Settin’ fires

Hip-hop has long been in need of a cosmetic makeover — the type of surgery an aging Hollywood starlet needs to exterminate the wrinkles that have crept in like roaches in a run-down apartment. The genre has been scarred by a glut of rappers who concentrate more on their worldly possessions and thuggish pondering than on elevating the community, celebrating the culture, and having a little lighthearted fun.

Since 1993, The Arsonists have been representing the sort of change hip-hop sorely requires. They inject humor into their imaginative lyrics, which are delivered at rapid-fire speed over organic-sounding beats that all of the members take turns concocting. “We do this because we love it, and our lyrics come from the heart,” says Q-Unique, the group’s de facto leader, during a recent phone interview from the ensemble’s home base in New York.

The members of The Arsonists all have deep hip-hop roots. Q-Unique began his career as an MC and breakdancer in the Rock Steady Crew in 1989. He signed a deal as a solo artist with Celluloid Records in 1990 and landed a gig spittin’ darts for the C&C Music Factory. Freestyle won a Zulu Nation award for MCing, and D-Story was partners with Tony Touch, the guru of mix tapes.

The five members (the group also includes Swel Boogie and Jise One) crossed paths and bumped heads seven years ago while partaking in New York’s thriving hip-hop culture as part of the Brooklyn Bushwick Bomb Squad. What started out 13 strong quickly grew to an army of 50 before fading to five.

“As time went on and we started putting out singles and things got more serious, the crew just started to diminish, I guess because of the level of responsibility and the demand of being an MC,” says Q-Unique. “Certain cats wasn’t ready for that type of lifestyle.”

The underground scene, which is known for producing artists who fiercely defend their independent ideals, is where The Arsonists have thrived. “A lot of people tend to twist the meaning of underground,” says Q-Unique. “When I think of underground, I think of the moments I had on the corners and streets of the Bronx and Brooklyn, where kids just rhyme because they want to pass the time. They are not trying to get some big lucrative record deal and not trying to impress people with a glossy video.

“We dismiss the label of both underground and commercial. That whole situation has gotten out of hand,” says Q-Unique. “You have people hating other people just because they listen to Puffy, or another person will look at you like you are dirty because you listen to Company Flow or The Arsonists. That is ridiculous to look down on a person just because of their musical tastes.”

Hip-hop has been divided by the two labels since its genesis. Battling music categorization is as futile as the government’s war on drugs. Realizing this, The Arsonists’ main focus is their fundamental obligation to accurately represent the four major elements of the hip-hop culture: rapping, DJing, graffiti, and b-boyin’. This undying dedication to the foundation of hip-hop has earned the group the not-so-flattering distinction of being labeled as “old-school,” yet they continue to represent.

“When we first came out, we tried to show the world how to embrace the whole culture, and it blew up in our face because the majority of the people can’t grasp that concept,” says Q-Unique. “They don’t understand. You are automatically pigeonholed as some old-school missionaries or hip-hop purists if you do graffiti, if you are into breaking, if you are shouting all of these things on stage.”

Heads who screamed the term “old-school” for years in honor of hip-hop originators and legends have abandoned the term. Recently the old-school tag has developed a negative connotation, particularly with the dot-com generation. “It’s because of the word ‘old.’ When you use the word old, it means that it is old, weak, you throw it away,” says Q-Unique. “People don’t want old, they want new. They want what’s happening now. I tend to get nervous when I hear that word. I believe that ‘true school’ is the way to describe what has been.”

There is nothing dated about The Arsonists’ futuristic flows. Just listen to 1999’s As the World Burns, which includes the innovative freestyle session on “Lunchroom Take-Out” and the sinister-sounding “Blaze,” where the lyricists play with words as if they’re kids at recess. Despite the group’s poetic ability to jettison from the norm, the blessings of chart success have not been showered on The Arsonists. Perhaps the group could have broken through to the mainstream had its members emphasized their Latin flavor (four Puerto Ricans and one Panamanian, who are all proud of their heritage, comprise The Arsonists), but instead, the crew is quick to disassociate itself from the media-created Latin explosion that propelled the careers of singers Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, and rapper Big Pun last year.

“We are not trying to be part of a gimmick,” says Q-Unique. “We are not going to use our culture and our people to milk that for sales. I’m not special because I’m Puerto Rican and I rap; I’m special because I’m an MC and I have fucking lyrics.”

What also makes Q-Unique and The Arsonists special in a scene in which the top-selling acts lustily embrace materialism is the fact that these blue-collar MCs believe in earning respect the old-fashioned way — by touring. Lusting after platinum plaques, mansions, and limousine rides ain’t their style. Neither is courting massive regional sales instead of rocking the mic on stages across the globe.

The group’s scorching stage show has received rave reviews. The energetic performances have been compared to a hip-hop circus or The Harlem Globetrotters. “The number-one thing that has helped The Arsonists is our show. The reputation of our show has carried us,” says Q-Unique. “People who haven’t even listened to our album, and people who don’t even know we have an album, say, ‘Yo, your show is off the wall.'”

But the principal challenge has been staying sharp lyrically, says Q-Unique, who focuses on his words like a true cipher (Be on some incredible breathtaking shit/Like a sunset scenery/I’m like the bottom of the eye chart/’Cause rappers ain’t seein’ me, Q-Unique pops on “Shaboing”).

“So many MCs dummy their shit up,” says Q-Unique. “Even Jay-Z admitted in The Source that he don’t even rhyme nowhere close to the way that he rhymed on that first album (Reasonable Doubt, released in 1996). People dummy their shit up because the masses want to be sat down and spoon-fed. They won’t take the time out to carefully listen and read between the lines.”

A high-tech decoder is a must-have to decipher The Arsonists’ cleverly laced release, which pays homage to hip-hop’s glorious past. Yes, they have old-school flavor. Q-Unique believes that a lot of people are rapping to purely make money, a new-school phenomenon.

“The biggest disappointing thing about hip-hop is that now everybody thinks they can rhyme in order to get a life together,” says Q-Unique. “If you can’t do good in school, if you ain’t got nothing going on, become a rapper and all your worries will be washed away — (that’s) not the answer to life. Everybody is becoming rappers to become entrepreneurs.”

The Arsonists’ creed is to burn heads for the love of hip-hop. Even in today’s materialistic society, some things are still done for love. Q-Unique expressed his dedication by teaching high school students about the hip-hop culture in the early ’90s in Brooklyn and Harlem. “I taught them the history all the way from Kool Herc to the present,” he says. What better way to bridge the gap between the young cats and old heads than to ignite a new flame?

The Arsonists

with Mac Lethal, DJ Jest, Sevenfold Symphony, and DVS Mindz

Wednesday, April 26 at The Bottleneck