The members of Bay Area hip-hop group Souls of Mischief—Tajai, Phesto, A-Plus and Opio—were still in high school when they started recording with fellow Hieroglyphics crewmate Del the Funky Homosapien. They were so young, in fact, they needed their parents’ permission to participate in an overnight recording session for “Burnt,” the B-side to Del’s “Mistadobalina.” Some of them got it, some of them didn’t.
“I had to beg my dad,” A-Plus admits. “I had to really, really press the fact that I needed to go to this thing. Del’s idea was to get everybody on the song and the guys who were able to go were the only ones who got on it.”
With Del’s connections and a little bump from New York City hip-hop radio pioneers Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Garcia, who played “Burnt” on Columbia University’s WKCR, the song generated interest from major labels, and Souls of Mischief ended up signing with Jive Records to release their debut album, 93 ‘’il Infinity.
While the prophetic title track is among the most recognizable beats in hip-hop history and the group’s most commercially successful (it peaked at No. 72 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1993), “Make Your Mind Up” is a close second. Produced by Del, the timeless track blends elements of The Ramsey Lewis Trio’s “Collage,” Public Enemy’s “Son of Public Enemy ((Flavor Whop Version)” and Gang Starr’s “Knowledge,” with the acrobatic lyrical stylings of A-Plus, Tajai, and Opio.
Phesto, who initially recorded a verse for an early iteration of the song, is noticeably absent, something he says gave him his “bulletproof ego.” As both Souls of Mischief and Hieroglyphics prep their new albums, the group explains why Phesto was left off, how they met, and having to repeatedly bug Del for the beat until he finally gave in.
Souls Unite
A-Plus: We used to record our demos at this studio called the Onion Lab in South Berkeley. But we stopped recording over there because Del… well, because some things went on over there that made us stop. But also around the same time, Del got some equipment from his record deal money [1991’s I Wish My Brother George Was Here], so he got some equipment in for his home. And we were then able to record over there instead of having to record at the Onion Lab. Musically, that was what was going on.
Opio: We were in high school.
A-Plus: We started making demos in high school and some of those demos made it onto the album.
Opio: I went to junior high school with Casual from Hieroglyphics. I was into rap, and I was quote-unquote rapping, but I wasn’t taking it seriously at all. I was passionate about it, I loved it and whatever, but Casual was this incredible emcee. We were in the seventh grade, about 12 years old. I met him and we got a connection through hip-hop, and he would, like, play me some of A-Plus and Tajai’s music. They all knew each other.
So through that connection of knowing Casual and him knowing Del, A-Plus, and Tajai and all them, that was the bridge to bring us together. There was a very small community of people that even did hip-hop back then. A-Plus was kind of like the ambassador for that. He just knew everybody that was into rap. It was kind of rare if you found somebody, especially somebody that did it, let alone was passionate about the music. So we started linking up, but I was already a fan of what they were doing already.
With A Cherry On Top
A-Plus: “Make Your Mind Up” was a demo that made it onto the album. It started from just working on demo songs at Del’s house, because he had a 4-track recorder and an SP-1200. That was a beat that Del had made and he was going to use it for his next album, whenever that was. But it was so dope that people like myself and Opio, we were probably the main ones always asking him, “Can we use that beat?” The thing I knew about Del is that he would be interested in something for a minute, and then if you wait long enough, he wouldn’t be tripping. It was just about persistence and just continuously asking him to use that beat. He’d always be making new beats, and so we just kind of kept focused on asking for that beat. Whenever I would be around, I would just make it a point to ask for it, even if I knew he would say no.
It wasn’t like life hinges on whether we got the beat or not. It was just like something that we were excited about. So one day, it was just me and him at his house one evening, and I asked, “Can we use that beat?” He was like, “Fuck it, yeah, you could have it.” So I wrote a rap and recorded it. I used to do all the recording and run the 4-track for everybody. So I had just finished laying the rap I wrote to it and Phesto came over to Del’s house. At this point, Phesto had never laid a rap with us yet.
Phesto: This is true.
A-Plus: He would bust freestyles in our freestyle sessions, so we knew we could rap, but he hadn’t recorded a rap with us yet. So it just happened to line up that day. I was like, “Man, why don’t you record a verse to this? And he was like, “Fuck it, I’ll do it.”
Phesto: If you happen to hear that verse that he’s talking about, and it’s out there, it’s fake. It’s AI. It’s not actually me. The real verse was accidentally destroyed.
