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By Melisa Tang

From the UK to the US and back again, MC Paradise has seen it all. The first member from the MOBO-nominated 57th Dynasty to release his solo project, Paradise ‘the Prolific’ has recruited hip hop heavyweights from both sides of the Atlantic to drop verses on his debut solo single, ‘U Must Learn’. With help from MCD (Silent Eclipse), Skinnyman (Mudfam) and KRS-1, and production by Charlie ‘The Baptist’ Parker, Paradise is set to teach the masses a lesson they will never forget.

Part of The Good Samaritan Music Project, ‘U Must Learn’ aims to inspire young people and raise awareness of relevant issues via ‘edu-tainment’ – a combination of education and entertainment.

The Situation sat down with three of the single’s creators, Paradise, MCD and producer Charlie Parker, to talk about the single, their roots, and what The Good Samaritan Music Project is all about…

The new single, ‘U Must Learn’, is part of The Good Samaritan Music Project – how did you get started with the project in the first place?
Paradise: The Good Samaritan Music Project was basically born from a need in the local community in Brixton maybe two and a half years ago. I saw the move and I wanted to give the youth something positive to do and that was how TGSMP was born.

How did KRS-1 get involved?
Charlie Parker: When me and Paradise were still doing 57th Dynasty, we had a direct link to KRS ’cos we knew his tour manager and so we wanted to do a feature with KRS and The Dynasty, so I was trying to set that up. But the Dynasty was kinda winding down whilst we were trying to set that up, so we didn’t put any more music out, and we ended up not doing a feature. That was in 2002, and in 2004, I was just fooling around and started building a beat. I was using some of the material from the original ‘You Must Learn’ song, so I was sampling bits of the chorus and whatnot, and came up with a new beat which was originally gonna be for an album project that I was doing and I thought, ‘Yeah, it’d be nice to get KRS on this.’ I was in New York at that time, and I was seeing people who had a link with KRS. But Paradise’s project was ready before my project, so we just thought, why don’t we make a big UK record, as opposed to just a one-off feature? It made sense to incorporate it into TGSMP because of the positive message in the song, and so we decided to put out a big record making this kind of statement, just showing that UK emcees can spit alongside US emcees, even a legend. It fitted so well with the TGSMP that we thought this would be a good single to launch with.

The song is what’s called ‘edu-tainment’ – why do you think young people today will be more receptive to education through music as opposed to education in schools?
Charlie: I think young people are going through a lot of issues that we went through when we were young. I’m in my 30s and whatnot; I’ve been making music for a long time, but we had the same issues over money, we had peer pressure issues, people be killing each other over stuff like that in extreme cases. The youth nowadays have a bunch of new issues to deal with, from safe sex to social issues, to racial issues to issues about religion, you know, but you need to be an adult to really understand and we need to be mindful of the music we put out there that they’re picking up on.
Paradise: It’s a different method of actually reaching [the youth]. From nursery school, we’re taught everything to melody anyway; it’s a natural way of learning anyway, and it’s part of the youth culture as well. You know, they wanna emcee, they wanna DJ… music is the biggest vehicle to get through with.

The song takes hip hop back to its roots – where do your roots lie?
Paradise: I was born here and raised in the Bronx, New York City for 18 years of my life, and I’ve been back in the UK for the past 10 years. I guess KRS was one of my main influences, but I mean, hip hop in general, the positive and negative; you can always learn from the music and life in general. So it’s too hard for me to single out one rapper or one singer who’s influenced me, ’cos they all have along the way. I mean, even Mary J. Blige’s first album, that influenced me in some way too.
MCD: My hip hop roots lie in music as varied as like, De La Soul, straight through to Kool G Rap. There isn’t like a boundary for me, I love hip hop and music full stop. I’ve got so many influences as well; it would be so difficult to pinpoint one of them. I mean, KRS-1 is one of them, John Lennon, Bob Marley… All the greats! Mary J. Blige… So many different influences from so many different types of music!

