The Venomous Diss: Dishing It Up with Def Jam Blaster

I got to interview Def Jam Blaster for Dust & Dope twice: once for the NoDoz album, and again for last year's Lost & Found compilation album.  I recommend you check them both out, but you know, I'm biased.  And you know, those interviews are exclusive to those releases; I'm not gonna print 'em here.  But, while I had him on the line, I did ask him about Royal Flush and Raheem from The Geto Boys, who aren't on either of those aforementioned albums.  So the following didn't make it into those pieces.

And as a precursor, one thing we did talk about on the Lost & Found interview is the Billy D song "Bad To the Bone."  Billy D was one of the earliest MCs Blaster worked with, and on that song, he disses Raheem: "break out the shotgun 'cause I'ma destroy the Vigilante, 'cause I'm makin' it.  Raheem keeps on fakin' it.  'Cause you a duck, that's why you be hatin' it.  Rap title - Billy D's takin' it!"  He also disses OG Style on that one.  Again, we get into the whole story in the liner notes, but it's interesting they dropped a record dissing Raheem because Def Jam went on to produce his big diss track.

Well, you know what happened to me with Raheem?  Raheem had "Venom" on the first album, and the thing that I discovered with Venom was that it was a character name.  It wasn't really the actual DJ, who I became good friends with.  That was never his name.  Venom was a name Raheem came up with for just a guy named Sam.  I don't remember what his DJ name was; we always called him Venom.  But as we became friends, he told me, "you know, that's not really my name. That's a character name."

I'd heard Venom was Ready Red?

See, for Raheem's image, he felt that his DJ's name should be Venom no matter who that person may have been.  Because it's me on all the songs on the second album, at least the songs that I produced.  But he still says "Venom, my conductor," and it's me scratching while he's saying it.

Like Spinderella!

Yes, that's exactly what they did.  Like, "this is a very cool name, so whoever assumes that position gets that name."

And I wanted to ask you about Royal Flush's second album.  Were you considered like an official member, replacing Sergio Magnifico, or was that more like just some guest production work?

On Royal Flush, I think they just parted ways with Sergio way before they did the second album, so I don't think I ever even met him.  I didn't look at it so much as replacing him because I think he had been gone, but technically, I guess that was the case.

What was the line-up at that point?  Because in the Rap-A-Lot days, it was basically the two guys and Serg, but the back cover of 976-Dope shows like twenty people.

Well, that's the posse.  You know Hip-Hop, there's always the posse.  I think even the owner of the record label is in that photo.  There were just other people affiliated with Rap-A-Lot in the picture. The official group was the two of them.  I mean, you take the N.W.A and the Posse album, there's like eight people on there, but it's just Ice Cube and Ren or whatever rapping on those first albums.  That was just the thing.  The Scarface 12-inch?  There's eight or nine people on that cover with us.  You know, five of them had nothing to do with any of the music.  That was just a Hip-Hop thing at the time: take a cool group photo with whoever you want on there.

Are you in there?

No, I wouldn't have been in any of their photos with them.  I'm from Missouri City, which is a suburb of Houston, and they eventually bought a house in Missouri City.  So, anybody that came to Missouri City would know Crazy C and Def Jam Blaster.  These are the guys that make music, these are the guys DJing and everything, so you hook up with them.  And so that's how I kind of got introduced to them: they were out of Missouri City.  They're like, "Yeah, we heard about you, what do you have?"  And so that was how that happened.

But you know, at that point, I was more interested in doing the production.  As far as if a rap group approached me, I wanted to do the production; I didn't want to just DJ for them.  So that's how I ended up doing a couple of songs on the second album.  I was their DJ for a while, but I don't recall that we ever really did anything.  They just said that I was the DJ and gave me the Royal Flush medallion to wear, so it was official.  But I don't recall that we did anything as far as DJing any shows.  Just doing music together was the main thing.

I guess, had they done any shows during that era, then I would have DJed for them.  And, you know, you're dealing with... I mean, I just think the label probably didn't have a lot of pull, a lot of juice to make it do too much.  It's a dope album, but you know, the second Royal Flush album is not on Rap-A-Lot.  Rap-A-Lot had the juice.  They could have pushed whatever they wanted to push.  The second Royal Flush album was on Yo! Records or something, so I don't know too much about the label side of that.  But I just assumed they didn't really have the juice to push it as hard.

So that was '91, and in '92 you're back with Rap-A-Lot to be Venom on The Invincible...

Yeah, that title track is a diss record, partly against Royal Flush.  I didn’t know that when I was initially agreeing to do the work, so once I heard the lyrics, I had to call the guys up and say, "hey man, I’m neutral in all of this.  I’m just producing the record."  [Laughs]

And he's dissing OG Style on there, too, right?  But what was his issue with Royal Flush?

Yeah, it sounded like it was over a girl.  He was really just coming after Rick [Flush's King Ricardo, who he calls a "dick lickin', pussy suckin', dog breath MC... Rick get 'em up, 'cause I know you defend her. When I get 'em up, all niggas yell 'timber!' Snap of the neck to crack of the backbone. Impossible to step in the zone of the man they call invincible."].  And Raheem is so good, it was devastating at the time.

...And then we got into the production techniques he used for that track, and a connection it has to a NoDoz song, which is all in the CD booklets.  But yeah, I just thought this was an interesting bit of history that's never really been unveiled.  Fun Fact: Blaster is also the voice of "Finneas T. Farbottom of Channel Zero News" who announces that Raheem is back on the song's introduction.

The Lost Deep Puddle Dynamics Interview

I did not do this interview; I can take no credit for it except that I (sort of) commissioned it and got The Source to post it online back in 1999.  And I think I minimally copy-edited it, because I was doing that for everything that got posted there in those days; but as I recall, it didn't need much at all.  I never posted this on my blog ("necro'd" it) because, again, it's not my writing.  You can tell; all that expository text really isn't my style.  But this vintage Deep Puddle Dynamics interview is no longer online, and hasn't been for decades.  I'm pretty sure if I don't share it, it will be forever lost to the ages, so I'm posting it for you all to enjoy now in 2023 as a tiny bit of Hip-Hop history.  Enjoy!

"Hello?"
"Yeah is Del - I mean Jel - there?"
"Yeah, Del's here."
"No, I mean Jel.
"Yeah, Del. Catch a Bad One. I'll go get him."
"Word."
"Which one?"
"What?"
"Which word?"
"Um - chicken."
"Cool. I'll go get him."

I'll probably never know which member of Deep Puddle Dynamics (besides Jel) answered the phone that afternoon. The smart money is on Slug, but whoever it was, I doubt he even remembers the interaction. Regardless, it pretty much reflects the dichotomy of the entire crew: For a bunch of guys who're trying to take hip-hop to the next, mind-expanding level, the members of Deep Puddle Dynamics are a bunch of goofballs.

Deep Puddle Dynamics didn't come together like most groups do. All of the MCs (Slug, Dose, Sole and Alias) had distinct musical careers before they assembled as a group and have continued to work on their solo projects all along. And, even though Deep Puddle Dynamics is set to drop later this year, all four are working on a whole slew of solo albums and collaborations with and as other groups. Everyone involved is about putting out product and keeping their fans equipped with dope music.

The MCs of Deep Puddle are a unique cast of characters, to say the least. Slug, straight out of Minnesota and the Rhymesayers crew, is practically a superhero in the Midwest underground, albeit a rather tall and gangly one. Many fans and MCs in Minnesota, Chicago and surrounding areas are literally awestruck in his presence. He has the charisma and ability (pun intended; his DJ's name is Abilities) to truly control the mic and the crowd. As for Dose, underground MC Eyedea has described him as the James Joyce of hip-hop. Some audiences don't know how to react when he hits the stage. Now living in Cincinnati by way Philadelphia and a bunch of other places, the 1200 Hobos MC wraps words and thought around the average listener's gray matter and squeezes hard. Sole, the short and kinda stocky former frontman for The Live Poets, is a physical counterpoint to Slug. Originally from Maine, now living in Oakland, he's self-described excessive talker and charismatic mic controller. Alias, one of Sole's old partners in crime from Maine, is much quieter and more reserved than the other three. Maybe it's his marriage. This calm exterior hides a propensity to lyrically snap hard on a track. Production for the group is usually split between Jel, Mayonnaise, Alias, Abilities, and ANT (of Atmosphere).

Most of their interviews are nightmares for the conventional journalist. You ask them a serious question, and they fuck with you. You ask them a not so serious question, and they still fuck with you. Jel, one of their producers, told me about an interview they had with some German magazine while in California.

"She kept on asking us these real deep questions, like 'What's your definition of hip-hop?' and 'What are trying to do with your music?' We just sat on the on the couch and had a blast. She didn't know what to say after a while."

That's what I had to look forward to that afternoon. This June, all of the components of Deep Puddle were together in Chicago for a show - a truly rare occasion - and on this Saturday they d gathered in one place: Jel's crib. So I got to do an interview with all of these components out on the lawn in front of Jel's apartment.

The members of Deep Puddle have a penchant for spinning works of complete fiction during their interviews. The problem for the interviewer is that they're so damn good at it, it's hard to tell the difference between the fiction and the reality. They're great at building off each other while creating a story, and even better at telling you with a complete straight face that it's all true. Of course, when you're going over your notes, you realize that it was all a joke, but it sounds feasible at the time. I mean, how likely is at that Alias and Mayonnaise can't drive through Michigan anymore because they held up a pumpkin patch with two pale-skinned Goth women?

Okay, so maybe I didn't fall for that one, but they got me with another, the details of which I won't divulge (something about Sole witnessing Bushwick Bill getting beat-down in Texas). But, hey, I didn't take offense. It was all in good fun.

All of Deep Puddle agreed afterwards, however, that this was the most serious interview they had ever done. The reason being they were, in their own words, "humbled" by the previous night's concert. But more on that later.

The members of Deep Puddle were united by pure musical appreciation, of other artists and each other. Although Sole and Alias, who d grown up together in Maine, had already recorded albums as The Live Poets, all they knew of Slug and Dose was their music. Then, they all came together at an Aceyalone concert.

"We all loved each-other's music and wanted to do a project," Sole said, "And we said,  Fuck it, let's all just come to Minneapolis.  We all just scrapped everything we'd done to do something different, [and] in doing so, we - for me - redefined hip-hop, what I want to do. It was totally life-changing."

It all finally came together a little over a year ago, in a nearly week long, extended recording session at Slug's house. A bunch of Minnesota sunsets, one funeral and countless cigarettes and blunts later, Deep Puddle Dynamics was finished, and the crew was satisfied.

"We vibed off of it. We just sparked the whole thing," Slug says. "And now, it's like everything that I get involved with has progressed way past what I used to be when I released Overcast! [his last album with Atmosphere]."

That week long session affected all of Deep Puddle emotionally.

"I still listen to the album and look at the pictures, and every time I do, I just get a warm feeling, like, this is such a great thing to happen," Sole says.

Alias agrees, "I didn't know what to expect but, like, it was a warm feeling to know all of us, not knowing each other, could get together and just rush an album basically in a matter of three days [of recording]."

"That weekend was like, none of us knew each other," Jel adds. "We might have met at a certain point, but after that weekend it was like " he paused as Slug snapped his fingers. "Yeah, it was like a family."

Sole continues, impassioned, "After I met Slug and Dose and Jel, I felt closer to them than anyone else in the world, plus Mayonnaise and Alias. I felt these were like my best friends. We're all drawing from each other and pushing each other [as artists] and nobody's satisfied. We just keep pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing. And I don't think it's ever gonna stop. I was humbled by the whole thing."

It was emotional on other levels for Slug as well. That week he d severed ties with a close friend and lost a grandfather. During the drive to the funeral, with his mother, his son and his son's mother, he sat and wrote a verse. This verse became his part of "June 26th, 1998," a track Deep Puddle considers a culmination of the entire week.

"I think this group we have is really good for showing and proving," Dose concludes, "I think that's what we did. Since we did Deep Puddle, a lot more innovative stuff between the four of us, and all of our friends, has been done. But it was Deep Puddle that really gave us a perspective."

The previous night's show left Deep Puddle feeling deeply conflicted. Slug didn't even want to talk about it at first. Everyone else grumbled about how frustrated and annoyed they were on how the show went down. But what left them so "humbled" by the experience was that, in many ways, it was a disaster waiting to happen. After it was all said and done, the audience left happy.

The concert itself would be any crew's nightmare. It was disorganized, to say the least. Not too long before the first act went on, there was a serious chance that the show would be cancelled, because the promoters said not enough people had shown up. Mayonnaise said he'd already packed his records and was ready to go, when the opening act went on.

