TT: How did this project come to fruition?

CW: It actually came from my brother Mike Daly and my blood brother Clifton West. Mike brought it to Clif and Clif brought it to me and that's when we first did sketches. Then we said, 'let's bring in visiting or guest artists.' The first one we had was Stokley Williams from Mint Condition; he was unbelievable. He sang a deep, deep song that we ended up not being able to use, but he played drums on "Gonna Be Alright," he is such a magnificent drummer. From there we went to Prince and he said yes right away. It was just unbelievable because he has never allowed any of his music to be used on a Hip-Hop album before. That was deep love that he was expressing to me and I embraced it. Then I talked to Gerald Levert before he passed. He went in the studio and did a deep thing and it all just fell into place. Talib Kweli, KRS-ONE and we got Jill Scott at the very end mainly because of the Hidden Beach connection. Steve McKeever was like Jill would like to do something and I stopped the whole operation for Jill. We had to figure what would be a good thing because we had just did this song "Chronometrophobia" with Andre 3000 and maybe we could just move right into the nature of time and she said, "what time it is?/what time it is, fool?" and that was it.

TT: Did you freestyle on your contributions or was it scripted?

CW: My whole thing is freestyle. I don't write anything down. What I tend to do is listen to the music closely, because the music makes the difference. I'll listen to the music and then go into the booth and do my thing.

TT: This CD is very powerful in its many complexities; one track in particular is "America." What are your thoughts about that song?

CW: The brother on that track is Iriz; a teenager. I had never met the brother. He connected with Clif and Mike in Sacramento where I grew up. He sent the song in. They called him in and said, "Lord, this is magnificent!" Then we wanted to get some other folks to do various verses. We got Rah Digga and I think she has one of the deepest verses on the whole album. Then, of course, you have Black Thought on there. The young brother just throws down.

TT: Hip Hop is not what it started out to be. What do you think it is now and why?

CW: The story that brother KRS-ONE tells in his book Rumination where he talks about white brothers and sisters in vanilla suburbs who are becoming the point of reference for the A&R people in the recording industry is incredible. Now [they] are 71% of the consumers of the music. The Black community is no longer the determining factor of the kind of music that Black Hip-Hop folk are producing. What happens is that it becomes more and more pure market calculation regarding the sensibilities of folk outside the community who often have distanced themselves and are indifferent to what's going on in the community. Nas' Illmatic came out in 1994 and that can be a symbol of the great artistic swan song of very deep and profound Hip-Hop for a while. Now that's not to say that Jay-Z is not the lyrical genius that he is; but at the same time he hasn't produced Illmatic. He knew he had to deal with the market, too.

TT: Funny you bring up Jay-Z. I was just listening to "Moment of Clarity" from The Black Album and he says, "I dumb down for my audience and double my dollars / They criticize me for it… / If skills sold / Truth be told / Lyrically I'd probably be Talib Kweli." With that being said, why this album…why now?

CW: That's it. He's just being honest about it. It's never a bad time to be a force for good. You always want to set an example and people make good choices when they have good examples. The real sense of this album is trying to unleash more space for artists like Talib Kweli and KRS-ONE. I want folks to buy Eardrum, Finding Forever by Common, Lupe Fiasco's Food and Liquor, Rah Digga and Jill Scott. In that sense, it's a matter of using whatever weight, clout, authority or influence I have to push Hip-Hop in this direction.

A lot of people will read this as against Snoop. It's not against Snoop. I got love for Snoop's flow and Snoop is part of our community, but he has to be accountable like me, you and everyone else. If his flow is moving in the direction of being a more positive force, then I'll celebrate. But I'm glad he got the flow because his flow is a species of historical memory that I resonate with. That's the reason why I listen to him even though he might be talking some misogynistic mess sometimes. That's true for any great Black artist. Hip-Hop doesn't have a monopoly on misogyny. R&B, Country, Rock and the Blues have it. We still listen to Muddy Watters not just because he is a genius, but because his very style is a species of the historical memory of how Black folks were able to linguistically cope with the catastrophic circumstances of which we were wrestling.

TT: How do you feel about calling this country and the powers-that-be on the carpet about its politics and practices on this album?

CW: That's just a matter of me being true to myself. Every artist has to be true to him or her self. That's who I am. My whole life is about fighting for justice and challenging injustice. My whole life is about loving Black people, which means I hate the injustices that we have to deal with and the unfairness with which we are treated. I love everybody just as a Christian. I have to be true to who I am. I would not ask that of other artists. I do believe that it's a good thing when you have an increasing number of artists who in being true to themselves challenge injustice, challenge the mendacity of the American government and the greed of corporations - so forth and so on.

TT: Thank you for your insight and your candor. Now, on the personal side; what is the one thing about you that if people knew they would be surprised?

CW: (Laughing) That I think I can dance like James Brown's son. Now I have been told that. Folks would be surprised and think, 'wait a minute, a dancing philosopher?' I'd say that's right because I'm a blues man in the life of the mind and a jazz man in the world of ideas.