Photo courtesy of El Da Sensei
New Jersey Hip-Hop legend El Da Sensei and producer MentPlus ended 2024 with the release of an album called “The Unexpected.” The title of the album represents its sound as El and Ment blend golden era and modern day Hip-Hop effortlessly.
The Unexpected is a 14-track album produced entirely by MentPlus. The project comes courtesy of Vinyl Digital and features contributions by DJ Iron, Dasha Chadwick, Shay Leonia, Empress, DJ Grazzhoppa, Kice of Course, DJ Hush, Fresh Daily, Venomous2000, DJ Kaos, and John Robinson.
The Real Hip-Hop spoke to El Da Sensei about the struggles of being a parent, making Hip-Hop fun again, working with MentPlus, and their new album, The Unexpected.
TRHH: Why’d you title the new album The Unexpected?
El Da Sensei: I think it was kind of fitting for today. The kind of music that we put on the record I would say is more of a boom bap feel. Today is a little different saying boom bap, but what we tried to do is capture a moment and also still at the same time do it futuristically. It’s almost like going back to the future. We knew we couldn’t go back so far, but I think with the style of beats that Ment does it definitely lifted the bar a little bit as far as talking about what we’re trying to do today and at least put out to the people.
As far as the elements that’s on the record, I told a lot of people it’s a lot of cutting, a lot of scratching on the record. Even a song like “Body Talk” is trying to bridge the gap in Hip-Hop where everything is bar heavy. Sometimes we forget to have some kind of versatility and actually bring women into the fold with Hip-Hop. As male driven as it is I just told Ment as soon as I heard the beat, “Yeah, we gotta do something on this that’s not bars, bars, bars.” I know for a fact people that heard that song it definitely caught them off guard when you’re talking about underground music when it comes to women and trying to appeal to them.
TRHH: I think that’s missing on the underground because, man, I hate to sound old but Big Daddy Kane was an underground emcee and he made songs like that. I think we’ve lost the fun part of Hip-Hop, too. The music has slowed down overall and it’s all about being lyrical. You need that diversity, man.
El Da Sensei: Definitely. Basically, today everything is slow. I noticed that, too, with some of the records that we have on the album are more fast-paced and that is another difference as far as what we’re doing. I can’t do slow, I could do mid-tempo, but I can’t do slow. To the point where I still want to give the listener something back as far as the drive and the feel of the record. Of course, everything can’t be slow, but at the same time it’s just having a mixture and giving the picture of what it used to be like for the formula that we used. Have chant anthems, have scratch hooks, and have elements in these songs to where you won’t have a choice to go back.
Even if it’s like you’re saying, feeling like you’re old, it’s giving a vibe that’s missing today. Like you said, the fun is gone, but I mainly say that the craftsmanship is gone. Everybody trying to do the hot 16 and trying to get all the metaphors out, punchlines out, and you’re alienating yourself from a whole crowd that’s not so into that, that just want to follow the record.
Give me something not so complex, but something I could follow and say, “Okay, this dude is an elite barsmith.” I think that’s the thing that cats are missing today when they’re making these records, or as you said, versatility. To have different topics, to have different feels of these songs is important because it’s a stigma already with us being underground, being so lyrical. But you can’t not think that you can appeal to another crowd if you’re just going in one direction.
I think today it should be more practice in the care of the record and the mixing of the record. I always tell people that’s the best part of doing these albums — when you’re mixing everything and pay attention to how it sounds when you’re doing the demo version, so, when you’re done with the mixing and mastering and it’s still clean, that’s the best part of doing the music.
TRHH: How did you get together with MentPlus to decide to do The Unexpected?
El Da Sensei: I met Ment years ago. He was affiliated with a few cats that I knew and I knew of him also on the beat circuit. There’s not a lot of cats in Jersey with those kinds of beats that Ment had when I first heard what he was doing. So, it’s rare. When I did find out, he was working with somebody else at the time, another producer, and I gravitated toward both of them. But I gravitated toward Ment in a way where I said, just like everybody else he needed to be heard. He had at the time for me a sound that I needed that was still in the vein of Artifacts, but this is me and Ment saying together, let’s like come up with something that maybe we thought we couldn’t do.
