ARTFORM

Before we get to the point, please, introduce yourself for those who still haven´t heard of you.

Habillis: I am Habillis from Euphrates and we are voices from the Iraqi Diaspora working to send a message through hip-hop music.

Narce: I am Jamal Abdul Narcel, Big Brother's sidekick aka the Narcicyst AKA branford Narcelus AKA iLLiam Sheikhsbeard AKA Narcelus Flawless AKA Charlton Teston AKA Narcy Parsley AKA iLLiam Clinton AKA Bob Hope. I am the MC and vocalist of Euphrates, under the beating of SandhILL Nofy Fannan and Habillis.

Nofy: This is Nofy Fannan, the man, the myth.

Though the main goal of the interview will be Euphrates as a Hip Hop group, what´s 9^th Majesty?

Habillis: 9^th Majesty consists of the congregation of like-minded individuals seeking to make good music. The range of musical flavours within the crew is what makes it distinctive.

Narce: 9th Majesty no longer exists. It is an old crew we belonged to with several other heads gomezing. Good luck to all!

What do you think is the cause why Canada seems to be taking over Hip Hop nowadays? There were no people like you, like Pip Skid, Mcenroe, Sixtoo, Buck 65 in Canada 10 years ago?

Nofy: Actually, Canadian Hip Hop has been around for a long time now. Of course, 10 years ago it wasn’t in the forefront like it kinda is now. But 10 years ago gave us Maestro Fresh Wes from Toronto and also Shades of Culture who really paved the way for all hip hop artists out now, we really owe a lot to these cats. And regarding the present, it is just a matter of time till Canada becomes an even bigger force in hip hop, the past couple of years, we’ve been organizing ourselves better in the business sense, Canadian hip hop heads are taking the blueprint provided by older artists to really create an independent forum from which to express themselves and make their music heard.

Did you know each other since you were childs (I mean you, Habillis and Nofy who are brothers, and Narce? When did Euphrates took off?

Habillis: Narce is basically a brother from another mother. We grew up together in Canada, but our history goes back to our parents and grandparents who themselves had formed bonds with each other in the Middle East. So, considering the situation and the climate we were raised in, the Euphrates chapter was bound to materialize, and so it did in 1998.

Narce: Euphrates took off thirteen years ago when we were all still growing out our youth and grew into a bend in the river. Our love for music and displacement from motherlands forced us into this cycle of music making and delivery. Euphrates took off three years ago with "The Letter", but it really began before music

And after, some years... “A Bend In The River”, it’s this the debut LP you have always liked to be known for? Your dreamt release?

Nofy: Well you gotta remember that this is an independent release, meaning that we didn’t have a big budget to record mad songs then choose. That’s why I wouldn’t say that its our dream release. Although I’m proud of it, I would say that each release after this one is only going to get stronger. As a matter of fact, our next album will be coming out next summer with vinyl, and that album is already shaping up to be stronger for us, musically, conceptually, lyrically, and production wise. With each day we grow, both personally and artistically, and that will show with each album. But no doubt, I love “A Bend in The River”, it needed to be made, we had to fill the void that was there.

Narce: Yeah man, hamdullah we had the ability to do something like this. It's definitely a propeller to fly off of. We still feel like we're growing, our dream release I don't think will be out for a while but its definitely a stepping stone. Its up from here like Patrick Swayze at the end of Ghost.

Are you having the response you expected? Did you expected that even a guy from a country like Spain email you to ask for an interview?

Nofy: The response we got from this project went beyond our expectations, we’ve been working hard for the last couple of years, recording, performing, speaking, learning, reading, and I guess its paying off. We’ve been building up a following within the Arab community, but we were happy to see people from New Zealand to Spain feeling our work. Shout outs to all the international fam!!

Narce: We are having a response greater than we ever expected. CATS IN SPAIN!!! That’s nuts to me. I mean, its great to see people relate to our music worldwide outside the spectrum of being Arabic. I thought we might get marginalized, but I guess displacement is rampant!!! The next generation of people seem to be ready for change and its great to see that people share our sentiments on the world

What do you think about Jedi Mind Tricks? And about Stoupe? It´s because for a lot of people here, I´m included, your album has the sound we all expected from Stoupe for “Vision´s of Ghandi”. It´s what made us recover the smile after that little disappointment.

