Seven Da Pantha

Where are you originally from?

Long Island, New York



So how long have you been in NC?

NC? Off and on since ’91. I guess I made it permanent in ’93 though I came to college out here. I came to college out here and, you know, I shot back a couple of times since then but more or less I decided to make NC home after that.


How long have you been in the industry and how did you get started?

I guess on a professional note you can say ’96. I started out as a hype man for KRS-1 actually. Me and another partner of mine who I still rock with now, Equinox, we formed a group call The Nobodies, and we dropped our first album “Fables” in ’97. I guess you can say that was the beginning of my professional emceeing career or whatever.



Who are some of your influences?

Oh Rakim, Nas, Tupac, Dead Prez, I guess Jay-Z to a degree, Biggie of course, and of course I’m from L.I Keith Murry we from the same neighbor hood. I always looked up to him coming up too.



I understand you are coming out with an album. What is the name of it? When is it coming out and what is it about?

Actually it is an EP. It’s like 9 joints coming out on Domination Recordings most likely later this month. I’m not exactly sure of the release date yet. I’m still waiting to get that back from the label, but it will defiantly be sometime in the next 3 to 4 weeks. The name of the EP is “Ridin’ High”. Basically, it’s just an examination of where we at, and how we living right now. Know what I’m saying. Not necessarily riding high on no we rich and we doing it like this, but we’re riding high ‘cause we doing what we love to do and we enjoying it. So that’s what it’s really about. ‘Cause you won’t hear no ice and no you know mills and none of that ‘cause I don’t got mills. I ain’t gone lie to you. You know what I’m saying but, yeah we doing it big right now. At least we trying to, so we living high off of that.



What is a song that your audience should defiantly check out?

“Sail Away” is the first single featuring my man Equinox actually from The Nobodies. That’s the first single, and we doing a video for that know what I’m saying. And also, my personal favorite is “Ridin’ High” and “Never Leavin’ a Trace” featuring Supastition and Equinox two collectively known as Lost Colony. Yeah those are like the key joints to me.



On Myspace, you have a lot of songs about Revolution. Will you find a lot of that on the album, and what message do you want to give to your fans?

Well I ain’t really OD with it on the EP you know what I’m saying. Because it’s only 9 songs I did a little here a little there. You know just a variation of stuff to show people there is more than one side to me cause a lot of people got accustom to seeing that side of me at shows and things of that nature. And also I’m a part of Uhuru movement. I was actually the president of the Winston-Salem chapter, so like a lot of people know me for that. But I wanted to show them it’s more to me than that because they never imagined seeing me in a club somewhere unless I’m performing, but I mean I like to go to the club. I like to hang out and do regular things, so sometimes I have to take the focus off of that. But as far as revolution go, that’s always going to be a part of what I do cause that’s a part of me. My father was a Black Panther. I still follow the movement closely you know what I’m saying. So that’s definitely a part of what I do, but I kind of played it down on this. You’re definitely going to get some of that though on the full length. It’s coming. Believe that.



What was the name of the movement out of Winston-Salem that you mentioned again?

InPDUM, The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement. Dead Prez, they used to be part, I mean I know they still down. M-1 was actually the president of the New York chapter. And he was the one who kind of inspired me to go ahead and take to presidency of the NC chapter. It’s a lot of people. Fred Hampton Jr. he came out of the Uhuru Movement. It’s a lot of people that’s active right now. Immortal Technique, a lot of them people have been associated with Uhuru throughout the course of their activism.



And what is that movement about?

Well, InPDUM is more or less the main focus is on the struggle for reparation to a degree. But also, Uhuru is Swahili for freedom, so the basic premise of the twelve points of the program is that we want exactly that, freedom. We want freedom to decide for ourselves how we want to be educated, how we want to live our lives and not have other people’s laws imposed on us you know to make us live a certain way. Because we know as a people what without this way of living is. We can police ourselves. We don’t need any of this extracurricular stuff. Because without all of that we probably wouldn’t act that way anyway you know.



That sort of ties in to the next question, what are your views on the up coming election and how does it affect the Hip Hop community?

The up coming election actually has a lot of bearing on the hip hop community because right now we are under major scrutiny and you know it’s been that way forever, but it got like extra crazy with the Don Imus thing. So I feel like ‘yo if Barack Obama’s successful in his quest to be president that will take some of the brunt of off us. Unfortunately for him, it will be on him at that point because he’s a black president, but I feel like he has a thorough understanding of where we come from as a Hip Hop generation and he has a very sincere desire to reach out to us. So I feel like as far as he goes that that’s a plus for us you know. All the other candidates that are involved in the race for the presidency I’m not so sure where we stand on their list you know ‘cause they don’t really address us. As for as that goes I guess it’s not a secret who I’m voting for, but I just feel like what it all boils down to is we as the Hip Hop populous have to take in to account who’s going to be there when the wall comes tumbling down around us.



How do you feel about the state of Hip Hop today?

