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This hip-hop duo strives to teach, not preach.

Wednesday Aug 30, 2006.     By Ben Rubenstein

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Some rappers claim that they're bringing it back to the old school. The Primeridian bring it back to school, period. From their day jobs as educators to their worldly lyrics, members Simeon Viltz (aka See-Me-On aka V) and Jaime Roundtree (aka Tree tha Scarecrow) are taking the art of informative rhyming way past Dr. Seuss.

"What got us into teaching in the first place was that we wanted to bring a sense of culture to youth that they don't necessarily get in school or in mass media," says Viltz, who is just finishing a stint as a music instructor at Street Level Youth Media, where he teaches production and songwriting to teenagers (Roundtree currently teaches 5th grade in Champaign). "I try to get youth to see things from a new perspective. I ask them, 'Who is the real you?'"

This concern with the identities and perspectives of young people has informed much of The Primeridian's musical messaging. "It definitely makes us a lot more accountable," says Viltz, recounting a story about a former student of his who was influenced a bit too much by tales of drug dealing in his favorite hip-hop group's songs. "I realized how much people could be hanging on my every word. I started to think a lot about the detrimental aspects of the music."

Long before the rappers became teachers themselves, school played a vital part in the duo's development. The two met in the early '90s at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where Viltz's budding appreciation for crate digging was given an outlet in the school's vast musical library. "We met at an open mic," he recalls. "There was a mutual respect for each other's styles. Not many people were doing real freestyles at that point, like right off the top of the head. We started listening to a lot of music together and it just went from there."

Soon after, The Primeridian was born. The name of the group is a nod to the "East meets West" connection between the two; Viltz is from Hyde Park, while Roundtree hails from the West Side. The duo was soon performing around campus, notably at various rallies organized to ban "the Chief," the Illini's oft-protested Native American mascot. It was also around this time that the two rappers made inroads with Capital D, head of All Natural, Inc., which released The Primeridian's proper debut album, Da All Nighta, in late 2005.

"It was our first album that we actually set out to make an album," says Viltz of the release. The group's previous full-length, I'll Meet You in Greenwich, was more a collection of songs the duo had worked on throughout several years. Da All Nighta is a soulful group of songs clearly influenced by the Native Tongues sound of the '90s; from reggae to spoken word to live instrumentation, the 19 tracks cover a lot of ground. "It's a long play, but it's real good for a road trip," says Viltz. From anti-war songs to meditations on relationships, the lyrical content is as diverse as the production, as Viltz and Roundtree set out to defy any easy categorization.

"When we were putting Da All Nighta together, things were real heavy, so the album reflects that," says Viltz. "Obviously, things ain't getting no better, but as we grow, we also experience other things, and our music will be an expression of that."

For these two musical educators, it seems school's always in session.

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