The venue itself didn't help either. They performed on a stairwell in the lobby of a large concert hall. The really high ceiling made the acoustics sound terrible. "It sounded like we were performing in St. Patrick's Cathedral," Alias quips.

And like every troubled show, they had to contend with the soundman. But they all agreed that he was basically a nice guy, just out of his element.

"He dressed like a wedding DJ," Dose remarks, as everyone murmured in agreement. "He had it on him. He smelled like a wedding DJ."

"You could tell by the cordless mics," Slug agrees. He and Dose then proceeded to discuss whether or not the mics smelled like cake or Macy's.

The cordless mics were another source of trouble. Apparently someone forgot to change their batteries before the show, so they buzzed really loud during the performances.

"Let that be a lesson to you," Slug says. "As much as rappers wish they had cordlesses so they could, I don't know, stage dive - or whatever the fuck it is that they wanna do - corded mics are a lot more dependable."

Furthermore, they had to perform without monitors. As an attempt to remedy this, they faced the DJ speakers at the top stairwell outwards, but even that didn't work.

"Actually, it was kinda funny, 'cause all we could hear coming through our monitors was our vocals, which was really weird," Slug says. "So at least we could hear what we were saying, but we already knew what we were saying, so "

And, on top of all that, the DAT machine stopped working midway through the show, forcing the crew to perform sans music. Phenomenally, this didn't set Deep Puddle back at all. In fact, it helped give the show its really unique character.

"At that point we were like, 'We can't rock beats any more. Let's just do it acappella,'" Sole explains, "And Dose loves doing acappellas anyway."

So, for reasons that Dose couldn't fully explain, halfway through his set of the show, he instructed everyone in the audience to sit down on the steps while he read his poetry for almost 10 minutes--not something you see everyday.

"I was just doing what's in me, and that's what s cool about it: it wasn't contrived, it was natural," Dose beams. "And in my opinion, the type of shows I want to walk away from - it's that type of stuff. Because naturally, I'm a nervous wreck, so I have to put effort into being relaxed and happy, and things like that helped." But the audience loved it.

"So, like, it went from like a hip-hop show gone bad to almost a slam, and that's something these kids have never seen before," Sole says. He then concludes, "I didn't have a good time performing until we started doing the acappella shit."

The entire audience had a great time. Deep Puddle credits the audience's reaction for transforming the evening from a disaster to a life-affirming experience. Fans that Deep Puddle didn't even know they had showed up and gave they crazy love.

"Afterwards, it was like, 'You guys are fucking freaks! You are fucking crazy! You guys moved me!'" Sole exclaims. "And we had all the conversations afterwards with kids who knew our stuff, had heard our stuff. It s just a nice feeling to know that you're not doing it for nothing. Forever we've done it for nobody, just each other." Since it was the first time that Deep Puddle had performed for its fans, they were especially troubled that the conditions at the venue were so atrocious.

"See, it would have been different had we played unknown, opening for some known group, and the sound was that bad; we would've looked at it differently," Slug explains. "But since everybody was so cool to us and so nice to us, that the sound thing sucked  But we still walked away from it feeling good about the audience."

"Last night I think I came into my own, performing," Dose says. "And only because I had confidence that was genuine. With all these guys behind me, I could truly be myself. That's never been the case before. It was like I was myself on stage for the first time. And it was because I had these three guys with me. It brought so much to me."

But not everyone in attendance appreciated Deep Puddle's show. One wannabe MC in particular took it upon himself to challenge the crew to a battle as the show wound to a close. He wanted to battle Dose; big mistake. In all honestly, it was over before it started, and actually pretty embarrassing. Dose quickly showed his lyrical superiority, and the challenger was unable to mount even a basic comeback. Soon the crowd was chanting for the guy to get the hell off the stage.

That's almost a metaphor for what we're doing," Sole reflects. "We want these people to listen to our records. And if you take someone like that up on stage, and they're doing their DMX impersonations, and you got Dose doing Dose, it's just funny."

Dose himself didn't take the whole thing too personally, and even though he made the guy look like a schmuck, he says he didn't try to totally destroy him. He admits, "I went in there and I didn't mean to be mean or angry with that kid; I just had a blast and let him completely reflect himself in me. He was just being a fool, so I gave him what he wanted for dinner, and then it was mellow. It was just a mellow battle."

Slug agrees, and explains how the entire encounter really reflects what the group is trying to accomplish musically. "That kid, when he came up, wanted to hate on Dose in general 'cause he couldn't understand Dose. And then, afterwards, I was talking to kid, and he was like, 'Yo, I'm from out East, and out East we do it a little different. But I gotta say, you guys got your own sound, your own thing, and I think it's really dope.' We could present what we re doing. Granted, we're coming from four different things as it is. And if we can push it all together and present it and have cats accept it like that, to me that's what it's all about. Quit writing out of your head and start writing with your heart."

After the interview is over, a small brown rabbit comes out of the brush and hops leisurely across the lawn. Dose points and exclaims, "Look! A rabbit."

"Let's get it," Slug replies.

"You wanna?" Dose says, and then looks at Slug for half a beat. They both then spontaneously break out in a sprint across the lawn towards the fleeing rabbit.

They chase it down the alley along the house, onto the nearby street, towards a large brown house. As they turn the corner into the yard, Jel says, "Yeah, they're having fun now, but wait 'till they run into the dog that lives in that house."

On cue, the dog bellows three or four times, and Slug and Dose run back in the opposite direction, to the rest of us congregated on Jel's lawn. As they approach, out of breath, Slug says, "You know what's the worst thing about hip-hop? Chasing rabbits through the streets."

Dose adds, "I think we just changed the course of nature. That dog probably killed that rabbit. We hit the lawn and the dog went directly for it."

Deep Puddle then heads back into Jel's apartment trading jokes and insults all the while.

Drasar Monumental: The Interview

Here's my interview with Drasar Monumental, an artist I've covered here a couple times now, including of course my new video review of his latest EP, which I'm posting simultaneously.  Over the course of those past write-ups, I'd only grown more curious about Drasar's story, with his unique creativity and how this west coast artist wound up getting his start with such definitively New York-rooted heavy hitters MF Grimm and Ayatollah.  So when the opportunity came up to interview him, even though I've sort of eased off of doing interviews these last few years, I was compelled.  So no more adieu, this interview's already rather lengthy, so let's just jump right into how he seemingly jumped into the game from nowhere:

I'm a DJ and I've made beats and rhyme since I was a child. So people hadn't heard of me, but I was already putting out mixtapes and doing different shit. I had demos, been in studios since like '93, '94, but nothing ever came out. It was supposed to have, but shit just didn't come out. And I'm thankful because it was just too one-dimensional: all battle rap with no concepts. And I like battle rap. I still put that shit in there, obviously, but it was all that and like nothing else. Just, "get you, get you, get you, I'm better than you, I'm better than you," you know what I mean?

Yeah, there's a definite variety to your work, where in one sense you're writing in different styles, but it's very cohesive. There's always been those cornier groups like K-9 Posse, KMC Kru or whoever, where they'd jump around from hardcore to house to new jack to sappy love songs, but that's definitely not your vibe at all. Somehow there's a consistency to your variety.

It's just a representation of who I am, you know. I deal with all types of people, all types of backgrounds, and it's just about keeping the balance there. Because there's some guys out there where it's just, "one color, one color, one color." I get it, but I get bored of that shit, honestly. There has to be something else.

It's all balance man, and you do a great job, bro; like your your website is like a wealth of information for people. You're like the last of the fuckin' Mohicans, bro. I didn't reach out to you for no reason. I don't just do that to anybody. Because I'm a Hip-Hop head, I'm a Hip-Hop fanatic, so when I see certain shit, I'm like, "yo, this dude's thorough. And I appreciate that because you just don't see too much of that around. There's not there's not enough critical analysis; there's not enough deep going into people's projects or anything. It's just all surface shit. And that's just that's sad because Hip-Hop is worthy of study. It's worthy of a deep fucking analysis. Like, I don't know what's going on; there's no magazines anymore. It's just like, yo, come on, man. Obviously dudes don't have a journalism background is what it comes down to.  But dudes like you are going to continue to win and continue to garner praise and attention because of how you approach it.  It sticks out like a sore thumb now, you compared to just some other microwave blog posts.  I'm like, wait a minute, this dude is actually taking time into this shit. Like, I went to school for journalism. That was my major, with a minor in cultural anthropology. So that's kind of how I write my rhymes: stay on topic, approach this shit like a lawyer and have different points. And then you end it, wrap it up with some kind of synopsis.

Something that really tripped me out about your site, what really got me open, was years ago I saw the Big Nous shit that you had, some fuckin' limited edition Big Nous fuckin' CD. And I was like yo, what the fuck? 'Cause, dude, I'm a Hobo Junction fanatic. I remember seeing those dudes on the avenue right by Amoeba here in the Bay area. And they would be posted out there like 30 deep, selling tapes and this shit was all dope. One of my favorite crews from the west is Hobo Junction, and I've met Saafir several times. He's an ill dude in real life. So for you to know about them like that and even have that release? I never knew that Big Nous shit had even come out! So when I saw you put that up, I was like what the fuck? How the Hell did he get this shit, you know what I'm saying?  Where the fuck is he? What happened to him, dude?

I guess in those days the major labels still gatekept everything, and The Junction were just never going to break mainstream enough to hold a label's interest.  Maybe Whoridas, but that's also what made them the least exciting members.

Damn, it's sad what happened to that crew, because they did something special. They were different than Hiero; they were more dusted out, more street, and they had their own thing. It was unique, man, because they had that street shit but they could still rhyme their fuckin' asses off. And it was kind of abstract and unorthodox, how I like my shit. They were dope, man. That was a critical time in west coast fuckin' history right there, and I can't believe you have that fuckin' CD, dude.

So getting back to you; you're saying you're a DJ, and I see the mixes you've posted and all.  But now I'd say you're much more known as a producer and MC...

Yeah, I always did it; I always DJ'd, rhymed, made beats and graffiti. I never separated them. I don't know how to compartmentalize that, I just always did them all. And I could honestly say that I'm pretty proficient in all of them. Not to be egotistical or nothing, but if you're doing something for many decades, obviously you figure certain things out; and I've always dabbled in all of them.

I grew up in Santa Barbara obsessed with with Hip-Hop shit because I had a couple radio stations by me. K-Day was by me. I would have to stick like a clothes hanger in the antenna and hold that shit to hear it sometimes because it was the AM station, right? But I would hear so much crazy shit like '86, '85; and I would record it. And if I couldn't stay up late enough to record it, my father would record it for me and give me a tape in the morning. Back then the tapes would flip over to the other side so you'd have like sixty minutes of all this crazy shit on the radio, and it sparked me off, even though there was B-boys in my neighborhood, DJs and all that. And my dad is a selector. He's from the Cayman Islands, so I grew up around records and shit, even going back to Cayman Islands and all that sound system fuckin' wild shit. But K-Day was a big part of it, and also KCSB, the University of California Santa Barbara. They had different shows, kind of equivalent to what the Mixmaster Show was like on K-Day, where they were just live mixing. It wasn't just playing joints, it was like dudes was fuckin' going ham doubling up on shit, cutting up crazy, playing old four-track tapes where there's so much fuckin' shit going on, you know you what I'm saying?

Do you remember Shy D's DJ, and like those crazy four-track type joints with dudes just going bananas? These dudes are going fuckin' berserker mode, man. I'm talking about the Real Roxanne "Bang Zoom! Take It To the Moon" era. They were going fuckin' crazy, and I would hear that, so I would try to emulate it with pause tapes, because you know my dad had equipment and shit. So I'd do my little pause tapes, loop up breaks, take a fuckin' record and just kind of start layering until I got a four-track. And then I just kept at it, rhyming at the same time. So I started just cutting a lot of demos around '93, '94. And they sounded good. I was in a crew with a couple other dudes that I still deal with today, and things just never came out. It cost a lot of fuckin' money back then, you know what I'm saying? Like studio time I think back then for us was like 80 dollars. And the engineer was using the first version of Cakewalk and barely knew what the fuck he was doing, all on drugs and shit. It was like everything was so spendy in those kind of environments; I just didn't have the money to facilitate manufacturing a record. So we did talent shows; we battled all types of fuckin' dudes, ran up on dudes, yelling on them and all that. And I still have the tapes. We have ill shit; it just never came out, man. I just didn't have the money, I was crazy young, too; I was a teenager.

