Interview: Cymarshall Law
Love and self-empowerment. That is the philosophy and religion of New Jersey rap and hip hop artist Cymar Simmons, who goes by the moniker Cymarshall Law. Born in England to Jamaican parents, his home was filled with love, family, and soulful reggae music, as his father was a Jamaican MC. When he was 9, he moved with his parents and brother to the US and settled in New Jersey. His brother’s love for rap and hip-hop music influenced his love for the genre, and he began penning his rhymes. Having grown up listening to reggae music with conscious lyrics and appreciating groups such as Wu-Tang Clan, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest, to name a few, whose music has a message, he strives to do the same with his music. In 2000/2001, he and his brother started performing together as Everliven Sound and started the label Freedom Entertainment. He has also made music outside of the group, having released many albums and projects over the past 20+ years, many of which have seen him collaborate with a number of artists, and has embarked on a number of international tours. Aside from music, Simmons is also an author, recently releasing his book 52 Laws of Freedom, a book that aims to help people reconnect with their most authentic selves and achieve emotional resilience and mental clarity.
On June 13th, he released his latest album, The Peaceful Warrior 2: Raw Self-Expression. The album was produced with UK producer Slimline Mutha, with whom Simmons has been working for 20 years, and is his 2nd album with the producer. The album explores themes of duality, creativity, and authenticity and one that Simmons feels may be his best album yet. Simmons has a busy year ahead, as he plans to release a series of children’s books that will be a children’s version of 52 Laws of Freedom and will be releasing another album at the end of the year. He will be performing at Rhyme Fest LA in August, joining a line-up that includes artists such as The Alchemist, Dilated Peoples, DJ Quik, and he says will be one of his biggest shows to date. He will also be continuing his podcast, The Cymarshall Law Show, an insightful podcast that covers a variety of positive topics emphasising positivity, love, independence, motivation, knowledge, and wisdom from various guests. Make sure to keep up with Cymarshall Law and all upcoming events and music via the following links.
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You were born in England and lived there until you were 9 years old. What can you tell me about your childhood there and then moving here and adjusting to life in the United States?
In England, I'm not sure if you knew, but they graduate high school there at 16. So even though I was 9 years old, I only had 7 more years of school to go. As soon as I moved to America, that changed immediately. As a matter of fact, my brother was 15 when we moved and thought he was about to get out of high school. When we came to America he had to go right back to school. In England, I feel like a lot of people come to each other's houses, as far as friends. I don't feel like that is something that happens over here as much. So, when I was living in England, it felt a lot more like a community thing. When I came to America, I guess because my family is spread out so much, I didn't really grow up with a lot of cousins or family around me, whereas in England I had a lot of family around me. In addition, I always like to tell people, especially my American friends, because we usually have different taste in music, that there are a lot of Jamaicans in England. My parents were both born in Kingston, Jamaica, and because of that, I grew up in England listening to a lot of soulful reggae music. My friends in America really grew up listening to jazz from their parents, so we grew up different like that. I feel like hip hop was the great connector, because when hip hop was really coming of age, that's really when I was, like, born. And then I moved about 10 years after that and then my friends that I ended up relating to in America were going through the same transition. They were going from jazz to hip hop and I was going from reggae to hip hop, so hip hop is really where we met in the middle. But, yeah, I love England and I go back as much as possible. It's just different from America in a lot of ways, but I appreciate both places.
What can you tell me about the ways in which your older brother's love for rap music influenced you and led you to start penning your own rhymes and making rap and hip hop music yourself?
