Q&A: Charlie Vaughn on visual art, ERC and the need for good energy | Music | Gambit Weekly

Charlie Vaughn, aka Uptownz Illest, grew up in Hollygrove and became an artist at a young age. As hip-hop took hold of New Orleans in the ’80s, Vaughn became immersed in the culture and allowed it to influence his visual art and lead him to become an emcee, dancer, graffiti artist and spoken word poet over the years. Today, Vaughn is an educator and continues to work in a variety of mediums. Find more about him at uptownartwerx.com.

This Q&A is part of a series of interviews about New Orleans as hip-hop celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Gambit: What was your introduction to hip-hop?

Charlie Vaughn: I think it goes [back to] before the actual commercialized version of what hip-hop is. I always reference the skeleton or the backbone of hip-hop. I would always go with James Brown first. The Meters, especially because The Meters came from New Orleans. Anything that had a type of driving rhythm causing a person to want to dance or making you feel a certain way. P-Funk. Bar-Kays. Isaac Hayes. Sly Stone.

What would be known as the essential break beats for hip-hop was basically my thing. I always took a special liking, even when I was a toddler, to just the idea of funky music. Before I heard the actual rapping part, I was like, “Something about this song gives a certain energy to want to dance like James Brown.”

So it would be that energy first. And that’s the thing I have to remind young people about hip-hop: Hip-hop is a feeling. Before you get to how it looks and what it sounds like, it’s a feeling that came from people who don’t have much. That’s where the improvisation comes in.

As far as the verbal stuff, I would hear the guys around the neighborhood, like the old slick dudes, the old hustler dudes, when they’d say something like, “Man, what’s happenin’?” “Oh, it ain’t no thing but a chicken wing. I’m just doin’ my thing.” You start hearing this super slick, super cool, little short bursts of rhymes. I like that. I’d hear stuff like that from hustlers, family members. Some people call it “prison toast,” stuff that you’d hear from Rudy Ray Moore — “Dolemite is my name, and rappin’ and tappin’ is my game.”

That is a precursor to rap, because not only are they saying stuff that’s kind of syncopated, they’re choosing the colloquialism. They’re using certain slang. They’re saying stuff that’s neighborhood based and personal.

And then you get into The Last Poets, of course, you get into Gil Scott-Heron and [poets] speaking on world affairs or militant stuff or “Whitey on the Moon” (by Scott-Heron). They’re speaking about when the revolution comes, and what they’re saying in these poems and rhymes is like, “When the revolution comes, we won’t be ready because we’ll be busy trying to party and bullshit.” And I’m like, “Wow, that’s some real shit. That’s still relevant.”

So all of that is a precursor to hip-hop. That’s why I tend to take it differently than a kid that’s born in ’98 or 2005 or 2015. They hear hip-hop different because they don’t hear it from the top. It’s common knowledge [for them.] But if you catch it from the very beginning, it has a different energy.

Gambit: Who was the first New Orleans hip-hop artist you admired?

Vaughn: My first real emcee was one of my homies, Lavelis Fountain, aka ERC. So he’s from the neighborhood, back in Hollygrove. He almost had a style of rap that sounded like The Sugarhill Gang, like Big Bank Hank. That kind of old-school voice, but he would just do his thing. ERC was short for Excellent Rhyme Creator.

Him and Gregory D. A lot of folks would go to [Gregory D] as one of the first official, well-known emcees in the city. I would say ERC because I knew him well, and Gregory D because there was this kind of folklore: It would be like, “Man, you heard this dude? He rapped in Spanish. He rapped in English. He sounds like a car salesman.” Those were the top two guys that I remember.

Gambit: What has been New Orleans’ most significant contribution to hip-hop?

Vaughn: Mannie Fresh. Simply for the LL Cool J move by stretching across the timeline. If you’re looking at ’83-’84, Mannie was there. If you go to the early-to-mid-‘90s, Mannie was there. Get into the height of Cash Money, and Mannie was there. Even afterward, when Cash Money started losing their footing, Mannie was there. Working with T.I. and these different groups, he was there.

He is one of the architects of a particular style. Whether we’re talking bounce, whether we’re talking gangsta rap, whether we’re talking hip-hop, he took those sensibilities from the groups that he was inspired by [and pushed it forward].

Mannie Fresh, KLC, DJ Precise, Ice Mike, those were the guys that were driving the sound overall during [the ’90s and 2000s]. That’s 30 years. By the time we get to ’92 or ’93, all four of those guys were starting to knock out a major chunk of the rap music that came out of New Orleans that actually hit.

And it wasn’t just them making songs, they did songs that actually did something and got numbers and were on the radio.

Gambit: Who do you feel have been some of the important New Orleans visual artists working in the culture?

Vaughn: One of the first names that comes to mind would be Lionel Milton. He was one of those kids that came from YAYA (Young Aspirations | Young Artists). He came out after me, but he was able to marry New York graffiti-inspired characters into his work. He had an audience for it, and he took off.

Jamar Pierre. Ija Man. Buckwild. And my man, Otis Spears. He used to come in the record store back in the day, and he would have these shirts on, and I’d be like “Man, who did that?” He was dope.

And then you had the cats from the graffiti [scene], the local graffiti kids. Certain artist named Harsh. You’d see their stuff in Metairie, parts of Mid-City. You definitely had a graffiti scene from the ‘80s, the mid- and late-‘80s. It was also mashed in with the skateboard scene.

