Interview Time: Extremists

Extremists

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Extremists is consistency of flash raps, scriptures and scrolls, concepts and scenarios and much more to unfold!

These two brothers are Brixton’s finest: The Extremists. Having just done a tour of Greece they’re making waves internationally as well as in the UK.  They have already supported Jeru The Damage, Ja Rule and were a part of The Rap Revolution tour, and their Skitz’s produced track ‘No Tears’ was listed in Undercover’s top 50 of the 100 greatest UK hip hop tunes 1995-2003.

In a corner of Brixton we watch clips of  J-Hero and Samar shows in Greece and the filming of their new video as we chat about the world of the Extremists and UK hip hop.

Writers, poets and lyricists, they took to the mic as MCs in 1996 and began doing shows as Samar explained; “In 2000 we released our first single ‘Groundbreaking’ and ‘No Tears’ on Titan Sounds and took it from there. Before that we were doing open mic shows on the underground scene and were getting noticed.” J-Hero continued, “After that we released another tune on Word Lab album called ‘Fire Blaze’ and then we did another tune ‘Dem girls’ with Keith Lawrence on B Oven.”

These guys are different. With a lyrical content that leans more towards Common than 50 Cent they have a sound which is unmistakable yet diverse; “The way that we sound we use our own accents as well as the accents around us.” Samar said. “We look at it like London’s full of ’nuff different cultures and different people, so we got so many things that influence us why does it has to be the music you hear on the radio from across the water.” J-Hero picked up, “We have different sides to us where we switch it up to bold Cockney style; we got other flows where we get deep, spiritual, conscious uplifting messages, and we got something for the streets too.”

J-Hero sat back in his chair and with an excited glint in his eye explained what was happening in their extreme world; “Recently we shot our video, for ‘The Brave and Bold’ – the concept was two Cockney Goodfellas from London and we’re switch into a Cockney slang and did the video in pinstripe suits – Big Up to Camelback productions. Even Roy Ares came down to the video!” There are also some interesting collaborations to look out for with some of the best of the UK scene, “We just done a tune with Roots Manuva and Ricky Ranks which will be on our own album which will be out later in the year, we’re doing a tune with Rodney P. We’re involved in doing a lot of things at the moment.”

The future promises an album for late 2004, mixtapes, soundtracks and books. Samar closed by saying “We’re gonna make in a big way- commercially, underground and on a community level, ’cos we wanna give a lot back.” J-Hero continued, “We’ve created this and it’s blessed anyway, I think it’s gonna happen, but not small but big! You need something like us out there that’s refreshing and nourishing, I think we can be that.”