TALKIN ALL THAT JAZZ

Rip It Up, Issue 167, 1 June 1991, Page 20

TALKIN ALL THAT JAZZ

It’s pretty easy just to write a band like the Dream Warriors off. I mean, do we really need another bunch of De La Soul styled rappers whose big ‘novelty’ is that they’re from Canada? Of course not, and the Dream Warriors have got a few tracks to convince you that they’re a class above all that anyway.

‘Ludi’ is a nice slice of ska melded to hip-hop, ‘Wash My Face' is just plain funky and ‘Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Thing'is just plain cool. Its completely lacking any ‘normal’ hip-hop beats, the rap is laid over a very neat sixties Quincy Jones jazz-funk thing. | put it to King Lou that they may have put themselves pretty much at the forefront of a new development in a style that's rapidly going stale. “Yeah, we sort of experimented with that jazz thing one fime and it was real successful, but we did that about three years ago and we're moving on now.” Still, it does give you a unique sound.

“Well, we didn't want fo follow the mainstream of rap, we used what felt good to us and what we liked. Coming out of Canada, we had to be twice as good or sound totally different to be accepted by the American scene, which was okay by us 'cos we wanted to do what we wanted, not what anybody else wanted us to do.”

limagine that in the brutally territorial world of rap you would get a hard fime coming from Canada. You don't really see Canada as the home of hip-hop, yet you tell me that Toronto has the largest West Indian population in North America.

“It sounds weird 'cos noone really

knows Canada, other than snow and E 3 _ ice...

And Joni Mitchell? “...and the Rockies, they don't expect rap music or hip-hop to come out of that, but there’s a scene there that's finally getting recognised now even though its been there a long while.”

Well, you guys were cool enough to get Slim Alliard (the king of Vooit, kids, go buy his records, you'll be better for it} to work with you. He must have been an awesome guy to hang with. “Oh yeah, he was a lot of fun, real cool. He understood how we worked and how we think, ‘cos when he was younger he was like us. He liked to do different things, he was creating his own jozz language and creating his own style, and as a rap group we were creating our own thing too.” It's great to see someone like Slim get some recognition too — so many of these pioneers got totally screwed by the Business, by the public forgetting them, and they created so much.

“Ifind a lot of them have slipped out of the music scene, just been forgotten, which shouldn’t happen ‘cos if it wasn’t for them music

wouldn't be alive. They put their share into the scene, they came

from the streets and made a place in music that everyone should respect.”

Between ‘Ludi’s beats and Slim Galliard's voice, you guys have certainly paid homage to your roots — do you think that should be important nowadays?

“Without the roots we wouldn't be here, so you've got fo respect it.” Especially if it sounds as good as ‘Definition Of A Boombastic Jazz Thing".

KIRK GEE