Blood is thicker than sampled loops. The Juggaknots are blood, a true family. 2 brothers and a sister come together and finally release their first full-length debut LP ‘Clear Blue Skies (Re-Release)’. First, ‘Clear Blue Skies’ was released as an EP but years later, they added many more tracks and are ready to rock mics and crowds again. Breezly Brewin first got critical acclaim as Tariq in Prince Paul’s hip-opera ‘A Prince Among Thieves’ LP.  In one evening, I had 2 separate conversations with 2 Juggaknots. First, I talked to Buddy Slim, an emcee but the main producer behind the music. Second, I talked to Breezly Brewin, the main emcee who has intelligent lyrics, conceptual themes, and a wicked delivery. Like an unstoppable force, The Juggaknots are going to kill any misconception you have of hip-hop.

T.JONES: “Your new album is a re-release and it is called ‘Clear Blue Skies’. Tell us about it? Who produced it?”
SLIM: “We all produced it.”

T.JONES: “Do you have a favorite song on ‘Clear Blue Skies’?”
SLIM: “Probably ‘I’m Gonna Kill You’. I love them all though.”

T.JONES: “Why did you leave East West Records (who were bought by Electra)?”
SLIM: “We got dropped. Basically, we left on amicable terms. Sylvia signed us.”

T.JONES: “Do you go into the studio with pre-produced beats and the samples worked out or do you just create from there?”
SLIM: “We own our own studio. Yeah. We really don’t have a set formula when we create. Most cats including myself, like to get the beat and write according to the beat. Breeze writes from the writer’s perspective. He writes it first and them delivers it with the beat. His style is truly exceptional. It’s wild how he goes in and out. A lot of cats may think that he sounds off beat at times, but if you really check him out, he’s on beat. He reads music and is a music major. He wasn’t a music major while we were recording the album. This is after things went down. He knows how to count bars. He knows that there are 4 beats to a measure. He’s really deep and in his thing. We really don’t have a set formula. I come up with a beat and Breeze rhymes. We just try to make good music. We’re Juggz all the time. Whatever the song is, we try to have the beat compliment the lyrics. For example, ‘I’m Gonna Kill You’ sounds like a song that people would kill someone to. ‘A Rainy Saturday’ sounds like a rainy Saturday. It has that melancholy vibe. ‘Luvamaxin’ has that party-hearty feel. We always try to cultivate things right and work from that.”

T.JONES: “Who are some of the producers that you look up to?”
SLIM: “I don’t know. I think Marley Marl is one of the best producers ever. He did his thing before rap got all commercialized. All that Rakim stuff and the whole Cold Chillin’ catalog is dope. It’s so unique. Yes, these days we sample and they did years ago, but they never really took the outright joint.  He was always creative. ‘Symphony’ used ‘Hard To Handle’. There are many other ones too. Timbaland is incredible. Neptunes are cool. All the cats that are truly going at it. Dr. Dre of course. Marley Marl made me get into the whole scene. Marley Marl’s ‘In Control’ album was one of the best albums ever. I loved the diversity of it. I really respect the pioneers.”

T.JONES: “Many of the mainstream hip-hop artists, do not use scratched loops and the art of turntablism. The ones that do (like Gangstarr, Dilated Peoples, etc.) have been pigeonholed into the term ‘backpacker’ hip-hop. Do you think the Juggaknots get put into that category?”
SLIM: “I really don’t think so. I was hanging out earlier today with a guitar player who played on our album and we were talking on how we always tried to have some new balance to everything. ‘Luvamaxin’ does not have a sample. It’s totally laid out. There are other joints that have samples. We always try to balance it out. A song like ‘Loosifa’ has an Eddie Harris loop but we put guitar and violin on it. The more things change, the more things stay the same. If you look on the top 40 Billboard charts, there are maybe 10 or 15 songs that have samples in there. You look at J-Lo and LL Cool J with that big record now. DMX’s first jump off song ‘Get At Me Dog’ was a jacked loop of EPMD’s ‘Get The Bozack’. Early Nas stuff has straight samples. Early Jay-Z stuff too. Straight samples. I think when you have more money, you have more access to more resources. A group like us, who are self-contained, we have our own style on how we do things. Some people may only know this one album but we’re about to drop an EP and people will get a bigger range of the talent of Juggaknots. It is going to be called the ‘Love Deluxe Movement’ and Breeze will be doing his first double-time track. He will rap double-time fast. Music is music and we love to experiment. We don’t want to be controlled by anything or any style.”

