you were his original lawyer and saw him through the struggle to get Jay-Z a record deal… What if someone had come back in a time machine and was like, “One day soon, Jay-Z is going to be friends with the first black president, he will also be partial owner of a Brooklyn basketball team, and he will be considered by many people to be the greatest rapper of all time.” How would you react?
I’d be like, “You’re talking about an alternate universe.” Because you know, hindsight is 20/20; I say this all the time. Back in the early 90s you had a school of New York City rappers that were incredibly talented, I’m talking about the OC, I’m talking about Big L, you know, this is the advent of the Biggie Smalls and Nas and Mobb Deep. Out of that school, Jay-Z literally, in many peoples’ eyes, was the least likely to succeed. He had a weird voice, he wasn’t attractive even as a skinny guy, and he was from Brooklyn. He really didn’t have a shtick. His rhyme patterns was completely different…I really gotta thank Clark Kent and Damon Dash for believing in him because there were times when you’d be in meetings, I’m like, I’m not seeing the hype that him and Clark are seeing. Clark Kent, bless his heart, would always say to me, “This is the best rapper on the planet.” And I was like, “Clark, you’re fucking crazy.” You know what I mean? It’s not like I was like part of the hype because I was part of the crew. I just didn’t see it.It must be crazy to even think that you were living through, first-hand, what is literally one of the most epic rags to riches stories in American history. How do you think that affected you?
I think on a spiritual level—and I don’t wanna get weird, but I was having a conversation with a big radio guy about this yesterday—I realized how powerful the spoken word is. I’ll give you three examples of how powerful it is.Tupac was on this destructive bend, and his words were powerful. His words touched millions of people and ultimately his words became reality, you know? Same thing with Biggie Smalls, Ready to Die… that was his first album. It changed our culture. But ultimately those words became his reality. Conversely, there’s Jay-Z, the least likely to succeed, but his boasts are so convincing even though you may not believe them, years later they manifest into his reality. “Who wanna bet us we don’t touch lettuce?”You speak it, you believe it, it becomes that.Read more at Noisey!
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Combat Jack: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate that. I worked in the business for years and I got burned out because I saw myself as a therapist to all these rappers and producers, just from hearing about all of their dysfunctions. I originally left the industry with a bad taste in my mouth.
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Right, and I don’t think that’s just hip-hop in general, I think it’s society in general. If you look at television, black actors either are playing the bad guy or the sidekick or you’re the screwup or you’re the super nigga! That hurts us as a whole, because with those stereotypes people say “Oh, those are just roles on television,” but you know, I fucking hate when I walk in the subway and there’s a white man who looks at me because I have my hoodie on. All of a sudden I read instant fear and panic on his face. And that saddens me because I am not you. You have not had a chance to connect to my humanity. I’m an instant monster to you. So my mission is to demystify and once again humanize our culture. If I can do that in some way, then I’m doing my job.
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My first gig was at Def Jam, and my biggest rap heroes at the time were Public Enemy, they had sold millions of records, they were definitely the voice of young Black America at the time and I was just getting to learn what contracts were. When I looked at what their contract was at the time I was like, “Oh shit, these guys are getting nothing!”I was just blown away by the appearances you see in the videos or on the records, and you think of your heroes as these superstars… and it’s like, “Oh shit, they’re not super rich. They’re not infallible.”I remember going to a party and hanging out with the Bomb Squad for the first time, and I was just amazed at how these guys were so super intimidating with their productions, so super intimidating on their records. But these guys are nerds! You know what I mean? Initially it was a little disheartening but then it was like, “Yo that shit is kind of cool, because it gives a sense of hope to the rest of us nerds.” [Laughs]Yeah man, also, meeting your musical heroes is always a very bizarre experience. You kind of build these narratives up for artists, where you expect them to be just like the characters in their music, but oftentimes they’re simply not.
It’s funny though man, going back to demystifying or humanizing hip-hop… when I was growing up I would commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan and I was a big comic book head. I’m a big comic book head and I’m a big hip-hop head, those two worlds are not mutually exclusive. But I found that if I’d be reading my comics and some homeboys would come on the train, I’d suddenly hide my comics because I didn’t want to be a victim. So I was always kind of ashamed of being a comic book head. But now I’m talking to the likes of Sean Price and whoever else, and all of us are comic book heads! And I’m like, I spent all that wasted time and energy hiding the fact that I’m a comic book head when we’re all comic book nerds?
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Exactly. I think black men carry the extra baggage of living up to the myths, when we could get rid of those myths and just fucking breathe, man.Word. You’ve famously written about the Damon Dash controversy. Since you were his original lawyer and saw him through the struggle to get Jay-Z a record deal… What if someone had come back in a time machine and was like, “One day soon, Jay-Z is going to be friends with the first black president, he will also be partial owner of a Brooklyn basketball team, and he will be considered by many people to be the greatest rapper of all time.” How would you react?
I’d be like, “You’re talking about an alternate universe.” Because you know, hindsight is 20/20; I say this all the time. Back in the early 90s you had a school of New York City rappers that were incredibly talented, I’m talking about the OC, I’m talking about Big L, you know, this is the advent of the Biggie Smalls and Nas and Mobb Deep. Out of that school, Jay-Z literally, in many peoples’ eyes, was the least likely to succeed. He had a weird voice, he wasn’t attractive even as a skinny guy, and he was from Brooklyn. He really didn’t have a shtick. His rhyme patterns was completely different…I really gotta thank Clark Kent and Damon Dash for believing in him because there were times when you’d be in meetings, I’m like, I’m not seeing the hype that him and Clark are seeing. Clark Kent, bless his heart, would always say to me, “This is the best rapper on the planet.” And I was like, “Clark, you’re fucking crazy.” You know what I mean? It’s not like I was like part of the hype because I was part of the crew. I just didn’t see it.It must be crazy to even think that you were living through, first-hand, what is literally one of the most epic rags to riches stories in American history. How do you think that affected you?
I think on a spiritual level—and I don’t wanna get weird, but I was having a conversation with a big radio guy about this yesterday—I realized how powerful the spoken word is. I’ll give you three examples of how powerful it is.Tupac was on this destructive bend, and his words were powerful. His words touched millions of people and ultimately his words became reality, you know? Same thing with Biggie Smalls, Ready to Die… that was his first album. It changed our culture. But ultimately those words became his reality. Conversely, there’s Jay-Z, the least likely to succeed, but his boasts are so convincing even though you may not believe them, years later they manifest into his reality. “Who wanna bet us we don’t touch lettuce?”You speak it, you believe it, it becomes that.Read more at Noisey!