Cee Self 7, Symmetry, Born King, Salute Truth & DJ Akiin

Pound: What is Shing Shing Regime?

Salute Truth: Peace. Shing Shing Regime is a music group. Shing Shing Regime is also a collective of great minds that come together for one common cause, which is basically to tell our story, via the microphone, using the medium of music. Shing Shing Regime–the name itself­, Shing stands for Shining His or Her Innate Natural Gifts. It’s also a state of mind and a mentality, and the Regime is those brothers that come together with that state of mind and mentality, and bringing that forth with their music.

Cee Self 7: Shing is a metaphor for being sharp. The sound “shing” is interpreted as the sound of the sword. The sword is an emblem of justice. And how we see it, musically, sonically, in hip-hop the scales are kind of unjust right now. There’s a lot of music out there right now that isn’t really reflective of hip-hop’s origins, you know, so we’re just bringing some content and some substance back to the music to help balance the scales. 

Pound: Can you break down the meaning of your individual names?

Salute Truth: The gesture “salute truth” is a gesture of the hand over the eyebrow and that’s the highest region of the body, the mind. So we salute all the truth that comes from the mind. When I manifest my lyrics, when I’m droppin’ my darts, I’m doing it so y’all can salute the truth in it, ‘cause I’m giving you the uncut truth, you know? The truth stands on it’s own with no assistance so that’s what I give. Salute Truth.

Cee Self 7: My name essentially means understanding yourself. The number seven is a number throughout the ages that has been associated with the Divine or God, so in the simplest breakdown, Cee Self 7 means I see the divinity within myself.

Symmetry: Symmetry is self-explanatory. If you look it up in the dictionary it represents balance, harmony, anything that’s reflective of striving for perfection, the type of person that’s a perfectionist by heart, by nature. Symmetry is that personification of that balance that there is in the Universe, whether it be good or bad, I strive to bring out that middle ground for people to hear so that they understand what’s good from what’s bad, what’s right from what’s wrong.

DJ Akiin a.k.a. Future Buddha: Future is what I’m bringing to the present really. The Buddha is the enlightened one or the ones who are enlightened, who are gonna bring that knowledge from ancient antiquity back to now, the current time. DJ Akiin is self-explanatory. DJ is the disc jockey and Akiin is my righteous name, which really just means sharp, which is one and the same with Shing.

Pound: Spirituality is obviously something that permeates your music. Talk a bit about what you believe.

Salute Truth: Well first I want to add that we’re people that don’t deal with the word believe. We strive to find all the facts in everything. That’s what I want, that’s what everyone should want and deserves. So we don’t deal with no type of belief. We deal with, for every question in the Universe, there is an answer, youknowwhatimean? That’s the type of stance that we come from. All knowledge on the planet Earth has to come from the mind of an individual on the planet, so what we are about is that exact science, the knowledge that takes place here, from the highest intelligence to the lowest on the planet Earth. So imma say that we don’t deal with belief. We deal with knowing and understanding all things.

Symmetry: To add on, we’re not dealing just necessarily with just the knowledge that’s going on right now, we’re representing something that’s always been here, that has no beginning really. When you’re dealing with something that’s absolute, you don’t really have to deal with beliefs. Beliefs leave room open for interpretation and anything imaginary or fantasy can fill it in. Myths can fill it in, so we deal with knowledge, knowing things and if you don’t know, then you seek to find out.

Cee Self 7: If you look at the definition of the word, to believe is to accept something without fact, truth or evidence, so as Salute and Symmetry were saying, we always look to find the fact of the matter and seek out the answer, ‘cause there is an answer, youknowwhatimean? A lot of people will have you believe that certain things are mysterious and that they don’t have an origin in this world, but the fact is that anything that exists has an origin in this world, it’s just on you to go out and do the studying, investigation and research for yourself.

Salute Truth: To add on, knowledge of self is what we’re dealing with. As above, so below, so we’re striving to find out all things on all plains.

Pound: Most hip-hop fans know a little about the Nations of Gods & Earths from the music, but that’s it. Can you break it down for the people?

