A debate about which album aged higher: The Recreation’s Documentary or 50 Cent’s Get Wealthy or Die Tryin’. One celebration suggests 50 Cent’s seminal ‘03 debut on account of its cultural relevancy and affect on the commercialization of Gangsta rap. One other celebration presents The Recreation’s solo debut merely due to “Hate it or Adore it.” On the tv is a pre-fame 50 Cent on a rooftop, providing recommendation on absorbing information, self-manifestation, and the parallel between the hood and company America—Pink Siifu and Ahwlee, or B. Cool-Help, sit inches aside: Siifu on the low-rising sofa and Ahwlee on a chair near the desk. Siifu adjustments the tv, placing on a video of D’Angelo Voodoo session outtakes. The air is relaxed and sweetened with the aroma of marijuana. Ashes pile within the wood basket on the desk. Siifu, with a slab of Rastafarian adorned marble, fronto leaf, and his sealed flower of selection, whereas I roll a joint of my very own on my lap.
Jazz-soul fusion duo B. Cool-Aid is making ready to launch their first album in 4 years, Leather Blvd, due March thirty first. “One thing flashy. We needed to be working horny with it,” Siifu says concerning the album title. Each Siifu and Ahwlee resonate serenity within the room, a nonetheless calmness that’s additionally of their music. Throughout their four-year absence, Siifu and Ahwlee turned profitable artists within the underground rap scene. When requested why a B. Cool-Help report now, they reply, “life” and that it’s the suitable time. Siifu, an enigmatic artist from Alabama, has launched works with Flyanakin, Yungmorpheus, and AKAI Solo, together with two studio albums—one among them being a punk-thrash challenge titled Negro—and a collaborative tape with producer Actual Unhealthy Man launched final 12 months. Bay-area producer Ahwlee launched two instrumental albums, VII in 2020–an EP with Chill Kids the identical 12 months—and Ftrs final 12 months. B. Cool Help takes the relief of Ahwlee’s lo-fi compositions and Siifu’s ear for dwell devices to conjure music that faucets into classic soul, funk, and jazz.
B. Cool-Help first met at a Boiler Room set in Los Angeles, the place each Siifu and Ahwlee shared the identical invoice. Ahwlee knew he needed to work with Siifu following his efficiency: “It’s that sort of Lil Wayne willingness to go there. Simply step into his personal and do what different folks aren’t doing. I knew he had the braveness and the ability to step into a spot the place niggas weren’t at and that he may preserve doing that.” The title “B. Cool-Help” materialized in 2016, engaged on their debut Brwn a 12 months earlier than the duo established themselves. In comparison with Siifu’s previous work, B. Cool-Help permits him to discover the neo-soul facet of his artistry. “I really feel like again speaking FlySiifu’s is completely different, regardless that it’s nonetheless rap, and it’s nonetheless Southern primarily based…it’s nonetheless completely different.“
We’re within the dwelling of streetwear model Trash Co. and DC-based rapper Obiisay, a mainstay haven for neighboring underground rap acts. The partitions usually rumble from the trains clattering on the tracks close to the constructing. Art work hangs on the partitions, colourful and reimagining numerous cartoon characters. It’s a fortress for creatives to remain artistic. With joints burning and mimosas on the desk, B. Cool-Help talks to Excessive Occasions about their early beginnings as a bunch and their upcoming album Leather-based Blvd.
I really feel just like the soul in hip-hop and typically, music proper now has diminished. How necessary is it to maintain that which means and goal intact in your music?
Ahwlee: You may’t translate that. You may’t prefabricate it, and kind of manufacture shit. Niggas are all some row of meeting line kind shit, so far as music goes, in my view. Dwelling the music you make is a misplaced science.
Siifu: I imply, that’s the factor too, bro. Every part that we sort of mentioned on this report is like on a regular basis shit. Niggas don’t. And it’s cool to manufacture robust shit. And to be a fictional “wrestling” kind of rapper.
At that time, you’re an entertainer
Siifu: It’s such as you’re a fucking entertainer, yeah. And we’re not actual gangsters, we’re not actual artists and shit. Anyone may say, if you happen to’re doing this, you’re not a gangsta on a regular basis. You’re earning money. With me and Ahwlee, with this soul shit, what he got here up on, it’s all simply actual shit. I’m not going to say all of the Neo-Soul, the soul is out, as a result of I do fuck with niggas like Smino, Mike, Booker, and Ari Lennox. I suppose, a couple of niggas like going loopy, like they’re making me really feel one thing.
It’s been 4 years for the reason that final LP. What made now the suitable time to deliver again B. Cool-Help for one more tape?
