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Lord Finesse and Roc Raida

by David Knight / Published November 15‚ 2006 at 6:55am

Lord Finesse and Roc Raida are in Australia for the Zulunation Supajam. David Knight chats with them about their current state of affairs.
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The mouths of true hip hop heads have been watering across the country for the past few months when it was announced that a couple of legends of New York hip hop would be together in Australia for the first time as part of the Zulu Nation Supajam. The voice of underground New York hip hop Lord Finesse and one of the most respected hip hop DJs in the business Roc Raida gave Heavyweight the lowdown about the tour.

Finesse and Raida go back - way back. With the two hip hop icons saying they have known each other since ’89 or ’90. Back then Finesse was teamed up with DJ Mike Smooth that as a duo released the classic Funky Technician LP in ’90 (the long-awaited remix album should be dropping early next year) while Raida was a teenage DJ prodigy. Now their influence and accomplishments are forever cemented in the pages of the hip hop history books with Roc Raida leading the influential crew the X-Ecutioners. Raida also won the DMC World Championships in ’95 and was inducted in the DMC Hall Of Fame in ’99 but more importantly he was donned as a Grandmaster by the founding fathers of hip hop. While Finesse led the New York-based crew D.I.T.C (Diggin’ In The Crates) as well as releasing the acclaimed albums The Awakening and Return Of The Funky Man out on his own.

Now they bring it to Australia. Raida was here earlier in the year but Finesse has never made it out to our shores. “This will be the first time ever man,” says Finesse. “I know you all love to party and I’m a party-goer myself yeah well I heard you are all very educated with hip hop.” The two added they wouldn’t be giving Australia a New York show with Finesse saying that he will be giving us his international performance and that nonetheless the show will be “very extraordinary”.

“I think this combination of me and Raida is unlike any MC/DJ combination you’re ever going to see. I mean if you look at Fresh Prince/Jazzy Jeff and you look at Run DMC and Jam Master Jay and I mean these are great iconic legends of hip hop. I think I correspond with Raida something crazy. Ya’ll see, I can’t tell ya, you’ll see … The show is, I don’t know, I can’t describe my show looking at my show to tell you what I’m going to do. I can tell you one thing - there aint going to be no special effects and big movie screens on the stage and butt naked dancers. I can tell you what it aint going to be.”

Both Finesse and Raida are in the process of recording new albums as Raida explains. “So far it’s just a lot of instrumental stuff, just in the process of elimination. Got a song with O.C, got Saigon, got Smif N Wessun, got a few people. So just finishing up before the end of the year so I can put it out next year.” But Finesse’s upcoming joint is the one to get the heads excited because even though he has helped out on production duties on joints by Dr Dre, The Notorious B.I.G and Big L he hasn’t made an album since The Awakening in ‘96.

“Well I was just in the studio with Grand Puba on Sunday I was recording. Me and Grand Puba are getting ready to do an album together so I guess he’s going to be my inspiration and my challenge with me doing hip hop again.” Finesse has been critical about the current state of hip hop saying in an interview last year that he hadn’t recorded an album in 10 years because he felt people don’t appreciate rap these days. It was put to Finesse whether he still felt this way about rappers hooking up with big beat makers just to make a hit and whether he thinks this will change.

“I think the common average consumer is getting hip to it, you know? They’re going to want a breath of fresh air. There’s only so many times you can do a beat with an 808 and get or someone hitting on the keys like a special education student, you know? I think it’s going to boil down to good music coming back, you know? Definitely good music has to come back because I mean when I listen to hip hop it was always about combination of the influence the rapper had in coordination with the music. And now when I listen to hip hop I don’t know if I’m listening to the vocals or the beat or I don’t know what I’m listening for, you know? Half these people haven’t got none of that, so I don’t know no more. I know funk and hip hop and that’s my chemistry - funk and hip hop. When I hear beats that don’t have no funk and when I hear rappers that aren’t really saying nothing but some real A-B-C stuff you know I’m confused. Especially when people are telling me ‘yo this is hot’.”

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