But I never stopped, though, and that was the key. I just kept making more and more beats, digging, digging, digging, practicing all my scratches. I was just DJing out a lot. I moved to Sacramento for a while, and we were DJing like three times a week. I had like reggae weekly, you know, and I was just tearing places apart, you know like literally. So I never stopped; it's just things didn't come out commercially until people heard the stuff with Grimm in 2011, 2012. But there was a bunch of mixtapes I did that came out before that though, you know, and I had a blog - and I still do - called Hip-Hop Battlefield where I promote a lot of other people. And that's why I give you props, too, because it's not all about you on your website. In a social media world, everybody's narcissistic: "this is what I'm doing; this is where I've been." We're promoting people for 10 years, you know what I'm saying? I sprinkle my shit in there a little bit, but the focal point is always just promoting fly shit.

So that's one of my big questions.  You're in Sacramento, yet we first hear you with Grimm, and then Ayatollah, who are like dyed in the wool Queens guys.

People ask me about that. How it went is a graffiti dude that I deal with was in talks with Grimm at the time about a comic book called Sneaker Ninjas or something. He's a good friend of mine, actually; he helps me with layouts to this day. He's an ill dude, like a fuckin' powerhouse actually. But he was negotiating with Grimm about that, and he's like, "I'm a slide Grimm your beats," and I'm like what? Because I never really submit beats to people. I was like, "don't bother that brother," you know what I'm saying? And he's like, "no, no, he'll fuck with it, dude. He'll like this shit!" And I'm like, "are you sure, man?" And he's like, "yeah, watch, bet." So he sent Grimm the fuckin' beats, and it just so happened that one of the beats I had used some Grimm shit, so it was like already ready to go pretty much. Because I'm the kind of guy that makes beats all the fuckin' time. Or I'm scratching or writing shit down just for the sake of practicing and staying sharp. Not just when there's some money on the table or some quote/ unquote deal coming my way, you know what I'm saying? I'm always doing that shit, so I don't really have to scramble around when shit pops off.

Which is kind of the opposite of that mentality you see so much where everything has to be off the cuff.  You know how guys like Erick Sermon would brag about laying down a song in one take or Kool Keith bragging he wrote his whole album in 24 hours?  I'd be like, "yeah, I can tell!"

You could tell, man, if you've been listening to Hip-Hop as long as we have. Like, "I came out with five albums this year." Yeah, it sounds like you didn't put no time into that shit. Like, dude, I don't care how ill you are, bro, every beat you make ain't gonna be dope. I don't care how ill you are on the rhymes, not every rhyme you write is gonna be dope. So you know what? Amass a bunch of shit, edit that fuckin' shit and just pull out the nuggets, the fly shit.

And Keith's one of my favorites. But you could hear when he took some time, and you could hear when he didn't. And that's no slight to him at all. Like he has his own ethos at this point. One of the last Kool Keith projects that I really liked a lot was Masters of Illusion with Motion Man. I love that record, bro. Something about that record with Kut Master Kurt, the way you could tell they were hanging out around each other. There was a chemistry there.

Yeah, I own that album but haven't listened to it since it was new.  I gotta revisit that one.  The last Keith stuff I really went all in for was The Cenobites.

Yup, I like that shit, too. "Rhymes I sniff, nigga, I'm dope, man." They were going crazy, bro. Keith could still do it; it's just what kind of beats is he gonna rock over? Like, I could listen to Kool Keith all day long, honestly. A lot of it comes down to production and the marriage between the rhymes and the production - the chemistry, bro. All those classic albums that people talk about is because they were in the studio together. They knew each other very well and they created some kind of fucking moment, like a vibe. You could hear it in those fuckin' Enta the Stage records, you can hear it in the Four Horsemen record. You can hear it with NWA's fuckin' shit. You could tell those dudes was around each other; there wasn't e-mail then. You can hear it.

And that Grimm shit that we did is gonna stand the test of time because we were around each other a whole hell of a lot, and we recorded it together. We were there for every session; it wasn't no big fuckin' party, no paparazzi, it was just me, him and the engineer for everything we ever did for eight years. There was never anything else. There was no mailed in tracks; we never did none of that. If we had gone to different studios in different cities, you could hear it in my opinion.

Yeah, there's a really rich, layered sound to what you're doing.  It doesn't sound like that typical: here's a beat with hopefully a catchy sample, now write a quick rhyme to it and maybe we can agree on a hook that gives it a fancier concept.  Everything informs everything else, like back and forth, as opposed to where usually one element sounds like it's been completed and locked before they started on the next one.

Thank you. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Obviously, I'm heavily influenced by that era stacking breaks, EQ'ing breaks and getting the poly-rhythms going at specific times in the song. That's my shit. I grew up B-boying, so when you hear certain breaks and shit start really stacking, motherfuckers start spazzing. And I'm a DJ, you know what I'm saying? So that's funny you said that, because I try to do that; but I wouldn't use a typical drum break that everybody used. I apply that same dynamic you're talking about, but just on some bugged out shit with the composition, you know, I mean layering.

Yeah, another part of what I'm thinking of, I guess, is how your songs often change up mid-instrumental, switching loops and all.  If you're not following the lyrical theme, it can be hard to even tell what song you're on.  Like, if you're just listening casually doing other stuff, and you look at the track-listing, it's like, "is this still track 3 or are we on song 5 by now?"  But if you're paying attention, it's clear because each song is about something distinct.

Yeah, and that's on purpose. Other people do it, but they do it in the nonsensical kind of way that doesn't really tie in with the theme or the concept, or the ebb and flow... or crescendos of certain aspects of the song. One of my DJ homies is really close with Q-Bert; he's a scratch maniac and one of my closest friends. We scratch together, all the new patterns and shit. And when shit started first coming out - I think it was the first Vietnam - he heard it, and he came up to me like, "yo, I like it, but you know it kind of sounds like a mixtape." And I looked at him and I was like, "exactly. You get it." I'm trying to keep an ebb and flow going, and keep the BPMs different, the pulse different, and just have different bridges and shit take you on a ride, like so you don't get bored of the shit, you know what I'm saying? That's just how I look at it from a DJ standpoint, keep the flow going and keep it seamless. It has to make sense; it has to be in key. It's not for the sake of just bugging shit out; it's because I'm a DJ and I'm trying to lay it out in like a transportation fashion, where there's movement with the shit. And when there's switch-ups with the arrangements, there's things to support it, strengthen it, the point of a song. It's not just half-assly thrown out like a corny chess move. When you throw something out there, you have to have something else to support it, so it still stands strong and it just doesn't sound like it's sloppy. The composition is important, how I lay all that shit out.

Yeah, Hip-Hop instrumentals tend to be really loopy, because I mean, one that's just all pop music.  But raps are more complex and require more concentration to follow, so making a track busy can turn feel too noisy real quick, where different parts are fighting each other for attention.  There's a lot going on in your stuff, but it all still supports the vocals.

Right, and that's funny you said that because I read somewhere that you're not really into beat tapes and all that, and I get it. I know a lot of people that they're not really into instrumentals that much because they're boring. But you mentioned Ayatollah earlier, and if you listen to the Box Cutter Brothers shit, the shit I did on there, I kept it unpredictable. I didn't just take a loop and run it for 10 hours and act like I'm doing something, you know. It's thought out, with the scratches, different changes and samples from all over the fuckin' place, and just making it to where there's movement with it, so it's not just stagnant. You know, I get bored of shit, too!

Yeah, possibly my all-time favorite song is "The Symphony," but just the instrumental, you're like, how many times can you just listen to "dun da-da-da-dunn, dun da-da-da-dahhh" over and over again over the break.  And then further in, he even breaks it down to just the last piano notes in each bar, so it's like, "dun .... .... ... dah.  Dun ... ... ... dah."  That's a real challenge Hip-Hop has with its instrumentals that you didn't get with old Bing Crosby and Andrews Sisters standards that your grand parents could hum all day.

Yeah, but see when DJ Shadow came out with Entroducing, he showed that you could stand alone just with beats and movement. You could do different techniques, and that was an interesting one. I think that opened up the floodgate at that time for a lot of production albums, not just like "The Symphony," which was made for someone to rap on it, obviously.

And I don't listen to too many instrumental albums either. There's some that I like, and Entroducing was one of them. But I don't sit around just listening to beats all day from other dudes. I check for dudes, though. There's a lot of dope dudes and I do put some time into just seeing what cats are up to. But unless they're doing some DJ shit with it: scratches and layouts and stuff. I get bored of that shit honestly.

Oh yeah, when a DJ is doing some real turntablism, that's different.  I love Return Of the DJ, or mix-tapes where they're really mixing and beat-juggling instead of just doing radio blends between the latest records of the day.

Yep, I agree. Have you heard D-Styles' Phantazmagorea record? It came out probably like 12-15 years ago, and it's all his beats. So it's technically a beat tape, but he's scratching fuckin' like a damn maniac over the shit, and laying things out.  I'm more prone to listen to that type of shit than just somebody  with some boring ass beats all day.

Yeah, or even like when the Skratch Picklz would just release their practice tapes, and it was like twenty, thirty minutes of them just scratching over a single break.  That was a bit much, but I also miss that.

Yeah, I remember like Shigger Fragger Breaks and all that type of shit, Pumpkin Squeeze Music, yeah. I'm still into scratching, man, and cutting. And not no stiff shit sounding like Eric B; I'm talking about full-blown cuts like whylin'. All the new shit with the old foundation cut together. I'm practicing that all the time.

I definitely appreciate that you keep scratches on your records.

Yeah, every record I ever put out there are scratches on it, and I did them. Everything that's ever came out, there's always some scratching on some shit. Not every song but there's always some on something.

Isn't there also someone named DJ Fooderz credited on one or two joints?

Oh yeah, Fooderz' the guy I talked about earlier. He's on Good Morning Vietnam, too, scratching a little bit. But I did the rest.

And okay, so he put you on with Grimm, but how about Ayatollah?  I mean, I guess it shouldn't come as such a surprise that east and west coast guys are connecting in the days of the internet, where everybody's even working together internationally...

It wasn't the internet that did it, though. What happened with Ayatollah: Grimm introduced me to him. He was like, "yo, you two are crazy with the beats. You guys should fuckin' link up and just chop it up." He connected us. And me and 'Tollah were around each other at that time, and he was talking about it. He's like, "yo, we should just start a group. Let's just put out some shit." I'm like, "what? Like some instrumentals or something?" He's like, "yeah, like our beats are fuckin' crazy. Let's just get some shit out there." This is like 2014, 2015, and he's like, "come up with the name." And I was all, "Box Cutter Brothers," and he's like, "that's it."

And we've done shows since then. We came out with like five projects, and on one of them, we're rhyming. He's rhyming on his side, and I'm rhyming on my side. That's Box Cutter Brothers part 4, and I think it was 2017 when that came out. And that shit flew off the shelves like hot cakes. I couldn't believe it, like it was even written up in shit like XXL Magazine. Chairman Mao wrote about the Box Cutter Brothers. And just like you, I don't read XXL, I just happened to be in the bookstore with my son. He was looking for some comic books or some shit, and I'm just flipping through it, and he wrote a piece about the Box Cutter Brothers. I'm like, what? You never know who's gonna hear this shit; you don't know how it spreads and fractals out. You put it out there and you hope it moves around, but you really can never tell how it's going to circulate.

Especially with physical releases.  There's a real disposable nature to digital music, I think.  So many digital releases by known artists just disappear, like Granddaddy IU had comeback EP before he really came back, Long Island's Finest, and it's just non-existent now.  MC Shan had one on mp3.com or something...  If someone isn't continually paying to keep it hosted, say goodbye.  But a record can pop up in a store, or yard-sale whatever, and be discovered decades later.  Unless you put in the effort to physically destroy it, it's always somewhere.

And you know that's why every release is a vinyl piece that we've done, man, not just because I'm a DJ, but it shows investment, man. It shows investment. Not just the money investment, it shows somebody was fuckin' serious about some shit. Like it's too accessible with the digital world. I don't knock these dudes - do whatever the fuck you got to do. Some people don't have money for a lot of shit. But I'm a hard copy person; I still buy books. I'm not into all that Kindle shit; like I want to hold the shit. I want something tangible. All that stuff is abstract; it could be taken down just like fuckin' MediaFire got taken down, just like YouShare got taken down, just like ZShare don't even exist, just like DivShare. Like, dude, everybody thought that shit was gonna rock. They're like, "oh yeah, DivShare, all these files!" Dude, all that stuff is gone, bro. If you didn't put it on the hard drive, all that ill shit that people were posting up back then, it's just gone. A lot that's never gonna be on Spotify. You got to think, bro.

