Interview :: Dirty Face Angels

This article originally appeared on my old site in 2010…

In most hip hop historians’ minds, mid-to-late 90s New York hip hop may be best remembered for laying the foundation for the independent rap explosion that took place before the turn of the decade. Although Puff, Big, the Wu, Nas, and various other New York rappers were at perhaps their most visible, dominating the rap scene and arguably reaching the apex of their careers, both commercially and critically, New York’s rap scene was thriving in a way that most mainstream hip hoppers failed to notice–in the underground. Various independent labels and distributors began to pop up all over the city giving both new and old artists a new outlet from which to release their music to the masses.

Many credit New York-based labels such as Rawkus (which introduced the world to Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Company Flow), Fat Beats (which housed various members of the D.I.T.C. collective), and Fondle ‘Em (who put on Cage and resurrected the careers of both MF Doom and Kool Keith) as the catalyst for hip hop’s underground. And although those labels were undoubtedly responsible for ushering in generations of new rap fans as well as providing a refreshing alternative to what the mainstream had to offer, by no means did they encompass all that was happening within the NY indie scene. The fact is that with all of these new outlets for upcoming artists, rap consumers were suddenly given a plethora of choices. And although rap fans now had a viable option to the increasingly more commercialized sound of what many of the major labels were offering, the money, marketing, and overall push behind a record was still as important as ever.

So while groups such as Blackstar and Non Phixion were able to see both their groups’ and labels’ hard work come to fruition on a larger scale, other groups may have not had equal success. One such group is Dirty Face Angels, the NY duo of Moe Crazy and Kenny Black that later added a third member to the crew, Shady Ray. Sometime between 1997 and 1998, the group released two 12″‘s “Actin’ Up/ MOElogical” and “It’s Not A Game/ Six Emcees” on Fat Stache Entertainment. Although both records were certifiably dope and in many ways well ahead of their time, but for whatever reason, they didn’t make much of an impact on audiences beyond hardcore hip hop heads.

Fast forward to 2010 and hip hop (like the rest of the world) has made its presence felt on the internet. Devout rap fans have now begun to upload all of their favorite 12″‘s from the 90’s on various blogs and others have posted rarely seen music videos on Youtube. Because of these and many other new outlets, there appears to be a renewed interest in the group. We caught up with the groupג€™s members Moe Crazy, Kenny Black, and Shady Ray as well as the head of their former label, P Black, to get the real story on DFA!

So how was Dirty Face Angels formed?
Kenny: The original members of DFA are Moe Crazy A.K.A Seldom Seen and myself, Kenny Black A.K.A Kenny Black, I can only be me!! Shady Ray A.K.A The Sinista was added later. We formed at work. Moe and I both worked at New York Life Insurance. We both loved hip hop and have a great respect and love for the culture-which we both lived (and are still living) every day. He was recording already and I always wanted to record so we got together and made it happen. He had a deal as a solo artist already but didn’t really like the way the situation was going. So we decided to rhyme together as a group.

So exactly when did Shady Ray join the group and become the fourth member?
P Black: Shady Ray joined the group while we were recording “It’s Not A Game” and “6 Emcees.” Shady Ray was introduced to us by his cousin Rich Nice who was working with Trackmasters, Tone and Poke.
Kenny: During a recording session, Rich Nice, who we were cool with, brought his cousin through, Shady Ray. He told us that he can spit and we trust Rich, so we let him on a song… He’s been rocking with us ever since.
Shady Ray: My cousin Rich Nice brought me to New York to record a song with Kenny Black, Greg Nice and Moe and the sound we came up with was raw, so I was asked to join the group, which was amazing cause that was during the over exaggerated East Coast/ West Coast beef.

How long have you guys been rhyming for?
Moe: Since 1979.
Kenny: I’ve been writing since about 86/87- I had a lot to say. As a group, we’ve been rocking since about 93-94. We complimented each other well. A lot like our teachers, Nice & Smooth.
Shady Ray: I’ve been rhyming for about 15 years.

What part of New York are you guys from?
Kenny: Moe is from Harlem, born and bred. I was born in Harlem but moved to Queens (at the age of 3), which I consider my HOME!!! Shady is from Inglewood, California.

