TEK x 10

 

Tek of Smif-n-Wessun for 10DaysCo.

Photos by MogulLifeDre

Let’s start with the 80’s.. Hip Hop musicians were sort of spokespeople for the black community shedding light on the inner city ills.. you have records coming out like 

GrandMaster Flash “The Message” 1982

NWA “Fuck the Police” 1988

Tupac “Trapped” 1991 

10: In the same breath, Free Base is introduced, from your perspective describe what’s going on around this time.

TEK: That’s crazy.. That was 80s babies sh*t right there, I wasn’t into the hiphop scene sort of speak really, or let me say not in it I didn’t know I was apart of it we were just living life.. Our normal street sh*t around the way in the hood friends doing what we doing, robbing lil petal bikes, the bmx sh*ts, polo gear and steaming the store, the steam team and you know just being young and mischievous.. Learning our way.. So for me i was never a fan of hip hop, like really we just started getting the message of “The Message”.. When he put it out that was for his peoples they was the ghetto hood reporters so that was for them, now it’s taking us til this day & age maybe a few years ago to understand “oh shit The Message” was deep.. You accepted it how you accepted it, you took the jewel and you rocked it or you left it somewhere, you pawned it and you kept on moving.. One thing for sure it definitely helped build, shape and mold us to where we at now. 

10: Fast forward to the 90s, the drug game is thriving now.. And crack is the drug of choice.. It’s cheap and it’s everywhere. There’s more money in the streets than ever before and everybody is getting to it. Of course with that kinda energy in the air, the bullsh*t is right behind it.. And that’s when we see a shift in the commentary of the  musicians, HipHop now evolves into what was termed “Gangsta Rap”.. Paint that picture for me. 

 

TEK: My old heads use to say “you can’t get money & have bodies and violence on the same block” cause it’s always gonna be police there and n*ggas can’t make no sales.. Like I have crack heads in my family so I know that sh*t first hand, the destruction it caused, the money that it brought in and all types of sh*t.. Seeing it first hand.. Then when you heard that gangsta rap it was like “oh sh*t” now it’s more game but you actually know now, you ain’t the little naive, mischievous kid no more now you a teenager, bussin ya gun or whatever going up to 42nd snatching pockets, catching diamonds, money bags like “ight” nigga 16 running around wit 5 grand in they pocket driving around in Subaru SideKicks with bangin systems for real! Going up to John Jay Art & Design, every High School that had the baddest b*tches, Fashion Institute.. n*ggas was there like “yeah, what up!” you know in BK our thing is 24k gold with the joints on it then you had n*ggas with the cubans and you know they were really peeling, getting the big bread. So you just played ya part & you got it in, you learned ya game and you eventually stepped it up from a tre to a nick to a ounce and you kept it movin. 

At what point did you and Steele link up? At what point did that relationship turn into Smif-n-Wessun? 

Well we were always linked, not as Smif n Wessun, our family members, Cookie Head, we call him Big ol Pimp, you heard his name a couple times throughout “Da Shinin”. He was from Brevoort projects, that was another spot when I wasn’t home (BedStuy) I was in Brevoort, cause I was the only member out of Boot Camp Clik that was from Bedstuy, everybody else is from Brownsville, BucShot is from FAP (Franklin Avenue Posse) so Cookie Head & our brother, Rest in Peace, Rambo is from Brevoort projects, they started introducing us to each other at a distance, like “yo I’m telling you about him and he telling you about me so we were around each other in a circle but we ain't never next to each other at the same time so that’s kinda why we named the album “Da Shinin” cause we were already knowing each other even tho we didn’t know it and knowing the thoughts of how the vibe of it was coming together it just clicked. Then in High School, Graphic Arts, we went to Printon in the city, Steele use to have crazy talent shows he was winning, this cable show used to be called Ron Alexander cable show and it seemed like he was the Lebron of that sh*t (laughs) back to back to back, the Michael Jordan of that sh*t. I was never the rapper I was like security cause I was boxing and doin all types of other crazy sh*t at the time so for me, I had fun just inflicting pain & sh*t. So Steele was, not to say that he was a pretty boy cause you know n*ggas had hand skills, 52s and all that but I was just more quiet. I had the squeaky, high Mike Tyson voice so eventually it became known “if you fuck wit Steele watch ya back cause that n*gga right there, to see that n*gga lurkin is a scary sight” (laughs). He actually had another partner, our man Chase and then Steele and Roc was partners, eventually God just put us together as Smif n Wessun. R.I.P his uncle Dre, he used to record pause tapes, that’s when n*ggas used to listen to Stretches Babito, Marley Marl and record the whole show on the tape, the next day just put it in a walkman and just rock.. So that’s how me and Steele became Tek & Steele from The Decepticons, Power Masses through Shawn Grady, R.I.P Cookie Head and then eventually we formed Smif n Wessun.  

