MURS: the politics of rapping

For an icon of the hip-hop underground, it’s a risky move: put out your seventh album on a major label (Warner Bros. Records) and give it the mock-ambitious title “MURS for President.” But MURS (which stands for “Making Underground Raw Shit”) has never followed the obvious route to success.

The man born Nick Carter (who is no Backstreet Boy) got his start in Los Angeles, home of Jurassic 5 and the Black Eyed Peas. But he’s looked further afield for influences and collaborators, teaming up with producers like North Carolina’s 9th Wonder and rappers like Midwest hero Slug (with whom MURS recorded two hilarious albums under the name Felt). Now, he’s getting seen on MTV as an “Artist of the Week,” riding a Segway around L.A., flanked by security protecting him from the “whack rappers that want to assassinate” him.

On the eve of the release of “MURS for President,” Metromix caught up with the outspoken rapper to talk about his recent trip to Denver for the Democratic National Convention, and his campaign platform for becoming “president of hip-hop.”  

What was it like for you to attend the DNC?
It was amazing…I hate to make it racial, but I’ve never seen that many white people in a line to see a black person do anything other than sing or play basketball. And just to see black people and white people crying and waving American flags—our generation takes race relations for granted, but 50 years ago that wouldn’t have happened. There’s a lot of work to be done on race relations, but we are making amazing strides. There are white men on the streets paying obscene amounts of money for a T-shirt with a black person on it that doesn’t play basketball, [who] respect him for his intellectual qualities. That’s what’s phenomenal to me.

Your album is “MURS for President,” but did that experience make you revise your thought of wanting to run the country? Is it too much pressure?
I want to be president of hip-hop. It was a name that we came up with before I knew Barack was running, like three or four years ago. I thought, if I’m going to play the major label politics game, I’m going to be president. I’m going to use the system to destroy the self-image of the young black man and the young hip-hop kid in America. That’s my mission, to go out and speak in complete sentences and be heard and say something positive in the name of hip-hop and in the name of young black men.

What’s that positive message going to be?
People think of us a certain way because there are idiots who make records because they claim they have no other way to feed their children, and it ends up making us all look bad. But there’s also room for what my friend likes to call the “onlys” and the “others”—like if you’re at a jazz café and you’re the only black person in the room, or you go to a book signing and you’re the only black person in the room. We need to have a voice too, and I’m here to be that voice.

That’s a significant void you're talking about filling, because there are a lot of onlys and others out there.
I think people feel like that’s represented by Common and Mos Def and Talib Kweli, who I all respect; Common does occasionally, but none of them really come out and say things like, “Selling crack is wrong, and these niggas who talk about it are wrong and it’s inappropriate. Pull up your pants and say something of merit, because these are dire times and [with] everything that’s going on, the best your dumb ass can say is to talk about flipping birds [selling cocaine]?” No one is criticizing these dudes and I think it’s time to stop criticizing Bill Cosby and start saying I’m your age and he’s right. And if you have a problem with it, so be it, but I’m going to say something different to these children and you can’t stop me.

You like to address serious topics, but you also do more light-hearted stuff like Felt. Why is that such a rare balance for people to be both serious and entertaining?
What’s the point of being a good human if you can’t enjoy it? The reason why I want everyone to get along so that they can all freak and dance and play. But, to me, as long as there is violence and an element of negativity in our music and in our culture, we’re never going to be able to enjoy ourselves.

Well, I wish you luck in your bid to be president of hip-hop.
Oh, thank you.

It’s a tough job; if elected, you’ve got a lot of work to do!
There’s a lot of work to do. Expect some progress and expect some sexual scandal. I’m not perfect…but once elected, I’ll definitely have a lot of fun and say a lot more of the right things.