Who: M88kenzie, Cheklove and Moves of Hip Club Groove.
Where: Marc and Sharon Costanzo’s Funtrip house, Toronto.
When: Spring 1997, just prior to the Bassments of Badmen release party.
Cheklove: Hey, how about Nathan answers the same questions you ask us?
M88kenzie: “What’s it like being in Hip Club Groove?”Cheklove [as Nathan]: “I’ve been there since day one. I’m the one that started the band.”

NWSA: You guys blew up out of the scene – probably the most well-known out of the area…

M88kenzie: Hip Club rocks!

NWSA: How’s it feel to be the representatives of the Halifax scene?

Cheklove: It’s all right. It’s kinda nice to get your shit out. We don’t really feel like we’re the scene-representers. I guess that’s just the way people look at it. Every time we’re out we just say, “There’s this and this and this.” We’re just one of the groups in it. It’s okay overall.M88kenzie: All it comes down to is we were just lucky enough to be the first ones out.Moves: Cuz we don’t say nothing stupid.M88kenzie: Everyone else is coming out now, too, anyway.

NWSA: What does the name of the new album, Land of the Lost, refer to?

M88kenzie: Nova Scotia, I think, of sorts, does it not?Cheklove: It’s obvious what it is. It’s about Nova Scotia and it’s about hip hop. Right now it’s the Land of the Lost; everything about there. The music scene there, there’s people who are in your scene that don’t really know how to keep a scene moving. This is for the whole music scene there. It’s in a state where people say they’re helping this person and they’re helping that person, you’re watching each other’s back, not giving handouts or doing anything like that, just sticking together. It becomes competitive down there, and it’s politics with the people and the bands and stuff.M88kenzie [sarcastic]: Who?Cheklove: So, we just find that there’s a loss of focus. People are worried about the cool riff.Moves: It’s just the same as everywhere, though…Cheklove: Yeah true. Everyone’s worried now about the struggle to keep…Moves: Jesus Christ, can I say something?Cheklove: Yeah, go ahead.Moves: I started saying something and you cut me off. I can’t remember now – go ahead.Cheklove: I forget what I was going to say. Next question.

NWSA: Explain what the “88” is in your name for now.

Moves: Yeah, explain to us!M88kenzie: I don’t know. One time we were just at a show and some kid asked me to sign something and I wrote it down and I liked it.Moves: It’s not a route for a highway? A special highway where you fucked someone one time?M88kenzie: I found one of my old rhyme books the other day and I’d always write “Derek Mackenzie 1988,” so yeah…

NWSA: Everyone’s in different cities now. So M88kenzie, why’d you move to Toronto?

M88kenzie: I was thinking of moving and I wasn’t doing anything in Truro; and Sharon, I don’t know…

NWSA: Cheklove, you’re in Montreal now. What are you doing there?

Cheklove: I just had a couple of job things I had to do but I…Moves: You’ve only been there a week and a half. You make it sound like you’re living there. Holy fuck.Cheklove: I was there for two and a half weeks. I started doing the stuff I was supposed to do. I’m there for about a week more. I’m just going up, workshopping a show. I’m finished workshopping it in about another week, and I just go back until after Christmas when the show actually is. So, I’m just up there doing some work, so I’m not actually relocated. Besides that, it’s awesome. I sat around and just wrote lyrics because I don’t have a TV or stereo or anything.Moves: You don’t even have a stereo?M88kenzie: So Brian, what are you doing?Moves: I fucking live in an apartment and I sit around and drink coffee and mope all day and wish I had a sampler.M88kenzie: You’re DJing now, aren’t you?

NWSA: Tell us about the mixtape and whatever.

Moves: I had a whole bunch of songs at one point and I had nothing to do but put them all on something.

NWSA: Are you going to be doing more of that kind of stuff?

Moves: Yep.M88kenzie: He’s doing an explicit sex record.Cheklove: Like 2 Live Crew.Moves: Yeah that will be fun. Rich [Buck 65] is involved, too.

NWSA: What will this be released on?

Moves: Ant Records or I’ll put it out myself. They buy all the shit. It’s called fucking Cock Dynamiks. And I have another tape coming out. It’s going to be called fucking Hissteria. It’s going to have a snake on the cover wearing a Def Lepard shirt.Cheklove: I’m doing a single with Brian, too. We’re doing a single together as me, like on a solo. It’s going to be called Fowl Funk.Moves: Fowl Funk?Cheklove: The ducks, remember? It’s about the ducks.M88kenzie: I’m working on my new record. I don’t know what I’m going to call it, but it’s halfway done.

NWSA: Let’s talk about the new album. It seems like there’s more variety to it.

