Artist: Brian Coleman
Interviewer: Alexander Fruchter

The debate surrounding music and the internet usually revolves around money and access. More fans have more access to music, and record labels are seeing their profits go down. In turn, they have created new avenues for profit, and changed the way music is released. Who would have thought ten years ago that we would actually be charting ringtones? What often gets lost in this debate is the special-ness of owning an album, of looking through the album booklet, and scouring the liner notes for more information. As digital releases grow, the time and energy going into the accompanying artwork diminishes.

Enter Brian Coleman, author of Check The Technique, a 500-page plus look at the creation of dozens of classic Hip Hop albums. In his book, Coleman lets artists tell the story of how they put their albums together, the situation surrounding each song, and whatever else they want to include. In this way, Coleman keeps the information alive, and creates a sort of magic that does not come with the $1.99 i-tunes download.

We linked up with Brian to talk about the making of his book, his passion for music, and his hopes of inspiring other writers to step outside the box of magazine features and work on bigger projects...Read on while I start drafting my own anthology...SoundSlam: The albums covered in Check The Technique are from a special time, have a special vibe. Do you think this type of in-depth look at one album is possible with the music coming out today, where it seems albums are more so a collection of songs, than one themed out cohesive expression?

Brian Coleman: I think that you could definitely do this type of in-depth exploration of a "modern" album, sure. I guess the question would be whether the story of the album itself would be as interesting as some of the albums that I cover in the book. Musically I don't feel that much of the stuff coming out on major labels today can hold a candle to the quality of music made by the artists I cover in Check the Technique, but that doesn't mean that the stories aren't interesting. I suppose only time will tell. Ask me in another five or ten years about whether I give a s**t about MIMS (actually, I can already tell you: no, I don't).

SoundSlam: I like the book because it does not have to be read in order, people can skip around and go directly to the albums they want to hear most about. When compiling interviews, were there any you were most excited for? Any surprises, either better than expected, or not as good as expected?

Brian Coleman: Regarding your first point, that's very cool, because that's exactly how I intended the book to be read - exactly in the order that people want! Read the chapters from 2 Live Crew to X-Clan (the book is in alphabetical order by artist name), or just read the ones you love most first, then work your way into the ones you don't know as much.

And regarding the second question, I was excited about all of these interviews, to be honest. There's not one chapter in here by an artist that I don't really like or at least want to know more about, so in a way this is my own personal mix of albums that I hope other people also consider to be dope. But I'd say that the two artists who were even better than I expected were the Beastie Boys and Ice-T. Not that I thought they'd be bad interviews - far from it. But the Beasties have a rep of always being goofy and sarcastic in interviews, and when I spoke with them they were all definitely very serious about talking about what they went through to make Check Your Head. That record means a lot to them and they had seen my first book, Rakim Told Me, and hopefully that let them know that I don't mess around with the way I approach these stories... I don't want to get stuff they usually give on "press days" or whatever, I want the real deal.

And Ice-T is just an amazing dude to talk to. He gave me all the time I wanted, probably about 90 minutes, even though I know he's a very busy guy. And he can speak as eloquently and analytically about his own music as he can about other artists he either admires or doesn't like. He's been in the rap game going on three decades, and he can really look back on it all now and put it in perfect perspective.

As for ones that weren't as good as I might have hoped, I'll have to sidestep answering that one. I appreciate anyone who gives me the time to chat, so I'm not going to hate on what happens after that point.

SoundSlam: Many traditional journalists discourage journalism from a fan's perspective, but with this book you had to be a fan in order to really engage the artist, and show your passion. How did you balance being a fan, with being professional? Was that an issue at all?

Brian Coleman Any music journalist who isn't a fan of the music isn't really doing their job, and isn't someone I would ever pay attention to, so who cares what someone like that says? If you want to detach yourself from what you're dealing with on an emotional level, be a stock analyst or something.

On the other side of the coin, I think it's important to be professional about your interview approach and the way you write up whatever you need to write up. I think that this is less of a problem than the first point (being a music journalist with no soul or love for the music). The music world needs more fans writing about the music, case closed. The artists who get interviewed by non-fans are the ones who know this more than anyone, too. They love talking to fans, they think stuffy, "objective" journalists are full of s**t. Because they are.

SoundSlam: Music is about feeling. For me, when I hear something that really touches me I get chills, and that's when I'm inspired. What inspired you to become a writer, and specifically covering Hip Hop?

Brian Coleman: The chills inspired me, too! Even into my early 20s I never had any aspirations to be a writer, about Hip Hop or any other kind of music. But I was just having a hard time finding that many writers out there who I wanted to read, especially regarding Hip Hop artists I liked and wanted to know more about. So I figured I'd give it a shot, because maybe other people out there would want to hear about these artists, too.

It was more that I wanted to give exposure to artists back in the mid-90s - like the Roots and Dr. Octagon or Company Flow - than it was that I thought I was the best writer out there. I still don't think I'm that great of a writer, I just try and tell stories as best I can. I actually listen to as much rock and metal as I do Hip Hop, but I just got into a niche writing about this stuff and stuck with it. I have no regrets about that, of course. I've never wanted to be a rock writer, it just doesn't seem that exciting to me. When it comes to breaking the music down into what makes it tick, Hip Hop still interests me more than anything else.

Brian Coleman: 500-plus pages? Tons of interview tapes? How long did this book take you to make? What were some of the biggest frustrations during that process?

