If you haven't heard of Joe Dub yet, it's time you go out and pick up his most recent work of art, "Pooretry". He proves that some things get better with age. It is a 'play from front to back' masterpiece, that will have more replay value than adding up all the garbage you downloaded this past year. The bay area native took time out to chat a bit about music, video games, and Transformers.
Find Joe Dub @:
www.asitarecordings.com
www.myspace.com/asitarecordings
www.myspace.com/joe_dub
www.asitarecordings.blogspot.com
RSZZZ: State your name.
JOE DUB: Joseph.
RSZZZ: Rap name?
JOE DUB: Joe Dub. Old Joseph. Young Joseph. Pimp Sea Breeze. Bay Legend.
RSZZZ: Bay Legend where you from?
JOE DUB: San Francisco.
RSZZZ: Age?
JOE DUB: 75.
RSZZZ: What’s the newest projects you got going on?
JOE DUB: Right now I got that Pooretry, just dropped on Asita Recordings, that’s my shit, featuring hella muthafuckas that you’ve heard of, and some fools you haven’t that you should have. And you know it’s got everybody on there, Deeskee got beats on there. My homeboy Aksim from Finland…
RSZZZ: Other producers on the album?
JOE DUB: We got Deeskee on there, that’s my dude, that’s the mainstay, that’s the LA2DABAY staple. My homeboy Aksim and Kaliyuga Pro from Finland, Alex75, Presto from Concrete Grooves, Matth from Anticon, and I got beats on there, obviously I can’t leave myself out.
RSZZZ: What’s the meaning and inspiration behind the album?
JOE DUB: Well what happened was I was working on the album and was gonna call that shit “Alive in ‘75”. That’s the year that I was born in a day in the month. When I was working on the album I hit some serious shit, bank account was on zero, got real broke. And I was like fuck this. Muthafuckas put their heart and souls into it. You know how I see all my homies doing this shit, looking like they doing the most. “We on tour across the country! We on tour across the world!” And then muthafuckas is broke. You know what I mean. What it boils down to is poorets. They all poor poets. Basically doing it out of love. Trying to make ends meet, and just barely scraping by.
RSZZZ: Could you go through your discography for us?
JOE DUB: Yeah. There’s SFSM Word of Mouth.
RSZZZ: What’s SFSM?
JOE DUB: SM. Street Music. That’s the old group from all the fools from high school. There’s been 20 fools in that group. But “SFSM Word of Mouth”, “The Pride”, “From There to Here”, “Average Joe”. Before that was “Who Cares”, that was me and Jesse from Street Music. “Summer Fling”, “The Walk”, “Pooretry Live in ’75”, “Record Players”, “Record Players 2001”, “Love Bomb Soundclash”, which is me and Deeskee and Topic, “Painkillers.” You can look this up on my site. I got a full discography on that shit.
http://www.asitarecordings.com
RSZZZ: When did you start the record label?
JOE DUB: Started that shit officially in 2003 when we dropped “The Walk.” We’ve put out numerous projects, but officially we’ve put out “The Walk”, Ellay Khule “In My Own World”, and “Pooretry.” Working on a new Ellay Khule album now.
RSZZZ: What are you striving to achieve in your musical career?
JOE DUB: Self satisfaction, pretty much. I feel I achieved everything already, respect from my peers of what I’m doing and respect for my skills and my craft, but now it’s just self satisfaction. Fuck being rich. [laugh] I wanna be rich. Buy my album, please.
RSZZZ: Favorite west coast hiphop artist?
JOE DUB: Hugh-EMC.
RSZZZ: Favorite east coast hiphop artist?
JOE DUB: Just-Ice.
RSZZZ: Favorite dirty south artist?
JOE DUB: Pimp C. R.I.P. UGK really.
RSZZZ: Favorite record you’ve ever sampled?
JOE DUB: I don’t know, some Filipino funk band. I forget, I don’t know how it’s pronounced.
RSZZZ: 49ers or Radiers?
JOE DUB: 49ers all day. Fuck the Oakland Raiders. San Francisco Giants all day. Fuck the Dodgers. San Jose Sharks all day, fuck the LA Kings.
RSZZZ: So black president or woman president?
JOE DUB: I’m down for either, but honestly America’s more down for a white woman president than a black man president.
RSZZZ: You grew up in the 80's like I did. What can you remember about video games from the 80's?
