EPMD Hip hop legend ERICK SERMON gets his vocoder out and lays some old rumours to rest...

In 1988 Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith’s rap group E.P.M.D crashed into the public consciousness with Strictly Business. It was an album that laid the foundations for modern hip-hop, sampling everything from Eric Clapton and Pink Floyd, to Zapp and Steve Miller. In the two decades since, Erick has established himself as one of the genre’s greatest producers, taking a hefty slice of over 70 million album sales thanks to his work with artists like Redman, Eminem, Method Man, 50 Cent, Das EFX, Mary J Blige and D’Angelo. Somewhat ironically for a man who built his career slicing up other people’s records, E.P.M.D are officially the most sampled rap group in history. He’s got a mansion in Atlanta filled with platinum plaques to prove it. With E.P.M.D’s seventh album We Mean Business getting rewinds across the globe, we decided to ask The Green Eyed Bandit for some valuable business lessons…

Tim Noakes: Is that Erick Sermon, aka E Double, aka The Green Eyed Bandit?

Erick Sermon: Yep.

Just checking. It’s been 20 years since E.P.M.D came out, do you think hip-hop has lost its heart?

Hip-hop isn’t as exciting or creative as it was. There are certain artists who came in, and I can’t be mad about what’s going on because Atlanta embraced me when I moved here in 1992. But there’s two eras. We came from one era, and this right here is another era – what we consider hip hop might not be what others consider it to be these days.

Hip-hop is a young man’s game, and you just turned 40. Do you worry about that?

No. For me to go on the Rock Of the Bells tour and play to over 40,000 people most nights with most of them singing my music, that is incredible. At the end of the day, the dream is still going. Just because the mainstream don’t see it, the underground is still powerful. E.P.M.D are here for those who miss the groups from hip-hop, and want to hear some real hip-hop music.

E.P.M.D’s new album is called We Mean Business. Are you the Donald Trump of rap?

Maybe. E.P.M.D were one of the only rap groups to have other acts. People know that there’s no EMPD without taking care of business, and for me personally I did more than that, I made people like Redman famous. We were taking big cakes from the beginning.

I got no hair now.

Oh, seriously?

No, I always keep a low Cesar.

The Caesar always beats the Gerbil. What’s the best thing about being a rap veteran?

Being iconic. No matter who comes out, they are going to have to do a feat like us veterans. Will their names still be mentioned in the future? There’s classic hip-hop, and there’s hip-hop for the moment. A lot of these boys are moment rappers.

So are you more for Young Jeezy than Lil Weezy?

I think that Weezy is going to go down in history for doing what he did, but I am a bigger fan of Jeezy. He reminds me of 90s New York hip hop, you know, the drug talk, the swagger.

Well, I don’t smoke it, but I do have a high tolerance because of those guys. I mean, I’ve never seen somebody smoke so much weed in my life. But I never got contact like that.

You’ve never smoked a blunt?

Yeah, I smoked a long time ago, but I was never a big smoker like that. It was more about peer pressure, they passed it to me and then I smoked it and passed it on.

Well, you’ve got to keep it clean now you’re a family man.

Yeah! There’s not one person in the game who doesn’t have children, everyone’s a family man. Everyone who raps has children, everyone.

Some people might find it surprising that you have children because you had that big gay slur against you.

That was ten years ago. Nobody paid attention to that. I mean, you have people that probably hated, but it never changed nothing in the atmosphere for me. It was Wendy Williams, (former Hot 97 Radio presenter) and she made a career out of it. It wasn’t just me, she started going on to Puffy and then a lot of other names started coming out. It just escalated, but people didn’t believe it. I never had one person come up to me and call me gay.

It can’t be nice for people to talk trash about you.

Well I don’t really care. If it stopped me from getting women that would be a different matter. Even though it was out there it did nothing to me, because nobody believed it.

It’s 2009, America has elected a black president, the times have changed. Do you think modern rap audiences are more open to the idea of a gay rapper?

Nah, I don’t know. I think the world might accept it but the hip-hop community is one tough community. That probably won’t fit in the hip-hop community. It’s sad to say, but the culture is too macho – that’s just how the swagger is.

Me and Parrish aren’t the best of friends, but we do it because the people ask for it. You have kids in Helsinki who take the time to go and learn about E.P.M.D, so when they go to the concert they can sing my songs. As far as being the best of buddies, right now we are just doing it for love of hip-hop. When it’s done he goes his way and I go mine.

That must be a bit awkward

No. We just don’t have the same views no more, we like different things. We’re older, we don’t hang, but when we’re on stage it’s the same shit. Like when you go to your job, you get on with your co-workers, but when it’s over you do your own thing.

Luckily you picked up producing...

Exactly. Early on Parrish stopped producing, so I kept going, and I enjoyed the fact that people would be like, ‘oh, that beat is hot’. That felt better than rhyming, so I made a bunch of beats and was prepared for the phone calls. They kept rolling in and the next thing you know I ended up producing the whole rap game and half of R&B. I made 50 Cent’s first single with him in my house, before he got shot. I also did Eminem, Ludacris, Das EFX, LL Cool J, D’Angelo, Mary J Blige, there’s so many I can’t remember them all right now.

E.P.M.D were one of the first rap groups to use a vocoder. Why do you think that sound has come back into vogue?

It’s entrancing. It kind of hypnotized me back in the day because it was so different. It came from Stevie Wonder and then a guy called Peter Frampton went wild with it. Roger Troutman learned it from Frampton and the rest is history.

Do you think auto tuning vocals has gone over the top?

It’s gone too far. The era we came from, the golden era, everyone had their own identity. If you did something like someone else it was called biting and you were exiled from the community. Now, you can take somebody’s swagger, do whatever you want to, it’s free game.

No! She’s not in there because her, T-Pain and Kanye use autotune, and that’s to fix vocals – but when you push the threshold all the way, that talkbox sounds comes out. I can give the talkbox awards to Teddy Riley, Roger Troutman, Peter Frampton, DJ Quick, and also T-Pain because even though it’s not the talk box, he changed how a whole generation view music.

What about Weezy and his lil guitar?

No.

Are you ever tempted to get your family, your talkbox and retire to a private island?

Nope. Jay-Z is 41-years-old, Dr. Dre is about 44, Chuck D and Flava Flav are over 50-years-old, right? They ain’t going nowhere. Actually, I’m working Detox.

You’re working on Detox?

Right.

But so is the guy who runs the kebab shop next door.

Huh? Anyways, there’s no limits to what rappers can do and how long. Jay-Z is still able to captivate people; there is no age on that. Either you can still do it or you can’t.

© TIM NOAKES 2009