DX: Speaking of experience, Jazz has been a huge part of your life. Take me back to the days of the 1960s and so forth and create a vivid picture of black music and the experiences that you went through.
O: Woo, I had never saw anything like that before or any music experience like that afterwards. That was an unusual environment. That was a unique period where, something was happening where, there was unlimited varieties of music that black people were making. They weren’t stuck in a situation where they were they had to play anything. You could make up your own style, from which was happening. You wouldn’t hear one singer sounding like another singer and it was the same thing for musicians. Nothing sounded the same. The bands in each city had different types of music. You went to Vicksburg, they had their own music, if you went to Washington, D.C. they had their own music, if you went to New York, there was different types of music and it was beautiful. Everywhere you went, it as different. It was nothing like it is now. There is less variety in the music now. Also, something happened to regional sound and the music industry wasn’t interested in it. They wanted one voice, so to speak. Today, you see how some male vocalists have similar voices or how some female vocalists have the same voices?

DX: Yes.
O: Yeah, they don’t have the regional sound and you can’t hear the dialect anymore. You understand what I’m saying? You don’t hear the raw country-ness in them anymore. You really can’t hear the rawness. It’s not as funky in the end. There’s less variety. Why? I don’t know, but it was a beautiful nurturing place for me- especially as an artist.

DX: People might not know that you taught Nas how to play the trumpet at the age of three or four. Let me know why you felt like music was so important in your child’s life.
O: I found freedom in it. I looked at the world in my own eyes and the only thing that I found was free, creative and Godly was in music. I was fortunate enough to know because I was trained as a professional before I was 20 years old. I got a chance to see different environments and different people and it horned my social skills. I traveled. I got to see what the world was really was like, I learned my history and I got to see the Earth change. You can see how the world changes, right through your eyes, by moving around the Earth at different times and seeing where people are going. I saw that as a gift from the heavens. Then to be able to recognize and realize that music is a healer, I decided I wanted to be the doctor of all things. It makes me smile and laugh and that’s where found my freedom. The rest of life is just work.

DX: Word. You were part of on of Hip Hop’s most acclaimed and genius albums of all time. You played the cornet on “Life’s a Bitch,” on Nas’ Illmatic in 1994. What do you remember most about being approached about the track? How did he come to you about it and what was your response?
O: Well, we went there together on the train and I remember he lost his lyrics on the train. We got off the train and I asked him, "What happened to you lyrics?" He said he must’ve left them on the train on the bench. Okay, well that’s it. We had to create. We went inside the studio and he didn’t have them. I don’t know how long he had them, but he just went freestyled on it. I thought it was a hip thing to lose lyrics like that. It just comes out my mouth. He started, he said, "C’mon daddy, lets do some freestyle. Rap on this." I said, "Nah, I ain’t gone be the oldest rapper on Earth." [Laughing] You can almost hear Jungle on one of those tracks like, "What the fuck is going on?" Nas breaks in and starts flowing. One second you can almost hear Jungle like, "What’s going on?" [Laughing] Then he was like, just play on “Life’s a Bitch” then and I played my number and I went on back home and that’s what happened. I heard the track and I loved it. I loved the sound of him and AZ’s voice anyway. When it came, he’s like, "Do you want to play right there?" I said yea and I played the horn.

Some years past and I heard some kids, humming the solo. That’s a wonderful thing to hear the kids humming the cornet. I almost, forgot it was me.

DX: [Laughing] You almost forgot it was you until 10 years later you and your son make, “Bridging the Gap” from his album, 2004’s Streets Disciple. How is it to know that you and your son’s music are still relevant in a forever-changing industry?
O: It was normal for me. I’ve been a musician my whole life and my father was musician and my great uncle was a musician. It’s definitely in our blood, but not just music but visual art as well. We do it because we do it, you know? It was nothing unusual. That was a natural feel for me, as well as him.

DX: Well, it’s 2008 and Hip Hop has become a huge impact on pop culture, what are your biggest fears in regards to Hip Hop and its role in the black music experience?
O: You said fear? Nothing to fear about that. If Hip Hop wasn’t around there wouldn’t be a lot of happiness- a lot of absent smiles. As far as fear, I never think of it as that, Hip Hop is like a wild flower. It grows the way it wants to grow. You lay down on the side walk and the flowers bust in through the cracks. It’s going to always grow and the name hasn’t changed. They always change the names of black music. Just like we change names like from colored, to Negro, to Afro-American to African American. Things change. Nothing is fear.

DX: So with the struggles and disparity that happened in the black American experience, and the passion that has been displayed through black music, do you think Nas’ new album NIGGER is justified through the current state of the black experience in America?
O: Do you think it’s justified because it’s in the dictionary? It was in the dictionary before we were born. Nobody ever said anything about it. [Laughing] All it is language. There are many words in languages that can be misinterpreted by others, not knowing the language of the culture or having knowledge of the culture or not knowing the history of the word. Some words aren’t bad, but they were changed into bad, but that’s because people don’t understand the language nor their history. Everybody looks at the words and thinks ‘this is terrible.’ They don’t understand the word, the pronunciation or enunciation. People don’t know language. People can pick any word and say its bad. Like when they called us "colored," "African" and people like, "Nah you ain’t Kunta Kente." You know what I mean? In our world, they’ve been changed our language around at will. What you got to understand is the last thing in the world that a human being gives up. A person will give you their land before they give you their language.

DX: That’s true.
O: All that is, is language and different cultures within the cultures and people are scared to use certain words amongst those social groups. We live in a culture where we are having a language war- what different cultures mean by what they say and stuff like that. We live in a multi-cultural society and it’s all confused. You say watermelon and they like, "Don’t say watermelon…what is that? Say auqamelon." [Laughing] Some people down south, we say, "Niqqa. What up niqqa" What word, nigga are you trying to say? Continued on page 3 »