By Will Mason
Photos by Skylar Reeves

We’re all accountable,” cautions Melaphyre. The words have the ring of an impending social commentary, yet on this occasion the Atlanta-based hip-hop artist is discussing music. “A lot of us complain about there not being enough good music, about Top 40 radio playing the same thing over and over, but when it’s time to buy it or support it, a lot of times we drop the ball,” he continues. For Melaphyre, no dividing line exists between the art form he practices, the life he leads, and the ideals he promotes. Describing his musical catalog as “a history lesson on how I perceive things,” Melaphyre, through both his lyrics and community involvement, demands that society accept responsibility for the troubles it has brought upon itself and that it works to correct them. His most recent efforts for change — his sophomore release Ugliness and his label/movement Fight for Us — find the outspoken entrepreneur and artist spearheading a philosophical renaissance.

The Fight for Us agenda reads like a call to arms: “Enlightening, entertaining and empowering people to maximize their own self-worth through determination and observation of what life brings to them whether negative or positive, through music, t-shirts, shows, and several community-related activities. Our artists and leaders use all resources to welcome and embrace new members of this movement ... Fight For Us!” The only tangible arms to speak of, however, are merch items and promotional tools. The remaining forces will be made up of conscious thought and leadership. And while quality music is the medium of choice for waging this war on the lack of accountability, it is also the ultimate goal. “The biggest thing we’re doing — and we’ve even got shirts out that say it — is ‘Make Meaningful Music’,” proclaims Melaphyre. “That doesn’t necessarily mean positive, or overbearing or preachy; it just means make something that means something.” On this point, there are certainly two sides to the coin. While Melaphyre feels that “meaningful hip-hop is often not represented” enough in the media, he also acknowledges that “so much [hip-hop music] that gets out there is misogynistic or glorifies the drugs and the drinking.” His mission is clear: swap these two trends.

With his newest album, Ugliness, Melaphyre takes a profound and sizeable step closer to achieving his goal. The album, from a school of hip-hop led by KRS-One, De La Soul and Public Enemy, is influenced as much by these creative predecessors as Melaphyre’s own global worldview, a way of thinking inspired by a life full of influences.

Melaphyre grew up in Nigeria before relocating to New Orleans. “I grew up on all types of music,” muses Melaphyre. “My mom listened to jazz greats like McCoy Tyner, Traffic, The Commodores, and you can really hear those influences in the tracks that I do — in the wordplay when I rap.” He ultimately made his way to Tallahassee and Florida A&M in the early 1990s, where he capitalized on the exploration of hip-hop he’d begun while absorbing the sounds of a previous generation and living in the soul-drenched environs of New Orleans. “There, I got involved with different cliques, this was ‘90 to ‘94, with groups like Dead Prez,” says Melaphyre. “I saved up money and even used school loan money to buy equipment and got into production.” With fairly unorthodox rhymes for the time, Melaphyre had to make the adjustment to producer in order to get his compositions down.

Also while in Tallahassee, Melaphyre joined up with the hip-hop collective Survivalist. The group moved to Atlanta in 1999, where they recorded a well-received album. Not long after, in 2002, Melaphyre recorded his solo debut, Lotus, which also received ample critical praise. As his career began to take shape, however, Melaphyre was forced to take a step back and examine the path ahead. “After the first album, we wanted to get our business straight. We weren’t handling our business as well as we could have,” Melaphyre explains. “With the music industry being the way it is, and with what I like to call ‘meaningful music’ — whether it’s hip-hop or rock or whatever — not selling as well, we had to take it to another level being an independent label.” In weighing the implications of running his creative work through the music industry machine, Melaphyre reached a definitive conclusion: “The only thing a label can offer is the promotional or distributional aspects, but if they don’t come to the table with a respectful offer, we’re not trying to hear it.”
The end result has become Fight for Us, and their first release, Ugliness. Both the label and the album reach out to a wide audience. “We’re looking to sign anyone doing meaningful music, whether it’s soul, rock, hip-hop, alternative, whatever,” states Melaphyre. He continues, “I make it a point to tell people what’s going on, what we gotta do as a people, and that’s Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, whoever. We have to hold each other accountable. We have to love each other and love the environment.”

Likewise, Melaphyre leaves no stone unturned when it comes to calling out injustices and bringing social matters to light on his new album. It spans lifetimes, from today’s headlines to the unspeakable crimes of past generations. “I speak on all those topics on Ugliness, from pedophilia in the church, to songs about the slaves,” notes Melaphyre. “We hit on the urban issues like people exploiting their own people. On a track called ‘Middle Man,’ I address the music industry and the payola that goes on with these radio stations.” Melaphyre’s awareness of the way in which the music industry and the listening community interact is matched by few within his genre and explicates the tone of Ugliness. Melaphyre’s lucidity is such that fellow hip-hop artists do not escape his critical eye, expressive lyrics, or commanding delivery. “Even artists that I like are accountable. I’m not into listening to a whole album by someone I like about selling dope or cocaine. It’s hypocritical,” insists Melaphyre. His comments point to the clear irrationality of such duplicitous music. “Maybe you sold dope, but obviously it didn’t work well because you got into the music industry. If it was so glorious, you’d still be doing it. But these guys are perpetuating that myth to 12-year olds who feel like they don’t have any hope.”