T.JONES: “Why did you choose Third Earth Music?”
SLIM: “No real reason except that Kimani was very adamant and persistent with getting at us. They really wanted to put this out and have us do things with them. I knew Kimani maybe 2 years before all of this happened. Right when we were entering 2003, we thought that it would be a good thing to re-visit this album. Third Earth was all about making it happen. Also, a lot of people on the label that we talked to liked the label.”

T.JONES: “What MC or group would you like to produce for in the future?”
SLIM: “I’m just trying to put the flag in the planet to let them know that Juggs are here. Breeze is one of the illest emcees ever. These days there aren’t many emcees who really take his art and the craft that seriously. I want to deal with brothers who are serious about their craft along that line. Not too many cats are out there like that. Most people are about getting that money and not about the craft. I hear a lot of newcomers coming up. This one and that one. But it still remains to be seen. I was hearing about The Last Emperor for years but I still haven’t heard anything from him. Cats like that. I don’t know what they have to offer because they haven’t put out enough work that I know about. With our label (-Matic Records), we are trying to be the platform for artists like us. We are serious about hip-hop. We all want to make money. We all want to feed our families. It’s been done before and it will happen again. Large Professor was out, Native Tongues was out. For every Gangsta stuff, there’s some conscience rap. We are just trying to bring it back to that level.”

T.JONES: “The title track ‘Clear Blue Skies’, is a dialogue between the son in a white family and the father is livid that his son is involved with a black woman. What was the inspiration for this concept track?”
SLIM: “Vocally, that’s all Breezly Brewin. In the live show, I play the father because it’s impossible for him to do both roles live. On the recording, we slowed the tape down for the father. Actually, we recorded the father role at a higher speed so when we played it normally, his voice was an octave lower. The original version has an old Meters loop.”

T.JONES: “In one word, phrase or sentence, how would you describe growing up in the Bronx?”
SLIM: “Bravado. Bronx is definitely proud of who we are. We are very original. We stress originality.”

T.JONES: “Is Heroine still in the group?”
SLIM: “Heroine is always in the group. She’s our little sister. She’s always apart of the Juggz. The only reason why she didn’t make a more conscious effort on this album was because we all got down very young. Breeze did the original song ‘Clear Blue Skies’ at like 15 or 16 years old. Heroine is the youngest. We wanted her to concentrate on her schoolwork and her maturation. She brings a very dope element to the group. She brings in the whole woman perspective.”

T.JONES: “What is the illest country The Juggaknots experienced?”
SLIM: “We really never went out on a full all-out tour. Breeze traveled around the globe promoting ‘A Prince Among Thieves’. Breeze did Spain and Amsterdam. But, Juggaknots never hit Brazil or anything like that because we never officially had a manager, who said we were going out. We did sporadic dates.”

T.JONES: “What was the last incident of racism that you encountered?”
SLIM: “I don’t know. I think racism is kind of like oxygen. You deal with it everyday. It ain’t going nowhere like corruption isn’t going anywhere. It’s just one of those things. I cannot specifically say one thing. It could be anytime or anywhere. Somebody could say something ignorant or insensitive. It’s apart of American culture.”

T.JONES: “What LP or Cd has been in your turntable or your player recently?”
SLIM: “Juggaknots ‘Re-Release’. It’s a shameless plug. We’re true artists so if we make a body of work, I want to suggest it. If I can’t play it and listen to it straight through without skipping tracks, than that’s what other people will do.”

