25th Hour. I started up with my cousin. He’d make the beats and we’d pay $25 an hour to this guy in South Central, close to my house. He had a little studio set up in his back house and I would pay him $25 an hour to record and $25 an hour to mix. It was a professional little studio. That year taught me a lot about how to manipulate your sound; understanding that your vocals are like a [musical] instrument. When you first start, you think you sound a lot different than you actually do. There are ways you can say more, just with your voice. You can make yourself sound more convincing or believable or blend in more with the song. I was just having fun recording 25th Hour. My friends weren’t thinking it would be anything [that reached] outside our immediate circle. I didn’t know about blogs. [My music] was on blogs before I even understood what they were. I just made it strictly to have fun, play it for my friends, and perform at little parties we had. But it turned into something bigger. My cousin that produced “Watermelon Sundae” was a film student at Loyola Marymount. So the fact that we had access to good quality videos early on was really important to me and my movement. That remains a part of everything I do. We were able to shoot the “Watermelon Sundae” video and have it look really nice. When everybody saw it, it took off. You’re still an independent artist, but are you looking for a major label deal? I’ve been working, first and foremost, that’s the thing that doesn’t stop. I’ve turned [major label] deals down. There have been offers but I’m happy where I’m at. Are you planning on dropping something with your doppelgänger Don Cannon? Oh yeah, I always talk to Cannon and people always ask me that. We haven’t really done anything yet outside of being in the studio together. We went through a lot of beats. We talk a lot about music and what direction we want to go. For my next project, I know he’ll be on there in some capacity. You’ve said you’re trying to work with even better producers next go round. Besides Cannon, have you succeeded in finding that? Yeah, definitely. I think after From The West Side With Love and the videos I did, there’s a mutual respect, and that’s really all I’ve wanted. I’ve had opportunities to work with different producers, but a lot of times, I think people work with producers ahead of schedule, you know? You might not be on Dr. Dre’s level yet. It might 58 // OZONE MAG
not be the right time. I always wanted to grow and use my resources with the producers I’ve had access to. I want to take the time to find myself and craft songs and find younger guys like myself that have a lot of passion. Just like I have passion in my work right now, there’s a lot of young producers that probably have more passion than [somebody like] Polow Da Don, who’s a millionaire a couple times over. So it’s really not about the name, it’s more about: Are you really in this? Is your heart in it? What are you trying to say? Can we do this? Can we reach our goals together? What’s the concept of “Choose Up”? (laughs) “Choose Up” just means “pick.” Decide what you’re trying to do. If you’re out at the club and you see a girl that keeps looking at you, y’all ain’t gon’ be there all night, you know? Choose up. Hurry up. Do something. There’s a new movement coming: you, TiRon, Skeme, U-N-I, Fashawn - it seems like California rap has evolved into a newer, younger energy. What motivated this evolution? Man, a lot of people have been trying to figure that out. I think we’re getting a chance again and people are open to it. It hasn’t reached a peak yet but I think there are a lot of people working really hard that have something valuable to add, you know? We have something to say and we’re doing it a different way than how it was done before. You can look at rap music from all the different regions and see the beginning. Now, it’s a new time. Rap music moves through different regions because there’s a new story to tell. People get enamored not only with the music but how they live, what they say, the whole culture. I feel like the spotlight on L.A. right now is different from what it was on before. How much of a hand do you have in the creative process when building a project? A hundred thousand percent. Everything. When I come up with a project, like From The Westside, I conceptualize everything. I knew how I wanted the artwork to be, how I want it to sound, how many songs are gonna be there. I think the fact that I have so much control and freedom is what separates the new generation of artists from the record labels. They’re so impersonal. If you have all this control and freedom, you can say what you wanna say, to exactly who you wanna say it to. You don’t have to fight with somebody and explain something to them--people who don’t get it anyway--that have millions of other things they really care about. Nobody’s gonna tell me how my project is gonna be besides myself. //