Who were your influences?
Moe: Coming up- There was Jimmy Spicer, Grandmaster Caz. And around the time we were released I’d have to say Wu-Tang Clan. There was a lot of like, Kenny likes to say “guys I that was way better than”- underground dudes that you never heard of. Like a kid from the Bronx named Mitch-Ski, who used to run with Red Alert. Dudes like that.
Kenny: My influences were the Cold Crush Brothers(especially Grand Master Caz) Run-DMC, Big Daddy Kane, Nice and Smooth, M.O.P..
Shady Ray: My influences at the time was Pac, Snoop, Nice & Smooth, and anybody who was dedicated to making good music.

What producers did you work with?
Moe: When I started off, I got to work with a couple of the First Priority producers back in the day because I was running with this dude, Barsha, who was on Virgin when MC Lyte did her Bumrush/Virgin deal, so I got to work with a couple of them. But once I was in Dirty Face, it was Louie Vega, Rich Nice, and Greg Nice. They did pretty much did the majority of the work. And there was a dude from Cali named That Nigga Reg, he did a few joints. Like me and him did a couple joints where I’d come with a couple beats. I did a lot of production where as I would come with the loops or whatever, but I didn’t know how to necessarily use the machines or whatever, so I’d have an engineer and give whatever to him.
Kenny: We definitely had an album worth of quality material. My favorite was this track called, “Hot Right Here,” produced by Roger, who produced the song “Wiggle It”.

Considering the politics of hip hop etc. and how most people get on through already established artists or families, did DFA have any noteworthy affiliations at the time?
Kenny: During that time, we were cool with Nice & Smooth. Moe was cool with the Wu (RZA and Meth) and I was cool with Dres, Legion, Preacher Earl, Phat Doug, Rich Nice and others.
Moe: Yeah, well Nice & Smooth. Greg Nice was our manager. But my first record was a solo record with Chi Ali.

Really?
Moe: Yeah, I worked with a lot of people. Chi Ali, Nice & Smooth, Rich Nice, Barsha, Toney Tone. Got to work with Grandmaster Caz, a lot of big dudes.

How old was Chi Ali when you worked with him?
Moe: When the single came out he was like 13,14.

Was he writing for himself then or did he have other people writing for him?
Moe: Nah, when I was around him nobody was writing nothing for him.

Cause I’ve always heard that he had other dudes writing for him like Dres, Tip, Phife, and all these other guys?
Moe: Nah, I was around them back then. Dres and I was around him and I never see anybody write for Chi.

Back to DFA, basically what would u say did u break up or just discontinue recording?
Kenny: Well, we had an issue that we had to deal with. Moe got blind in one eye and he had to go to the hospital a lot so that kinda stopped recording for a while. We were still writing and everything, but we just couldn’t really record. We usually write together. 80-85% of the work we done, we wrote together- nah mean? It’s rare that we wrote separate. We had the same beat, but we’d just write separate. After that, we started to get upset with the way things were going with the label. Things wasn’t running right.
Moe: There was a period where I was like, you seem like a pretty avid DFA fan, so you know we had some good feedback from critics and we was charting on a lot of stuff, getting a lot radio play and somehow it wasn’t translating into what we thought it should, and it got to a point where its like, do you continue to make music and try to get money or take care of your family and go back to what you were doing music for in the beginning and just do it around your friends? And if youג€™re not getting no money, you might as well just do it around your friends.
Shady Ray: I’ll answer that as best as I can. Things just came apart, bad judgments, money wasn’t spent wisely, typical group shit, but we are all still good friends- like brothers. I went solo and Moe and Kenny quit rhyming. I kept it going! I was the baby of the group so I think I had more fire left.

So you did see a lot of positive reviews at that time…?
Moe: [We charted] CMJ. We was on Sway & Tech, Red Alert. We was in rotation. There’s actually Moe Krazy songs from 17 years ago and [they’re] still in rotation right now on college radio stations. Like we always got good feedback, itג€™s just our pockets wasn’t looking like we thought they should.

I’€™m assuming your talking about Fat Stache (your label). Did you ever think about going to a major?
Kenny: Oh yeah.
Moe: We had an opportunity that we didn’t find out until about later where someone approached Fat Stache about a meeting at Universal. Universal wanted to meet with us. And Fat Stache was the label, nobody thought Fat Stache was our management, Greg Nice was our management. But neither us or Greg found about this until six months later!