1995, a major year for HipHop, Rae drops “The Purple Tape”, GZA “drops “Liquid Swords”, Pac drops “Me Against the World”, Mobb Deep drops “The Infamous” and you guys drop “Da Shinin” how was that album received by your peers? And how did it change your life? 

It changed our lives drastically, it took us from Lexington Avenue & Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn to Lancia, Australia all types of different countries, people & cultures that you seeing who wanted to see you for who you are and the culture that you are apart of now..

On another note n*ggas aint even know I ryhmed so when they heard that shit niggas was like stop frontin, so when they seen the video.. Coming from where we come from niggas had a split, certain n*ggas went this way certain n*ggas went that way.. Dudes I was hanging wit majority of them went that way which was jail five years, ten years, twenty years, brothers just coming home still til this day. A lot of my friends reflect on it themselves like “yo I was in the day room & seen it, like yo that’s my man, that n*gga from my block” so when you hear that shit or you hear ya man that’s a lawyer cause we got brothers in those lanes too and they was like yo “that shit helped me get through my bar exam or it helped me get through college” it was like whoa not knowing what it was doing to you mentally at that time it was like damn that sh*t did that, like damn I was just telling my story, just living life, rapping and putting a groove to it. So then came dudes treating you differently, the conversations became “yo i always knew you was somebody special, you was different, that’s why I ain’t let you do certain shit” (laughs) overall it was a beautiful feeling.

As far as other artists Smif n Wessun, we men of respect, so we always gave respect so we always got respect, we aint never have to put a front to do nothing or show who we were or act tougher than we was it was always there. Brothers knew it and they  respected it.. Credit to that and the most high we did what we did and was able to link up with other artists, til this day, Rae (Raekwon of Wu Tang) is my brother, you know, RIP Prodigy, Havoc.. You know we forged good relationships with them brothers, so its a bond that deeper than music, even with the newcomers, like WestSideGun, Conway.. It’s there once you build that relationship outside of music you learn to appreciate it more, you value it more & it can grow like me & you and the family.. It’s something that’s authentic and genuine.   

How important was fashion to you as an kid growing up? 

That shit wasn’t important to me at all man, I come from a family, I got nine brothers and six sisters so I was rockin hand me downs for a long time, I just knew how to put it together and make it look good. Momma kept me clean so it wasn’t til I started picking up joints, robbing or doing whatever I had or thought I had to do to get that.. Then it was like “ok now I know what a fit look like to put together.. like if I step out wit these, bet you jump back on my d*ck” (laughs). Fashion became a thing leaving Junior High School going into High School cause you start seeing ya homies, everybody fresh. Sh*t even before we were rockin Timberland boots I had a few brothers and uncles that was in the army so we were rockin straight Army combat boots, the black joints, keepin them sh*ts shiny, so when we kick you with the steel toe, it was steel toe for real, wasn’t none of that fake bend up Timberland toe boots, that sh*t was steel plated kick a bone shift out yo a**, word.         

I remember hearing Ghost on The Purple Tape for the first time and he was talkin about n*ggas biting.. as a rapper coming up in the era you guys did among a lot of crews doing they thing, how important was it to have your own style from a fashion perspective and a sound perspective?  

Well back then it was just like it is today, there were a bunch of new producers, artists mcees coming out daily, the only thing, we ain't have internet and the technology so everybody had to have their own sound, look and style. For us we called ourselves the Boot Camp, we were all fatigued, camouflaged up, timbs, all timbs tho, the Chuckers, construct’s, the 40s, those was our joints, n*ggas never gave us props for the 40s, they always gave it to Tupac & Juice.. We was the original 40 rockers, wit the fatigues coming through, blacked out.. But tho it was so many artists coming out at that time you could always tell who it was once you heard they flow and you seen em. Like you heard a BIG joint you knew that was BIG, a Rae joint you knew that was WU Tang, Mobb Deep you knew that was them, you heard us you knew it was Boot Camp, and whoever, Nas CNN, whoever was dropping at that time.. Even Snoop, cause that was something different than what was rockin on the East Coast. So you already knew when that joint dropped it was like “yo, that’s that sh*t right there” so it was very important to have ya own style and sound because you created and cut out ya niche that’s still here rockin. That’s the thing they gotta learn today, if you could be here today and gone tomorrow, if you wanna be here 20/30 years from now, you gotta make timeless music.. It was like a gem a n*gga dropped on me before like “never say the year in ya raps” cause you want that music to be timeless, to play forever, dj throw it on & you like “oh word, he said that 20 years ago, that sh*t still relevant today” so those be like the tricks to the trade.. Once you learn em, you rock em.      