Yeah. So, our father was a Jamaican reggae mc before both of us. I used to always see my brother and father have these conversations about music when I was too young to really know the ins and outs. I always looked up to my brother in a way that he had respect for my dad like that. Even more than music, I tried to copy my brother for everything. He played right wing in soccer, so I had to play right wing in soccer. He wanted to be a dancer, so I wanted to be a dancer. So, in that way I always looked up to my brother and always wanted to be like him. And then luckily, it was more than me just wanting to be like him. I actually was like him, because we came from the same parents and were taught a lot of the same things. So, when we were listening to a lot of reggae coming up in our house, there were a lot of conscious lyrics. When I went to go start writing rhymes, the first thing he told me was...because my brother taught me how to rhyme. So, the first thing he told me was "always bring yourself to the table and make sure you're not like anyone else". He said the way I could do that is just by representing our family, because there are no two families who are exactly alike. If I was able to talk about our family in a way that, as cool as we think our family is, if I was able to express that to the world, then people would gravitate towards that. And that's probably the main thing he taught me, just to be myself and to represent our family. I feel like a lot of people in hip hop, or just in any genre in the world or anything, tend to copy each other when they see something is working. But that thing that is actually working is the individual being themselves and they got so good at it that other people started wanting to copy it. That's the biggest thing I got from my brother, just understanding that everyone has a piece of greatness within them and my job is to express my family's greatness and our identity.
What can you tell me about the group Everliven that you started with your brother around 2000/2001, as well as Freedom Entertainment, the label you formed?
I'll start with the label, because that came before the group. The label is Freedom Entertainment, and we are called Freedom because my father used to own a reggae sound system in England...Jamaican Reggae Sound System, where they would go to different parts of England and sound clash versus other reggae sound systems. That sound was called freedom sound, so when we started to do our own label, we decided we wanted to bridge the gap between my father's sound clash of freedom sound and what we're doing. So, we called it Freedom Entertainment to pay homage to what our father did. And then to move on to Everliven, as in something that will never die. And the reason it's spelled like that is because in hip hop we tend to, like, change the letters or spelling of things just to make it our own, just to make it hip hop. It's pronounced Everliving, but is spelled Everliven, and Everliven comes from the fact that we are very soulful and spiritual people. We believe that the soul is something that never had a beginning and never had an ending. It's energy and energy can't die. Everliving. It's always here and is never going to die, just like people's souls and spirits. So, what's in the sound of our music, we feel like our music will live forever and never die.
How would you describe the early days of your rap/hip hop career and how do you feel you have evolved as an artist since then?
That's a fun question. When I first started rapping, I couldn't control my voice very well and I have more treble, like a higher pitched voice. So, when I used to rap, all you could hear were the highs, and when I would speak on the mic, they'd say it would sound like I was screaming. That was because I didn't also know how to hold a microphone and got taught by my father how to hold a microphone. And a lot of times when you go to shows nowadays, there are a lot of artists you may not be able to hear, and that's because their fathers may not have taught them how to hold a microphone. You are supposed to hold a microphone from the bottom, so your hand is not cuffing the microphone where you are actually supposed to be talking into it. In the beginning of my career, I didn't know anything like that. I was holding my hand over the microphone and screaming into the microphone, so everything was high pitched. And then additionally, I didn't know to count bars. I didn't know song formats. So, typically a song format would go, like, a 4 or 8 bar intro, then a 16 bar verse, then an 8 bar chorus, then another 16 bar verse, then another 8 bar chorus, and another 16 bar verse, then end the song with an 8 bar chorus or, like, a 2 bar bridge. I didn't know anything like that. So, when I was making my songs initially...like, I remember sending a demo to a record label named Fat Beats back in the day, like in the very beginning of my career. Coincidentally, they are putting out my new record physically right now. But back in the day, when they told me no, one of the reasons they told me no is because they said my songs didn't have any form. They were just me rapping and I would just stop rapping whenever I wanted. I was rapping and would stop rapping at, like, 25 bars or 27 bars or 30 bars. When I started paying attention to songs, I realized "Oh. These songs on the radio, they all have a format", like 8 bars hooks or 16 bar verses. So, I learned about music more. I learned about the structure of music more. I learned how to control my voice more. I learned, from being in England and moving to America, that when you speak on the microphone, when you rap your songs or say your lyrics to people, the things that go over in America might not go over in England, because they know different things and watch different shows and have different experiences. I could be in America saying my punchlines and they're hitting, but then when I go over to Germany or England or Slovakia or wherever I've been and saying some of these punchlines, they're not hitting. And that made me become a better mc, because then I realized I had to write my rhymes in a way were universal, so that no matter where I was on the planet, when I spoke into the microphone, everyone would know what I was talking about. That all came from experience.
