Twenty-three-year-old Jabari ‘Naledge’ Evans is a prolific writer and exceptional MC, who became a published author by the age of 15. Michael ‘Double O‘ Anguilar, 27, is a class A beat maker, and whilst studying at University, he also ran in the Olympics and continuously produced at the same time. Together they comprise Kidz In The Hall, a duo who are here to put a spin on hip hop as we know it.

Acknowledging that school was what made them, they’re the first to admit to their middle-class roots and unlike the never-ending influx of rappers professing to be from the hood, they know where they’re from and are proud of it.

With a hot album about to become classic material, The Situation caught up with them to find out more…

You’re just about to drop your debut album. Tell us a bit about it; how did the production process go and which tracks are you particularly feeling?

Double O: We hope that it will resonate with everybody. If you like hip hop then there definitely should be a song on there that becomes the soundtrack to your day or your week. I love all the records, if I could make a video for all the records I would, I’d just make a movie of the album! It has songs on it that are two years old; it has songs that where recorded a month before we submitted it. We just pulled what we thought was the dopest Kidz material together and filled in the gaps, because we didn’t want it to be a greatest hits album before we even came out. We wanted it to tell a story and make sense to the people.

Naledge: I’m bumping the bonus track at the moment, ‘We Almost Lost’, just because that resonates for me. But if you’d asked me two weeks ago it would probably have been ‘Cruise Control’ or ‘Go Ill’.

What’s the story behind the album title, ‘School Was My Hustle’?

Naledge: I mean everybody has a hustle, everybody has a way that they get by, everybody has something that sustains them and their foundation and school was that for me.

Double O: We just wanted to rep the fact that school helped us get to this point and that we were able to utilise our surroundings to make it out - so it was always a statement of sorts to the people; that you can use these options to make it happen for you. I think sometimes people have this idea that school is wack and if you’re into books you’re corny and you can’t be cool or be what you wanna be if you go to school, when in fact it’s the opposite.

What were your own school days like - did you take education seriously?

Double O: Definitely. My parents always stressed the importance of education. You can’t take education away; once you’ve learnt something it’s just there and what you do with it is based on you. But experiencing education is crucial regardless of where you are.

Do you think kids today don’t take education seriously enough?

Naledge: It’s not that they don’t take it seriously; I just don’t think they see it as a viable option to get to where they wanna be. People just think school is about sitting in class and they’re bored, and they don’t understand how Ancient History can relate to what’s going on with them right now. They can’t understand how algebra can help them anywhere down the line, in the street or in the real world, but it can.

Double O: A lot of people wanna do big things but they don’t know how, so they take the easy route which may be selling drugs, because it makes them that celebrity to an extent.

How did your studiousness affect your popularity with the girls and what’s your relationship status at the moment?

Double O: We were the kids in all the smart classes but we were still able to get girls, we’ve always been popular with them. I was Class President and Naledge was Prom King. We knew that when we got in this game that we couldn’t have relationships. Not because we want to get wild with groupies but we just didn’t want to put someone in the disadvantaged position of being called a girlfriend but never actually seeing them. As for groupies, I don’t like them. You have to be weary when it comes to groupies.

What were your upbringings like?

Naledge: It was run of the mill, very middle class. I had two parents, both psychologists. I came up in the inner city but at the same time grew up with a good foundation and a good family. It was like two different worlds at home and outside. I definitely have a good range of friends who come from different backgrounds and I’ve been in a lot of different settings. It probably makes me able to talk about more things and I can relate to a lot of different people and situations.

Double O: We’re both similar in that we had a two-parent household. My parents had me when they were really young, like 20-21. Luckily I had grandparents who were a great support system. For the first part of my life I was in Brooklyn, which was real crazy, and then I moved to New Jersey, which was a lot more residential, so I was living a very normal, middle class life. Both environments make me who I am.

Did you background mean people treated you differently?

Naledge: You always have haters and people who are gonna judge you, it’s prejudice; people will prejudge you without even knowing you or meeting you. But one thing that cannot be denied is that I have talent and the other thing is that I’m talking about what’s real. To say that nobody struggles except for extremely poor people is ridiculous - everybody has a struggle, nobody’s happy. It also has to be said that just because I didn’t grow up extremely poor doesn’t mean that I don’t have family members or friends who were extremely poor. I also know people who are extremely rich and they have issues as well, so I can sympathise with their problems as well. I think being from the middle makes me able to talk about everything. But you’re always gonna have people who will question your background but it’s just ignorance. I feel that once people know me and understand where I’m coming from, I don’t get that anymore. If somebody wants to have a closed mind then I can’t really help it. You can’t please everybody.

You guys met at uni. Did you expect then that you’d be doing music full time?

Double O: By the time I met Naledge I did have the idea in my head that I’d have to do music, but I just had to figure out a way that I was gonna do music day in and day out, everyday and not have a normal 9-5 just because me working for somebody else doesn’t work well.

What career paths did you intend to take?

Double O: I was probably gonna do something internet based. I was really big on the internet boom, so that was the avenue that seemed most viable to me. I was studying Computer Science at school as well so I was leaning towards that anyways.

Naledge: I was gonna be a high school janitor, cleaning the toilets and mopping up! Nah, seriously, I’d probably be writing or something, who knows! Without music I’d be dead, I don’t know what I’d be doing to be honest!

Double O: It’s hard to imagine not doing music ‘cos wherever I’d have been I would have been trying to get into music.

How did you juggle your studies with music whilst at uni?

Double O: My grades were reflective of that juggling! I was doing my music and running track at the same time as school! I ran in the 2004 Olympics and that was a great experience. But as much as school is important, it’s also immensely important to network and utilise what you have going on in your immediate environment to make things happen for you as well. The world is all about who you know, so I knew I had to get out and just mingle.

Working together, do you ever have any disagreements?

Double O: Nah, we’ve worked together long enough that I know what Naledge wants in terms of music, so he can tell me, ‘I wanna do a song about this’ and I’ll know how to approach it, and vice versa. We’ve been working together since 2000 and practise makes perfect, so if you’re very open-minded and you keep making music, it just comes together.

What do you hope to achieve career wise in the next five to 10 years?

Naledge: I’d like to be on our third or forth album, and hopefully we’ll be working with a lot of other artists by then. We wanna have at least a few classic albums under our belt.

Double O: I want to solidify myself in this game as a force to be reckoned with before branching out. The future is very bright. Like two or three years ago, if you’d asked me where I’d be today, I’d have had no clue, I couldn’t have told you anything in terms of us being on Rawkus, and having any of this happening, so only time will tell. I mean, our experience and the way things have happened have just really fallen into place out of nowhere, so I think it’s just gonna continue on that path.

Kidz In The Hall’s new album ‘School Was My Hustle’ is out now on Rawkus Records. For more information, go to: http://www.kidzinthehall.com.