Nestled in the back cut of a working class neighborhood, I met up with members of Los Angeles based hiphop band, Of Mexican Descent, bright and early recently. Although they informed me upon arrival that there had just been a death in the family and their spirits were dampened, they insisted that the interview go on as scheduled. Comfortably positioned on their living room couch watching music videos on cable, 2Mex & Xololanxinco, the two mc’s who put the “M” in OMD, commenced to kick knowledge into the tiny lens of my camcorder, which would later become the interview laid out before you below. Just like past encounters with the group on the LA underground scene, the duo remained humble and inviting during the hour or so I was lacing them with question that I thought you’d wanna hear answers to…

Shux: Without using the word “hip hop”, describe your music.

Xolo: Basically, it’s a gathering of focused story telling with a jazzy foundation and poetry… The music that influenced and inspired us, born in through us & refurbished as who we are.  2-Mexs father is a musician and writer, my mom was a musician and writer, and that’s our main pinpoint or foundation in our music, the inspiration from our parents. So I guess if we were to sum it down into 1 thing, it would be our poetical history.

Shux: Would you say there’s a message in your music?

Xolo: The message we have in our music is more an experience that will manifest out of our life, into our poetry and we try to express our pride for ourselves and our people whether we go with our future for our youth and community… we hit things around us that oppress us such as police brutality and the government, this whole matrix, the way they label us on tv and we just try to be that one voice that gets the opportunity to say something back when they degrades us.

Shux: Tell me 2 reasons why OMD is different than most other groups.

Xolo:  Well, the most important reason is that we’re bilingual and we’re raised by hip hop. We know the foundation of hip hop. We’re not just a bilingual group trying to make a latin sound of  what’s already out there. We’re actually trying to add to hip hop with something new. Poetry nd latin jazzy bolero type ranchera swings and rhythms that normally haven’t manifested themselves into hip hop. Some of the stuff we do is is recongnized by our people for I guess the history and culture behind the music. The way we blend it in and twist it around but at the same time it gives them a chance to appreciate true and real hip hop. That would be the difference in the foundation we bring to the table.

2Mex: Basically, we respect hip hop. We’re 28 yrs old, so we’re lucky enough to grow up during a time when hip hop was really cracking. We were blessed to experience things like KDAY, we had the chance to absorb it for a whole decade. Weve appreciated hip hop… all of it, East Coast and West Coast, hippie, the stupit shit… everything. We just know that we really love hip hop and we really respect hip hop. We studiedit when we were small. Not only have we been recording and doing shows for 10  yrs but you can almost add another 10 in just studying and appreciating it. We’re  definitely hip hop conniseurs and respect it as a complete culture. The way kids are surperfans about even maybe our stuff or anything that’s out, that’s how I was. I’m definitely the type of person that would probably go by a cassette single before I’d put $2 of gas in my car.

Shux: How did you find your start in hiphop?

  Xolo: I would say I started off rhyming because I lived across the street from a park and they used to have a dj come out every weekend when they had the baseball games or the basketball games, and that would escalate into rhymers coming out with the
dj and going at it. I was out there like a kid, a baby. I couldn’t put anything together but as soon as words started making sense to me, that’s the first thing I tired to do, put a song together. I used to walk around with my friends when we had the turntable connected to the whole stereo. We couldn’t do anything with the turntable but we used to walk around trying to scratch any album. We didn’t know about instrumental albums so we just hit on stuff and rapped. From there it just took off, that made me do graffiti
and breakdance, but rhyming was my base.

2Mex: On my street, my older god-brother and what turned out to be our first dj (Gonzo),  were all 5 years older than me & they bought records and dj’d parties and I got into it by seeing him spinning and
just loving hip hop on KDAY. I kinds wanted to be a dj but couldn’t afford turntables. I was fascinated by the records and occasionally when I was younger I would get a chance to go with him to parties and carry his records and help him plug in.


I was like 12 or 13 you know. That’s kinda how it started, really just loving hi[ hop and different groups and stuff like that. Then I started getting into the whole conscienceness of that political hiphop. 1987-88 got me into that Poor righteous Teachers, Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, X-Clan. When I started seeing things with a message, I started really digging that, Being like an11th and 12^th grader I started thinking, although I respected what they’re saying, I’m Mexican and from LA so… I’m not with that movement eventhough I respected the political form that they were displaying. So I started working on stuff, trying to do pro-Mexican stuff,that was actually just being proud with no info. It took a long time you know, we hooked up with a band called Aztlan Underground and they put us up on game.

Shux: In the last 5 years what have you seen change for the better
in underground hiphop?

Xolo: It’s accepted now for what it’s supposed to be. Its respected
now. The industry is really starting to notice that the underground
is a really, really strong part of the hiphop culture.
In 1992 & ’93 the underground as far as the Goodlife really affected
the industry to where they were putting groups together to sound like certain sounds that were coming out of LA and a lot of these groups
styles were taken and they weren’t recognized. Now years later, the
fad has died out and people started to notice that the underground
scene is the foundation of hihop and its starting to get its respect.
I think that’s a good step forward

Shux: What pisses you off about mc’s or hiphop in general?

Xolo: Aww man, I think one of the most important things is biters
. I think that there should be some type of Union between writers
and mc’s where everyone would get together and point out a biter
and just do something about them… ‘cuz we had a show a couple
weeks ago and these guys come on stage and they wanna rhyme,
and all of a sudden they just really sound like somebody else on
their first rhymes, Maybe it’s that we were just exposed to a lot
of hiphop and a lot of ryhmers but, we always felt like we definitely
wanna sound different. Like when you hear something and you like it,
you definitely don’t wanna sound like it.

Shux: If you could do a song with any artist, dead or alive, who would
it be?

Xolo: I would definitely have to run with Jimi Hendrix, Broken down
really just because one song… Castles Made of Sand. I think that
song is one of the most well rounded songs ever in the history of
music and I would love to do something innovative with hiphop and guitarist of his stature. I think that it would definitely be something
that the world would not only love but just be astonished by.

Shux: Kick a few bars from a favorite verse.

Xolo: This is from a song called All Turn Native and our metaphor
behind it is saying all this oppression we’ve gone through has brought
us down to the thought of all this is our continent, our land and our
history but it doesn’t matter because it all happened for us to all to become one culture… so we named the song All Turn Native…

“This cage was built for me. I sit inside of it thinking if people who
don’t even know I exist. I’m absence undiscovered already making
an anthology. But that’s not what’s important to me. There in your
eyes lies the reflection of the original resident. Stop calling me
immigrant and I won’t mind sharing my continent…”

2-Mex: This is from one called False Laws, it’s like a religion thing…

“Fuck Catholicism , I’ll save you all from this prison. Christianity only
exists within insanity. As I perch in Saturday stance. Eliminating the church of Latter Day Saints, Episcopalian and I’m a distant alien and
listen as I wisk you away again. I’m determined to put an end to the sermons, permanently burning all the vermins. These institutes live to prostitue
all of the destitute and that’s the truth. A wafer doesn’t make me feel safer. Jerry Fallwell is a scary tall tale. Tell Reggie  White I’m feeling
edgy and uptight. Legendarily, sacrilegiously  alright. All Bibles should
be liable and thus tieable to the  tribal. Reading Psalms is not like
feeding songs, it’s like kneeding tongs over bleeding palms. I hope
you don’t take this strong. I love you but you’re wrong. Organized
religion is false and anyone that follows it is lost… yeah I said it.

                                                 -interview
by Shuxwun
, June 2001 / Photos by: T. Matsushita