Still staying on the east coast, and still in the vibe for conceptual and meaningful joints, HipHopDX heads over to New Jersey to chop it up with Hasan Salaam whose album, Children of God, a follow-up from his debut Paradise Lost (2005) is scheduled to drop early September. With his mind on a mission to deliberately decipher topics from politics to race, the emcee and youth worker offers Hip Hop fans that staple we’re oh so hungry for: insightful lyrics over bangin’ beats - and a voice deep enough to make Barry White jealous.

He is intelligent enough to speak the language of your reason and approachable enough to relate to your deepest confessions. As Salaam offers a possible explanation for the misogyny in Hip Hop, DX inquires upon the Children of God (sharply featuring Masta Ace, DJ GI Joe and Rugged N Raw), emceeing and Islam, and the connection between “The Uprock” and “The Downrock.”

HipHopDX: Salaam Hasan. Brief introduction for those still sleeping?
Hasan Salaam: Peace, this is Hasan Salaam. I got into Hip Hop when I was like three years old – as far as writing, 11 years old, 12 years old. My goals with Hip Hop are in sha’ Allah to be able to add on to the struggle music that’s been here from my people for 500 years; and one day that it helps us to getting free. On the business aspect of things, one day I’m gonna open up a couple of centers built for the youth in Jersey. After school programs, basketball, chess, philosophy; just a spot kids can go, be safe and educate themselves. That’s my ultimate goal.

DX: How difficult – or easy – it is to be pushing through the Jersey/New York’s Hip Hop scene, which doesn’t seem to be having any particular direction at this moment?
HS: Everybody and their mama raps right now. [Laughs] Outside of New York and New Jersey, I definitely see more support from people who aren’t emcees, just the listeners and the supporters. But the good thing about being in New York and New Jersey is there are mad venues here. Any day I can be just like “I’ma go out, I’m a perform tonight” and I can make that happen. And within all of that, you definitely find a lot of people that are talented, that have a real love for Hip Hop - it’s got its pluses and its minuses.

DX: Tell us about your upcoming album, Children of God.
HS: Children of God is basically my response - I work with kids now and I’m really just tired of hearing them refer to themselves as “nigga” and “bitch” before anything else. I’m a firm believer that the creator, the most high, Allah – whatever you want refer to the most high as – exists in all of us. And we’re learning as we go along. This is my second album; it’s a lot of my experiences, a lot of what I’ve been through and what I’ve seen, and how it’s lead me to where I am with my life.

DX: Any particular concepts/themes?
HS: The main thing on the album is just that no matter how bad things get, no matter what we might be involved in, what we might do, Allah is still with us. We still have the ability and we still have the means to make things better and try to better our lives - and not only better our own personal lives but better the lives of the people in our community and the world. We definitely are in serious times. We’re still persecuted in America and all over the world. If we’re still our own worst enemies and we keep referring to ourselves as all kinds of crazy things, we’re never gonna be able to rise above the situation we’re in and we’re just gonna stay stuck in it; and we’re gonna be complaining about the same thing 500 years from now.

DX: The production on the joint caters to your voice and flow really well. Some of the tracks, like “The Downrock,” are commercially friendly - was that intentional?
HS: Well it wasn’t made to be more commercially acceptable; everything on there is made to be good Hip Hop; good music. “The Downrock” joint, me and RNR, we just wanted to see what would happen if we put both of our production styles together. I’m real into melody and RNR is known for his drum patterns. We wanted to see what would happen and that’s the track that came out of it. I’m a do me regardless, that’s why I said on that joint Industry cats doing coke and a smile, thinking I’ll ever be switching my style. I can rock over anything; I love Hip Hop, I love rocking a party, I love rocking a show – but I’m still gonna be myself and bring the message that I want to bring to everything.

But the overall production, I just wanted to step it up because a lot of people have said to me before “the production was alright on the last one,” but they felt at times that the lyrics or my voice would overpower certain joints. I want to be able to compete with the people that are supposed to be on top. I’m tired of people saying “Yo, this artist is trash but his beats are hot so I listen to him.”

HS: There are powerful political intros on the album including one on native religion and one on the usage of the “N” word. How do they assist in your overall intention for the album?
DX: That’s like when you write a paper, and you write your thesis statement - that’s kind of like the thesis right there. Originally, this was gonna be a mixtape but I decided I don’t want to rhyme over other people’s beats no more. So it fits better within the storyline. A lot of people were like, “Why you gonna put God in the title, people are gonna be scared.” But it’s funny - you put “nigger” into something, you put “gun”, you put “bitch”, seems like people will gravitate to it. Continued on page 4 »