|
Inpectah Deck went to Bertha A. Jikas Junior High School which was close to his home in Park Hill. In this school he met Raekwon, Method Man, and Ghostface Killah. He was a very good graffiti artist who sprayed "Deck" and "INS" as his trademark. According to Ghostface, "Deck was always ill and shit. The nigga was always a smart nigga, like an honor roll nigga. You knew he knew his shit. Just because you from the projects don't mean that you can't be on the honor roll." Deck however corrects Ghost by saying, “I was never no honor roll nigga. But they did put me and Meth in the smart class one time. I’m just an easy listener and I just see shit quick. That’s when Ghost was breakin’ and doing windmills. That’s when we clicked." That's when they started going to music class and making tapes. Just as Ghost was starting to realize how sick Deck was on the mic, Deck was arrested for gun possession and had to go to court. To this Deck answered that “[The weapon] wasn’t in my possession so [the charges] really couldn’t stick to me. But you know, you gotta go through the motions-- bein’ locked down for two weeks ’til they proved that you didn’t have it. It’s just a long time of trials and tribulations. You gotta overcome that. The strong-minded try and stay level and always rise above things like that, which leads me up to this point. I’m in here tryin’ to have control over everything that I’m doin’." Since then Deck (and Wu-tang as a whole) has come a long way. Deck is now producing beats as well as rhyming to them. This is what he has to say about this new side of him, “When you’re writing a rhyme for a track, you can come in the studio in any frame of mind. Whatever thought you’re thinking of, you can just write it and be out. Once I started producing, that’s when I really started to understand the music: how you time the kick to the snare to the high hats and the 1-2-3-4 pattern, how the bass goes under the violins and the violins ride on top. Now when I hear music-- especially old songs-- I get sucked into the groove. And that’s helped my rhymes. I learned how to dissect my rhymes. I can rhyme to the bass or the kick or the snare. My lyrics sound like my beats.” As for Deck's new album, he is very intent on keeping it real. He makes it quite clear that there ain't gonna be no BS on his album by saying, “That’s a cop-out to me-- rappers who out there that go get all these
famous cats to blow on their albums, or the [ones that] go and get BLACKstreet
to go sing on [something] and then remix it 50 times. Put it out the first
time and hit me with something original. I don’t wanna hear nuthin’ that
I heard before, that my moms was dancin’ to when I was on my way to school.”
|