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22 December 2023
SO PRETEND YOU ARE MR. DIBBS FOR A SECOND. YOU JUST GOT DONE TEARING IT UP ONSTAGE AT THE METRO IN CHICAGO. YOU ARE TIRED. YOU JUST WANT TO PACK UP YOUR SHIT AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF DODGE. THEN, THIS REPORTER, "EGGPLANT" STAN WENCHES, COMES OVER TO GAB YOUR EAR OFF. SO WHAT DO YOU DO, MR. DIBBS? READ ON TO FIND OUT.
Eggplant: For people who don’t know who you are-- (laughs) He’s holding up a sign that says, “God Bless Us All”. It’s a little record for children. Where’s the record at?
Dibbs: (laughing) I don’t think there was a record.
E: So who are you? How do you explain your set?
D: I explain my set as: people push each other around, and kick and punch.
E: So you don’t play no butt-grinding, titty-grabbing music?
D: No, I will. I’ll play ‘em both. I don’t believe in the “one genre” shit. That comes from a few people. It all started when I met you at that Stifle show. I just thought it was really fucking weird at that point. I didn’t know anybody that was into that shit and, in the same breath, knew all the words to “Straight Outta Compton”. That’s when I was like, “Oh, you can do cross-genre, turntable hardcore, electrical shock, butt-naked--
E: (laughing) Butt-crack music! Now, out of all that, what do you listen to the most?
D: I listen to hardcore more. And it used to be the exact opposite. It had been, mostly, hip-hop. But there’ve been such shitty hip-hop releases for the last five years, that I’m hardcore into indie rock. I have a friend that makes me indie CDs, and that’s where I end up getting a bunch of ideas. I buy a bunch of old shit, and she keeps me up to date on what’s new. I’ll hear all the new shit from her and then poison the well.
E: What do you mean by “old shit”? Old rock and old hip-hop?
D: Just old shit, in general. Shit where I’m looking for samples or breaks or noises. And I’ll actually sample new shit, but I’m leery about buying it, because you can’t listen to it beforehand.
E: Yeah. You might not like it.
D: I want to hear, at least, one song. Then I’ll go buy the album.
E: Do you get a lot of comp stuff?
D: I get a lot of hip-hop comp stuff. But I melt that shit in the oven. Ya know, you can mold them into little things and whatnot.
E: (laughing) Fucking Easy-Bake muffins.
D: Any shit that I really like, I don’t get free. Every Tuesday I go to a record store called Shake It in Cincinnati, and I probably spend a hundred bucks there. Not counting all the other beat-digging shit. Just a hundred bucks on new shit.
E: About how much time do you spend digging for beats?
D: About 15 hours a week.
E: Is it a full-time job?
D: It’s not that bad. I have three days a week where I go and hit these three certain stores, because they get new shit and they’ll hold it back for me. So I kinda got it mapped out. And every now and then I’ll stop in at the flea markets.
E: Why Cincinnati? Why not Chicago or New York, where there’s bigger exposure?
D: Well, if you can get people to like you in Cincinnati, they’re gonna like you anywhere. They like me in Cincinnati. The thing is, in Cincinnati, I don’t play many hip-hop shows. I actually end up playing with hardcore sets. It’s not that I don’t like hip-hop. It’s just that everybody does that. When I do a hip-hop show in Cincinnati, I’m still gonna do more hip-hop. But I’m gonna do a bunch of hardcore shit, too. But, in Cincinnati, they dance. They don’t push. They fucking kick and punch. So sometimes that shit doesn’t mesh well with a hip-hop crowd. I want people to be rowdy and shit. I don’t give a fuck if they’re just jumping around or whatever. But I don’t like when they’re just standing there. You don’t have to necessarily be in the pit. I just want to see rowdy shit. I’m not gonna pay $20 to stand in the front row and hold my nuts. You paid $20 to come to the show and give Dillinger 4 “the finger” the whole night? Like, what kind of fucking sense does that make? I think they missed the whole point.