Oh, nice. I hadn’t heard that.
Moe: I’m sure you haven’t.
Kenny: You’re getting the whole real story about Dirty Face Angels.
Moe: Only two people got the REAL story and that’s me and Kenny. The reason we was put together was cuz P Black wanted- I had a solo deal with Blunted Records. I had a song out with me, Chi, and Toney Tone. I didn’t like the way that deal was going because it was pretty much the same thing. The only difference was that I was doing more major stuff because of that deal. Now P had asked me to put out a solo record and I told him to give me $300,000 for my project. He couldn’t do it, so I told him to put my people out- like put me and my team out. And even though Dirty Face was me and Kenny, we had about 15 nice dudes under us- like young kids coming up. Like a bunch of dudes that was nice. So I said, “Iight, we’ll rock it out like a compilation album type piece- like different people on different songs and just rock it out from there.”

P Black, how do you recall meeting Moe and Kenny?
P Black: Moe Crazy and I were introduced by a mutual friend, El King. Moe had a deal with an independent label. I forget the name of the label but Mo and I did a track together called “Money And The Jewels” which was supposed to be released on his album. When it was apparent that the label was not going to release Moe’s album, I told him let’s go to the studio and I would put his album out. Shortly after, Moe introduced me to his best friend, Kenny Black. I thought Kenny was cooler than a motherfucker and as it turned out he rapped as well. Moe came up with the idea for him and Kenny to become a group.
So Moe, you were gonna just do your one track for the compilation? Was that “MOElogical?”
Moe: Nah, actually “MOElogical” was a demo. I actually had a deal with Geffen. I had a deal with Wendy Goldstein, who I think is now President of MCA. But she had a deal with me with a situation at Geffen and that song was the song that was gonna sign me. This was a situation where I was gonna sign to Geffen as a solo artist. This is right after GZA and Killah Priest signed. The thing was the whole situation had to go through Wu-Tang. So it was gonna be a situation where I was signed to Wu-Tang Productions and then I would come [out] on Geffen or whatever. But seeing that Killah Priest and GZA signed at the same time, it would’ve been held back for like three years. RZA was saying that it wouldn’t be a good situation- like I could do the situation and get the upfront money and then I’d be in limbo for a couple of years, or I could fall back on the songs and he could take me anywhere.

So back to DFA, did you only put out the two 12″‘s?
Moe: That’s all that came about but I’d say we had like 20-25 songs.
Kenny: Yeah, about 20 songs.
Moe: We were working on an album.
Kenny: I still have it. I still got the music.
P Black: Yeah we [never had] a major release. I had maybe two or three thousand 12 inches pressed so I could send them to DJ’s throughout the nation. I was hoping to create a buzz for DFA.

“Actin Up” is actually the first song I had heard by you guys and ultimately what made me research your group and your entire catalog!
Kenny: “Actin Up” was something we use to say to each other so it was only right. We just wanted to go back and forth with just hip hop lyrics. Something to tell other emcees, “Don’t get us started!!”

So back to Fat Stache, was that a real label?
Moe: It was a real label and it had distribution through RED distribution at one point, I’m not sure. But I feel like if we were in a different situation, it would have been a whole different outcome.

