Zion I on the prize
The life and times
of a Bay Area-via-Atlanta hip-hop duo.
By Vivian Host
ZION I COME from the Bay by way of Atlanta, and
talking to them, you feel that both locations have had a deep influence
on their lives, not the least in the way that they speak. Chatting
over a static-y cell phone from the Ohio countryside while on tour,
MC Zion and producer Amp Live pepper their conversation with a mix
of Southern and Bay Area hip-hop slang. Cap off that with talk of
personal space and energy, and the pair evoke a New Age, almost
California-centric sensibility.
Musically, Zion I bridge a similar divide, straddling the line
between introspective, rather intellectual underground hip-hop and
jiggy mass-market bounce. On their two full-length albums, 2000's
Mind over Matter (Ground Control) and February's Deep
Water Slang 2.0 (Raptivism), Zion I sound off on such topics
as the power of creativity, karma, and the ills of crass materialism,
but still somehow manage to come off as down-to-earth and personal
rather than preachy. Amp's beats run the gamut from hip-hop's
grounded boom-bap to experimental drum 'n' bass, but Deep
Water Slang 2.0 shows the group edging toward a cleaner and
more refined take on party-friendly hip-hop. Currently the pair
are gearing up to release artists Deuce Eclipse and Dust on their
Live Up imprint (a subsidiary of Raptivism), while Amp is working
with rapper Mystic and vocalist Goapele, whose Amp-produced single,
"Got It," has recently entered Bay Area mainstream radio
charts.
Southern roots
Though Zion I are now firmly established as a Bay Area outfit,
the pair's paths have taken them through the West Coast and the
South more than once. Zion (Steve Gaines) grew up in the Bay Area
suburb of Martinez and was heavily influenced by the great teachers
of hip-hop, militant messengers like KRS-One and Public Enemy. Amp
(Anthony Anderson) spent his teen years in San Antonio, Texas, taking
in schoolmates' favorite punk and alt-rock bands like the Sex Pistols
and the Cure, while his cousins from Oklahoma and Virginia introduced
him to Run DMC and LL Cool J. Both started plying their craft in
high school – Zion memorized lyrics and wrote rhymes in his
notebook; Amp produced dance tracks (which he likens to Cameo and
Snap's house-hip-hop crossover track "The Power") –
but neither came into his own until college.
The two linked up freshman year at Atlanta's all-black Morehouse
College. Zion remembers meeting a laid-back Amp early on. "I
always knew he was a funny cat," Zion says with a laugh. "The
first time I saw him was in the dorms at school. Everybody was moving
in, and you know how everybody is kind of quiet and shit –
he was out there in the lobby of the dorm, playing Ping-Pong and
running around. He was hella comfortable already. He was chillin'
the first day, and I was all nervous and stuff."
The two became fast friends, formed various rap groups, including
Metafour, and took in the melting pot of people and hip-hop styles
that surrounded them. "The AUC – the Atlanta University
Center – has four black colleges right there in the same four-block
radius, so there's all kinds of young African Americans from across
the country and the islands," Zion says. "You had a lot
of diversity of flavors and cultures and styles. At the time there
was a lot of heavy East Coast rhyming, like A Tribe Called Quest,
Black Sheep, Native Tongues, Das EFX, Wu-Tang. And also The Chronic
came out around that time, and there was the local Atlanta scene,
which is like booty-shake music, which is the predecessor of crunk.
A lot of dance stuff was going on too." Meanwhile, Amp, a voracious
music listener, was starting to be influenced by electronic music,
forming the background for the proto-drum 'n' bass tracks that would
appear on Mind over Matter.