T.JONES: “When is it out?”
SLIM: “The vinyl is already out, you can get it at juggaknots.com or fatbeats.com and the CD is coming out 24th. I don’t think we could have made it better. The money was kind of chopped off.”

T.JONES: “Did you have trouble getting the masters before the re-release?”
SLIM: “Well, really, that’s not even an issue now. It’s not like we went to the studio, got the 2-inches out and mixed stuff up. These are basically songs that were made in 95/95 but never came out. No extra mastering was done. It never got to that stage.”

T.JONES: “What do you think hip-hop needs these days?”
SLIM: “I think it needs more diversity. I think back to the days where one of the things that kept hip-hop vital was that there was something for everyone. If you were a gangsta hard rock, you have N.W.A. and Kool G. Rap. If you were a playa, you have Big Daddy Kane. If you want some conscious stuff, you have Tribe Called Quest. If you were on some weed shit, you had Cypress Hill. There was always something for everyone. Now, I just think it’s more or less the same thing. Let’s floss the ice. Let’s wear our throwback jersey and I’m a spit whatever bullshit. You know what I mean. Get a hot beat and that’s it. There’s no diversity as opposed to back in the day. Back then, it was like a rainbow coalition. If you wanted Black power stuff, you had Public Enemy or X-Clan. It was so diverse. That’s what is lacking now and that’s why people refer to it as the ‘Golden Age Of Hip-hop’.”

T.JONES: “How did you get the name of The Juggaknots?”
SLIM: “That was another one of Breeze’s brainstorms. We were just basically a whole bunch of things. Stylin’ Chaos, To The Left. We were always on some other-type of shit. We weren’t trying to do what other people were doing. We always wanted to find our own voice. Breeze came one day and said, ‘I want to call us Juggaknots but spell it differently. Even though we spell it differently, the derivative of the word is pretty much the same. We’ve been in this game for almost 10-15 years now but haven’t really gotten a break. There’s no reason why Breeze shouldn’t be up there with Common and The Roots.”

T.JONES: “What’s in the future for The Juggaknots?”
SLIM: “Basically, just more music. We are just trying to solidify our name in this rap game for those who don’t know us. Breeze has a solo album coming out. I’m putting out a compilation that is kind of like something Dr. Dre did when he stepped off from N.W.A. Heroine is coming out with her own album and she has some interesting things. She may drop a poetry book. We are just trying to keep things fresh. Rap is just so wide spread now. You got Def Poetry on Broadway. If this is something we do, we are always on to the next project and we try to do different things. Drop a movie, drop a book or even open a school. Not the same old, same old. The EP is dropping in 2 months. My compilation by the end of the year. Hopefully, Breeze’s album will drop in the end of the year.”

T.JONES: “Is this all going to be on Third Earth?”
SLIM: “This is just a one shot deal with Third Earth. We’re testing the waters. If anything, you can get it off the website or if someone offers us something. We really feel that we should have that business machine behind us. Healthy promotion. I really think people will dig the new album.”

T.JONES: “I see people getting into the album who normally would not get into a typical rap album.”
SLIM: “Thank you! Even back then when we recorded for East West, we weren’t upset because we know what we do. We couldn’t understand why they didn’t get it. Blind Melon comes to mind. They recorded their first album but they really weren’t getting support from the label. But, when they performed, people just had an affinity for that song ‘No Rain’. Labels aren’t trendsetters, they are followers. They wanted to cut a video for that song. For us, we never got that far. We knew that people loved ‘Clear Blue Skies’ the song. People tell us that they play it first thing in the morning and we didn’t have a label behind us for a video. A lot of people stepped to us like MC Search from 3rd Bass. He wanted to put it out as a single. We were like ‘Come on, dude! Let’s do the whole thing, not just the one song.’ Things happen as they happen.”

T.JONES: “Are you going to put out a single?”
SLIM: “There’s going to be no single. That’s a body of work. Check it out. Love it. Hate it.”

