LEGENDARY GODBODY | Planet Asia

INTERVIEW KB Tindal

Planet Asia’s discography would put the majority of artists to shame. The numbers might be a little bit off from what I found. But there's about 87 full-length releases dating back to 1998, which includes about 40 albums, 40 EPs mixed in with an uncounted amount of singles, 504 feature appearances and 814 credits to his name. He is a bar lord staple when you mentioned West Coast Hip Hop, and he hails from West Fresno, California. He has worked with too many artists to actually name. But just to name a few, there has been Talib Kweli, 38 Spesh and Ghostface. He recently dropped another project with producer extraordinaire, Apollo Brown, titled Sardines, which is the follow up to their 2017 release Anchovies. Today we tap inwardly with the God, King Medallions aka Planet Asia.

Validated: Man first of all, let me commend you on being the consummate hustler, and a pure MC. Most people that have 30 years in the game, haven't done half as much work that you've put in. What kind of motivates you to keep putting out work and keeping your pen sharp after all these years, man?

Planet Asia: Like I tell those people man, I never really lost the youthful side of me. I'm still like a fanatic about this culture right here. So that never really left me. Of course, you know, as you get older life does its thing, you know, bills and whatever. But that's inevitable because most of us was paying bills before we was famous anyway. So that's not really a factor. In the earlier times it would be like money getting low I gotta go do something. I gotta go make a record or do this, that and the third. That's when I feel like sometimes people can sacrifice some music and what not. I never was the type that can actually go into studio and make some shit that was like the opposite of what I wanted to make. So it was like, I didn't get into this to make bubble gum popcorn stuff. That’s not what I'm in this for. That little child in me is still always like, “Man, that's corny. Like, don't do that.” You know what I mean?

Validated: Yeah.

Planet Asia: Fuck that. Don't do that. You know, don't be like one of these cats.

Validated: Yeah no doubt.

Planet Asia: So it's that Hip Hop that we come from that was so arrogant, that we just can't you know, hell no. It's like, “No, I don't care what everybody doing.”

Validated: What's your earliest memory of Hip Hop and the culture?

Planet Asia: I mean, my first concert was the Fresh Fest. With Run-DMC, Timex Social Club, Whodini. I think Dougie Fresh was on that show, but I remember LL Cool. J. I think the Beastie Boys were on that tour. They might have been on that tour, but it was just crazy, bro. That’s what I was born out of. I came out of that. That's my foundation of what made me. It's crazy, because you’re talking about 1986. I've always talked about that show. The interesting thing about that show, in 1986 Too Short was the opener. You feel what I’m saying?

Validated: Yeah.

Planet Asia: Almost like a local opener. But even though he’s not from Fresno, he had the local opener type thing because they had the curtain still closed. He had a hit out that everybody knew. So it was like, once he got on stage, and everybody knew the song, he had it lit. “Freaky Tales,” and all that shit spread like wildfire. At that time he had a song called “That's Your Life.” That shit was big. That was like an anti drug record. You know what I mean?

Validated: Classic Short shit. 

Planet Asia: Yeah straight B-boy, D-boy rap, you know what I mean? Gold ropes T-shirts. Beepers and 501s. You know how we do it. That's my whole posture which comes from Too Short, LL Cool J, Run-DMC Bro, if you go back and look at all the pictures bro, they all got the same posture even down to Too Short bro. They are all standing like this… 

Validated: B-boy stance yeah.

Planet Asia: So when you see a nigger going like this, expressing himself like this… He’s from a certain era. 

Validated: Yeah, no doubt. 

Planet Asia: When niggas doing all this gay hand movements that ain’t from my era. Niggas from my era are very direct.

Validated: Yeah.

Planet Asia: Anybody from the ‘70s, ‘80s that was our tough guys. Dudes that were kind of like “Whatever nigga, what’s up.” It’s that what's-up attitude. It was just a different type of energy. It wasn't even as classless as you would even want to say it is today. I knew stone cold dudes that didn't even cuss but they will fuck you up. That era was just a different era. Even at Fresh Fest that wasn't like some lightweight shit to go to either. People will be talking about these concerts like it wasn't violent and that shit. Motherfuckas was getting beat the fuck up at shows. All the time. It wasn't a show that I went to that somebody wasn't getting beat up.

Validated: So I know you've heard this a million times man but this is my first time interviewing you. At what age did you get knowledge of self, first of all, and then I know you've heard before that you sound like an East Coast emcee with your accent. Who inspired that flow early on? I'm thinking like there had to be like the God emcee Rakim and a few others that are cut from that kind of cloth. 