Let's rewind. Let's get funky real quick. Let's keep it a fuckin' stack and let's be honest. Back in 2011, 2012, there was barely anybody pressing up any records, bro. Like everybody was selling their record collections and nobody was pressing up shit. Nothing except for One Leg Up Records, Diggers With Gratitude, fuckin' Six2Six Records and maybe one or two other little outfits, when we started putting out these records. No one else was really doing it like that. And that's not ego. I'm not trying to make any claims; I'm not trying to act grandiose about it. I'm just talking about reality. There was only like five or six people doing this shit. You could get your records back in two fuckin' months, you know what I'm saying?

And I like that it's broadened out, because at first it was just like the absolute pinnacle of the very best, most sought after holy grails could get pressed.  Now a lot of stuff that was getting passed over is getting a chance.  But the margins are so slim.  I hear about vinyl and even CD sales going back up in the last couple years, and I hope it holds out.

Yeah, people clowned me back then. Spotify wasn't ringing like that in 2011, 2012. Tidal and all this, none of that was ringing back then. Everybody was just straight Serato and file sharing. People weren't pressing up no damn records like that. Now everybody and their mom is pressing them up. And I'm not mad because I'm a DJ - if they're dope, I'll buy it. But a lot of these cats are using it as a gimmick. Vendetta Vinyl is a DJ label. We just use this as tools to fuck shit up, you know what I'm saying? To play ill stuff. It was never, "oh, I got this record; let me put it on a mantle so I can feel myself all day." It was a medium because we wanted certain shit to cut up. It's not some decoration. And some people might hear that, and they'll be like, "oh, who does he think he is?" But that's just the reality of it. It's DJ shit first.

And when you said, "too accessible," that's kind of a thing, too.  If you're not buying music anymore, it's all just fleeting.  Maybe you go back and relisten to a catchy song on Youtube a lot, but are people really rocking with albums and getting into music now like we used to?  I think of like that last major Wu-Tang Clan album, not counting the weird spin-offs or that thing they made one copy of, but Better Tomorrow?  Big expensive studio album with the whole crew, everyone was buzzing about it.  Or the Dr. Dre comeback album he did for the Straight Outta Compton movie.  Everybody was on it.  It was huge for like two days.  But compared to how everyone I knew would just relisten to the real Straight Outta Compton tape every day?  And those albums got rave reviews and all, it's not just like people aren't feeling new music.  But it used to be, when you bought an album, if it was great, it was a part of your life that I'm not sure anything is anymore...  There's so much stuff and no tangibility to it.  It sounds like most people just stream playlists now and let algorithms sweat the specific artists as long as it fits the tone they want.  Me, growing up, I barely even listened to the radio, because I had to go through my tapes and choose the exact song for each exact moment.  I don't know; I'm sure some people are still like that, going song by specific song on Youtube.  But I feel like less people take music as seriously now, outside of just the celebrity aspects.

Yeah, I know. It's a wild situation. I think about it a lot. I think about a lot of people in that world that were so big and you don't hear anything from them anymore, like strictly digital people. I don't know. Even someone like Lil Jon that came out in that little era, as jive as he is, he was huge for a second. But you don't hear a thing from him anymore.

It seemed like everything went digital around 2000, and it just ramped up and ramped up to what we have today. And I use it a little bit like anybody else: I stream stuff, you know, just to hear shit or whatever. But I think our generation is a powerful one, because it's the alchemy of the past, present and the future. Like we all have those kind of different ways of looking at it, but a lot of people were just stuck in the future. Or a lot of people were stuck in the present, or just stepped in the past. We know how to meld all three together to do what we need to do. In a way that's kind of unique really.

Yeah, now we have producers doing "digital digging," and I've definitely heard some producers laying into others for sampling off of Youtube and shit.

Yeah, yeah. When it comes to making my beats and all that, it's off records. But you know there's digital aspects to what I do as far as promotion, like bandcamp or whatever. But it's like you're taking a little bit of all three: past, present and the future, and making it work for you.

But, see dude, that's funny you said that about disposable music, because it's just like in the reggae world, there's 45s. I mean before they went digital, there were 45s coming out all the time, so it just got over saturated. And I used to believe that if you're dope, people are gonna find you and you're gonna blow up no matter what. I used to really believe that, and that still could happen for people, but there's so much dope shit that I'm hearing now that came out in the late 80s and early 90s that I never heard, you know what I'm saying? I mean sometimes they didn't get the distribution, sometimes it was beyond limited; it could be a myriad of things. But it's not true. Sometimes things just don't make it to you no matter what. Like shit could be fly as fuck. Like, for instance, you're by Philly and there's a group there called, uh, let me see... 2 Hard 4 tha Radio was the name of that album, "Puttin My Thang Down" - who was that? Legion of Doom! That came out like when Ice Cube started doing his thing, like early 90s. And I didn't hear that back then. That was a straight Hip-Hop fiend. There's things that do slip through the cracks. Sometimes things do get lost that are ill as fuck, and I'm still stumbling across a lot of treats from the 80s and 90s that somehow slipped past my radar.

But now you have, even though it took all that time, and that's probably thanks to people stumbling on a physical release.  Will a song some local rapper posted on his myspace page be able to pull that off ten years in the future?

Yeah, that's the dope part about music. You don't have to blow up; it doesn't have to be next year everybody in the world knows about you. Twenty years from now if they stumble across you and they appreciate it, that's still dope. What's the last release that you heard from back then that blew your mind from the 80s or 90s that slipped past your radar? What's the last joint where you're like, "damn!"

Oh man. Hmm.  Well, it's not the latest, but the a big one that springs to mind is someone I only really discovered a few years ago named Shake G. I knew from like one guest spot in the 90s, but just threw the internet and ordering music off EBay and discogs, I discovered he actually had some great, rare stuff I was able to get my hands on and dig into.

What year was this?

Like early 90s.  He was down with Fresh Kid Ice and clique of artists he managed.  But he had this real, more hardcore and east coast lyrical sensibility to him than you'd think of in that Miami bass scene.

That's funny, no wait. Dude, you brought up Fresh Kid Ice. Mr. Mixx's brother's name is Scott Hobbs, and he was my football coach growing up. He taught me a lot of shit about programming and breaks. He would bring his shit over to my crib and I guess he was a mentor to me for a period of time when I was young as fuck. I can't lie. But yeah, 2 Live Crew before all that raunchy shit popped off, they were straight B-boyed out. Like his brother would be playing tapes before they blew up, you know, I'm like, "what the fuck?!" Like a lot of 808s and breaks; they weren't even talking all that raunchy stuff. It was straight B-boy frequency. Did Shake G put out a whole album?

No, but he had a bunch of songs on a rare compilation album, where you could hear his solo stuff and not just him as a guest.

Yeah, I mean it shows you what he really wanted to do, and Miami has a rich history of shit. Like do you remember Society? I like all that shit, man! And even the earlier shit like Tony Rock and all that. They always had scratching and they were always funny. They were always cracking jokes about shit. That's what I liked, too, they had a sense of humor. you know.

Society's another one who had a whole lost, second album.  I've tried to track it down, and I don't know if it's even finished, but I found a bunch of tracks on promos.

Wow, I didn't know that! That's crazy. That's dope because he was fresh. I liked what he was doing.

Yeah, he got signed to Slip-N-Slide and they advertised his album in The Source and everything, but then the label lost interest and just got caught up in Trick Daddy when he blew up.

Yeah, "get that B-boy shit out of here." That's what happened, right? Like Poison Clan. Dude, some of that early stuff is good; I was a fan. There was so much stuff that was coming out from all over the place, man. From Seattle, to Boston, to Florida. I mean everywhere. I didn't care where they came from, honestly, I could care less. All I cared about: was it dope? That was the only criteria, and that's the only criteria I use today. People send me stuff from all over the place, like Germany, and they're even rapping in German. I don't understand what the fuck they're saying, but it sounds so fresh. Like I can follow the patterns. You don't need to understand what the fuck they're saying; you feel what they're saying. I'm more into the feeling of things, you know?

Yeah, though the language barrier can be a bit of a tough one to get through when you're trying to appreciate rap, which is so much about lyrics and the way you put words together.  But getting back to your stuff...

My bad. We're we're talking about Hip-Hop, so you know brothers get charged up.

One thing I really wanted to get into was this Broadcast #10, which I think is the first one you ever pressed on CD, right?  Because I assume it's the first with like original remixes instead of being just like a DJ mix?

Yeah, that's the first one that's been put on CD. That's like a secret society remix project I only gave that out with the record. I might digitize it so people can hear it; I think they should. I just haven't done that yet. I have a lot of records, man; I'm a collector, and those are all acapellas that I have at my spot. And I was just feeling those, and I wanted to do a real remix, like make them sound completely different than the original version, where it's like just something else. I had a lot of fun doing that. I'm gonna put it up on Bandcamp or something, but I'm definitely not going to sell it. I'm just going to give it away to people. Like I've seen people do some snake shit with remixes and pressing them up and selling them, not giving a shit about the people that did the vocals. I don't do that shit; you're asking for trouble doing shit like that. The CDs, I gave out like a hundred of them just for free, but I'll digitize it and they can just download it for free. It was supposed to just go along with the record just to give people something extra. I was talking about taxation earlier, and people asking for a hundred bucks for a record and all this crazy stuff. I keep it street level price. They cost money to manufacture these things, but as long as I could get what I need to get out of it, I'm not trying to tax people. I keep it very B-boy price, you know what I'm saying? Because I want to keep it accessible. Not everybody has money out there like that. We're in a pandemic and you're asking fuckin' a hundred dollars for a record, are you crazy? I'm a people person; I keep it fair.

Yeah, that's the thing I always push for with the limited game - or any physical release, which is basically all the limited game now, unless it's Sony putting glossy represses in FYEs - is to press what you can sell at as reasonable a price as you can. The problem only comes in when they over-limit something so they can inflate the costs and play this FOMO game with collectors. I'm not mad at some indie artist who doesn't have the resources to press hundreds of LPs. Do mp3 only until you have a base. And then, if that base is still tiny, sure, do tiny runs. The last thing I want to see is some artist on the street stuck with boxes of vinyl they can't move.

See, we're doing 500 pieces, you know? We do 500 or 300, and it has to be reasonably priced because I want street level DJs to cut that shit up. That's not Hip-Hop taxing everybody under the guise of art and all this other shit people be saying. Like, obviously it's art, but you don't have to tax the living shit out of people to get it. That starving artist shit is wack; you gotta find a balancing act with this, something where you keep some principles intact. I wouldn't feel good asking someone for that much money during these times, bro, I just wouldn't.

Yeah, the worst thing is just pricing out the people who love your music the most and don't even have a chance to get it. It's probably also self-destructive career-wise to keep pissing off your fans, but even if you can get away with it, do you want to?  You want to grow. Like, when DWG started, it was like 100 copies at over a 100 bucks, because they couldn't count on moving more, especially back when it was a new untested venture at that point.  It's a huge cost to offset.  But gradually they were able to bump up the runs with each release: 150, 200 copies, 300... And at some point you hit a limit and that's what it is.  It's not a huge market, unfortunately.  But I think the goal should be to keep pushing that envelope for how many you can press, for how little, while still making some profit to justify the work and all you put in. But then you see releases where that's clearly not their mindset.

Right. Yeah, see, you know your shit. And I get they probably think I'm a dinosaur, and I don't know what I'm talking about. Like, yo, I get it. The resellers are going to sell it for way more, so why not initially charge them a lot up front? I get it, but I'm not with it. Somebody tried to resell Good Morning Vietnam 2 the other day on EBay for like 490 dollars. I didn't check up again to see if someone bought it or not, but on one hand, you're semi-flattered I guess. But on the other hand, you're like damn, that's that's kind of creepy, man. The main focus besides taxation has to be: is the music dope? Is this shit gonna stick to your ribs, is it timeless? That's what I focus on.  I think about all the selling points and shit way after everything is done, you know? These guys, it's a bunch of Ponzi schemes and they're thinking about all that shit before they even get in the studio! We do our due diligence. I do my best to get it out there internationally and domestically, but I'm not the kind of guy that's going to jump out of the bushes hunting people down to listen to shit.

Well, Advanced Terrorism definitely sticks.  And I want to be sure we delve into some of the specifics before we end this.  One very topical song you've got on here gets into... I guess the term would be "plandemic?"

I knew it was coming! Word, I knew it was coming.

Well, no, I'm not trying to like get into it with you like that.  We may not be 100% on the same page, like I'm checking Twitter every day like, "when can someone my age get the next shot?"  But the song's still 100% relatable; I feel what you're saying in it.  Obviously some strong statements, but this is art; this is the place to go there.  There's a lot of political shadiness from all sides and everything that needs to be addressed. Not to drag you into a debate...

