Sixshot.com: So the third album is on the shelves now, what’s next for CunninLynguists?
Kno : We're touring right now. Playing some bigger European festivals in June and July with many acts we respect and are fans of like Bun B, Kanye, Pharrel. Trying to do what we can to support the record. The label (LA Underground) really isn't supporting the album at all, but luckily we only had a one LP deal so now its time to find a new home, or possibly just aim for our own distribution deal. I think we've reached the point we should just handle it ourselves. Labels seem to be either incompetent, shady, or an unhealthy mix of both. We might as well just bring our music to our fans directly since we're doing 95% of the work anyway.

Sixshot.com: Talking about the new album, what do you think of the critical praise ‘A Piece Of Strange’ has received? It seems to have blown everyone in earshot away.
Deacon : It still surprises me that people liked the record so fast. I really thought the shock of "They aren't being funny anymore." was going to be too great within our fanbase for them to readily accept it but so far so good.

Kno : We've always tried to live by the idea that good music will overcome any generalization or hate. I'm only interested in having open-minded music lovers as fans...and its those open-minded music lovers that understand what we were trying to accomplish with this album and that being able to make a record like this speaks to our abilities and goals as artists, not to our inability to make jokes anymore. You can't say the music is bad, you can only shit on it for random, superficial reasons. Folks always want to be the first to scream about how you fell off or sold out or got lazy or switched your style up, but those are the people that don't listen to music for musical purposes anyway. They listen to indie rap because it gives them some sort of social meaning and feeling of inclusion in their life. If thats the case with you, if you only listen to hip-hop so you can rock your "REAL HIP-HOP 4EVA!" hoodie and be a part of some social secret society, feel free to not buy our albums ever again. That shit annoys me. [laughs] The people that can just relax, smoke a blunt if thats what you do, and listen to anything from Pink Floyd to Marvin Gaye as long as it moves you, those are our people and we love ya'll.

Sixshot.com: I know you’ve been together for a few years now, so you’ve probably been asked this question dozens of times, but how did you two first hook up and start making music together?
Kno : We've been asked that dozens of times, yes. [laughs] I think that directly stems from people underestimating the reach of our music and the size of the fanbase we've been able to amass since 2001. I'll get an e-mail from someone in Boston or Seattle, and they'll make it a point to say they are huge fans but that nobody where they live knows who we are, yet we may have just done a sold out show in that same city the month prior. For some reason people assume or prefer to think we're "really obscure" in the grand scheme of independant hip-hop because of the circles we run in...though we've done songs with and production for folks from KRS to Cee-Lo, been featured in Spin, URB, The Source, XXL, etc. and toured all over the earth. I don't mind telling our story if a writer thinks its needed, but I'd like to get to the point that if an indy rap magazine or website is covering us, they'll know the answer is out there already. [laughs] To answer the question though, we met in 1999 in Atlanta, we both made rap music so we decided to make rap music together.

Sixshot.com: QN5’s 5th Tenant of New Hip-Hop reads “A commitment to musical progression while maintaining the traditions of the art form”. How do you feel you have evolved as a group since “Will Rap For Food”?
Deacon : We've just learned to be us through music. To not be afraid to let many of our influences show at once. Not even we know what our next albums will be like.

Kno : Thats because the first album was just a project, really. Never meant to accomplish anything special, just something to do. We were both in college or taking breaks from college, wanted an artistic outlet and so we made some rap songs. People liked it, so we felt we needed to go ahead and do another one. We didn't think about the name of the group and its pros and cons, our sound vs. people's opinion of what Southern rap should sound like, things of that nature. When we started APOS, 5 years had passed since we met so we sat down and decided to stop half-assing it or playing it safe by making random rap songs. We felt that this so-called underground scene that people kept comparing us to was really just the wrong point of reference for our talent, and we wanted to show that were and are in a league of our own with what we are capable of, talent-wise and from our artistic and personal point of view. For us to be compared stylistically to artists we don't neccesarily even listen to told us that we weren't steering our own boat and we were allowing critics and fans to do it. They might have mentioned a Cage or a Cannibal Ox or an Ugly Duckling, and no disrespect to artists like that, but they simply cannot make an album like APOS. Period. Whether it be their point of reference, or what is expected of them from their fanbase, or their range of talent. Southernunderground and Will Rap For Food? Those were dope albums, but any decent artist could have made those albums. I challenge someone to name an "indie" act that could duplicate APOS exactly. People couldn't, so those comparisons stopped. Whether good or bad, I think we carved our own lane and thats all we wanted. I've had a record company employee tell me that we are a major label phenom, just 11 years too late, so theres no "category" for us now. Now either you're crunk or a nerd or emo or gangsta. On one hand its tough because it takes more to carve a place for ourselves because we don't have a gimmick that serves to fuel an "indy buzz", yet we have a much higher ceiling than anyone that does because our music doesn't appeal to a "niche market" only.

