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Video excerpts of the following interview appear in Issue No. 26 of LAUNCH on CD-ROM. That same disc includes a live, exclusive video performance of "How Deep Is Your Love" from the hit album Enter The Dru. LAUNCH: You've been lucky to enjoy some incredible success with Enter The Dru. What's your secret? SISQO: Basically, I like the lifestyle I live and I realize that in order to maintain it, the members of Dru Hill have to constantly reinvent ourselves to keep the crowd interested. We feel like we owe it to them. Basically, we believe we are fans with a record deal. Everything that pissed us off, we tried not to do. Like, I hated when I'd go see a group do a show and they did the same show on TV before. Or if you got a group you love and they come back with a new album and it's the same damn album they already did. That's why my hair is longer now; I have the eye earring. That's why I wear a hat all the time. I don't take the hat off unless I'm performing. Why? Because if you saw my hair all the time, it wouldn't be special. When I wear a hat onstage, everyone's thinking, "When's he gonna take the hat off?" Always wondering, "Is his hair blonde under there? Is he going to shock us?" We like to keep the crowd entertained. They'll never know. We keep them guessing. LAUNCH: So, obviously you are aware that your image is key to your popularity. SISQO: Basically, Dru Hill believes that image is everything and that's why we carefully constructed our image. Most of our outfits are custom-made, with the exception of our wardrobe in the video "These Are The Times." Those were actual costumes from [the movie] The Man In The Iron Mask. Our stylist got hold of them. We were trying to do something different. That's been our forte: to constantly do things that people don't expect. You can expect the unexpected from Dru Hill. LAUNCH: Tell me about your influences. SISQO: Our major influences are Boyz II Men and Jodeci. We're young cats. I just turned 21. I don't know nothing about the old cats. People say, "Your voice is so mature." That's from church. We grew up listening to Boyz II Men and Jodeci. When we first came out, I tried my damnedest to sound just like them because we was so weird; I was jumping up and down, my hair was blonde. We didn't want to scare the audience, so we gave them a sound they was used to--first. But every song after "Tell Me" is all Dru Hill. You tell me Jodeci could have sang "Tell Me"? I would say they could sing it just as well or better. But now, Dru Hill is distinctively Dru Hill. Who else could sing "How Deep"? Dru Hill. That's a prime example of how when we first came out we was trying to give people a familiar sound, but now it's all Dru Hill. Undeniably Dru Hill. LAUNCH: So, how would you feel if somebody said you were the next Jodeci? SISQO: I would totally disagree, because Jodeci was an urban group and they prided themselves on being an urban group. Which is not bad. We have an urban base, but we ain't no urban group. "How Deep" is No. 1 crossover and R&B, which means we're not an urban group. If you wanted to compare us to anybody, compare us to the same person my bodyguard compares us to. He's an older cat who came up with the other guys. The only people that move like Dru Hill--even remotely close--is the Jackson Five. Jodeci never moved like Dru Hill. Jodeci had the whole persona and whenever they came onstage it was electrifying and you was ready for them. But I believe Dru Hill has a whole new thing. What's the next step we're gonna do? What color is my hair going to be? Is Sisqo going to flip? Nobody ever wondered if Jodeci was gonna flip. Dru Hill is distinctively Dru Hill now. We don't even curse onstage. Nobody don't even realize it, because they don't miss it. We straddle the line. We are a cross between Boyz II Men and Jodeci. We're not as far to the left as Jodeci, not as far to the right as Boyz II Men. We're not goody-goody boys next door but we're not the bad boys of R&B. We're the international supergroup Dru Hill. LAUNCH: How did you feel when Boyz II Men dedicated their American Music Award to you? SISQO: For them to say something like "This is Dru Hill's year" when they won an award...it was flattering because Boyz II Men, ever since they first met us, they've been treating us like their little brothers. Our main goal is to get to that Spice Girls/ Backstreet Boys level without having our main core audience saying, "Oh, they done sold out." We want to be the first group to cross over and have every race of people recognize us without having our main core audience saying that we sold out. There ain't nothing fake about Dru Hill. If we cross over, we cross over. And we'll continue to give the street element to our fans so they'll be satisfied. LAUNCH: How do you pull that off? SISQO: For instance, "How Deep" is so different that we didn't want to scare our fans. They was used to us doing these big ballads. With the Spanish intonation, and by it being an uptempo track, we didn't want to scare our fans, so we asked Redman to be on it to pull it back down to the street. So we have a version for people who might not like rap, and a version to nurture our fanbase because