No, no, it's cool. I'll talk about it; we rockin'.  Man, just like everybody else, shit got creepy in 2020. And it really got creepy when shit at your job tell you that you can't come to your job, and we don't know when shit's gonna open back up. Everything was fucking hunky-dory and fine until they started telling the employees, "you ain't coming in," you know what I'm saying? Like that makes it a different kind of real for people. And it got real for me when my son wasn't able to go to school, and he was doing the Zoom shit at home. That's when it kind of hit for me. And we were driving by a golf course, you know, and he said, "why is everybody out here without a mask at the golf course but I can't go to school? And people aren't working but these guys are out here golfing?" And my son he was 10 years old at the time. And I was like, yo, that's the illest shit that I heard from anybody. You hear all these dorks talking about this, that and the third on the news and all this other weird shit. But a child saying that at a rudimentary level?

When I heard that, I don't know, it kind of ignited the fuckin' punk rock shit fuel in me. Because I listen to a lot of punk rock shit, man, a lot of 80s anarchic, crusty, wild, hardcore, insane shit. I have a lot of those records, and the the political ones always influenced me to where they didn't really care what people said, they they spoke how they felt. It wasn't about some robot mentality where you're following what everybody else is saying you should follow. They're going with their own gut on certain shit. And then that song just pretty much came out. Because I had to say something, but from my viewpoint, the average person that would talk about the Corona virus would do it in a corny way. Like yo, do this, make sure you walk around with hand sanitizers, you know, just some cheesy shit. I tried to give it a different spin just on some punk rock energy. And everybody feels how they feel about the issue, whether you get vaccinated or not, whether you think this shit's a hoax or not... I heard a lot of different things, but I generally don't talk to people about it, so I just recorded how I felt and just put it out there. There's people that try to bait me at work. I generally don't talk about that kind of shit with people, because it's kind of a private matter. If that's what you want to do, that's good; but don't infringe your beliefs on me. That's pretty much my whole take on all that shit. You could do whatever the fuck you want. You probably listen to bad music.

[Laughs]

That's none of my business. I don't want to hear about your politics; that doesn't have anything to do with me.  It's a real issue. My mom is vaccinated; I'm not going to crucify my mom, you know what I'm saying? It's a personal choice. But there's still a commonality, whether you got vaxxed or not, we all lived through these race riots and this fuckin' crooked cop shit that popped off. And then some of the worst California fires we have ever had. We're living through these unique times together; we still share this experience, and it's unique. They say there's nothing new under the sun. This is new to me. There's a new energy out there right now that I haven't experienced in my lifetime.

And actually I'm surprised more mainstream acts haven't been jumping all into. Like, Hip-Hop's supposed to be on the vanguard.  I'll see documentaries where there's these protest rappers overseas and think, didn't we used to do that?   I'm not saying nobody's mentioned it, but you'd think it would be widespread where practically everybody's talking about all these things.

Definitely not hardcore Hip-Hop, and that's the lane I'm in. A lot of hardcore Hip-Hop guys are trying to stunt on people during a pandemic, man. A lot of hardcore Hip-Hop dudes right now are talking about pumping drugs over and over, and jail-time stories over and over again, like that's their version of hardcore. To me, that has wrinkles of hardcore in it, but it's a dull hardcore. There's so much ill shit that can be talked about that's not the typical concepts, that are definitely intense and they definitely deserve attention. But people aren't touching on them at all. It's weird.

My goal at this point is to get more intense with the beats, intense with the rhymes, more scratches, more layering and just coming up with different stuff, man. Different time signatures, different approaches, but still hardcore Hip-Hop, you know?  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind reckless talk at all. If it sounds dope, I'll deal with it. It could be some of the jivest, street fuckin' maniac shit ever. If there's dope beats on it and it sounds a certain way, I can rock with it. But it sticks to your ribs differently when there's substance mixed with it.

That comes across just in the title, Advanced Terrorism. And the cover image.

You put those two words together and people's eyes go up. It basically means that the righteous people are under attack, and the church is one of the most advanced forms of religious practices. And it's on fire, so it's saying the righteous people, we're under attack, we're under fire in these days and times. Like if you try to speak up for yourself even, if it's your truth, a lot of people are gonna try to crucify you for it, or character assassinate you, or ostracize you, you know what I'm saying? Like people that are doing the right thing nowadays are the people that are having the finger pointed at them. It wasn't it wasn't always like that. The people that were doing the right thing would get bigged up, they would get accolades, they would get congratulated, they were on MTV Raps. People doing the right things were actually celebrated. Now they're under fire.

Even stronger than "Extinction," maybe, is a song called "Demonology Congregationalist."  What are you really saying with that track?

What it means is dudes are basically moving around like demons. They'll even say it. They say, "I'm on demon time." That's popular these days. Like they're on the lower frequency of shit and everybody's a hamburger to them. I know there's people in my life that are like that. They don't have any regard for anybody, bro, like it doesn't matter what their story is, it doesn't matter about their past. The politics of survival will rule out everything else in their dealings with them. And it's basically a snapshot into that mentality, which not I'm not a subscriber of, because I've been around that and I've seen the repercussions of that mentality. But I'm not gonna lie; there's friends of mine, or associates or whatever. I mean they they think like that. And the way I think is if you treat everybody like that, eventually you're gonna treat me like that, too. And that's what that song is about. It's a disdain for that mindset, where everybody's the hamburger to you. Everybody's a resource and what you can get from them.

But it comes off more like also presenting their perspective, in a way, or just more in the trenches somehow. Like, hearing you describe it now, it sounds kind of "Love's Gonna Get'cha" preachy, but it doesn't feel like a "message song," listening to it.  When you're like, "it must've hurt your soul to be treated like a simpleton," that's like the opposite of condescending.

That's exactly it. I'm talking to them. I mean, I've been that person. That's why I could write those type of stories. It wasn't always wins.

And a lot of people are on some demon time. They move like demons, and they don't really give a shit about nobody. So you really not only have to be a good judge of character out there, but you have to put out good energy, too, to make sure that you attract certain things. You know, because you go into a party screw faced, you're gonna attract that element where someone's gonna want to test you. But you go into a place, you respect the land and communicate like a fuckin' human being - you know, be halfway likeable and shit - different things happen. Different blessings open up for you. And you're out there stunting on people in the middle of a pandemic, you're gonna attract certain certain shit to you. So it was more of a third person story to keep your head on a swivel. It's it's one of the deepest songs that I made.

I started just channeling certain experiences that I've been through. I look at it like movie clips how I construct beats and rhymes and it's more scenes and angles how that that one was laid out. It was cinematic writing.

Speaking of cinematic, you've got this vocal sample on there. I feel like I heard that on twitter or somewhere, but I can't place it...

I'll give you a hundred dollars if you pull that out. As soon as I heard it, I sampled it immediately. I was like, "oh shit! I'm not even wasting no time, like stop everything! I got to get this shit." You know what, with all that vocal sample shit, I'm trying to find the illest shit, something that's going to grab your attention like a movie. And the way that girl is screaming, I knew for a fact if motherfuckers heard that they would pay attention to me rapping after that. That's why I start the song out with her talking, because I knew because she sounded fucking insane, right? So it's like they hear that type of shit, they're like, "what? Where the shit is this going?" And then they hear that creepy shit underneath it, slowly fading in. There's certain notes and keys when they hear it, they know somebody's about to get clapped up or thrown through a window or some shit. Like suspense on some Hitchcock shit.

And if you find that sample, I'll give you a hundred bucks. I'm on some multimedia shit. Like with the beats, it's all records. But the samples, like the people talking, that's from everywhere. I'll sample somebody talking shit in real life with my phone. I'll get that shit from anywhere. But the beats is all records. I don't do any Youtube digging or none of that other shit. With the beats, I have all the records, every hi-hat was sampled from a different record. Kick, snare, different record. And I make beats fresh every time; I don't have no kits where I'm loading up a bunch of discs. If I want to make a beat today, I dig through my crazy ass record collection and make a beat right then, get it sitting right, might even keep my sampler on for a couple days. But I'll keep it right and then I'm done with it. I make something from scratch every time, no kits, nothing.

Well, I'm not a huge sample hound - I know my Hip-Hop, but not so much all the other genres people take from - but I can't say I've recognized any on your records.  I'm definitely not hearing a lot of "Atomic Dog" and "Apache."

No, and that that's on purpose. I don't expect anybody to pat me on the back if I'm still using "Substitution" breaks and weird shit that people use a million times. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine when I hear people freaking shit that's been flipped before a bunch of times. Like nah, man, I'm very serious about that type of shit. We're way past the point where that was acceptable. I remember when people were competing against each other to see how many times they could break up "Funky Drummer" in different patterns. In the 80s, that was understandable because there was a competition to flip that shit crazy, or "Nautilus" flipped a million and one times to see who was really flipping shit. I get it in the 80s and maybe early 90s for a little bit with drum breaks. But as far as your main samples and shit, and drum breaks, that changed immediately after that. And I was always on a journey to find shit that no one had ever heard, or manipulate things to where if the original artist heard it, he wouldn't even know it's his shit, because I'm rearranging it in a fashion to where it's my shit. Because there's so many ways to destroy sound now with effects, with time stretching, with rearranging your chord progressions. You could do it to where they would never know, if you're creative. And it doesn't have to be like that every time, but I'm more into that aesthetic, like collage. Like breaking shit up like Bomb Squad shit. And don't get me wrong, sometimes loops will get thrown out there. But they'll get rearranged and layered and stuff. I definitely try to put a spin on things so it's not so recognizable.

Once again, it shows investment, just like putting out the records, copping records shows you're making an investment into your production. And it's like, I get it. Some people be like, "I don't have no money for records." You fuckin' liar. You could do 50 cent bins everywhere, you know what I'm saying? There's dollar records. Like stop it, bro. You could go out there and you could buy that Hennessy bottle and all that tree, then you could buy records. I mean it ain't that expensive. I'm not paying a gang of money for records. The most expensive record I ever bought to this day - and I've been all over the world buying records - the most expensive record I bought was the TDS Mob record "Scratch Reaction" for like 40 bucks. I don't pay a lot of rent money for these records. It ain't a money game. Some of these guys will say, "oh yeah, I spent hundreds of dollars on this this break," and, dude, I'll find that thing. I'll find it because I'm always digging.

Dude, before this interview, I was digging for records today! I was at a record store and also some yard sale. I just pull over and get busy. Like I'm the dick for mine. While you guys are trying to spend all this money and still finding weird, lame shit, I'll find ill rock breaks all over the place for pennies. You just gotta be on your shit. You gotta be looking, and I'm looking. I have been for as long as I can remember, and I'm catching stuff for cheap. I'm not playing that money game. If you're digging, you can find it. But if you're on Youtube, you're going to get caught up in the algorithm and thousands of other producers are going to be hearing the same loop you're hearing.  Don't get me wrong, there's dope stuff on there, but I would never sample it. Not for beats. For one reason, it doesn't sound as good. Two, that's not my tradition. That's not the way it's been handed down to me. The tradition to me was: you go out there in the field, you dig, and you break some shit up. It was never all this other shit. And I don't deviate from the traditions because when you start doing other shit, it morphs the energy.

My dad was a DJ coming up, and when CDs first came out, everybody was clowning my dad like, "oh, he's still buying records. You need to get CDs that sound so pristine," and all this other dumb shit. And then he started buying CDs and guess what? He stopped DJing, because it messed with the trend. It messed with the tradition of how he appreciated his music and it took the inspiration for him to practice on those decks. So I don't condemn anybody for how they do shit; that's up to them. I'm a grown man. Do what the fuck you do, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna stick to the traditions, man. I didn't write the book; I'm gonna stick to the rules of the book.

But, interestingly, your stuff doesn't sound "old school" or traditional in a familiar way.

Thank you. That's a compliment, bro, because I've said past, present and future before. And that's kind of how I make the beats, the alchemy of those three things: past, present and future. I've constructed that to where there's not even a time you could really put on this shit. You can't date it. And that gives it legs because it's timeless.

And I'm still in that mind frame, bro. I never changed. You know, I'm functional; I have a job, family, wife, all that. But when it comes to music, it's never going to change. That's what it is and I'm trying to expand on that, and I think I have in my own unique way. But I know how I felt in '88 and I still feel the same towards Hip-Hop. I'm still still on it like that, and it's never gonna change. I'm thankful I found a creative way to express myself to where I could get better and refine certain things. It took a long time just to even get equipment back in the days, like getting a sampler. You had to be some drug lord to get a shit sampler. It took a long time for me to amass the record collection I have, and the samplers and everything else. It was expensive, and I dedicated my life to getting these tools to make sure I can express myself the way that I want to. I don't have to rely on anybody to put shit out. It's a very empowering feeling where I don't have to hire anyone to do any aspect of of the music I make.