Pink Siifu: It’s proper on time. We really feel prefer it’s performed. Shout out to Butcher Brown once more. They helped us actually, as a result of we’ve been recording.
Ahwlee: We ain’t even stopped making music the entire time.
Pink Siifu: Yeah, yeah. We’ve been making shit, you are feeling me? However I like sequels. I actually like them. If I made a film and I had a sequel, I might take my time. So I really feel like that is our sequel as a result of SYRUP was the EP for us first. We really feel prefer it’s greater than us. Like fuck it, make it just like the world.
I like first the one, “Cnt Go Again,” as a result of after I hear it, it takes me again to the early days. Do you ever look again at SYRUP?
Pink Siifu: Yeah, I don’t bear in mind what I used to be doing round SYRUP. I really feel like I used to be sort of residing good. I did begin fucking with my child momma, my child.
Ahwlee: As a result of she was on the SyrupHands video. I nonetheless journey on that.
Pink Siifu: Proper. She’s on the quilt of SYRUP. That’s her and one other dwelling lady consuming breakfast, of pancakes and syrup. Yeah, it was a great time. It was proper earlier than ensley too.
Ahwlee: Yeah, he was getting his ensley bag.
Pink Siifu: I used to be beginning to produce and loop shit. I bear in mind we had been taking part in as B. Cool-Help at Lodge Room, after SYRUP, and I dropped ensley that night time. I dropped ensley within the Inexperienced Room at that present.
Within the second a part of that track, there’s reassurance for listeners that issues are going to get higher sometime, and issues will flip round and pray by. Why is that?
Pink Siifu: That’s Jon Bap. That nigga, he got here and he received in and simply laced that shit, bro. He flipped the beat. That’s him flipping “Cnt Go Again,” however he simply flipped it. Then, I requested that nigga to sing on the unique, and he simply gave me that, with a verse, and that nigga doesn’t actually even rap. That nigga’s a singer and a producer.
It sticks with you.
Pink Siifu: Yeah, after which he impressed my model.
Ahwlee: Yeah, that track simply received longer and longer, and it went on an entire completely different tangent.
Pink Siifu: We’re working with musicians. Ahwlee is already one among my favourite producers. So one among my favourite producers linked up with a band. They gave us every thing we would have liked. A pack that we may pattern. I loop shit from that. In order that’s just like the intro and two interludes I looped. That’s my first time even touching manufacturing on B. Cool-Help. However that’s off of ensley, and that’s off of me fucking with shit now. In order that’s that complete 4 years. Ahwlee fucking taking part in keys like a motherfucker proper now, getting hella musical.
Your craft has advanced clearly, so with that craft although, your life has additionally superior. I’ve observed the lyrics have themes of fatherhood and maturity.
Siifu: Have we?
To me, I believe…
Siifu: No, I really feel that. No, you weren’t there whereas we had been making it, so I need to know what the fuck you’re speaking about? I really feel that. You’re feeling prefer it’s received the daddy. I really feel that.
How does it have an effect on you as an artist coming into this album I really feel like some circumstances had been completely different, most likely perhaps a 12 months or two in the past.
Ahwlee: Yeah. For positive. I imply, earlier than the pandemic, within the zone the place he’s or is engaged on this, a whole lot of shit modified for each of us. We moved round after which we left that sort of golden zone that we simply received by speaking about.
Siifu: Yeah, we’d simply hyperlink up on a regular basis, and make shit.
Ahwlee: Yeah. Simply discovering shit and going out and having enjoyable. It received hella critical with everyone. So the music sort of displays that change that all of us needed to make as folks.
Siifu: It’s cool, that is enjoyable, we love this shit however now we’ve received to care for shit in an entire new approach.
There are potentialities now.
Siifu: Precisely. I imply, that’s all good although. It’s all good. I’m positively altering. You’re positively going to listen to increasingly of that in my music.
You hear the maturity progress from report to report. This report particularly has huge variations.
Siifu: That’s the factor although, with GUMBO’! and simply my solo work typically, I’m simply cultivating and I’m sequencing every thing. I’m doing every thing, and in these collaboration tasks, it’s simpler, however I give the identical focus and a spotlight to what we’re constructing. Tight shit. However with the solo shit, GUMBO’!, it’s going to be so completely different than this, but in addition I’m rising, so my subsequent shit goes to be completely different from GUMBO’! For positive. However as a result of I’m a dad, a full dad now. We’re getting older, the music’s getting crazier.
Had been any of those songs created, through the GUMBO’! periods, and creatively, are there variations from engaged on an album like GUMBO’! versus one thing like Leather-based Blvd.?