E: You’re one of the people who co-founded Scribble Jam. How’s that going?
D: I don’t even know what fucking year we’re on now, like, however many years we’ve been doing it. But it’s already set for this year. It’s August 7th thru the 9th. It’s getting bigger every year. We had about 8,000 people last year, over the whole weekend.
E: What are some of the acts you’ve seen come to Scribble Jam, tear shit up, then get big and blow up?
D: Eminem. Adeem was just on that Carson Daly show, and Eyedea won the HBO Blaze Battle,...
E: Sage Francis--
D: Sage just signed to Epitaph, so I guess that’s respectable blowing up, right there. If you win a Scribble Battle and you play it right, you can turn it into something big. A lot of people just drop the ball and thumb their asses. But smart motherfuckers know what to do with it.
E: Talib Kweli is from Ohio, isn’t he?
D: No. Hi-Tek is from Cincinnati. He started out with Mood. Kweli used to be on Mood records. Mood’s a group from Cincinnati. He was on a Mood 12” single called “Sacred”. That’s a really fucking incredible record. After that, he came out with his own shit and blew the fuck up.
E: Who are you feelin’ right now?
D: Brother Ali’s new album, Shadows on the Sun. It’s the only hip-hop album in the last 10 years that I know every word to. I’ve probably heard it a good 200 times now. It’s easily a classic. And what I mean by “classic” is, everything bangs all the way through. You can listen to every song. You don’t have to skip anything.
E: How is it compared to his last album, Rites of Passage?
D: I’d give Rites of Passage a 7 out of 10. But I’d give Shadows on the Sun a fucking 15 out of 10!
E: No shit? When’s that droppin’?
D: It’s here tonight but, technically, it doesn’t drop until May 13th.
E: You just put out an new album, The 30th Song. How do you feel about that?
D: (yawning) Aw, man. Whatever. I like it. I think it’s dope. But 80% of it is three or four years old. That album started at 40 minutes long. Now it’s 70. And that was from fucking around with different labels and getting fucked by them. It ended up taking that long. And then when Sadiq from Rhymesayers was like, “I’ll put it out,” that’s when it actually got done. But I sat on it for four years. I would work on this deal and that deal, and it would fall through. So to me, it’s old.
E: Does it have more of the phone pranks on it?
D: Not on that. That shit is on the Random CD, and that’s just tour stuff. It’s called Random because it’s just random live shows and shit I’ve taped in the past. The 30th Song is actually an album album. Not that there wouldn’t have been prank calls on it.
E: You gonna put out a prank calls CD at all?
D: I think that hiphopsite.com, when you bought The 30th Song from them, sent a prank CD out with it. And there were, like, 16 pranks I did on it. But, man, I got arrested for that shit before. I don’t think I’m gonna put out any more.
E: What happened with that?
D: I sold it to some kid, and his friend’s mother was on it, so I got arrested. I was on probation for three years, and had a $2000 fine. They hammered me.
E: That shit’s raw.
D: Well, believe it or not, telephone harassment is the the highest class misdemeanor you can get. Having a bag of weed or a joint is less of a crime than telephone harassment.
E: It’s all bullshit, anyway. But I guess you gotta pay the consequences.
D: Yeah, I’m not mad about it. I did the shit. There’s no doubt about it. I fuckin’ did it. It just sucked.
E: Do you keep up with any of the Anticon guys, Dose One or Jel?
D: Jel. I love Jel. He’s the holy man. Of all the people I know who’ve made it, Jel is still fuckin’ Jel. When I talk to him, it’s still the same stupid shit we talked about seven years ago. Plus, he’s the most underrated producer of all time.
E: You guys put out an album together a few years back called Presage. Sometimes I can’t even listen to it, because it’s too fucking scary. (laughing) You look around and see what’s going on, and you’re like, “This stuff was predicted 4 or 5 years before.” How do you feel about what’s going on?