Since 2011, something's come out every year, whether it's a mixtape, a record, a tape or something. And that's a good pace for me. I could easily put out more shit, but I'm not doing that. I'm trying to find the best of me to put out there because the way I look at it is you never know when someone's gonna stumble across your material. So you want your best foot forward on everything. You don't want any cutting room floor stuff out there, or filler, because you never know what particular song someone's gonna stumble across. So I try to put my best representation in anything that's out, even if it takes a while. I'm more than willing to do that to ensure that the probability of someone finding some shit from me ill is higher.

Like remember when NWA first came out? You're on the edge of your seat waiting for Niggaz4Life. You're like, "god damn, I can't wait!" That's why what I put out are EPs. I could do albums, but I'm like let me keep it DJ oriented, five or six joints with instrumentals, so they want to hear more. And try to get better every time, show growth in different concepts every time, so there's a reason to listen to the newer shit. And there's some stuff on the horizon. There's a lot of stuff that's recorded that's not even out, but there's the editing process that I go through. You remember when Diamond D said "beats are selected with the high scrutiny?" Shit ain't just coming out.

Yeah, there's been a lot of groups who put out so much stuff, it gets threadbare. Like, I was excited about crews like Hiero or Living Legends, but there was so much material, you'd be like, this song has a great instrumental, but just okay lyrics, and this other song has great lyrics but kind of a generic beat. Like just spreading themselves too thin to capitalize and sell as many tapes as possible as fast as possible.

That's why it's important what you're doing, bro. I don't think you realize how important what you're doing is. Well, you might, excuse me. But what you're doing is very important because it gives people a chance to study. Like, the way you're going about it, it's not only cultural, but it's educational, because you're bringing some names up, and some things up, that are important figures in Hip-Hop. I see you like Sacred Hoop, Luke Sick and all that. I remember seeing those records back then. They had like a picture of somebody vomiting on the back cover; I was like, "who the fuck is this?" And they sounded so bugged out and dusted back then. Vrse Murphy and all this shit. I'm like, "who are these dudes?" And it's like for you to talk about him today, to keep people up to speed that he's even around, that's a feat within itself. So people can study. He's an important person and he's more interesting than these other jerks that get coverage, you know what I'm saying? People are too topical; they're finding easy people that they can dig up and talk about. Let's get a little bit deeper.

How are you gonna be remembered when you make music just like everybody else? You come into Thanksgiving with the same dish as everybody else, they're not going to remember you. Mix Master Mike said something one time I'll never forget. He said, "what I'm trying to do is scar your brain, so when you push stop on what I'm playing, you're still thinking about it." It has to be edgy; it has to be heavy enough or thought provoking enough to where after you listen to the whole thing, you're on a journey somewhere. You better come up with something or just be a fan of Hip-Hop. There has to be something unique for you to be out, in my opinion. And there's nothing wrong with being a fan without being a practitioner of it. That's dope. There's people I respect that are just real sincere Hip-Hop heads.

Me!

No, but but you know what, bro? You would be surprised how much more you know about Hip-Hop than certain Hip-Hop legends out there, which is kind of crazy. Like you ask some of these cats some Hip-Hop Jeopardy questions, who you think are heads, they don't have no idea, bro! [Laughter]

I mean to me, that's just as important as everything else. Someone that actually knows their shit. Being a Hip-Hop head prevented me from so much trouble, there was so much gang-banging and people getting beat the fuck up, all kinds of shit going on. But in my little world, people respected me because I was just like a Hip-Hop maniac. I knew so much Hip-Hop shit, they didn't really fuck with me. I was just on my shit. That was my passport, you know what I'm saying? Now it's not respected as much for some people, but for me it is. Like, I come around certain people, they know certain shit, I'm like passport just on general principle. Immediately, even if they don't rap or DJ, none of that. But if they know their shit, passport straight up and down.

Well, we've been talking for almost three hours...

Oh wow, really? See, I could do this all day, bro. I liked it. I feel like I know you, even though I never met you.

Yeah, I'm glad I decided to get back into interviewing and talking to you. For me, it's just about solving the musical mysteries. Like when you're listening to an album and you're just thinking, "what's the story behind this?" A lot of artists, they might be good, but I don't really have any questions. You know, I get it, young guy, you want to be a rap star so you made some songs. They're good songs, but what do I need to talk to you for? So when I heard from you, it just hit me, wait. Yeah, this is someone I've got questions for. So is there anything we want to say to wrap up?

Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity. There's more stuff coming, bro. And Vendetta Vinyl, there's a lot of people attached to it some people have never heard - cats that are down with Vendetta Vinyl that have shit in the wings. There's all types of missiles that's going to be launched throughout the years. There's no doubt. And make sure that you go out there and get Advanced Terrorism: heavy duty shit no games, no lactose, no saccharin, none of that weird shit. Just rawness, and it's gonna stand the test of time. I know that for a fact. And that's not ego talking, it's energy talking.

Mixture Interview

(Another in our series of Custodian of Records interviews (I just edited it!), this time with Kasem Coleman a.k.a. Mixture, producer of a variety of artists, from Blackstreet to Mytee G Poetic. Youtube version is here.  Also, Happy New Year!)

Tha Hitman, Pookie Duke Interview

Pookie Duke was a lead rapper in Tha Hitmen, a group he formed with Rodney O and Joe Cooley. They released the Here Come Tha Hitmen album in '93 and "Sho Getting' Ruff" in '94. He also has some interesting stories about Suge Knight, Rodney O and performing almost half of The Final Chapter album.
(Youtube version is here.)

Still Scarred, Interview with Verb of The New 2 Live Crew

Here it is, finally, my interview with Verb, the fast rapping, lyrical member of The New 2 Live Crew and Disco Rick's Wolf Pack. If you've been watching my videos, you know I've been tracking this underrated MC's work for a while now. So, with no further ado...

I first wanted to ask you about "2 Live Freestyle." On the notes for that song,t he album and the single, you see Fat Daddy credited with appearing on there. But you don't hear him on the record. You have two verses, though, so I was wondering if that was a last minute thing to replace him, or just what's the story there?

Yeah. He was going to be on that, to my recollection. At that time he was working on a song he was doing with Don Ugly for his Madd Blunted project. He was in the same studio working on that at the same time. Actually, he was going to be a member of The New 2 Live Crew.

Oh!

Yeah, but Fat Daddy and Chris Wong [Fresh Kid Ice]'s voices... he was a higher octave than Chris! So I don't know if it was a Luke thing or a marketing thing or what, but... the fact is, me and Fat Daddy were homies. I knew Fat Daddy before I knew Chris. Actually, Fat Daddy was real cool with Marquis. Even before Balli and the Fat Daddy, he was first introduced to the whole 2 Live thing because him and Marq was more cool. And then over the years, him and Chris became more cool. But Fat Daddy actually wrote Chris's verse for the "2 Live Freestyle."

Oh, okay. I could definitely believe that! I always had the impression he wrote or co-wrote a lot of his stuff from that era.

Yeah, because it was: okay, I need to keep up with young Verb. So Fat Daddy was like yeah, I helped him with his verse. I don't know how much of the verse he wrote... And then I heard he was supposed to get on the record, too. But maybe it was the politics or somebody at the label, I was wishin' he could get on the record, but they were like no, you gotta do a second verse. And that's how that happened.

Yeah, I always figured it was something like that. Maybe they thought it would be confusing to have another guy on the first New 2 Live Crew record and people wouldn't be clear on who was an official member or not...

Right, right, right. For the majority of those sessions, while we were in there recording that stuff, you had Fat Daddy making the transition from being a rapper to learning the SP1200 and working on Madd Blunted. And actually the "Shake It" record and all that stuff was recorded right on top of that, at the same time.

Yeah, there's actually a song that's on Fresh Kid Ice's album and the Madd Blunted album; it's the same song.

Right. And actually, "It's Your Birthday" was supposed to be on Back At Your Ass.

But you guys weren't on that, that was just Luke.

But that was our idea! See, what had happened was:L  we went on the road, you know, you get ideas on the road. And everybody was singing "it's your birthday." Fresh Kid Ice had the concept for that song, and when he came back, I remember specifically, he had the idea and that song was supposed to be for our album. But Luke procrastinating to do the record. And Chris told me, you know what he's gonna do? He's gonna hold the idea and do it for his shit. And sure enough, he did that.

See, when I came to Luke Records, I brought DJ Slice, who did "Yes 'N' Deed" for Society. That was my homeboy that I brought in prior to Luke Records. I brought him in and I also brought in DJ Spin, who was a guy that I met at school. So when I came, they didn't only get Verb, they got a facelift in the production with a guy from Philly with that sound. And then you had DJ Spin who was my best friend and crazy on the turntables and transferred over to production. He did all of the singles... pretty much took Luke through the dark era after the Mike Fresh sound. This guy still gave him a plaque with "Raise the Roof" in the later years. He went on to do some stuff for Trick Daddy later on and get some plaques for Trick Daddy, like the song he did with Twista.

I actually just uploaded a video about DJ Spin, one of his albums, last night.

For real? Yeah, that was my partner; he was my best friend. We used to spend the night in his room and he would be on the wheels and I used to be rappin'. Actually, that's how "Scarred" came about! I had the idea for "Scarred;" I actually brought "Scarred" to Luke. I had the concept, and what happened was Fresh Kid Ice and the New 2 Live Crew had already finished. And I came in, I had this break! You know, Luke had The Pac Jam, which was this  little teen club that's next to Luke Records. And they'd test records at that club. During part of breaking that record, I was out of town. I'd gone to Luke like, look man, this is the break! They said what is it? I said, this is Barry White. They said like, nah; he basically wasn't interested in the idea. I said go over to Pac Jam, have them play this record, and tell me what you see. So he procrastinated on the record about three or four months. And what happened is, the record started catchin' fire. It didn't occur to nobody to go in there and see the people going crazy until they started getting calls.

And at that point, we had differences as far as how my career was going, as far as what was going on with the budget. That then actually was supposed to be on Luke's album. And when he called I said to myself, you know what, this record is going to be track fifteen, this record ain't gonna get no shine. I was pretty much disappointed in the direction the company was going as far as me as an artist. Because I wanted to do hip-hop. I always wanted to be an artist that would do pretty much what Society did, but at that time you could not do that in Miami! In Miami, that's kinda the reason I always got a bum deal. It's like you couldn't be hip-hop in Miami 'cause bass was runnin' Miami, and then when it became cool to do that, pop came into New York.

To us on the east, you brought this new credibility to the 2 Live Crew, like oh, they have a lyricist now?

Yeah, and I coulda done a lot more, but I had to stay in the lane. You gotta remember, I was a young kid, I was gettin' a shot. I didn't particularly want to be in the 2 Live Crew. Because at that time, New York hip-hop was still pure. This was [Verb asked me to cut these names; but just think of the big east coast NY lyricists of the early 90s to get the point] era. So I'm signed, this is what I'm listening to; but I'm in Miami and this is what's selling.

You're only as good as your team, and what happened to the record label was: as soon as I got there, 2 Live Crew opened the door for groups like H-Town. Because that was Luke's last shot. Actually, Joe Weinberger invested money in with Luther Campbell to take a shot with this 2 Live Crew project. The project was so successful, Luke came out on the road to see how successful we were selling these shows out; he got off the road to go back in the studio and record his solo album. Part of what hurt the New 2 Live Crew is that we were ready to go out on the road but we had to wait because he wanted a 2 Live Crew AND a Luke ticket. So you got a group that's hot and on fire, we could tour on our own, but he wanted us to wait for his album. And by the time that record got done, we were done. I mean, we shot a good video for "You Go Girl," but you know.

And how did Trick Daddy come into all this? Because "Scarred" is basically the song that launched him.

Well, you've got to look at the situation like this. Trick came in off a concept - and this is not taking nothing off Trick as an artist; but this is how Trick was introduced to the world. Trick was introduced off an idea that I came up with. Because I came up with that break, how it was used. At that time, we had probably 90% of the album done. Luke probably came in two or three days and filled up everything on the record. A lot of what he was saying wasn't relevant. He had sort of lost his impact on what he was bringing to those records. But if you listen to "Scarred," he was different, it was different.