Habillis: Thanks for the compliment man. Jedi Mind Tricks are definitely one of the dopest groups out there and although their latest release was sub-par, they’ve managed to remain consistent and on point; musically that is.

Nofy: We’d be lying if we said that Stoupe hasn’t influenced us, we’ve got all the Jedi albums and Stoupe is just one of the most underrated producers out there. So to be compared with him is an honour. The thing with their album is you can’t please everybody all the time, it was definitely a departure from their older shit, I was surprised myself, but I thought it was solid; I still bump their older shit though.

The production of the album is superb. How is life knowing that expectances for your work have grown to the point to be compared with some of the undreground greatests?

Habillis: Yo, its an honour to be compared with the likes of Stoupe. He’s a very talented beatmaker who’s been crafting quality music for a while.

Nofy: Like I said, it’s an amazing feeling to be compared with people like Stoupe. We’ve been working hard on the production side for years, we make beats all the time, we practice a lot. Plus we appreciate music, we love it, we collect vinyl, we are huge fans of music, and I think that shows in our production. Plus my brother and I study Sound in university, that’s our major so if we aint making beats at home, we at school learning to be better producers.

What kind of music out of hip hop you use to listen when you are looking samplers for an track?

Habillis: All genres of music. Basically anything with soul, regardless of its origins.

Nofy: I listen to everything from Jazz, Soul, Arabic, African, etc. Soul is universal, if an artist can make me feel his/her pain, then I’m down with that. That’s why I be digging in the crates all the time!

Narce: I get my inspiration from everyone in the world, anything out of the box, old school music especially. I like listening to music from different regions in the world and catch the vibe, the energy and emotion of different tribes. Everything except country and Kenny G.

What comes first the lyrics and after you fit it to the music or you get a beat, show it to Narce and then he writes something that fits that beat?

Nofy: It goes both ways, we usually make mad beats and Narce checks them out and decides which ones will fit with some of the concepts he already has. And then we go to the studio and create a song.

Narce: Usually they hit me with the beat, and I try to become an element within the production. Sometimes I have something I wrote and they match my emotion perfectly. It depends really. Most the time we synchronistically are on the same path, so we just end up fitting.

Talking about the lyrics, they are full of social and political content, is that hard being an arab in North America as I feel through your texts?

Narce: Its not as hard as being Iraqi in Iraq!!! I can't complain, I mean we have it good here hamdullah, but of course the racial profiling and constant feeling of being watched is there. The media will not give you our true nature and true feelings as to being US in the WEST, when we are partially the west and the east. Being a molded character, its definitely hard to find a niche, but having our people is always a positive side. The fact that we can speak on our lives and be free to do so is definitely worth it, but at the same time it makes you wonder if a label would allow you to say the same or project the same message?!?! Life in North America is oxymoronic, sometimes hard and most the time perplexing and a total mind-fuck.

I now it´s kind of unoriginal but... did the 11-S affair mean any change or brought you any differences in your lifes?

Habillis: Absolutely. 9-11 was a turning point for Arabs living abroad. We’ve become the latest “public enemy number one” People of middle eastern descent living in North America particularly, are, for example, what Japanese Americans were during the second world war. Arabs are the newest objects of this fabricated fear.

Nofy: Since 9-11, it just got worst for all people of colour. It was used as justification for more oppression and conquest. Before 9-11, we used to get harassed all the time, cuz we are ‘minorities’, so we were just like the Latinos, the Blacks, the Indians etc. But since 9-11, it’s gotten worst, now we’re ‘Arab’, the new enemy, so its on. Now we get harassed ALL the fuckin time.

Narce: Definitely, September 11th changed everything from how I look at myself to how I view the rest of the world. It did too much to explain, but not to say The A3miriya bombing didn't do the same, or the gassing of the Kurds in Iraq didn't either. It was just another block of jenga being placed on top of the rest of our lives. Everything affects us man.

I won´t turn political as this is a musical interview so this is the last one, I promise. What do you think about all around the war in Irak? About George W. Bush and even about the only asshole in the world who believed his lies, our president, J. M. Aznar ?

Habillis: George W. Bush is a full-time cheerleader for a group of oil hungry right wing neo-conservatives who are calling the shots (literally) in Washington. “Good ol” Saddam’s strings were breaking, and that represented an obstacle in the face America’s imperialist aspirations. So the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq is merely the beginning of post-9/11 American Realpolitik. As for your president, he’s just aligning himself with a superpower that can help him fatten his pockets up.

