H
e discovered two of 2007’s biggest successes (Soulja Boy and Hurricane Chris), yet Mr. Collipark (better known as DJ Smurf to some) has felt more hate than love this past year. Still, the former Ying Yang Twins producer hasn’t let the critics stop his plans to turn his Collipark Music imprint into the next LaFace. And with Soulja Boy riding high on the charts, Collipark is crankin’ dat Supaman all the way to the bank. For anyone resenting the music he cosigns, be careful, this ATL impresario may take offense to that. You helped build the Atlanta Hip Hop scene to what it is today. How do you feel about the game when you first started, to where it is right now? It’s good to see it’s the focal point of the industry right now. I just think we’re the heartbeat of not even just Hip Hop, like music right now, it’s coming from here. You’ve got a lot of R&B writers and producers coming out of here now too. I never thought it would be where it is now. I think back to my high school days, listening to Luke and all those cats from out top, you just never would have thought we would have the opportunities that we have now in the game. You were also very instrumental in the snap and whisper music a couple years ago. What were your thoughts at the time you were making that music? Just trying to do something new, man, and get out that whole crunk movement that we never really considered ourselves apart of. Even when I started with the Ying Yang [Twins], the stuff that I did with them wasn’t really popular at the time. The music down here was going a little more street. That’s when Pastor Troy and that whole Master P movement was real big. And we just came with something different. It wasn’t popular to have a booty shake record like that. Fast forward seven years and now you gotta have a strip club record on your album. I think we were very instrumental in putting that in the game, cause I come from bass music. But to take it from that and make it a part of Hip Hop, it’s everywhere now. Everybody from the East to the West, even gangsta, street cats from down here gotta have that strip club record. Let’s talking about your label, Collipark Music. You’re doing it real big right now with Hurricane Chris and Soulja Boy – Actually, I found Hurricane and he was like a gift to my man, Bryan Leach, over at Polo Grounds. I executive produced his project. But Bryan had left TVT, he did my deal over at TVT with Ying Yang, and he left and started his imprint over at J [Records]. I told him, “I’ma give you your first artist.” He actually wanted to do something with P. Stones, who was my first Interscope signing, but he wasn’t settled in at J yet. So I found Hurricane and it was like a perfect jump off situation for him over there. You saw the “A Bay Bay” record from the beginning, so – A hit record is a no-brainer to me. Some people hear the records that I’m affiliated with and they frown on them. My thing is, I make records for the people. I never was into myself. As a DJ, you have to service other people and I think that’s what separates me from a lot of people that consider themselves Hip Hop heads. That’s self-serving almost, you feel me? I grew up listening to everything, but when I hear hit records it’s a no-brainer. It’s almost like I’m missing out if I don’t be a part of it. When I heard “A Bay Bay,” even before I knew I was gonna have anything to do with it, I was like, “That shit’s outta here.” And the same thing with Soulja Boy, I didn’t hear in his song what I heard in Chris’ song but I saw it on his Myspace. When I saw it, I was like, “Oh my God! This is it!” Cause he was serving the masses. Those kids, they were loving him. Whether I liked it or not, he had already generated this whole following. I saw those little girls holding up “I Love Soulja Boy” signs and painting it on their chests and all that, I was like, “There is no way. I have never heard of this kid.” And no adult I asked knew about him, but every kid, every kid, one hundred percent, here in Atlanta knew him and they knew about four, five of his songs. You said, “whether you liked it or not.” So does that mean you didn’t like Soulja’s music when you first heard it? Nah, I ain’t gon’ lie, man. “Bapes,” that was the first record I heard. And I
think it was moreso for the quality than anything. I couldn’t get over it. It was like a bad demo. I didn’t get it. I was like, “I don’t care who likes this, I can’t do nothing wit’ this.” But when I saw it, it made me go back and listen to it with a different ear. And I said, ain’t nothing wrong with it, it’s just poor quality. So how do you feel about Soulja Boy as an artist now? He’s the best. He out-hustles these cats. He out-thinks these cats. He’s outperforming these cats. And he’s so young. He was 16 when I found him. He don’t even have the vocabulary to be competing with these cats. At a time when the game is so messed up, there are very few success stories in rap music right now and he’s one of them. And he’s winning big. So you gotta give credit to that. I don’t care if you hate every song you hear from him. In the climate of what’s going on, you cannot front, it’s hard to sell a record right now. And he’s going up. He did his numbers, then he took his drop and he’s going back up right now. This is wit’ no tour. It’s beyond a ringtone thing, its people buying into him. Hurricane, it’s a lot to him, talent wise. He’s more of a talent than Soulja Boy. Soulja Boy is a movement. A lot of critics – Julia Beverly came to me and she said, “How do you feel about people calling Soulja Boy’s album whack?” I said, “I don’t care about nobody who called Soulja Boy’s album whack. If they’re over 17 years old, I could care less.” I said something about the numbers, he did like 117,000 the first week and then she asked me again, like, “What do you think about people saying the album is whack, though?” “I said, “I don’t care!” I didn’t expect Soulja Boy to appeal to anybody of out high school when I signed him and the fact that it’s this big is phenomenal to me, cause I didn’t get it. But I knew that Soulja Boy had the potential. Is he an artist that has longevity, as he gets older and his fans get older? He learns so quick. He asks a lot and he observes a lot. He’s crazy about 50 Cent, not just his music, but how 50 took the game over. So he watched everything that he did. That’s the aspect about him that lets me know he’s gonna [have longevity]. Because he actually looks at what’s going on around him. He looks at Kanye. And when those kinds of cats meet him, they see it. They see that it’s bigger than “Crank Dat” the dance when they meet him. He’s a student of music. Anytime you got an artist that produces himself, that does his own beats and puts songs together like that, it’s something special about him. And he’s able to go in and make records. There’s a lot of artists that can’t make records. He’s a young Kanye in his world. If you look at the variety of subject matters, the lifestyle records that he put together, they’re very primitive but it’s a lifestyle thing that he’s done with the “Bapes,” the “Yahh,” the “Crank Dat,” the “Shoot Out,” the “Just Got My Report Card.” It’s a bunch of different themes that appeal to those kids. So as he grows and the things that he sees expands, he’ll be making records about that stuff. Do you do the “Crank Dat Soulja Boy” dance? I said if we go platinum I’m doing the dance. I ain’t seriously cranked the dance. But I’m waiting on the record to go platinum. Do you have any last words for the Soulja Boy haters? I get real defensive when I talk about Soulja Boy, cause I’m passionate about it. If I don’t like something but I see someone who does like it, I take it as just that. I say, “I don’t get it but I see why it’s working.” The thing with Soulja Boy is, the people that don’t like him, they don’t like him passionately and I catch a lot of that because I found him. So a lot of times I lash out. He’s gonna easily get a gold album. You tell me the last new artist that got a gold album, period. Joc might be the last one. And he’s three million ringtones, so he’s got that too. And three million digital singles, so that’s six million digital downloads. So that success story is humongous. For Hip Hop heads, if you like “real Hip Hop,” I’ll use somebody like Talib Kweli [as an example]. People can say he’s dope but he doesn’t sell cause the so-called “real Hip Hop community” doesn’t support him. So what good does it do him to be dope for y’all? For y’all who are out here criticizing, you don’t even support him. He ain’t even sold 200,000 records. You gotta look at the game for what it is. This is how I eat, that’s how [my son] goes to school. It gets emotional to me in the sense that this is what I do for a living. And for somebody to sit back-somebody who doesn’t contribute in a positive way-and just sit back, critique and run their mouth, I have a problem with that. Yeah, I have a serious problem with that. //
OZONE MAG // 61