T.JONES: “Any final comments for the people who will read this?”
SLIM: “Support Juggaknots! Support hip-hop! Everybody is saying that hip-hop is dead. It may be on the respirator but we are trying to get it out of the coma. When we come out and perform or put out music, support it. Go support us like you support 50 Cent. That’s one thing about fans. When people dig us, they really dig us. We’re not on Hot 97 a million times a day. The people who dig us, like us for us. You really can’t put a price on that. Support Juggaknots! Support hip-hop!”

T.JONES: “Your new album is a re-release and it is called ‘Clear Blue Skies’. Tell us about it? Who produced it?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “It’s pretty much just the Juggaknots family. My brother did a majority of the tracks. I produced a couple and we produced some together. My friend Chris Liggio, who did some production for Brand Nubian on the ‘Foundation’ LP, produced a couple of joints on there too. There’s only one guest appearance from Adagio, a cat I went to college with. Him and his crew put out some classic 12 inches out.”

T.JONES: “Where did you go to college?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Adelphi in Long Island.”

T.JONES: “Who are The Juggaknots and how did the Juggaknots come together?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “The Juggaknots are basically my brother, me and my sister, Heroine. We are just the family. Musically, we use the extended fam. My DJ Boo is with us too. As a family, Slim is the oldest, I’m the middle and my sister is the youngest. It’s kind of interesting working with a brother. It gets you in trouble sometimes but for the most part, it gets you out of trouble. If you can’t be honest with your fam, then what?”

T.JONES: “How did you get your name Breezly Brewin? And the name Juggaknots?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “That’s from years ago. There was this older cat on the block named Chris Cringle when I was 9 years old. I used to try to play ball with them. He used to like Woody Woodpecker and loved this cartoon called ‘Breezly Brewin’. He used to put me on and always say, ‘Come watch Breezly Brewin. Come watch cartoons at the crib.’ He was 17 and I was 8 and we were at his house, watching cartoons. That’s how the block was. He put me on though and I dug it. Every time his friends got in trouble, he would get them out of trouble but without getting the credit. It’s kind of an upscale cartoon but if you ever catch it on the Cartoon Network, catch it. I got that basically by playing ball. My fam took it and started calling me Breeze because they would always say: ‘Damn! You throw mad air balls!’ I kept the ‘Brewin’ in there because that’s how I got it. I know that there are other Breeze’s out there but I’m Breezly Brewin.”

T.JONES: “Do people ever confuse you with Breeze Evaflowin?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Oh, constantly!  I’ve had people call my house looking for Breeze Evaflowin and confirming studio time. I’m like ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!? Do you know which Breeze you are talking to?’ They say, ‘This is Breeze Evaflowin?’. I tell them ‘No’ and then I hear ‘Click!’ I call Breeze Evaflowin and say ‘Tell your people to get their shit straight.’ Breeze Evaflowin is my man.”

T.JONES: “Will you and Breeze Evaflowin ever do a song together?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “We definitely want to do it because a lot of cats initially think that it’s foul but I have to tell em ‘Nah, I know duke.’ I used to work in this place and he used to always be in there. I have a lot of respect for him. I figured it’s like that Dr. Dre thing. You have Dr. Dre the West Coast producer who was in N.W.A., but you also have Dr. Dre from the radio who was with Ed Lover. The ‘Brewin’ was always there. I never sweat it. He’s a hard working cat.”

T.JONES: “You were on Prince Paul’s ‘A Prince Among Thieves’. How did you get on that project and what was it like working on it?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “It was crazy. I was working at a group home during nights and the hip-hop thing wasn’t looking too good. We were on Electra East West and we got dropped. When we were signed to Electra, we were trying to get at Prince Paul to help us out with some tracks or mix some stuff. One of the last thing my A&R did was hit Paul with a tape of ours. He dug it and went back to East West when he got the OK for the ‘Prince Among Thieves’ joint but we weren’t there since we got dropped. So, he called up Fat Beats in New York City since he knew we did some in-stores. He knew that we had affiliates in there. My man from Non-Phixion, from Fat Beats, gave him my number.  I came home from work one day and my girl told that Prince Paul called. I thought she was lying. But, it was real. He pulled a brother up and put me back in the game. I wasn’t really thinking about it like that. I was rhyming but by then, I was trying to handle my responsibilities. For a year, I wasn’t able to do just music.”