Cee Self 7: To get into that historically, the Nation of Gods & Earths was established in 1964. Our year one is October 10^th, 1964. That’s the inception, that’s the crystallization of the thought and it started out as a movement to basically empower the disenfranchised of Harlem, which we call Mecca. The founder, his name was Allah–we call him the Father, affectionately, because he basically was a father to many of the disenfranchised youth at that time. He was born in Virginia in the ‘20s and he came from a family with strong values and morals, he spent some time in the military and he also spent some time in the Nation of Islam, and that’s where he obtained some of the teachings that we still utilize. But he had a different understanding than what was being taught in the Nation of Islam, so he took that understanding to the streets, because it kind of created a conflict of interest in the temple, so he took his understanding to the streets and started teaching the people who he thought needed to be taught, youknowwhatimean? The pimps, the drug dealers, the prostitutes, the orphans of New York. He took his message directly to them, which was a message of educating yourself, first and foremost, and being self-sufficient. That was one of his primary teachings, he was a real advocate of educating yourself and it was through his work that he was able to establish a name for himself. He had a working relationship with the Mayor’s assistant at that time, Mayor John Lindsay, and it was through his relationship with Barry Gotterher, [the Mayor’s assistant] that he was able to get us a school, which is still standing to this day, 2122 7^th Avenue in Harlem, New York City. And just to elaborate on what the Nation of Gods & Earths is about, essentially, one of our core teachings is that the babies is the greatest and our job is to properly educate all children equally and teach them the truth and the greatest education that anyone can have, which is knowledge of self.

Salute Truth: [The Father] was also able to take the reality of God that exists on the planet and bring it back to the people, especially the young, and how they can connect. And what he was showin’ and provin’ was that God is one who is righteous, loving, nourishing, and he wanted to bring that back to the babies so that they can amplify that and they can manifest those qualities. He saw that the world was straying from that so he brought it back to the un-tampered mind so they could take it and push it further. And this is why what we did in the Nation had a lot to do with hip-hop. Graffiti artists like Dez and other brothers started to graffiti wise words on the streets of New York City. We showed structure, how you could be on the block and educate people. The b-boys took the same cipher that we use to teach, and the same words to refer to their dancing, and the defense to see if the police was comin’ or not. And people standing on they square–they think they standing in the b-boy stance– that was the God Square. A lot of different things that they were doing in the hood, they were the street teachers, like they were ancient monks that put on every street in the five boroughs.

Cee Self 7: And these were brothers that were 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 years old…

Salute Truth: ...showin’ and provin’ the unification and intelligence of the young mind, which is something that’s being fronted on in this time, not only in Toronto, but all over the world. We don’t know the power of the young mind and this is what [the Father] was able to see and give to them. And this is what a lot of us have become a product of from seeing the order, the structure and the knowledge, how he brought the keys to open the mind, all minds. And the knowledge was for everybody, but not everybody was for the knowledge, and that’s the thing that you have to understand. A lot of people got pieces of it, they got influenced, and some people embraced it and took it to higher levels, and others did not. But the knowledge was to help clean up everybody, you see what I’m saying?

Cee Self 7: It didn’t necessarily start out as a youth culture, but the youth gravitated to the teachings of the Father. And due the fact that we’re required to study and break things down in such a specific manner–because we’re taught to show and prove things, because it’s one thing to say something, but you have to be able to back up what it is that you’re speaking about with the facts. So when it came to hip-hop, when you look at brothers who were heavily influenced by the Nation of Gods and Earths, you know their vocabularies were really strong. They were using a lot of words and talking about certain things that took place in history that really kinda shook the culture at that time. If you look at the Golden Era of hip-hop and you talk about cats wearing the red, black and green pendants, and they wanted to get on this type of consciousness; it was the Gods that spearheaded that. The Gods were known for being disciplined and being examples of masculinity. They were defenders of truth and they were protectors of their community.

The Father

Pound: I think we can say that the teachings have garnered certain controversies over the years. Why do you think that is?

Salute Truth: Well the thing is that a lot of the world’s information was controlled in the way it was given to the people. We haven’t got all the world’s information or knowledge in its fullness, to see what’s really going on. You know a lot of people go to church, but the reverend, he’s the one that went to bible school and it’s not like you went there, so you depend on him to give you what you need. But individuals who are wise, they’re gonna want to get to the root of all things, and when you’re thirsty for knowledge you see that doors open up more doors, and then you start to get to the source. And there’s some people who want to get to the source and some people who want to be told things and be blind to it, and not really have all the facts to support it. And the thing is that in this time, we’re being taught to look outside ourselves a lot. It’s so frowned upon to look inside and start from inside out.