A-Plus: It doesn’t even exist on tape anymore. I remember trying to find it back then. If I remember correctly, Phesto wasn’t feeling it and we recorded over it. The actual master got the vocals recorded over when Tajai and Opio got recorded on the demo subsequently. I know for a fact that the master vocals got recorded over. I thought that there was like a version of the mix-down, but I was never able to find one back then. Now it’s just a memory at this point.
Life Was Wonderful
Opio: When Phesto recorded the verse, I don’t think we had the name Souls of Mischief yet.
Phesto: That was before the name I think.
A-Plus: I’m not sure, bro. I think we had it. It’s worth the discussion, because what seemed like a long-ass time back then was really only a matter of months. Wait, didn’t Tajai spit a different verse than what ended up on the album?
Opio: I don’t know, bro.
A-Plus: “Life is wonderful, but only that if you let it/Mic checks bouncing/’cause I got crazy credit.”
Opio: The fact you remember that verse is crazy.
A-Plus: I know Opio’s and my raps stayed the same, but Tajai wanted to kick it over.
Phesto: If you think so I believe you. You had more ears on the stuff than we did because you were doing all the mixes and stuff. We weren’t even there. You were hearing the songs over and over again, and that’s how lyrics burn into your mind, so it sounds like it could be true.
Things Started Jivin’
Opio: My memory is kinda hazy, but we were on the B-side of a Del single called “Burnt.” “Mistadobalina” was a single. It was Del, Casual, A-Plus, Tajai, and myself. Right. Because the song was out on a major label, it drew interest from labels through Del’s connections in the industry. Other people had heard it. We were talking to Daddy Reef, who used to work at Source magazine. He called one time. He was one of the first people I feel like that showed any interest in what we had going on. And basically, just through a series of events, that song led to interest from labels and ultimately we ended up signing with Jive. Our A&R was a woman named Sophia Chang. She worked at Jive and she was the main person that got us signed.
A-Plus: “Burnt” was getting played in New York by Stretch and Bobbito. That was one of the ways it started making noise in the New York hip-hop scene. And subsequently, people in A&R started hearing about us more. That’s all from Del. We recorded that song in 1992 when we were still in high school.
Verses
Opio: I feel like I had the verse already [for “Make Your Mind Up”]. I don’t even know if I wrote my verse to that beat. That was one of my go-to verses when we’d be in cyphers or rapping with other MCs.
Tajai: I remember writing that up in Del’s room. I think the “Tajai, two syllables, easy” was really just trying to establish like, “Look, I’ve got a lot of vowels in my name, but it’s very simple.” Then just the level at which everybody was rapping, I felt like I had to step it up. I was excited to rap that verse.
Phesto: I didn’t end up being on that song. You have to have a bulletproof ego to be a rapper. I got my bulletproof ego from not being on that song.
A-Plus: I was consciously pulling back my rap style to be a little less complex because it was something I wanted to do at the time. Everything was going in one direction lyrically and I was like, “I’m gonna pull back and be a simpler emcee.” So I started doing that. And Del was like, “Bruh you need to come with some more abstract shit like you used to do.” I kind of took it like, “I’m pulling back on purpose.” I remember this because me and Pep [Love] talked about it. I was like, “Fuck it then. I’mma bust on this one.” On that particular song, I just mashed on the gas again like, “Watch this.” I was almost borderline offended.
But… Why?
Phesto: I was on the song and then I wasn’t on the song. It was one of those songs that everybody really wanted to be on. Everybody loved that track, so there was really no more space for another emcee, really. It was already too long at that point. You notice those verses on that song are really long in comparison. That might have been a turning point where we figured out that in order for it to be digestible in terms of length, we probably need to shorten our verses a little bit.
Three Then Four
A-Plus: That version with Phesto was the precursor to what ended up on the demo. At that point, we were four members, but we hadn’t worked into our paradigm of song-making, how to put four on a track. Being a four-member group was fairly new at that moment. We were three members and then we ended up being four members, but the song creation process hadn’t started fully catering to four members yet.
Phesto: If you listen to all of the Souls of Mischief songs before I was in the group, they all have that “Make Your Mind Up” structure. There might be an exception or two.
A-Plus: They all have that structure of three verses with two hooks. When you listen to 93 ‘’il Infinity, the songs that have that structure still are the songs that were made prior to making the demos that made it on the album. After that, we made sure that all four members was on each song. That’s why on the first album there are a few songs that only got three members, but all of our albums after that cater to four members of the crew. It just happened right at that moment in time.
