Just Arts: In the song "The World of Vibrations" on the new album, you said you wanted to change the definition of what's hot. How can you change the definition of what the average person considers good rap?Gift of Gab: I guess it takes the artist to change it, you know. When I said that statement ... I was moreso talking about not necessarily conforming to sell records, you know what I mean?

JA: Do you guys see yourselves as part of any particular hip-hop movement, or do you see yourselves as more deep that that?

GG: I see us as a part of a continuum of black music, a black continuum, you know, of so many of our elders and so many of the people that opened the door to make it possible for there to be a Blackalicious. They are all part of the same continuum-part of Michael Jackson, part of Nina Simone, part of Marvin Gaye, part of Jimi Hendrix, part of...

JA: Talib Kweli?

GG: Talib Kweli, Mos Def ... NWA.

JA: Do you think that the Native Tongues, you know, Talib Kweli, Mos Def-they were the last members of that group-do you think that was an influence on you guys?

GG: Well yeah, definitely the Native Tongues, particularly groups like De La Soul, Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest. Queen Latifah, Black Sheep, you know, they're definitely groups that we grew up listening to and taking in.

JA: It seemed to me that in The Craft there's more of an effort to make the music and lyrics work together, to sort of flow together, and not one dictating the other one in the same way.

GG: We go in and dig deep, we really dig deep into whatever the concept is, you know what I mean? To bring people [together], is a very, very big concept. And I know "Lotus Flowers," you know, "Power," you know what I mean, the "Rise and Fall of Elliott Brown" ... to take that for an example, Elliott Brown was the concept that we sat around and talked about ... in order to make a song based on the life of my nephew, we wanted to make a song that was basically a redemption song of sorts, about someone who falls through the turmoil, then picks himself up. ... I mean that's ... not the type of thing where we're like, "OK, this rap is about being in the hood, you know, this rap is about making money," ... These things that we do with this record, it was almost as if we were writing a script, so it was like everything that happened originally.

JA: OK, so the song "Black Diamonds and Pearls," it seemed like there was more ... political commentary in that song than there had been in any ... before. Why do you think it's more necessary now to make a statement?

GG: Look at the world, you know, look at things in the world, I didn't even mean for that to be a political song. I'm not even a political person, but in that song we've been talking about, you know, looking at the things that kids have to go through today compared to what we used to have to go through. I look at a lot of my younger relatives, at a lot of the kids growing up and I'm like, "Damn, they're growing up really fast," and then I look at my generation, the older generation, and I'm like, "there's a lot of kids more mature than adults now," you know what I mean? So we're teaching our part, and they're here to teach us.