 by Steve McPherson
“I was at the gym at Martin Luther King Park and I was watching the game, and I overheard two cats talking about 50 Cent and Nas and they were talking about who was better. And I heard one cat was like, ‘Well, I don’t even want to hear Nas; if I want to learn I can go to school,’” explains I Self Devine at a South Minneapolis coffee shop. I’ve asked him about how he’s felt about the different cities he’s lived in, but the conversation has drifted to a perennial problem in hip-hop and popular music in general: how to get people’s attention without feeling like you’ve sold out.
Download and mp3 of I Self Devine’s song “Ice Cold.”
 I
Self is not a fresh-faced youth, a prodigy or a wunderkind. He’s a man,
and he’s been around, growing up fatherless on the streets of Los Angeles
in the ‘80s, moving to Minneapolis in ‘89, relocating to Atlanta
with seminal underground rap group Micranots and eventually returning to the
Twin Cities in 2000. The Micranots built their reputation on overtly political
tracks like “The Willie Lynch,” named after the British slaveowner
from the West Indies who recommended a strict policy of setting slaves against
each other to keep them subdued, but I Self is flipping the script a bit. His
solo debut Self Destruction (Rhymesayers) hits stores this week.
“Whatever the culture of the group is might override what an individual
might want to do. With the Micranots,” he explains, “I felt that
there was a situation where people expect something overtly political. After
a while it started to feel, not like I was fake, but I was talking about certain
things that I didn’t want to talk about or that [there were things] I
couldn’t express within the context of the Micranots.” Which is
not to say that he’s all about cars and women now. He’s still dealing
with struggle: the struggle for financial stability, the struggle for love,
the struggle against racism. He’s learned you catch more flies with honey,
though. “You have to be very conscious of what you’re in it for
and if you’re aiming to reach a wider audience, what are the steps you
need to take? I’m a teacher, so a lot of times when you come into a new
site, if you come with the same preset of what you expect, then you’ve
eliminated yourself from any new experiences that you can encounter. If I can
put a little twist in terms of being able to connect with some of these kids
on the block, then so be it. You need to utilize the same tools that are being
utilized in order to grab their attention right now. You know, the strong beats
and very accessible choruses. Now, does that mean that I sell out? No, it doesn’t,
because at the end of the day I have to be able to sleep with myself.”
 He
should be able to rest easy. His rhymes pack in issues such as teen pregnancy
(“Feel My Pain”) and making ends meet (“Get Cha Money On”),
but they come in under the skirts of beat veterans like Jake One (G-Unit, Ghostface
Killah) and Vitamin D (De La Soul, Gift of Gab), not to mention the Twin Cities’
own Ant. “Ice Cold” and “This Is It” could be bumped
over the speakers at a T’wolves game, “All I Know” recalls
Gift’s “Way of the Light” with its bittersweet sing-along
chorus, and echoes of Kanye West’s sped-up soul ride along under handclaps
on standout track “Love Song,” which is an unusually personal song
for I Self Devine. “People don’t even really know who I am,”
he laments. “I don’t feel that listening to my music is a good gauge;
it’s only part of it, it’s only three minutes per song.” And
again, it comes back to making a connection. With the benefit of years he’s
learned when to make ‘em think and when to make ‘em bounce. “A
lot of time when you’re pushing an agenda, you may be passionate about
the agenda, but if that agenda is not the same as someone else’s then
you may have alienated somebody. If someone tries to agitate you without knowing
you and having a relation with you, you’re going to shut down. If I don’t
relate to people first, then when I get to agitating them, making them think
and forcing them to be accountable for certain things, that’s not going
to take place.” He’s doing his best on this effort to let us in
a little more, at long last, after 16 years of being on the scene.
 “Honestly,
I could say that I should be farther [along] than where I am now, but I’m
where I am now because this is where I’m supposed to be, and these are
the lessons that I had to learn,” he says. “As soon as you are born,
that’s when the clock starts ticking against you to when you exit this
Earth. I see more people (including myself) that put obstacles in the way in
order to justify the struggle of doing what you have to do. This album is like
therapy to put a stamp on where I’ve been in order to move on, to know
that I’m deserving of success. A lot of times, people won’t put
themselves out there because there’s a chance they’ll fail, so instead
of putting themselves out on the limb, it’s like nothing but foreplay
all day: there’s no climax. My whole career’s been foreplay. Now
it’s time to be able to climax.” ||
I Self Devine performs the CD release show for Self Destruction on
Sat. Aug. 6 at the Fine Line Music Cafe with DJ Fu Man Chu, Los Nativos, Budah
Tye featuring Blaqk Money and Toki Wright. 8 p.m. 18+. $8/$10. 318 First Ave.
N., Mpls. 612-338-8100.
Head on over to our mp3 page to download hundreds tunes,
including I Self Devine’s song “Ice
Cold.”
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