words: sly st@llone

It never rains in Southern California, except today. Nobody in this neck of the woods wanna get wet unless they in the front row of an Alkaholiks show. As I’m bout to go meet Tha Liks, I’m tempted to catch some drops on my tongue ’n see if they don’t mysteriously taste like amaretto. That would be the only drinking for me today, since Tha Liks’ publicist promised that a broke-ass writer would not be having his own X.O. experience at their expense.

I pull up to the apartment complex of Devin DeHaven, the director of Tha Liks’ new DVD X.O. The Movie Experience. It’s the type of place I used to deliver burritos to. One time I even delivered to a couple dudes taking a lunch break from shooting a porno. That’s a whole other story, tho not completely unrelated.

As I walk in the apartment, the DVD is playing on a big screen. In a behind-the-scenes segment from the “Best U Can” video, Tash gets strad-addled by sum barely covered buttocks. “Yikes!” yelps J-Ro, tugging at his collar and grinning. E-Swift is much more diplomatic in explaining the on-screen goings-on to a braided lil’ writer he’s curled up next to on a couch: “We tried to make it as wild as possible without making a porno.” I’m not sure she recognizes the difference.

I shift my attention to another female form, the one who greets me in the hallway. 5’5” with brown eyes, caramel complected – just like the song. “Devin?” I ask. “Yeah,” she replies, looking towards the action.

Baby leads me to the dining room table where Tash is signing posters and J-Ro is tossing a tennis ball to a lil’ boxer dog who turns out to be a pretty smart fellow, as I learn later. E-Swift is cavorting in a New Jersey Kidd….a new newsey Jersey Kiddsy….uh, u know, a new New Jersey Kidd jersey. Shit I musta drank more of that rain ‘n I thought.

A deep-voice white guy in a beanie recognizes my arrival. “I’m Devin,” he sez shaking my hand. Huh! It ain’t Devin the sex-kitten, it’s Devin the dude! Like Devin The Dude! He fooled me with that asexual name, like Jamie Foxx. For those of u who read my Bosko piece, u know by now I’m getting more misdirection than Swordfish.

At least I know Tha Liks is Tha Liks. I mean, they dropped the alcohol out their name, but they still Tha Liks rockin’ like a 6.6 on the same label with the same tour manager and the same beer-soaked shows. To borrow a line from their long-time label-mates, Can it all be so simple?

“How many groups you know that have never gone platinum and are still on their same label after four albums?” asks J-Ro.

“I don’t think that’s ever happened,” E-Swift adds. “I don’t think even Run DMC did that.”

“They got plaques!” protests ‘Ro, not wanting to drag the legendary kings of rock down to the likwit level. But at the same time he ain’t gonna make with the whiney-whiney. “A lotta these rappers are crybabies,” he states. “They get into a business that they know is shady then complain about it the whole time.”

That Tha Liks survive in the shade without gettin’ a healthy dose of shine can’t be a surprise for a group based on such unconventional ways, who offer me a Corona so enthusiastically you’d think it really wuz star-shine and not just Mexican beer. “It treats me the same, it treats you the same,” Carl Thomas sings on Tash’s “The Game.” But it don’t, tho -- I ain’t believe’n that success is waiting at the bottom of a bottle; if everyone could get right off down’n brews, there would be way more successful people in the world and the muhfuckas in AA would be the board of directors at Microsoft.

Swift helps me understand the difference between po’ drunks and prolific drunks: “[Po’ drunks] focus their energies on different things when they drunk.” So what do prolific drunks focus their energies on?

Beats ‘n rhymes, for starters. “We had most of [Tha Liks’ debut album] 21 & Over done by the time we signed our record deal,” Swift sez. “We made ten songs in two weeks. We had to finish it quick, our budget was so low.” When it wuz finished it pumped in hoods more than gas, on the strength of cuts like “Make Room”, “Only When I’m Drunk” and “Mary Jane”, the first hip-hop song to use the female metaphor for weed. Originally the track tapped the Rick James joint for the music, but the sample didn’t clear.

“If the sample don’t clear I substitute with a replacement…” (E-Swift, “Turn Tha Party Out”)

That happened twice on 21 & Over, and, Swift promises, it would happen again.

“We sure wasn’t trying to get sued our first time out,” he sez simply. “We had signed papers saying that if Loud got sued for a sample they would sue us. So we complied with all regulations,” he finishes Honest Injun style.

Then, on the sly: “We snuck a couple in there, don’t trip.”

As the session continues, Tash is no longer with us. Sluggish from jump, he passed the first 20 minutes of the interview with his head down on the table like me back in school. Eventually this young good-f-e-l-l-a, who’s overseeing shit and trying to woo Tash back to the land of the living with coffee, takes him aside; that’s the last I see of him. Happy trails. I hope the charismatic MC ain’t get made like Joe Pesci in the Scorcese flick.

