– How are you? Are you having a good time so far?
Yeah, I just got off the plane, I’m real cool.

– What happened with you? What have you been doing?
I formed this new record label called Waste Management Records. I signed Canibus and a couple of new artists. This guy out of Chicago named Maintain and a couple of other kids. Basically I just been working, doing the right thing. Giving back to the community where I came from. Really just staying busy. Hearing new acts, trying to do something new. The game has been waiting for a while on something that makes sense. Cause there is so much stuff that don’t make sense. I been making a little money though, I mean I can’t hate. But I wanna do something that makes sense, whether it makes money or not, I just wanna do something that’s right you know?

– But as an artist yourself? You’re doing the label thing, what about yourself?
I got an album coming out soon called “There’s hell to pay”. They say it’s my last but you never know with me.

– “They” say it?
Yeah cause I am more or less behind the scene, helping the younger guys get where they need to go. I didn’t wanna lose myself doing that. I mean I do have an album, a double album, it’s called “There’s hell to pay” it should be coming out real soon.

– On your own label?
Yeah on my own label. It will be distributed as soon as we get Traffic to do what it needs to do. It’s a new distributer coming out of Boston. But it looks good, the money is right. I’ve been touring with Biz Markie, that’s a good scenario. And like I said, we got some acts coming out.

– Like who?
Uhm, like Maintain, Canibus, Planet Asia, and some more. We are out in LA right now, I moved out of New York because everything in New York is real crazy right now. So I moved to LA, opened a sticker company and a t-shirt company, pretty big, 30.000 dollar machines you know, and just do that. Staying busy. Doing our thing man. And it feels good doing something totally opposite from when I came in the game with a mic in my hand. Just connect to people.

– Doesn’t it itch though? I mean, you got your album coming out. Everybody knows you from back in the day. EPMD, Hitsquad. A lot of people are wondering if a collaboration like that is still possible, if they can look forward to that.
When I hear their music, when I hear their stuff right now…. I mean….

– You’re not feeling it?
I mean, not that I’m not feeling the artists. I just feel in times when you grow as an artist, I have a 15 year old son now that raps, and its hard to say the right thing that still gets the young audience to listen, without saying something crazy. We’re so programmed to crazy stuff and it kinda puts me in a different position. I don’t wanna do no records sounding ignorant. I got children. It puts you in a different scenario. I would imagine I wouldn’t feel this way if I didn’t have kids. I got kids and if they listen to a record and it’s something ignorant, I don’t wanna contribute to that. It’s a safer situation for me behind the desk.

– So what are you saying? The stuff from the people you used to work with is ignorant?
I’m saying the stuff that’s coming out now in America. Not Soldier Boy and all that, he is a 17 year old kid, he is clean. He don’t really talk stupid. I’m talking about the little gangster rappers being played on the radio. And a lot of these kids believe hiphop is pulling a gun out and shooting somebody. Or they believe hiphop is being a crip or a blood. It had nothing to do with that. And the misconception of that puts a bad taste in my mouth that people wanna do music like that. Like I said I got children. And like they said in school, if you can’t say nothing nice, don’t say nothing at all. If you can’t do nothing right, do nothing at all.

– If you talk about that like you do right now, what does your new album represent?
My new album is basically the new artists that I’m putting out and me featuring on the songs. It’s basically my own album I put together but there are so many featurings on there.

– Kinda like a double meaning, putting yourself out but also promoting the new artists.
Exactly. Like “oh yeah that’s Solo on there.” Me being the same age as Dr Dre, knowing the records we used, that’s my strong point. I know its gonna pop and I know it sounds good. And I know there will be “hell to pay”.

– That sounds scary.
Not in a sense. I mean, when you do crazy stuff, theres gonna be a price to pay. So I’m saying there’s a message in each song. America is in so much shit right now. That is coming back. America taught America how to segregate and its coming back, its gonna bite them in their ass. It may come back a 100 years after the fact but its still coming back. Traveling out here, seeing the culture out here I am more pressed in embracing this, cause they do appreciate classic hiphop.

– You are over here now for this festival. Who would you wanna see perform?
I really wanna see Puba.

– He is sorta from the same era you’re from.
Almost, not really, he is a little older, I was still a kid when I saw him do his thing. It’s a good feeling. And you know it’s funny. A lot of people don’t understand, when people come from suffering backgrounds, and they get away with that music, and they go back and do the right thing for their moms and their people, it makes hiphop beautiful to me. That’s why I kinda got salty with the Canibus situation when he went out to do for his parents and the corporation tried to destroy him. But he was trying to win for his mother and father, being immigrants, they came to America. He had a dream, hiphop was his dream. And I don’t think he meant something when he said “Lemme borrow that mic off your arm” to LL. I don’t think he meant it in a way…..I mean I would have took it totally different being I’m a different entity. I wouldn’t have been cocky about it. I would have been “You wanna feed your mom; yeah you can borrow my mic.” And pushed him towards that way, then opposed to here’s this guy who is an icon, and here is this little kid who is trying to be in his footsteps and he tried to crush him on a record.

– I am sorry, I have to laugh cause here you are talking about it and I had specific instructions not to talk about that with him.
Oh yeah, with him you can’t talk about it. I am only saying it so people can understand and view the spectrum of what is beautiful in hiphop and what is not beautiful. And those who are in control of the awful and the people that are powerful like yourself and me, people that really care start making the right comments about stuff like that. In the end of the day we are all somebody’s child. And we are put out here not to do the bad. Some of us are gonna fall to the bad side, but that’s just the game. I don’t think people pay attention to the dreams coming true, they pay more attention to the war stories and the hoopla around it.

– But that’s always the case. That’s the media as well. That’s why it’s good that there are people like me around, to clear up the stories and all haha.
No doubt. Yeah that’s good, we need that.

– Any words for the people out here?
Definitely, going to do a good show tomorrow. My website is www.wmrinc.com check us out and see what’s going on. There’s always updates. Download the mixtape from Maintain.

Met dank aan:
Hiphopworld
ROQ Music Group