GRITS

Hip-hop duo GRITS has come a long way from where they started, originally beginning their careers as dancers for dcTalk. Now, with nine albums under their belt and having left the confines of their longtime label home with Gotee, the band seems poised to enter into a version of musical adulthood with the release of their latest album, Reiterate, and the formation of Revolution Art, their own label.

We recently caught up with Teron “Bonafide” Carter to discuss the inspiration behind the latest project, thoughts on the state of hip-hop within the Christian community, and why the tandem felt now was the right time to launch out on their own.

Soul-Audio: Let’s begin by talking about the new project, Reiterate. What’s the inspiration and meaning behind that title?

Teron “Bonafide” Carter: Oh yeah, definitely. We figured, we had been around for a long time, done a lot of albums. Most people have at least heard of us but they haven’t had the experience of an album or anything like that. And a lot of newcomers are still, after all these years, new people who are like, ‘I’ve never heard of you guys!’ So for us, it was like, let’s do our first record on our self-owned label and let’s call it Reiterate. For us, it’s not a beginning. But for a lot of people it is. So we’ve kind of got to remind them, in a sense, with the consistency of the music. And the music and the message of the music is life! And that’s the approach, the concept behind the title. It’s not that we’re repeating ourselves; we’re just being consistent with what we’ve been doing with the foundation that we’ve established.

SA: I get what you’re saying there but I still think that there’s something different going on in the sound this time around. Granted, it’s still GRITS, but there’s a continued stroke of growth in this album as well. Was that part of the intended consistency?

Teron: Oh, definitely. It definitely was intentional. Because what our concept is is that we never want to keep giving people the same old thing. Because then they stop buying records. When you stop being interesting to people, they stop buying records. And also, for us, we wanted people to see our musical reach because we self-produced the album. It was only three guys; me, my partner, Coffee, and our lifetime producer who produced our demo, Mo Henderson.

Plus, one, we weren’t under the heavy hand of the label going, ‘Well, we want you to work with this guy or that guy.’ And we were like, why not do it on our own the first time out so that we can fail or succeed on our own merit? And so that people can hear, even though there may have been different producers on the record, but the music was still coming from us. And the influence was still coming from us. So that’s part of that consistency that we wanted people to know that, yeah, you’ve been hearing GRITS for a long time with different producers but, what you didn’t know was that we were the ones spearheading the sound and the direction of the music. It wasn’t the producers. And we’re in an industry now that is very producer-driven.

SA: Another element that seemed to exude from this project was a potential for mainstream play. Was that another intentional concept, having moved from Gotee now into Revolution Art, that idea of wanting to have that crossover appeal?

Teron: Mainstream has been our goal from record one. So over the years we’ve learned that it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. And this being the time where we have complete control we wanted to manage how we said what we wanted to say. And we wanted to reach a broader audience, on purpose. You know, call it “pop,” whatever you want to call it, we’re consistent. So, look, Lil’ Wayne is pop now so it doesn’t matter what background you try to hold on close to, if people catch on to you, they’re going to catch on to you. So we were like, well, let’s broaden out the sound and make it a whole world sound because we want our music to be effective to the world.

So in order to do that we have to be able to reach all levels of people and all musical ears and every appetite musically that people have. And we have such a schizophrenic musical appetite; you know, one day we might be listening to Bice and another day we’re bumping to Israel Houghton. You know what I’m saying? So, we wanted to give people the same musical experience that we have and that’s why it is different. You’re right! It is more mainstream because we wanted more people to be able to have the GRITS experience.

SA: That’s very cool. That totally lines up with what the press on Revolution Art seems to be as well, this idea that “art is life.” That idea encompasses all aspects of who you are, your faith, your doubts and fears, loves and hurts. And it seems that to pull that off the key is simply honesty.

Teron: Yeah, the way we look at it is that we’re like the hip-hop Lord of the Rings. If you really sit back and watch the movie and watch it from a perspective of, not just seeing another movie, but when you really listen to it and hear the little messages that they say, the little one-liners and things that are in the different scenes, we want to do that musically. We want to appeal to people where they can clap onto something, even if it’s just one line out of the whole record. But it also draws them to the whole body of work, just like Lord of the Rings has a trilogy, we want to have that same effect where people are like, ‘what’s the next series going to be like?’

SA: It seems to be a move of subtlety. It’s not right in your face but it’s there nonetheless.

Teron: You can’t deny it.

SA: Now, the album is littered with tons of great guest spots, from Pigeon John, tobyMac, and more. How’d Dan Haseltine and Mac Powell get involved with this project?

Teron: Man, to be honest with you, [laughs] it was simply from building a mutual friendship and respect for one another over the years and performing with one another. And all it took was a phone call. And everybody said the same thing: “I’d love to do something with you guys; no problem.” And that meant something to us. It was like, that says a lot. It says that it’s more than the music here because I don’t think these guys would even work with us if they didn’t feel a certain level of integrity, as men and as musicians. So it was as simple as making a phone call and those guys going, “No man, anytime! When you want to do it? When can we do it?” And it worked out for the best.