Do you think there just wasn’t enough money behind it or was it about a lack of exposure?
Shady Ray: I believe money wasn’t an issue cause the money was there. I think money was spent on the wrong things. P black followed others’ advice and not his heart or it could be we were just ahead of our time.
P Black: We couldn’t get the necessary exposure because my pockets were not deep enough. Although I spent in the six figures, without the right connections and true knowledge of the intricate mechanics of the music business, I would have had to spend seven figures. I believed we could succeed because we all were rooted and grounded in hip hop and we loved what we were doing.
Moe: There [certainly] wasn’t enough behind it but there was more to it.
Kenny: There wasn’t enough money for us to do what we had to do.
Moe: Like I’m gonna say that everything we accomplished was done in spite of Fat Stache, not like them helping us do it. We did what we did because we did it. Not because of someone else did it. Like any DJs that played our records, we grinded that out. Greg came back from Seattle with a magazine called The Flavor or something, and they had my solo record as the third best hip hop record of the year. I’m talking about ahead of names like Dre and Naughty and shit like that. And I’m like, “Hold up.” Like such and such wanted to do an article on me, I wanted to get in touch with him and gave him my number. I polyed it out with him and I met up with him. So anything we did, we did it. It wasn’t Fast Stache that did it for us. We did it or Greg Nice did it.
Did you guys do a lot of shows?
Moe: Anything that Nice & Smooth did in America, we did. We touched some serious spots. We did Tramps, which is like a legendary hip hop spot. We touched Tramps a couple of times. Everything Greg & Smooth did after their second album, we did.
Kenny: We’ve had plenty of shows. PLENTY!!! Our progression was amazing, in my eyes. We studied our craft and each show proved that. We kept getting better and learned from our mistakes. Plus having one of the greatest performing groups of all time in Nice & Smooth helping us! We were good.
P Black: They did quite a few shows, mostly thanks to Nice & Smooth. They were supposed to perform in Atlanta at a memorial for Tupac but we got separated and we arrived too late.

Do you have any plans of releasing your older music after the response you’ve been getting?
Kenny: Recently, we’ve been thinking about it. A guy from overseas, from Europe somewhere- he wanted some of the music. You know I autographed it whatever, sent it out to him, cause he wanted it for a while now. I have no idea, and this is all of the strength of the video on Youtube.
Moe: And I had a few people get at me when I was on Myspsace when I had a Myspace account, some overseas people. Certain things like trying to get DFA to come out there or whatever. So I mean, if it’s feasible for us to do something, we’ll do it. I can’t see us doing any new music, I could see some of those old songs being released or maybe being updated as far as getting a producer to put some new beats under them, but as far as us doing new music- I don’t see it happening. I don’t know what Shady’s been doing, I believe he’s still working on music, but me and Kenny, we’re just basically taking care of our families. But if music could help us do that, we’ll do that, but we’re not thinking about music right now.
Kenny: Like if we had to do something right now, we could do it.. You know what I’m saying? But like anything you need to practice. You ain’t gonna be able to- like I’m not gonna come out like, “Oh, I’m the next Drake.” Like that would sound ridiculous. You know what I mean- you gotta practice. Like me and Moe did a track a few years back and I was like, “The only thing you saw missing was ‘roar’ like Melle Mel.” But I know if he get on his grind and do a few songs, it’ll be back. Like (before) we’re going in the studio for three hours and we’d have four songs done right there. It’s hip hop and we stay abreast about everything that’s going on, like he said, we just take care of our families. You gotta do it like that. I’m sure he freestyles every once in a while, and I do the same thing- you hear some instrumentals or whatever. It’s something that’ll never leave you- well, not like everybody, but I know him and I know me. That’s how we got together- we talked at work. He talked about the hip hop he knew and I talked about what I knew. I was friends with The Legion at the time- The Legion and Dres. And he had what’s his name?- Tim Dog. And we started talking about the hip hop we liked and everything and it was basically the same. So that’s how the vibe changed. He was doing his solo thing and I was like, “I’ll do my solo thing.” Actually cause he was already on a label, so I’d go with him to the studio and we’d put songs together, do songs for the label and he’d throw me on a song here and there or whatever. And we was like, “Instead of doing it like this, we might as well just do it as a group cause this label is bullshit,” and I was like, “Hey, I got no problem with that.” We were like compatible. He wasn’t talking about the same thing I was talking about, so it wasn’t like you were gonna get one thing on any song. We’re like two different personalities, not trying to be the same.
Moe: Like at one time, I thought as far as a duo, two people, other than Danze and Fame and EPMD, nobody was fucking with us. Cause we were talking different. Like Kenny’s reality wasn’t my reality and Shady’s reality wasn’t Kenny’s reality. Like we was all brought different things in areas. So I thought with us you pretty much got whatever you needed.

I get what you’re saying- like you all had three different perspectives!
Moe: Not that we had three different perspectives, we lived three different lifestyles. Like everything intertwined, but in other ways they don’t. But we all do different things.

Thanks for the interview, fellas.