Planet Asia: Most definitely. It is definitely that. When the switch went from the LLs because I wasn't really rhyming during that Fresh Fest era. That was just me being a child on some like we break dance outside. We was more into playing sports at that time. When Radio came out I was like in the fourth grade or some shit. I was in the fourth grade when that album dropped. By the time he came out with “I'm Bad,” I might have been like in the fifth or sixth grade. 

Back then it was like we didn't call him Rakim. It used to be like Eric B. “You heard that new Eric B, right?” And it would be like “Damn, dude voice is crazy. Like he is so different.” But when it really switched, when the styles switch, I would have to say that second album though. The Follow the Leader album. 

That and can’t forget Kane’s first album Long Live the Kane. It's a mixture of it's like Paid In Full and then Long Live the Kane, and by the time it came Follow The Leader was dropping because Follow the Leader dropped in like ‘89.

Validated: Yeah, somewhere somewhere in that era.

Planet Asia: They used to use Follow the Leader as like…

Validated: One of the opening videos.

Planet Asia: Yes. And that’s when it first came out. And I remember that video, seeing that video when YO! MTV Raps debuted and shit and I was like, “Yo, he took it to another level”. Because even during that time Full LL was still dope though. 

Validated: Yeah LL was still heavy. 

Planet Asia: Yeah because a lot of people don't like to count “Walking With a Panther” but I do that. That shit was ahead of its time. 

Validated: He was way ahead of his time with that. 

Planet Asia: Yo Walking With a Panther is basically the jiggy ever before the jiggy era but the fly jiggy. He had the Bally’s on. 

Validated: Everybody hated on him for that because that was the afrocentric era. 

Planet Asia: It was the afrocentric era.

Validated: Yeah.

Planet Asia: But he was rockin green Ballys with the Dapper Dan leather, four finger ring, he had a bottle of Moet.

Validated: Yep.

Planet Asia: Come on bro. He was already doing what cats barely started doing in the 2000s. 

Validated: Yep. Early.

Planet Asia: Mama Said Knock You Out was like his comeback because they considered his fall off Walking with a Panther. He came back on the Mama Said Knock You Out. He had “Jingling Baby” and all that. But by the time all that came out Kane and Rakim was like the new computer. If you weren't rhyming at that level… you gotta think I’m ages under them. So my growth and development was being able to learn how to rhyme all those styles at a young age.  So people know me, where I'm from and from my crew, but I was rhyming even before that. I started rhyming with them when I was like 13 and 14. I already had been to the studio and all that from the age of nine. There was that dude already knocking on my door. A grown man, “Yo excuse me Miss Green, is it possible that we set our equipment up so we can record your grandson?” Cause I'm like, “Yo, you got to ask her because, you know, my grandmother mean as hell. And if you want to do it at these hours, man, you're gonna have to holla at her. You better talk to her nice and act like you a square. You better come in here with your shirt buttoned up. You feel me?” So I remember like that era, you know that was my growth and development. I would say that it was like the Rakim and Kane stage. Then by the time I got with my crew that's when Brand Nubian, Leaders Of The New School came out and I'm a product of that. You got to think, 1990 I'm in the ninth grade. To be a ninth grader in 1990, you’re born in a perfect time bro. 

Validated: You were a sponge at that time. You soaked all that shit up.

Planet Asia: Super sponge. When people be like “You sound like an East Coast artist,” you got to understand man, I don't come from an era where we knew what coast we was on.. You talking about the 80s. West Coast, East Coast. Bro. I'm eight and nine years old bro. I don't know what a West Coast or East Coast is, bro. To keep it a buck you know why I love Queens so much? I heard a cat say this one time. I think it was Jungle. And I was like, “Yo, this is exactly how I see it.” He was like, “Yo man, I thought Queensbridge made hip hop.” (laughs)  He was like, “I thought we made this shit up”. You feel me?

