The President is charming, even from a distance. He approaches our little press junket striding as easily and confidently across the parking lot of Randy’s Donuts as if it’s the South Lawn’s grassy expanse and he’s just stepped off the Marine One helicopter.  Suddenly, it seems plausible that he made the last-minute change from our original destination, In-N-Out, to Randy’s in an effort to duck a gaggle of groupies. 

After all, it made sense that he’d suggested In-N-Out, despite the fact that he’s newly stopped eating beef (“It was makin’ me feel slow”). His next, and last free, project is entitled “Animal Style,” a slight nod to In-N-Out’s secret dish of fries swimming in Thousand Island dressing, cheese, and grilled onions. Though El Prez has been around earning his name since the early 2000s, he’s still not listed on the main menu.  You gotta be in the know to ask for the good stuff. 

That’s all about to change, however.  “My main focus with “Animal Style” was to make sure it beat in the truck, and I could perform every song.  I’ve never had that…everything was dark or slow; I wanted some shit you ‘throw ya hands up!’ to. I felt like people weren’t respecting my live show.”

De Andre Harvey, better known to his constituents as “El Prez,” will get a chance to test out his new tactic soon:  He’s the first act listed on one of the first highly-anticipated concerts of the new year, “Leaders of the New Cool.”  Diplomatically, El Prez doesn’t just robotically recite, but details the other acts in depth. 

No surprise, really, when he elaborates on his peace policy. “Most of us get along. We have our scene, but we got Glasses Malone, Bishop Lamont, Jay Rock, Nipsey Hussle, the more mainstream; they fuck with everybody.  I know all of them, real good dudes, helped me out a bunch of times.  My homegirl is one of The Bangs; couple of them jerk cats fuck with couple people I know.  All of our scenes are together. Our little rivalries are off record, cause I don’t want people thinking we not united on this. The more everybody sticks together, the more everybody comes up.  A lot of these fans like ALL the artists, so why you trying to make them pick a side?”

He can’t confirm Curren$y, the Big Easy-gone-Big Apple rapper, on the “New Cool” bill.  But “be real, probably the one artist I look forward to hearing right now is Curren$y.  I’m a weed-smokin’ rapper; I like clothes….my regular background is a retail stylist and merchandiser.”  “I saw you modeled,” I interject. “Where’d you see me model?” El Prez asks, and his tone is such that I expect those groupies to materialize out of thin air. 

It’s in these moments that El Prez radiates Southern charm on par with another president, Bill Clinton, but he was born and bred in Inglewood, CA.  Being a mixed family (his mother is white; father, black) living in the ‘hood was heightened reality enough, but they were living off Florence and Normandie during the riots of ’92.  “I remember when what you see in the movies was real life…I think all that helps me be the person I am because I never wanted to be that. I always strived to be different, do better…but you can’t forget, you can’t think of yourself better than your people and where you come from.”

While that humility seems innate, it’s also been hard earned.  I ask about his business savvy. “Shit, I done did everything wrong. For example, putting a record out.  We was straight from the Pro Tools, got an external cd player, burn it on the cd, write [on it] with a Sharpie, stand in front of 7-11 across from our college [Cal State Northridge], slangin’ cds, five dollars.  I ain’t even have no case half the time! I’m not checking the cds so people was gettin’ blank cds; track listing would be wrong. Be prepared, ‘cause this is your first impression.  Some people may get that [first] cd from you, and they run into you again, and I might have a whole package now- shrink wrapped cd case, [I’m] comin’ at you the right way, dope music- and you ain’t gon’ give it the time of day, cause you remember, ‘I got this cd from this dude named El Prez, and it ain’t even have the music on the cd!’ That shit goes a looooong way.” 

Although his dad worked in multimedia at EMI Capital and presciently warned him of the disappearance of the golden-ticket label deal, he “never had the connections of an older person schoolin’” him.  Prez was out on his own, using the fact that he “used to be a little nerd and shit” to study others’ game.  “I used to run with a couple of cutthroat homies from Project Blowed, and they would just crash your stage.  These motherfuckers would take a cordless mic with transmitter, and just be buggin’ the promoter, and whether he say yeah or no, it’s a little break in that show? Oh, they on there, and they rock it so hard, you can’t stop it!

