North Carolina duo Little Brother’s new album Getback is sort of a riches-to-rags story. It chronicles the group’s departure from Atlantic Records, which came after sales of The Minstrel Show, their confrontational major-label debut, didn’t live up to expectations.
“I came back from New York / Nigga lost his deal,” raps Phonte on Getback’s first track, “Sirens.” “Felt sick to the stomach / Almost lost his meal.” Adds Big Pooh on “Can’t Win For Losing”: “Everybody changed overnight when the numbers came back light.”
Considering that most rap CDs chronicle newfound riches, spinning rims and other indicators of life-affirming success, Getback—released on indie label ABB Records—is one of the most authentic, heartfelt rap CDs in recent memory. On the phone in the midst of his group’s fall tour, Big Pooh blames Atlantic for failing to promote the group, and acknowledges that the situation was eating away at him for some time.
“Nobody will ever fully understand my trials and tribulations,” says the rapper, whose real name is Thomas Jones. “This is more than just music to me, it is my livelihood, and that [was] in somebody else’s hands. They’ll never understand how you’re feeling. They’re sitting in the office, getting paid [regardless]. I’m not.”
Little Brother asked for, and subsequently received, their release from the label, adding that he doesn’t know if Atlantic would have dropped the group regardless. He speculates label bosses were unhappy with The Minstrel Show, which features the group members wearing Uncle Tom “aw-shucks” grins on the cover and deals with themes of exploitation and selling out. “When we told ’em what the name of the record was, they were like, ‘Ahhhh, okay.’ But they showed us how they weren’t feeling it by not supporting it.”
He adds that executives never directly told the group to make their music—which generally forsakes a bass-heavy club sound in favor of down-tempo, introspective beats—more salable. “And if they did it would have been a, ‘Fuck you,’ ” he adds. “Nobody will ever tell me how to make music. You could be Berry Gordy. You could give me some pointers, but if I choose to change, it’s not because you’re making me change. I’ve never had to deal with that, and I don’t plan on dealing with it.”
That said, Pooh admits that The Minstrel Show was a bit ahead of its time.
“[A]t the end of the day, I just don’t think people was ready to hear that message from Little Brother. Because not even six months later, Nas came out with Hip Hop Is Dead, and everybody started talking about how rap was a minstrel show.” He adds: “People probably thought that we should conform, just be happy we was on a major and know our place.”
This year has been largely about exorcising demons and breaking ties with the past for Little Brother, who rose to underground hip-hop acclaim with their 2003 debut, The Listening. In January, they announced that they had parted ways with longtime producer 9th Wonder. The DJ had become increasingly interested in side projects, producing full albums for Murs and Buckshot, as well a track on Jay-Z’s The Black Album and another recent solo CD of his own, The Dream Merchant Vol. 2.
Pooh says the separation with 9th was amicable, although he admits the two don’t speak. “It’s just part of growing up, part of growing older—people taking different paths in life,” he says. “9th is in his early 30s, we’re in our late 20s. We might have started off with some of the same goals, but over time that started to change, and I think we went as far as we could go together as a three-man team. It just came to that point in time where it made better sense businesswise to stop while we were ahead.”
He declines to speculate on 9th’s goals, but says he’s interesting in taking even further strides away from the music industry rat race. “When I started out, I wanted the whole fame thing, all that glitz and glamour,” he says. “But as I started making more and more records—and being in this business more and more—none of that means anything to me anymore. I just want to put out good music and be able to support myself and my family doing that.”
Nonetheless, he insists that Getback is a positive and forward-looking record, focused on moving past animosity and conflict and returning to the craft of making intelligent, dope songs.
“After a while, you start getting distracted by everything, the politics of the business, who is and who isn’t in your group, what label you’re on, how many records you sold,” he concludes. “You get away from why you started making music in the first place.”
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