that's the reason we're here. Not saying we don't respect our urban fanbase, but we believe we can be the next group to reach superstardom like the Jackson Five or the Spice Girls or the Backstreet Boys where everybody knows us. To see Dru Hill is to love Dru Hill. If you see us perform, you will become a Dru Hill fan. LAUNCH: Talk to me about your tattoos. You have quite a few. Is there some meaning behind it all? SISQO: The tattoo thing...I don't know what the rest of the group's reason was, but I was trying to be cute. I was the one cat in all my crew, when everybody would talk about getting a tattoo, I was like, "I'm gonna go get it." And I went out and got it. The biggest one I got is right here on my chest. Which is a tiger--my first tattoo. I've got the least tattoos out of the whole group. I got five. I just think I got mine in the most noticeable places. I have a sunburst on my stomach. I just got them in the most noticeable places. No special reason. No spiritual reason. I was just trying to be cute. Period. LAUNCH: Is there a story behind the album title? SISQO: The Enter The Dru thing is sort of inspired by [the Bruce Lee movie] Enter The Dragon, but mostly it just looked cool. No special reason. Enter The Dru just sounded good. People ask, "Do you like Bruce Lee?" I don't know. All I know is it sounded cool. Cool logo. That's slick. No special reason. It looked good. It felt right. If it don't feel right, don't do it. LAUNCH: Have you ever thought something "felt right" and then it was too crazy? SISQO: It's scary pushing stuff to the edge. Sometimes we be scaring ourselves. Like with the video "These Are The Times," everybody having on those period clothes--wigs and stuff--we be a little nervous sometimes. But we be like, "If we don't go here, who is?" We've gotta be the group that does stuff no one expects. Basically, from this point on, we're trying to go in that whole Janet Jackson/ Michael Jackson direction. Remember when Michael Jackson had videos? Everyone wanted to see what that next video was, what he was gonna do. Everyone was curious. Once we get enough people looking in Dru Hill's direction, hopefully we can get them to say the same thing. Like, when the "Thriller" video came out, I was a little kid; I was scared as hell and I slept with my sister for a week. We want to move people emotionally. LAUNCH: How much of the video image comes directly from you guys? SISQO: We do it all. We work diligently with the record company to come up with an idea we all believe in. All our videos are really edgy. We just saw all of them the other day. With "Tell Me" we were jumping up and down. Nobody expected that. With "In My Bed," the ballad version, it was two girls in the bed at the end of the video; everyone thought it would be a girl and a guy. After that, everyone started putting two guys and two girls in their video. Then with "Never Make A Promise," we hit a powerful subject with child abuse. These are things people are scared to touch. It's real life, and that's why people respected it. We are role models; we have centerstage; we need to bring a light to things people are afraid to talk about, and at the same time, entertain them. "Five Steps" moved me to tears, and I'm in the video. That's crazy! "When I'm Making Love" is just glamour shots. Busy work. Trying to look cute. When we had the video with "How Deep," everyone's still trying to figure out where we were. We were in Hong Kong on top of the tallest building in Hong Kong. People thought we were superimposed, and that it was a stunt man doing a flip. It was real. That was me flipping. With "These Are The Times," nobody expected my hair to be black and blonde and to be playing opposite myself. We just want to keep the crowd guessing. Now we're starting to do what we set out to do. LAUNCH: And the choreography is a big element in your clips. SISQO: I do all our choreography, if anybody's wondering. I just want it to look different from everybody else. I'm sorry to all the artists, but I think everybody looks the same these days. Everybody uses the same choreographer. I'm not saying it doesn't look good, but we are trying to be groundbreakers, innovators. We don't use choreographers because it tends to look the same. This way it's more personal. I hate when the choreographer choreographs a step and the artist looks like the choreographer. You lose the identity of the artist. With us, you see Dru Hill. We do things we know how to do--things that look natural. I think it comes across that way. Basically, expect the unexpected from Dru Hill. That's all I can say. LAUNCH: What is the unexpected? SISQO: I don't know one R&B group that plays a guitar. R&B male groups that are actually "doo-wop" groups, all they do is sing and dance. We're about to change that. The average R&B group sings and dances. The average alternative group plays and sings. But nobody plays and sings and dances. The four of us will play, sing, and dance. If somebody can do that right now, then we're in trouble. LAUNCH: I read somewhere that you arrange most of the Dru Hill vocals and that you look to Mozart and classical music as your inspiration. SISQO: Yeah, well, in cartoons, they use a lot of classical music. It was funny, I