How do you feel like hip hop culture has evolved as your career has evolved? Who are some of the artists you have found to be the most inspiring?
So, how it's evolved or devolved or just changed. When I was coming up, there was more of music was a message. I felt like you had to be original or else you got banished from hip hop. If you look at the beginnings of hip hop and all of the different groups, they're all super different from each other and are all actually saying something. They all had a message. As hip hop went on and on, it seems like music with a message got taken out, and nowadays if you listen to the radio...as a matter of fact, if I tell someone I do hip hop and am an mc, I have to tell them more than that, because they might just assume that my hip hop is like the hip hop on the radio. And a lot of the hip hop on the radio...I don't want to say it's all bad, because it's not, but a lot of hip hop on the radio, I don't even let my own children listen to it. Back in the day, you had groups like Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and these groups all had a message. They were all saying something. And I don't want to say that none of the groups and artists now don't have a message, but it's a lot less, like way less, and that's very unfortunate. At the same time, if you look at, like with every generation, if you look at the music they listen to compared to what their parents listen to, the parents are always like "Oh, we don't like the music you listen to." I often think about that. Like, am I just now in a situation where I'm older and looking at the music the younger kids are listening to and it doesn't gel well with me? I often think about that, but at the same time, there's a lot of negativity in the music now and I don't appreciate that. I don't feel like whoever are the higher-ups or radio people or whoever is in charge of getting music out there, I don't feel like they are doing a good enough job of getting a diversity or variety of what's really out there. You can have negative music but if you have negative, there's also whole other half that's positive that is not getting the same light right now. I feel like that's one of the reasons why I'm here. To kind-of bring balance to the force.
You recently released your book 52 Laws of Freedom, which aims to lead readers towards a liberating and self-fulfilling internal freedom. What can you tell me about your spiritual philosophy and how you came to write the book, as well as your journey in discovering and embodying those laws for yourself?
So my spiritual philosophy...I don't subscribe to any religion. The reason I don't subscribe to any religion is because I have studied a lot of them and the common theme I was able to find in all of them was love. So, if you are going to call my religion anything, my religion would be love. And I always wanted all of the religious leaders to get into a room and kind-of debate it out, but that has never happened. I just feel like everyone can't be right, but everyone is not wrong. The main thing in every one of those religions, whether you are talking about the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, the main thing in all of those books is love. And that was always very clear to me. My parents were Rastafarians and Rastafarians teach all about love. They aren't Rastafarians anymore. When we moved to America, they let that go, but at the same time that's where I began to learn and understand about love. That's what my parents were teaching me about. And in life, just as I was traveling around, I would come up with these very clear ideas and would start writing them down. After a while, i looked up and I had...I had more than 52. I probably had 67 of them and just narrowed them down to the clearest, most potent thoughts and these thoughts were things that helped me out in life. I know because they helped me that they can help other people, so I decided to write a book called 52 Laws of Freedom. I put each law in the book, and within the law, I say where I got the law from...what I was doing at what point in my life to make me come up with that law. I also have a rhyme that I probably wrote that is parallel to the law. So, if the law is about being your best self, the rhyme is about being your best self. And then I break down where exactly, at what point in my life, that I was able to find out why that law has to be a law.
It all stems from my religion being love and trying to not only be the best version of myself, but show other people that they can be the best version of themselves. Because I know when I look out in the world today, there are a lot of people who are anxious and depressed and there's a lot of negativity. If you ask how people are doing, a lot of times people don't have that much to say that's great. I feel like a majority of the time I'm positive, so I just want to make sure I'm giving my gift to the world to help other people be positive or help other people shine their light, so they can make more people shine their light and just for all of us to be better. It has to start somewhere. Someone has to do it, and every day when I look out in the world, there's just a lot of negativity, and I refuse to be that. That is where my vision of love comes from and where 52 Laws of Freedom comes from and where, essentially, Cymarshall Law comes from.
You will also be releasing your new album on June 13th entitled The Peaceful Warrior 2: Raw Self-Expression. Can you talk a bit about the making and recording of the album, as well as some of the people you worked with on the album? What do you hope listeners take away from it?