Actually you know I feel like the direction that Hip Hop is going in right now some of it could be ok you know it’s just when you have an overkill of one thing, of any one thing is not good. Just like if you play Dead Prez on the radio all day long I mean that’s just not good. It’s not giving a true reflection of people. And I mean you have to have the Lil’ Johns and the Ying Yang Twins and um you know I don’t mean to put it just on southern rappers because it’s a lot of rappers that’s guilty right now, but those just happen to be the most prominent ones. I can’t really put it on them, but I put it on the program directors and also on the people themselves because if you want to hear Dead Prez, call the radio station and request that. If enough people call the radio station and say they want to hear DP or they want to hear Talib Kweli or they want to hear Common or what ever they going to play it. They have no choice but to play it because we are what gives them power. You know so as far a Hip Hop goes right now I not really pleased by the lyrical stand point that Hip Hop is at right now, but as far as just the music overall I’m glad to hear people enjoying themselves again. I just wish that wasn’t all I heard.



What would you say to other emcees that do have lyrical content and are trying to bring variety to the game that are being turned away due to the bum rush of party music?

Well I say be consistent. Just do what you do and when it’s all said and done if you do what you really feel inside of you and you grind hard with it and you really give people you when they hear your record I thing you’re going to win. I mean you might not go triple platinum or what ever. I mean these days ain’t a lot of people going triple platinum anyway. You know but if you give them everything you got and you give them all of you, you know I mean of course there are certain aspects of your life that are just private, but if you give them all of you the people can’t turn that down. A lot of times we as artist we take for granted the fact that there are actually people out there listening who can relate to where we come from. So you may feel like oh I can’t say that on the radio ‘cause nobody’s going to understand, but there is always somebody that in the same place you’re in. There’s always somebody there.



Getting back to your album, where can you fans pick up a copy or download it?

The EP is going to be digital only. We will being having it be having it available physically at shows if you see somebody from SMG [Sire Music Group] out on the street they will probably have it, but right now for the time being it will be available on iTunes, Rhapsody, all of the digital stores will have it. The new mixtape coming soon Soulja Music Vol. 3: Da Revolution mixed by DJ Forge, all of that is on the way. But yeah the EP is going to be available at most digital outlets online, and if you catch me somewhere performing with my man Yung City you know what I’m saying we got it. We got that with us.



Are there any features on the album?

Yeah Equinox is on there. Supastition is on there. My man AP from SoundChamba Prod. is on there. My man Cool Waters is singing the hook on Ridin’ High he’s crazy too. Other than that that’s it. I mean I really wanted to keep the guest appearances to a minimum, and just give the people me right now. On the actual full length album there may be some surprises on there. Something the people may not be expecting but we definitely going to do it up with that though.



Is there anything that you want you fans to know about you?

The one thing about me that I want us to put out there is I’m pretty active in the fight right now to free Kwame Teague from jail. I don’t know if a lot of people know who Kwame Teague is but he’s an author, he’s a father, brother, son you know what I’m saying. He’s a real person, and he’s the author of The Adventures of Ghetto Sam and Dutch I, II and III. Right now he is doing two life sentences, two 14 year sentences, two 12 year sentences on some ridiculous charges that they really did not have any evidence on him. So I’m real active with that. We trying to get Dutch III out to the masses. It’s already out under True Publishing. Also we’re trying hard right now, there’s an innocence commission here in North Carolina who’s seeing cases concerning inmates who may have been falsely convicted. We’re trying to get them freed up, and we’re trying real hard to go ahead and get his case pushed to the front of the line because 13 14 years is a long time to be away from your family if you didn’t do nothing wrong you know what I’m saying.



So what can people do to help with that?

Go to MySpace. You can go to my page, www.myspace.com/nobodies7. Kwame is like the third person on my friends list. Me and his wife put the page together. You can hit his page up. As long as you showing love. Go out and buy Dutch III. Buy that. Support the brother. Support what he’s trying to do. And definitely put pressure on Mike Easley who is actually the attorney general who refuses to overturn the first conviction. Put pressure on Mike Easley. Put pressure on all the local politicians in your area so that they know that the people care about Kwame, that we not going to sleep until he get free.



And are there any future projects to come?

Yeah like I said we got the Soulja Music Vol. 3: Da Revolution and right now I’m working on getting a couple of drops from Kwame for the mixtape, mixed by DJ Forge out of Raleigh. There’s going to be a lot of people featured on that, of Course Lost Colony, my man Yung City, 7.5. We got that coming then the full length album coming and it’s yet to be titled. We’re just waiting to see how it come together before we name that. We got Yung City mixtape the album on the way. Orentia, she’s an R&B/Pop singer. Her album’s on the way. Her video just got put up on YouTube and on my MySpace page. You can go to my page and check it out. It’s called “It’s all About Me”. The video is hot. We in it. Sire got a nice cameo shot in that joint. So yeah we got a lot of things coming man. We still looking for other artist we want to build with. Any producers holla. We looking for tracks from anybody holla.

That’s really about it as far as Seven goes you know what I’m saying. Just want people to know we out here. We ridin’ still you know what I’m saying. It’s still FTP for everybody that knows what that means you know, we holding it down out here. Uhuru means freedom. All power to the people and all that good. And of course buy Ridin’ High man. We getting it this year ya heard. - Hustle Mill Magazine