Catching Up with Mother Nature

As emcees and educators, inspiring duo Mother Nature utilizes music to connect communities and inspire creativity everywhere. The Chicago-based duo, Klevah and TRUTH, have an undeniable connection that shines bright through their work. Their hands-on workshop, The Miseducation of HipHop, seeks to create a “brave space” for students to explore their self-understanding and creativity through HipHop. From MCing to Graffiti, students utilize an array of mediums to reveal and nourish their genius. Their dedication to the mission of their work is clear, “We’re focused on planting the seeds that will reap the best benefit for our collective.”

Their most recent EP, Portalz, took listeners on a laidback listen through ten energetic and insightful tracks you can’t help but move to. Through these playful songs, Mother Nature educates and informs the listener with uplifting messages. The duo keeps their goals and vision at the forefront to ensure they are truly showcasing their message. So, what exactly is the message? It could be many things for many different people but that’s exactly the point. Mother Nature pushes the idea of “self-discovery”; Their music coupled with their work with The Miseducation of HipHop helps people not only find their truth, but live it.

Following the release of their music video for MOORTALZ, we got the chance to ask Mother Nature a few questions about their creative process, the growth of The Miseducation of HipHop, and how they stay true to themselves and their mission. Working on expanding their reach and more music, they emphasize one important aspect of it all, “maintaining our energy and spirit through it all.”

Hey Mother Nature - thanks for joining us. How has the transition into Fall been going for you guys?

Peace These Days! Thank you for chopping it up with us & supporting us as always. Besides the weather, the transition has been Gr8. Our top priority lately has been locking in with our team to solidify our vision for 2021. It’s definitely an entire process in itself. Planning on a major release next year, expanding our collective TheGr8Thinkaz, developing our virtual Miseducation of HipHop workshops and envisioning other ventures we want to put into play. We’re focused on planting the seeds that will reap the best benefit for our collective.

The Miseducation of HipHop has been running for 5 years now but feels needed now more than ever. How has the program changed over the years?

The Miseducation has grown as much as we have to be honest. We started with our core workshop that allowed students/participants to explore the elements of HipHop (MCing, Djing, Graffiti etc.) through their personal understanding of what they felt they lacked in Self or community. This exploration led to more defined pathways of using the resources around us to build/create what we needed. This do-it-yourself ideal is the foundation of HipHop and developed into us breaking down the scholarship, entrepreneurship and mental health aspects of the HipHop culture. Really our greatest change in our programming over the years is the approach we take in getting students engaged with our curriculum. We learned that if we allow the kids to dive in and help steer the process, they’ll be more receptive to the real-life takeaways. By having a hands-on approach they identify with the lesson more because they’ve now experienced it through our workshop. These kids are already genius and we offer a brave space for it to be activated. It’s super dope to see the kids blossom and come out of their shell and not be reprimanded for it. We’re in a gr8 space with our virtual programming and preparing for more opportunities to reach our youth.

You two seem to have found the perfect way to merge your art into your activism. What advice would you give young artists aiming to do the same?

We see it as being authentic to your character. Our activism and commitment to social change was the main pillar that created Mother Nature’s sound and energy. It’s a way of Life. We’re very tied to the collective/cypher mentality. Building amongst each other to reap a greater reward is the only way for us, so for those wanting to bridge their art and activism make it fresh, make it undeniable, be direct and clear with your messaging. Someone should be able to look at your art/artistry and get a creative glimpse of your social viewpoints. Push the boundaries and tell your story.

Portalz covers a range of feelings from romantic love to personal growth. Can you talk a bit about your music-making process and how you both get on the same page when recording songs?

First off, Portalz is everywhere so for those unaware, don’t tweak and tap in!! Moortalz visual out as well & is incredibly dope, so go peep. S/o our Thinka brothers, Gr8Sky & Jeff K%NZ & everyone involved at New Trash. But yea, our music-making process in particular for Portalz was very organic, a lot of the records like Antidote (prod. Noehart & Ro Marsalis), Q’z (prod. SPLPH) & Rotationz (prod. Jimmy Park) we’ve had in the stash for awhile & finally found the right siblings for them to mesh well with and get their proper support. Language & Nourishment by The Burns Twins came from some jam sessions we had at the crib. Jump by our head in-house producer, Rokmore was another older one we rehashed & Moortalz by our in-house producer, H.Kal-El was the missing link that became our necessary centerpiece. It was easy getting on the same page with this project because our collective vision is clear. We knew we wanted to still be high energy while showing the softer side of Mother Nature, a more mature fun energy and we were very intentional with the music we created and what we wanted to showcase. Overall our process normally begins with lots of silly freestyles, finding the vibe & allowing the music to speak to us. Once we secure the feel the writing comes pretty seamlessly, we edit here and there and boom we have a song. But whether we start a song together or not it comes together because we’re clear on the message and trajectory of Mother Nature. As long as we are in alignment we rarely run into problems.

If you had to choose one of your songs that would encapsulate your sound best, which song would you choose, and why?

MOORTALZ!! It’s a groovy song, it’s BAR heavy & a collective effort. The content is heavy and about black ascension through spirit. If you want to encapsulate MN, Moortalz is the one. I would have to add Rotationz to that as well. This is one of our more Bar-heavy records on Portalz, and gives you an honest look at where we are in this current life experience. You get a deeper sense of our playful personality and confidence alongside our understanding of self, our struggles and the universe that carries us through.

With the constant change that 2020 has brought, how do you stay grounded?

Our goals keep us grounded, we have big aspirations so if we haven’t reached our mark yet we know to keep focused and continue working. Our cypher/family. We want to be a blessing to so many and that pushes us constantly.

What do you have planned for the rest of the year?

Music stockpile, content creation, continue pushing Portalz, expanding our reach locally and abroad, finishing our album, and maintaining our energy and spirit through it all.