Symmetry: The reason why it’s controversial is because when people are indoctrinated with something and have been given something over so many years and generations and not told or encouraged to find out whether that information is true or not, that’s what they settle on, that’s what they become comfortable with. So then when they’re introduced to something that completely opposes that belief– we’re going back to that belief again, it is gonna knock them off their rocker and it is gonna be considered controversial. But that’s the whole point of being open-minded, or to be a wise person, you have to be able to consider something that’s new as something that might be true, and then observe it for what it is and take it in, and then you’ll be able to figure out if something’s right or wrong, if it’s actual fact or not. So the reason why the concept of self being God, or looking within yourself for inspiration is controversial is because that’s not what people are used to.

Pound: How did you come into this way of thinking?

DJ Akiin: Me personally, it was a travel. I had first got into knowledge through hip-hop. Really and truly, hearing the older Gods like Eric B. & Rakim, Poor Righteous Teachers, and you know even Big Daddy Kane was talking about “no pork on the fork,” and so I started to look more in depth into things. I was going to church and it just wasn’t adding up, the questions weren’t being answered. So I had been seeking, soul searching. I knew there was something about the five percent. And I’m hearing it through all the music that I was lovin’ the most, so I searched for it. And I went out to Steel City, ‘cause I knew there was lots of Gods and Earths out there, and I found that this was what I was looking for, the answers to my questions.

Salute Truth: It’s a thing when you see the truth, when you hear the truth, you know it. If the words have light in them, the light’s gonna enlighten you, it’s gonna effect you. And it’s not for everybody, it’s gotta be something that relates to you, and when it hit me, it stood out and I knew that I was the type of person that had to seek. I had to really get to the bottom of things and find out. And knowledge of self taught me to love myself more and love others more, so I just knew I was good with that, it became me.

Cee Self 7: How I was introduced to the knowledge formally was via Salute Truth. However, prior to being formerly introduced to the Nation–because I was raised in Steel City, and the Gods were known but I didn’t really have the understanding, I was just a shorty comin’ up. And the thing about it is, I knew Salute Truth before he had the knowledge, he actually used to kick it with my older brother and come through to my house. And so, long story short, I was in school and I had got kicked out of school and ended up going to the same school with the God, but the God was actin’ mad different, you know? He wasn’t the same brother, and throughout the school year he would just hit me over the head with little things. Like pointing out times where I might have been actin’ ignorant, or just not movin’ right. And it was those little conversations that we had that made me reflect on other things and events in my life. And now looking back, there were other things that kinda led me into this direction, whether it was events my parents took me to as a child to stimulate my mind, different movies I’d seen or different literature I’d read. To me there’s no such thing as coincidence, everything happens for a reason, so everything that took place before me becoming sort of full-fledged, for lack of a better term in regards to this, I just see as it was meant to be. It was already written, it’s just that I didn’t know how to define everything until I got the actual knowledge of myself. The Gods showed me how to really make sense of everything and see it for what it is.

Salute Truth: And you gotta give it up to Steel City and the brothers that was there before us, especially one of our main advisors who is here with us today. You know he can speak for himself but he was a staple in Canada gettin’ Knowledge of Self. Peace to Born King, because he’s the one, the sacrificial lamb that left Canada, went to the source and brought it back. Him and a couple key brothers that we can’t ignore, they know who they are, we salute a lot of the elders that came before us, you know in the time period of ’90, ’92 ’95, that was a heavy time for Toronto. And the thing about it is the First Borns of Medina–which is Brooklyn, had come up to Montreal and they taught up here.

Cee Self 7: They actually came to the Expo.

Salute Truth: Ya, the Expo in ’67. So that’s the first recorded history of Canada getting the teachings.

Cee Self 7: The Gods actually comin’ here physically. But it would be the late ‘80s, early ‘90s where it really started to flourish.

Symmetry: It reached me in a unique way, because I was in Scarborough, and same sort of thing, you go through your trials and tribulations, and I was always looked at as kinda the oddball of every group, but I was always thinking outside the box. I dropped out of school early and what not, and then just through the natural course of life, I ended up livin’ in a building right over top a younger brother that was being taught at the time by the Gods over here and he used to come check me in my house and he inspired me, ‘cause I had been searching, searching, searching for years for answers, praying to this and that and not getting’ no answers until I finally prayed with my legs, and got up and stepped outside of my house and travelled all the way to Hamilton, and was introduced to Born King and it’s been on ever since. So it just goes to show how powerful and real it is because a brother who was being taught, who was younger physically than I was, inspired me to get knowledge of self.