JOE DUB: Video games back then were doper than video games now. Now it’s too much. I don’t know, you gotta do too much.
RSZZZ: What were some of your favorite video games?
JOE DUB: Baseball Stars was my shit. You bust out with the American Dreams and beat the shit out of the Lovely Ladies. The Ninja Blacksox, those muthafuckas are hella fast and shit, you just got a give a little bunt, that shit was dope. Zelda was the shit. The original Final Fantasy’s were dope as fuck. What else? 1942 and 1943. Bionic Commando. I heard they were making a movie or a new game on Bionic Commando. One of the two. But Bionic Commando was the shit though cause he had a claw that shot out.
RSZZZ: Who do you think has made or is making the most impressive comeback recently: Rocky, Rambo, Indiana Jones, Bruce Willis in Die Hard, etc?
JOE DUB: Forgot about King Kong and Transformers.
RSZZZ: What do you think about the new Transformers?
JOE DUB: I haven’t seen that movie. I boycotted that shit. The second I found out that Bumblebee was not a Volkswagen Bug, fuck that shit.
RSZZZ: Did you know that Megatron is not a gun in the movie?
JOE DUB: See that’s phony, I didn’t know that.
RSZZZ: Megatron is a jet.
JOE DUB: That's like Spike Lee doing Malcom X, but Malcom X is played by Woody Allen, you know what I mean? You can't have Megatron not be a gun. Fuck that shit. Wait Megatron is a jet? But that goes with the whole Decepticon thing. Starscream...fuck that shit. Fuck Michael Bay. Fuck Bad Boys, fuck The Island, fuck, whatever else he did. I don't even give a fuck. He ruined the original book, The Bad Boys, that shit was hard. But then he went and butchered that shit.
RSZZZ: Let's talk about 80's movies. Do you affiliate more with the film Stand By Me or The Lost Boys?
JOE DUB: Stand By Me. See, I ain't Deeskee. I ain't into all the vampire shit. That shit's cool, but Stand By Me, that's a real coming of age story. The boys, friendship in the summer, and they go on this journey and they deal with the bullies. They solve the mystery, and afterwards they all separate.
RSZZZ: It's an epic movie.
JOE DUB: That shit is real.
RSZZZ: First on screen crush?
JOE DUB: Phoebe Cates! Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
RSZZZ: Do you think she’s still holding up?
JOE DUB: Oh yeah. Kevin Cline came up on that shit. He definitely came up. I don’t know how he did that shit. She’s holding up good last time I saw.
RSZZZ: If you were a Goonie, which one would you be? Mikey, Brandon, Chunk, Data, etc.?
JOE DUB: Data. I'll be making up new things.
RSZZZ: What's your take on the whole hyphy movement in the bay?
JOE DUB: Garbage, that shit's terrible as hell. I'll tell you why. That shit man, the bay, honestly since the late 80's through the late 90's, and a little bit of the early 2000's innovated rap-wise, beat-wise, production-wise. The south in my opinion, bit off that shit. Especially with Master P owning No Limit Records in Richmond, CA and taking that shit to the south. In my opinion the south ripped off from the bay originally, and crunk and other shit came up. And that's what hyphy is, a rip off of the south shit. They just dumbed it down. The real dope fools from the bay, you'll see, didn't go that path. Mac Mall and many other muthafuckas didn't do that shit. Thizz shit kinda got out of control. Once Mac Dre passed away everybody jumped on. That was his shit, nobody was doing it.
RSZZZ: Like J Dilla.
JOE DUB: Exactly.
RSZZZ: Anything else you'd like to say?
JOE DUB: The world needs to respect the bay because there is crazy shit going on there right now. My boy Conceit just got a deal with Interscope. Fools don't know about what fools should know. Fools really need to get up on Gurp City. Eddie K the O.G. from way back , Zman. Fools know about Zman from the Hiero affiliations and shit, but he's deeper than that. Fools need to be receptive and more open to shit like they were in the past. Myself included. I'm a firm believer in don't download, buy the album. I'm not trying to be preachy about downloading because it's taking money out of our pockets. But there's something about opening a cd, getting the packaging, looking at the credits, and seeing who's on there, who did what beats. And you look at the thank you's, like the D.O.C. album comes out, and you look at the thank you's, and you see 'Thanks to the Geto Boys, thanks EPMD'. And that's getting lost now in the whole internet computer age.
RSZZZ: We agree.