T.JONES: “Did you write the rhymes on ‘A Prince Among Thieves’ or were they written for you?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “He wrote the whole story word for word. He would have us go in there and say phrases, trying for us to say a context. He would make us say each phrase 30 times. Then, he would piece it together. Sometimes, he would chop it up in mid-sentence to make the dialogue sound the way it sounded. When it was ok, he would play it how he wrote it and how he chopped it. Then, he said ‘Now we do the song like this. Here’s the track. Now just fill in the blanks with the song.’ When you think about the vision that he had, how he had to pull it off, and how it came out, you can’t say anything bad about that dude. For the songs, everybody wrote their own verses. He just set up the outline and the skits, the story. He would get the whole dialogue going and that would influence the song.”

T.JONES: “The video almost shows the whole thing. Tell us about it. Was it ever released? If not, will it?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “There’s a 25 minute long version out there. A couple of cats have it but it’s not get-able. I have a version that is 8 minutes long. We had a 25 minute long version as a way to get more support for that project but I don’t know what happened to that.”

T.JONES: “What is your favorite song on ‘A Prince Among Thieves’ and why?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Probably ‘Weapon World’ with Kool Keith or ‘Bad Lieutenant’ with Everlast. That was a thorough album. I’m saying joints that I’m not on but that album is hot. All of them are dope. ‘Weapon World’ messed my head up.”

T.JONES: “Do you go into the studio with pre-written rhymes and themes or do you hear the beat first and write then and there?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “I usually don’t write to the beat. I have different rhymes and I put them to the beat. I’ve never been one to write to the beat. If it’s a weird beat, I would. On ‘A Prince Among Thieves’, that song ‘Pain’ was a 3-bar loop. I had to write to the beat on that joint because it wasn’t the typical 4-4 set up. Just recently, we have a double-time joint coming out and I had to write some of that to the beat for a little while.”

T.JONES: “What emcee/group would you like to collaborate with in the future?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “That’s a good question. I don’t know. There are a lot of people out here. I like F.T. on Criminal Records. If you haven’t heard of him, he’s real ill. He’s a beast. He’s a cool cat too. I’d like to do some more stuff with The Weatherman and Cage and Camu and them. Eastern Conference emcees are beasts. I would even love to do a song with a cat like Jay-Z. Sometimes, he gets a bad rap because he’s considered more commercial, or more of a thug than a lyricist. Check him out. He’s doing a lot of slick stuff. It varies. I’m wide open. If you are going to be narrow-minded, you’ll miss a lot. I don’t think a lot of cats, who consider themselves underground, give some other types of hip-hop a chance. I’ve given cats a Cannibal Ox album who never heard of him and the album blew them away.”

T.JONES: “Why is there a remix of ‘Clear Blue Skies’ and the original version too?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “The last track, the hidden joint  is the original. Due to legality stuff with the sample, we had the song on the Fat Beats compilation and they blew the whistle on themselves when they tried to clear the sample. The night before we handed it in, we did the other version. It was cool to get a remix but hey…”

T.JONES: “The title track ‘Clear Blue Skies’, you play both the father and the song. In the song, the father is livid that his son is involved with a black woman. What was the inspiration for this concept track?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “I grew up in the Bronx and there weren’t too many white people. There was one white kid who was like a brother to us. I never seen him date a white girl. There weren’t a whole lot of white girls around there. He dated the baddest broads and we never had a problem with it because why would we? He was like a brother to us. I would go to his house and his mom would be frustrated and say stuff like ‘When are you going to bring home a pretty girl with blue eyes?’ That joint just hit me. What kind of criteria is that? Blue eyes. He was Italian. Other things sparked that song too but it’s just feelings and stuff you go through when you are talking to people.”