Nofy: Yo the States are run by a Bush, a Dick, and a Colon. He’s a right-wing, fundamentalist, war president. Cheney is literally a Dick, his company gets all the contracts to rebuild countries that were destroyed by his government. And your president got suckered into this because its economy man, he wants to bring his country economic prosperity, so he has to suck Bush’s Dick.

Narce: I still don't know what to think man. I mean Saddam is gone for once, but Halliburton is steady clocking cheese off my people. So its a double standard really. I can't judge because I don't live in Iraq and happen to be fortunate enough to be in Canada. I just hope and pray the people will be saved from this huge game between players that are blind to the people's will and want. Fuck George Bush, and every other puppet ass governing unleadership quality personification of his father's patriarchal rage and big brother's left hand.

As I promised the political content is off . Back to the music. To understand one group I think you have to understand his roots, what are your musical roots? What music you grew up with? What inspired your actual work?

Nofy: We come from families that are deeply influenced by the arts. We have writers, poets, painters, etc. in our family. So growing up, I listened to Arabic music from my moms, my uncle introduced me to classical, my older sister brought me Michael Jackson and also other pop stuff. Also, I had a friend with brothers who were teenagers when Hip Hop was invented, so they brought us all that hip hop back in the late 80’s. Mix all that shit up and that’s what inspires us musically.

Narce: Hip-hop to be specific and everything in general.

And , nowadays, what kind of music are you feeling? What are you hearing right now?

Nofy: Right now I’m bumping anything from DJ Premier, it don’t matter who spits to it. Also Rass Kass, Fela Kuti, Al Green, OV Wright, but mostly Sade. She’s insanely talented; her album “Lover’s Rock” is one of the illest albums of all time.

Habillis: There isn’t much refreshing Hip-Hop being made nowadays, but I’m listening to Immortal Technique, Rass Kass, Dj Premier, Kanye West, Scott Storch, Madlib…I’m also enjoying Portishead, OV Wright, Grover Washington Jr., and Mohammed Al-Gubbenchi, a pioneering figure in traditional Iraqi music.

Narce: I'm listening to the Wu still, Um Kulthum, Abdel Halim, Susanna Bacca, The old Outkast shit, Sufi music, Maqam, SandhiLL, Molemen, Ninth Wonder, Nas, Ghost Face, OV Wright, Miles Davis, James Brown, Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, Kanye, A Tribe Called Quest, `Public Enemy, Radiohead, Jamiroquai....that’s my rotation right now, and more....

What can we expect from now of Euphrates once you have already dropped your first Lp? Will you keep that fighting spirit in your next works? I certainly hope so...

Nofy: Definitely, we will always fight. As long as we’re oppressed, then we must fight back. I study a lot of practices of the ruling class today, and how it relates to history, and you can make many correlations between the colonialists and neo-colonialists after them, and how their mechanisms still exist today. And more importantly we need to fight the ideological apparatus that affects everyone in the world in all forms of consciousness. More threatening than physical oppression is mental oppression, mainly because mechanisms have been put out there in order to stop the people from even recognizing it. And we all have to fight for a better future.

Narce: Definitely, we will keep moving forward with our music and hope that the listeners will appreciate what we deliver from our hearts and minds. I personally will never stray into jiggyness or wackness like scruff maddy.

Who would you like to collaborate with in your next work if you have the chance to choose?

Nofy: I would love to work with Immortal Technique and Virtuoso, we look up to these cats, they’re talented. Id also love to produce a track for Shades of Culture, they’re a pioneering group in Canadian hip hop.

Habillis: I’d love to work with Immortal Technique man, cause at this point, nobody can fuck with his lyrical ability. He’s spitting the truth, he’s actually addressing issues that need to be addressed and tackled, and that’s hard to come across today.

Narce: I would love to collaborate with RZA, that would be an honour. Other wise we have a few artists from the states on our next LP- it will be a surprise to me as well as you!!!

Will you now focus on the music or you will keep on doing some different stuff for 9^th majesty ( video, documentary...)?

Nofy: Well SandhiLL scored a political documentary that’s been featured in a few film fests, we’re working on another one now. We also focusing on a video, vinyl and our new album, as well as production for other cats. As far as the Majesty, we’re all at work with our solo stuff, we’re busy working with Rugged Intellect right now.

