They thought they were “gonna be a flash in the pan in 1990” and almost 15 years after the sophomore X-Clan album it’s time for Return To Mecca to hit the shelves. X-Clan’s front man Brother J and Hoodstars.net Magazine caught up to discuss the new album & its first single Weapon X, how the music industry has changed in the last 15 years and Brother J also responded to quotes that we gave him .... .... ....

As the front man of X-Clan, Brother J has been promoting the record Return To Mecca for about half a year now. The promotional activities around the first X-Clan album in almost 15 years are going “very well. People feel a lot of good energy there, so we hope to support the system. We’re off tour now. We’re doing the cd release parties in the United States over in New York and in Los Angeles. We start off on the 27th of January and we’re going throughout the entire month of February. The album release is on the 30th of January.”

The first single of Return From Mecca is a song that the early X-Clan listeners were familiar with when they first heard the song. “Weapon X was a remix of a song I did called Xodus from the second X-Clan album. It made the album. It stood strong throughout the whole project. The radio was feeling pretty strong about it, so we hope it carries it on to the album.”

Last summer Brother J had been touring with Jurassic 5. On the album Jurassic 5 will make its appearance, but in the last couple of months a few were added as well. “After the Jurassic 5 Tour we did last summer we did a record with Damian Marley. I just finished a record with Tech N9ne. It’s a bonus track on the album actually. I hope people enjoy it.”

Releasing a record back in the day is different to what it is like in the year 2007. “Hip hop has grown tremendously just in awareness right now. You got the internet. You have listeners in so many different areas to where you can really be an independent artist and it doesn’t matter what region of the world you’re in. If you’re in a place that never had hip hop record sales, the internet can bring you 200 sales out of Germany or Jamaica or whatever. It is doing the world to everybody. It’s a different stage for music. That can be good and bad too, but it is what it is.”

We gave Brother J a bunch of quotes that he could respond to. Read and learn from not only the quotes, but also from Brother J...

How to make a million dollars: First, get a million dollars. (Steve Martin)

“I don’t agree with the quote. There’s so many different ways to hustle to get that kind of paper. If it’s something about how you earn to make a million dollars then I can understand, but otherwise it doesn’t drop out of the sky. It’s kind of the illusion that these kids from America have. It just drops out of the sky on them. You gotta earn that. Everything you get is you earn. If you didn’t earn that million, it ain’t yours.”

George Bush doesn’t care about black people. (Kanye West)

“I don’t care to comment on George Bush. I’m a freedom fighter against the system. I don’t like pointing out people. If he likes black people or not, it doesn’t matter to me. He just has to do his job as a president. I don’t necessarily agree with the whole way how he said it. I think better things could have been said at that moment and one is obvious in some cases.”

A day before this interview took place, which was on January 12th, George Bush announced that the U.S. will send another 20,000 troops to Iraq. Being on the George Bush subject, does Brother J agree with this decision?

“I don’t agree with any of that. There’s so many other wars and there’s so many things that we can’t handle in the United States. You don’t need to dip into anybody else’s country. We try to create leadership in other countries and our leadership is painted here. We need to work on here, in America and mind our business for a little bit. So I don’t know what the deal is or what the real problem is. The media never presents the truth to us on the regular, so I don’t know what the war is really about. Nobody does at this point. We just losing more good people, good hearted people and if they’re soldiers enough to fight for that cause then they have to have a good heart somewhere.”

You must believe in free will; there is no choice. (Isaac Bashevis, Singer)

“It sounds like a people statement. There is no choice but to understand that men will think on their own. I agree with that.“

I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work. (Thomas Edison)

“They say ‘try, try, try again’. You only fail when you can’t do anymore. When you become a quitter, that’s when you fail. If you continue to experiment in life and to be a risk taker, that’s not failing. That’s learning. That’s wisdom. That’s how you acquire wisdom. My thing is to be a quitter [and] to stop trying, that’s failure. If you let go of your confidence, you’ve let go. That’s what I’m saying to the quote.”