D: Man, I don’t even care any more. I keep up on what’s going on but, after so long, there’s nothing I can do about it. And I don’t feel like being a fucking martyr for it. I guess the big difference would be, hippies would piss and moan about it. And I’d go out in a blaze of glory, Bon Jovi-style. There’s so much shit going on, that I’m like, “I’ve got a lot of shit that I need to do. And if I started thinking about that again, that’s all I would do. I’d think about that and watch conspiracy videos and build a bomb shelter. There’s just too much to worry about.
E: There’s nothing you can do about that.
D: Ah, you never know. But I’m not going to do anything about it right now.
[BROTHER ALI ENTERS THE ROOM]
E: Brother Ali just stepped in. He’s an amazing MC. (to Brother Ali) We’re doing an interview for a magazine called tastes like chicken. Is there anything you wanna say?
Ali: I love chicken, man.
E: (laughs) I like chicken, too, man.
A: I’ve put a serious dent in the population of chicken.
E: (laughs) Chicken genocide!
D: (to DJ Jaybird, off to the side) Bird, you wanna say something for this interview? It’s your birthday.
A: Go, shorty.
E: It’s Jaybird’s birthday today. It’s a celebration. It’s the reason for the season.
Jaybird: Fuck the cows.
(laughter in the background)
E: Fuck cows. Long live chicken. Long live turkey.
J: (in the background) Naw, I’m all about cows. What, you’re interviewing right now?
E: Yeah. Actually, we’re about to be out. So any last words?
D: Yeah. Don’t make me fuck you up.
E: Hey, one quick question for everybody. I gotta ask this for the magazine. Do dogs have lips?
A: Eyedea French kisses his dog on the mouth for 20 minutes, every day.
D: Dogs do not have lips. Dogs do not have lips.
E: I think dogs have lips. They got big ‘ol saggy lips.
D: They got flaps.
A: That depends on the dog. If it’s a caucasian dog, it’s probably not gonna have any lips.
E: (laughs)
D: Baloney lips on the caucasian dog.
VISIT MR. DIBBS HERE.
PURCHASE ITEMS BY MR. DIBBS HERE
Eggplant: For people who don’t know who you are-- (laughs) He’s holding up a sign that says, “God Bless Us All”. It’s a little record for children. Where’s the record at?
Dibbs: (laughing) I don’t think there was a record.
E: So who are you? How do you explain your set?
D: I explain my set as: people push each other around, and kick and punch.
E: So you don’t play no butt-grinding, titty-grabbing music?
D: No, I will. I’ll play ‘em both. I don’t believe in the “one genre” shit. That comes from a few people. It all started when I met you at that Stifle show. I just thought it was really fucking weird at that point. I didn’t know anybody that was into that shit and, in the same breath, knew all the words to “Straight Outta Compton”. That’s when I was like, “Oh, you can do cross-genre, turntable hardcore, electrical shock, butt-naked--
E: (laughing) Butt-crack music! Now, out of all that, what do you listen to the most?
D: I listen to hardcore more. And it used to be the exact opposite. It had been, mostly, hip-hop. But there’ve been such shitty hip-hop releases for the last five years, that I’m hardcore into indie rock. I have a friend that makes me indie CDs, and that’s where I end up getting a bunch of ideas. I buy a bunch of old shit, and she keeps me up to date on what’s new. I’ll hear all the new shit from her and then poison the well.
E: What do you mean by “old shit”? Old rock and old hip-hop?
D: Just old shit, in general. Shit where I’m looking for samples or breaks or noises. And I’ll actually sample new shit, but I’m leery about buying it, because you can’t listen to it beforehand.
E: Yeah. You might not like it.
D: I want to hear, at least, one song. Then I’ll go buy the album.
E: Do you get a lot of comp stuff?
D: I get a lot of hip-hop comp stuff. But I melt that shit in the oven. Ya know, you can mold them into little things and whatnot.
