Q&A with Northern State

You're from New York, you're white, you rap and there are three of you. You will be compared to those who were licensed to ill before you. That's life for the MCs of Northern State.

"There's definitely a Beastie Boys comparison to be made," concedes Guinea Love (Correne Spero), "but I see kind of a Wu-Tang comparison. Like a white female Wu-Tang on a little bit of a smaller scale."

This is news to Hesta Prynn (Julie Potash) and DJ Sprout (Robyn Goodmark), the other two-thirds of the hiphop triumvirate, who are now laughing on the bed next to me in Sprout's Carroll Gardens apartment. Sprout is impish and bright-eyed with hints of Northern California hippie chick. Prynn, lanky and self-possessed, bears a strong facial resemblance to Frances McDormand, and is self-described as "more European than an English muffin." Love is a curly-haired Italian girl with a bedroom voice. All are in their mid-20s and could easily get away with using student IDs. At this moment, they are more likely to be mistaken as a scene from a suburban slumber party than the crew of Ol' Dirty Bastard or Method Man.

"For real, though," Love insists, expounding in earnest on the comparison, which includes a reference to Voltron, the 80s tv cartoon about anthropomorphic robots.

Sprout breaks the comparison down into layman's terms to mean, essentially, that Northern State is greater than the sum of its parts. "It involves other musicians who play live with us, artists who work on design, photographers?you know, basically anyone who's in our posse who's a creative and talented person."

While the Wu-Tang's goal was to achieve commercial success as a group in order to write their own tickets as solo artists?a collective to maximize individual profit?with Northern State, profit is not so much a driving force as is the idea of expression, the chance to create within a community. Which, if you think about it, is exactly how a white, female Wu-Tang would operate. Call it the it-takes-a-posse-to-raise-an-MC approach.

Love, Prynn and Sprout are the core of Northern State, just as the RZA is to Wu-Tang, in Love's comparison, and the official Northern State Posse, known as the NSP, includes Eli Schneider (bass), Seth Johnson (drums) and Katie Cassidy (harp/sound/ photography/video), as well as beatmaker Jeremy Hand, graphic designer/artist Iron Mike Malley and webmaster Mishmedia. They even have a jewelrymaker (Laura Frank), which is surprising, since Northern State doesn't subscribe to the ostentatious bling-bling tits-and-ass school of rap. What little jewelry I can recall them wearing onstage along with their tanktops is of the understated, earthy variety. Small beaded necklaces and the occasional Stevie Nicks bracelet. Their style, like their music, favors substance over flash.

"I also think that when Wu-Tang came out their shit was so raw and people were like, 'What is it?''' continues Love. "They had something that made people really sit up and be like, 'Wow, these people are doing hiphop in a way that we haven't heard it yet.'''

This is true for Northern State, insofar as they are probably the first hiphop band to drop rhymes about modernist literature, leftist politics and WB shows, to say nothing of collaborating with a harpist. I am almost won over by Love's Wu-Tang analogy, beginning my own extrapolations?Northern State and Wu-Tang are both from overlooked islands, Long and Staten, respectively?when Love dismisses the theory, quipping, "We're like a hiphop Crosby, Stills and Nash."

From the start, Northern State have had a way of taking themselves seriously without taking themselves too seriously. The idea of becoming rappers started as a joke at a party in the winter of 2000, and when it still sounded like a good idea the next morning, they decided to meet once a week and write rhymes. From then on it was no longer a joke, and they've managed to maintain the balance with lyrics like, "Keep choice legal, your wardrobe regal/Chekhov wrote The Seagull and Snoopy is a beagle."

And it's not just rhymes. "We have a production capacity built into what we do," Love points out. "It's not just MCs." Between the three of them, Love, Prynn and Sprout play guitar, drums, bass and keyboards, and Love has a degree in audio engineering. They make beats collectively, and in terms of lyrics, whoever rapped it wrote it. Their word flow is so tight it's hard to believe they started out just kidding around. They were known to play instruments and run beats while rhyming at their early gigs. Now they're backed live by the NSP (who also collaborate on their recordings), which allows the MCs to roam free onstage, throwing elbows and wrists like they were raised on Yo! MTV Raps. They operate in jump-around mode for the duration of a show, except for the briefest of dance breaks mid-set, when they perform their signature moves?the Roger Rabbit (Love), the Running Man (Prynn) and what Sprout describes as "a robot-style-type move I copped from the movie Breakin'.'' Wu-Tang they're not, but they'd be the coolest girls on the dancefloor at any bat mitzvah.

Following the band-as-full-time-job model, Prynn, Love and Sprout spend the majority of their time together. Without realizing it, they've developed an acute synchronicity. "Sort of like when we forgot to do the bridge for 'Dying in Stereo' at the [Mercury Lounge] show," Prynn recalls. "Or was that 'A Thousand Words'? We completely forgot the bridge, but we all forgot it."

Equal parts instinct, skill and hustle have proved successful in the two years since inception; without a label, Northern State have opened for De La Soul, Princess Superstar and the X-ecutioners, made Rolling Stone's Hot List and received e-mails asking when they're going to play Anchorage. The industry has taken note, though no deals have been made. According to Sprout, "We're trying to be really optimistic in hoping that there's going to be the right person out there with the right label."

They've just finished recording and coproducing Dying in Stereo, a mini-album midway between EP and full-length, for release through their website. It may not break the bank, but Northern State aren't about to lose sleep over the bottom line. In the band's September newsletter Prynn declared, "We are putting out a sick record that has literally kept me up nights obsessing over how good it is. If anyone is dissatisfied with their purchase, I will not only refund their money, but Guinea Love, DJ Sprout and I will personally go to their house, stage an intervention and urge them towards intensive and immediate psychotherapy."

Northern State play the Dying in Stereo release party Weds., Oct. 23, at Southpaw, 125 5th Ave. (betw. St. John's & Sterling Sts.), Park Slope, 718-230-0236. They also appear at the CMJ opening night, Weds., Oct. 30, at the Roxy, 515 W. 18th St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 645-5156.