We used to play games like Lyrical Knockout. You could direct a verse at anybody, and if that person doesn’t, in enough time, direct somethin’ right back at you, he out. It causes you to think on your toes, [instead of] ‘I got these four lines Ima say when it come back around.’ I consider myself an MC, and [that means] ‘move the crowd,’ ‘master of ceremonies’…a lot of people these days don’t do that, and that’s kinda [why] the culture suffers as a whole, cause you not takin’ it back to where it started.” 

In 2005-06, El Prez was in a group called The Empire, and after pressing up cds, his partner dropped out.  By himself, Prez got the record on the shelves at many major outlets- Tower, Best Buy, Amoeba.  As excited as he was to see his record in the same bin as Eric B & Rakim, many copies went unsold.  “I wasted all that money, and just at this time the Internet started to pop. I just hopped on the train at the right stop.  I have that street mentality of pushin’ a record, but I also have this sensibility on how to take as much advantage of the Internet as I can.  Can’t nobody name [The Empire] album, but everybody can name that “Prezanomics,” or [the video for] ‘Uaintuponthis!’”

As any PR-polished representative of a new school of thought, El Prez is optimistic about the future for not just him, but the whole city.  “This new scene is totally different from what you expect L.A. to be.  And that’s what I love about it the most, it’s changing the perception [that] all of us out here gangbang and wear khakis and Chucks. We do intelligent, different music. Not the West Coast g-funk music you used to.”

As for the state of hip-hip on a national level, Prez is actually happy the game has entered a recession. By the late 90s, hip hop, led by Pied Piper Diddy, was parading gold-dripping wrists and a glittering smile, attracting everybody on the block who ever accidentally created a couplet. But “now you can’t make no fucking money.  A lot of the drug dealers, a lot of the n*ggas who didn’t want to get no 9-to-5, who just wanted to be famous, they getting out of the game. The people who are still bein’ creative and resilient are still gon’ be here, and they gonna end up shinin’. You getting all the people half-assin’ shit out.”

It’s rare, and refreshing, for such a public figure to speak so candidly.  Then again, I suspect this is why El Prez has gained the reputation he has; people always know where they stand with him. That, and there’s no red tape, no hoops to jump through, when it comes to reaching him.

“I’m always politicking…in a good way.  If I got a connect, you got a connect.  Now if you do me dirty, or if I need something and you ain’t trying to fuck with me, that’s a lesson learned. But I’m not gonna act like you. They can call Prez if they need some help; they know that, from the young to the old.”

Spoken like a man who’s on his way to making the history books. 

El Prez drops “Animal Style” President’s Day, Febuary 15.  Catch him live next Tuesday at the “Leaders of the New Cool” concert at Echoplex, or hit him up online on MySpace and Twitter. 

Nine times out of ten, there’s a PowerPoint presentation behind every performer’s public persona.  Stars are created, not born:  Hired strategic teams brainstorm everything from which events their clients will attend to canned responses to interview questions to the precise timing of a star’s image overhaul. 

That is to say, maybe Wale's been coached to his current attitude.  Then again, in January of this year, he Tweeted that he “hates doin interviews” in the middle of doing one.  Publicist?  What publicist?   

Granted, publicity days are not the fun part of a celebrity’s job- they’re akin to “Groundhog Day.”  But they are an essential part of the job.  Veteran movie stars who could stuff a studio’s pockets doing no interviews whatsoever still participate in press junkets.  Wale released a demo in 2005, and just released his first studio album, Attention Deficit, this month.  Already jaded?  Careful; there’s a stable of hungry rappers just as talented as you who would gladly spend the day lounging in a plush warehouse doing the interviews a major record label lined up for them. 

Wale’s underground buzz radiated from D.C. to the mainstream in the East, Midwest, and South a year or two ago.  Still, he seems to be relatively unknown here in L.A.  Considering his respect for the West Coast-  he titled a mixtape 100 Miles & Running and addresses Tupac in “Letter"- you'd think he'd be excited about the prospect of nurturing his reputation here.  LA Stereo.TV's interview with him, however, did nothing to improve upon the "grumpy with the media" rumors swirling about him. 

