I think a lot of artists come and go and few are really remembered... To be appreciated still, after 20 years almost.. that's pretty good going! Oh, I hear that... In that respect, I'm happy that even one person would think 'Oh wow! This is the greatest thing!'. That's cool, that somebody remembers. So, after Hydra and all of that stopped for you, what happened? After 'Diabolique', I had a conversation with Jerry at Hydra and I told him, 'I've been trying to write a lot of stuff and I've been thinking about the music more than the words now'. And he said, 'So what do you wanna do?'. The first thing I wanted to do was to talk about different stuff: not really street stuff anymore but on a higher conscious level. Not conscious like roots or whatever, but conscious like using different parts of the mind, different parts of the language... I guess, the closest you can get to blowing a sax, but with words. Nobody was really feeling that too much, so I said, 'Y'know what? Forget the words altogether.' Then I tried to do music for other people, but even that.. the music, it's repeating, it's on a loop... and I went through a little low period for a while and I said, 'Forget it - this is what I really wanna do'. I've always played instruments, even before I was rapping, and this is what I really want to do. I was listening to Coltrane one day - I know I had used all his samples and loops before, but one day I just started listening to it and said, 'This is beautiful'. The whole record is beautiful. This is why I sampled what I sampled, because the spirit of it was what I wanted to capture... and play it myself. And that was it. I always loved music to the point of where, if I sampled something and added to it, it had to compliment the source I used. If that wasn't happening, I don't care how good my additions were or my drums or whatever... it didn't feel like it was honest as far as building upon the sample I used, y'know? I didn't want to 'use' it - I wanted to add to it and build something new from it. I don't know it I did that, but y'know...
			Oh, we think you did. So, do you think you'd ever consider working on new material as far as hip-hop goes? Or is it a closed chapter and you're moving on in different ways now? Alright... well, there's two things that I thought about, because I still have friends who rap. And any time that they've approached me about working with them, it would only be the ones are really wanting to get involved with it that are showing that something could be possible. I don't know. I don't picture myself rhyming and then blowing on a sax and then jumping on a piano... I don't know how it would work yet. I gotta put that together soon. Maybe that's how I want to do it: not a one-man band, but showcase my jazz trio and have it more of a showcase... If I thought there was someone doing something that I thought would be cool for it maybe I would get involved. I just can't see it going that way - maybe I need to be 'in' it to see it - and I'm just not 'in' it. Well, you never know what's gonna happen in the future. That's the thing... Exactly. Menelik was telling me about some guys that might have wanted us out there in Germany or some place and I was like if I can bring my trio out there, then maybe I'd do it... maybe I wouldn't rap as much, maybe I'd back you up, take a pay cut, whatever... but that didn't go over too well. I had to explain it to my girl a little bit, give her the whole 'artist' thing, but she was cool with it. I think it's cool that you did move on and you did pursue what you really wanted to do instead of being pushed into something you weren't really happy with. A lot of guys would've just milked things for what they could get from it. Right... it comes at a cost, that you probably know, but when you have joy you can't put a price on joy.