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ThaFormula.com - So how has the album been doing since it's release?

The Coup - We been on tour since it's been out and it seems like it's going good in the sense that alot of people want it, but the fact is the distribution is not what it's supposed to be and almost every market that we have been into and we been into like 13 different cities, they all say we been ordering it and we can't get it.  

ThaFormula.com - What chains have you noticed do not have it?

The Coup - Well, Wharehouse doesn't have it, Tower Records doesn't have it, alot of mom and pop stores.  Some people have it and some people don't, but I'd say 80% of the people we talked to don't have it.  

ThaFormula.com - Have you talked to the label about that?

The Coup - Well Tommy Boy is the distributor and I talked to the label, but they are actin like they don't know what's going on so I haven't been able to get any answers.

ThaFormula.com - Why did you leave Dog Day Records?

The Coup - We did basically as much as we could do with them and they still owe us some money.  Stray Records is Dog Day, they just have 2 different names.  I'll say this though.  They do know there retail market and we were able to sell a whole gang of records as far as the whole promotional thing.

ThaFormula.com - So "Steal This Album" did really good for you?

The Coup - Yeah,  we sold 80,000 copies. I mean what always happens with us is like "Genocide and Juice" is still sellin a whole bunch and stuff.  I mean that was 6 years ago and they are still sellin like 500 copies of that album a week.  

ThaFormula.com - This distribution problem is something that seems to plague alot of artists.  Is this a situation where you just chalk it up to the game?

The Coup - You know it's hard to just chalk it up to the game because were out here workin hard doin these shows trying to promote the album and because of all these circumstances we got alot of press and alot of people wanting to hear this album and we got a big opportunity and the records aren't there. These stores are tellin me "12 people came in today askin for it".  At one place I was told 30 people asked for it and it wasn't there.

ThaFormula.com - So it's not that the chains ain't orderin, it's that it's not being delivered?

The Coup - Yeah, it's not gettin there.  They put in there order and it's not gettin there.  

ThaFormula.com - So where does the blame go in this situation?

The Coup - Well, everybody is pointing the finger at each other.  The distributor is saying the label delivered it to them late and not only did they deliver it to them late but that they pressed up less copies then they even ordered.   

ThaFormula.com - Do you think it has anything to do with your album cover or what happened on September 11th?

The Coup - I don't know. I would really hope not because then that would mean that there is somebody in there purposely doin some shit.  If that is the case I really can't fix that problem.  So I'm lookin at something I can fix and I think what it is there's alot of people that uh, put it like this The Coup has alot of different kind of potential as far as who it can reach because when we first came out with our first single they said, "Oh it's gangsta rap".  They didn't even listen to the lyrics so we were mad that they were callin us gangsta rap, but in hind sight when we look back that was a good thing because we got alot of people that wouldn't normally listen to us to listen.  So we got that crowd and we also got the hardcore hip hop crowd and people that just wanna hear messages and things like that.  So their is a big cross-section of people that wanna hear the album.

ThaFormula.com - Now you have sported the afro since the beginning of time.  Why have you never changed or switched up like so many artists do?  

The Coup - The same way Dru Down has kept his perm.  Also, I'll put it like this.  Sometimes when I have wanted to change my shit and were dealing with very little promotion, people know what I look like.  So that way people see it on the front of the album cover and some people don't even know us as The Coup, but as that dude with the afro.  I just never been somebody that follows fads.  It's just something that I got that I like the way it looks.  I don't like myself with just a little bit of hair.  

ThaFormula.com - How did you hook up with Dead Prez? I remember seeing you on the "Hip Hop" video and wondering how you guys hooked up.  

The Coup - One of their producers, Tahir, who actually used to be part of Dead Prez, uh, back in the day we had something called the Mau Mau rhythm collective out of Oakland and the girl that was kind of doin alot of the work on it named Nicco Slater, who was a child of a panther.   She moved to Florida and was talkin about starting a Mau Mau chapter and this dude would be callin me up every week tellin me "Yeah, we got a rap group and we tryin to do this so let me know what's going on and about the industry".  So I would be tellin him what's going on and shit.  Later on in around 96, I heard the sampler with Dead Prez on it with "Food, Clothes, and Shelter" and I was like "who is this".  So I called Loud and tried to get in contact with them and left messages with Loud and nobody got back to me or anything like that.  By then we had another organization called the Young Comrades and when that kind of started dissolving, one of the dudes moved back to New Jersey and he was a lawyer and he became dead prez lawyer and they were just talkin about trying to get in contact with The Coup.  So we ended up hookin up.  I went out there for this compilation.  They flew me out there to do this song with them that we actually did, but it never came out because of the sample.  But uh, we went out there and we were kickin it and talkin and Tahir said to me, "Yeah, remember that time when you said such and such".  I was like, "did I say that on a record", and he said, "No, don't you remember, I'm that dude that you was always talkin to on the phone out of Florida".  That was like 98 when I hooked up with them and we just been workin on shit ever since.  So like this song on "Party Music" that came out has gone through so many different things and it's been so many different songs, but we just wanted to be right.  Also, me and M1 and maybe Stic too are in a group called "The Instigators", a rap group that were gonna put out soon.