SA: I totally agree; that’s a great track. And I think that can be said for the whole album as well. I mean, I’m not what you’d call a hip-hop fanatic, I like it in bursts, but something about this album just grabbed me and I really like it…

Teron: But that’s what we wanted to do. Hip-hop hasn’t necessarily had the best image in the past, I’ll say, ten years. Not necessarily ten, but maybe like six or five years. You know, it’s kind of really been under attack a lot. And a lot of it is self-destructive, not because it’s just that bad but that some artists have made some really bad decisions and things like that that have given the whole industry a stigma. So, for us, we were like, we’re going to reach the guy that hates hip-hop; we want that guy! That’s the fan I want; I want the one that says, “I can’t stand hip-hop!” and that’s the attitude we went into it with.

SA: Well, let me ask you about that perception of hip-hop within the Christian community. You guys have been doing this a long time and definitely have a good eye on things. Does the Christian community seem to be more embracing of hip-hop these days or…?

Teron: It has. Here’s the funny thing about that side of the industry; it’s a lot more political than you would think or assumed it to be. Because when you deal with the CBA market, you’re dealing with different denominations, different types of teachings and the way people are taught, and what people are taught. So it’s way more of a challenge. It’s more of a challenge that being an underground group. It’s way more of a challenge. Because you’ve got to be able to kind of fit the mold of different ideals everywhere you go. You may be at one place where two years ago, they didn’t even believe music was allowed in a church building versus now they’re opening up and now they’re even taking a chance on even letting hip-hop come in. So it’s challenging but it’s a good thing because it really helps you become a man, if you will. It really helps you kind of know if this is what you really want to do. [Laughs]

As far as changes, yeah, it’s changed. But it’s more in our approach, let’s put it that way. But the change has been very slow and it’s still changing but there’s a lot of things that still need to change and, you know what, that’s what Revolution Art is here for. Because we’re going to do that. Now we have our body, we don’t have a foot in the door; we’re in the door now so we’re going to rearrange some furniture.

SA: Well, let’s talk about Revolution Art then. Why the move to do your own label now?

Teron: Because it’s time. You know, there comes a time when you go through school, and high school, and it’s time to graduate and start thinking about a career. And for us, it was like graduating from college; now it’s time to build our lives. Because being on Gotee was like having parents take care of you because we tell them what we need, what we want, and they write the check. Yeah, we had to do the work, we might have had to take the trash out and cut the grass and stuff but now, we’ve got to pay the mortgage.

So now, it’s like, let’s move into this area where we know how to take care of ourselves versus depending on someone else to do it. Because if we want to be at this for a long time, we have to know these elements of doing this. If you want to have a good life, if you want to be as successful as your parents were, and go beyond that, you better learn a lot about what was going on in that house before you step out our you’re going to be probably homeless on the street or a terrible roommate for life.

SA: Was there also something of the challenge of doing it involved as well? You guys have been at this a while; did you need a new challenge to keep things fresh?

Teron: Oh, yeah! It’s definitely the old championship boxer syndrome: “I’ve still got it. I want to fight again. If I just train…” You get that. Part of it is that. You know, let’s get out here and continue to prove ourselves, in a sense. So that does have a big stake in it as far as that we want to get back out there and prove that we can do it again and we’re really on our own, without anybody’s, for a lack of words, help to push us out there. No, we can get out there and do it on our own!

SA: Well, let me give you a chance to get the label some press. Would you like to talk up some of the artists you guys are working with now?

Teron: Definitely, man! In listening to the record, you’ll notice a certain female vocalist on there, she’s on a majority of the songs; her name’s Jade and she’s our first artist that we’re going to put out in the spring. She’s a young lady, nineteen, and she has a very mature writing skill because she’s able to speak to young ladies and older ladies in a way that only they can understand. So, for us, that was important.

Every artist that we work with, we want them to be career artists. We wanted to make little bricks, out of whatever genre that artist is, we want you to have a foundation and an establishment and a brand, and not just have a couple of good records. And even the concept with the label is that we’re not going to sign a whole bunch of artists; we’re only going to sign a handful of artists and run with those artists until we establish those brands. And when it’s time to expand, if we’ve done it correctly, then what we will be signing is Jade’s artist that she’s been schooling while she’s been getting schooled. That’s kind of the concept. And that’s the long-term goal and vision of it.

SA: Is that family-style roster something that you guys learned living in Gotee’s house, so to speak?

Teron: Yes, it was. We learned that from Gotee. Because if you notice their most successful artists were artists that they definitely built, helped to build those brands and those artists are still going, even without Gotee. Like your Relient K’s, bands like that. Even SonicFlood and bands like that who decided to keep going in life after Gotee, they’re still out there and they have established brands that people are still looking for and checking for. And we took that and said, that was a great lesson, thanks, Dad! We’re going to do that when we go out into this world and do what we’re going to do.

SA: So are you guys taking this thing on tour or…?

Teron: Right now, we kind of keep a consistent travel schedule. So we’re doing that but we’re working on touring in the spring, more heavily in the spring, and even in the fall. On the business side, we look at the fall as we’re building up to a more heavy tour in the spring. So we’ll be doing some small tours in the fall and then in the spring we’ll look forward to doing something on a larger scale. And by then, the record will have been out a little bit, people will have been catching on to it, and I think people will be ready for a tour on a major level…

• www.grits7.com
• www.myspace.com/officialgrits

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