Lyricist Lounge Co-Founder talks about what changed Hip Hop culture, the meaning of art, and the importance of focusing on what we can do.
In 1991, at the age of 16, Anthony Marshall co-founded the Lyricist Lounge. What started out as just five MCs hanging out in a rehearsal room soon transformed into one of Hip Hop’s most respected brands as the Lyricist Lounge became a blueprint for discovering emerging Hip Hop MCs.
Through several albums, DVDs, tours, and television opportunities, artists such as Sean “Diddy” Combs, Notorious B.I.G., Mos Def, Eminem, 50 Cent, Talib Kweli, Slick Rick, Q-Tip, Common, The Roots, and the Black Eyed Peas all became a part of the company’s respected history.
In 1999, Mr. Marshall helped to develop a Hip Hop musical/comedy sketch show called “The Lyricist Lounge Show.” The concept was sold to MTV and the show became one of the television network’s highest rated programs. In 2005, Mr. Marshall played a part in the launching of Current TV, Al Gore’s TV network, where he helped to develop the company’s VC2 (Viewer Created Content) initiative. In 2009, he contributed to the development of the Greater Than AIDS campaign for the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Recently, Mr. Marshall has acted as an Executive Producer at GTM (a marketing and branded entertainment company) where he co-produced Master of the Mix, a Branded Content television series about DJs, funded by Smirnoff and airing on BET and Centric. He now celebrates his 20th year with Lyricist Lounge and looks forward to opening nightclub venues in its name throughout the world.
In April of 2013, Anthony Marshall was gracious to speak with The Nobantu Project’s Kemba Banton via phone interview.
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The Nobantu Project: Anthony, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us! You co-founded Lyricist Lounge when you were 16 years old! At that age you were well in the mix of Hip Hop, break-dancing in music videos and rhyming with your friends like many youth do today – who were your influences at the time - the lyricists that really spoke to you? Looking back, what did Hip Hop mean to you at that age?
Anthony Marshall: At that time, Slick Rick was one of my favorite artists, sort of like a picture beside my bed sort of thing. I was really inspired by his ability to inspire people with his stories, and I could sit and imagine the things that he would talk about. Red Man was another one, I thought he was really creative, just really thinking out the box. And of course all the old school people…KRS One, and then as I got older Tribe Called Quest, and De La Soul. They were important in showing Hip Hop as a culture. They felt like friends and family, felt like people I knew. So when I started working with them, it felt real natural. Except Slick Rick. Meeting him was like meeting God, I didn’t wanna talk to him, I had to ask my partner to talk to him….he had that much of an influence on me.
The Nobantu Project: Hip Hop often gets a bad name, and doesn’t get recognition as a true art form in many mainstream spaces, except where it can make profit. But so many people all over the world listen to Hip Hop. Coming from a Jamaican background, I often compare Hip Hop to Reggae, which to me in its truest form represents the voice of the people. Why do you think so many people of all different backgrounds are drawn to Hip Hop? Is it just the beats, or is it the culture? If so, what about it?
Anthony Marshall: Great question, I think that it’s a loaded question with a loaded answer. There are several different types of people drawn to Hip Hop for different types of reasons. My core group of people were drawn because we weren’t accepted by anything else, Hip Hop was our platform, our family. Many of us grew up as single kids or with a single parent family structure, a lot of us were looking for our family members. Hip Hop was a place where I was accepted…where there were people that recognized me…
“My core group of people were drawn because we weren’t accepted by anything else, Hip Hop was our platform, our family…”
A lot of other people are attracted because of money, as a way out of their situation. For example, there’s one group of people who are just coming home from out of jail, and they say, “Oh I need to make some money, I’m gonna rap.” Someone actually said that to me and I think it’s part of what’s destroying the culture…that “I need to make money” mentality….there is a difference.
Then you have “bridge and tunnel” people…people from out of town…Hip Hop is a way for them to stay close to the streets, they’re not really close to what’s going on in the community…it’s a way to understand what’s going on.
Internationally, people are suffering from the same situations that people go through over here, so if you feeling disconnected from society…some French kid in the outskirts of France, who’s not accepted as really French, with Hip Hop they can say, “I may not be French but my name is such and such and I rhyme”…it’s that promise, the promise is what attracts them..
The Nobantu Project: What was going on in your head back when you started Lyricist Lounge in 1991?
Anthony Marshall at the launching of Master of the Mix.
Anthony Marshall: At that time you just wanted something to do, we used to hang out in the Village all the time. We had old cyphers in the park, rhyming and free-styling and all that stuff…so when people started hearing about Lyricist Lounge…and actually Mos Def is kinda known for saying this, you know he was like, “The Lounge was dope because it was inside.” [laughter] That simple. He said somebody was like, “Yo, you know there’s an inside cypher?” and he was like, “What?! – it’s indoors..?! Yo, I’m there!”
