James DL / No Sleep Recordings Interview (Originally Printed In Shook 03 / Red Cover / Summer 2008)

Hip-hop fans love to reminisce about the good old days. Ask any longstanding rap fanatic his or her thoughts on the music’s much-celebrated late-80s-to-mid-90s golden-era and you’ll probably have to threaten to snap their rare test-pressing of Big Daddy Kane’s ‘Raw’ in-half in order to shut them up. They’ll tell you what a profound impact Public Enemy’s classic 1988 album It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back had on their socio-political worldview. They’ll be able to recall exactly where they were the first time they heard Biggie’s seminal 1994 debut Ready To Die. They might even laugh about the day they almost ended-up in a record store fistfight over the last copy of Street Smartz’ 1996 subterranean smash ‘Problems’. Yep, hip-hop fans love to reminisce about the good old days.

James DL is one of those hip-hop fans. Spend anytime talking with the 33-year-old from Long Island, New York and it soon becomes clear that rap music has been much more than just the soundtrack to his life; it’s been both a passion and an obsession. Introduced to hip-hop culture at a young age, James became a key-player in the NYC underground scene of the 90s via his successful college radio show, helping introduce the likes of J-Live and Talib Kweli to listeners via numerous late-night studio freestyle sessions. He also worked for the now defunct independent label Hydra (temporary home to Godfather Don, Screwball etc).

Last year, DL threw himself back into the indie game by establishing his No Sleep imprint. Disillusioned with the greed-obsessed industry circus that hip-hop has become in recent times, James sought to help similarly unimpressed fans rediscover the creativity of rap’s glory days by releasing vintage (and often previously unheard) material from back-in-the-day favourites such as Lord Finesse, Kwest Tha Madd Lad and the aforementioned Godfather Don, plus new mix-CD projects like DJ Boogie Blind’s Definitive D.I.T.C..

With many more releases in the pipeline, James DL sat down with Shook to explain exactly why he wants to take us all back to the future.

What initially made you decide to set-up No Sleep?

It’s funny because there wasn’t really any impetus to make me start the label, it was more something that I gradually just got into. For the last few years I’ve been working with Lord Finesse and one of the things him and me got into was doing simple CDs to sell as merchandise at his shows, one of which was the Rare & Unreleased project. I thought that was too much of a good CD just to sell at shows as there was a lot of material on there that his fans would want who perhaps couldn’t make it to a Lord Finesse performance. So we added a few things to it, put it out with proper distribution and it did pretty well, particularly overseas in places like Japan. At that point, Buckwild had reached out to me and we did a similar project containing a lot of his remix and production work from the 90s for artists like Organized Konfusion, Artifacts and Brand Nubian. I was also involved in putting out the unreleased Ill Biskits album Chronicles Of Two Losers. I’d say that was probably when I decided to start No Sleep because I was putting out these CDs on separate labels, but at the same time, all of the CDs were really coming from the same source, which was me. I was using the same guy for all of the cover art, the same mastering guy, the same distribution, so I decided to set-up my own label to enable me to keep putting out similar projects but also be able to cross-promote them better. I wanted to establish a brand name so that when fans and collectors see something from No Sleep they know it represents a certain sound and level of quality from hip-hop’s golden era.

How much of a market is there for the type of releases you’re putting out?

It’s a small, small niche market. Obviously there’s been a small market for vinyl for awhile now, but it’s not really that much better for CDs. For example, I know there were thousands of people who got into Godfather Don’s Nineties Sessions CD, but that didn’t translate into sales. Of course, downloading is hurting everyone nowadays, and if you’re only putting out music to appeal to a relatively small audience anyway then it becomes even harder to get everyone in that audience to support what you’re doing. I think there are still a lot of people who would go out and buy CDs, but I think they’re disenfranchised with the music. Hip-hop has become so bad that older fans have stopped going to the record store to look for it. I think that if they knew there was a new album out from an artist they liked back in the day they might be inclined to purchase it. It’s just about getting the word out there. Those fans are out of the loop but they’re still listening to their old Brand Nubian or A Tribe Called Quest albums. That’s one of the reasons why I felt it was so important to establish a brand name with No Sleep, because the chances are if you like one of our releases you’ll like the others, so it gives people something to look for.

What is it about hip-hop’s golden-era that makes it such a special period to you?

