SOULS OF MISCHIEF

I never ever got with a girl named Bridget, and there would be girls coming out the cut like ‘I’m Bridget!’ tryna get me in trouble with my girlfriend or something. It ain’t even true! That’s from ‘93 ‘til Infinity!

When Oakland crew Souls of Mischief titled their signature tune ‘93 ‘til Infinity’ it was a pretty prescient decision. Nearly 17 years on and it’s still the one the crowd holds out for. So aren’t they sick of performing it by now?

“I love doing that song,” says Phesto. “You see people with genuine looks of excitement and joy on their faces when you do that song so there’s no way we could be tired of seeing that reaction from our fans.”

Opio scratches his dreadlocked head. “We’ve been blessed to have a song that gives people that much good feeling. After the years and years that we’ve done it, I actually look forward to it.”



Phesto, Opio, Tajai and the absent A-Plus comprise the original Souls of Mischief crew, who are also part of Oakland’s Hieroglyphics collective. But there’s another character we’re interested in: Bridget, the girl name-checked in ‘93 ‘til Infinity’, whose man is a midget. What’s her story?



“Bridget’s a rap Frankenstein female that was created just for rap,” explains Opio after a dramatic pause. “She was pieced together by us. Her man had Napoleon syndrome. There was really no Bridget and that's the funniest thing. I never ever got with a girl named Bridget and there would be girls coming out the cut like ‘I’m Bridget!’ tryna get me in trouble with my girlfriend or something. It ain’t even true! That’s from ‘93 ‘til Infinity!’”

Souls of Mischief like their in-jokes, and collaborating with producer-joker extraordinaire Prince Paul means their new album ‘Montezuma’s Revenge’ also has its moments. The title means some kind of hideous diarrhoea but it was Paul’s idea to use it because the album was recorded on a Montezuma Street.

 “We rented a house like an hour outside of the Bay Area and it was kinda like way in the cut, so at first it was a joke, and then after a while it stuck. It doesn’t really have a direct link with the subject matter on the record,” explains Opio.

 There’s also a very believable Morgan Freeman skit on the album – but, spoiler alert, it’s actually Prince Paul. The joke’s apparently between Paul and Tajai, but the latter is reticent to shed any light on it. In the skit, fake Freeman chats about old-school styles and Tajai’s quick to defend Souls of Mischief’s consistently classic sound that characterises their new album.

You don’t listen to two Souls of Mischief songs and hear the same rap style ever. Just like with De La Soul. If that’s old school, then that’s just what we’re doing, but it’s just hip-hop to us.

“We play with new styles all the time. Old school really is making up new styles every time we come out. All this, I rap the same on every song, that’s new school,” he says. “You don’t listen to two Souls of Mischief songs and hear the same rap style ever. Just like with De La Soul. If that’s old school, then that’s just what we’re doing, but it’s just hip-hop to us. Old school is all about innovative beats and not just the same computer beat.”



Despite being fresh off the plane from Paris and still suffering from jet lag (Tajai keeps nodding off), they still get excited about the prospect of touring together – and about keeping the love alive. 

“We tour 100 days out of the year at least, so while we’re performing we’re always talking about hip-hop and what we would like our records to be like,” says Phesto. “Over the past few years we’ve been working on Hieroglyphics albums and solo projects but we hadn’t done a whole Souls of Mischief album, so it was an opportunity for us to put forward all these ideas we’d be throwing around. It’s a good feeling to be back in the studio with Souls of Mischief.”



The crew has its own Hieroglyphics Imperium label, and also created Clear Label to release music from artists with their own distinctive styles, like the more electro-tinged Deeprooted. And each is dedicated to supporting Oakland’s fiercely independent scene.

 “I love being from Oakland because, especially as emcees, it gives us the chance to be original,” says Opio. “In New York, a lot of the same mentality is everywhere and people try to latch onto that New York state of mind. Whereas in Oakland, only those who are really smart artists try to come and take that which is Oakland. There’s a lot of slang, a lot of styles… if you hear Snoop Dogg saying ‘fo shizzle my nizzle’, that’s Oakland terminology.”



Oakland’s hyphy movement is another extension to this innovative scene where cats do mad shit like ghost ride the whip – get out their cars while they’re still moving. 

“Ghost riding the whip comes from an Oakland phenomenon called the Sideshow where people would go out and just drive their cars crazy and do the most outlandish shit you could in a car; burn your tyres up until they’d pop and all kinds of madness,” Opio explains.

“Most people don’t really understand it but it’s just another example of Oakland lifestyle. We went to the Sideshow all the time when we was in high school and peeped it out. We got respect for all the cats doing the hyphy movement because they’re essentially doing what we did – we started a movement that was totally outside of the norm of what everybody else was doing and they just carried on the tradition. Just like we carried on from people who started before us.”

Words: Helene Dancer

‘Montezuma’s Revenge’ is out February next year and will be reviewed at a later date.

www.myspace.com/soulsofmischief