OK, maybe he’s just not a people person.  Some performers save that energy for the stage. Yet he was just as blasé at his boring, zero-momentum show November 6th at USC.  No, it wasn’t the Pauley Pavilion and he wasn’t opening for Jay Z; it was a back-lot benefit for Pete Carroll’s “A Better LA” charity and he was the headliner.  He repeatedly interrupted his set to ask what the small, yet enthusiastic, audience wanted to hear, but then would perform a different song. Like it or not, right now he’s a hipster rapper; like it or not, a hipster rapper’s fan base is college students.  Free advice- it’s wise to interact with them further than asking who’s from D.C. and what high school those couple people attended.

This is not a critique of his lyrical ability. Wale’s a fine rapper, though his verses do lack that sticky. Nor is it a call for Wale to pander to the media- see the fireworks display that was Public Enemy's relationship with it.  And maybe this is a lesson in the positive (the ostensible vulnerability in his Tweets) and negative consequences of the ever-growing accessibility of celebrities. But an artist in the entertainment industry ultimately must engage and entertain his audience, and that includes more than complaining his album is the “most undershipped record in history.”  Tupac popped off to the media constantly, but he also bubbled over with charisma.  Kanye West annoys the hell out of everybody and is utterly charmless, but he has the Midas touch as a producer.  Art in this country is a commodity, and “if they don’t cop, you gonna get dropped.”

A couple weeks ago in The New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones confirmed Nas' crochety 2006 proclamation that hip-hop is dead.  Whew, thank goodness a pop critic from an insular magazine whose mascot is Eustace Tilley is here to keep us informed on these things.             

The biggest problem with Frere-Jones' argument, however, lies not in the publication that houses it, but on what he bases it.  For most of the article, Jones focuses on the uniquely New York-ian legend Jay Z, and more specifically the rapper's latest album, The Blueprint 3.   

As "Empire State of Mind" restates, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere!  Let's hear it for New York! Yeah, if you've got a trust fund and upper-crusty society connections, you certainly can make it there.  Yeah, let's hear it for a city that's become so self-referential it's blinded to its own declining importance.  

New York is notorious for assuming it owns the exclusive rights to the production of cool, and it does indeed have evidence to support those bragging rights.  Yet over the past 15 years or so, Manhattan, and increasingly, the boroughs, have become so expensive that artists, arguably the people who create this cool, have moved out because they can no longer afford to live and work there.                    

Frere-Jones makes some valid points.  Rhianna's one-note kindergartener tone on "Run this Town's" chorus is in no way equivalent to other "so muh' fuckin' soulful" previous hooks. But she's Jay's pet project, so of course he'll put her on.  Kid Cudi's debut didn't live up to the promise of his mixtape. Hip-hop "splintered" into many different forms long ago.  And he does admit this may be hip-hop's time to "atomize."         

What Frere-Jones fails to do is look beyond New York to anyone other than the most obvious mainstream rap artists.  Along with Jay Z and Kid Cudi, he mentions Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and Drake-  New Yorker, transplanted New Yorker, token Mid-Westerner, token Southerner, token newcomer.  For his rebuttal, he calls on Raekwon (from NYC's Wu-Tang Clan) and Freddie Gibbs, a Gary, Indiana, rapper who relocated to Los Angeles.        

Just as the New York of the late 1980s pouted over the West Coast's crashing of their rap party, Frere-Jones seems unwilling to acknowledge- or is just plain unknowledgeable- of the dirty, creative underbelly in other cities revitalizing hip-hop yet again.  Gibbs is just one of many as-yet-unknown artists rapping over original beats.  

His praise of Gibbs, in fact, highlights the other flaws in Frere-Jones' argument. What precedence do original beats have in qualifying rap as quality? Sampling has long been a cornerstone of rap, and rapping over someone's established song is a method of showing and proving you do can do it better. Why disparage "bloated expansion and leveraging of fantasies" while heralding "little sentimentality or exaggeration"?  Trash-talking, one-upping, and rapping about what you have while in reality precisely not having those things are the foundation of MC battling.  "Underdogs ended up sounding smug" because rappers have always been about faking it 'til they're making it.                 

It's not as if this is the first time critics have underestimated the staying power of hip-hop.  Puff Daddy killed it with crinkly, colored onesies.  Master P and then Cash Money Millionaires killed it with bling.  Soulja Boy killed it with ringtones.                               

Hip-hop will never die. Has jazz died? Classical music? There's an ebb and flow in all art forms. Hip-hop might devolve for a bit, but it'll also evolve again.  L.A.'s as-yet-unknown rappers seem primed to lead that way.