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ven though Clue and Doo-Wop came before him and Drama came after him, the mixtape game would not be what it is today without DJ Whoo Kid. By now you should know his track record and reputation. We caught up with him briefly to get his take on having an international presence and why so many of today’s rappers are “dumb.”
in a business format. They’ve got to tour and have high selling artists, but they so thirsty that they let their artists do what they want. It’s like a company, everyone has to wait their turn. You can’t have the president on the same level as the assistant. It’s so simple but these rappers are so stupid.
With what you accomplished through mixtapes, do you think you and 50 Cent killed the demo CD? [laughs] I don’t think we killed the demo, but everybody started copying what we did though. But you know what, yeah, I guess you could say we eliminated the idea of only having a demo. People want to hear your best music early and how you sound on other people’s tracks. That gives the labels an easy way to make a decision. If you sound good on other people’s beats that makes them more interested. We made the situation different, a lot of rappers wasn’t doing that. We’ll let you freestyle on the radio all you want, we’ll just give you one 16 and a hook. And we did the mixtapes as if they were albums. All these cats doing three verses, I mean, the public has short attention spans, especially if you new, they don’t know who the hell you are. With 50 he made sure he was the main point of the whole crew. He made sure that he was the one to dominate while he made sure the guys behind him were on point. The first couple of CDs he had Domination, then he brought out Banks and Yayo. A lot of these rappers are stupid, they not smart enough to market their worth. They make themselves equal with their artists, they are confused. Some artists get more shine than the main, so when they come out the album kinda sucks. Same thing happens when the sub artist is garbage and the main is so ill and you don’t understand why he is with them. You eradicate respectability when you’re okay with having whack artists around you. You come out with an album and you busy promoting your artists and not yourself. Even subs should know if you the main and you ain’t running things right, they ain’t getting nothing either. These guys are not thinking
Amidst all of the “bring New York back” talk, G-Unit has been able to have a lot of success. Why is that? We’re not paying attention to the sorrows of New York rappers. It all comes down to having hit records. 80 percent of New York is going at 50. Down South music rocks the club, and they rock up here too. Down South is more club-oriented, they even rock in Europe. There is no hit New York record. Don’t bring New York back, bring hit records back. 50 sold 10 million. You can’t be equal to the problem. New York would rather stay local with hit records. They satisfied with the three states they go to and show off to their local peers and they have no unity. The only unity was when everybody went at 50. The South combined to form a movement. Hip Hop is going through intervals. The South been here, but then they dropped a lot of hits one year. They say the South is paying radio, but who the fuck wasn’t doing that? Everyone does that, but New York don’t have hit records. I’m tired of niggas hating on the South. That’s animosity for success, we’re so used to it. It’s so shocking to people that T.I. is doing a movie with Denzel, why? Hip Hop is always gonna have animosity for success. But G-Unit doesn’t care. 50 doesn’t put himself equal with losers. The labels are crying because they got whack A&Rs who ain’t with what’s in the streets. We see what other people are doing and we try to relate to what’s going on. New York niggas don’t know how to grow. you can’t give us the same shit from 20 years ago. It ain’t ’88 and people ain’t trying to hear whack rappers. It’s about who you know, if you don’t know nobody you get forgot about. You have to hit a record, the gimmicks are over. The South has shown us another way to promote