EDO. G – AFTER ALL THESE YEARS (INTERVIEW)
Words and Interview by Jake Paine
“After All These Years,” Edo. G is still one of the wisest voices in Hip-Hop. Although he carries enduring hits like “Be A Father To Your Child” and “I Got To Have It,” Ed O.G. (as he was then known) carries an underdog’s mentality with an overachiever’s skill-set and discography.
From Roxbury, Boston, Edo’s lyrics and delivery have mirrored his city: scrappy, streetwise, and loving through a tough exterior. With vinyl dating back to 1986, Edward Anderson is an ageless, tireless beacon of dedication and perseverance to a culture and genre, that when he started, was still predicted to be simply a fad.
Hip-Hop owes Edo. G a lot. The MC/producer who founded Da Bulldogs and Special Teamz recently appeased his core with After All These Years. Released on Edo’s own 5th & Union imprint, the LP sourced unreleased beats from Pete Rock and 9th Wonder that Ed kept in his stash for years. In the mind-state of a pre-YouTube, pre-Spotify MC (who in real life helped define underground/independent options for his peers), Edo drives the Delorean and makes some of his finest work in more than a decade.
Speaking with Crazy Hood, Edo. G expounds on a career without needing to rehash his biggest hits. Instead, the raspy-voiced MC credits those around him in making a highly-sustainable career built around positivity, uphold Hip-Hop’s tenants, and letting the music being the calling card of consistency.
Crazy Hood: Was your approach any different in laying After All These Years out?
Edo. G: Nope. The process was pretty much the same. I do a lot of the recording at home; I got a studio in the crib. For me, the beats and the beat-selection [are what] I approached differently, ‘cause I actually went back to cassettes in trying to capture that sound.
I was listening to tons of different beats from different producers and different people, and I knew that I kind of wanted to have that retro feeling with this album, just because of the title, After All These Years. I wanted to make sure that the music matched the title. So I went back and started listening to old beat tapes; I didn’t want nothin’ that I had in my inbox in my email. I went straight to the tapes and found those Pete Rock joints. I actually found about 10-12 Pete Rock beats from different tapes that he’d sent. I found [DJ] Premier beats, Alchemist beats, Buckwild beats—I got so many beats from producers, on tape. It’s crazy, and it kind of inspired me once the Pete stuff [was recorded]. I kind of tailored everything towards that sound.
Crazy Hood: I’ve been around artists listening to old beat tapes, and I know that’s special. You mention the cassette. You released albums in your career that came out on cassette, in addition to vinyl LP and CD, at a time when that was the medium. It’s crazy that a lot of consume music now on our computers and phones. I always thought the CD was scary, how easy it was the skip through. But the digital format is even scarier. What do you think is so special and integral about Hip-Hop on cassette tape?
Edo. G: First off, it’s that tape—that quality. It’s just like a two-inch [studio] reel; you get that warm [sound]. It’s just a different feeling from digital; you can’t duplicate that tape-quality sound. It’s just the nostalgia. Tapes are making a little comeback here in 2014. The young kids right now, everything that they’re doing is trying to emulate the early ‘90s and late ‘80s, with the gear. My son has a flat-top [haircut]; a ton of kids in his school have flat-tops. They look like they’re straight out of ’90, ’91 right now. [Laughs]
Crazy Hood: You mentioned your ear for beats. Whether the group, solo, or collaborative, you’ve been phenomenal at maintaining your musical brand—pun intended—“after all these years.” Whether you were working with Pete Rock, DJ Premier, Diamond D, or anybody, it all sounds connected and in the same pocket. How integral has that been to your sustainability and your career?
Edo. G: I thank God every day for blessing me with a great ear to hear really good beats. I know a good one when I hear it. It’s a whole thing; I feel it. That’s a talent. That’s a skill. There are a lot of people who can’t pick good beats. For a long time, to me, Nas was one of them. It just seemed like he’d just rhyme on anything. He was so dope that it didn’t matter about the beats. But it does matter. To me, that’s 50% of the record. You’ve got to have that balance; you’ve got to have dope beats and dope lyrics. I just think my ear has always been good. I’ve always been able to sift through beats, sift through producers, and get the best out of them, at least for me. Just like the [Arts & Entertainment] album with me and [Masta] Ace, the majority of the beats I picked—the producers, everything. It’s just a ear. And it’s a talent. Some people have it, some people don’t. I’m just blessed.
Crazy Hood: You have all these tapes on you. Is that a product of your being a Boston artist and getting sent tapes, whereas a lot of artists were hearing beats in the ‘90s and early 2000s from traveling from studios like D&D, Greene Street and Power Play to sit in on sessions and shop around, or go to producers’ cribs, whereas you were a few hundred miles away?
Edo. G: It’s possible, but you know, I was at the cribs. I was at Diamond [D]’s crib. Buckwild and I go way, way back. So I was in New York a lot, probably more than Boston in the early ‘90s, up until about ’95. I was actually gonna even move out there. I was out there, man, like that. I had to be there. We were home when we weren’t workin’, but the majority of the time, we were there.