T.JONES: “What was the last incident of racism you experienced?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “That’s a good question too. It’s more subtle these days, which is good and bad. I think it’s good to a point because you may not get offended outright but at the same time, the person who is delivering the racism in a subtle way may gain some form of satisfaction. You have to keep your eyes open. We did a song recently called ‘Generally’ which was about The Dukes Of Hazard. I went to the store with my son, The Game Room and I’m looking at games for PS2. There was a Dukes Of Hazard computer game. I’m thinking to myself, ‘I wonder if they took the flag off of the General Lee?’ No, they didn’t. You saw nothing and nobody cared. I was thinking back when I was a shorty, I thought the flag for the flag. I used to walk around with the lunchboxes. Thinking back, it’s ridiculous racism. In this day and age, being PC (politically correct) has changed everything but they let this one go. It’s a good example. I haven’t had any one person disrespect me, Thank God. It does happen growing up. Hip-hop has done a lot to change that. Maybe it’s done too much sometimes. I’ve seen white kids walking with black kids and every other word coming out of their mouths is the ‘N-word’. They are around their friends so they are not offended but I’ve sent that same group of people pass older Black people and I’ve seen how they react to that word. You can tell it still stings.”

T.JONES: “What’s your opinion of the use of the N-word?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “The use of the word has gotten a little out of hand and I’m even trying to stop saying it.  Sometimes, it fits but sometimes, I’ll change it to ‘brother’. You never know what is on somebody’s mind. You never know if they are trying to pull a fast one on you or just saying lyrics that they love.”

T.JONES: “Abortion – pro-life or pro-choice?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “I’m pro-choice.”

T.JONES: “Where were you on Sept. 11th, 2002? How did you deal with it? How do you think it has affected or will affect hip-hop?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “I think it has affected hip-hop and at other times, I think it hasn’t affected hip-hop enough. I was in school, in class at the time. I walked out and heard something on the radio on the way out of the house about the plane hitting the first tower. When I get out of school, there are no towers. It affected me a lot directly because I worked at Fat Beats and that’s just below 14th Street. So, I was out of work for 2 weeks. It changed things a lot. Many people lost their jobs because of 9-11. A lot of businesses lost their business. People should look into it. I know that there’s a lot that we can’t do to change it but I hear many of these songs and it’s like it never happened. It’s still a fresh wound. We just have to be more alert. Music is supposed to keep people on their toes, talking about stuff. When it happened, people were tuned in for a second but that was it. We have to question that as well as other things. Hopefully, we’ll get back to doing that. Keep it balanced. Party and everything but if we ain’t on top, there ain’t going to be no party. There will be nobody to party with. Try to keep abreast of what’s going on.”

T.JONES: “How did you hook up with Indelible MC’s? Who are they and what did you do with them?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “El-P is my man! They are some of the most underrated emcees I have ever heard. His verse on the first song we did was one of the top 10 verses of all time. Big Juz! They are incredible. I would love to work with them again.”

T.JONES: “What is your all time favorite collaboration so far?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Wow! I think ‘Love Venom’ with Jean Grae. There was a lot going on. I was talking about my relationships and problems. I just dumped out. We had that drunk singing hook ‘Love don’t live here anymore’. Rock-ish / hip-hop-ish. I thought it was cool because it came out of nowhere. You can pick any of the joints from ‘A Prince Among Thieves’ with Sha. That was one of the coolest cats to work with. We would be in character and that was weird. Usually, you just rock your verse but with that, we had to be cognizant of what type of tone we had to maintain. The dialogue and the verse were kind of cool. I consider that whole album a collabo with Sha. Beyond that, I love working with family and the Juggaknots.”

T.JONES: “On a side note, In the credits for ‘A Prince Among Thieves’, it says Buckshot is on there. Where is he?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Good question! Even the Special Ed one is a bit of an astrix. If you are going to put Special Ed on there, you want to hear Special Ed. We’ll take that one up with Paul. Either he got edited out or didn’t show up at the studio or more than likely, that’s Tommy Boy trying to pat the stat. They weren’t really playing fair by the time that album came out. I guess they were trying to do anything they could do to squeeze a dollar instead of really giving us something dope. Let me stop ripping Tommy Boy.”