E: (laughing) Fucking Easy-Bake muffins.
D: Any shit that I really like, I don’t get free. Every Tuesday I go to a record store called Shake It in Cincinnati, and I probably spend a hundred bucks there. Not counting all the other beat-digging shit. Just a hundred bucks on new shit.
E: About how much time do you spend digging for beats?
D: About 15 hours a week.
E: Is it a full-time job?
D: It’s not that bad. I have three days a week where I go and hit these three certain stores, because they get new shit and they’ll hold it back for me. So I kinda got it mapped out. And every now and then I’ll stop in at the flea markets.
E: Why Cincinnati? Why not Chicago or New York, where there’s bigger exposure?
D: Well, if you can get people to like you in Cincinnati, they’re gonna like you anywhere. They like me in Cincinnati. The thing is, in Cincinnati, I don’t play many hip-hop shows. I actually end up playing with hardcore sets. It’s not that I don’t like hip-hop. It’s just that everybody does that. When I do a hip-hop show in Cincinnati, I’m still gonna do more hip-hop. But I’m gonna do a bunch of hardcore shit, too. But, in Cincinnati, they dance. They don’t push. They fucking kick and punch. So sometimes that shit doesn’t mesh well with a hip-hop crowd. I want people to be rowdy and shit. I don’t give a fuck if they’re just jumping around or whatever. But I don’t like when they’re just standing there. You don’t have to necessarily be in the pit. I just want to see rowdy shit. I’m not gonna pay $20 to stand in the front row and hold my nuts. You paid $20 to come to the show and give Dillinger 4 “the finger” the whole night? Like, what kind of fucking sense does that make? I think they missed the whole point.
E: You’re one of the people who co-founded Scribble Jam. How’s that going?
D: I don’t even know what fucking year we’re on now, like, however many years we’ve been doing it. But it’s already set for this year. It’s August 7th thru the 9th. It’s getting bigger every year. We had about 8,000 people last year, over the whole weekend.
E: What are some of the acts you’ve seen come to Scribble Jam, tear shit up, then get big and blow up?
D: Eminem. Adeem was just on that Carson Daly show, and Eyedea won the HBO Blaze Battle,...
E: Sage Francis--
D: Sage just signed to Epitaph, so I guess that’s respectable blowing up, right there. If you win a Scribble Battle and you play it right, you can turn it into something big. A lot of people just drop the ball and thumb their asses. But smart motherfuckers know what to do with it.
E: Talib Kweli is from Ohio, isn’t he?
D: No. Hi-Tek is from Cincinnati. He started out with Mood. Kweli used to be on Mood records. Mood’s a group from Cincinnati. He was on a Mood 12” single called “Sacred”. That’s a really fucking incredible record. After that, he came out with his own shit and blew the fuck up.
E: Who are you feelin’ right now?
D: Brother Ali’s new album, Shadows on the Sun. It’s the only hip-hop album in the last 10 years that I know every word to. I’ve probably heard it a good 200 times now. It’s easily a classic. And what I mean by “classic” is, everything bangs all the way through. You can listen to every song. You don’t have to skip anything.
E: How is it compared to his last album, Rites of Passage?
D: I’d give Rites of Passage a 7 out of 10. But I’d give Shadows on the Sun a fucking 15 out of 10!
E: No shit? When’s that droppin’?
D: It’s here tonight but, technically, it doesn’t drop until May 13th.
E: You just put out an new album, The 30th Song. How do you feel about that?
D: (yawning) Aw, man. Whatever. I like it. I think it’s dope. But 80% of it is three or four years old. That album started at 40 minutes long. Now it’s 70. And that was from fucking around with different labels and getting fucked by them. It ended up taking that long. And then when Sadiq from Rhymesayers was like, “I’ll put it out,” that’s when it actually got done. But I sat on it for four years. I would work on this deal and that deal, and it would fall through. So to me, it’s old.
