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Herbaliser: Influences :: The hip-hop history behind these UK bluntsters

By Vanessa Labi   Photography by N/A

05/27/08 :: URB web

If rap is about lyrically knocking other MCs down, then hip-hop tends to be about paying homage to the greats that preceded. Ollie Teeba and Jake Wherry of The Herbaliser, who are about to release their new album, Same As It Never Was, reflect upon their influences and the videos that inspire them. For Same As It Never Was, The Herbaliser switched gears from looping samples to a live band, funk and soul feel with the help of 22-year-old London singer, Jessica Darling. Here are their thoughts on their top five picks for most influential videos:

Wicked! I can't say enough good things about The Roots. In today's climate, you're so hard pressed to find an original artist: someone who doesn't tailor their ideas to what everyone else is doing. So few people have enough confidence to say "I'm going to do my own shit, and fuck what everyone else is doing, this is me" and the Roots have always done that. This video is quite good, brutal even. I don't know if I should be scared by the end of it! You have a guy covered in pertrol, you don't know if he's going to go up or not! It shows that like any other genre, you can do anything with a rap video. It doesn't have to be at a club or a party or the street corner, or any of these conventional solutions to rap video making. It's like a great little mini-movie, like all good videos: short films that happen to be made to a song. I haven't gotten the new Roots album yet, but will definitely be picking that up. I have all the others, and they never fail to impress. Like ending an album with a cover of George Kranz's "Din Da Da," which is a song with no particular connection to hip-hop, no one rapping over it or anything. Kudos to them. We try to use that philosophy with the what we do in the Herbaliser. Not try fit into box, sometimes at the expense of record sales. We just feel that it's so much better to make a record that you can listen to and be proud of down the road. Following trends is the best way to sound dated. We always say, the key to longevity is to never be in fashion. This video definitely gets my Top Tip recommendation.