T.JONES: “You were on ‘Protective Custody’ from the ‘Hip-Hop For Respect’ EP. How did you get hooked up with this and what was it like recording that song?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Talib Kweli called and said that he was doing a joint relative to what was going on with the police brutality at the time in New York City. I said, ‘Cool.’. My verse was a straight up true story. There wasn’t anything else to it. One night, we were driving on the Bronx River Parkway, cops went behind us, in front of us, on the right of us, and the left of us. We had nowhere to go. The lights came on and in an instant, they pulled us over at the side of the road at 2 o’clock in the morning. If they wanted to shoot us then and there, nobody would have seen nothing. My cousin, who is the biggest one out of all of us, gets out of the car and drops a napkin. He had a cold and was blowing his nose. He dropped the napkin and in a half of a second, he had him on the ground with guns to his head. The cop kept on saying, ‘Do you want to be an accident? Do you want to be a f*cking accident? Do you know how many f*cking accidents there are in New York?’ I was 13 years old at the time and that sh*t stayed with me forever. This was a big dude. When I heard that, it stayed with me. Now, when I think about accidents or read or hear about accidents, I have to wonder.”

T.JONES: “In an interview, Tame-One of the Artifacts said that it was a good cause but there were many inflated egos in that recording session for ‘Hip-Hop For Respect’ EP. Would you agree?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “I didn’t have any problem with anything that went on that day. Some of the brass at Rawkus did make the situation a little weird because there was a cushy room where certain well-known cats were sitting and getting attention while everyone else was on some fend-for-yourself type sh*t. We went one day at Sony and had to come back the next day because the upper-echelon cats were moved in first to attend to their schedules. For a cause like that, I don’t think you should act like that. Why Sony Studios? It wasn’t that necessary. It wasn’t on Mos Def or Talib Kweli at all. They were trying to accommodate a lot of people including me. It was some of the other Rawkus brass that did it. I don’t even know their names because they weren’t reaching out to anyone. They were just walking around on some fly sh*t. With that in mind, I would agree with Tame-One. It could have been a nice, cool networking situation. But, because of that, I felt like I should just do my thing and be out. Then it got to a point where you couldn’t do your thing. For cats like me and Tame, we weren’t the bubbling brothers right then and there. That’s stupid. Tame and I did ‘5 In The Clip’ for Eastern Conference III. That’s a hot track. Copy, Cage, Tame and me did it. That’s a nice track. It’s hot. You got to check that out. ”

T.JONES: “What cd or LP has been in your cd player or turntable recently?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “I actually was listening to the early Def Squad album called ‘El Nino’. I think that joint is so slept on. There’s one side where I work out or clean the house to.”

T.JONES: “Keith Murray is incredible on that album.”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Keith Murray murders it. He sounds cool now but on that ‘El Nino’ joint, he’s fine. People don’t really think about that album but I play it often. There’s a lot of hot sh*t on there.”

T.JONES: “What do you think hip-hop needs these days?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “I think that 50 Cent joint is shot in the arm. I think more people lean more to the concept side of it. Balance. It’s obviously overblown hype but he deserves it easily. He’s talking about his life and life songs are good. I just hope it may allow other people to talk about their life even if they haven’t been shot 90 times. It can still be considered viable and important. I’m glad he’s here but it’s like some Last Action Hero stuff. I like it when he just talks about girls too. That’s cool. If hip-hop would allow for that balance, I think it will open up the door for much better songs. The whole Dow Jones stuff is real. I hope to have some paper and buy my kids stuff. This Robin Leach stuff is starting to get a little bit overdone.”