Being a Hip Hop artist from the Stuy, you naturally had forged a relationship with B.I.G and even 2Pac as well.. How did those relationships come about? How did you see the two of them as a peer/friend and then as a fan of their music? 

First of all, all three of us are Gemini’s.. So that made the bond that much stronger, and deeper. Me & BIG would see each other in the streets and that was the weirdest thing, we’d be anywhere, whether I’m driving or riding my motorbike and he be like “Yo Tek park that shit, get in, let’s go” we out, shooting to weed spots smokin all day, niggas ringing the buzzer tryna get weed & niggas like “chill” we be like “nah f*ck that” shit was crazy man. It ain't like we would call each other in the morning like “yo son at 3 O’Clock ima be on Fulton” or whatever, I could be coming across the bridge or from anywhere that n*gga be like “yo man, park that shit get in man, c’mon man Tek stop playin” his man Money L be driving, D Roc, all of us it was like a brother hood.. My man Klep who doing his in real estate now, he had the Q45, the big body, n*ggas was young and just having fun..  

When Pac got arrested, he had a bond wit Mike Tyson, at that time Tyson had the sh*t with Sean P from Brownsville so me being a boxing head, I was livid at how Tyson was just coming through destroying sh*t.. So knowing how him and Pac was rockin, eventually we all just came together.. so when Pac got knocked, we shouted him out “hold ya head” or whatever, cause we wasn’t on no East Coast, West Coast sh*t.. so once he came out, he was like “yo ya n*ggas coming to Cali”. Like soon as he hit dirt he flew us out there, like let’s get it.. And that’s where the One Nation album (1996, unreleased lp from 2Pac/Makaveli) came from. The only thing that didn't really come to fruition was me and BIG actually doing a genuine, natural real song together.. We always talked about it when we were around each other but most times it wasn’t even always about music, it was just love, rockin out, cracking jokes all day, smoking weed, bugging literally… and even til this day Junior Mafia be like “yo son I ain't gon front, you, BIG really loved you my n*gga” and I loved him the same way, for real, so that whole situation was crazy.  

A few years ago, you & Steele celebrated 20 years of “Da Shinin” at SOBs & I think the whole Duck Down was in attendance, as well as the late Sean P. He ended up returning to the essence not too long after, was that the last time ya was on stage together? What do you think of most when you reflect on ya friendship?  

That wasn’t the very last one, after that we went overseas somewhere and then we came back.. But Sean was something special, see a lot of people at first didn’t get it, they thought Sean Price was an act, nah Ruck was something different, and Sean Price was the authentic one.. That’s why he changed his name from Ruck and picked up his real attribute, Sean Price, because that’s what it was. He was one of those, one that Allah put here every now and then, so if you made that connection with him, that’s what it was, a connection.. He was in ya life for a reason and you would easily find that out, either he do or he don’t, there wasn’t no in between. Funny as sh*t, yes, smart as sh*t, yes, stupid, no, and not stupid in a mental way but stupid in a stupid way. He was special my n*gga for real like, it would be times where we would be on the road and he would just have us crying, every show, the flight, the drive and it’s like where do you get this shit from how do you make this up. He’d be talking some abnormal reality or some sh*t.. We be like “yo you really a smart dumb n*gga” and then he’s a big, big, ashy knuckle n*gga, like but all you rock is Polo, he stayed fresh, who do that, where they do that at? So me and him would have our little fashion battles, looking at each other like “word, word, ohkay, I like that son” then it be like “wait til I see you next time, watch what ima have on”. He kinda solidified it for me, when he said in one of his verses “none of ya rap n*ggas could dress, except Tek” and til this day n*ggas be ike “yo he was right” and it be like now ya get it? (laughs) it’s all good, but that was brother for real, I miss him, word.. Rest in peace.             

The game is different for many of today’s artists, Hip Hop is more lucrative/accepted in the mainstream than ever.. What are your thoughts about the current state of the music business and how it has evolved into what it is today?