ThaFormula.com - So is this something that is being talked about or actually happening as we speak?

The Coup - Yeah, we have already started making songs.  

ThaFormula.com - How is the production gonna be worked out? Are you guys collaborating?  

The Coup - Yeah, but it's mainly gonna be Tahir.

ThaFormula.com - Were you surprised that dead prez was able to release "Let's Get Free" without a problem? 

The Coup - No, because part of the tricks of the media and the ruling class is to make you think you have freedom of speech. So if they were to just be straight gorilla pimpin about it and be tellin everyone nothin can get out, then their would be more to talk about and people would see it very often.  So you let a few things get out there, but once it starts havin some power and some meaning that's when you cut it off.  So for instance and I won't say the name cause hopefully it's gonna happen anyway.  We were in a conversation with this late night network talk show after Sept. 11th.  Before we wouldn't have had any problem like this, but  they were like, "Ok, you can do any song except Five Million ways to kill a CEO".  So I said, Ok I'll do this song called "Everything" and they were like Ok you can do it.  Then my publicist called me and said they have a few things about your lyrics that they want to talk about.  First problem they had was the with the second verse where one of the lyrics says, "every cop is a corrupt one".  They said you can't say that.  So I said ok you can bleep me out on the air and they said no we don't wanna bleep you out because we don't wanna make it look like were editing.  So they wanted me to change the lyrics, so that when you looked, you would say, "Damn they let them say that shit".  But then they can kind of mold what your doing.  We have had so many things censored and stuff like that, but they still let us out there, but then they censor us to a certain extent.  So they kind of let you out there to make it kind of seem like your doin stuff.  They censor you in a way that is not obvious.  

ThaFormula.com - So what do you do to change that?

The Coup - We just keep puttin it out there and we keep growin. Hopefully more and more people will keep listening and we keep finding different ways.  Just like that song "Hip hop".  It got all throughout the South and all that.  People got into dead prez because of that and they were able to do that.  The main thing is, we want our music to be able to be used as a tool by the movement.  It's not something that in itself that can do something, but if their is a material movement, it will grow.  If their is a material movement that's growing and actually making people get paid more and helping people have better status of living, what's gonna happen is their won't be anymore need for dead prez or the Coup because just like during the movement when James Brown wasn't saying anything for the movement.  But because the movement grew he had to come out and say, "I'm Black and I'm proud".  That wasn't something that he came out sayin cause he was sayin all kinds of shit against the movement, but the movement grew and he had no choice but to go there.  Marvin Gaye was singin all love songs and shit like that. The movement was there and it enveloped  him and he had to make "What's going on".  It wasn't like that came first.  So basically were here in hopes that the movement can use us to build more shit and then their won't need to be a Coup or nothin like that.  You will have R.kelly singin about the movement.  You will have Faith Evans, Jay -Z, and Jada Kiss rockin about the movement.

ThaFormula.com - Do you see progress in this movement?

The Coup - I see the movement growing, but they keep trying to make it seem like it hasn't.  During all this time when alot of the press has been saying, "Oh, look at the Coup, there so anti - American", we have still been havin pretty good sized crowds.  I always say something about the war and what's going on.

ThaFormula.com - I have noticed alot of Coup hate on the internet?