People might accuse me of being stuck in the past, and I guess I am to a certain degree, but when albums like Showbiz & AG’s Runaway Slave and Diamond’s Stunts, Blunts & Hip-Hop were coming out, you just couldn’t get enough of the music. There was a feeling you used to get when you heard a record like Tribe’s Midnight Marauders for the first time. I think we need to preserve that feeling as much as possible because that’s not coming back. I don’t think young kids today fully understand just how exciting hip-hop used to be. It’s kinda easy to be a hip-hop head now because it’s all about just going on the internet message boards every couple of days to check in on things. But back in the day you had to really dig and you wanted to know and have everything. That’s what No Sleep is about, finding the stuff that maybe you heard on the radio but never picked up, or those tracks that weren’t on a particular album, and putting them out there in a physical form for the people who actually still want to own a copy of everything they like.

Would you ever consider releasing a new artist through No Sleep or do you want to keep your releases strictly old-school?

I probably want to keep the label as just being more of a vintage sound. But I actually am working on a project right now with Buckwild that will be all vintage beats but with vocals from a newer artist who people know. I can’t really say too much about it at the moment, but when it comes out I think it’ll have a pretty big impact.

What’s next for the label?

Well, the next thing is me and Godfather Don are putting out the Kool Keith / Cenobites album again with some additional songs that were recorded during the same mid-90s period but never released. Also, I’m putting out a double-CD with Nick Wiz, who I feel is one of the more slept-on producers from the 90s. It’s all stuff that he did between 1992 and 1997 with artists like Channel Live, Cella Dwellas and Rakim. I’m also doing an unreleased album with Shorty Long who people will remember from his work with Lord Finesse.

You’ve already worked with some of hip-hop’s greats like Lord Finesse, Buckwild etc, but is there a dream project you’d like to put together?

I would love to do a CD with DJ Mark The 45 King and be able to go through his archives because he must have so much stuff that I’d want. I’ve actually spoken to him before and he told me ‘Yeah, I did about thirty songs with Marky Fresh’ which, just as a fan of hip-hop, I’d love to hear. I’m not sure how much of that stuff he’d still have though, but that would be a project I’d love to be able to put together.

Bonus Q&A With No Sleep Affiliates Lord Finesse, Nick Wiz, DJ Boogie Blind & Kwest Tha Madd Lad.

What do you think the biggest difference is between today’s rap game and the golden era?

Lord Finesse: The difference I see between today’s rap game and the golden era is that there were so many classic artists and albums created back then compared to now. There was an extreme focus on the quality of the production and the lyrical content. Today’s rap game is more image driven.

Kwest: I think it’s become more focused on financial gain than really trying to up the ante skills-wise. Dudes step in the booth and say anything just to get a cheque. It’s all about who has the best car and the most money etc. Most MCs today don’t really show skill, if they even have any to begin with.

DJ Boogie Blind: In the golden era, everybody was being creative. Nowadays people concentrate on your hustle more than your actual talent.

How important do you think it is for a label like No Sleep to be out there giving exposure to music from the past?

Lord Finesse: A label like No Sleep educates new fans and it gives archive collectors a chance to purchase history.

Nick Wiz: It’s definitely a great look because there’s people out there that still want to hear that classic sound and No Sleep provides that.

Kwest: The younger generation forgets where hip-hop came from and only know the current artists. No Sleep resurrects the past music and lets them see how we did it. It also lets the mature hip-hop fan reminisce on what it was like when they were still growing and loving the music.

So far No Sleep has concentrated on the 90s hip-hop era – can you name a favourite album from that period?

Lord Finesse: I can’t really cut the list down to just one favourite album and would be lucky if I could even cut the list to a top twenty.

Nick Wiz: The Cella Dwellas’ Realms ’N Reality. When we were recording that album, we weren’t thinking about anything other than making great music.

DJ Boogie Blind: Ice Cube’s Amerikkka’s Most Wanted just because I wanted to see Cube do it up without N.W.A. and he definitely made a classic.

Do you have a particular favourite recording and / or performance memory from that same period?

Lord Finesse: My greatest memories are associated with the recording sessions I did with Big L and The Notorious B.I.G. I will forever remember working with two of the immortals of hip-hop.

Kwest: I remember being in Firehouse Studios in NYC recording and the engineer came in and said someone wanted to see me outside. When I went out, The RZA was there with a few other Wu-Tang members. He said he liked my song ‘Lubrication’ and gave me props. They had just dropped Enter The Wu-Tang and for him to say that about me was an honour.

DJ Boogie Blind: Seeing the X-ecutioners battle the Skratch Piklz in 1996. Classic turntablism.

Ryan Proctor