The Wise ‘Community Spirit’ Interview

Anyone who’s been involved with making music will appreciate how hard these guys have worked. I first got to know them when they submitted a track for LMFLH Vol.2 a couple of years back.  It would appear that the villages around Oxford are a hot bed of hiphop talent (take Reeplay or Random Hero as a case in point).  Anyways, 4 years of hard work later and Community League have just released their Community Spirit EP. It’s pretty special. I caught up with part-time MC part-time English teacher The Wise to ask him about the forthcoming release.

Easy, how you doing?

Que onda.

What’s good?

It’s been a good week, Community Spirit arrived at Opp’s casa yesterday.

Big. Tell me more about the release.

It’s an amazing feeling to have a finished piece of art, was reminiscing about all the times it took to put it together. Right now we are trying to get all our ducks in line, it will be sold on the internet and hand to hand.

So speak to me - why you so hyped about Community Spirit?

Because…we’ve been making music for, maybe, 4 years now. We have a lot of projects going on but 2 years ago we put our focus on Community Spirit, a collaborative work involving the whole family.

Creatively it has been great, sharing ideas and joining imaginations…not to mention travelling. These songs and concepts came about all over the world just because of how the League is spread out like that but they were all put together at home in The Shire

So who’s reppin on this?

The music is Special Opps and myself giving you our thoughts and tales in rhyme to the music of DJ Thundercat and Jokz. Opp and I worked together writing rhymes and bringing ideas and themes to the songs and, really, Thundercat put it all together, he is the producer. Jokz has some music on their and he is really a genius so he has taught us a lot and creatively is a great person to be around.

Lot’s of other people have been involved in helping the art to grow but those are the musical minds.

Augustus Rufff (known to many as simply Nick, jajaja) is the man with the vision behind the whole Community League. He always had it in mind to start a record label, he is a lifelong friend and one day wqe decided to start working at this and all the connections grew from there.

Well I’m hoping we have the chance to see some of this shit live. You doing shows soon?

damn, I don’t know about any shows any time soon you know. Right now we are all kinda disparate and mobility isn’t easy (for me anyway). It’s more likely we will be doing individual shows where ever we happen to be.  We have been gigging with this music though, a lot of people know the songs through live performance.I hope we can get together again soon, I need the guys to come down here to Mexico, maybe we can get some spring break shows popping or something?! jajaja that’s kind of a long way off though.

Me personally, I will be trying to get shows in my city and make connections here. I met a guy from Guadalajara the other day and he is into the scene there so who knows.

What tracks stand out for you on the album?

The intro track is one of the dopest for me, we had to set it off right. It is called The Garden Path…the funny thing is I loved the original version of this beat and was well opposed to Thundercat going back in on it but, shit, I was blown away by how he transformed it, he made the old one (which I loved) sound like I had made it on a toy keyboard.

Any anthems on there?

Ummm, maybe KONY (Kings of New York)…that’s like a national anthem right there, it is mad regal, my favourite loop we ever found. The story of that is simple, Opp and I were Kings of New York for 1 day and 1 day only…King’s for a day.

But, uh, I would say that Field of Dreams is really the community anthem:

‘It’s the Community’s roots and we branch like trees do
Not gonna fall off, no the League won’t leave you
The team is the truth
If you ain’t down with that bruv then I can’t believe you!’

Describe Community Spirit in 5 words

Postive Energy Activating Community Endevour

Haha, nice!  So where can we get our grubby paws on this ish?

Our shop is and will be ready soon (dunno when we’re going to press so it’s best to say that jajaja). You can check out another review and buy a copy here.

Besides that it is soon to be available in Oxford, New York, Philadelphia, and Mexico. Really this is where the work starts, the creation takes energy but isn’t really work cos it’s what we love but we are artists so selling and pushing it isn’t that fun. It leads you down some interesting roads tho.

Haha, yeah I learnt that lesson the hard way from LMFLH Vol.2! Links to yer sounds?

Yeah, check out my Myspace and also Special Opp’s.

Any thanks yous?

Yeah, thanks to you guys and everyone on Blunted who has supported us. I really appreciate it and I enjoy sharing with you all, I love Oxford and I love Hip-Hop so props to anyone who is striving to build. Viva Mexico and Viva Blunted Cabrones!

Wicked - good to link up mate.

Yes my friend, look forward to doing it again soon.

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1. Klondike Kids Interview