The hip-hop wave coming across the country, we were no exception. I started doing spray painting in ’83, ’84. I did a big joint in the canal by Xavier [University], and that was like 15-20 feet wide. I did a breakin’ character with a cat like doing a freeze and it had the word “breakin’” on it. And I had another character that looked like a cross between Thor and a wizard. He had white eyes and big wings on his helmet. Some old shit, but it was cool.

But shout out to my crew for shoplifting the spray cans. [Laughs] That was the ‘80s.

I had got the graffiti bug after watching “Beat Street” and “Breakin’.” And ever before that I was always intrigued by New York sub-cultures. I used to see stuff by The Clash, Blondie, Talking Heads — I was a kid that came through that MTV era, and every free chance I got to see a video, it always would have a touch of New York in it, and it always had hip-hop or graffiti or b-boy dancers in it to some degree.

A lot of the kids here, some did straight artwork, and some did more graffiti style. There definitely was a presence here in the ‘80s and into the ‘90s and early 2000s. But like right now, post-Katrina, oh my gosh, it’s a whole other thing. We got people out here just doing sacrilegious shit. They’re spray painting on old houses and doing too much. It was a different energy [back then] as opposed to what it is now.

You’ve got great artists, but we have some kids — they call them toys. Toys are kids who are not good at this. They’re just playin’. “You’re not for real, you’re just bullshittin’.” But I think that’s irrelevant.

Again, we have great artists. Things have definitely evolved since the ‘80s. They’re doing some incredible things that even I can’t do. There’s a girl, you see her doing a whole 50-foot-long joint, and I’m like “damn!” And she’s getting paid. It ain’t like they’re just out there; they’re getting commissioned. So big ups to everybody just doing them.

Gambit: What has hip-hop come to mean to you today?

Vaughn: The meaning for me is showing that anybody — Black, white, male, female, gay, straight, whatever your orientation is — you could overcome a situation or adversity through improvisation. It’s just like somebody saying, “Hey, we have a table for you, but you have to build it. We lost the instruction, and you have to put it together.” Hip-hop basically is based on that idea.

Before we had the high-end machines, before we had the Auto-Tune, before we had the management companies and all this other shit, people just had records and the dance floor. People had time on their hands to come up with a rhyme.

It’s the one-upmanship of “I’m better than you. I’m smarter than you. I dress better than you. My girl looks better. I’m cooler.” That schoolyard mentality that has grown financially, but mentally it’s still in that.

Hip-hop has grown businesswise, but it also has a split personality. The part of hip-hop that I love is that it’s inclusive: It brings people in and brings people together, and it helps people make money. It helps people actually have a voice. The part that I’m not too happy about is that the higher-ups turn this thing into a negative killing machine, disaster-making [idea], perpetuating “I’m a thug. I’m a this. I’m a that.” It’s like, wait a minute, y’all know hip-hop started from people who came from that, but they were better than that.

That’s what I’m so disappointed in: If you turn on the radio, it’s programmed to show how everybody’s taking somebody’s girl, they’re taking pills while they got the girl, they got the drink, they got the car, they got so much money — but then when they press the stop button on the record, they broke as shit. Yeah, you got Balenciaga shoes on and all the designer shit, yes, you’re making tour money and have millions of streams, but the reality is you’re a pawn. A lot of [rappers] don’t give a fuck they’re a pawn as long as they can show off in front of their friends and attract the opposite sex and say, “I’m the baddest.”

That’s the part I don’t get. It’s like, “Wait a minute. You have money, but does your grandkids have money? Do you have a business set up for [the future]?”

Again, the good part is, we came a long way for people to be able to get paid to feed their families. Hip-hop gives some voiceless people a voice and a platform. It gives them something to build on. But the balance is needed.

I’m proud to say I’ve been around and have seen many folks before me and many cats after me make money and make a difference. And hopefully another 50 (years) to see this do something more positive than [damaging].

Sonically it’s changed. Verbally it’s changed. The players changed. The cats are younger, and they’re getting killed faster than they’re coming out. That’s scary. But hip-hop is gonna continue to go on as long as there’s a young person who has dreams or aspirations.

Remember at one time, everybody wanted to be a ball player? Some of them wanted to be singers, but then once the world of hip-hop opened up, it was, “I wanna be a DJ. I wanna be a producer. I wanna be a rapper.” So that’s three lanes that are now available. Now they can say, “I wanna own a company. I wanna do merchandise. I wanna have an empire like 50 Cent.”

Hip-hop went from culture to currency to hopefully cultivating family businesses and generational wealth. It’s a hell of an illusion. Hip-hop is one of those things people can talk into existence for better or for worse.

Gambit: Is there anything you want to talk about before I let you go?

Vaughn: Really, just like I said, hip-hop needs good energy back.

I’m one of those people who say, “Do it for the culture.” I do it for the culture, but it’s so embedded in me. I don’t have to have a record deal to be hip-hop. I don’t have to be still dancing. I’m 55 — damn, that sounds crazy to say out loud. [Laughs]

Hip-hop is an industry now. But at its core, hip-hop is where a person could lose but still shake back. That’s the thing: You’re born with so much shit stacked against you, but the catch is, can you survive this bullshit, this neighborhood, your parents fighting? Can you survive inside your house, inside this fucked-up school, inside this fucked-up city and still manage to be all right?

To me, that’s hip-hop as fuck.