Cee Self 7: Back to nothing is coincidence. Everybody who’s here is supposed to be and meant to be here. Many are called, few are chosen. The chosen ones choose themselves.

Salute Truth: It’s not an easy job, but we know what we’re here for.

Born King: Peace. Just to touch on the history, before it even came to Hamilton, or Steel City, I was in the Dot and we was young Gods then buildin’ in ’88, ’89, and a lot of the Gods was comin’ out of Jane and Finch, Rexdale, and other areas like that. It was actually in Mississauga where it all began, at a barbershop called Nappy’s where the Gods used to meet up. This was in the conscious era of hip-hop but there were very few brothers in Toronto that was actually thinking on those kind of levels. The two main brothers at that time was Knowledge Power Allah and Master King Allah.

Salute Truth: Peace to the Gods.

Cee Self 7: Peace.

Symmetry: Peace.

Born King: These are brothers that were there in the beginning. And KP’s one of the brothers that started a group called God Bodies that came out of Jane and Finch, and then he later went on to start another group called KP and Alsham. And these were five percenter inspired groups ‘cause that was what was going on at the time in the Dot. And then other artists that got inspired at the time was GC 7Bills, Ghetto Concept, that’s where they got the seven from. Even Infinite and Divine Earth Essence, and Motion, so it goes on and on, they all basically touched the hem of the garments, that’s what I’m basically saying. And they were highly influenced by the Five Percent Nation and we all used to meet up in the Dot, right at Yonge and Dundas on the block.

Cee Self 7: Even the cipher at College Park, right where the eagle and the bear is.

Salute Truth: We showed that in “Opportunity Knocks” the video, that’s where it all began.

Cee Self 7: That’s where the Gods and the Earths used to meet up and have they ciphers, right there at College Park.

Salute Truth: And also to let everybody know, with the science of the knowledge of self, a lot of brothers were influenced by the knowledge, but a lot of us endured, and were the ones that took it seriously, and completed our studies. A lot of groups they heard about the knowledge of self, they took little pieces, just like everybody else in hip-hop took some words and this, that and the third and started becoming emcees. We were raised under the older Gods. We weren’t allowed to do that. We had to study first and complete 120 lessons first, before we could even see the mic. So that’s why we are the way we are, you know. The Shing Shing Regimes has been through a regiment, so it’s as if we were ninjas, we were grown for the task. We couldn’t just pick up the mic without completing the studies from the older Gods first, ‘cause we gotta let the people know who really did this in completeness, versus the people who have sprinkles of it and gwan like their this, and the masses think that their them, but they’re not really. They have never been to Allah school in Mecca [Harlem], they never gave back, they don’t have 120 lessons, but they just know all the fly words because they read the Wu-Manual or they got something off the internet and so they think they know, but that’s not how it go.

Cee Self 7: And that’s another thing too, we live in the digital age now where people think because they read somebody’s blog on whatever site that they’re now some type of scholar.

Born King: You gotta show and prove.

Salute Truth: Definitely.

Born King: But just to complete what I was saying, in that day and time brothers was young, we got knowledge of self through hip-hop, that’s how we got it. When we found out that the core of this started in the Bronx, and in Harlem, I was like “okay I’m goin’ there then.” And I packed up and went there and stayed out there for time, I was out there for like 5 years, and I was gettin’ knowledge from the older Gods, and I was studying. And my whole purpose was to bring this information back and give it to some of the brothers that couldn’t travel to the States, couldn’t build with the elders in Harlem, so I was like the sacrificial lamb to do that and bring the knowledge back and bless the brothers, so that’s why these brothers here got the regiment. They got it the right and exact way, you know? I’m not putting anything against the brothers that weren’t doing it like that, but we just did it how we felt and some brothers was like “yo this is what it is for me and this is the realness,” and some was like “yo this is a flash in the pan and I’m not really all that serious with it like that, I was just tryina do a hip-hop thing,” and then realize, “wait a minute, this is a Nation, this is a culture? You gotta really read books and study? Oh snap!”

