War Games With Pharoahe Monch

War, huh, yeah. What is it good for? Absolutely . . . new music from Pharoahe Monch. The complex rhyme spitter released his third solo album, W.A.R. (We Are Renegades), via Duck Down Records on March 22nd. With an endless ammunition of information, W.A.R. has Pharoahe lyrically exercising with the likes of Styles P, Immortal Technique, Jean Grae and Royce Da 5’9.” Being that the Southside Jamaica, Queens-raised MC is easily one of the most socially conscious cats in the game, we asked for his take on an assortment of warfare – including raps biggest battles, the current situation in Libya and the classic Art of War book by Sun Tzu – in addition to breaking down the science behind his own W.A.R. title. — Mark Lelinwalla

XXLMag.com: Your album title is an acronym, but why did you choose to go with W.A.R. as the name?

Pharoahe Monch: The war speaks to what I had to go through to get off my label and what I’m going through with my asthma, trying to determine and finalize a front line like, ‘Yo, you’re going to eat what you need to eat, drink what you need to drink and do what you need to do to combat this issue that has hampered you, your life for years.’

XXL: Exactly how long have you battled it?

Pharoahe: Since I was 13 months old. There have been times, when I’ve gotten to a place when I feel like it’s defeated and using less medication to none at all, and then if there’s a brush with the environment, humidity or air quality or you’re traveling a lot overseas and taking five planes in three days, it will catch up to you. That’s a war for me – a psychological war. War is not black and white. I’m not unintelligent enough to not be sensitive to what it means in terms of armies invading countries and civilians dying. I’m not ignorant to the word choice. I think W.A.R. is a collective consciousness. It’s really not about me, what I have and what I attained through finances or tangible things like money, cars, what have you. The record speaks more to the collective consciousness of what I feel is going on right now, so people need to evolve. I feel people are feeling the same way. The ‘We’ encompasses all that – We Are Renegades.

XXL: You’re one of the most mindful MCs around, so we thought it would be fun to have you play off the word war. That being said, what was the most impactful rap war that the game has ever witnessed?

Pharoahe: There’s been a couple. You look at revolutionary war, civil war, World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War and the Iraqi War – they’ve all been monumental in the world’s history, so it’s hard for me to just jump to Nas and Jay-Z, without talking about Kool Moe Dee and Busy Bee, without talking about Canibus and L [LL Cool J], Common and [Ice] Cube. I think they set the tone, as well as the crew battles set the tone, for what this is now and that’s what made the Jay-Z-Nas joint really epic. With two respected artists, it was just incredible.

XXL: Continuing with the theme, what do you think about the ongoing war in Libya?

Pharoahe: I know where I stand on a very wide scope of world politics in general. I’m not split down the middle. It’s based on resources and the resource at hand is oil. On the other hand, [Moammar] Gadhafi is a tyrant, killing and harming civilians. Other countries are saying, ‘This is the position we’re taking on it.’ The U.S. has been silent and then they move in with missile strikes. The question that comes to mind is there are so many different tyrants in the world that are mistreating their civilians, so why not intervene in those situations? Why are we intervening in a situation where there’s oil at stake? We know that we’ve had different relations with Gadhafi, but now it’s gotten out of hand, so he needs to go. He needs to go, but you wonder about the U.S. involvement from a political standpoint.

XXL: A lot of hip-hop heads were influenced by the Art of War by Sun Tzu. What’s your take on the book?

Pharoahe: I never read it, but just from my comrades and peers talking about it, I’ve always been interested in reading it. A lot of what people bounced off of me from it, I kind of felt like it’s instinctive. I think that’s why street dudes excel in hip-hop because a lot of those philosophies apply. I was talking to Freddie Foxxx once and we were talking about street fights. He was like, ‘I talk shit, but when I fight my objective is to not get hit. If you get out of a fight without getting hit, you can consider that a win.’ Here’s a philosophy from a dude who’s known to break your jaw and yet his philosophy is to not get hit. That’s hood shit to me. Possibly because of the consciousness and people don’t see it, but I’m from Southside. I grew up in the height of the jumping era – 15 motherfuckers chasing you, you got to outrun them [laughs].

XXL: A lot has been made about the world ending in 2012. Numerous natural disasters and wars in the last few years alone add fuel to that fire. So when you hear the term War of The Worlds, what comes to mind?

Pharoahe: I think (talk about the world ending) is pretty on point. I think the songs and the verses . . . the Quran, the Torah and the Bible, there’s parables. When you talk about the end of the world – is it literal? What I think is you’re seeing these rebellions, these revolts because of people crying out that there needs to be some type of evenness here. Resources are limited. This is something you could see years and years ago. Basically you got 5% of an entire world of people having the wealth of the rest of the world. But it gets to the point where the conditions . . . you don’t have a choice, you got to eat. Most people want to feed their kids, educate their children, eat some food and not suffer.

XXL: If there’s one thing that people take from the W.A.R. album, what would you want that be?

Pharoahe: I think there’s a couple different individuals. There’s one individual that’s is on the frequency that’s going to hear honesty, passion in the words, vibration and the way things resonate beyond what I’m saying lyrically. Just the feel of this song like, ‘Damn, this means this to me. Even though this song is called Shine and it’s my workout joint, yo this is this.’ Then there’s the cat that’s going to say, ‘This is really dope’ but it’s not going to cut that deep. Then there’s the people that are going to say, ‘Man, I don’t know why people are bugging out over this shit.’ It’s been like that since I started. You know the percentage, so you play to that audience. Everybody who was on it, thank you. If you can’t support in the movement by buying a CD, just tell a friend.