The Coup - But think about who is on the internet.  Little 13 year old white boys in Idaho.  It's off of their now, but on the message board on 75 ark, uh, first of all I got 80% support of things on the internet in emails sent to me.  Anyway, on the message boards on the net I have seen people put, "Fuck all you niggers", but then they say Mos Def and Puff Daddy rule.  I mean the definitely listen to hip hop, but they are still racist as fuck! They are on the internet saying shit like, "You Porch monkeys", and all that type of shit.  And they are supposed to be part of this hip hop nation, which is bullshit.  I don't even think this hip hop nation is everything.  That's just a marketing tool because it doesn't connect anybody by any kind of boundaries.  So you still got these kids who are coming to shows wearing back packs, baseball caps, and stuff, but still going home saying, "them niggers were tight" or "them niggers can really dance".  Not all of them of course, but I'm sayin hip hop doesn't fight racism and hip hop doesn't change the material world.  What will change it is a movement that actually deals with these things or actually confronts these things by shutting down businesses till the pay more money.  Things like that will change the way the world really is and then that will change the lives of the people that are listening to hip hop.  I mean look at the Source, they got American flags all over the place.  Look at Rolling Stones.  One thing that's very interesting is Alicia Keys article in Rolling Stones.  They had her on all these benefits with the American Flag flying and stuff and I was wondering if she requested that  or is she just doin this and not for it.  Well in the Rolling Stones thing she says, "Well, I'm not for the American flag cause that's slavery, this is still America, I'm black, that's not for me, and that stands for my oppression".  So I was like, "Damn, that's hella cool that she said that".  Then you look at the cover.  On the cover she is not wearing red, white, and blue.  She is wearing something gray or whatever and she's raising her arm in the air, but her hand was cut off.  What do you think she's doing up above that line where her hand is cut off.  She's not saying "Hi".  She's got a fist up in the air.  They cut that off and they blued in the sky in back of her and put red and white letters on there.  So they changed her whole message and did something that was totally the opposite of what she was talking about or of what she was for.  So these magazines are part of shapin it and the first people that I have had the most negative responses from are journalist.  We went to Montana and everybody was cheering against the war.  Montana! Kansas City!  Not only on shit that were headlining in, but shit that other people are headlining on.  What it is, is that them right wing people and Republicans they are puttin on the flag because they think it's for sympathy for the people that died, but they are not necessarily for the government or war.  But they are making it seem on TV like that's it.  I mean you talk to hell of people that got flags and they feel it's fucked up the way they are just bombing Afghanistan.  

ThaFormula.com - Who do you think is leading this false movement?

The Coup - The government and the media.  Tom Brokaw.  I think that was the guy that went on David Letterman and cried.  Anyway, he said "I'm an american first and whatever george bush asks me to do in this war, I'm gonna do".  Now he doesn't mean he is gonna go enlist in the army.  What does me mean he's gonna do?  And we know from looking at certain books and papers that they said many, that they planted false stories with the help of journalists and editors that had to do with whatever the F.B.I. wanted to happen and there was alot of complicity in that.  They would tell them, "OK, this is the image we want to paint of this activist, so let's have a story in the such and such chronicle".  

ThaFormula.com - Do you think this is what is happening now?

The Coup - The Taliban are some fucked people, but the thing that tells you that they are fucked up in the first place is that they were working for the United States government and the C.I.A.  The Taliban were brought in to Afghanistan by the C.I.A. to overthrow the people's Democratic party of Afghanistan.  The people's Democratic party of Afghanistan was a socialist organization.  They weren't brought in to fight the Soviets like they say.  The Soviets didn't come in till 6 months after the C.I.A. had armed the Taliban, Osama Bin Laden and under the peoples Democratic party of Afghanistan women were allowed to go to school, divorce and own property, etc.  Now the reason that shit got the way it is, is because they also said the people should own this shit and they didn't let U.S. business interest in and so the U.S. started sayin to the Taliban and Mujadin, "hey, this is not Islam".  "Here goes some money and guns".  "Go in there".  Matter of fact, one of the missions that the C.I.A. sent Osama Bin Laden on was, uh, cause at first they were just doing conventional warfare.  But the U.S. was like, "no the people are supporting the people's Democratic party of Afghanistan and they are supporting Socialism". "You got to instill fear in them".  So the C.I.A. told him to go into the co ed elementary schools that had boys and girls because that was against Islam and round up the teachers in front of the kids and kill the teachers in front of the kids.  This is the C.I.A..  So alot of these terrorist tactics that happen are ones that are taught by the C.I.A.  Like flying planes into buildings.  That's not the first time that shit happens.  There is C.I.A. operations that gets people to do that all the time. Like driving cars on suicide missions into buildings.  The point that I'm sayin is that the C.I.A. is the biggest proliferator of terrorism. But see part of my being an organizer, I have to be scientific and I don't want to speculate on shit I don't know.  All I can deal with is the things that I know and what I do know is that the Taliban and Osama Bi Laden and the C.I.A. were one unit and they had a difference over oil.  That's what's happening and that's what this war is about.  PROFIT.  Not necessarily only profit over oil, but profit over things and getting in that area. But that's how the Taliban got put in there.  It was for oil profit in the first place.