Salute Truth: As well as you gotta conduct yourself in a certain way, and we were young out here so we had to grow in our understandings. Because just like the God is saying, a lot of times brothers came for this but they didn’t come fully for it, and they had some bad tendencies. And a lot of us got knowledge of self young. So if I got it at 15, that means 15 years of my life I was living other than myself, so I have those tendencies other than myself that I have to weed out. So a lot of brothers were mixing the two worlds, and in the eyes of everybody else who’s not knowing this, that’s what they think we’re about.

Cee Self 7: It creates confusion.

Salute Truth: So a lot of times they didn’t understand who’s who because we were just a young Nation starting out. The knowledge, for a lot of brothers was to clean them up, to clean up the drug dealers, the pimps, all these stick-up kids, kids who didn’t want to do school, kids on the street. So all these kids have things they needed to clean up about themselves. But when you get the knowledge, first you become happy and empowered and very strong in yourself, and a lot of cats wanna come out and boast about it, but they’re not even ready yet, they haven’t cleaned up themselves completely yet.

DJ Akiin: With freedom comes what?

Symmetry: Responsibility.

Salute Truth: And that’s very important. So that’s why sometimes the public will be like “whatever, these guys do this, that and the third,” but what they don’t understand is that the individual was cleaning himself up and what you’re talking about was his negative past that you’re now trying to pour onto what the Gods is about. But they don’t understand that our job is to clean up. We go everywhere that people don’t wanna go to clean them up.  

Cee Self 7: We go into the trenches.

Salute Truth: You see us everywhere. You know I’m all over this place, that’s how we do it.

Pound: Can you talk about the Hamilton hip-hop scene?

Salute Truth: There’s a lot of great talent in Canada in general, and some of these youth are just phenomenal. I think that Canada is gonna produce some of the greatest emcees yet to be seen, once they get their chance. There’s gonna be a lot of great people comin’ out of here, men, women and children.

Born King: Peace! 

Pound: What’s coming up for the Regime?

Salute Truth: Something’s about to fall in all of your laps!

Cee Self 7: Right now every waking hour for the Shing Shing is a working hour, so right now we are presently working on our next move to follow up the Invincible Sword EP and the I am Shing Mixtape.

Salute Truth: And look out for the documentary that’s coming as well, that will delve a little bit into the origins of the Shing. So stayed tuned.

Pound: What’s bullshit to you?

Salute Truth: Self-hate.

DJ Akiin: Politics. Politricks.

Salute Truth: He said, she said.

Symmetry: Theories.

Cee Self 7: Taking situations and people on face value. 

Pound: Anything to add?

Salute Truth: The people don’t seem happy. On the bus after work, on the news, the people seem depressed, like they’re not finding the source of life, in this part of North America. So it’s an issue where we gotta look at ourselves and see that it’s not adding up. That’s why us, we gotta be the peace. If you know better, you gotta do better. That’s why we strive to keep our morale up and keep righteous, and bring righteousness wherever we go. We strive to share that with other people, that you can do that too, and be a vessel of this. ‘Cause if you wanna see change, it gotta start with you, so that everywhere you go, people know what you about and how you move. Then all around you, that’s what it’s gonna be.

Cee Self 7: You gonna create that paradigm shift.

Salute Truth: But if you know it’s wrong and you stand there quiet, you ain’t gonna see no change. You gotta empower the situation, so negativity has to dispel. Two things can’t occupy the same space at the same time. Even this room, we buildin’ positivity. There is no negativity in this room right now.

Born King: Build or destroy. That’s what it is. In order for anything to re-build, there has to be destruction. All the devilishment, tricknology has to be destroyed in order for any real building to happen. You can’t build on a weak foundation. You can’t spray perfume over shit.

Salute Truth: It’s not working! And what you gotta destroy is what? That poor thinking, first and foremost.

Cee Self 7: You gotta take that devil out your…

Salute Truth:..mind. That’s why the samurai say “no mind.” A clear mind, start fresh, go in. Not starting with all the negativity and think you gonna produce! You only gonna produce negativity.

Cee Self 7: We the leaders of tomorrow, straight up. Shing Shing Regime, we taking the lead, ‘cause a lot of cats they waitin’ on a mystery. And as said earlier, when you know better, you do better, and we know better, so we takin’ charge and doin’ the do.

Salute Truth: God only helps those who help themselves, and then you find out who God is.

Check out the newest single “Shing Won,” and stay up on all things Shing at www.thewayofshing.com.