Knowledge Magazine Interview

Interview by: Lopez and Ben Weaver

Date: 2002

Prior to their devastating live performance alongside Numskullz and Beat Route 38 in London recently, Knowledge got to chew the phat with the group responsible for much of your hip hop ear candy this summer, Double K and Thes One. That's People Under The Stairs to you...

Have you been shopping for breaks here?
Double K: "Yeah. Always. You find a lot more stuff here you don't find back there."
Thes One: "Break shopping here, the conversion rate is bad for us, so it costs more to buy records. Second, there are a lot more valuable records here that were bought in America and taken over here. Now they're being sold here. But as far as finding stuff that isn't on people's lists that dealers don't know about, you can still find that in America - but you gotta look hard."

How do you go about choosing samples?
Thes One: "Most of the stuff I listen to or sample I have a hard time picking the best part. If I had it my way I'd use the whole song! The songs are what counts, the originals are always so dope. A lot of producers get records with sounds on 'em. They take a weird sound here and a weird sound there and they put 'em over drums and that's their little hip hop beat, but we take songs. We got Beatles covers and all types of crap."

You go for big loops?
Thes One: "Not necessarily..."
Double K: "It all depends, you know, it's kinda hard to explain but if it's a long loop and the loop needs to be taken... hell, take it!"

Would you sample from a repress break?
Double K: "I have. I don't see nothin' wrong with it really as long as you don't overdo it, your whole album just full of... you know... that's bullshit."
Thes One: "We're masters of our trade when it comes to sampling. We make something that isn't a loop sound like a loop. Then everyone says 'where's that loop?' It doesn't exist. We made it a loop."

You appear to be making complete songs while many just bite Primo.
Double K: "That's all that's going on it sounds like. At home that's what everybody's doing, I come over here and fools is looping and digging in their records n' shit."
Thes One: "I can say that the UK is way more open minded than the US when it comes to new hip hop."
Double K: "I think a lot of the emcees out here need to get represented. They're gonna get the American emcees no matter what, they gonna push that shit over here. There's a lotta fools here that's rhyming but ain't got nobody tryna work with 'em. I think that's probably the only thing here..."

Are you now at the stage where you can work on your music every day?
Double K: "Uh huh, pretty much we do."

Do you both play instruments?
Double K: "Yeah, I fuck with the drums."

Would you sample live instruments?
Double K: "Hmmm... not really."
Thes One: "Its just kinda separated. There's unspoken rules for this. Man, people always talking about 'we need to be innovative and move forward' and this n' that. At the same time they're not even working within the framework that's been set up by 20 years of hip hop history and culture. They're on some other shit, y'know what I'm sayin'? Pete Rock never got on stage with a keyboard and played 'Reminisce' [does impersonation, laughter follows]... that's some other shit! We've heard both sides from critics, you know... people from New York calling and giving props...and at the same time, 'Hip hop was great in '93 but let's move on'..."
Double K: "Basically let's bite and sound like everybody else that's hot. Stop doing fresh stuff. That's what they're saying."
Thes One: "It's easy to be weird, its the easiest thing in the world. We could record an album of 'lyrical scientific molecule molecular fission fusion' [laughter]. Thanks, that shit was tight right? Sit down with a science book or geography book and write a rhyme and get a stupid beat 'wooop' with some sounds and noises - and all the critics would just fuckin' jump out of their clothes. They'd be like 'this is the most innovative shit.' But when it comes down to it, a year from now no one will wanna go back and listen to it."
Double K: "All that shit has been done... When it comes down to it, what the fuck you talkin' about? You're not gonna get off the mic and go to a lab and cook some shit up. You gotta go home to your mom!"

And watch TV...
Thes One: "Yeah, that's the type of group we are. We represent all those normal motherfuckers out there... who aren't on some Super hip hop 24 hours a day. We are hip hop man. We could listen to rock, it's not a big deal... the people with all the gear, they walk down the street, graffiti with one hand, breakin' with the other, they're doing everything at once - those are the people who are the wackest!"