“We were members of a ‘90s generation,” he continues, “but we came in around the second or even the third wave. There was a whole generation that came before us in the ‘80s, and I’m sure that they would have considered what they were doing to be ‘real hip hop’ as well.” Times move on, and there’s a whole new generation of kids making hip hop today – unlike many older, curmudgeonly rappers, Dray insists that you can’t tell them what they’re doing is not real, because it is real to them. “Hip hop, in a way, is just like clothes you put on. If you see somebody walking on the street, you may not particularly like what they’re wearing, but shit, they like it, you know?”
Dray raised some eyebrows among older fans recently when he took to Twitter in an attempt to get a shout-out from teen pop star Justin Bieber. I ask him if that’s a necessary way to promote yourself in this day and age, and he tells me that, while it may not specifically be necessary, the internet is a tool and it’s foolish not to use it. “I know Justin Bieber is around people who grew up with Das EFX. I mean, it would be a great story. I’m a student of the game, I know Justin could very well have seen that tweet and not known who I am, but clicked on the link anyway. Justin’s manager Scooter is a hip hop guy, and he may have been there to see that tweet, and told Justin the story of us in the ‘90s. As a result of that, Justin would have been turned on to Das EFX,” he continues. “It’s like I was saying, man: I don’t want to be that rapper sitting there in a rocking chair getting mad at the kids – people did that to me when I was coming up, and I rolled my eyes then, and still do now.”
For the record, Dray respects Bieber’s rise to fame. “I kind of like Justin’s shit – the kid is a bad little brother. I mean, you may not like his music, but you have to respect his hustle and his grind. He didn’t just wake up and say, ‘I want to be a star’ and it happened for him overnight – he worked really hard for it.”
Das EFX are all set to make their first ever trip to Australia, and I ask Dray what fans can expect from the set list. “Well, we don’t want to be stuck in the ‘90s, but people want to hear that older stuff, so we’ll be playing it, but we’ll be playing it like it just came out yesterday,” he says. “It’s gonna be great, man – we’ve been looking forward to coming down and seeing you for the longest time.”
BY ALASDAIR DUNCAN
