Reading,
rhyming and
’rithmetic

>> MC J-Live makes an impression on the kids

by SCOTT C

Back in ’95, when a spot in The Source magazine’s Unsigned Hype column could actually propel your hip hop career into forward motion, Jean-Jacques Cadet, aka J-Live, caught the ears of heads everywhere with the now classic “Braggin’ Writes.”

In 2002, with the kind of major-label inconsistencies we’ve come to expect from the industry behind him, this NYC MC/DJ and elementary school teacher released All of the Above on 7Heads Records, showcasing not only his extraordinary writing skills, but also his production talents. The Mirror spoke to J-Live while he was looking for a new apartment in NYC.

Mirror: Things are going well on the music side now, but do you think you’ll ever go back to teaching?
J-Live: Yeah, absolutely. When I fall off, and nobody wants my records anymore and I can’t do shows, I’ll definitely go back to teaching.

M: When was the last time you were in the classroom?
J: I guess about a year ago. I graduated in 1998, and I was teaching again from 2000 to 2001.

M: So when did you decide that you were going to make your music career your priority?
J: I guess it was second year in college, when we put our first record out. After we signed to a label and things kind of fell through, teaching was very important to me, so after graduation I had that opportunity and I took it.

M: What grade were you teaching?
J: I was teaching Grade 7 in Brownsville, and Grade 8 in Bushwick.

M: Were you using hip hop at all in the classroom as a teaching tool?
J: A little bit. I mean, the kids can relate to me just as an individual, because to them I have sort of a hip hop vibe to me. I was really up on a lot of the things that they were into, but every once and a while I would incorporate it into the lessons just to help them get a better understanding of certain skills, just to break the ice and make things a little more casual.

M: That’s a good age to have a cool teacher. Most people have to wait until high school to get a teacher who’ll talk to them on their level.
J: Yeah, it is. Sometimes kids don’t get what they need out of elementary, and they get passed through the system, so you’ve got to get them right before they go to high school, when they really need it. It’s a very pivotal year.

M: Kids sliding through the cracks of elementary school seems to be a big problem in a lot of parts of the U.S. Have you seen a lot of this?
J: It happens all the time. It’s the way the system is designed. It’s the way some teachers treat their students. It’s the way some parents treat their kids. It’s the way some kids treat their education, so it happens. You have situations where you want there to be support in the home, but the kids are pretty much taking care of their grandparents. You have to be careful with kids. Some of them have real issues that have to be addressed before you can get through to them.

M: Are these things that you keep in mind when you’re writing rhymes?
J: Well, yeah. I mean, I know that as an underground artist, I appeal to an age group that listens to college radio, and that’s not necessarily 12 to 18, but those are the kids that my message is aimed towards. College heads and older heads can relate and enjoy my rhymes too, but when I write more conscious lyrics, it’s really geared to the kids who listen to more ignorant music. If I can get them to give my stuff a chance, you never know what kind of influence I can have in them.

Be true to your school
M: You seem to be very good at capturing the innocence of youth in a lot of your rhymes. You’ve got songs that take people back to a whole world of things that they thought they forgot.
J: I relate to growing up and listening to hip hop as a kid a lot. It pretty much shaped and moulded who I am today. A lot of people can say that, but most people don’t credit their youth for the way they are, and want to consider themselves grown-ass men. I do that too, but the man you see today is a product of the child that was there yesterday.

M: Does it bother you when people say you have an old-school feel?
J: I’ve been calling my music “true school” for some time, but I’m starting to stop that because what it does is make people think that I’m trying to capture the essence of what music was back then. But I’m really trying to push the envelope and do new things, it’s just that I have the same kind of ethics and integrity that music seemed to have back then, and it lacks now because hip hop has become so commercially successful.

M: What do those ethics and integrity entail?
J: What that means is we don’t bite, we try to be original, we try to continue the art of sampling and not just the business of it. We don’t dumb down our lyrics, and try to come up with complex styles that people can appreciate after the first listen. We’re not scared to do things that haven’t been done. We are scared to do things that have been done and run into the ground because they don’t sound original. Those kind of ethics stand out in the mass of music that you have now, and people say that it reminds them of old-school music, but it’s really just the craftsmanship involved.

M: You’ve been working on some stuff with Soulive—
J: Actually, their guitarist Eric Krasno played on the album on “How Real It Is” and “The 4th 3rd.”

M: Do you prefer to work with people that you can just get down and be yourself with? I notice you really don’t do the guest MC or producer thing. Everything sort of naturally complements each other.
J: Yeah. That’s how I picked the producers that I work with, even on the first album. Premier, 88 Keys, Grap Luva, cats like that. On the new album, it’s Joe Money, Jazzy Jeff, Spinna and myself, of course. Part of why I don’t do a lot of duets and posse cuts is because I’m greedy with my concepts, and I don’t want to just have a song bastardized by a person who’s not approaching it with the same level of creative energy that I am, or who just doesn’t feel the concept.

M: You don’t hear that often. “I’m greedy with my concepts.”
J: I am! I won’t even front. Rakim didn’t do a lot of songs with outside groups, but he was able to stand alone. That’s something I think I can do. I’m not a singer so it’s not about pitch. It’s about attitude and tone of voice. :

With Butta babees and DJs Spazmodik and Alex Hustle at le Studio on Friday, Sept. 13,
10pm, $12

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