Word By: Blair “Bliz” Milbourne

Tanya Morgan gets busy. Don’t get it twisted. Tanya Morgan is not some loose chick from a dive bar that ya boy has some morning after story about. Tanya Morgan is a rap group. They are hip hop personified – an emcee trio that taps into the essence of the culture and executes it as eloquently as the emcees and producers that navigated this business before them; before broadband connections were a reality for the average computer user.

In fact, Tanya Morgan got so busy that they attacked the internet with such voracity that it allowed them to satiate a hungry & download savvy generation with solid mixtape offerings and an EP [The Bridge EP] that raised the eyebrows of hip hop purists yearning for something fresh with a made to order aesthetic. With the recent release of their second independent offering Brooklynati that recently hit shelves, its been almost three years and a month to the exact day of their 2006, ?uestlove co-signed debut Moonlighting.

The witty wordsmiths know that rap tutelage is rare and the industry needs good professors just as much as it needs attentive students. Enter The Lessondary – their crew of creative visionaries comprised of themselves, Brick Beats, Che Grand, Spec Boogie, Elucid, Jermiside, Jamie Cooley, Suburb, Aeon, Abng, Nonameko and Heinz.

The Lessondary is the brainchild of emcee/producer Von Pea who had an epiphany back in 04’ during a free show at Columbia University featuring De La Soul and Kanye. According to Von, De La was killing the younger heads in the crowd who were dismissive of the headlining act from the onset of the show and were eager to witness budding new rap talent Mr. West. Before De La ended their set they shouted out members of the Native Tongues and then brought out Dres of Black Sheep. At that moment, the cogs in Von Pea’s brain began to turn. “There’s power in numbers,” he remembers. “This how you keep everybody relevant. If I’m not doing anything and he’s [looking at Donwill] doing something, I’m still on. If he quits and comes back and I’m doing something, he’s still on. Versus if Dres came out [on stage] by himself it would have been like, ‘Why they bringing this dude on? Who’s this?’ I was like, ‘We need to do that.’ See, half of us post on Okayplayer so a lotta people think The Lessondary means The Lesson [message board on Okaplayer.com], but it really means you learned your lesson and you’re trying to become legendary, ‘cuz I’m sitting there watching legends and I’m learning from the legends.”

So here you have three resourceful emcees hailing from Brooklyn (Von Pea) and Cincinnati (Donwill and Ilyas) that have bridged their creativity across time zones and zip codes, who have made it their business to give listeners exactly what it is they want regardless of the what the industry tries to pass off as that “next shit” people need to cop. When speaking about their fan base they have nothing but appreciation for their recption, especially having received a strong digital embrace from the posters on the message boards at their online stomping grounds Okayplayer.com. With each progression in their sonic growth, the lane [read: audience looking for dope hip hop] widens for the trio. “I run into a lot of kids like 20 and younger. Even at the shows like when we were doing the Hiero tour…I would say our audience [age] is 20 to early 30’s…A lot of people just discovered us and always say, ‘I didn’t think there was any real hip hop left,’ that’s the kind of answer get to our music,” Donwill describes.

With so many artists moving into the sample-free production style of hip hop to help bolster their exposure and put some food on the table, that “lane” has gotten even wider for Tanya Morgan. Donwill drops his analysis. “I think the lane has gotten wider because if you look at it nowadays when people do projects they look for a certain type of production. Producers started understanding that for them to eat they gotta make a certain kind of beat. So they started gravitating towards that sweeping sound, that ‘DJ Khaled’ shit. They kinda left that sampling shit alone. We’ve met people that would say, ‘Yo! This is crazy! But you not making no money off of it.’ [laughs] Because there’s samples! So many people jumped that ship. It’s like not even being motivated by what they wanna hear but being motivated by what gets somebody their bread and at the end of the day you can’t be mad at that. You can’t be mad at somebody wanting to pay their bills over doing what feels good. We just gotta do what feels good musically.”

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Words by: Jason Hortillas

Photo by: Anna Sian

To immediately erase confusion, take a page from their most recent mixtape title – Tanya Morgan Is A Rap Group. Now that we got that clear, the trio consisting of Von Pea, Ilyas & Don Will met on the Okayplayer message boards around ’99, posting and critiquing each other’s work. Bumping into up-and-coming cats of the time like Phonte of Little Brother and producer Nicolay who also networked an album on this path, They released the critical hit Moonlighting. Recently touring with the Hieroglyphics and dropping their latest release The Bridge, the boys definitely got less time to be on their laptops. Before their tour, I got a chance to chop it up with Von Pea & Donwill  “Electric Relatxation” diner style in New York’s East Village.

 Tanya Morgan represents alot of locations like Cincinatti, Brooklyn and Los Angeles. How do you guys maintain yourselves as a group?

Donwill: It started me and Ilyas in Cincinnati and Von Pea in Brooklyn. Then I moved to D.C. and later Brooklyn and Ilyas moved to L.A. Von always been the stationary member of the group but most of the time its me and Von. Wherever we end up it’s still Tanya Morgan at the end of the day. 

The internet has been buzzin’ on Tanya Morgan. Do you guys read about your own hype?

DW: I do when I get bored but it’s like reading an old letter from a girfriend you broke up with. I used to read every inch of press but now when I hear we have a review i’m like cool. Before i was seeking it out but now I take it objectively. Perception is a motherfucker. The way people percieve anything you doing defines your reality.

Von Pea: Reviews are supposed to be informative entertainment. It’s for other people to be informed about and i’m happy it’s there but i dont want to read it.  We do this because we love it.  If you talk about us just because we have a buzz, that doesn’t help. I’d rather hear a contructive bad one than a fluff piece.

You were influenced by many groups like A Tribe Called Quest. How do you see their legacy as well as the fans perceptions of your own group?

VP: I remember when A Tribe Called Quest split – it broke my heart.  A year later i thought If I can make someone love my music like them, that’s what I want to do. Tribe is like the Stevie Wonder of Hip-Hop. I didn’t come up to him like Don. He’d be like “You don’t listen to Stevie?” I compare that to kids my age that don’t listen to Tribe. J Dilla started out with them and people who are younger then go,  “A Tribe Called Quest? I like them.”

Speaking of fans, do you feel like people treat you differently now?

VP: I was at Galapagos and there was this dude who kept walking by me for or five times. Now you know I’m from Brooklyn so i’m like is muthafucka trying to hit me? He kept walking past looking. Then he approached me. I was like sup? Then he started spitting one of my lines. It’s crazy when somebody your age shows love.

DW: We have younger fans who are teenagers who go nuts for our shit. For me its kinda crazy cause its one thing to affect your peers or people of your age we all kinda jaded as far as life and music in general.

You attribute alot of your beginnings to the web community on Okayplayer. What was your experience with Hip-Hop message boards during its infancy?

DW: Theres a large population on there that know me on there prior to this. I get alot of people say that shit is just so dope to see cats come up and do that. ‘Cause they been there since I first posted a track.  I met Nicolay through there. Funny story the joint “Wildlife” off of Foreign Exchange I did a track to the original beat. When they decided to use that beat for the album, Nicolay said he had to take that beat back unfortunately.  The only person who’s only heard my version is Von, Ilyas and Nicolay. That’s how our whole working relationship started.

VP: Through this I met Little Brother, that was the big one. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them straight up. I was the kid that thought I had to buy an MPC and I have to go to a real studio to make it happen. The Listening proved I didn’t have to do that. I knew Phonte before there was a group.

Tanya Morgan’s The Bridge is out in stores NOW