by Garrett CaplesKev Kelley is excited. The Hunters Point emcee has been taken on as a protege by Shock-G, legendary leader of Digital Underground, who produces two tracks on the 23-year-old’s upcoming debut. It’s 3 a.m. Shock’s exhausted, having just wrapped a two-hour jam between DU and a funk band called Slapback, in celebration of his own “solo debut,” Fear Of A Mixed Planet . As we roll to the hotel for the interview, Kev insists on carrying Shock’s bag, despite its owner’s modest protests. “Fuck that!” Kev yells, zooming ahead with his treasure. “I’m doing what 2Pac did!” Shock accepts this with the habitual calm that contrasts so strikingly with his on-stage presence, whether as Shock-G or as his plastic-nosed alter ego, Humpty Hump. And Kev has a point. While never just a roadie — “We were producing and grooming and trying to get him a deal the whole time,” Shock says — 2Pac definitely lugged his share of equipment on the first DU tour in 1989. Shock’s ear for talent, moreover, is undeniable; through DU over the years he’s also boosted the careers of Saafir, the Luniz, and Mystic, among many others. As a producer Shock profoundly influenced rap’s development in the early ’90s. Two years before The Chronic had everyone jumping on the Mothership, Shock drew the blueprints for a hip-hop built on P-Funk principles. Tracks like “Rhymin’ on the Funk” ( Sex Packets , 1990), “Same Song ” ( This Is An EP Release, 1991), and “The D-Flo Shuttle” ( Sons Of The P , 1991) — all on Tommy Boy Records — laid the groundwork for much that followed. According to Digital Underground: Raw Uncut , a new DVD documenting the group’s entire history, “Freaks Of The Industry” remains, after 14 years, the #1 requested song on the Bay Area’s main hip-hop station KMEL despite never being a single. (#2? The Bay Area Ballers mix of the Luniz’s “I Got 5 On It,” also featuring Shock.) Such achievements and innovations have been obscured, however, by the huge pop success of “The Humpty Dance ,” which led many to see the group as a bubblegum novelty. The beautifully eclectic, meticulously detailed, and deeply felt Fear Of A Mixed Planet is Shock’s ambitious attempt to finally step out of the shadow of Humpty Hump.
GC: Describe the end of the Tommy Boy period.SHOCK: Tommy Boy always wanted to be with the current trend. When they thought Digital Underground was hip, they were all for it but when we started not being the cutting edge, they were chasing what was next. DU and other groups that incorporated humor started to slump in sales. Gangsta and pimp stuff was on the rise. They were looking at that. The Body-Hat Syndrome I Get Around ” for 2Pac that year. But if we gave them a “Kiss You Back ”, they were going to keep running us that way. That’s why on Body-Hat there’s a lot of stuff that didn’t have our logo handclap and a lotta Humpty being a little meaner than usual.Body-Hat didn’t do so well that if I produced some things for the label, I could have DU do what I want. So he let us go.GC: How did DU’s 1998 album Who Got the Gravy? come about? SHOCK: Critique had all these experimental things and wanted DU too. They told us, “you didn’t get a fair shot; we can promote you well.” I was like, ”OK, let me make an album that picks up where Sons of the P Body-Hat .” So Future Rhythm Who Got The Gravy? Saturday Night Live comedian Phil Hartman — was one of the people who was not only putting the money up for the label, but he ran it and was the DU fan. When Phil’s wife shot him, Dan just fell apart. So I didn’t want to bug him no more about making records.Thug Angel (2000) [a documentary on 2Pac], nobody asked me nothing. That shit really hurt me. He was with us for four years but nobody was interested in what we had to say. Doing Thug Angel gave me the opportunity. With everybody speaking on him, I was like, “damn, he was giving so much of himself.” We all stand for different things, and maybe some of the things I stand for are broader than what 2Pac stood for; some are really smaller. But whatever I stand for, I felt I could stand up more for it, more of the time, with everything I do.Thug Angel really got people to know there was something else to DU besides Humpty. And the crew was starting to shine, people associating us with the Luniz and Mystic. Gridlock’d there was this spoken word poetry by Pac’s girlfriend in the movie. That was Mystic. But she was still depressed because her father was a musician who never made it and OD’ed and died. A zebra child we called her, a white parent and a black parent, so she never fit in anywhere. She was so fragile. Sometimes you’d go to her house and she’d have the pills sitting there, a gun right here and a knife right there and she’d be like, “Give me a reason to keep going.” Crazy shit! GC: Talk about the production on Fear of a Mixed Planet . Future Rhythm to the ’90s. To chunky it all up like that didn’t sound new and different. I thought there was a lot of space missing in rap music. Usually a song starts and once the rap starts it goes straight to the chorus, then more rap, chorus, more rap and that’s it. No songs had that space like a Miles Davis record. There’s a lot of space in Portishead, Groove Jazzmatazz, Easy Mo Bee — that last Miles record. I’m not into disco but you know Jamiroquai? One thing I liked about his record is it had a lot of space. I thought, if somebody did a rap album like that it would stand out.GC: What does the future hold for Digital? Will there be a new album?
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