So, think of it, in those days, that we were all just like freshmen. The Lounge became like a traveling school where you could go to perfect your talent. I had the same mentality, it was like, “Oh let’s go practice”…There’s a place we can use and call ours and not get bothered by the cops and have our space. We just saw the vision for it and stuck with it.
The Nobantu Project: You guys were putting on shows and touring with people like Dead Prez, The Roots, De La Soul, and gave a lot of upcoming artists some of their first real exposure – people like Foxy Brown, Eminem, 50 Cent, and the Notorious B.I.G. who were fresh on the scene at the time and then went on to have massive careers. Then you hit MTV with The Lyricist Lounge Show, which was very successful for the year it was on air – in a real serious way Lyricist Lounge has been a key player for young Hip Hop artists. For a lot of people, Lyricist Lounge is synonymous with underground Hip Hop. You started out in the 90s – in 20 years what changes have you seen in the industry?
“That’s where the conversation shifted lyrically…to money…and then everybody’s like, “I want my money,” and “money’s on my mind,” and “money money money money,” and it took over and it’s the loop we’ve been living in since then.”
Anthony Marshall: Hip Hop has gone from a number of major record labels to pretty much 3 or 4 right now…so back in those days labels weren’t really trying to sign a bunch of Hip Hop acts but they knew that having one or two in their catalog was important because you never knew who was gonna be the next RUN DMC. And that was in the late 80s, early 90s.
And then in ’95, Mr. Sean “Puffy” Combs made a deal with Arista that was for 50 million dollars…and that changed the whole platform…the whole scope of what Hip Hop could do. And that just snowballed into what I call the “Diddy Decade,” you know, where it was all about gettin’ money. That’s what really changed us in a lot of ways. It’s not like a fault thing…like it’s Puffy’s fault, but…you know for black people in America, a lot of people think alike. You know if one person is like, “Yo, there’s money over there on that hill right there, I just came back from over there, and there’s money over there!” before you know it, everybody’s going over there.
It’s kind of unfortunate… I don’t think enough African Americans know that there’s so many more kinds of business that we can be involved with. So once Puffy said “yo there’s money over there,” everyone started going in that direction…that’s where the conversation shifted lyrically…to money… and then everybody’s like, “I want my money,” and “money’s on my mind,” and “money money money money,” and it took over and it’s the loop we’ve been living in since then.
Creatively that’s where we’ve been. Hip Hop is a culture based on music, which is the mouth of the body. Breakdancing, which is the legs. Fashion sense, which is the body. Graffiti, which are the arms of the body. Over the years we’ve lost those forms here in the States, although they’ve grown internationally. “You Think You Can Dance,” is basically a Hip Hop dance show, but we don’t call it that – it’s really weird.
Corporate America has hijacked Hip Hop. They have used it in any way they want to. Some of us have been conduits to them doing that, and others have been opposing, like “Nah, I’m not selling out”…and even that term, “selling out” doesn’t exist anymore. If you asked a 21-year-old today who’s working on something, “So, yo, are you nervous about sellin’ out?” He’d be like, “What? [laughter] Didn’t you get my album? I said “Coca Cola” like 25 times. You crazy? I don’t care!”
So…so much has changed, but most importantly, you know Mos Def said, and I’m referring to Mos a lot but he’s just said certain things throughout time that have really stuck with me. He said, “If you wanna know what Hip Hop is gonna look like in the future, look at yourself.” That’s a great depiction…we’ve changed so Hip Hop has changed.
When we first made it into the studio we made the music, and that music inspired a whole generation’s state of mind. Then that generation made a different kind of music, the kind we have today. And now that music is inspiring the future generation to not make music like that anymore. You know the All-Knowing is really slick, you know, in what it uses to move us forward
The Nobantu Project: You are a multifaceted artist and entrepreneur. Art is a big part of who you are – deejaying, music, visual art, dance – describe your relationship to art.
Anthony Marshall: I’m still learning and understanding the answer to that question. Right now, art is language. Art is life to me. It’s the color that paints the lines that life is drawn with. It’s just everything. It’s just color, and color is so much. If you take the color out of life, we live in a drained out world. Art reflects creativity and beauty. I don’t know, I think it’s just the reason why we’re here…and we got side tracked…you know…If we didn’t have to pay our bills, people wouldn’t be stressin’ the way they are…and school would be a different thing. School would mean so much more, but we’re so locked into society’s vision of what we should be doing.