The album is called Peaceful Warrior because I feel like everyone has 2 sides to them- a peaceful side and a warrior side. I'm very clear about that on the album, so there are songs that are really thoughtful, but there are also songs that are more on the, I wanna say aggressive side, as far as getting my point across and telling the world who I am and not allowing the world to tell me who I am. I feel like a lot of times the warrior in people gets shut down because they let tv tell them who they are, they let their friends tell them who they are, they let their partners tell them who they are. And when that happens, your true identity and the person you are supposed to be...the coolness about you, that gets diluted. The world tries to mold you into what society wants you to be. Me being a warrior, I am fighting back and making sure I'm putting my stamp on the world and not allowing the world to shape me into anything besides who I am and what I really want to be. So that would be the warrior side, and the peaceful side would be me being more thoughtful and expressing my feelings, whether it's me being hurt or just me being reflective on how the world is. As far as who's on the album, I have Sadat X on the album from a group from back in the day called Brand Nubian, a really positive group. I have Planet Asia on the album, who is one of the West Coast legends, I would say. DJ Rhettmatic, also a West Coast legend. I have Ramson Badbonez on the album, who's from England, and I also was on his album recently that just came out. I have AthenA from Atlanta on the album. She's a female lyricist. I haven't heard her on anything before, but when I heard her on one of my friend's songs, I thought she was so amazing and wanted to put her on the album to give her some light. I have a Jamaican artist named Linton Kush on the album, whom I have worked with several times. Kafeeno is on the album. He's a singer who has done really well in the industry for himself. I have a singer named Christine Elise on the album. I did a show with her, and she's this wonderful singer who's like jazz, R&B, and all these things and is just wonderful. The album is produced by Slimeline Mutha out of Rochester in the United Kingdom. I've been working with him for about 20 years now and this is our second album together. I really think it's my best album yet.
You've released two singles ahead of the album's release, the most recent one being "Broken Dreams". How did you go about choosing those particular songs to release ahead of the album and what can you tell me about the songs?
The first song, "Blowtorch", features Planet Asia and DJ Rhettmatic. The reason I came out with "Blowtorch" first was because when I was young and didn't know how albums were supposed to be presented, I felt like any song could come out first. I realized by talking to some A&R's that they kind-of want your street record first. Your harder record. Your more aggressive record. Your record that would kind-of rile people up to say "I'm here". When I first heard that beat, it reminded me of like an old-school Wu-Tang beat and I just love Wu-Tang Clan. When I heard it, I just knew what I had to do. I needed to make a song that if the members of the Wu-Tang Clan heard it, they would respect it (laughs)! That was my goal going into that song: to make something raw and gritty and from the heart, so when people heard it, they got that old school hip hop feel of something authentic and raw. The reason I went in that direction is because, kind-of what I was telling you earlier, as far as the authentic things not necessarily being on the radio nowadays, I just wanted to go straight to the heart of hip hop. And, like, when you hear it, it's hip hop. It has hip hop written all over it and it reminds you of the earlier days, like the Wu-Tang days. Planet Asia is on the song, and he's a well-respected mc from the West Coast that I have been listening to for a long time. I feel like it's important for you to make songs with people that are at a high caliber, because a lot of people respect him. If I'm able to get on a song with him and do really well, then people would look at me and say "Oh. He can rap just as well as that legend” or something along those lines. And then DJ Rhettmatic is also a West Coast legend. Because I'm from New Jersey, my core fan base is on the East Coast, but my manager lives in California. I've been going back and forth to California a lot recently, and to build my West Coast fan base more, we felt it was a good idea to have two West Coast legends on the songs, so we got Planet Asia and DJ Rhettmatic from The Visionaries. I'm very thankful to them and am glad that song is doing really well.
I'm also doing a video game where I'm doing the voice of the main character and also make the music for it. These guys are from England and are called 4886 Studios and the video game is called SoLo. Because I'm doing the work with them, and we've been doing so much work in the studio for their video game, they said, "Is there anything we can do for you?". And these guys are awesome when it comes to making videos and anything having to do with technology. So I told them "Yeah. You can make me a video", so they made a video. They hit pause on the video game and made me a video with the tools that they had and it came out incredible. So, we have a video for "Blowtorch" and they made it and it's out now. That's how that first single came about.