Sixshot.com: You seem to have a lot of artists sampled for hooks in our music. Three of the artists which stick out are Nas (Half Animal), Eminem (Fuckinwitchu) and OutKast (Southernunderground). Do these reflect your influences at all? Deacon : Of course, but they are still just 3 out of a billion. We'd scratch Marcus Garvey over our songs if we had him on wax and it was relevant. I mean, to be real, Kno made a hook for this track called "Dirtay" out of a Jimmy Swaggert sermon. [laughs]

Kno : I just use whatever fits and what I have in the collection, so if you hear samples from Outkast, Big Pun, Coolbreeze and Mobb Deep on our songs, its probably safe to say we listen to and respect those artists.

Sixshot.com: Talking about the likes of OutKast, what do you think of the southern rap movement in general?
Kno : I think internally its wonderful. Theres a level of mutual respect with most southern artists that you just don't seem to see elsewhere besides maybe certain parts of Cali, and it enables the artists to excel and help each other. You see Bun B on a Little Brother record, Lil Wayne working with everyone, Cee-Lo on a CunninLynguists record and doing whole albums with Dangermouse, who went to the University Of Georgia like I did. Theres alot of love when artists can just touch base devoid of industry politics. Now, externally, its wack. From an industry standpoint, a certain sound or reference point from the South is "whats hot", so industry people won't fuck with anything outside of that realm. Everyone has to talk about trappin and hustlin' or make club music in order to get noticed. Thing is, not everyone in the South sells drugs. Not everyone in the south stays in the club 24/7. I know plenty of people that live much tamer lives, work a little 9 to 5, drive a Buick and would like some music that reflects the normal things they go through. Internally, from a fan standpoint its wack too because some fans decide they "hate the South" based off of what they see on BET or MTV, and they won't give anything out of the region a chance, or they go out of their way to give us the backhanded compliment that "You're the only southern rap I listen to." We grew up on that, so in essence you're dissing us. Don't piss on our influences or act like we're trying to distance ourselves from them simply because you don't like D4L.

Sixshot.com: I see you’re both producing on PackFM’s upcoming album and I know the Efamm and Kynfolk albums are in the pipeline at the moment. What are you working on separately at the moment?
Deacon : Separately I'm not sure we're working on anything, because even in our solo ventures we help each other out. Currently I'm helping out a few local artists here in KY finish up projects they hope to shop to majors and sell locally. We're both pondering doing some type of solo projects but I'm yet to see either of us really start on anything [laughs]. We're mainly producing together under the production name A Piece of Strange. We're in the middle of working with some top name artists in the industry, but I'll leave it to Kno to expound upon that if he wants to.

Kno : I don't really count chickens before they sign the paperwork and I try not to drop names unless it really serves a purpose. We could pop up anywhere, and when I say that I mean anywhere because I think we're versatile enough to do damn near anything. We're working on a couple tracks with this rock group Melee who are signed to Warner Brothers, we're producing Witchdoctor of Dungeon Family's next project, doing stuff with Shady Records' artist Bobby Creekwater. Anything, everything. APOS Music will get involved in a polka record if it moves us or the paper is correct [laughs].

Sixshot.com: On the new record we don’t hear as much from Kno on the mic. Was that a collective decision or just how the album progressed?
Deacon : Personally, I always thought Kno was a wack rapper and his voice sounds like somebody playing a soprano conch shell. [laughs] Kno's a dope rapper and even doper producer. He just wanted to concentrate on the beats 100%. Plus we didn't want the new record to sound a certain way, so we incorperated Natti (from Kynfolk) heavily within the album to help tell the story and move the concept of the record along.

Kno : Deacon and I approach music from a producer's vantage point. We think about what will make the best music in the end, not "What will get me the most shine?" or "What do people expect from us?". We had a vision, and we did what was needed to achieve the goal. I may rap on every song on the next LP, who knows.

Sixshot.com: QN5 as a whole seems to be very critical of the state which hip-hop is in at the moment. From a personal viewpoint what do you think is wrong with mainstream hip-hop in 2006?
Deacon : The same thing that's wrong with the rest of the world...

Kno : ...money. Its sad to see such a lack of balance in major label rap music and a heavy perpetuation of negative stereotypes because the industry feels like thats all they can sell. Too many 30 year olds acting 16. I wouldn't say we're critical though, other than just pushing us to try to make better music. Critical could insinuate we were making 100's of songs rapping about "saving hip-hop", which we don't.

Sixshot.com: Something less serious to finish off with. I’m pretty sure you guys like cracking jokes about each other. What’s the funniest/most embarrassing thing you can tell about the other?
Deacon : If i'm not mistaken, Kno has a foot fetish. You better not mention shit about pickle juice, Kno.

Kno : Nah, I don't have a foot fetish, that must be your subconscious trying to impose its will on you. I will say this; Deacon sleeps with his eyes and mouth open sometimes, on planes, in tour vans, all that. He looks DEAD for real. [laughs] One time he slept all the way until his plane landed and almost everyone was off, and this little country white dude was peering over a seat in front of him all concerned, just STARING at him and just as Deacon woke up the dude said to him in a thick accent "Hey....hey buddy....ARE YEW ALL RAAHHHT?!?" [laughs].

Sixshot.com: Anyway, thanks for the interview guys, and I hope you kick ass on tour. I’d also like to say congratulations to Mr SOS for becoming a father in January. Anything else you want to say?
Kno : Define your music, don't let it define you.