Del tha Funky Homosapien
3:30pm, AT&T Blue Room stageIn the rap world, 17 years is an eternity. It’s enough time for hip-hop’s balance of power to shift from New York to L.A. and back again to Gotham before settling in the South. None of that has had any bearing on the musical happenings of Del tha Funky Homosapien.
The Oakland, Calif., native has kept close to his studio, releasing five solo LPs and doing his part on a number of collaborative efforts since his breakthrough debut, 1991’s I Wish My Brother George Was Here.
“It’s kind of a release for me,” Del says of recording something every day. “I think a lot, I don’t have a lot of people to talk to, and I’m kinda hotheaded. I realized at a young age I can express myself through rhyming.”
Del’s a student of the game; he fully immersed himself in the study of music theory after ongoing bouts with drug addiction. “There’s always something to learn,” he admits. “I realized I was gonna have to start studying something sooner or later, or it was over for me.”
With this newfound devotion to theory, Del’s taken his career in another direction, abandoning the once-necessary sampling process. The result is March’s Eleventh Hour (Definitive Jux), his first solo offering in eight years.
Happy to have the album released, Del’s more excited about the doors it will open for the future. He’s just finished up production on Parallel Universe, an album he recorded with Tame One from the Artifacts, and he’ll begin laying down vocals on Deltron Event II, the follow-up to 2000’s Deltron 3030 release, with Dan the Automator and Kid Koala, once he gets off tour.
“Anything Dan does is gonna be tight,” states Del.
This article appears in September 26 • 2008.