The second single, "Broken Dreams", features Sadat X. The song was finished, and the song came about just from Slimline Mutha sending me beats like he does. And when I heard it...some beats, for me, they make me want to just put my heart in between the paper's lines, and that was one of the beats that made me feel like that. My feelings might have been hurt that day. I think I may have maybe gotten into it with a friend or something. When I have all of these emotions and very clear thoughts in my head, if you give me a certain type of beat, it's very easy for me to just pour my heart out on the page. I was thinking about that and then kind-of getting into it with a friend. Then I was thinking about what we were talking about earlier, about how a lot of people have broken dreams. About them wanting to be something when they were younger and then getting into their older years and being adults and having kids or getting married, divorced, their parents dying, and a lot of times people stop pursuing their dreams and passions because life starts kicking their ass. Between, like, the miscommunication I had with a friend and me looking around at other people's broken dreams, it felt right. It felt like the world also needed something real to hear. A lot of the Hip Hop on the radio is just party this, party that, and they're talking about doing drugs and "Broken Dreams" is not that. It's just real, If you listen to it, it's going to touch your heart. I had that song and then one of the times I went to California and was performing, I was doing a really good job, I suppose. And there was this guy who is a DJ. He DJs for Sadat X and he saw me. My manager calls him and his friends the "high five guys", because as I was rapping, they kept high-fiving each other. It went from that guy enjoying my set to him saying, "I want you to do a song with Sadat X". So, we sent the song to Sadat X, and he loved it and got on the song. We decided, because he's Sadat X, how could we not. As a matter of fact, let me stop. It wasn't going to be my second single, but I played it to my brother who is in England, and he was like "Cy, this has to be your second single, because people who come from where we come from are going to love it and respect it", so I was like "Alright. Let's stop and make that the second single." We shot the video on the Rocky steps in Philadelphia, at the Philadelphia Art Museum, so the video is pretty cool, as well.
You recently took a trip to Japan to present your new book and perform some songs from the new album. Can you talk a bit about the trip and the response that you received when you visited?
Oh, I LOVE Japan! I was telling someone today, like, it's one of the places that I would actually move. I didn't know that until I had been there. The reception was great! So, I didn't know who I would be performing for and was totally clueless, but I just made sure I knew my stuff. It turned out that I performed for some Japanese people and a lot of expats that were over there, which was cool, because they don't get to see Americans doing what we do all of the time, even though some of them are Americans and just decided to live there for whatever reason. But it was such a great experience, because I'm just starting this journey of presenting my books as opposed to just only performing my hip hop songs. That was one of the first presentations I did, and for it to be in Japan was huge. They really made me feel like I couldn't stop doing it. They were super recepetive and it went super well and it helped people. And my son was there, who is 18, and part of the reason I went to Japan was for his graduation present. He said to me after we left that that was his favorite part of the trip, because I speak life into him every day. All day, I teach him about everything I can. He was like, to see me do that for other people and for other people to be receptive of it, that it kind-of changed him as a person. That was the best part of the trip for me, as well, and it was great to see people first hand and look them in the eyes and just speak to them. And when you see a light bulb go off in their head and then they ask you a question and you're able to fill in the blanks for them...I love it. It made me feel very purposeful and they let me know that I couldn't stop and should charge more in that direction. I feel like it's going to be the extension of hip hop that I was kind-of looking for, because as much as I love hip hop, I'm not going to jump around on stage forever, but I can inspire people to be better and motivate people and encourage people forever and tell people about the greatness inside of them forever. So, that's what I got from Japan. Besides that, it’s a beautiful country that embodies a lot of strength on its own. And you could actually see that in the people, which I loved. A lot of Japanese people, unlike in America, they really stuck to themselves. As we were riding the train and stuff, in America if you're riding the train, you're getting on and off the train and people are kind-of, like, all in your face and looking at what you're doing. But in Japan, it seemed like everyone stuck to themselves. it's almost like they didn't care that we were there. I know they did, but they were just paying attention to themselves and what they had to do. That was refreshing.