E: Does it have more of the phone pranks on it?
D: Not on that. That shit is on the Random CD, and that’s just tour stuff. It’s called Random because it’s just random live shows and shit I’ve taped in the past. The 30th Song is actually an album album. Not that there wouldn’t have been prank calls on it.
E: You gonna put out a prank calls CD at all?
D: I think that hiphopsite.com, when you bought The 30th Song from them, sent a prank CD out with it. And there were, like, 16 pranks I did on it. But, man, I got arrested for that shit before. I don’t think I’m gonna put out any more.
E: What happened with that?
D: I sold it to some kid, and his friend’s mother was on it, so I got arrested. I was on probation for three years, and had a $2000 fine. They hammered me.
E: That shit’s raw.
D: Well, believe it or not, telephone harassment is the the highest class misdemeanor you can get. Having a bag of weed or a joint is less of a crime than telephone harassment.
E: It’s all bullshit, anyway. But I guess you gotta pay the consequences.
D: Yeah, I’m not mad about it. I did the shit. There’s no doubt about it. I fuckin’ did it. It just sucked.
E: Do you keep up with any of the Anticon guys, Dose One or Jel?
D: Jel. I love Jel. He’s the holy man. Of all the people I know who’ve made it, Jel is still fuckin’ Jel. When I talk to him, it’s still the same stupid shit we talked about seven years ago. Plus, he’s the most underrated producer of all time.
E: You guys put out an album together a few years back called Presage. Sometimes I can’t even listen to it, because it’s too fucking scary. (laughing) You look around and see what’s going on, and you’re like, “This stuff was predicted 4 or 5 years before.” How do you feel about what’s going on?
D: Man, I don’t even care any more. I keep up on what’s going on but, after so long, there’s nothing I can do about it. And I don’t feel like being a fucking martyr for it. I guess the big difference would be, hippies would piss and moan about it. And I’d go out in a blaze of glory, Bon Jovi-style. There’s so much shit going on, that I’m like, “I’ve got a lot of shit that I need to do. And if I started thinking about that again, that’s all I would do. I’d think about that and watch conspiracy videos and build a bomb shelter. There’s just too much to worry about.
E: There’s nothing you can do about that.
D: Ah, you never know. But I’m not going to do anything about it right now.
[BROTHER ALI ENTERS THE ROOM]
E: Brother Ali just stepped in. He’s an amazing MC. (to Brother Ali) We’re doing an interview for a magazine called tastes like chicken. Is there anything you wanna say?
Ali: I love chicken, man.
E: (laughs) I like chicken, too, man.
A: I’ve put a serious dent in the population of chicken.
E: (laughs) Chicken genocide!
D: (to DJ Jaybird, off to the side) Bird, you wanna say something for this interview? It’s your birthday.
A: Go, shorty.
E: It’s Jaybird’s birthday today. It’s a celebration. It’s the reason for the season.
Jaybird: Fuck the cows.
(laughter in the background)
E: Fuck cows. Long live chicken. Long live turkey.
J: (in the background) Naw, I’m all about cows. What, you’re interviewing right now?
E: Yeah. Actually, we’re about to be out. So any last words?
D: Yeah. Don’t make me fuck you up.
E: Hey, one quick question for everybody. I gotta ask this for the magazine. Do dogs have lips?
A: Eyedea French kisses his dog on the mouth for 20 minutes, every day.
D: Dogs do not have lips. Dogs do not have lips.
E: I think dogs have lips. They got big ‘ol saggy lips.
D: They got flaps.
A: That depends on the dog. If it’s a caucasian dog, it’s probably not gonna have any lips.
E: (laughs)
D: Baloney lips on the caucasian dog.
VISIT MR. DIBBS HERE.
PURCHASE ITEMS BY MR. DIBBS HERE
artid
1327
Old Image
5_9_dibbs.jpg
issue
vol 5 - issue 09 (may 2003)
section
interviews