Novem Life, Yo!

The Revenge of Pedro Navaja$—formerly known as PNS and as one-third of Chicago’s legendary Molemen hip-hop production team—chatted with Novem contributor Chris Danzig this week about his new record, his four-year DJ hibernation and the life of an artist. Oh, and he also put together a special hip-hop mix tape that you can download right here.

Your new record with Zavala, Canciones Modernas just dropped. How did the idea for that come about?

I was judging a scribble jam beat battle one year, and he won Chicago. I had never seen him before but I knew a lot of his people. When we were in Cincinnati, I finally got to talk to him. He was like, “One of your beat CDs really inspired me.” I was like, “That’s dope.” So we’re just there scribble jamming and he’s like, “Man, I’d like to work with you. “ And I was like, “Man, me too.” I get that a lot but nothing ever pans out.

Then maybe a year and half later, he hits me up again, “Are you down? It would be dope.” I’m all for people doing stuff here in the city. I think it helps the city as a whole. So I met some of his boys, and in the end, there’s a 12-inch out. I’m supportive of anybody who says they’re going to do something, and then it actually comes out.

It’s vinyl only, right?

We were going to do a 7-inch but it wound up as a 12-inch with a cover. I know how expensive it is, and how some people think it would not make sense. You know with the collapse of the music industry it’s all doom and gloom, but it’s kind of a punk rock attitude of, “We’re going to do it regardless.” If anybody’s going to steal the music anyway, they’re going to have to rip it off the vinyl and that’s a lot of work.

Sales have gone up 2 or 3 percent every year in vinyl. Even though everything’s down, it cleans out the mess. If you do press vinyl it can’t be garbage, because then you have no chance of selling it.

Are you working on anything else these days?

I had a beat CD I did back in 99 or 2000, and everybody likes it. During that era, I had saved a lot of beats that I was going to give to rappers but that never panned out. So I still have a lot of my better beats from that era that never came out. I’m going to revisit that era and start chronologically releasing my beats. Because I changed my name as of the New Year. That’s part of a story.

That’s right, you’re now the Revenge of Pedro Navaja$.

Yeah, it’s a gangster movie, and Pedro Navajas is a gangster. Reubén Blades did a song about that, and I sampled it on the Bibliotechque CD. My grandfather’s name was Pedro, and I’m just carrying his legacy.

It’s also a protest, and it’s all types of things. I stopped DJing for four years, and just recently I started doing a bunch of things. Things are just falling into place. It’s not the return of Pedro, it’s the revenge. I’m not even about revenge, but it’s part of the gangster aspect of “I’m hitting back.”

I have it all planned out, I just don’t like to talk a lot about the stuff [that’s not finished yet.]. I like for it to come out. I could say, “Well, it’s going to be a movie!” and then I never do the movie, and then people are always asking about it.

Now as Pedro, it’s like: What’s next? What am I going to do? I don’t want to call it a revolution, because that’s too much, but it is a change and it is to stir things up.

What were you doing the four years you weren’t DJing?

During those four years, I always thought, “If I come back, I’ll be prepared.” It was like a hibernation.

I was a club DJ. I had Saturday night at a big club, Zentra.

But I started off at Lava Lounge, which was my favorite ever. And before I did clubs, I did everything through the graffiti circuit and loft parties. And the stuff that got me into the clubs was because I was already doing my thing in the streets.

Eventually I was at the big club that paid big, but I wasn’t doing my thing that got me there. And I always tell this story, one day this girl came up to me and asked for Madonna, and I didn’t have it at the time. I have nothing against Madonna. I grew up on Madonna. I wasn’t playing Madonna, I was playing hip-hop, whatever. And she was like, “You suck.”

But I was like, “You know what? You’re right, I suck in your world. You don’t know who I am. I’m just a club jock. I’m here killing this night every week, yet nobody knows who I am. If I played my own music it would stop the party.”

That was my epiphany: I left the underground, which is what the Molemen is. I always use Star Wars references, and I went over to the dark side. And it was at the point where some $30 DJ could take my spot because he could play the same Top 40 cuts that I was playing. How could I battle that?

During those four years, it was like going back to school. And now I’m hip-hop, and I always will be, but it doesn’t control my life. I sacrificed a lot—all the Molemen did. Compared to people who we would call civilians that have families and just do normal things. I was just trying to come back home, and now it’s good. It’s the best of both worlds.

Do you have a family?

Nah, that’s what I’m talking about the sacrifices. When I was younger, I wanted a kid, but then I thought about how that would change me. I had the liberty of leaving any time, going anywhere. Just recently, our immediate families have become part of the equation. Before, it was just one big smokefest. But family grounds you. It makes everything more important.

How has the music changed since the ‘90s and the Chicago Rocks days?

Technologically wise. I’m very slow at adopting technology. Being from the ghetto that’s how I look at hip-hop. It was by any means necessary. Fidelity wasn’t an issue. When I make beats, I think of the era when I was living at home, and I really wanted to make beats, but I didn’t have any money. I started working a factory job to get my drum machine.

But now I do stuff on the computer, but it’s part 2 of the same style I did back then. I can do all this magical stuff now. I have this forward mentality toward to music. But I understand where they say Led Zeppelin was better way back [then] and now it sucks. But they were starving back then, and now they’re rich. Chicago Rocks came out of necessity, because nobody was representing our city, and we had songs that could counter our peers in New York.

And now my taste in music probably goes against what people who listen to my music like. I like gangster rap, but as I’m older I’m also a responsible person. I get caught in this, “Man, I’m supporting something that’s killing the community, per se.” But then you can talk about movies, and if you like violent movies, which I do. I like Yakuza movies too. It’s all a progression.

If you really are a fan of my stuff, I want people to know that I’m aware. This is a road I’ve never strayed from. It may sound weird, but it’s still coming from the same place.

How did you first get involved in DJing?

Grandmaster Flash. If it weren’t for him, I would have been a rapper. I bought his record at Osco. And they had song this song called “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel.” Hearing that song where he’s cutting like eight different songs. I was like, “Man, I know these songs, but what the hell’s he doing.” That made me go buy records and start scratching. I was 9, and I got my first pair of turntables I think around 13. And ever since then, my career as a doctor was over.

That’s why I find it funny with Kanye’s The College Dropout. That was all of us. Why am I going to college just to show my family that I’m successful? I can’t explain to this day what I do to my mother. I always felt from other family members, let’s say they wanted to be a writer, but now they work in a bank. And they’re not happy. Me, I’m an artist. I can’t change that. Everything I do is artistic, even paying my bills. It’s this stream that comes through, you gotta do it.

Any new Molemen Records artists people should look out for?

There’s going to be a new Vakill album for 2010. He’s the new flagship emcee. Once we do that, we have a lot of lost songs that never made it, so we want to release all our other stuff. After the end of the year, whatever comes back money-wise, we can invest again, whether it be a Molemen album—as in the producers—or something else. It would take money if it would be something next level. But that’s what we’re doing: “The Greatest Not-Hits.”

Can you tell me a little about your Novem mix?

It’s a story. If you look at the track listing. Even in my song titles and descriptions, I always try to write a story. So my Novem mix, it’s about money. It’s about the community bank. At the intro, it’s Pedro and he’s getting initiated into the streets. Later on, you hear Scarface. You go through all the songs, and it all has something to do with money. There’s one thing where Andre 3000 says something about wealth. My whole point was to understand money, and then we can rise above it.

Epilogue:
If you havent noticed yet, Mr. PNS has graced us with a nice little set compiled into a mix for your enjoyment.

Click on the image below to download: