Internet downloads are up, records sales are down and ten months into the 2006 calendar year, a mere four hip-hop albums (released in 2006) have reached platinum status. Despite the gaudy lifestyle that is portrayed through the media in advertising and music videos, the gross profits of major label artists have dropped significantly. Regardless of this disappointing trend, there remain a select few who record hip-hop albums for the love of the genre and culture. An example of such is the collective, Wade Waters.
Haysoos, a professor of African American Studies at the University of Maryland and Soulstice, an employee of the US Department of Defense, met when Haysoos started a job as an electrical engineer for the Navy. Both have regular 9-5 day jobs and the income necessary to pay the bills. It wasn’t about money however; as Chicago-born Soulstice explains it was about much much more: “When we made the decision to record a whole album we knew we had a chance to do something epic. We asked ourselves ‘what would it sound like if Nas and AZ and if Jay-Z and Biggie did albums together?’ We wanted to create a hip hop classic.”
Their debut album, Dark Waters, looks to prove Nas and his claim that ‘hip-hop is dead,’ as wrong. Legendary emcee AZ can be found on the single, Speak On It, while former Terror Squad member Cuban Link turns up on the powerful, Rock Solid. Creative samples and classic sounds come from the up-incoming sounds of producers Kev Brown, Analogic and Shuko.
During their interview with DJBooth.net’s DJ “Z,” Haysoos and Soulstice talk about the hip-hop scene in the D.C./Maryland and Virginia metropolitan area, the inability for A-list artists such as Ludacris to provide material worthy of acclaim, and why their album leans in a direction few artists, mainstream or underground, have rocked this past year.
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