Numskull’s View: Looking at the history of Bay Area Hip Hop

Part 1

by JR Valrey, the Minister of Information

The Luniz is one of the biggest rap groups to ever come out of the Bay Area during Northern Cali’s golden era of Hip Hop in the ‘90s. MC Hammer, Digital Underground and the Luniz were some of the first rappers to put the Bay on the map after they all reached international commercial success and embarked on world tours. During Hip Hop’s so-called 50th anniversary, we have to acknowledge the Luniz, one of the greatest groups to ever do it. I have heard their smash hit “I got 5 on it,” all over the world as well as in stadiums and on airplanes. 

One of the unique things about the Luniz is that they never fit into what is considered to be “gangsta” rap, because they never proclaimed themselves to be gangsters. Their names are Numskull aka Drink a lot and Yukmouth aka Smoke a lot. Similar to Digital Underground, which is a supergroup that the Luniz is a part of, they were not made to fit into a stereotypical box. 

They used comedy and had a lot of fun with their music. They were more like the Cheech and Chong of Bay Area rap, and the world loved it. 

Numskull, one half of the Luniz, just happened to walk into the offices of the SF Bay View newspaper one day with his wife, a very gifted writer who has been published in the SF Bay View in the past. I would’ve been a fool to let the opportunity pass me by, so I asked him to do a quick interview with me about Oakland and Bay Area Hip Hop. We went all over the map, so you will have to keep reading to see all the topics we covered. 

JR Valrey: What have you been up to? The Luniz did a classic reunion concert last year, and you did a Luniz-Mekanix album a few years back. You have been kind of quiet. What have you been up to?

Numskull: I’ve been chillin’, man. I been at home with the family, dealing with family things. Me and my wife just opened up a film company and we’re doing a documentary right now on Oakland, not just Oakland, but all of these killings of Black people – it’s out of control. And we need to know what’s going on, but the reason why we are writing it is because we want people to know why it’s that way, why these Black people are killing each other. We want them to understand why that is. 

Well actually we want to see what they understand about what’s going on. I don’t want to do a documentary where “such and such just got killed” – nah none of that shit. Why do you think this happened? We want to know if people understand that. That’s basically what I’m doing right now. All of that other shit, music and all that shit is still there – but I’m trying to help my people, man. I ain’t lying. 

JR Valrey: So what made you get on that page? What inspired this documentary?

Numskull: Children. I got kids, man. I ain’t walking out the house for nothing. I can’t do it, man. It’s time for Black people to understand that there’s other shit out here besides guns and shit. I just want to help with that path. Take them on that path.

JR Valrey: Well you know that Oakland has a kidnapping problem going on, where they are taking young girls and women and forcing them into prostitution. It’s an epidemic right now, especially within the last three months. What do you think about the image of Oakland? What do you think about what it has been and what it needs to be?

Numskull: I love Oakland, fasho. I’m from Oakland, and I love everything about the Town. Even back then, the Town wasn’t great, you know what I mean? We still strugglin’, but when it comes to this new shit, this trafficking, I hope that it’s not a lot of us involved. 

I hope that it’s none of us involved. That’s taking away from us, I can’t imagine myself doing no shit like that. Goddamn, that’s fucked up. I don’t even like to speak on it, I just want to tear a nigga a new asshole who’s doing that. Seriously. 

JR Valrey: The Luniz is a classic group. You are one of the biggest groups in Oakland history. What does that mean during the so-called 50th year of Hip Hop – and we see it being celebrated – what does that mean to you? “I got 5 on it” plays at stadiums. I heard it on the airplane going to other countries.

Numskull: It feels good to be a part of that. I’m glad my kids can grow up and be like, “That’s my dad.” Shit like that is what makes it the best for me. But it’s also another side to it, when shit goes bad. The legacy of the Luniz should be great, and I don’t feel like it is right now, especially the shit that is going on with me and Yuk … but hopefully it gets worked out, and shit will get better later on but for right now, it is what it is, man. I got a lot of shit I need to say, but I ain’t going to do it. I’ll say it to the person that I need to say it to. 

JR Valrey: What does it feel like not just being a part of the Luniz, but of Digital Underground, and you come from a legacy. The pedigree of that tree is Shock G, Money B, Pac, Saafir, y’all, Dru, Mystic, it’s a long legacy. Did you know when you were making this stuff that it would be this big?

Numskull: I didn’t know “I got 5 on it” would be that big first of all. I knew it would be a big song and that is why we saved it and waited to put it out and all of that, but when you got people coming up to you saying, “Man, that song changed my life” or “That song got me through this and that.” 

That’s when I finally realized that, man, you did something that touched people. How many people can say that in this world? You did something that touched millions of people and is still touching them to this day. That’s huge; that’s really big. I feel like I accomplished something. I’m proud of myself. 

JR Valrey: Who was Shock G? And who was Shock G to the Luniz?

Numskull: Shock G was a very talented dude, man. He is an artist, is what I call him. 

