How much does coming from the Bay, a historically activist environment, influence the music?
The Bay is a very interesting place. It’s probably one of the most leftist regions in the United States. There’s just a lot of different people and social movements going on, from black, Latino, Phillipino, Chinese — everyone just trying to do work for the community. We constantly get hit up by people: “We doing a benefit for this” or “We’d like you guys to come through and talk to our kids in juvenile hall.” For us, our music grew a lot out here and social activism is just a part of the environment here, so I think our music naturally fits with that. It’s a constant reminder being out here when you see people protesting something or I get an e-mail from somebody with some information I didn’t know. It’s like, damn, we gotta stay on our toes — it’s just a part of being a person of color, man. Sometimes they forget about you, so you gotta remind ‘em that you still here. You can’t get stepped on. In terms of the beats and music, I feel like, a lot of the popular music is not contentiou