T.JONES: “You have children, right? How has being a father changed your approach to hip-hop?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “I have 2 children. Yes and no. First, I was fine with cursing on the records all the time and I’m still going to have those songs. I’m not even going to front. I won’t play them around my kids. I’m still pretty selfish as an artist. I think that’s a good way to be. Certain songs I pay attention to. They pick up on many hooks. That’s usually a good sign. It’s not like it’s a hook with little kids singing on them either. They are just singing on the melody. Sometimes, they are a good gauge. I’ll lace stuff and when my 5-year-old daughter sings the hook is a good thing. She may not be able to hear or understand the lyrics but that’s cool. There should be some respect. For a long time, I wasn’t paying attention to the hooks but there’s a certain Pied Piper aspect to hooks. I consider myself lyrical but if it weren’t for some of these hooks while we were growing up, we would never have (singing) ‘Nobody beats the biz! Nobody beats the biz!’ That stuff stays with you. Biggie was a master of hooks. I’m starting to respect that a lot more. I think the kids help that.”

T.JONES: “Do you have a favorite song on ‘Clear Blue Skies’ LP?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “My favorite is ‘I’m Gonna Kill You’. If I get hit by bus tomorrow, that is one of the songs that I’m most proud of. It’s just how it came about. It’s another true story joint. A friend of mine was talking about someone threatening his life. My brother hit me with that track that was so demonic and gothic. It fit perfectly. I love it because that joint just fell into place. I don’t even remember writing it. I hope to make another song like that. It’s a little intimidating in that sense but I got that one off.”

T.JONES: “Word association time. I’m going to say a name of a group/emcee and you say the first word that pops in your head. So, if I say ‘Chuck D’, you may say ‘Revolution’. Okay?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “No doubt!”

T.JONES: “Pharoahe Monch”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Meticulous.”
T.JONES: “Common”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Fashion sense.”
T.JONES: “Jay-Z”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Work ethic.”
T.JONES: “Ol Dirty Bastard”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Freedom.”
T.JONES: “Eminem”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “I don’t know.”
T.JONES: “Cee-Lo”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Soulful.”
T.JONES: “Del The Funky Homosapian”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Survivor.”
T.JONES: “Gil-Scott Heron”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Heroin.”

T.JONES: “It’s funny that you said ‘Fashion Sense’ with Common. Did you ever see the video for ‘The 6th Sense’?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “No, I never saw that! Word! That joint is hot!”

T.JONES: “Yeah. In the video, there’s a riot going on and looting going on too. Common is rapping over a bullhorn but he’s wearing this leather jacket with those ugly cowboy tassels hanging from the arms.”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Ah, man. Erykah Badu is cute. She does something to men. Keep her away from me. Keep her cousins away from me. Keep her cousins’ cousins away from me. I’ve had it put on me by some women, but wheew! That’s a lot of woman there. She transformed a motherf*cker! (Laughs!) I remember when homeboy was from the Southside of Chicago. Not that he’s not but I was like ‘Wow!’ Still, he’s a dope emcee.”

T.JONES: “What is next in the future for The Juggaknots?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “We are going to have a thematic EP which will have some songs using other people’s beats. It’s all basically love joints or love songs. It is basic conceptual stuff about relationships. It will be out on CD in about 2 months and there will be a single for that too. My sister gets a little more light on that one. She has a solo track with just her and Vinia Mojica. It’s pretty dope. That would be cool to get out. People haven’t done thematic EPs or LPS in a while. It’s on some Killa Will or Ice Cube sh*t. In the future, we have more music, more Juggaknots, more Weathermen. Living with it!”

T.JONES: “What do you want on your epitaph (your gravestone)?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Damn! That’s a good one! I want written on my gravestone: ‘Family Man’.”

T.JONES: “I want to wish you luck on the album. I love it!”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “Thanks! These questions were bananas! This interview was hot. I’ve been doing a lot of these interviews and I have to say, this was fun. I can’t wait to see this.”

T.JONES: “Any final words for the people who are reading this?”
BREEZLY BREWIN: “If they dig us, keep digging us. We’ll give you more to check out. We’ll be in it! There will be less lapses. We are going to stay on cats a little more.”
 
 

Juggaknots Real Audio Files:
"Trouble Man"
"Luvamaxin"
"Who Makes It Hot" (f/ Adegio)
"Clear Blue Skies (remix)"