Okay, it was nothing that was gonna play on the New 2 Live Crew album. The "Scarred" record is etched in time as a classic Miami record as far as bass. Chris Wong came up with all the ideas for the New 2 Live Crew stuff... this is the ideas, this is what we're gonna write to, that's that. Verb came up with one idea and that was "Scarred." I wrote "Scarred" in like five minutes thinking I'm gonna do this quick record, get this check, and this'll be pretty much the last thing I do with the label.

If you look, me and Trick never performed that record together. After we did the video, we never performed that record. When you get a hit record, or a record that could've been bigger...

"Scarred" was major.

Yeah, it was a pretty big record, but you know. But when you have situations where egos get involved... Luke is the type of guy where if you're not all the way in, he's gonna kill the record because he don't want you to get shine off a situation.

Well if you remember from that video I did on it, looking at the "Scarred" cover, it's just his name on it, it's just his picture on the front and back. Just from the packaging, you'd think Luke did all the rapping, though obviously he never raps...

No, no! It wasn't like that. See, and that's the thing. Pitbull took my place in the performing of that at.... I forget what award show. They did that record without me. Pitbull took my place. Once the record start burnin' up, I actually called Luke and I told Luke. This is what happened. Luther Campbell got a third of the record, I got a third of the record, and Barry White's estate got a third of the record for the sample. Okay, the clearance of the record was nowhere near as high as Barry White's estate got. Barry White wanted all of the record, his estate. Okay. Luther Campbell did not want to give me a percent. He wanted to give me the percentage that he gave Maurice Young, known as Trick Daddy. No disrespect to Maurice, he was just young and comin' in the game, but I didn't agree with that. So I never signed off o the record. So when the record actually came out, they never had any clearance from me as an artist.

Now, they were negotiating me with and Maurice Young so that we could sign and get deals. Luther Campbell had to have us sign a lease to a five year contract for the labels to buy into his company at that time. So his guy signs him to Universal. Everything flopped over there at Universal except Dru Hill. I mean, some stuff did what we would consider good, but to Universal that's a flop. So you've got Luke coming out with "Scarred," Verb had never got compensated for the record and THEN you've got the record coming out on the Eddie soundtrack with Whoopi Goldberg. So we had some issues there where we had to get some money, and that's what with me and Luke on that record.

I could honestly say, when people say Luther Campbell is a bad CEO, I never had a problem with him. When I signed, I got my checks from him. I got some checks from Joe Weinberger. I never had a problem, everything that was in my contract I got. Maybe some differences on some royalties, but that's neither here nor there. Me and Luke were cool, we were always boys. In fact, he trusted me a lot more than he trusted a lot of other people. But at the end of the day, it's the music BUSINESS, and I felt, as far as the record, I could've taken "Scarred" and did it myself! But I brought the record to him, and I wanted him to compensate me right for the record. Look, you get a third, I get a third, let Barry White get a third, and however you want to do Trick.

You gotta remember, this record was done before Trick even came into the picture. Trick was the icing on the cake.

You mean the record was totally finished without him and then you went back and added his verse?

This is why I wanted to do an interview. You never know what your best work is gonna be. Probably my worst day as far as me writing, to me, happened to be the biggest record of my career to this day, as far as how the world knew me by, commercially. So now if you look at the record, you'll see the nasty version, which was the original version, I have two verses. What it was gonna is: I do one verse, Luke do the hook, your boy Verb come back again, I give you your second verse, Luke do the hook and then Luke do this rant, you know how he do, for the outro, turning it into a party record. That was "Scarred."

What happened was, this new guy get out of jail named Maurice Young, this heavy hitter, hungry guy, come out of jail. He comes in, he did the record and attacks it like a pit bull and it's history in the making.

Listen man, you gotta consider how disappointed I was with this record. I get a call to say, hey man, verb, did you hear this record? I say no. You gotta hear this record, they put Trick on it! I say oh okay. I listen to the record, I say that's nice, but I'm still thinking it's gonna fifteen, sixteen on the album. No man, we're thinking of making this shit a single! I said, oh shit! (Laughs) I'm thinking in my mind, they got Biggie Smalls, Ice Cube... this record's never gonna be a single. They call me back and say Verb, this record is gonna be a single, this shit is crazy.

You gotta remember, this is almost a year after I came Luke with this record. If we had did this back when I told Luke to move on it, it would be even bigger than that!

So, you put Trick's stuff on there and it's like okay, now you have to go in and you have to do a clean version. So now, at this point, me and the record company really got differences. The only reason I'm going in and doing this stuff is because I've got fans and people telling me, look, just do it for promotion and stuff, blah blah blah. So I go ahead, I'm cussing like a sailor on the original. So I'm so frustrated with the situation, I go Trick, look, there's no way I can clean up this second verse unless I rewrite a whole a different second verse. I say look, if you want, I can clean up this first verse and I can give you the second verse. So if you notice, on the dirty you got two verses from Verb and on the clean you got two verses from Trick. But that took my shine because you hear more of Trick on the commercial record than you hear of Verb!

Right, and that's the one they shot the video for and everything.

Exactly! So can see how disappointed I am with the company. I never knew this guy was gonna be on the record, I never knew anybody was gonna be on the record. It's just unfortunate. And so what happened with the situation with me and Luke is when the record went viral I called Luke and said Luke, the record is high on the charts, you know, take care of me, man. And we got in an argument and that probably was the first argument me and Luke was in, and it was the last argument. It wasn't even really an argument, I mean he just told me that, in so many ways, I need to call the motherf'ers at Universal, etc etc. And I'm not putting up with that, so that was that. We never had no run ins from the day that I got there 'till "Scarred."

And actually, I had a solo record that I was working on when I was with Luke.

Yeah, I was definitely going to ask you about that. Because you saw those videos I did of all your songs spread out on different compilation albums.

Yeah, so what happened is I got a lot of money. You know, if I wasn't loyal I could be a lot bigger than I am now, because those people saw from the moment I was there, how I took over with the stage. You know Chris, god bless his soul, was never an out front guy. He was the most distinctive looking guy in the group, but he never was the out front guy as far as being an entertainer. You could say, okay, the China guy is the most distinguishable guy in the group. But the management and everybody over there was telling me, look, you gotta go solo. Why don't you just go solo? And I'm like, this guy brought me into the group. I'm not going to turn on this guy. But everybody at the company and all the management was like Verb you gotta go solo. I felt like I could never let Chris down, because I had a lot of respect for his bringing me in to the organization and doing that.

But what happened was, one day I heard a record in the studio. And they say, oh man, we got this record, a 2 Live Crew record! I said, a 2 Live Crew record? We never did no record. No! I said, you mean a record with... and they said yeah, Marq and them! And I heard "Hootchie Mama."

Right, when they briefly reunited with Luke on the Friday soundtrack.

And I said, what... the... fuck? So the next day I called Luke, and me and Luke was real cool then. And I said, look, I got to set up a meeting with you. He said alright, no problem. I come through with what I come with, I got all my producers, I say look, I need to do a solo album, these my people, this how it's gonna sound. He said let me hear some stuff, I let him hear some stuff. He funded me up, he signed the contracts, he loved it. That's when Verb started working on his solo project. You see, I didn't pull the gun on Chris, Chris pulled the gun on me! I guess it was politics.

So did the album never come out because Luke Records folded into Lil Joe?

Well, two things happened. Luke never folded into Lil Joe. You gotta remember, there's two things you have when you're with 2 Live Crew. Number one, I don't care how old your records are, you're never gonna get booed, no matter what market you're in. You know why?

Why?

The one killer that they based their performance on is four or three or two naked, raunchy women. SO in the clubs, the drug people, mostly males that go in... You gotta remember, in 1993, we're on tour with Wu-Tang Clan. We're on tour with Outkast. Outkast did not want to go before us. They had a record that was platinum, Outkast was certified platinum that night we were performing! And they told us look, you go in and headline the spot. But we wasn't getting headliner money. So that's a crutch that, as an artist, it can make you lazy.

Then, at that time, companies started taking out Artist Development. So now you have Verb, you have no Mixx, you have no Mike Fresh. You had Verb, a dope artist with his producers, but these producers don't have Artist Development. A lot of people think Luke had a lot of geniuses around him, but I think he just had dope producers who brought stuff to him. Mr. Mixx? That dude was a genius! And Luke was a genius for what he did at that time, but Luke started losing his ears.

So when I got there, I didn't have no Artist Development, I signed the record and I got lazy. I was used to Chris coming up with the concepts and I didn't know how to put the whole song together. So basically, what I would do is go to the studio, get stoned out of my mind and do a verse, then practically go bang a broad in the studio. Didn't have my shit together and that's what happened. After a couple months, you have an A&R guy come to the studio and say, well, we wanna hear what you've been working on. (Laughs)

Put it like this. When a group like the 2 Live Crew comes to an artist, that's like putting a platinum spoon in somebody's mouth. It took away the hunger for Verb as an artist. Because when I'd go on the stage, I didn't work for these classic records that I'm singing that people know in every venue that we go in. I didn't create that work. So for me to shift from that as an artist, I didn't have the proper people and management. It's like Jordan getting to the Bulls without Pippen and without the coach, you understand? He's gonna be great, but these people helped Jordan develop. So if I would've met Mixx or Mike in their heyday, you would've heard a different Verb. But those guys were done when I got there. And you see the chemistry between Society and DJ Slice? Well, they stayed together for that summer.

But you had a bunch of dope, finished songs.

Well, what happened is, the next death blow is, MC Shy D versus Joseph Weinberger. 2 Live Crew was ready, but you needed money to do a credible 2 Live Crew album. Money which Luke probably didn't have, so they had to go back to Joseph Weinberger. Remember, The New 2 Live Crew saved Luke Records. Then he came out with a solo album and then he came out with an H-Town album which surprisingly went platinum. And then you got a lot of bad stuff coming after that, you got a U-Mynd album, Poison Clan's stuff never really took off. So that was a bad investment. So, I don't know what was going on with his money, but what I heard was that before he could get some more money, Mr. Weinberger told him that he's got to sign over some properties. And Mr. Campbell didn't like that so Mr. Weinberger got fired immediately.

So here's a guy that was an inside guy since "Me So Horny" and post the Atlantic era, this guy was one of the main attorneys over their. So that was the end of a chapter right there. And that was the beginning of Lil Joe Records Inc. Because what he did is he took the 2 Live Crew, singed them to his imprint, he put an end to the bankruptcy and he bought the catalog. He acquired me in the buy-out, but he would've had to pay me a shitload of money. So he released me. So he bought that situation, but for in order for him to keep on going, he would've had to hit on all those contracts. So he released me and I was able to go through all this stuff with LaFace and freelance and all that.

Everybody wanted to be Suge Knight at that time. There's a lot of drug dealers who signed me and paid me and I did records you probably will never hear. So Verb was comfortable floatin'. And what killed me was - this was another black era. I'm in the club and I met this guy who was an A&R for Jermaine Dupri. He said, listen, I got this deal. This guy Tony Mercedes is doing this compilation album. He said let me do some work with you, I got some stuff with Jermaine Dupri and I could do you, too. Long story short, he wanted to make sure Slip'N'Slide was in on the deal and everybody was on point, but Tony Mercedes wasn't happy with the numbers this guy was negotiating. So, I don't know, about four or five months later, the same deal comes back around and Slip'N'Slide comes to me and says Tony Mercedes is doing this compilation for LaFace Records. So I think maybe they knew somebody over there at LaFace and they said well, we have Trick and we're not going with this guy, but if you want to deal... Anyway, long story short, I didn't hear from that guy; that guy didn't do what he said he was gonna do. They were giving him a hard time. He actually said, man are you sure these guys working with us? I said yeah I'm sure. But I find it funny that I ended up brokering the deal with an A&R and ended up doing the record with Slip'N'Slide and Slip'N'Slide having the advantage. You follow what's going on?

Well, the record did wind up on LaFace. You're talking about the one with JT Money?

This is what happened. We went in and I think it was about $24,000. Ted [Lucas, founder of Slip'N'Slide] didn't think we could do another record nowhere near what we did with "Scarred." Remember, Trick Daddy's coming out with his album. They want me to introduce Trick to the world, being the same guy that introduced him to the world before. So they're on the phone with me, they know I put "Scarred" together, so they ask what ideas do you have for the record. I said, well listen. I wanna do this, I wanna use this Prince sample, and this is what I wanna do with the record. So we go to the studio, I call my boy down and say sample this record up right here and we're going in,. We did the record, they paid up, we go in the studio, we cut the record. Tony was a guy, he gonna get you a plaque. He's a guy who never put out a single with a company like this that don't get some kind of plaque. I said, what you do is, you let him put the record out, right? Then you drop Trick's album on the back end of the momentum of LaFace. That'll give Trick into a good situation with his album and that'll push Verb into a bidding war with a major.