Okay, so we have to be clear on that. And I know everybody got the pride but I love New York. Trust me, respect all that. But bro in my mind I had everything I needed in my city bro. I'm not one of those dudes that was like, looking at TV and like bitin and shit. I wasn't doing that. I would look at what dudes would do and see if I could top it. Anybody that I loved, just know, whoever my favorite artist is I always wanted to be better than them. I never had the glaze in my eye for another artist. Being that I'm a student of Hip Hop, I learned everything from Hip Hop. So it's like “Get off my dick and tell your bitch to come here,” was a very pivotal part of my DNA. Never ride another person's dick. Even if you love another artist “Yo your shit is fire. And beat it” 

Today motherfuckers be drunk all in your ear wearing out their welcome. They don't even know nothing about the rules of, Bro, you're looking at real weird right now trying to talk to me like we’ve been knowing each other forever. I’m looking at dudes like, “You don’t feel weird right now? I don't know you bruh.” I'm not trying to be bad because I try to be cordial to everybody. But don't be trying to like, telling me about a blunt I might have passed you in 2002. Bro, I don't fucking remember that. 

Validated: Right.

Planet Asia: There’s artists that I know, that I know, know my music that I know know me that I wouldn't even ask that or I wouldn't even say that shit to. 

I've been on a road to France and this. I won't be like “Yo, you remember 2009 we was in the Czech Republic at?” “No brother, that's a platinum artist bro. This motherfucker been on private jets and all kinds of shit.”

Validated: He been around the fucking world. He ain't gonna remember that one little thing like that nah. 

Planet Asia: That nigger done popped shrooms and all kinds of shit in between that time. You’ve been erased out of that data bruh. 

Validated: For real.

Planet Asia: All that DNA of Hip Hop man, I was literally raised on what this was. But now as far as knowledge of self, my spark comes from an FOI member named Raheem who used to sell books in my hood. The thing was, okay, so back in the day, you know how they used to have all the memorabilia, Malcom X and Martin Luther King T shirts. Nelson Mandela was just getting out of jail during that time, the whole South African apartheid under his movement the ANC or whatever. But anyway, Rayeem used to sell books. He had Malcolm X books Message to the Blackman, I didn't even know nothing about Elijah Muhammad at this point yet. So what happened was I had to search. I got it off some flea market or something. And it had like, Haile Selassie. I want to say it had Patrice Lumumba, Farrakhan, Malcolm X, and the middle was Elijah Muhammad. That Koofi was just like, with the stars and the crescent and the moon. For a child I'm like, “Yo, who is that?” I immediately wanted to know who I was like, yo on some superhero shit. I've seen a turban before. I kind of seen a Koofi before. But I ain't never seen nothing like this one. “Who is this dude with these stars and this moon on his head?” So I never knew who that was. I remember, it was like, all this happened at the same time. 

So my cousin, he ends up coming down that summer. This summer that year, I think I'm turning 13 or 12. I know he was smart. He knew some stuff. I was like, “Who is this dude right here?” “It’s Elijah Muhammad”, once I found out who Elijah Muhammad was, and it was already, like, the Hip Hop was kind of like, already doing that too at the same time. So it was like I said, being born at a certain time where the music and the people were literally outside putting that out, getting up having a new book for me was like getting a new pair of sneakers. Like how kids be about Givenchy and Louis Vuiton we was like that about Introduction to African Civilization and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I had all kinds of esoteric books. My rhyme partner, his father, is a African professor at the College. So we had a lot of Afrocentricity.

Now when my knowledge came I will say that, as far as being a Five Percenter of being exposed to the 5% is when we were going through our whole FOI thing, during that time, my brother Supreme hit me and I guess some of the first ones which I'm actually related to them now. But at that time we was just young. They were across-town cats. He came up to me at the bus stop on our way back home, because all the buses used to meet with all the different high school kids. So if you went to another school and I went to another school, we would probably end up seeing each other at this downtown spot because that's where everybody transfers to get on a bus to go back to their side. A lot of us that was from the west side, we would go to school on the north side. Who wants to fucking stay in their hood. When you’re a kid, you’re like, “I want to see the breezys on the other side. So, I want to go to school over there.” So that's how we was doing it.

He was like “The black man is God”. I'm like, looking at him like he's out of his mind. Like, what? Because he said it so forward. And it's crazy because it wasn't like I never heard that before. But he said it in a sense, like, like “Nigga, we the ones that put the sun there.” All this shit is ours. “Nah, the black man was God.” He was leaving me no room for no mystery. Nothing. And he was being very aggressive about it to the point where I almost wanted to punch him in the face. But my man is a live wire so I wasn’t going to punch him in the face and he’s part of my crew. But it was kind of like I had a resistance to it at first. I think my resistance was part of my ego. But then when dudes started trying to press me about anything about lessons, I will get on some gangster shit because I will be like “You not being from my side of town. I don't give a fuck if I'm wrong nigga. I’m God now because I beat you up. Or you gonna get jumped by somebody over here. I can't be touched. The most violent people love me. So Five Percenter or not you're gonna have to just respect me for not knowing.” All that word is bond. I should give my life shit. Let me see you try that shit with me. Because my whole thing was it's already in me even if I don't know. If I'm willing to do that or go about it that way then you got to just let me in. This is me. The funny thing about this is a lot of those dudes fell off and they not even with this no more. So there was never this. Anybody that say, “I used to be a Five Percenter”. You was never a Five Percenter. Ain’t no such thing as a Five Percenter that’ll tell you, he used to be a Five Percenter because if you understand what this is, this is not a religion god. A Five Percenter is somebody who teaches. I don't want to go deep into the sixth eighth degree. He just a person that teaches. 