Brian Coleman: In a certain way the book has taken me about seven or eight years to write, because it's all been a journey for me with these artists, going back to the first XXL "Classic Material" columns I did back in 1999 or 2000. Doing short features and columns just never really left me feeling like the stories had really been told, though, so even as I was writing these little 750-word chunks, I was building towards what Check the Technique was going to be, even if I didn't know it on a conscious level. And the real heavy lifting on the book front has been in the past two or three years, when each chapter started to take shape and I realized what additional research and interviews I needed to do to really make each one as rich as possible.

There have definitely been a lot of frustrations along the way, but there have been a lot more positive things I've experienced. Writers since the '80s like Nelson George and David Toop and into more contemporary guys like Ronin Ro and Jeff Chang have fought to make the publishing world give Hip Hop journalism a shot. If Check the Technique can help add to that still uphill battle a little bit, then that's what I'm trying to do.

SoundSlam For the artists with an expansive catalogue, was it tough at all determining which album to cover? For example, the Beastie Boys are one of my all-time favorite groups. Why not go with Ill Communication? Even though Check Your Head represented a turning point, and them bouncing back from Paul's Boutique, Ill Communication was dope!

Brian Coleman: That's a great question, and there has never been a definitive way that I go about figuring out which albums from certain artists to cover. In the end, I almost always just go with what albums that I want to know the most about, with the assumption that there are a lot of other fans out there who want to know the same things that I do.

The fact that my books are not and aren't supposed to be definitive is also the beauty of it, because I'd definitely buy whatever book might be out there in the future that goes into depth about Ill Communication, or Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet, or BDP's By All Means Necessary. I've never said that these are the "undisputed greatest albums of all time" - I'm just telling stories that have never really been told in this way. And I don't have a patent on what I'm doing, I would love it if other journalists out there got into this zone.

SoundSlam: How did you go about maneuvering through press people, and managers? How easy or hard was it to go about gaining access and showing the artists that they could trust you?

Brian Coleman: This time around it was a little easier for me since I had self-published my Rakim Told Me book in 2005. So I could send the book along to managers or the artists themselves, and they could see how I approach the albums I cover. Still, it wasn't as easy as I might have liked. It's always a struggle, but persistence pays off in most cases. And except for artists like Queen Latifah and Will Smith who have Hollywood publicists instead of music publicists, you usually at least have a shot of getting some consideration. That doesn't mean I've given up on Latifah or Mr. Fresh Prince, but Hollywood peeps are always the toughest, just because they have even more "handlers" around them.

Basically, there's a lot of "seven degrees of separation" that goes on. You talk to one artist and have a good conversation, then you ask them if you can get a contact number for another artist they know, and you keep building. Even so, I still hit a lot of dead-ends, and have had plenty of artists and managers tell me they were declining to do the interview for various reasons (varying from amazingly petty reasons to saying that they were working on their own book and didn't want what I was doing to conflict with that).

In the end, there are so damn many great albums still left to discuss that whenever I hit a roadblock or dead-end, I just move on to the next dope record. I don't take it personally.

SoundSlam: I think that one of the biggest concerns artists may have is that their music will be released and they don't really have control of how the listener will react, or how their intended meaning/message will be received. That seems like a strength for your book, because it gives artists some control back to explain exactly where they are coming from. Do you think the people you interviewed felt that way?

Brian Coleman: No artists have ever told me that explicitly, but I do think that's the case sometimes. Although to be fair, if they really wanted full control, that's the beauty of having a website or a myspace page for artists - they can say exactly what they want, for as long as they want. Back in the day you never had that kind of opportunity or platform if you were an artist.

In the end, I hope more of these artists do their own books, because even though some of my chapters are pretty in-depth, there's still so much more to tell, even about these albums I cover. Some of the chapters, like the Roots one, were twice as long in their first draft form. So with my own books, in the meantime maybe this will get them to start thinking about how they want to do their own book.

SoundSlam: How have readers been reacting? Any albums generating more response than others? Anybody you really wanted to include, but just couldn't?

Brian Coleman: Response thus far has been really gratifying, people seem to be enjoying the book and still want to know more about artists that they already know a lot about. Artists in the book are digging it, too, and that means even more to me. Brother J from X-Clan, Evil Dee from Black Moon, Paradise from X-Clan, Schoolly D, ?uestlove, Prince Paul have all told me they dig their own chapters and the other chapters, too, so I can't ask for anything more than that.

Thus far I guess people are telling me they dig the Beasties chapter most often, but that's not surprising. Beasties fans are some of the most dedicated fans in all of music.

And hell yeah there were tons of artists I wanted to include but couldn't. This is just the first volume on the "real deal" front (Rakim Told Me was cool but not well-distributed, so I consider that more like my "demo tape"), I'm just beginning. Already halfway done with the next volume...

SoundSlam: I also think it's important that music in general, and specifically Hip Hop be written about. What do you see as your role in Hip Hop culture, what responsibilities come with that?

Brian Coleman: If what I'm doing can get other writers, either established or just-starting-out, thinking about ways to get away from the treadmill of lame magazine writing and focus on books, that would be amazing. I think a lot of writers get to books from magazines in a very natural progression, and it just takes several years. You just get tired of the game, tired of kissing editors' asses who don't know s**t just so you can pay your rent. At the same time, writing books is no way to make a comfortable living (freelance writing isn't any better, of course...) so you definitely have to be creative in how you carve out your existence in the capitalist world. But it can be done.

As for Hip Hop, the music and the culture definitely needs writers out there who are willing to really talk to and listen to the pioneers of the culture and learn what makes them tick. Being able to tell an artist's story truthfully and respectfully is a lot more important than getting invited to the hottest listening parties or press junkets. So I hope that younger writers out there realize sooner than later that being a scenester doesn't make you a good writer. Listening and writing does.You can learn more about Brian Coleman and Check The Technique at www.checkthetech.com.