Break into a studio? Nah, that’s not my advice. It all depends on how bad you want it. I didn’t have shit growing up. My mom was in Jacksonville and I was down South, so I didn’t have no money. I was living off the earth, friend to friend. That was my dream, so I did what I had to do to get it. But no, I wouldn’t advise that. I’m pretty sure if I had really thought about what I was doing and planned it, I coulda came up with another way to get the equipment. But I wanted it right then and I was young, so that’s why I did it. My advice would be, Keep God first and go hard. When an opportunity knocks, be ready to make the right decision. What happened after Problem Child? I put out two more albums under Wildstyle with TJ – Y2Kaos and Black November. I got a lot of response off them and that was going very well, but we kinda fell out and had a disagreement. We cool and shit now.
TOTAL KAOS Where are you from? I’m from Deerfield Beach, Florida. I moved up here to Tallahassee about ten years ago. They treated me like a star when I came up. I had a lil record out called “Mo’ Money.” Down there I was just the average nigga. They didn’t give a fuck about me. Tallahassee showed a lot of love, though. Did you drop an album independently? Yeah, I was on a label called Fresh Records. My first album Problem Child did good regionally. Was it a bass record? Yeah, it was bass, but it wasn’t the Luke kinda bass. It was gutta bass. I won a rap contest with Luke and Ice T, and after that Luke started keeping me under his wing. I worked on the Poison Clan album, Poisonous Mentality. I helped write some shit and I was on a couple songs on that album. After that I started getting into the production side. I produced for Cameo, 2 Live Crew, Three 6 Mafia, Pretty Ricky, and Master P. What made you interested in production? I couldn’t get beats when I needed them. So I broke into this cracker’s studio and took his drum machines and shit. I started producing from there. Is that your advice to aspiring producers? 10
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Are you focusing on production now? I’m still recording but production is what I’ve been eating off. I got a new album called No Remorse that we’re putting out in another two months. Are you planning to switch up your style at all? Do you think bass will sound dated? Honestly, bass music is what’s poppin’ right now. That’s what Ying Yang and all them niggas are doing. It’s Florida music, honestly. When you look at Lil Jon and them, those are just hooks they takin’ from Jam Pony. Their whole sound is what Florida is supposed to be doing, but Florida is too caught up. We’re too city; we ain’t country enough. We got away from the essence of what we’re about. They slowed the bass tempo down a little bit, but they’re still using the heavy 808s and the snares. It’s our game. But when we rise up and say we’re gonna do our kind of music, that’s when I think we’ll really start to shine just like them cats. I ain’t takin’ nothin’ away from them, because it’s their history too. Atlanta always looked up to Florida, and we got away from ourselves so now they’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing. All those club records sound like old bass songs to me. Anything else you’ve got going on? We just filmed an underground movie called Chain Reaction, produced by my homeboy Willie Hustle “Flat Broke” and MBeezy “Low Key Key Figure.” Do you want to give out any contact info? KeyFigureGroup.com or 954-907-1035. - Julia Beverly