Mike Rimmer quizzed Nickels and Page One from LOJIQUE on a recent visit to America

Lojique

Mike: So Nickels, you're a bedroom DJ!

Nickels: Yes! I always preferred to just hibernate in the bedroom. I love live performances and all that but I started out in the bedroom. I'm gonna give respect to bedroom DJs! They're dope! Our studio is just a computer, a mic, soundproofing and a pre-amp for the mic! You can do anything you need to on a computer. Anybody can really record an album. That's why I always try and tell upcoming artists, "Man, dude, just get a studio, just make stuff!" We need artists that are fresh, that can get this type of stuff and it's really easy nowadays, especially due to the computer stuff.

Mike: Page One, you're a white rapper and let's face it, white rappers aren't cool these days, are they? Is it a burden?

Page One: It is! It's a tough thing to get over because people do have their preconceived notions. But I don't know, there's some good stuff out there. I grew up listening to Eric B and Rakeem, and Public Enemy. The Beastie Boys were the first ones to put it down and I was like, "Oh okay!" And actually, they're one of my early inspirations. They could do it so I realised it wasn't really a boundary for me either! These boundaries, these limits that we put on ourselves are just that, they're self-imposed. So yeah, there's certain stereotypes and preconceived notions that we have to work around but we prefer just to let the music speak for itself.

Mike: How would you sum up your ministry?

Page One: We view our ministry as an outreach ministry for sure. In-reach, or in-teach ministries certainly have a value to them and we totally respect that. But we want to use our music as a tool to reach the lost and those who come from where we've come from. Because we have that common ground. So we have their ear just based on that, where someone else might not necessarily have their ear. God works however he wants to so we're not saying that a hip-hop kid will only listen to us because God can speak to them through a burning bush if he wanted to, it doesn't matter. But we just feel that this has been placed into us. We've gone through some tough things, not in vain but so that we could touch someone else's life and pull them out, or even if we just plant a seed. Even if we water a seed that someone else has planted along the way. Ultimately, we believe God himself gives the increase.