Here is an interview with The Unction formerly known as The Deadbeats
Da Jointstallion: Where are you guys from?
Profound of The Unction: Kansas City, Missouri
Da Jointstallion: How long have you guys known each other and when did you first start rapping?
Profound of The Unction: Reign started rapping when he was about 5, in the early '80s. He actually has it on tape. I got started in hip-hop about '89, writing and doing some production, if you can call it that. We've known each other since the late '80s, but we didn't start doing things together until about '91.
Da Jointstallion: Who handles your production?
Profound of The Unction: I do the production work, along with our band, which we didn't have when we first started.
Da Jointstallion:. I've heard your Wombstone EP and it is really banging, have you shopped around to put it out on a major label?
Profound of The Unction: We tried some of that when we first recorded it, back in '96, but nothing panned out. We are currently involved with an indie label, which I can't discuss yet, and we'll soon be releasing a project encompassing what we've done since the Wombstone. We're calling it 'bootlegacy,' and it will have a lot of rough, even unfinished, stuff on it.
Da Jointstallion: Do you have your own web site?
Profound of The Unction: A friend of ours has a page up for us, but we don't have our own site....yet. His site is http://www.sphereofhiphop.com/ You can find us under artists. Also, we have a page at MP3.com--http://www.mp3.com/TheUnction
Da Jointstallion: If you could battle any mc's who would they be?
Profound of The Unction: It would be fun to go up against someone like KRS, or Pharoahe Monch, maybe Black Thought, or Common.
Da Jointstallion: Who influenced you to get into the hip hop industry?
Profound of The Unction: We feel that we have something to say, and God has given us a passion for doing music, so it came naturally to us.
Da Jointstallion: Do you have any artists that you work with?
Profound of The Unction: We are working with a few artists, productionwise, at this time, including Shadowlink, Miss Moses, mars ILL, Paradigm70, Braille, and a few others. We're going to have to cut off a lot of our side work in order to get rolling on our full-length debut.
Da Jointstallion: Who would you like to work with?
Profound of The Unction: We'd love to work with De La--that would be sweet. We're working on some other collabs, and I don't want to spill the beans, so we'll stop there; we'll surprise everyone.
Da Jointstallion: "Mortal Alien" is really great song, what influenced you to write these lyrics.
Profound of The Unction: Reign wrote the song from the angle that even though we dwell here on the Earth, this is not our home, and though we may die here, we will live on beyond this world. We believe that within each of us lies a soul which won't pass away, and this song speaks to the gap that lies between perception and reality, physical and spiritual, and truth and traditional, convention wisdom.
David Kelly
Profound of The Unction (formerly known as the Deadbeats)