The images he paints are vivid, intentionally so. Melaphyre draws strong influence from film, describing Ugliness as a kind of film noir. He’s a fan of filmmakers unafraid to show the darker aspects of life, like Stanley Kubrick, Spike Lee and Francis Ford Coppola. And for Melaphyre, the effort put into crafting pictures of every character, scenario, and neighborhood is completely worthwhile. “It might take two to three years to complete [an album], but when it’s done, I’m totally satisfied with it,” he admits. Indeed, Ugliness was a labor of love for Melaphyre. “We recorded 85% of the album at my house,” he notes. “The stuff that wasn’t [recorded there] was just because we wanted a different sound. It was all done within the family circle of Fight for Us.” The level of control exerted over the album’s creation defines Melaphyre’s attitude, one of creating your own breaks.

Such a break came for Melaphyre in the form of one of his early inspirations, KRS-One. Landing an opening spot for the hip-hop icon, Melaphyre saw his performance abilities and hard work pay dividends. “A lot of the main acts don’t do this, but he watched the opening act, and he said he really liked the tracks,” recalls Melaphyre. “I had met up with him back in Atlanta, at the church where he was preaching. He was all about helping independent artists get on at a grassroots level.” It is clear to see the influence of KRS-One’s efforts on Melaphyre’s ideology. He continues, “If I could get to the city on my own expenses, I could open for him. We did three shows with him. I don’t believe anything is a coincidence. You work for your opportunities, that’s what luck is.”

With the current state of hip-hop and its internal divisiveness, as Melaphyre points out, hip-hop artists certainly can’t rely on luck to make it in the overcrowded genre. “What happened in the hip-hop scene was, we used to do shows as Survivalist, a Black hip-hop group. You had White hip-hop groups like Minamina Goodson and groups like Collective Efforts. We’d all do shows together, but now a lot of clubs have stopped taking those types of groups.” Now, the outside perception of Atlanta hip-hop as nothing but crunk-influenced music leaves artists like Melaphyre fighting for their reputations. “A lot of these clubs say they want good music, but if it’s a little bit abrasive, they don’t want it. Guys like myself are stuck in the middle,” remarks Melaphyre. “We don’t get to perform at the crunk, booty-shaking places, and we don’t get to perform at the hip-hop places.”

Being pigeonholed into a certain style of music and type of persona has plagued Melaphyre throughout his fight to bring quality music and accountability to the masses. He finds himself having to fight battles that need not even exist in the first place. “I shouldn’t have to clarify what kind of hip-hip [I do]. It’s kind of like jazz. The urban community created jazz, and we created hip-hop,” he explains. On one of Ugliness‘s standout tracks, “I Ain’t a Drug Dealer,” Melaphyre expounds the continued sense of separation caused by race and class stereotypes. It’s a song that is obviously a source of pride for him, one that rails against the all-too-common system of racial profiling that found police cracking down on inner-city youths wearing plain white t-shirts, a possible signal that the wearer was dealing. “It’s like, where does it stop? Even myself, I like to wear basic, stripped down stuff, but don’t profile me. I’ve got a nice car, and I’m middle class,” Melaphyre puts forth. “Nobody should be profiled, whether it’s due to the color of their skin, their eyes, their shirts, don’t judge me on the peripheral. You still love the cars, the clothes, the chains, but because I wear that, don’t assume.” Ultimately, the two issues blend into one, coming back to Melaphyre’s craft. “With the music we do, we don’t promote any kind of drug dealing. We’re anti-snowman, and we have no problem saying it,” he states.

An early November show at Atlanta’s The Loft is planned to celebrate the CD’s release. When discussing the music, Melaphyre seems almost happily frustrated that the album can’t capture everything that he wants to say. “My life is bigger than the music. Even with my bio and what you read on the website, you’re still only getting a portion of what I am. You can’t even put into words the people who have influenced me positively, or even negatively. My mom, my grandparents, my brother, my wife ... I give small shouts to them, but it would take 10 albums to even scrape the surface of what they’ve done as far how they’ve influenced me.” Melaphyre has ambitious plans for the Fight for Us family, beyond just music. “My talent is in the music and that was the best way I could communicate it. But we’re looking to broaden our horizons with the clothing, some film work; we’ve got a DVD coming out next year. You’ll be seeing the work we’re doing.”

In the end, Melaphyre uses hip-hop to express the frustrations and joys he sees in a world that has been unjust to so many. “Some people say I’m a cynic, but I think I’m a positive cynic. I’m not going to deny the problems are there, but we have to change that. I think we can, and that’s what we’re doing with Fight for Us. The album is an extension of all that.”

www.fightforus.com