Tash ain’t the only one in the room looking uninspired. Even with the DVD in progress, various members of Tha Liks’ entourage take turns standing out on the balcony watching SoCal get sum saturation. Niggas could give a fuck about watching more concert footage, they wanna see some shit they never seen before – water falling out the sky.  

Inspired by the lil’ H20 cluster bombs, I try to drop one on the fellas: Tha Liks never been tapped for a cameo by an artist at the peak of their career, like Jay-Z or Snoop. Now why is that? After all, these niggas ain’t no studio drunks. If u gon’ throw salt then throw the margarita pitcher with it.

Swift sidesteps the issue. “We so focused on getting to the peak of our career,” he laughs half-convincingly. It’s hard to believe it ain’t an issue to them, the same way it gotta be seen that Xzibit’s gotten bigger’n the group who put him on, the same way Tha Liks have had way more fame than King Tee, who put them on, ever has. Used to be niggas get drunk ‘n high to forget their dead homies, trials ‘n tribs. Now maybe they do it to forget they ain’t the flavor of the month in the industry…one of their former roadies iz. 

Tha Liks ain’t even did a few bars on a R&B radio jam in all these years. What the fuck.

“We ain’t gonna help their sales,” J-Ro mutters.

 So it ain’t just the big rap stars that ain’t callin’, the R&B bitches ain’t callin’ either.

“They call me,” Ro snickers. At least it ain’t fucked wit their sense of humor.

Whatever piece of fame they got, Tha Liks don’t play the front pages closely. And have’n typecast themselves from jump, they damn sure ain’t finna get recognized when they step outta character. The idea of alcoholic benefactors in the community don’t broadcast as easy as white mayors kissing babies.

“We do stuff in the neighborhoods,” Swift sez. “We did a parade for underprivileged kids…”

“We brought Mickey Mouse to South Central for the first time,” Ro boasts. U ain’t even have to tie him up? He shakes his head proudly.

Swift expands on the group’s philanthropic steez. “I feel it’s selfish to do things for the community just to get a pat on the back. I don’t care if 30 million muhfuckas know I did it or not.” So once again, a po’ drunk knows no shame but a prolific drunk knows no pride.

Well maybe a lil’, after close to ten years in the game. Feelin’ it, Swift continues freely.

“I’ve heard people tell us we changed their life,” he sez emphatically; when the likwit troof serum kicks in, he adds, “In a positive way and a negative way.”

“I like it when people say we the reason they got into hip-hop,” Ro interjects solemnly, try’n to save face. But Swift’s tongue is loosed.

“It hurts to say it, but it’ll be college kids who tell us, ‘It’s cuz of y’all I been drunk ever since 21 & Over!’” I can hear the exclamation point on that sentence just like I can smell the rum on their breath. Drunk in college – it don’t seem like such a bad idea. I prolly coulda handled all the colonial propaganda a lot easier if I wuz faded all the time.

But the confession brings up the question of personal growth, or the lack thereof, on the group’s part. With so many artists looking for a higher meaning in what they do, how come y’all keep rhymin’ ‘bout hurling on your girl n shit? It’s a question that I bring them back to more than once over the course of the interview, and, to their credit, they always find the same answer, without having it ready at hand dismissively. Tha Liks truly feel that the songs they write, the shows they give, the entertainment that they provide to the world… what they do is their best contribution – the “Best U Can”, if u will. They do the best they can, just like that little boxer dog does when he chases the tennis ball. Say what u will, but that lil’ bow-wow got more’n Gravy Train on the brain. As I share an elevator ride with him and “Tondalea” on my way out – on one of those elevators that opens up on both sides – I learn that the boxer always knows which side of the elevator opens up. He got a head on his hairy lil’ shoulders; you could say the same about each of Tha Liks – tho don’t say nuthin bout them havin’ lil’ hairy shoulders.

Swift, Tash & ‘Ro remain the underdogs, the underdrunks, the underarm-sniffin’ ridahs for Rifkin, hangin’ onto the rap gravy train by the skin of their bottlecap-bendin’ teeth. Tha Liks are bowl’dly going where no lushes have gone before – they missed last call a couple albums ago. So try to Visine the hate out yo eyes when u see em in the DVD livin’ the life with no rappercussions. Drunks only fall on they ass in the movies. Well no, that ain’t really true but the point is, you got niggas who never known when to say when callin’ their own shots and makin’ sober suckas wanna hit the bottle then hit their girl. If there wuz any justice, Tha Liks would be lickin’ the porcelain god, passed out on the bathroom floor of life. But there’s no justice, just ice. And plenty brews chillin’ in it, waitin’ for the next rappers who dare follow the boozeprint. Hey, I didn’t create this world, I just used ta deliver burritos to it.