Crazy Hood: I love this track on the album, “U.N.I.” It has this thing that I think you’ve done so well throughout your career: open with a strong, reverse-wordplay couplet. My favorite song of yours has always been “Sayin’ Somethin’,” and this has it too. How deliberate is that, and where does it come from?
Edo. G: It’s just the beats. The beats bring out those kind of lyrics. I have tons and tons of different kinds of metaphors that I’m always writin’. I push ‘em aside, and then I’ll use them when I’m writing. It just really depends on the song. That song, “U.N.I.,” just had that feel. I had had that line (“You can lose money chasin’ women, can never lose women chasin’ money”) for a while. It’s not like a super duper line that no one’s heard before. But it just makes that point that I wanted to keep. I just like to set it off, grab you from the first line. If you gotta wait to the eighth bar, you might just skip it. It might be too long. I like to think about what I’m doin’, and the beats dictate a lot of that stuff.
Crazy Hood: “Da Beef Goes On” is another one. When you went and did Special Teamz, it kind of went under the radar. I’m not so sure you were perceived as a hardcore, aggressive artist, and that was my introduction to Slaine, having heard Jaysaun a bit. Special Teamz went on to become a hardcore Hip-Hop group, with veteran backing. How much has that vehicle opened up a new lane for you and your career?
Edo. G: It did, man. Throughout my career, I always tried to do something different every time I came out. I never wanted to just keep putting out records, ‘cause after a while it just gets boring. [Laughs] At that particular time…me and [Jaysaun] had a group which was originally called The Last Word. There was another guy [Big Juan] in it before Slaine, and then another guy [Krumbsnatcha] in it after the first guy [Big Juan] left. We did two albums; we did an album with Krumbsnatcha too. Krumb’ [was included] the second time we did the group. We did a whole album. Krumb’, then had his solo album come out, and he kind of left the group and did his own thing. Me and Jay’ were at our wits end, and we were like, “We’re gonna try it one more time. If it doesn’t work, that’s it. It just wasn’t meant to be.” He brought Slaine into the fold, and we went right in. “We’ll see if he can do it.” You know what I’m sayin’? So we went immediately in the studio, put on a beat, and said, “Everybody just write. Let’s do a song.” We did it, listened back, “Oh, this shit is dope. You’re rockin’ with us!” Put Slaine down, and he’s had great success ever since. It’s good for [Special Teamz], ‘cause it helps us at the same time, ‘cause we’re all family and crew, and we want to see everybody in crew be successful, ‘cause it only helps us see successful. He just had his [The King Of Everything Else] album release party here a few weeks ago, and we all were there. It was crazy.
[Stereotypez] was a really, really slept-on album. People, if you haven’t heard it, I’m tellin’ you: grab it. It’s not even on anywhere, you can’t grab it. I’m gonna put it up on iTunes actually. [Laughs] It’s just not available anymore, and it was on Duck Down [Records]. It touches a lot of good stuff.
Crazy Hood: I’ve watched the “Fight” video maybe 25 times. Chuck, I know was putting wax out as far back as 1984 with Spectrum City. But that said, you guys are kind of like peers of the same era…you go back to like ‘86. Yet you both come from an era, originally, where collaborations were not common or like they were today. That said, how did it feel to make a song, with a video no less, together?
Edo. G: When I heard the beat—shout out to Vanderslice, Philly!—I had hooked up with Chuck [D] around 2012, 2011. I had seen Chuck at [Logan Airport]. He was speaking out here; we were flying out, he was comin’ in. We rapped, exchanged numbers real quick, like, “Yo, we gotta do somethin’.” He came back in town on the Hip-Hop Gods Tour. I went through to that, kicked it with him, performed, did a bunch of stuff. I was like, “Yo man, I need you on my album.” He was like, “No problem.” That beat, I had already had my verse. “Ay man, I’m gonna send it to you.” He knocked it out in like a day or two. The crazy thing too, he spit like a 32-bar verse. My verse is 32, his verse is like 32. [Laughs] I was floored all the way, and thankful. The song is dope. He can appreciate that, and that’s why he did what he did.
Crazy Hood: You and I spoke a lot in 2003 and 2004, and we’d talk a lot about football. That was right as things were getting real serious for the New England Patriots, and you know I’m a diehard Pittsburgh Steelers fan. What’s interesting is how we discussed Boston’s underdog mentality, and how that aligned with your music, and sports. We both know that’s not true anymore, thanks to the Red Sox, the Patriots, the Bruins, the Celtics. As somebody who loves sports, has it affected your music?
Edo. G: It hasn’t changed me that much. I’m still doin’ pretty much the same thing. But I think it has spawned a lot of newer, younger generation cats who are riding that wave, who came out under this championship mentality. They don’t know the underdog mentality. They don’t know the way, way back mentality when every team here sucked—except for the Celtics. [Chuckles] For me, I’m just happy for sports and the city, we did it. But it hasn’t changed me; I stick my chest out to the other sports people, of course. That has nothing to do with Hip-Hop.