Siifu: Yeah, I booked some studio periods and I had one room the place we had been doing B. Cool-Help, and one room I used to be mixing and including shit to GUMBO’!
Ahwlee: A couple of cuts you may hear at a later date.
Siifu: Just like the observe, the interlude observe on GUMBO’!, with Ahwlee, that Ahwlee beat, I forgot, it’s like I believe, proper earlier than “BACK’!” However like I made that off of constructing some B. Cool-Help shit. I used to be like, “I would like some Ahwlee shit on this shit.” We’d been engaged on B. Cool-Help for a minute and GUMBO’! was a shock. I wasn’t even going to make GUMBO’! it wasn’t within the playing cards.
However Butcher made a lot sense with this B. Cool-Help shit. Working with him, I used to be like, “Oh, wow,” as a result of Ahwlee is already a fan of Butcher and DJ, so it was identical to, we made sense. On the tail finish of GUMBO’!, ending with GUMBO’! a bunch of Brown tracks got here in, within the center, as a result of GUMBO’! was initially all tracked.
The place’s Massive Rube are available?
Siifu: Massive Rube got here in GUMBO’! I received to name him too as a result of I need to get him on my subsequent shit too. I needed to inform him. I used to be like, “Bro,” as a result of I began doing poetry. I needed to supply the rap. I began rapping. I did rap verses right here and there, however I wasn’t actually rapping till faculty, until out of highschool kind shit. Our college was doing poetry.
I used to be doing poetry, open mics, doing that shit. My nigga Peso, who was on GUMBO’!, Peso Gordon, he was engaged on the album with this nigga they usually let me do poetry on that shit. That was my first ever actual characteristic, for actual. However my first concept was to do a poetry album. It was like not even a rap album, like some poetry album.
Is that also on the horizon?
Siifu: No however I might like to curate some shit like that. Like, deliver again that Def Jam poetry-type vitality. I’d like to do some shit like that.
Leather-based Blvd. creates a world the place Black excellence is untouched by racism, criticism, and financial hardship. It’s concerning the energy of Black tradition. To strengthen the neighborhood. What evokes y’all to make this album such a secure place?
Siifu: Shit, as a result of it’s unsafe out right here, bro. Niggas who’re making an attempt to make it unsafe for niggas.
Ahwlee: Leather-based Blvd. ain’t secure. It’s really Black shit. You’ve received to take care of the expansion and the obstacles. It’s like confidence-type shit.
Siifu: I felt like Leather-based Blvd. was actually a spot for battle and dialogue.
Ahwlee: It’s like the entire block. That’s the barbershop. You’re not going to get by life, being in a secure area. You’re not going to get by life with out being in battle. However it’s a solution to navigate that. This shit is shining a lightweight upon that. It’s a solution to navigate that. It’s a approach that the tradition has survived so far, and it ain’t by all of it being good. It’s by survival and perseverance. That’s what is going on on Leather-based Blvd.
How necessary is it to have that established?
Ahlwee: It’s not necessary, bro. It’s not necessary as a result of the occasions are telling us to neglect and to throw that shit away, and that’s all of the unfavorable points. They’re not essentially, every thing is pointing in the direction of the nice in every thing, which is optimistic, and which is an effective factor. However on the identical token, these two sides aren’t a token, they usually’re not the identical. And it’s stuff to be taught, on both facet. That is bringing each side in, in a approach that you may settle for and develop from it, or one thing higher and stronger. It’s not something to be down about. It’s necessary as a result of it’s going that can assist you develop.
Is that what you’re making an attempt to broadcast because the album as an entire?
Siifu: You stroll down the block. Similar to any shit, you deliver it to the block. But additionally, identical to on some actual shit, diamonds are stress. You get your stress diamonds. In some tracks, you are feeling your self flirtatious. That’s simply nostalgia, only for having enjoyable. Such as you’re feeling issues, nevertheless it’s a whole lot of completely different shit the place it’s like demanding relationship shit. Like fucking round with the incorrect people. Not in the suitable, losing time kind shit. I really feel like we received all that shit in. Every part that, what niggas been by previously, for years, that’s their life I really feel like. It’s in that shit. Particularly as Black folks. It looks like a film, so I needed to deal with it like that. Like some shit, you would actually sit down with.
Ahwlee: It’s like, when it comes, welcome to Leather-based Blvd., benefit from the expertise.
What would you say is B. Cool-Help’s goal?
Awhlee: To finish the meat between the Jewish neighborhood and Kanye West.
Siifu: To calm niggas the fuck down.