Born to Nigerian parents, S.A.S. (or Streets All Salute -- changed from Strictly About Stacking shortly after this interview) came to the States in 1998 when Mayhem (the older of the two) received a basketball scholarship. Like many unsigned artists in school, they faced the dilemma of balancing out academics with their aspiring dreams to be in the hip-hop game. They made good grades, but just had a stronger passion for rhyming. As true hip-hop fans, S.A.S. have been down with the art form since The Rocksteady Crew, and are influenced by Slick Rick. Their favourite time in hip-hop was the Biggie "Ready to Die" era. They're also fascinated by the mainstream US hip-hop battles like the Dr. Dre/Easy-E beef. Missing the hip-hop days of old, S.A.S. hopes to bring that sound back and even goes as far as saying that the game is now "basically generic and unoriginal." They been building a buzz lately and it's time to find out S.A.S. is all about... I got a chance to recently talk to them about where they came from and where they are planning to go. The local UK hip-hop scene is similar to our Canadian scene in that local support or label support is scarce and the genre is on the bottom of the food chain when it comes to International recognition. (Think about the status of a top Canadian hip-hop emcee in comparison to one of our top rock acts)... Here is how the interview with S.A.S. went down.

HHC: I have a lot of things to ask you about, but there are still people who are not fully familiar with where SAS originated from so I want to clear that up for all our readers. First of all how old are you guys?
I'm 25 (Mayhem) and Mega is 24.

HHC: You guys grew up in England and then moved over to New York when Mayhem (the older one of you) got a basketball scholarship?
Yeah, New Dorp High School

HHC: Where in England did you live and how did your surrounding influence your lyrics and content?
We were born in Tottenham, North London and lived in Neasden, North West London, for a bit but we've lived in East Finchley, North London, the longest. You see Finchley is considered a middle class area but on the Eastside we lived in housing estates and those housing estates and tower blocks are surrounded by coke sniffing pub go-ers and football hooligans… gave us plenty of things to talk about. Our area was boxed in by 7 different pubs back in the day. Do you know how many fights we got into? When it was closing time, they would regularly say some dumb shit to us cause they were drunk and we were young.

HHC: Did you rap throughout your youth? When did you first decide to pick up a microphone and why?
Marsha Ambrosius from Floetry took me to a studio in '98 to do a feature on her album when she was signed to Warner Bros.

HHC: What are some of the first things you rapped about?
Being fly and getting girls

HHC: What do you rap about now? What is some of the main content you feature in your lyrics?
Our life, trying to make the transition from the roads to being a superstar.

HHC: Ok, so you moved to NY in '98. Where did you guys stay? Did you know anyone out there?
New Dorp, Staten Island, New York by the highschool. One of the players at New Dorp High was from Brixton and he had been there a year already. He's the one that put the idea in my head to move to New York and join his team.

HHC: How did you meet up with Kanye? Then DipSet?
Our boy Shellz had a session with Kanye in May 2002 and he knew we were in NY looking for a deal that summer. We came through and he had already heard our 'Special Delivery' getting spun crazy on Flex. He asked us to spit… 30 minutes later he said "I wanna sign u niggas!" For the rest of that summer he took us to Jay-Z and Fab sessions and he introduced us to Jimmy & Killa as his artists. A month later we returned to England, and he got into the car crash. It kind of got distant after that even though we had contracts from him. By Feb 2003 we bumped into Cam, Jimmy and Juelz outside a studio and it clicked from there.

HHC: Did you feel pressured to change your accents when you came to New York in order to be picked up by a label?
Not at all, I think it was more because of shit like, say I order food… the person taking orders would never understand what the fuck we was saying! So over 3 years we started to pronounce shit different automatically. Plus when we were getting money heavy on them Staten Island blocks we had to be up on slang or niggas out there might of thought we was police. Now we're back to how we was in '98 being back in UK for so long.

HHC: Were there any other offers on the table besides DipSet?
Great World, Violator when Jojo Pelligrino just signed, Kanye's production deal and the bullshit excuse of a contract Cipha Sounds gave us.

HHC: Do you think your path to success is a little easier considering DipSet has already established a fan base?
Yeah, but bare in mind I met them Feb 2003, before Diplomatic Immunity 1 dropped. We picked that team to be down with because they're street, fly, flashy and gangsta minded niggas and we share a lot of the same qualities as them even though we're from another country.

HHC: What did you think of the scene out in NY?
It's real competitive.

HHC: Explain how the scene is like in England…
Everyone doing "black" music in UK is put under the category 'Urban'. That splits into traditional backpack rap, grime, UK R&B and new school rap. We more or less started the new school movement of rappers being that we were advanced coming back from NY in 2001. I remember it was like Jay-Z being put in a category with Mos Def, Talib Kweli and MF Doom.

HHC: Is there a market for artists like you out in UK?
Yeah there is, but the industry goes on like the new school rappers don't exist. We get next to no media coverage. The major labels only fuck with pop and rock on those big levels.

