SSA: You were recently in town attending longtime friend Erykah Badu’s CD Release party for her latest album “New Amerykah” here in Dallas. We missed the show, but since you didn’t… please give us a recap. What was it like?

JL: The Erykah Badu release weekend was amazing. The party at Bill's Records was straight out of the early 1970's - an old school midnight record release party. The show the next night was a two-hour jam session that featured ?Love from The Roots and comedian Dave Chappelle. It was off the hook. Such an amazing record by a very innovative artist. Dallas should be proud of Erykah. She's our brightest star.

SSA: You mentioned on the phone you had a radio show back in the 80’s here in Dallas. That was a bit before my time, you'll have to excuse me on not knowing all the specifics already. Elaborate a little on the history of the show as well as some of the records you played.

JL: The show was on KNON and it was called "Life Is Hard". I played the hardest stuff from any genre - speed metal, gangsta rap, avant jazz like Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane, you name it. It was the first radio show anywhere to ever play NWA and Eazy E on the radio. I actually got fired for playing the dirty version of "Boyz N Tha Hood". It was so late at night I didn't think anybody was listening. Turns out a guy who wanted my time slot was taping the show at home and played it for the program director the next day. The next week he had my time slot. I was just listening to a tape of my old show the other day - man, I played the shit out of the Beastie Boys, too. Probably too much.

SSA: Let us in a little on the climate back then for breaking rap records in this market. Was it hard to get them played?

JL: There were no rap radio stations in Texas then. There was one station in LA (KDAY), but it was on the AM band and all they played was shitty dance/party rap like LA Dream Team and Salt N Pepa. Rap was WAY underground back then.

SSA: What inspired you to do spoken word?

JL: I got too old to rap (laughs). No, I've always been a writer. I just got sick of trying to make my shit rhyme all the time. I always liked DJing better than rapping anyway. Also, I loved the old Jim Morrison record "An American Prayer". I used to drop acid and listen to it when I was a teenager.

SSA: White Trash Receptacle still resonates with me as one of the better modern spoken word albums. The music, rhythm, tonality and general malaise of your storytelling is just so inherently Dallas. You really captured the general disdain and withdrawn attitude of a lot of people here. What were some of your inspirations for that album and more specifically, what were you going through at that point in your career?

JL: I didn't have a career at the time. That record was made by accident. I was sleeping on Venice Beach at the time (like a lot of people), and one afternoon I ran into the woman who signed Edie Brickell to Geffen Records. She offered to put me in the studio at A&M to record some stuff, and I didn't have any instruments or samplers with me, so I just read my notebooks on to tape. A couple of days later Mick Petralia (who produced Beck's and Peaches' last records) showed up with his sampler and we hooked up a bunch of beats. That was my first album.

SSA: One of your tracks from Decedent Dub Team, “Six Gun” was featured on the Colors soundtrack. Did you or any members of DDT ever receive any royalties for that?

JL: Well, we did that song for Island Records, who licensed it to Warner Brothers for the film. We never expected that anything would ever happen after it came and went as a single, so when it landed in a film we were happy - even though Island Records got 90 percent of our money for it. Dr. Dre did the remix for 500 bucks, so we really weren't the only ones who got shortchanged.

SSA: There has been a lot of progress over the years for the DFW hip hop scene as a whole, we are growing and we definitely have a lot of talented up and coming artists on the horizon. Being that you were one of the first people to ever bring rap groups to this city, I have to ask what the climate was like back then for an independent artist and how that compares to the market now. Do you think we have it easier these days or have things gotten more complicated?

JL: Back then, gangster rap was truly alternative. Now it's mainstream. In fact, now it's the most popular contemporary music out there. I can still remember booking Cypress Hill at Trees, and only thirty people showed up. It took a long time for hip-hop to transition to the mainstream - it probably began when a lot of rap groups started appearing on the Lollapalooza Tour. That, and Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer both blew up.

SSA: It doesn't really seem like Dallas has ever had a serious shot on the national front in comparison to a lot of other cities on the subject of hip hop. We just haven’t been taken that seriously until recently. As a person who has toured and observed this climate over the years why do you think that is?