JR Valrey: When you say artist what do you mean? 

Numskull: An artist is somebody to me that whatever they do, they do it 100% with their full heart. And that was Shock. He never went into nothing if he did not feel it. When he went in to do something, he did it. I learned a lot of that from him too. It wasn’t no half-assing with that dude, and I love that from him. 

JR Valrey: Tell me one of the greatest moments that you had with Shock G making the Luniz album or otherwise? 

Numskull: I can’t (smiling). The greatest memories … No. But good times, I’ll put it like that. Sometimes in the music industry it is not going to come like it was before, you know what I mean? And me and Shock was brothers like that. If he needed anything, I would give it to him. If I needed it, he would give it to me. That’s the kind of brother he was to me. He was a brother to me; that’s all I can say about that man. That was my brother. I miss him a lot. 

JR Valrey: What can you say about his style of making music or his style of making beats? Why did y’all get him to do a lot of Luniz’ production? 

Numskull: I think it was the creativeness of what he did, because Shock was a huge fan of Parliament Funkadelic, and you can hear it in his music, but he took that and made it into something else. He pulled out of Parliament Funkadelic what I think nobody else could. That’s what I appreciated, because I love all of that. I’m a ‘70s baby, so I love that era of music. I grew up on that. I’m a rapper, but I do not even listen to rap. I be listening to ole skool RnB. 

For him to be able to pull some Hip Hop out of that, but Parliament Funkadelic was Hip Hop too, all of that shit. Black music is Hip Hop. But for him to pull what he pulled out of it, and to make something totally different that nobody had ever heard before, nobody had ever done before; that shit was amazing. And Shock when he came to us with the music, he was like “I just wanted to give y’all some different shit to rap on,” because he saw the potential in our music. And what I did get from that dude, I learned how to do other music and not just rap. 

JR Valrey: You come from the golden era in Oakland Hip Hop, the ‘90s, and a lot of people try to say Oakland did not have lyricists, but that’s a lie because we had Askari X, V. White of the Delinquents, we had Souls of Mischief … We had rappers that could spit, what do you think that the legacy of Oakland rap is?

Numskull: That’s a hard question. I think that Oakland rap is drugs, drank, guns, niggaz, youngstas, school, I think that it is everything. I think that Oakland Hip Hop is everything. 

JR Valrey: Like the South, they have a certain drawl, they have a certain kind of production, thay have a certain flow pattern …

Numskull: I don’t have a word for ours. 

JR Valrey: Then what is the legacy of our production? When you are in Copenhagen, you hear it and say that that is some Oakland sounding shit right there?

Numskull: The only thing that was different was the hyphy movement. You can tell they were Rock Rock beats. He made a Town sound; that was that. But back then … I don’t know. I can’t say we had a sound, we were straight universal with our sound.  

JR Valrey: Am I biased talking to you about it because you come from Digital also, where y’all was hood and also respected in the streets but y’all were not doing gangsta rap. Y’all are a part of the Luniz and Digital, two crews in one that did that and it was still respected in the streets. So are you biased in saying that?

Numskull: Maybe … I can say this. Oakland rap has always been to me … It’s always been street, it has always had some funny shit in it … we’ve always had comedy, and it was mainly true. It was true shit. If you was from the Town, you wasn’t making nothing up. You wasn’t not making up no bullshit. If you talked about you was doing this, you was doing it. That’s Oakland rap to me. 

JR Valrey: I know that you come from the era of Askari X and the Coup, what can you say about the history of political Oakland rap? It didn’t come in the form of a XClan or Public Enemy, but both of them were in the hood tough. Y’all were in the same studios as X and were running into him. So what makes Oakland’s political rap different from say the rest of the country? 

Numskull: It came with a street vibe. When that nigga said, “All the Peckerwoods Better Hide Tonight,” muthaphuckaz don’t understand; that was political. That was a political thang right there. 

JR Valrey: Where were you at when you first heard that song, and how did you feel when you heard “Hide Tonight”? 

Numskull: I was prolly on the turf or something. 

JR Valrey: Did it shock you that he came out with that song?

Numskull: Fuck yeah! The nigga said, “all the peckerwoods better hide tonight.” Tonight. Niggaz wasn’t saying that shit back then. That was deep. That was big. We loved it. A white boy better not say nothing. 

JR Valrey: How did y’all respond to Askari X when y’all met him? Did you know Askari before he made that?

Numskull: Me and Askari X were in juvenile hall together, rapping for Snickers and shit (smiling). That boy, Ricky Murdock, I’ve been knowing that boy for years. We met in the pen years later. Yeah, I’ve been knowing that boy for a long time. He’s a good dude too. He was just on his own shit. However he grew up … that’s what gave him his path and he stuck with it forever. And he is still on that shit too. I love it. 

JR Valrey, journalist, author, filmmaker and founder of Black New World Media, is also the editor in chief of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper. He teaches the Community Journalism class twice a week at the San Francisco Bay View newspaper office.

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