was watching cartoons one day, Bugs Bunny or something. I was young, about 14, and I was singing the music to the cartoon, and my mother came in and heard me singing the music. My mother felt she should nurture that. She went to the library and got me a catalog of Mozart's music. I started listening to it, and actually, that became the premise of my vocal arrangements. The premise of my vocal arrangement has sprouted from classical music, like when you hear the strings, the French horn, the drums, all doing different things. It was a guideline for me to innovate a new vocal sound. On "How Deep," I have arranged a harmony where, on the bridge, one person comes in after another, almost like an orchestra. Then I did something quite different, which I don't remember anyone else doing: we sang a chord, and I ran it backwards to give it a different feel. Nobody even knows it's backwards. Then we put a phlange on it to pan it from left to right. There's a whole weird thing going on in the bridge section. That all sprouted from listening to classical music and hearing all those different lines. It was fascinating to me and I also did the interludes on our album; you'll notice they're very orchestrated like a movie, or like an orchestra. On the first album, check out "All Alone," where we had everybody singing in different times--like eighth-notes, quarter-notes, half-notes, etc., all at the same time. These are things we do to keep it interesting for the people who are really into Dru Hill. We like to push the envelope for the people who really like Dru Hill. LAUNCH: You've got a number of nicknames. Let's talk about that. SISQO: The funny thing is, my name is Dru Nasty. I just took that because Nokio took Dru Sexy. I don't know why. I'm not really nasty, but hell, I'll be nasty because Nokio wanna be sexy. I'm also known as the Golden Child, which derived from my old job. I used to work at this place called the Fudgery, like at Disneyworld: "Ladies and gentlemen, look this way!" That kind of deal. Very theatrical. My manager said I brought something really different to the job. He used to joke with me and called me the Chosen One, the Golden Child. It just stuck. Goldie. LAUNCH: Tell me about your relationship with Mya. SISQO: I wrote both of Mya's first and second singles. Mya is going to be a superstar. The record company will make sure of that. She just may well be the next Janet Jackson. If you have any confusion, Mya is not my artist. I've just known her so long. We all knew each other before we had a record deal. We used to hang out. We don't go together. We used to hang out, listen to music. When it came time to do her record, she only had like two songs, but when I stepped in, we kind of worked together and created a sound for her. Then everybody else came in. I feel good. I feel like I was a part of this star who's going to be huge. Her record company is amazing and they're going to make sure that she gets everything she needs to become a superstar. LAUNCH: Will we be seeing you in the movies or on TV anytime soon? SISQO: We've turned down several movie roles because we don't want to go into movies playing ourselves. We want to be one of the best or the best in everything we do. Nobody will take us seriously if we are in a movie playing ourselves. We ain't gonna be in no movies unless we're for-real actors. A lot of TV shows have asked us to be guest stars, but we didn't feel the scripts were tasteful enough. We would want it to be like Fresh Prince or the black Seinfeld. That's really good writing. We just want something different. We're waiting for the right roles, the right parts. We want to seize the moment, try to please the crowd. Basically, we're just here to entertain. LAUNCH: Tell me about your experience performing in South Africa. SISQO: If you've never been to Africa, you just have to go. Black, white, whatever. That's the origin of man and you just feel it. Something inside just feels different. To be a guest of Nelson Mandela, a man who's been incarcerated his whole life and to have him come out and have the same glow? It's phenomenal. LAUNCH: How were the crowds? SISQO: I didn't even know anybody knew us over there. We played for 40,000 people. They had Dru Hill signs and stuff. We were flattered, blessed. We were performing with Chaka Khan, Stevie Wonder. I'm a young cat, up onstage with these legends of music, and these kids are putting up posters of Dru Hill! It was amazing. To get 40,000 people in one spot? They knew every song. There comes a point in your life where you go from one level to the next, and that was that point. Physically, mentally, emotionally. LAUNCH: Do you spend much time on the Web? SISQO: I just got a computer. I have no personal time, so I haven't worked on anything. I suck on the computer, but my advice to you is get yourself a damn computer. The world is computerized. Figure it out. If you don't figure it out you'll be lost. The 21st century is coming. That's why I got myself a laptop. I suck right now, but I'll catch up with you all. When I get a chance to go online or whatever and talk to you all, that guy who says he's Sisqo might really be me. Billy_Johnson_Jr |
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