We did other songs, too, but these songs made the record because they were more concrete ideas of what we had first. We talked about everything first before we started recording. We recorded everything in his crib. He was living in Bloomfield, NJ, not too far from me. So, that was like an escape for me. I just got into what he was giving me beat wise. Every time I would leave a session he would give me a couple of tracks to listen to. I wrote everything at his crib. It’s hard for me to write at home because I got so much other stuff going on. Everything was comfortable and mostly for me now I see the difference in him as far as when we first started, when the record came out, and I’m seeing his accolades come up a little bit as far as his notoriety. I think that people are hearing what I heard when I heard the beats. I said, “I need these” because this is the direction I wanted to go in at the time we started recording.
I always say everybody deserve a chance to drive the car. I’ve driven a lot of cars. I’ve been able to sit in the driving seat for many times and then it would be the passenger, and now I’m letting Ment drive because I’ve driven the car a lot of time before. Now it’s your turn to drive, let’s get into this seat, get comfortable, and let the people see what you can do. That’s pretty much the main reason why we got together, because I felt like, “Dude, you got talent and the best way I can help pretty much is by just lending my bars.”
TRHH: On the song “Stop” you paint a realistic picture of life as a Hip-Hop artist. Why do you think frontin’ persists in Hip-Hop when there are artists at the top like Kendrick Lamar, Tyler, and J. Cole who never speak about the glamorous side of things?
El Da Sensei: It’s funny, when you look at a lot of these cats they come out and they see things early. When you first come in you have this idea of the game and then once you get into it, especially being brand new, some of the things you may have had to do you didn’t feel like you needed to do, and the things that you did, didn’t work. With J. Cole I can say his attitude switched up to a way where it was like, “I’m not going to lend myself to this game so much where in the beginning I did” and the music became more personal for them, even with Tyler. All three of them. I’ve listened to interviews and heard them speak, Tyler seemed like something clicked inside of him. The thing I like about him is he’s a different dude. A lot of people should have this — he goes where his mind goes. But once you start putting the pen to paper or phone, whatever to record, this is who you are putting out to the people.
So, when you learn things and you learn how you can maneuver in a whole different way, be yourself still. Right now, they’re appealing to a mass of people. They’re not forced to be something they’re not and they have the comfortability now to be like, “Look, this is me!” and people are like, “Okay, I’m alright with it.” Because honestly, there’s not a lot of emcees like how we had back in the day that even speaks like them to say, “I may not want to shoot a whole bunch of videos no more, I may not feel as excited as I did when I first came in” but everything became more personal. So, as a listener you understood from listening to the songs these dudes are making, the struggle they had in trying to find themselves in this game where you don’t have to be the machine product that we’ve seen over the years. A lot of this is changing. There is a lot less ratchetness and people are getting more conscious to the fact of what’s real. And we’re in a whole different generation of real when it comes to cats my age.
I can only sit back and watch because it was artists that we had that were sort of like that, but this is like a whole ‘nother thing. So, when I’m speaking from my level of being an independent artist it’s still really underground. The underground today with the new cats is different. You look at Skyzoo, Skyzoo is younger but he’s from my era. He was at the tail end of the 90s when he first started and traveled through these 2000s. He’s elite now and being mentioned in places and names with other artists that are well respected. So, it’s levels you can be at doing this — even at my age. I feel like the song “Stop” the whole thing is still built on this big idea that people may have about where everybody should be as far as your status.
I tell people all the time, this is work. It’s either go to work or do this work, and this became my work. We don’t have no big rap bus when we go on tour in Europe. We’re on the train, we on airplanes, we all over the place, boats, and we’re making our way there. But when you talk about today, the way the music is made, the whole way the streaming game is, it’s a whole other thing. Especially when you’re talking about these guys, Drake, Kendrick, Cole, it’s a different stratosphere when it comes to that. I always say to kids though, just like how we found out, it’s not like that for everybody, so, find your way. Get your niche and find out what your direction is. It’s so many people, but everybody hasn’t made their following. It’s like one circle that’s kind of small and everybody else is on the outside still doing what they got to do, but the focus is there.
