The Mighty Underdogs interview

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HUCK: How did the collaboration come about?
Gift of Gab: Me and Lateef (Lateef the Truth Speaker from Latyrx) had been talking about making a record called ‘The Underdogs’ for some time, and also me and Headnodic (from Crown City Rockers) have known each other for a while and also talked about making a record. Headnodic was giving Lateef beats for his solo record and Lateef liked them so much that he called me up and was like ‘Wow, I’m writing to all these beats, they are coming out pretty dope so perhaps you should write to them too.’ I jumped on board and it was like instant chemistry. It just took over and we made a lot of those songs. In a month, we’d done an album’s worth of material.

You’ve been labelled a ‘supergroup’. Are you happy with that?
What? How can you not be happy with that? (Laughs)

Doesn’t that place certain expectations on what you are doing?
Well, people are always gonna place expectations on your work. Music is like religion, people are always going to see it and define it from their own angle. I’ve come to realise that.

And so is there anything behind the name?
We called ourselves that because the underdog has everything to lose and so always stays hungry. And as an artist, I never want to consider myself as someone who doesn’t have something to prove. And as The Mighty Underdogs we never want to not push ourselves and force ourselves to go to the next level, and create a new body of work. This is different from anything we’ve ever done as individuals. This is a fun, fictional story telling album. It’s all about challenging yourself to go places you’ve never creatively been before.

Is there a central theme to the album?
It’s called Droppin' Science Fiction as it’s a collection of stories, everything from monsters to gunfights. Even a track like ‘So Sad’ (which features Julian and Damian Marley) is based on real shit but put together as a story.

There are a lot of varied tracks, was it difficult to try and unite them onto one album?
It was a real organic process, each song helped us tell a story and with this, the music brought the stories to life.

For an artist, is being satisfied with your work dangerous?
I’m satisfied with the project but I’m never fully done. We are all working on different stuff now but we will return to do another album. Art is a journey; you are constantly creating something new. It’s all about moving on to the next artistic challenge. That’s how you stay hungry. For me, it’s a hunger that will never be satisfied.

You have an impressive array of collaborations with artists such as MF Doom, DJ Shadow and Mr. Lif. Was this a conscious effort to get such people on board?
Yeah, it was a really fun record to make. So as fans of their music, we thought ‘who would sound good on this?’ Like with ‘Gunfight’ we thought MF Doom would be great on that. But the whole thing was a no stress, no pressure loose creative atmosphere.

Is that approach different from when you record with Blackalicious?
Yes and no. Blackalicious is more, well, not intense but has a different chemistry, you vibe differently with different people. You have your friends that you have serious conversations about life with, and then you have friends that you just laugh and kick it with. And so that produces a different result musically.

Now that people are downloading albums for free, it has turned the music industry on its head – what do you think the solution is for artists such as yourself who rely on album sales?
At the end of the day, the artists just have to keep creating music. If it’s good, it will stand out and make whatever impact it’s supposed to make. Make something that is gonna last. It would be nice if tomorrow, people couldn’t download music for free anymore. It’s part of our livelihood as artists. There is still touring and licensing but you’ve got to be in it for the long run, not just trying to make a hit record. It does separate the real artists than the fly by night types.

The album Droppin' Science Fiction is out 23rd March on Def Jux.

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The Mighty Underdogs interview (text) by Ed Andrews is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.