The UK music scene always seems so limited when compared to the US hip hop scene – why do you think a lot of UK artists aren’t getting the recognition they deserve in the mainstream?
Charlie: You know what, it’s a funny thing. I don’t even wanna go into it, ’cos if you argue about it, you gotta go into the politics about the whole issue. One of the key things in the US/UK argument is that production in the US is far superior. Up to a point, it’s still the case, but it’s because they spend much more money on it, and there’s more of an infrastructure in the US with regards to the black music industry, which has been growing for nearly 100 years. In the UK, we still don’t have that same situation, so the money doesn’t circulate properly, therefore labels such as ourselves, and a lot of other labels trying to get on their feet haven’t got the money to be able to afford the production and also the money to go into the marketing; we just can’t match that. The bottom line is, we put out this record, and it’s kind of a classic hip hop record in the way that it sounds, plus it’s got KRS-1 on it, one of the legends of hip hop, and we got some legendary UK artists on a great hip hop record. Some radio stations who say that they support hip hop and R&B have said that they don’t wanna put it on their station’s playlist, ’cos they don’t think it’s mainstream music. So you still got that bullsh*t at managerial level, where the playlist and program managers aren’t really in the UK hip hop or R&B scene, so they’re making decisions based on their personal opinions.

MCD: I’ve spoken to a few US artists like KRS, Maceo, and they’ve been saying that a UK artist can go to the US and sell a lot of records – not because they’re good, but because it’s kind of like a novelty for them. I think what Paradise, Charlie, Skinnyman and myself were lyrically and conceptually trying to do with this TGSMP project was actually make reality music fashionable. Respect to Paradise, ’cos by doing this style of music, it allows us to rap about something other than guns, money, girls, etc, and it gives an opening for a more intellectually powerful movement where the kids can actually gain from it, and I think that that’s so important. It’s ironic that songs about guns and killing and [use of] the word ‘n*gga’ would get played over something like TGSMP and with all the gun crime and deaths that we’re seeing in the urban community right now, it’s important that people in the media and the radio DJs are backing it. We’ve been able to see that the majority of people are behind it, but there are a few people that maybe are afraid of playing a track because it’s a bit different or going against the grain. The thing that is really frustrating to me is when everyone always looks at rap and says, why doesn’t anyone do anything constructive with hip hop to prevent these tragedies and give the media another angle? But when we do do these things, a lot of people are ignorant and don’t wanna back it. Subconsciously, the music industry is geared towards the destruction of the urban community, that’s how I see it.

You mentioned gun violence and the promotion of guns in a lot of rap songs. What do you say to critics who blame the rise in gun violence on hip hop?
MCD: I think that the gun violence in hip hop is a product of the society that you grow up in. I don’t hate on it, but I mean, when we do have alternatives to that, we need to take notice. I mean, Paradise is bringing up an alternative, you know what I’m saying? If you got a kid growing up in an area which is known to be a bad area, if he starts writing songs, it’s gonna be about his environment, what he’s seen and what he’s been through and stuff. It’s what he’s known all his life; it’s products of the environment that in which they live. If you went to Baghdad and asked them to write a poem, it isn’t gonna be about flowers, it’s gonna be on what they know and what they see on a day to day basis. What we’re trying to do is play our little part in making the urban youth see that they can do something constructive and viable to their own lives.

Paradise, you were recently involved in a hip h’opera – tell us about this venture…
Paradise: Well, Glyndebourne Opera House, one of the most prestigious opera houses in the world, they wanted to reach the youth, because they felt their target audience was too narrow, about 65 and over. They wanted to tap into the youth culture as well, and a guy in Germany actually came up with the idea of ‘hip h’opera’, fusing elements of hip hop and opera. I got a call because they needed someone, an emcee, to tap into the youth and interpret things like Mozart. I actually got on board to write, but you know, with my stage presence and all that, they wanted to give me the part! For anyone who knows the play, I play the main character, Don Alfonso, the antagonist/protagonist! Right now, I’m not really thinking about this acting thing; I’m just gonna weigh everything up, focus on the single, and just stay balanced.

The first ever UK Hip Hop Summit is taking place this July – if there was one message you could get across to young people today, what would it be?
Paradise: I’d give them the responsibility theme: be responsible for yourself – responsibility and respect. If you’re a grounded and responsible individual, it has waves and echoes into other aspects of your life and other people’s as well, so walk with respect.

Finally, what else do you do as part of TGSMP?
Paradise: Well, we work alongside the BPA (Black Police Association) and other organisations up and down the country; we do creative workshops too, so we’ll continue doing that and we just got ‘U Must Learn’ on a national campaign alongside Footlocker, called ‘Rhyme for Respect’, so you’re gonna see it’s a whole national campaign, MTV Base are on board, so it’s giving out positive information. I’m glad to see that corporate entities are getting onto this as well, and understanding that we can reach the youth and give them a positive message through the music.

The single ‘U Must Learn’ is out on June 12, 2006 on Units Distribution, with Paradise’s album, ‘The Forgotten Curriculum’ due for release in late 2006. For more information on The Good Samaritan Music Project, please visit: www.tgsmp.com or www.myspace.com/tgsmp.