Crazy Hood: Another one of your records, over the years, that just means so much to me is “Love Comes And Goes.” That track sounds incredible to this day, but people forget that in 1993, 1994, “love” was not the move as far as Rap subject matter. I know pain is a big part of that record too. You had Wu-Tang Clan, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Black Moon. People weren’t trying to hear about relationships. Yet today, a single like that kind of paved the way for Drake, J. Cole, even Kendrick Lamar’s new single, “i.” How do you reflect on that, and the courage to go in another direction?
Edo. G: I gotta really shout out Nefertiti. She was a female artist from the [San Francisco] Bay, who was in the studio with me; she was [also] signed to Mercury Records. She actually made me pick that beat. “Aw, this shit is cra-zay@!” I didn’t think so, ‘cause it had “love” in it. At the time, that’s exactly what I was thinking, to your point. “Hmmm. I don’t know how people are gonna receive this.” She was like, “Nah, you gotta do it.” I was like, “Aiight.”
Nefertiti, all credit goes to her for that “Love Comes And Goes” record. I was on the fence, and she made me see the light in it. That is originally played too—a bass and a guitar player. We had to play that, ‘cause the sample is a George Benson sample. He didn’t let us clear it ‘cause I said “ass” or somethin’. [Laughs] Yo, it was a love song, and it was a positive record, but I [cursed] along the way in one of those verses. He was like, “No. I’m a Jehova’s Witness, you can’t use my sample.” Nobody even knows that’s not a sample. Diamond D got those musicians in there and made it sound just like the sample.
Crazy Hood: You’ve released an album almost every year of the 2000s. Yet between Dedicated and Truth Hurts, you took almost five years apart from an album. Reflecting on that hiatus today, what happened and how did it shape you?
Edo. G: See, that whole era was me getting into the independent [grind]. In ’95, the deal with Mercury was over; they had dropped me. That ended in ’95. In ’96-’97, we did the Dedicated record. And then I started doing a bunch of features; I hadn’t featured on anybody’s song. I didn’t even know that in ’96, ’97, a market for making money off of feature. I was totally out of the mainstream, and then dropped right back into the underground abyss, with nothing, knowing nothing. Shout out to my man Kool DJ E.Q. from out there in Cali. He put a bunch of compilations through that time, on his label, Industry Records. I featured on a whole bunch of ‘em; I did tons of songs with him. It was a really good pay-day at the time. So what I had did from that to Truth Hurts was just did a bunch of features. I did songs with DJ Spinna, a bunch of different compilation albums, so I was kinda just gettin’ paid putting out 12” [singles], doing little different stuff, until we got the deal with Ground Control [Records] in 2000, to put out The Truth Hurts.
That’s when I discovered indie labels. Back from the majors, I had to find out the indie stuff: that, the Fat Beats [releases], Traffic [Entertainment releases], and now onto my own label 15 years later, 5th & Union. Me and Jamieson Grillo got the label, and it’s the best thing ever.
Crazy Hood: One of those singles you alluded to in that period was the Cactus Jack, “Act Like What U Say” record, which I first heard on a DJ EFN tape. That record was phenomenally dope. None of your one-offs or features ever sounded trotted in, or half-assed, least of all that one. What’s that record mean to you today?
Edo. G: Cactus Jack was my boy. My partner, who owns the label with me, 5th & Union, Jamieson, that was his record. He actually put that out. That was my boy, family. He used to mess with Jack. Ha, this is Jamieson calling me now! [Steps away] Like I said, at the time, doing the features and stuff, I definitely wanted to give it my all. I didn’t want nobody to say, “Man, this guy is rappin’ still?” or “He’s wack.” I’m trying to [stand out and shine]. I’m trying to go in! That beat was super dope! God rest the dead, Roc Raida did the scratches on that record. [Laughs] There was no way I was comin’ half-assed on that record, let’s go!
Another record that I did at that time, me and Ace did, called “Make Some Noise,” which was a really good record, if you can find that on vinyl. It’s a cartoon drawing of me and Ace on the cover.
Crazy Hood: What is your proudest verse of your career?
Edo. G: I’ve got many, but I’ll give you one. There’s a song called “Ain’t Gonna Wait,” on A Face In The Crowd, which I put out in 2011. That joint, that rhyme right there, is one of my favorite rhymes ever. It just says a lot in 16 bars. It’s actually in my book, a lyric book that I got comin’ out. It’s just one of my most slept-on verses that people haven’t heard. Once they get the book and they can listen to that song, they’ll get it. [Chuckles]
Follow Edo. G: https://twitter.com/edogboston
Jake Paine has been a music industry professional since 2002. In addition to five years as HipHopDX.com’s Editor-in-Chief, Paine spent five years as AllHipHop’s Features Editor. He has written for Forbes, XXL, The Source, Mass Appeal, among others. He currently resides in Pittsburgh.