JL: A number of reasons. First, we didn't have a singular sound like Houston's "Chopped and Screwed" sound, or New York's grimy underground sound, or LA's gangster rap like NWA or Ice T. Next, we didn't have a local label like Ruthless or Rap-A-Lot that rose to the top of the national pile. It wasn't going to be DDT breaking nationally, because our sound was all over the place. We used just as much abstract noise and audio sound bytes as we did raw beats. I wouldn't work on commercial radio. Hydroponic Sound System picked up our style and added a lot of local MCs. I love them and respect their commitment to the sound.

SSA: The record industry is on its head right now trying desperately to attach itself to a new breed of independent recording artists and new media that needs its help less and less every day. With the explosion of digital downloads over the past few years through peer to peer software like Bit Torrent and other file sharing programs, do you feel like the old model of making money in the music industry is on its way out?

JL: It's gone. I live in LA and work the front door at the Roxy Theatre, so I overhear a lot of conversations from industry insiders out on the sidewalk talking about the business. Everyone is at loss at what to do next. They are completely oblivious as what to do. They admit it. The old business model is nothing but ashes on the scrap heap.

You know, since the beginning of time, musicians have always been the vagabonds, the beggars and court jesters. It was only in the last 50 years when musicians became wealthy or popular culture icons. Since the advent of Napster and free file-sharing, we've come back around full circle to musicians having to beg for respect or decent wages. Shit, a lot of bands in LA are happy to pay to play gigs, instead of actually getting paid to do it.

The old days of getting rich by playing music are long gone. You just don't sell CDs or records like you used to. Twenty years ago, a wildly successful album might sell a million copies the first week it was released. These days, that same record might ascend to the top of the charts by selling 100,000 copies.

SSA: "The Last Record Store" was a small documentary you did on Bill's Records here in Dallas. The film outlines the greater truth that traditional record stores are becoming a thing of the past. With the demise of Tower and countless other mom and pop record shops across the country over the past 10 years, do you think record stores will have to dramatically change their business model to stay afloat or do you see their primary means of generating income now pretty much obsolete altogether?

JL: Do what Bill did - start selling everything on eBay. A single storefront in one city isn't going to do it these days. You have to reach out to everybody, all the time. It took Bill a few years to give up the old model and embrace the new paradigm. Record stores are like museums now.

SSA: Not to put you on the spot, but we always like to ask people we interview real questions. How do you feel about this election? Do you think it will usher in an era of change or will it just be more of the same?

JL: I can't wait for Barack Obama to win this election. The guy graduated with honors from Harvard. Man, it will be great to have a smart guy back in the White House. He's brilliant. I love him.

SSA: What is the craziest shit you've ever seen?

JL: The stolen election of 2000. After that, the LA riots. The Nirvana show at Trees was intense, and the NWA show at City Lights in South Dallas was so incredible it was downright frightening.

SSA: What is the craziest shit you've ever heard?

JL: Oil companies posting record revenues while the price of oil goes higher and higher - supposedly out of necessity. Fuck them.

SSA: Do you have any advice for up and coming artists trying to break out of this market?

JL: Don't be afraid to leave town to reach a broader audience. For whatever reason - SXSW, touring, whatever reason you can come up with to get the fuck out of Dodge. It won't happen by hanging around in Dallas waiting for somebody to discover you. DOC had to move to LA, so did almost every other Dallas rap artist that sold a bunch of records. I moved to LA a long time ago. In Dallas you have to hustle all the time. Here stuff happens by accident. I actually got our song on the "Colors" soundtrack by buying weed from a guy who was working on the project. That shit would have never happened in Dallas.

SSA: Any new projects in the works right now we should be in the know about?

JL: Just finished a new Cottonmouth, Texas album. Tons of great musicians on it - Earl Harvin, Paul Barker, Rey Washam, The Spores, Scrote, all kinds of great people.

SSA: Anyone or thing you want to shout out?

JL: This is Erykah's week. Mad props to our homegirl who keeps reinventing herself all the time. What a great role model for every musician in town. Such a gifted artist. I'd also like to say "I love you, brother" to KNON's DJ EZ Eddie D, whose son passed away when I was in town last week. Eddie, you're the best radio DJ in Dallas, and you have been for the last ten years. Keep doing your thing.

myspace.com/liles

Photographaphy by Melodie McDaniel, Hal Samples & Dean Karr

---