M88kenzie: I think how it went… Our first record we were all living in the same place, we were fucking seeing each other 24/7.Cheklove: School.M88kenzie: We’d see each other every day. And we knew each other’s thoughts at every moment. On the second record we all started growing up, moving out, and this and that. I think that’s probably one of the reasons that it’s a bit more eclectic. A lot of times we were alone writing instead of together writing.Moves: I think it turned out as good as it could have been.Cheklove: Yeah, it’s cool. It came about mostly while we were on our first tour.

NWSA: Do you think people are disappointed with it? It’s very different from the first.

Cheklove: Oh yeah, for sure.M88kenzie: I don’t know about disappointed. I think more surprised. I think people expected a record to do drugs to like the first one; expect to buy the Hip Club record, fuckin’ take acid and jam out on it for a little while.Cheklove: Even if it’s the same stuff we played for almost a year before the CD got put out. The change should have been kind of expected cuz we were playing a lot of those songs.Moves: It just means they’re not listening to the songs.Cheklove: I like the new record a lot. I’m happy with it.

NWSA: What’s the importance of the four elements of hip hop to Hip Club Groove?

Cheklove: Very important. It’s what we star-eyed when we were little. Breakdancing is what got me into hip hop when I was little. The writing brought [Sixtoo] into it. The DJing brought [Moves] in, and the MCing brought [M88kenzie] in. Without it we wouldn’t be doing any of the stuff forever.Moves: None of us were ever grafitti artists so no sense doing something if you can’t do it.M88kenzie: I always wanted to be a grafitti artist. I tried and tried for years. My notebook and stuff was weak.

NWSA: With a short answer, how come you’re no longer with Murderecords?

M88kenzie: Just because.Moves [laughs]: That’s the shortest thing I ever heard.Cheklove: Just negativity. Not really bad negativity. Just on both sides, no chemistry.M88kenzie: No money.

NWSA: You’ve had a disagreement with Jorun over the production on your first album. You’ve since released the dis “Sucker Salad.” How did Jo take it?

M88kenzie: “Ya got beef?”Moves: I called him up and I asked him myself cuz I didn’t know if he was going to be dirty or not, and I didn’t know if I should go up to him. Everything’s cool… We were just saying what we felt and it’s totally true. And if it wasn’t, he probably would have had beef.Cheklove: I don’t care really. I started to worry about who would ever take offense, but I couldn’t because I wrote about it. I don’t take anything back I said, so I meant everything I said. He never said anything to me.

NWSA: “Pornostar” is one of the best songs on the album. Can we look forward to more stuff like that in the future?

Moves: No, probably not cuz Rob produced it.M88kenzie: Sixtoo produced it. I want to do more shit like that.Moves: We don’t want to step in on his territory.M88kenzie: I like that shit. I was in a zone.Cheklove: And with us, it’ll be a bit more experimental. It’ll go more on the side of “Voices”-style music and things like that. And even in a way, even the “Joni” stuff, big beats. But that’s what we’ll be coming out with Renegade Synapsis. With M88kenzie, he’ll have the stuff like “Pornostar.”M88kenzie: My stuff is going to be experimental as well.Cheklove: “Pornostar” is experimental.Buck 65: “The moon is out tonight, it’s time for experiments.”Moves: It’s true. We have to go get a body first.Buck 65: Oh yeah, I wanted to say earlier that we mentioned in the car that it’s worth mentioning that I think it’s a nice, conscious thing to do to dispose of dead bodies in a recycling bin.(laughs)

NWSA: Who should we be looking for from Halifax?

Everyone: Nathan.Cheklove: Nathan, number one right now. Nathan & Sebutones.Moves: Little T.Cheklove: Little T, Renegade Synapsis – I’m plugging myself. Definitely look out for that.
M88kenzie: Can I ask a question? Should I go by M88kenzie or should I go by something else.?
Cheklove: M88kenzie. Keep M88kenzie cuz I’m still Cheklove.

NWSA: Yeah, with two 8s.

Moves: What about three 8s?
Cheklove: Also Papa Grand. He’ll be DJing coming out with Nathan the Alien, Loonie Tunez. If Bonshah comes out again like he’s supposed to then he’ll be the man to bow to. That’s about it. And even with what’s going on – Classified, that Noah kid [Kunga 219] and even if Jorun does something, then maybe them too, if they do something. He did that new posse cut he sent to you. Everybody really, but the main two I’ll say to look out for are Sebutones and Nathan the Alien, just so we can bump out of the old news for awhile.
Moves: Let’s keep going.
Cheklove: I’d like to say there’s people up here at a press conference that said the east coast has to represent, while here we present without reps to resent and all those non-believers better circumvent.