CAPITOL RECORDS
Evidence, right, DJ Babu, center, and Iriscience make up the Dilated Peoples.
‘Dilated’ journey
starts to focus
WHEN THE Dilated Peoples arrive in Honolulu this weekend, it will be a homecoming of sorts for one member of the hip-hop trio.
For Rakaa Taylor, also known as Iriscience, the trip marks the first time in over a decade that he's been back to Oahu. "When I was a kid, I used to live ... in Waimanalo," he says. "That was like elementary school time. My little brother was actually born in Hawaii."
Dilated Peoples
Where: Pipeline Cafe, 805 Pohukaina St.When: 10 p.m. Monday
Admission: $20, 18 and over
Call: 589-1999
Along with fellow Peoples Evidence (Mike Perretta) and DJ Babu (Chris Oroc), Iriscience managed to find time for a stop in paradise just before the big push for their new album is scheduled to get underway.
Following an in-store appearance at Island Snow Ala Moana this Sunday and a performance at Pipeline Cafe Monday night, the crew heads back to Los Angeles to complete work on a music video and other promotional materials before "Neighborhood Watch" drops in February 2004.
IT'S BEEN quite a journey for Evidence and Iriscience, two Southern California natives who grew up immersed in hip-hop culture. Before they even met, the two were already linked by a common passion for creating art with spray paint. But while graffiti got both players into the game, other aspects of hip-hop kept them hooked once the time came to put down the paint cans.
For Evidence, it was the coincidence of moving in next door to the son of Quincy Jones that got him interested in being an MC and learning more about making beats. Quincy D. Jones III, also known as QD3, already made a name for himself producing records by the likes of Ice Cube, Too Short and Everlast. One day the producer decided to invite Evidence into his home studio, and from there, the seed was planted.
"I didn't really ever think about how music got done, to be honest," said Evidence. "But I saw the whole process happen right there, and that was the time where I stopped wanting to do graffiti as much and started getting into the music aspect of (hip-hop)."
Iriscience, after hooking up with the late underground hip-hop waxmaster DJ Rob One, decided to take the turntable path at first, before deciding a few years later to start focusing on being an MC. By this time, he had landed a job as a manager at a Los Angeles business called The Hip-Hop Shop, a hotbed of underground talent and a magnet for artists from all over Southern California.
"We had open mics, open turntables, graffiti walls in the back ... linoleum floors for dancers -- everything," Iriscience said. "Ev would come in and freestyle ... we knew a lot of the same people, and we hooked up to do a song.
"Once we did that song, we did another song, and that kind of turned into a group and we never looked back."
BY 1994, the Dilated Peoples managed to score a record deal through Immortal Entertainment and Epic Records, but spent the next three years working on an album that ended up never seeing the light of day. Distribution problems with the label allowed the group to get out of their contract, and the pair returned to working the streets as an independent act.
According to Iriscience, the bitterness that resulted from the failed record deal helped drive the two into becoming more well-rounded artists. "It was educational, that's how I like to put it," he said.
"Ev and I really had to step up our game as businessmen as well as artists to compensate for what we didn't have ... it was a lot like going to school, man -- we learned a lot about business."
For the next few years, the Dilated Peoples concentrated on working the angles, touring incessantly and releasing independent singles to nightclubs and radio stations around the country. It was around this time that DJ Babu, one of the members of the Beat Junkies DJ collective, got into the mix of things.
"I was DJing on the radio, and I was a like, a big fan of Dilated anyway," Babu said. "Up until I met Ev and Rakaa, I was really on the page of just trying to pave my way as a DJ -- I wasn't super hype on MCs, because at that time in hip-hop, it just seemed like the DJ took the back seat.
"(But) it was really refreshing to meet (them)," he continues. "Two MCs who were adamant about not only having an established DJ in the group, but who also made that person a full member ... they really pushed me into making myself stronger."
WITH THE full crew in place, Dilated made the move back into commercial sales, signing with Capitol Records and producing "The Platform" in 2000 and a follow-up, "Expansion Team," in 2001. The release of "Neighborhood Watch" in a few months marks the next step in their progression as a group.
"This record's a little more personal," says Iriscience. "With (the first two albums), we wanted to show people where we were coming from, but with this one we want to more literally show ... the neighborhoods we're coming from, which gave us the philosophies to say this is where we came from."
"A lot of cats are underground to me because their (stuff) don't bang, or they're underdeveloped ... or don't take time to write songs," adds Evidence. "I want to be known as underground because we're not really out there to follow formulas -- we're down to do our own thing.
"The main focus to me is that the quality is always going to be there."
To borrow a phrase from another underground hip-hop collective, Jurassic 5, it's all about quality control for the Dilated Peoples. According to Babu, "the one thing that drew (us) together ... was our understanding and respect for the culture, regardless of the fact that we're here to sell records.
"In essence, we were all brought up in hip-hop culture ... it's all something we can relate to."
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