What do you think about this boom of hip hop nowadays? You think it will help to get the respect it deserves or when it blows it will turn again into the black sheep of music it has ever been?

Narce: Hip-hop will always have duality, much of it is accessible, but a lot of artists are unheard of and mad talented. I think that’s the balance in hip-hop, even if it dies out, it will still be brewing in the underground. The return is in the path that is taken, there is a reason for the extremism of violence and vanity in hip-hop, I think it represents that side of our present worldwide capitalist machine, social commentary if you will. It is needed to understand the extreme and vile nature of our life system and the mass extension of self we seek to fulfil the gap of uncertainty in the future to come...

Wouldn’t this be a good chance to show that hip hop ain´t all about money, drugs and girls?

Nofy: See, hip hop was a vehicle for the disenfranchised, to give them a voice, but all that shit became diluted when the corporations got a hold of it and started signing, developing and marketing wack artists who degrade hip hop and bring it down to levels such as the one we’re experiencing now. But the shit we see aint hip hop, its pop music with some hip hop elements, its all marketing. All you gotta do is listen to cats like Immortal, Dead Prez, and Common to see that it aint all bout money, drugs, and “bitches”.

Narce: the revolution is in the mind, the revolution is in the hands of those who are smart enough to see past the extreme worship of money, drugs and sex.... It is in the individual, not in the movement. The singular will bring out the multiple, therefore, the only way hip-hop could return or guide itself back to positivity is in the artists, not the machine of hip-hop.

What’s the last book you have read, the last film you have watched and the last cd you have bought?

Nofy: My last book is “Soul on Ice” by Eldridge Cleaver. It deals with racial hierarchy and how certain ideologies like “White Supremacy” have seeped into every culture in the world and how that affects all people of colour. The last record I bought was Immortal technique’s “Revolutionary vol. 2”. And the last film I watched was “City of God”, about Brazilian Ghettos, which was insane, technically, visually, politically, and emotionally.

Habillis: “Celestine Prophecy” by James Redfield, “Secret Ballot” (dir.Babak Payami), and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, respectively.

Narce: the last book I read was The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson, I'm presently reading a book Nofy passed down, SOUL ON ICE as well as Manchild in the promised Land. The last film I watched, as in actually paid attention in, was ....I don’t remember!!!!!!!!! hahahaha, and the last cd I bought was the RZA " Birth of a Prince".

Back to “A Bend In The River”, are you going on tour with this lp? If so, does Europe have some dates in that tour? What about coming to Spain? Ever been here?

Nofy: Euphrates has performed in Montreal with everyone from Rugged Intellect to Talib Kweli. We’ve been to Toronto, Ottawa and Narce just came back from New York where he performed with Dead Prez, Afu Ra, and got a chance to meet Virtuoso and Busta Rhymes. And yeah, I’ve been to Spain in the 80’s I’d love to come out here, it was one of the nicest countries I’ve been to. Id love to check out your Hip Hop scene.

Narce: Man, I would love to come to Spain !!!! Hopefully, the future holds that venture. Otherwise we are hitting up cities this summer and next year full sweep. We're calling the tour "Operation Iraqi freedumb".

There is something you think it should be asked and I forgot? This are your freestyle lines, tell all you wanted to say and I didn’t ask.

Nofy: Yo straight up, big ups to everyone that supports Euphrates. We wouldn’t be anywhere without them. Please keep on supporting so we can continue to have a forum, lets support each other. Underground hip hop needs that. Please tell a friend to tell a friend about the album. www.euphrates.ca.

Habillis: Peace to all the supporters. You know who you are.

Narce: "Don't believe the hype"- Public Enemy.

Thank you very much for your time, for your patience and for that great jewel that is called “A Bend In The River”. It’s easy to keep the faith in hip hop when you see people still making the right moves. Drop your last words.

Nofy: Fuck all ya’ll war mongers who kill innocent people for profit. Shout outs to all my Arabs, keep your heads up, after the rain comes sunshine, but don’t let that blind you. Also, shout outs to brother Hasim and also the shakomako.net family.

Habillis: Down with the 33^rd degree.

Narce: Boyaka to Illy, Donderma, Zonkitis, Moezbe, Nofy, Habi, Truth terrorist, Sundust, Tamsel in Distress, baba (Big fun), Old earth, Cabbage, rugner, yusho, crux. revo, deesh...Peace and love to all.

Thank you very much again and again. Peace.

NACHO