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 pharoahe monch interview
Ego-monster Monch. It’s eight years since Pharoahe Monch breached the British charts with Simon Says. Eight years in which he was sued for that record’s uncleared Godzilla sample, courted by the all-powerful Shady Records, employed as a ghostwriter by Diddy, and released absolutely nothing of his own. Now he’s back – rocking an Elvis impression on new single Body Baby and confounding expectations on new album Desire.  Desire, the follow-up to 1999’s Internal Affairs, is split between an upbeat, positive opening, full of assertive titles like Push and Let’s Go, and a bleak climax charting a disintegrating marriage. “Layered and balanced are my two favourite words,” Pharoahe explains. “’Balance’ because the universe is balanced and I try to keep balance in my life, but it’s difficult because I’m crazy. ‘Layered’ because, you know, I wanna watch a movie and have a conversation about it and say, ‘What do you think when he gave him the empty box and light came from the box? To me that meant he’d found his soul.’ ‘To me that meant there was a flashlight in the box’. I like shit like that, looking at things from another perspective and I can’t help but write like that.” This dichotomy makes him enigmatic to some: the conscious rapper whose best-known record invites women to “rub on their titties”. “I find it hard to cut that out of my life and call my record Power To The Black Man or Power To The Breast Man so it’ll be easier to market.” Those who object to the latter may be reassured to know that in live shows he’s been known to leave a silence where Simon Say’s “titties” line should go, admitting that it does “embarrass me sometimes”.  He does, however, have the effrontery to go up against Public Enemy, covering Welcome To The Terrordome on Desire, and adding his own lyrics. “I’m pretty egotistical when you get down to it,” he laughs. “That’s the truth. Busta told me I’m too humble for my own good. But behind closed doors I’m like, ‘I’ll slay the shit out of this rapper, he couldn’t hold my jockstrap.’ If you like music at all, you’ll get this album, get on the train with your iPod, or be at home and throw a red t-shirt over your lamp and really escape with this record. Geniuses and fans and people who are into numbers, they can pick this record apart for years. As it goes on and people learn more about me they will go back and say, ‘Holy shit!’” Ever the surprise, Pharoahe’s the immodest rapper with much to be immodest about.
Steve Yates
Pharoahe Monch – Desire, released 25 June 07 on Island.
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