ThaFormula.com - Do you think Iraq is next?

The Coup - Well it's gonna go out to all over the place.  They may not just tactically want to do that because they might not wanna get into a big war like that right now.  I think that if you wanted to fight terrorism you gotta stop the United States from doing it.  It's funny, the main people they will show in the World Trade Center is people of color to make people of color wanna wave the flag and stuff like that.  You know that the U.S. got found guilty by the world court of killing 30,000 innocent civilians in Nicaragua.  They got found guilty!!  Guilty in a world court of law of killing 30,000 innocent civilians in Nicaragua to overthrow a Democratic reelected government and they were ordered to pay 19 billion dollars in reparations by the world court.  The U.S. said were not adhering to the findings of the world court.  So we got 30,000 people and nobody shed a tear over them and if there was some way to get on nightline and show people the proof, there would be no sympathy for that.  They would just be saying, "Why you bringing that up".  They are also found guilty of harboring terrorists in the United States.  They are right now harboring Emanuel Constance and a whole bunch of members of Frap, which is a terrorist organization that the United States hired to overthrow Heidi.  Founded by the C.I.A., Nestle, and Spalding baseballs.  They killed thousands of people.  Emanuel Constance is protected by the F.B.I. in Queens New York right to this day.  The rest of his people are in Florida.

ThaFormula.com - Let's talk about Raptivism.  How did you hook up with Raptivism?

The Coup - I ran into Rishi at a conference.  I really didn't like my track I put on there. 

ThaFormula.com - Why not sign with Raptivism?

The Coup - Well, we are on a level now, where we are just trying to get it out in a much bigger way and they just didn't have the resources, but I support what they are doing.  

ThaFormula.com - How do you feel about what they are doing?

The Coup - I like the whole concept.  I think if they do it right, they can set some new mottos on how to put out records that effect the community and that shape the way the community is going.  Alot of that is real hard to do.     

ThaFormula.com - How was it working on the No More Prisons compilation?

The Coup - It was cool.  We did that song right after Steal This Album, but I didn't like the final product because I'm not the type of person that likes to write my stuff in the studio and that's one that I did do in the studio.  I liked it at first and then I listened to it and didn't like it as much.

ThaFormula.com - On your new album "Party Music", what is different from the past albums?  

The Coup - Production wise, I had my own studio so I was able to work on the music alot more.  

ThaFormula.com - Was the album all Live instruments?  

The Coup - Yeah, you know we have always done that.  Also I got it a little more up tempo, but there has always been alot more things I wanted to do recording wise, but I couldn't do it when I was paying for studio time. 

ThaFormula.com - Why did you choose to go more up - tempo this time around?

The Coup - Because I' have always loved up - tempo stuff. I think I'm progressing in writing lyrics and in style and things like that.

ThaFormula.com - So are you happy with the final product?  

The Coup - Yeah, this is the one that's closest to, uh, see I always start off with a vision of an album and it's usually in a certain place, but usually every album falls way short of whatever vision I had for it. This is the one that's closest to the vision.

ThaFormula.com - Was the label happy with the results of the album? 

The Coup - Yeah, but the real thing about labels is usually they don't have any idea about the music.  They might be hyped up or they might not.  I don't really listen to record labels because they are not usually the audience that I'm gonna go after.  Like this album, although it's getting some underground acceptance, I made this so that it could be something that could go beyond the underground market and the label still doesn't understand the nuances of that.  The fact that we need to be working club Dj's with this album and things like that.  It is getting that acceptance, but we have to do different things in marketing to get it out there.

ThaFormula.com - So what is your ultimate goal?

The Coup - The main thing that I want to turn it into is, to be able to turn it into a network that are doin music and have a studio and doing stuff that ends up being like a newspaper, tape or cd.  And that can come out in a regular period and get's people to be involved in whatever community action is happening at that time.  It would be more like a compilation that would be simply about this thing.  You know, shut down Kmart on November 7th.  That would be the chorus and we would have rappaz that are known and rappaz that are unknown doin it and we would be able to give them out for free to the community.  

ThaFormula.com - When should people expect the Instigators album?

The Coup - Probably like April, but we haven't finished it yet.  I mean their are people that are interested in it, but were looking at it artistically first and then a label has to show us that they can handle an album like that.

ThaFormula.com - That's a lethal combo man.

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