TRHH: You have a song on the album called “Can’t Get Worse” and on there you say “Not knowing the struggle of being parents/Until I soon had my own and it would be apparent.” What opened your eyes the most about something that you struggled with in parenthood that your parents seemingly handled easily?
El Da Sensei: I think a lot of cats my age, you’re making stuff happen. They figured out ways to take us out and these things were done without phones. Whether it was movies, we would go out camping, and go to lakes and as I got older I started to understand they’re making this up as they go along. As I got older I was like, “How are they doing this knowing there were bills to pay, knowing it was food, and making sure we had clothes?” And between all of that, knowing the struggle part is I had two other brothers. Certain things that I knew I couldn’t have as a kid because we all had to make sure we all had.
So, that part is what I thought about the most when I said that line, because me being a parent my oldest son is autistic. I’ve done a lot with him over the years growing up. He’s gained and learned a lot more, but for me not knowing that was going to happen I had to figure out a way as well of how to deal with him, figure out ways to make him happy, whether it’s taking him out to places he wants to go, food or snacks. I found out even though this was happening I figured out a way as well to figure out how to maneuver for him and make him, I won’t say regular, but as independent as possible, even in the situation he had.
My oldest son watching everything growing up, he’s now 21, and he got a job, and he understand everything I told him to the point where he understands. He saw his dad doing all this like, “I had to take care of you, doing all this stuff, me and your mom.” Seeing this now it makes me understand even more what my job was and making magic happen. These two guys are looking at me to make stuff happen to take care of them. And when you got somebody else that you’re taking care of, you yourself tend to think more carefully about where you’re going, what you’re doing, who you’re hanging with, and you want to make it home.
When I had that line in my head I thought about all this stuff my father did job wise just to make sure we were straight. All my friends are like that, too. I have friends that’s on child support, I have friends that conquered child support and beat the system, to people that’s trying to find ways to make extra bread and take care of their kids going to college. I’m looking at all this and my friends and I’m like, “We didn’t realize how hard it was for our parents.” We’re just looking at the whole “might get a car for graduation, might get a car for your 16th birthday” but we don’t know how this is happening. We’re not asking them as kids “how are you able to do this?” They’re like, “Go to bed, we’re gonna figure this out.” So, that line really rang true when I look at my kids and I look at myself and things that I know I had to do.
TRHH: What do you want people to take away from The Unexpected?
El Da Sensei: I want people to come away with the feeling of there is hope for music that we do, that I do, that we cater to. It’s not that bad when it comes to putting out records like this. I told Ment, “There’s an audience for everything and the formula that we use is still intact, it’s just the way they use it.” So, we made 14 songs to get to people to make them understand that this type of music lives on, not in just me, but in a lot of cats I listen to. I tend to listen to my peers that’s still making music, whether that’s Craig, Masta Ace, Monch, Redman, the bar is still high when it comes to that competition of putting out records.
I just want people to understand that it’s serious still putting these records together. We take time out and understanding what y’all may want and it’s just about really getting that essence back. I won’t say back, because it’s always there. It’s always been there, it’s just actually putting the ear to the street and to the internet to find out what you want. I know it’s still a surprise for some people that may not have known I was still making music. To put out a record out today in 2024 is a testament to the craft and us being unfiltered.
We’re in a whole new era right now and I’ll be 54 in January, so when I tell people that it’s younger cats that listen to my music, my son’s friends listen to my music, and for them it’s unexpected to hear cats my age still making music like this, and consistent. It’s not going to stop. It’s more music coming, we got remixes coming, we’re going to shoot more videos. I would still say in the climate that we’re in today it’s very rare that records come along and they are what you want them to be. So, that’s pretty much where The Unexpected came from and where it’s going until we make something new.
Purchase: El Da Sensei & MentPlus – The Unexpected