Now if you’re against teaching, that's on you. If you're against teaching the truth- what’s the actual truth, that's on you. You can go study whatever. You can go study Buddhism or whatever. If you're not being truthful, then yes you used to be a Five Percenter. I'm gonna tell you the truth. You ain’t never going to hear me say, “I used to be a Five Percenter.” Even if tomorrow I take my Shahada as a traditional Muslim, I'm still a Five Percenter. There's nothing that will ever take that. I'm born this way. I was born to be like this. You know how I know? Because even when I was a baby, and I barely could talk, I was talking at a very young age like two. I was talking at one but I was having full conversations at two. When I used to hear all that God in the sky shit, even then I used to be like, Ain’t no god in the sky. As a child when you break it down to that level I used to be like, I already didn't believe this. I already knew Santa Claus was fake, as a kid I knew a lot of shit like the tooth fairy was fake. I'm like, I know mom is giving me this dollar. I never believed in that shit- ever. There was never a time I believed in anything that was a mystery. So the science of the black man being God is the total mystery. The mystery god is me. That mystery that they look for is in front of them. Even a mystery has to exist in real life or it doesn't exist at all. So mystery God has to exist. 

The mystery God is the black man. That's the biggest secret in the world. The biggest secret that's not a secret is that the black man is God. We the only people that go against that. Only gods go against God. Only a god can make a god believe that he's not one.You understand what I'm saying? So even in our lower self as far as you know people catching the white man's Holy Ghost, whatever, even in that stage we're still showing improvement that the black man is God. We're powerful people. We've been changing things since the beginning of time. The average restaurant is giving you ranch dressing for your wings. That was some ghetto shit at first. I remember when I first saw somebody dipped wings in ranch dressing. I was like, “What kind of ghetto shit is this?” Now it is regularly served. The big lips now everybody wants them and high cheekbones. They want big lips and high cheekbones. 

Validated: I had the pleasure of interviewing Apollo Brown and Ras Kass back when they did the Blasphemy Project. Now you guys are two full projects in, 2017s Anchovies and this year Sardines. What's the science behind the title Sardines?

Planet Asia: Because it’s an acquired taste. Everybody don't fuck with sardines. Just like everybody don’t fuck with drumless beats. We got a lot of people saying, Oh, man, I would love it if they just did an album with some drums. Like yo that was the whole thing behind this, bro. It's an acquired taste. You either in or you out. Everybody don't like anchovies. Everybody don't like sardines. 

Validated: Yeah, I get it. I definitely understand that. 

Planet Asia: And that's to me Hip Hop because Hip Hop is like we don't give a fuck if you like it. Because I will keep it a buck. Oh, when I first saw Beastie Boys perform, we didn't know that they were white yet. My first time seeing Beastie Boys is me realizing that they were white. I didn't know they were white until I actually saw them perform. I had already heard the music bro. You have to think when I saw the Fresh Fest, there were no videos on TV yet.

Validated: So like the standout tracks for me or joints that I fuck with of course “Peas and Onions,” “Get the Dough off,” “Stones,” “Fly Anomalies,” “Acid Rain,” “88 S-Curl” is my shit I fucked with that shit heavy on some light skin nigger shit. 

Planet Asia: Some light skin nigga shit. You already know. 

Validated: I fuck with you heavy on that one.

Planet Asia: We have to do it for the light skin niggas man. We brought light skin niggas all the way back with that one. (Laughs) Me and Ty all we do is kick light skin jokes all day. So I was like, when we do this song bro, we gotta go all the way in.

Validated: Definitely. What's your favorite joint on the album?

Planet Asia: Outside of Peas and Onions, I like Broad Dayin’ I like that because when I go, “The game is fake like these Hollywood bitches upper lip.” That shit hard right there. I'm glad I said that line. It's like I got a few lines on there where I'm glad nobody else said them because every blue moon a rapper say something and I be like, damn that shits so ill. I wish that was my shit. 