We did the record, and they wanted to keep the record. I said, Ted, you don't know what to do with a record like this. Your company's not developed for a record like this. Ted comes to me like, listen man, I want the record man. What would you say about us keeping the record? I said, look, Trick's my boy. If you feel like this record's gonna set his career up, fine man. So I let a record go, where those masters were supposed to go to Tony Mercedes and I was supposed to get another big chunk of money from LaFace Records. And that record was supposed to go to LaFace!

And you're talking about "Gone With Your Bad Self."

That was supposed to be the first single. But Ted kept that for his artist, so Tony Mercedes got upset and he said well, look man, scratch that. You and JT get in and y'all do a record. That's why I'm on the compilation twice. You see, I had to save face with Tony. But that ended up shooting me in the foot because, just like I predicted, they didn't know how to work that record. They put this girl on there... I didn't like this. The way I wanted to produce this record, you had DJ Spin and then you had Funk [producer Righteous Funk Boogie], the beginning of Funk. But even though Spin produced the record, he didn't put his fingerprint on it. He just programmed it. So you hear more of Funk in his beginning on top of a Spin record. That's why it's not clear. It's like a hybrid, with Spin at his end and Funk at his beginning. But I still think it was good enough to make something happen if it would've come out through LaFace, because they wouldn't have put that chorus on there like that. That type of singing would have never flown.

So when that came out, that didn't do anything and that kinda made things go cold with me. And then I actually signed to Lil Joe Records. And here's a guy who really wants to, at that time, put a record out, but he's a guy coming from a different perspective of life. You have hip-hop, which is so raw, and this guy came across a couple of bad people, dealing with this music. Like life, some people cool, some people not. This guy got robbed, stuff like that, dealing with people from hip-hop music. Here's a guy who can get on the phone and broker deals with chains like Target and stuff like this, so you know, him dealing with these street thugs kinda put a bad taste in his mouth and put me in a bad situation. He wanted to deal with me because he already had history and he already know: I can make money with Verb. But the thing is, he didn't want to deal with the grassroots of the project. I would have producers come, he would sign the contract, cut the check and the guy would say look man, tell Joe I appreciate the business, I just wanna shake his hand. I'd go back and say yo, this guy says he appreciates doing business with you, he wanna shake your hand. And he'd say well, tell the guy I'm not here.

(Laughs) Right.

Even though these guys didn't go to college, some of these guys have high IQs. So when I come back and tell this guy, oh he's not here, he'd say oh fuck it, man. He don't wanna come speak to me? It's not a right or wrong, it's just unfortunate when those situations happen; and at that point he wasn't willing to get his fingers dirty with hip-hop. With radio, he kind of got blacklisted because he went against hte almighty Luke. Things of that nature. I think he got kinda paranoid, he didn't know who to trust. He stopped putting a lot of money out. He had a couple of artists before me that didn't pan out. I really feel I created some of my best work and really created a niche for myself there. I wish a lot of people could've observed the stuff I did at that time, they would've been surprised.

But that stuff is so spread out, because what happens, you'd get a couple of months of genius and then he's suing this guy and the records are held up for five to six months. And you know, hip-hop is changing every two to three months. Hip-hop now is nowhere like where it was six months ago. So you get back in the studio and the stuff you recorded is not relevant no more. So we kept having to start up over and over and over. And it's hard for me to compete with a guy who already has a catalog he's trying to work; it's nothing for him to pull ten to twenty songs together, slap a label on it... he doesn't even have to go to radio, spend no money on it. Just go right to the major chains and get a deal to start making money. And we already had some differences in terms of how I wanted the record to come out, what I wanted it to sound like, and dealing with Joe. He had people that I thought was dope, but he wouldn't deal with those people because those people had ties to Luke, or were people he didn't like. And so I couldn't deal with those people. So that was the situation right there.

And so Lil Joe owns everything, right? Your stuff and all those former Luke artists.

Yep! You gotta realize, these companies play the publishing game. Artists that we hear with samples that become some of the best ever samples are from groups that never were released. And for these companies, it's not in their best interest to put artists out. At first that might be a lucrative situation to put artists out, then they change up and realize maybe we oughta just go with a catalog and publishing. You hear a lot of these artists get in these studios and record these albums for next to pennies, and then whoever owns that company, no disrespect to them, but they're not in a situation where they've have to necessarily put that stuff out. SO generations later, their grandchildrens' grandchildrens' grandchildren stumble upon this stuff and say, oh look! I got some lost 2 Live Crew in here and that stuff be gold thirty or forty years later. And so that's how you've got some lost albums coming out now redigitalized and stuff like that.This is what happens, Companies get paid for recording artists and having albums for publishing purposes, but not putting it out for general consumption. It's a monster, man! A lot of people asking why you don't hear your favorite artists? It's politics. It's not because this person's a good guy or a bad guy, or this person fell off lyrically. It's politics.

If Miami was New York, it would've been easier for me to bounce back because you got Warner Brothers, you got Columbia... If it's not Warner Brothers, you could go to a subsidiary like Elektra or Atlantic. In Miami, you only had Luke, Hot and Joey Boy... and Vision. And Vision was done! They were pretty much putting out compilations, too. And Pandisc was done and just putting out compilations. What the smarter companies do is go into a hiatus where they don't sign artists anymore, but just put out compilation albums. And you see that stuff, when I was there and you say, well how did this record go on this compilation? Easy! 'Cause you've got Verb coming in saying I need twenty grand, I need ten grand, I need to be able to live. Oh well, could you go in the studio and do some work?

You hear that song I did about the record companies? That was an actual situation I was going through! And that song was freestyle because that's me saying look, if you got Verb. I got people waiting to hear product from me and here's a guy that wanted me to go and work in the warehouse! I won't get into that, but we just had differences of opinion. And I felt like I should be doing records and putting records out, but there was some bad artists that got there before me so this guy didn't trust anybody. I always felt like he should've been in the position of a Jimmy Iovine.  If you don't wanna deal with these guys, put somebody in a position like a Dr. Dre to get the product and just bring it back. But the problem is, he didn't even trust a Dre! So that's why you never got some stuff that came pure out of that company, this guy was just paranoid. Like I said, I don't know his experience, I won't speak on it or say it's right or wrong, but I understand and it's just unfortunate. You never seen some good art that was painted over there that never got released.

And some stuff that did come through that label at the end felt cheaper or unfinished, like the second Madd Blunted album [in retrospect, I realize that album I was thinking of was on Joey Boy, not Lil Joe - whoops!].

That was me being in an uncomfortable space because I always felt like let's not half-ass the people and give them these records on these bullshit ass compilations. I didn't even like the artwork on these albums. I didn't want my album to come out with a cover anything like this person was doing. That was my vision. It's like if you have a house and this person says let's just slap some paint on this house and sell it. And then this person says, why don't we renovate the house? It's a different perspective, you understand? His thing was slap some paint on it and sell it when I was like we have to be particular about this project. We just had different views. It's different if you have a label that doesn't have the luxury of a catalog. Then they have to make it work with their artists. But if you've got a catalog you can work, your main thing is gonna be working that catalog and squeezing every penny out of it, suing everybody you can sue. And when you sue these people and shaking people down,t hat put a bad taste in peoples' mouths in the industry.

Even with the Ringmaster situation [Verb was featured on the soundtrack to the Jerry Springer Show movie, Ringmaster], it wasn't like oh you're so great we wanna work with you. There was a lawsuit there! So it was almost like a bully move.

So do you think there's much hope of your lost albums coming out now? Or are those vaults just sealed forever with the changes to the music industry?

Well, right now you've got some stuff I'm working on independently; I'm probably gonna drop some stuff for the heads. It's not like I've never been in the game, like some 37 year-old rapper just trying to get in the game. At least you have to say this is a guy who was out before and did something on the level. You've got guys like Ross, 38 and Plies and Jay-Z still dropping albums and they're still going strong. So I've got some stuff I'm trying to introduce as as far as mixtapes.

But as far as the old stuff? We'll see! If the mixtape do good, it'll be like the Ross situation.

Oh right, yeah, that second album of his that was all old unreleased stuff.

Right! These companies, man, they have the albums, but they're unsure of you as an artist. You know, I have a song with Ross right now! That's at Joe, you know. In fact, I was supposed to be on "Take It To da House" record with Trick. But we couldn't make it make sense with the company. At that time I was working with Slip'N'Slide, I always thought they'd o good by me if I ever got a situation and be instrumental in getting me back out to the world the same way I helped their situation. But when you're not an artist going gold or platinum that people have heard from in a while, it's kind of hard to get on an even playing field.

You know, I'm responsible for Trick going to Slip'N'Slide. Because he called me and was like, yo, this guy doesn't wanna give me two grand, man. I said look, Luke Records is done, man. I know this guy who wants to give you some money and sign you. I said, this record company is done, go ahead. And he went.

Slip'N'Slide kinda did the same thing with Society...

Look, I was supposed to sign with Slip'N'Slide Records. Trick pulled for me to sign. But I'll go on record and say TED LUCAS DON'T HAVE EARS! He don't have ears! Here's a guy whose ears are worse than Luke. Here's these guys who are blessed to have the right situation come to 'em at the right time. So I get a hold of Trick at Slip'N'Slide and he says, look man, you're not doing nothing,w hy don't you come over here? I go over there, he's got Buddy Roe... I'm not on the top of my game at the time, so Buddy goes, look man, let me hear some stuff!  So I start telling Buddy Roe, right now, uh-uh. He's like, look man, I have to hear a verse from you. SO I spit a verse and then I see Ted tell Trick, hey, come here man, let me talk to you. So they went outside and I knew from there, you know what, I don't sound like trick, I don't sound like Buddy Roe, this is not gonna happen. The only reason Society got over is there is because Yes 'N' Deed had bass in it and it was movin'. It was proven and it was relevant. You gotta remember, I predate Yes 'N' Deed. So all that stuff fell in his lap.

So Ted comes back in and says, what do you wanna do? I'll sign you but we really don't have the capital. I said, what you mean? He said, we just signed Society, we just signed Trick. I was not interested in playing a Lost Tribe role for Slip'N' Slide where I sign for peanuts on the dollar. So what I did, I went to the giants, got paid a shitload of money, but the team was a bad team. It's like you sign with a team, you don't get no money, but the team's going all the way to the play-offs. I don't regret it because half of those guys didn't make the money I made and I didn't even have no releases. The only guys who made really any money over there was Trick and Trina. So I don't regret my moves, but my company wasn't as active as Slip'N'Slide.

So when they signed Ross, who I had on my album, we were discussing the politics. I was surprised he didn't sign with Slip'N'Slide. I said Ted Lucas is never gonna put Rick Ross out. Why do you ask that? Because Ross sounds very near to the work that I do. And let's look at this: he never put Ross out. What happened? Some real stuff happened that was in Ross's favor. Number one, when he came out with Trina, he was in a position where he wrote. Because he had some experience writing for artists, so he wrote for Trina and that's how he was able to get on and put his foot in the game. And that put his foot in the game. But if you look, nothing after that. He had a mixtape come out where he went against the company for not moving on him. He had to make himself hot. Here's a guy who's been on Slip'N'Slide for a couple years and had to go underground and mixtape like he was a new artist. Got a deal with Def Jam, but you already signed to an indie! An indie already signed to a major!

Wait a minute, you had Rick Ross? But you didn't have the ears and he was too risky! That's what happened to Verb. Miami wasn't ready for Verb.  It's like Star Wars, you're too early, you're Buck Rogers. You're right on time, you're Star Wars.That's why you see the stuff with Plies, 'cause Plies sounds kinda like Trick Daddy, in that kind of a vein. You never heard an artist remotely like a Ross or a Verb come out of there since then. People like what they like, I'm not knocking them, it's just different experiences where people come from in life. At the end of the day, it is what it is. So, that's what happened.

And that mixtape you mentioned...

It's not out yet. Right now I'm into production and engineering and making rhymes and just doing some stuff, experimenting with some Southern stuff. Of course you're gonna hear some east coast stuff. We're just gonna be all over the place. It's kind alike the Guns & Roses album, where you take eight years, and you keep recording and recording and recording... What is it, The Great Wall, the album Guns & Roses just did? The most expensive record in history to record. That kinda was the lost albums from Verb.

So props and thanks to Verb for talking to me and solving some of these long-standing mysteries... I'm definitely hoping all his music comes out, old and new. His new mixtape reunites him with Trick Daddy, and I'll definitely be spreading the word when that drops. By the way, I've just found another unreleased song of his from the 90's on a Japanese compilation called Bass Patrol (no relation to the group) vol. 19. It's crazy.