HHC: In a lot of your tracks you shout out the Eurogang and Fedayeen Regime. Tell me about them?
Eurogang is a crew of the best emcees in UK in my eyes. Along with S.A.S you have Haze, Baby Blu, Bigz, Villain and we're still recruiting. Fedayeen is my production company and soon to be a label. It's run by myself and Mega as CEO's, D-Consigliere (on lockdown) as President, Rephan in house producers as Vice President and D's little brother Pork as A&R.

HHC: How does it feel to be signed on a major label out in the States? Does that pressure you to make more music for the audience in the states?
No, we don't focus on one market, even though it's inevitable that we will be bigger in the States due to DipSet's fanatical fan base. I love our supporters because DipSet fans are a different breed.

HHC: Do you think your material can relate to all types of audiences?
More than probably 80% of the game. We been around the world and soaked up a lot of culture.

HHC: Streets all Salute is your warm up album. How has this one been doing? When is the actual album coming out?
It's been going as expected but I want to license it in the US, Canada and Japan. Then I'll be happy. We did 15,000 units of Who Dares Wins mostly on the net. We need to get back to NY to sign that new deal before we get a date for the official release.

HHC: Are you doing any collabos outside of the DipSet Gang for it?
Hell yeah! Wait and see.

HHC: The production on the CD is hot. DipSet is always known for having very different and distinguishable beats… Who are your favourite producers right now, and do you plan to work with them on the new album?
Swiss Beatz, Timbaland, Kanye and Bink are all going to be on our major release.

HHC: Since 1998 what is your most memorable moment?
Our recording process in December 2003 in Manhattan when [Damon Dash] flew us out for the Rocawear Campaign. We booked out Sound on Sound studio and recorded 15 tracks in 4 days. Jimmy and Dame were there everyday and everyone from Juelz, Cam to Swizz Beats, Bink, Heatmakerz, Melissa, Mark Ronson, Rell, Boola and 1,000 A&R's with beats came through to see what the hype was all about.

HHC: On your release Streets all Salute, in the song "Top Of The Globe", you say: "Everybody sayin' what's the deal with the roc/ never was a deal with the roc/ was dealin' them rocs/ we still at the top." I'm a little confused…what is the meaning behind those lines?
There was a lot of speculation in UK that we were signed with Roc-A-Fella Records. Dame told everyone we were when we wasn't but was doing everything other Roc artists were doing.

HHC: I know you have been asked this many times, but I have to hear it from you. There was a beef between you and Rhymefest, What's the deal with that? Where did it all start?
I really don't want to speak about dude no more, we're bigger than that and he doesn't exist to us.

HHC: Do you currently have any "misunderstandings" with anyone in the industry?
None I would even pay attention to or even acknowledge in an interview.

HHC: In one of the Dipset forums there was the following question posted up: "Anyone care to share with me where mega S.A.S got that big ass fuckin' scar on his face?" and another forum member had replied: "They got jumped by 20 niggas in S.I. in 2000 and didn't have a burner on them. Mega got cut from behind and dude threw up on his arm when he seen the blood. It's crazy! Apart from the cut and a stab wound to his back, he didn't have a scuff or bruise. I heard he didn't even know he got cut till May saw the other side of his face." Is that true?
Yep it did in Stapleton Projects… like December 2000. We were getting to much money, linking too many chicks, fucking too many niggas up. It was a set up by niggas we knew… and still these sloppy niggas didn't do us much harm for how many of them there was. Now they are all in jail for executing two undercover agents! Stupid niggas.

HHC: What were some of the struggles you faced while trying to build a buzz up for yourlseves?
Everything underneath the fucking sun… If you're weak hearted, this game is not for you. I could do a whole interview on that question on jus the UK market alone, nevermind about the US.

HHC: Do you plan to return to the states?
Yep, as soon as we sort out our immigration problem…

HHC: What are your views on Canada and the hip-hop out here?
I have very little knowledge of Canadian hip-hop except for Kardinal Offishall. I heard Canada and UK are intertwined because of the patois in our slang.

HHC: How do you guys plan to market yourselves out here?
If it means living there for a few months and liaising with locals in the hood, we'll do it because it's not like we didn't do it before. Promoters and distributors in Canada yell at us, let's get this money.

HHC: Anything else you got popping that you would like to talk about?
Check out the website http://www.sasdiplomats.com and cop Streets All Salute DVD ASAP because that shows a lot of what we've been doing over the past 2 years.

HHC: Any shout outs?
The whole DipSet, Eurogang and Fedayeen, North London. Free D-Consigliere.

Editor's Note: For further information on S.A.S Please check out the following websites:
http://www.sasdiplomats.com
http://www.dipsetmixtapes.com
http://www.u-mad.net

  

Lola Plaku http://www.myspace.com/lola00 http://www.iluvlola.net Lola Plaku is a senior writer/journalist for HipHopCanada.com. She has been writing for the company since early 2005. Lola also work does PR work for several clients, keeping a strong focus on their press material and presentation. In addition to writing for HipHopCanada.com, Lola also writes for Swagg News, and has her own column called Ask Lola, where people write her in for advice on different areas of life and the entertainment industry. Lola is the Toronto Representative for a DVD based out of NY by the name of Epydemik, where she provides content from the industry in Toronto.