Validated: Who's the one artist or the one producer that makes you step your pen game up when you're in the studio?

Planet Asia: Will.i.am.

Validated: Will.i.am, really? Okay. 

Planet Asia: Yeah.

Validated: Why’s that? That's not an answer that I was expecting at all.

Planet Asia: Well it's not even a pressure thing. It's just that he's so good that you want to be just as good as him. The way he makes music bro if people saw how this dude does this shit man it's because like dude is literally walking technology man. Like he's beyond a fucking drum machine bro. He was beyond the drum machine 20 years ago bro. Like he's like, low key like if Elon Musk was on like a DJ Khaled, Dr. Dre type level of producing, like if Elon Musk knew how to really make beats. What I mean by that is he has that tech mind like he's already like 40-50 years ahead of us bro. When you're around him shit is like, it ain't about the money dawg. It's like yeah, he's one of the most extraordinary cats to be around because it's like I've seen him go from in my realm to like beyond even Kanye bro. And I can say that. It's just that Kanye has the mouth. You hear him talk a lot. To keep it a buck bro Will is like Kanye on steroids. Imagine if someone had the lyrical skill of Busta Rhymes. People don't even really notice because of Will, is he such a big artist the shit that he does just for like what he wants to do that he doesn't let people hear, bro. Imagine if Busta Rhymes knew how to make beats on a Kanye West level. That's all I can say, bro. Imagine if Busta was a producer.

I have to say Busta because Busta can use all kinds of different cadences. He can flip all kinds of cadences. Will is like that. His beat game bro is like he one of them dudes we can have a conversation and I'll be like, “Yo, remember that joint”. And he'll just be like, “Oh, you mean this?” And he'll just do it. He'll do the shit. Whatever I want to hear in my head that dude can literally do it bro. Like for instance I just recorded with him not too long ago. 

So the first joint we did all this in one day. The first joint I did, I was like “Yo, we're just gonna go straight up just straight hardcore Hip Hop, no holds barred, no funny business not even like we tried to make it. I’m just going in. Give me some shit. It was Nas level, “Made You Look” type level joints. 

Validated: I'm on your downtime man when you riding in your whip what kind of what kind of music you riding to?

Planet Asia: You'd be surprised. 

Validated: Oh, that's why I asked.

Planet Asia: I’d be listening to some ratchet ass shit bro. I’ll be listening to Mac Dre, Hus Kingpin, E-40. It's not fucking against the law for Planet Asia to listen to a Lil Bosie, Webby or fucking Soldier Boy if I feel like it. 

Validated: Hip Hop turned 50 this year. So in the spirit of Hip Hop being 50 years old, what does Hip Hop mean to you?

Planet Asia: Hip Hop man is a culture. It's the only culture that brought every nationality together. It brought all nationalities together. That's the only music that did that. No other music has done it like Hip Hop, none. So, 50 more years of collective consciousness and love, peace, love and unity. It's the generation that makes the changes man.

Validated: That's for sure. 

Planet Asia: We are the ones that make these changes in the world. Everything is Hip Hop now. Everybody's born into Hip Hop now. Even Barack Obama was a Hip Hop baby. 

Validated: Yep, that was the Hip Hop president for sure.

Planet Asia: Run-D.M.C was out when he was in college. 

Validated: Yes indeed. 

Planet Asia: He heard “Sucker M.C.’s” in his dorm room, you heard?

Validated: He was like “This is that shit right there”. 

Planet Asia: Yeah he probably got a pair of shell toes. A little Fedora, and some Cazals or something.

Validated: What do you have coming out somewhere near the end of this year or going into January so we can kind of focus on that for the issue?
Planet Asia: Jewelry Box Sessions: The Closing. Yeah, double album.Give you a heads up real quick. Give cats a real Planet Asia production. This is my executive produced by me. So it's from the people that I like and it's a ghetto album. It ain’t like Sardines. It's my hood album. I got a lot of Fresno people on there. Not a lot but like I got some Fresno talent on there. And it's like my Bon Voyage not to Fresno but to the Jewelry Box, and I know that my city really loved that album. A lot of dudes that was locked up, they love that album. That album had a lot of different shit on it. So it's like that perfect combination. I'm giving cats a classic double LP as far as the classic double LPs like All Eyes On Me, Life After Death, Wu Tang Forever and certain double CDs. I’ve been trying to give cats the whole feeling man.