Half the work that is done in this world is to make things appear what they are not. (Elias Root Beadle)

“I guess that’s how The Matrix was when the guy said ‘the illusion of eating steak and you’re not eating steak’. Material things are not the most important. The light of life is the most important. Material things don’t matter. Not the things that we work for physically and materially, but how we position ourselves spiritually in life.”

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. (Groucho Marx)

“I don’t agree with that. How can you fake fair dealing? Either you do it or you don’t. How can you fake honesty? You either tell the truth or you don’t.”

But is that really true though? History has proven that many politicians or even presidents can’t be completely not honest.

“The job doesn’t require honesty. Being the president doesn’t say you have to be honest. Where does it say that? Is there a law in the constitution that you have to be honest? It says be the president, be the commander in chief. I can’t see how you can fake honesty and fairness. If you’re dealing fair then it’s dealt fairly. You can’t fake that. If you’re dealing with honesty, either you tell the truth or you don’t. there is no in between.”

Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair. (George Burns)

“Well, you do learn the most from taxicab drivers and barbers. They do have all the information, so I can agree with that a little bit.”

It's kind of fun to do the impossible. (Walt Disney)

“Yes, indeed. It’s exciting to try things that people say can’t be done. People didn’t believe in X-Clan. I can agree with that quote. We thought we were gonna be a flash in the pan in 1990 and sixteen years later as time as pioneers of our own style of music, so I can really see that.”

Every really new idea looks crazy at first. (Alfred North Whitehead)

“Oh yeah, man, like we just said. A new concept looks crazy and then when it blows up it’s all good. Like wow, it looks really strange, but it did what it was supposed to do. Something new always looks strange. Like our conscious music as X-Clan looks really new and crazy to people that are used to raunchy lyrics and talk about material things, so we look real new right now and it’s really strange, so I agree with that.”

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. (Jules de Gaultier)

“Yes, I agree with that. Imagination is basically a reflection of hope. That there’s something better than what holds us down and oppresses us. Imagination of the poor [is to be] away from all of the stress and strain.”

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. (Chinese proverb)

“Wisdom to me is the experience of life. You can’t record what you’ve been through unless you remember it. what’s the use to travel around the world, if you don’t remember where you’ve been. So if you call things by their right names then you have taken notes on your travel and that is wisdom acquired. That’s the only thing I can get from that. I hope that I’m reading it right.”

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve. (Dr. Napoleon Hill)

“Exactly. Put your mind to it, all things can be done. Like you said about impossibility, it should be something that you’re trying all the time. Everything that’s impossible, put your mind to it, you can accomplish it.”

Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall. (Larry Wilde)

“I agree with that. It doesn’t take a lot. Sometimes just reaching out to give is enough. It doesn’t take you to be overboard and Rockefeller to make an impression that you care about someone and care about their happiness.”

I want to know God's thoughts... the rest are details. (Albert Einstein)

“Since Einstein is a thinker, to know God’s thoughts is to be supreme intelligence. That’s all I can see from that. I don’t know about the details part, but I can see what he’s talking about on the other side of it.”

A classic is a book which people praise and don't read. (Mark Twain)

“Yeah, I agree with that. Most classics are basically passed on by word of mouth, more so than people picking it up and reading it for themselves.”

Like protons and neutrons, life is about positives and negatives, little pluses and minuses. If you cover up the minuses then the pluses don't mean shit. (TQ)

“Exactly. How can you have the darkness if there’s no light? There has to be an opposite in order to acknowledge the other. Life is full of ups and downs. If there was no ups, there would be no definition for a down.”

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. (Mark Twain)

“What I would get out of that is, I guess, the hardest thing in life is to see someone doing better than you. I hope I’m reading it right.”

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. (Plato)

“Wise men are always ready to build and give wisdom and equality. Fools just like to talk to hear themselves.”

What is Brother J though? A wise man or a fool?

”Haha, maybe a little bit of both!”

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INTERVIEW BY : Zuka

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