Feeling the vibe
Despite the opportunities in the South to hone his chops, Zion
soon got sick of Atlanta and its restrictive musical climate. "It
was 1996, and we had been graduated for a year. I was working two
jobs, at a mental hospital and working at this health food store,"
he says. "And I was like, 'Man, this is not tight! I graduated
school, I'm writing rhymes, I'm recording music, no one's hearing
it, I'm working two jobs, I'm not having any fun.' I was like, 'Man,
I gotta get up outta here.' "
Zion moved back to the Bay Area and, with a newfound motivation,
started promoting the fledgling Zion I at local hip-hop shows. "I
had pressed up 150 tapes or something and started going to clubs
with friends and passing them out to people," he says. "In
Atlanta I was handing out the tapes and cats wouldn't even take
'em for free. But in Cali, I'd let people hear it and they'd get
back to me. I'd see them a couple weeks later, and they'd be like,
'I like that song' or 'I like that tape you gave me.' "
Inspired, he sent for Amp, and less than a year later the duo set
up shop in the East Bay. "In the Bay the vibe's thick,"
Zion says. "It's been open to create a nest for us to build
musically. People have love for us here."
Seven years and countless shows later, Zion I have developed a
musical relationship that plays off the contrasts between the hip-hop
foundations they laid down in Atlanta and the style-expanding influence
of their years in the Bay Area, and found a sound that is a happy
medium between the pair's individual personalities.
"It's all collaboration, but basically [Amp] lays a firm foundation
to the beats, and I lay a firm foundation to the concepts and the
lyrics and the hooks," Zion explains, detailing the pair's
working process. "He'll be making a beat, and I'll be like,
'Yo, I don't like that part,' or I'll be like, 'You should add something
or put that there.' Same with the lyrics. He'll be like, 'I don't
like that hook' or 'Try this kind of rhythm.' "
"I think it's a phat balance because we're different but we're
working towards a common goal," Amp concurs. "I generally
like weirder stuff, maybe heavier and darker. I like to deeply produce
stuff, and [Zion] definitely likes way more simple beats, so a lot
of stuff that people hear is definitely edited down versions of
our songs."
Open-minded music
One thing the two 30-year-olds agree on is musical open-mindedness.
They both share a taste for music outside hip-hop, a tendency that
in the last few years has leaned heavily toward rock. While we're
talking, the White Stripes' latest, Elephant, is blasting
from the tour van's speakers.
"People freak out that we listen to so much rock music, especially
in the hip-hop world – everybody's just so pure in what they
listen to," Amp says. "I've been banging the Queens of
the Stone Age for just the last year, hard. I've listened to it
so much I can't listen to it anymore. The year before that it was
System of a Down's Toxicity. That whole album is just phenomenal
to me. With rock and that type of music where it's more live, things
have been more innovative and just a little bit more true. I get
more energized and inspired listening to that type of stuff."
Zion has also been finding lyrical stimulation from classic rock.
"While we're on the road, we listen to a whole bunch of music
because there's nothing else to do," he says. "I listen
to a lot of the guys from the '70s, and before that even, and the
songwriting was just so much more about the journey – it was
like taking a picture of your life. It's kind of emotional, like
you can feel it. Whereas now, lyrics are more like a representation
of your status. It's a trip."
To be fair, Zion has also recently been listening to the latest
50 Cent album, which, despite it's club-banging hip-hop beats, sounds
like a treatise of clichés about rap. "The 50 Cent stuff
is cool, but it just gets old," Zion says and sighs. "Like,
how many cats are you gonna kill? How many times are you going to
threaten me? ... After a while, I want to hear stuff that I can
grow in my life from listening to."
"I'm not really that kind of cat, either," he continues.
"I'm not really the direct type, like 'I wear a hat, and I
wear a bandanna, and a jersey, and that's me.' That's not my style.
I like to see and hear different shit. If anything, I think people
will come to see Zion I as a group that constantly grows as musicians.
That's what I'd like to be known as first and foremost – a
true hip-hop artist. The image and all that – they can keep
that. I'm not looking for your image when I hear you on the mic.
I want to hear what your soul is saying, what you're trying to communicate."
Zion I play with Lyrics Born and Lifesavas, June 11,
8 p.m., Slim's, 333 11th St., S.F. $15-$17. (415) 255-0333
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