A boom box sits on a wooden shelf in the corner of the restaurant. The background ambience is a hip-hop song from the ’90s, as we take our seats and shake hands over a wooden table and a sunflower centerpiece. It’s about 6:30 p.m. on a Monday night, and Hidmo Eritrean Restaurant in the Central District is empty except for a few regulars.

Sabzi, DJ for the Blue Scholars, and his brother, Zia Mohajerjasbi, a film director, are dressed casually. Mohajerjasbi sports the classic Weezer glasses that every girl loves so much, and Sabzi is wearing the plaid black-and-white jacket that he wore in the “Loyalty” video.

I was surprised to learn that George “Geo” Quibuyen, the emcee, would not be attending the interview. I panicked slightly inside — most of my questions were aimed at Geo. It was time to be creative, I thought, as my heartbeat escalated into a pitter-patter two-step of nervousness.

Earlier that day, my photographer, Jesse Barracoso, picked me up in the U-District. On the way to the restaurant, we talked about the upcoming interview in the car and listened to tracks off Bayani, the band’s second full-length album. Our anticipation increased as we drove south. Geo’s words resonated in my mind through the speakers, “I’m just an ordinary guy.” In a self-soothing mantra, I told myself the interview would go fine. They were just normal guys — right?

After stepping out of the car onto 20th Avenue South and South Jackson Street, we strolled into the restaurant. It was completely empty except for two girls, interns for Hidmo, making a collage. After a few minutes, two guys who happen to know Geo and Sabzi came in.

Gabriel Teodros is signed to Mass Line Media, the Blue Scholars’ own label, sat and chatted with us. He was sweet and friendly, a salt-of-the-earth rapper.

He told of how he met Geo in 1999 at one of Teodros’ first shows.

“The Seattle hip-hop community is real small,” he said. “Everybody knows each other.”

Sabzi knew almost every person who walked into Hidmo during our interview, confirming what Teodros had said earlier about the tight-knit community.

A few days before, Sabzi had chosen Hidmo, a common hip-hop hangout, as our meeting place. It was finally happening.

To begin, we dove into discussing secrets behind their music videos. No, they don’t use extras for their videos; they just call up friends and tell people to show up. Even the woman who performed a dramatic tearful scene in the “Back Home” video was just a neighbor of one of their friends. In the “Joe Metro” video, when Sabzi drove a bus as Geo spilled rhymes, the bus was not a rental — they just happened to know a local Metro driver who hooked them up.

While shooting “Loyalty” this winter in front of Suzzallo Library, two people got pneumonia after waiting outside in the cold all night during the shoot. In the scenes shot at Beacon Hill Elementary School at 3:30 a.m. behind graffiti, a girl known as Angel 179 did the art. Total production took 39 hours. Interns were there to help, thanks to Mohajerjasbi’s newly created youth mentorship program.

After the shoot, they worked for two weeks, eight straight hours a day to finish.

“That edit was hell,” Mohajerjasbi said. The video dropped on MTV2 in April.

I shifted my attention back to Sabzi and asked if they censor their lyrics at schools.

He said the conceptual meanings of the songs go uncensored, but unnecessary curse words are taken out. They will omit the f-word but aren’t shy about doing more political songs like “Back Home.”

Sometimes the band has to step in and tell the kids to settle down.

“The pushing can get pretty bad,” Sabzi explained. “At Bainbridge High School, the whole crowd fell over.”

At this point Sabzi grabbed his iPhone and said, “Oh, hey, I have to take this call real quick … so talk to him,” leaving me with Mohajerjasbi.

He wandered into the back of the restaurant, and after a few minutes of being gone, he reemerged and continued to chat after slipping into another room. Mohajerjasbi and I ventured into talking about his personal life, and I learned that in a few weeks he would be taking his final Spanish 103 test to obtain to his economics degree from the UW.

Mohajerjasbi began telling me about his paper route, which he held from ages 10 to 16 to pay for his first video camera. “I had to miss sleepovers for like five years,” he said jokingly.

At this point, I felt comfortable enough with Mohajerjasbi to ask the question that had been my mind since they walked in the doors: “Where’s Geo, and is he planning on coming?”

“For specific Blue Scholars questions, you should probably just ask my brother,” Geo replied. “I don’t want to say anything that’s not accurate.”

I didn’t have time to feel awkward about his response; I was saved when two friends of his walked into the restaurant and he got up to greet them. After 18 minutes of absence, Sabzi resurfaced to say hello to his friends and continue dancing around the restaurant.

“I’m working on my footwork,” he explained, moon-walking with iPhone in hand.

After he took his seat, I asked him about his thoughts on last month’s Dalai Lama concert with Dave Matthews and Death Cab for Cutie.

“We were actually asked to be on that bill,” he said. “We had other engagements,” he explained. “And I don’t know if I’d play for the Dalai Lama.”

This answer sparked my curiosity, and I cautiously pressed on.

“You never know what’s going to get thrown your way,” he said. “But we hope the Blue Scholars, our base, our credibility and the trust that we have with the people we work with, and the people who listen to our music — that it’s never for sale to be used by someone else for their political case.”

I wanted to resurface from the uncomfortable anguish I was dipping in, so I attempted to ask some nonpolitical questions.

“So Sabzi, what is your average day like?” I asked.

“Wake up, live life, go to sleep,” he answered.

Okay, I thought. I begged him to give me more details. He explained that his days are inconsistent, but he meets with people and visits Hidmo to hang out.

“It’s like visiting your parents, except these aren’t my parents,” he said, adding that he considers those at the restaurant his extended family.

When asked to describe the best day of his life, Mohajerjasbi chipped in and joked, “It must involve me somehow.”

“Honestly, I don’t think about life in that way,” Sabzi answered. He hopes that every day is the best day because it’s better than the last one, he explained.

“Naturally that’s not going to be the case because some horrible crap is going to happen. Hopefully, we will have the strength to get through it — which we will.”

After most of his answers, he said, “You know what I’m saying.” I realized that I had been saying “uh-huh” and bobbing my head up and down like a buoy in Puget Sound for most of the interview.

“I see the beauty in everything, and I’m able to be detached from it at the same time,” he said.

Mohajerjasbi looked at Sabzi and asked if his favorite day was spent watching a bag float around in the wind. I immediately caught the American Beauty reference and smirked at Mohajerjasbi. “No, I don’t like watching bags in the wind,” Sabzi said in all seriousness.

I told Sabzi a story from a few months ago, when I was at a house party in the U-District and “The Ave” started playing. Literally everyone was dancing and singing along to the infamous lyrics, “Fuck class, get your education on the Ave.” Sabzi was surprised and replied, “They didn’t say, ‘Fuck that, turn that music off?’”

He told me that the two places he would most like to have his music played would be at house parties and in classrooms.

“That’s the idea, right? How many songs do people play in the classroom that they also party to?” Sabzi asked. “That’s the whole point of what we’re trying to do with our music.”