I could go on and on about the positivity of art. Even the negative forms of art still create a positive opportunity for discussion, you know what I’m saying…So even like the music that’s comin’ out nowadays, you know people wanna bash it…and I’m one of them, but now that I’m getting older my thing is you can’t really dictate art. People gonna make what they want. What you can do is create the thing that you think is missing. So that’s kind of where I’ve placed my focus. So it’s not about what Rick Ross is doing it’s about what Ant Marshall is not doing.
“It’s not about what Rick Ross is doing it’s about what Ant Marshall is not doing.”
The Nobantu Project: Hmm, yeah, you basically just answered a question I was going to ask you about how we should be responding to all the negativity in Hip Hop right now. I want to talk more about that. You said that instead of talking about whatever negative thing whoever is doing, what we need to be doing is creating what’s missing. But I want to ask you…considering that black and brown artists are coming from such long legacies of oppression, is it wrong for us to expect them to be more responsible?
Anthony Marshall: Uh. No….No. I think it’s alright to feel whatever we want to feel about anybody, first off. I think, two, it’s our responsibility to be a mirror to our artists and I think it’s an artist’s right to do whatever they want, regardless of whatever we think. At the end of the day, we all need a mirror. We all need a group of people, people that keep us on point. We all need parents. We all need guidance.
And what’s happening with a lot of emcees nowadays is that because they’re making so much money and because they circle themselves around yes men, and because they live in this secluded community of people who will think the same way they think, they kinda just run off with their mouths, and just do what they want to do, not realizing, or sometimes realizing and not caring, how it’s affecting everyone.
“There are artists out there…inspiring the next generation to join the Prison Industrial Complex… “We the trap boys…” …you know it’s a trap ‘cause you called it a trap but yet you talkin’ about it like it’s a positive thing…”
So when I have the chance to sit with an artist, especially a new artist, I kinda go to town around…especially an emcee…I go to town around the importance of holding a microphone. When you are speaking to a group, that’s a lot of power and a lot of responsibility. You can convince a whole audience to commit suicide. You know…Jim Jones…microphone… talking to these people everyday, “They comin’ for us they comin’ for us, drink the Koolaid.”
There are artists out there with microphones basically inspiring people to kill themselves by saying some of the things that they’re saying, it’s inspiring the next generation to join the Prison Industrial Complex, and they’re not seeing how they correlate to that – you know, naming the drughouse, “the trap” and then they talk about the trap, “Yo, I’m in the trap!” “We the trap boys…” But…it’s a trap! Helloo…like…it’s a trap. And you know it’s a trap ‘cause you called it a trap but yet you talkin’ about it like it’s a positive thing because you’re saying “this is what the people want,” and it’s nonsense because people want what you give them. They don’t know what they want ‘til they hear it. No one is at home saying, “Yo, I need to hear some negative stuff right now.”…No one is saying that.
So yeah, I know your question was meant to kind of ignite something in me, but it’s totally okay to expect artists to have responsibility and at the same time, if you’re an artist you’re allowed to make your choices…
But that corporation that signed you, and that network that’s airing that stuff, and the brands and sponsors that pay for your show to be on that air – my thing is we don’t need to talk to the artists, we need to talk to the brands and sponsors and corporations that fund them.
Because what you have are a lot of very intelligent college graduates…Masters-having, Law-degree-having people that are sitting around the table saying, “Okay, how do we market this Trinidad James song who is like, “ni**ah, ni**ah, ni**ah, ni**ah…” how do we market that to this community. That’s irresponsible. It’s not that this dropout who was raised by drug-using parents made the lyrics…I expect that person to make those lyrics…they’re in a cycle…I don’t think that’s irresponsible, I think that’s exactly what you gonna get…
The Nobantu Project: It’s reflective…
Anthony Marshall: Yeah, it’s reflective of where they come from. The irresponsibility comes from the person who is knowledgeable and educated and knows that this is wrong but chooses not to see that…for a paycheck. That’s irresponsible. And it’s more than irresponsible, it’s just evil.
And if our black community in America was a balanced community, I don’t think this would even be a question, because our kids would know how to process it…but we’re not balanced, and our kids don’t know how to process what they’re hearing.
The Nobantu Project: And so your main thing is about what we do moving forward.
Anthony Marshall: Absolutely. It’s all about what we’re doing. I always say that bad people are great at being bad, and good people just need to be better at being good. And that’s what we see…we can’t keep blaming negative people to do what they’re here to be doing, there’s Yin and Yang for a reason. I believe in Alchemy. I believe in changing dark into light, and turning metal into gold, but at the same time I gotta start with me. I can’t be spending all my time trying to turn this negative person positive. I need to amplify more positive people, and that’s what I’m here for.
The Nobantu Project: Yes. Thank you for that. Amplify more positive people. Anthony thank you so much, again, for talking with us!
Anthony Marshall: Yeah! Thank you so much. No problem!