Minding their own business!
Exactly! Exactly!
How do you stay grounded amidst the chaos and negativity that exists in the world? What gives you hope for the future?
That's a great question! For the first part, I meditate every day. And I tell people, whoever wants to listen, that I'm fighting for my life. Because, as I said, when you turn on the television or go on social media or talk to people, a lot of times people don't have the greatest things to say. So, I have to make sure I set the tone for myself. I'm definitely one of those people where as soon as I wake up, the first thing out of my mouth consistently is "Thank you". I don't even really want to talk to anyone before I get my own space, whether that's 30 minutes or an hour. The first words out of my mouth every day are "Thank you" and then I get out of my bed, pray, and creep downstairs and meditate. And then I start my day. Every time I don't do that, I can clearly see the difference in my day. It's completely necessary because there is just so much going on. As soon as your day starts, if you are able to quiet your mind and set your tone for yourself and even talk positively to yourself, which I do...like, I tell myself "I'm going to have a good day". I feel like everything is energy, so even me saying the words "I'm going to have a good day" is setting in motion the occurrences up front for me to have a good day. A lot of people, they just don't do this at all. They just don't know. It's not like it's a bad thing that they don't do it, they just don't know. The reason I know is because my parents taught me since they were Rastafarians and came from praying and meditating.
I also have a podcast, and these are the things I talk about, and I just want people to know that we do have tools out there because they don't know. There are things we are fighting every day and it could be the food we're eating having GMOs in it or the things we're watching on the news being negative, and these kinds of things. When I say I'm fighting for my life by meditating, that's what I mean. As soon as you open your front door, it could be the smog from the air or just anything trying to pull you down. You literally have to fight for your life. The way I fight for my life is by praying, and by praying I don't mean asking for anything. I feel like the greatest way to pray is to show gratitude and stay thankful. I look around at the things that I have and make sure I'm saying thank you for them, whether it's the air I breathe or being able to walk or being able to see or having a healthy and strong heart and brain. I'm saying thank you until I get tired of saying thank you. And sometimes, even more than praying and meditating, I literally write down the things that I am thankful for. I have notebooks around me right now full of thank you's from top to bottom. Just of anything I can think of. I do this because I know that everything is energy, from my thoughts to my words to my actions. And the more I put in the action, even if I'm writing it down, it's helping me set the tone for the rest of my days and rest of my life. And then when other people see me acting like this, they feel like it's ok for them to do it, as well. I've seen myself positively affect people as others have been able to positively affect me.
As far as the second part of your question, what gives me hope is that I always go with my children. My children are...I thank God for them every day. I have four great kids and you can see the light in their eyes from a distance. They give me hope. At the same time, before them I had hope because i just knew that hope existed. I really believe in the power of love. Like, I really, really believe. And sometimes people talk about love, and I don't want to downplay what anyone else thinks, but I just don't think there's anything more powerful than love. I feel like love has the power to conquer all. I've seen it through miracles and have seen it conquer all. In my household, I don't even allow my kids to say the word hate. That's the biggest curse word here, because I just know that there is power from everything from your thoughts to your words. I don't even let them say hate. It's just love. I see it in everything. I'm so thankful that I haven't allowed life to take that away from me. Some people don't even believe in love because they've had hard lives. They don't think it exists or think miracles exist. I'm here to show that it does.
You have quite a bit of stuff coming up in the year ahead. What can you tell me about what's next for you?
After the album, which comes out June 13th, I'm performing at...I don't know if this is going to be my biggest show in America yet. It might be though. But I will be performing at Rhyme Fest LA on August 16th in the LA Coliseum, which is huge. That's going to be one of my biggest shows to date. And then I have another album coming out at the end of this year called Undiluted with an artist I mentioned earlier called Ramson Badbonez from the UK. So, that's coming up. Then my podcast. I'm doing it right now, but am about to revamp it and redo it and that's coming in September. I've also written ten children's books and currently looking for an illustrator for. As soon as I'm able to get someone to illustrate these books, then they're coming out. They're ten children's books called Cyvision and the 52 Mystical Laws. It's like my book now, but I have created a children's version and have created it into a ten book series.