Chali 2na or Charles Stewart is the king of the slashies. On his official website the former member of Jurassic 5 lists himself as a “MC. Musician. Painter. Actor. Renaissance Man” and that list doesn’t even include the many collaborations he has participated in. The AU Review’s Larry Heath caught up with Chali 2na to discuss his latest LP, Against The Current, plus ferry-hopping to the Island Vibe Festival and what it was really like collaborating with George Clinton.

Hi this is Larry Heath calling from The AU Review. How are you going?

I’m good, how you doin’?

I’m doing very well, really well. Where am I speaking to you at the moment

Oh well, I’m actually sitting outside of my wife’s job.

How’s the day treating you?

So far so good, I can’t even really complain. Just happy to be alive man, to be perfectly honest with you.

What are you up to at the moment? What’s the news in the world of Chali 2na?

Well umm, at the moment I’ve been for the past like, a little less than a year, I’ve been recording a project called Against The Current and basically it’s five installments of EPs that I want to put out over the course of a year. Ummm, just entertaining my friends with y’know facets of different styles of music that I dig.

The first installment is going to be a piece of each EP that shows you what the whole project is about. The second one is gonna be like an electronic perspective- like dub-step. The third is gonna be a purely melodic perspective and so forth. The fourth one is gonna be Caribbean-inspired y’know reggae music. Y’know all the different styles of music that influenced me over the years. And the fifth one is gonna be hip-hop shit, y’know everybody braves hip-hop shit (laughs).

I’m tryin’ to give it away free but I want to give all of them away free so that’s just a gift pack to my fans, man. And I want to make it really appealing by, and hopefully those people will get a chance to have every piece of it – of the installment. When they put ‘em all together to listen to ‘em, it’ll snap to an order that is different than all of the different things that they have respected. It’ll unlock a couple of free songs – like new songs and it’ll come with a bunch of different little perks that will give you the initiative to go get it if they want the whole thing.

It seems to be quite the eclectic mix of music that you’re going to be putting together for it. It’ll be interesting to hear it in a singular context...

Yeah, yeah, that’s the part that I really want to make interesting is how it sounds all together, you know what I mean?

The many voices of Chali 2na...

Ha ha ha ha ha exactly! (laughs)

Well, you’re coming back to Australia very soon. I imagine we’ll get a little taste of this when you’re performing down here?

Yes sir, yes sir. You’re gonna see a little piece of it all, from old stuff to new stuff...I feel like I can’t walk away from the situation without at least doin’ a piece of everything you know about me.

I have certainly come to know that that’s what you do at your shows. I was lucky enough to see you perform with Nas in Sydney the last time you were down here and of course you played the Island Vibe Festival then as well. What were your experiences there like, because you’re back here for it?

Oh man, it was amazing man, amazing! Stradbroke Island is crazy; I’ve still got my t-shirt from that day. But yeah, it was cool to be able to be like in the wilderness as the coloured man. They treated us really well – the people were fun. I met a lot of cool people on the ferry over there and back. I had a really cool experience altogether.

Well, looking forward to seeing you back down here and when it comes to the new project, when do you think we’re gonna start hearing Against The Current?

Well, I think the first single off Against The Current will be out – uh, I’m trying to push towards like November. It should be out late October or November. And then the first installments start coming out, y’know the first is next year.

Well, look forward to hearing that one. Have there been many collaborations through that project that you can talk about? Or all under the wraps so far?

Well for one part of it I can’t really talk about the collaborations yet, y’know? I really want some of this stuff to be a kind of surprise. So I’ll just wait for that part of it, y’know what I mean?

Well, it’s always good to see you do your collaborations. You’ve done quite a few over the years, what have been some of the most interesting ones for you in recent memory? I know there was the dub-step track with Rusko last year?

Yeah, yeah. I think really, the most interesting one, the one that I had the most fun with in just iconically (sic) and felt the most proud of was the one I did with George Clinton and was called “There’s A Party”. It’s on the NASA, North America/South America Project, The Spirit of Apollo. It’s just the fact it was George Clinton y’know? It was an amazing experience, y’know.

He’s an amazing man. I got the chance to see him perform earlier this year and he’s still up there, still doing it!

That’s right.

Do you think you’ll be up there still doing it that many years from now?

Y’know, I never thought that I would be still doing it, this day here. You never know, I don’t know what the future will bring man and I don’t profess to say so. But I wouldn’t mind y’know, if I was healthy enough then hell yeah; I’d love to do it.

When you come down to Australia, are we gonna be seeing you doing other shows other than the Island Vibe Festival?

Well, this particular time I think we’re just doin’ the Island Vibe Festival. But December we will be back and we’re gonna do a little, small run, so that’s gonna be pretty fun.

Oh great, well I know that we’re already a little bit behind schedule today so I better let you go and get back onto the next one, but I’d like to thank you for taking the time to speak to us today...

No problem man, thank you for calling, I appreciate it.

Chali-2na plays Island Vibe Festival on November 30.