Wisemen Member Kevlaar 7 Explains Taking Back An Unused Ghostface Killah Beat, Making Solo Debut

by Sunez Allah

The Detroit emcee/producer explains how his city makes it difficult to record when your studio is broken into 10 times. He also breaks down his just-released debut, "Die Ageless." Detroit, Michigan’s Wisemen are a movement that has amplified its Wu-Tang Clan roots to impart a theme of hardcore, soulful traditional Rap for the people. With emcee/producer Kevlaar 7, brother of Bronze Nazareth, finally releasing his debut album, Die Ageless, their movement takes a tone of immediate relevance and continues their effort to promote their Black urban lyricist movement that plans solos from Phillie, Salute, June Megalodon and Illah Dayz all this year. Kevlaar 7 is active in his Detroit community seeking to share his art and awaken people to the pathways out of their oppression. Rarely wavering in that intensity, he plans to release an all-produced Woodenchainz album in August and an LP fully produced by Bronze at the end of the year. For now, he takes a moment to give HipHopDX his thoughts on the real Detroit battlefield, his writing techniques and beat choices. HipHopDX: Immortal Technique recently noted he at least saw negative gentrification and the illusion of progress in US cities. All but Detroit. What’s the connection with that and all of the progressive Hip Hop music coming from Detroit? Kevlaar 7: Detroit is like a beautiful nightmare. I guess the artists are portraying beauty when they put it out in music form. It comes out beautiful because it’s so ugly sometimes. It comes off as a release and then I’m not gonna front, [Immortal Technique] is right. It’s fucked up. I got seeds. You always want your seeds to grow up good, in a safe neighborhood and play outside. It’s like it’s almost time to get away. If it was just me that I had to think about it’d be cool. I love it. With those to take care of and protect, you make different types of moves on some grown man shit. For real. DX: People have told me that 8 Mile is really just a barrier. It’s not really the heart of that gutter, ill street ghetto. Kevlaar 7: They're right. I have to tell a lot of people that 8 Mile is just the dividing point. On the South Side of 8 Mile is Detroit all the way down. On the other side are the suburbs like Farmdale and Warren. The south side of 8 Mile is Detroit and farther down south that center line it’s really hood. On 8 Mile you could get hurt on certain spots if you on the south side of the road but if really you want to go to some of the war zones it’s on 7 Mile. You also gotta think about the southwest, the number streets. That’s where Phillie is from. Salute is from the Diggs [Housing] Projects. That’s on the East Side, right off of 75. It’s crazy. DX: Where exactly was your studio? Kevlaar 7: Our studio was on Greenfield in the Grand River area. It’s more in the city. The farther you get in the city the more hood it’s gon get until you get downtown. In fact we had to get rid of the studio because we had so many break-ins. We was working on it. We had tool-boxes and building materials and we lost all of that shit in the course of about 10 break-ins. We brought it there on purpose trying to bring some positivity to the area. Now we moved the studio to Bronze [Nazareth’s] basement in his crib. We had to do that cuz niggas was doing crazy shit. They would chisel through a cinderblock wall in the abandoned building next door. Walk in through that chiseled wall and run in and out with everything. read more at : http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.19908/title.wisemen-member-kevlaar-7-explains-taking-back-an-unused-ghostface-killah-beat-making-solo-debut hiphopdx.com