I love it, I love it, because like you said, it’s so lucrative right now, Hip Hop can open so many doors for us, you ain’t gotta be a rapper, you ain’t gotta be a producer, you can work the camera, you can be a interviewer and you still gon get next to the people you look up to or people you who music you like without being a dick rider or just tryna get next to a n*gga to see what they can do for you and not pay it forward. So I love it, I hope hope it keep growing, this sh*t helped put our kids through college, get us off the block and afford to do things we never thought would be possible.. So I love this sh*t I wanna get another 20+ years in.  

With you and Steele still being very active overseas (Japan, Canada & throughout the UK), how has market like those embraced you guys and hip hop as a whole? 

Ah man, I love overseas, the thing about different spots like that, well they speak English in Canada & London and all that they be on they rude boi, Patois heavy over there so when Soundbwoy Buriell drop, it’s a mashup, mashup, dutee (dirty) so you gotta be able to hold ya own. Then you got spots like Japan, Germany, Switzerland where they barely speak any English but they know every word of ya lyrics and singing it wit you while you performing so that sh*t be like a culture shock.. Man when was last time I staged dived, I put on 10 lbs so I haven’t I haven’t stage dived in a minute but that sh*t be fun as a mf (laughs), but nah that sh*t be beautiful they welcome us with open arms. You can go to a club and still see dudes in the middle break dancing, pop locking, doing graffiti, big festivals that bring out tens of thousands of people, lasting for three, four days, through the rain & everything.. And they ain’t going nowhere, until they see who they wanted to see and then some. Then it come with a couple perks, you get some free dope gear, get some food, it be nice.             

You been fortunate enough to experience the old Brooklyn and the new Brooklyn.. what are your thoughts on the new Brooklyn and some of your new neighbors? 

That shit is crazy, they gentrified the shit outta Brooklyn, it went from Bedstuy, Bedford Stuyvesant to Bedford Stuyvesant Heights, I was like “what wtf that come from?” I mean we always had the tree line, blocks of brownstone’s, cribs worth like 1.5, 2 Million on certain blocks, still got mansions on certain blocks.. You go to sleep, everything’s black, you wake up and it’s black and white now, go to sleep again it’s black and white and yellow almost as if mf’s move in overnight. You wake up and ya neighbors different, you don’t know what to expect.. Black families will take a quick 20k or whatever, they don’t even give em 350, they give em like 100, 75k and they think they gonna live the rest of they life off that, they move wherever they end up moving, then six months later they crying like “I’m ready to come back”.. Why did you sell YOUR house in the first place? “Yo I needed that change” What? Get a job! Do something different.. “idk son, it ain’t what I thought it was gonna be” yeah of course it ain’t.. Like they said, sh*t wasn’t meant for us, especially as blacks, black men especially we got triple strikes against us already, so we gotta move correctly, militant and do what we do.. even when we moving under the radar like The Spook by the Door, we gotta get in, setup shop, plant seeds for our families and get out and then we do something else and that’s what it is, cause this sh*t crazy!                 

What’s life like for you today? What’s most important for you and what are you most focused on at this point?

For me, my morals and principles haven’t changed.. it’s always family first with me, always been that always been heavily planted and rooted in me, learned that from my mother and my father and now that I have my own son so it’s really family first. I have one right lady that does right by me so I try to make sure she good, happy wife, happy life.. So like I said it’s family and being loyal to yourself, true to yourself and knowing what it is, planting those seeds, because your seeds or whoever else your nephews ain’t gotta come up like we did, cause the work we put in then out here, that’s what it was for, we didn’t know it then, it was for them so they ain’t have to do the same dumb sh*t, make the same mistakes we did and go the route we did. So now it goes back to that other question “what Hip Hop can do for you?” I can give my nephew a job, I can give my son a job, all you gotta do is come with an idea, don’t just come to me “yo uncle T, blase blah, I wanna get two bricks” like “what? Where did you get that from?” you ain’t gotta do that.. Use ya fuckin mind, while you still can and you’re free to do it.. So for me, it’s just being happy, family oriented and keeping GOD at the forefront and from there I’ma just keep rockin..    

The pac album, that was like, ah man, just to hear his cadence of the flows of what he was talkin about was something special b/c from Bedstuy of course BIG was my man so we would always bump into each other in the streets whether I’m driving or riding my motorbike and he be like “Yo Tek park that shit, get in, let’s go” we out, shooting to weed spots smokin all day, niggas ringing the buzzer tryna get weed & niggas like “chill, f*ck that” shit was crazy man..           

You see that wit family sometimes, you and ya older brother bond might be tighter than you and ya younger brother.. But ya still family, ya still rock wit each other and that's how it was..

 

THE END