Coming from St. Thomas, what brought y’all to Atlanta? Timothy: People are really struggling [in St. Thomas]. A lot of people see the beaches and the palm trees and they think that if you go to the Virgin Islands, you’ll go to St. Thomas and be living the life. But it’s like any other part of the world. It’s hoods down there. It’s people down there that are really, really living hard. We were one of those people. It just so happens that me and my brother were blessed and gifted with this music shit. We did it around the island til we got so big on the island and throughout the Virgin Islands we couldn’t get any bigger back home. So we left home, and after we graduated high school, my parents gave us the options of like, “Yo, if y’all want to go to college, we’ll do our best to help. But if y’all are gonna do music, you’ve gotta be men. You’re gonna still have our support, but you just gotta know that’s on y’all.” So we did the music thing. We left and we went to Miami, cause we had family there and one of our best friends was there. We stayed there for like six months and got a little recognition around the city. It just wasn’t moving at the pace that we expected. This was right around the time when Lil Jon and the Ying Yang twins were poppin’, you know, that whole Southern movement. Atlanta was blowing up, so me and my brother thought that’s where we need to be. Somebody was flying us up here to do a show in Atlanta and me and my brother were like, “Man, how bout when we go there we just stay there?” At the time we didn’t know where we were gonna stay. The people that were bringing us to do the show put us up in a hotel. We were like, “We’ll figure that shit out when we get there.” We came to Atlanta, did the show, and long story short, we figured it out. We stuck around here for two years, living here and there, and shit was hard. How did Akon come into the picture? Timothy: Benny D, Akon’s DJ, is one of our best friends. We all came up together. He actually used to be our DJ, so when we came to Atlanta, it was all three of us trying to do this shit together. We did mad talent shows in Atlanta at the time. Our name started to get familiar and people started fucking with us. We started getting a little recognition, but shit was still hard. We ain’t get a deal or nothing. We started fucking with these producers. Shit didn’t really go the way it was supposed to and we kinda fell out. They had sent us back to St. Thomas, like, “Yo, we need to stack some paper up. So we’re gonna send y’all down there for a month and bring y’all back up when shit is right, so we can move forward.” [They] sent us back to St. Thomas and left us there. But it wasn’t that bad; at least we were at home. We’ve got family there; this was in 2004. Me and my brother got on our grind and got regular jobs and were like, “Fuck everybody, we’re gonna do this shit ourselves. We’re sick and tired of depending on muthafuckas selling us dreams and shit and nothing is happening.” So we saved our money and moved back to Atlanta in ’05. Been on the grind like crazy, trying to get it and started doing shows again. At this time, Benny was DJing for Akon. Little did we know Akon was gonna be as big as he is now, but Akon showed us love even before he had a deal. We were like, “Benny, the nigga needs a DJ. Go do that shit and if shit pops, you can come back and get us.” Then we started doing shows after we moved back here, got a big, big buzz throughout the streets. But still, nobody was really fuckin’ with us as artists. So we wrote a song on Akon’s record Konvicted called “The Rain.” After that, a lot of people started reaching out to us as songwriters and we started getting a lot of work. That’s what really got us in the game. At this time we didn’t even do our deal yet. We continued to do shows and a lot of artists that we wrote for spread the word like, “Yo, Rock City, them niggas is the next niggas.” It’s a blessing because people like Usher were saying that about me and my brother. So the word got around and Benny told [Akon] like, “Yo, you need to fuck them. Like, them niggas, they ready.” We did the deal with Kon and since then we been grinding, banging out mixtapes, doing shows, and we here where we at right now. Yeah, when Usher and Akon start co-signing for you, that’s a good sign you’re on your way. Theron: Man, this is a blessing, coming from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. We’ve worked with Usher, Macy Gray, Enrique Iglesias, the Pussycat Dolls, Mario, Sean Kingston, and Leona Lewis. The album that we’re working on right now is called Wake the Neighbors. We had three independent albums that we put out back in the Virgin Islands that did pretty well for an independent group, especially being that Hip Hop wasn’t as big in the Virgin Islands as it is now. I think this is our best album because we’ve finally learned how to fuse all the music together. We been rapping and singing, but it sounded like confusion at first. I think we were talented but didn’t know how to fuse all that music to make it sound like one thing. This album, man, with our manager Ray, Erica Grayson our A&R, Nikki Benjamin, our product manager, our publicist Jasmine, Devyne Stephens, everybody in our camp, the Juggernauts, the producers, Hypnotics, Jevuan. I think our whole team collectively pushed our talent to where it needed to be.
What can you tell me about your album? Theron: It’s called Wake The Neighbors. The concept of the album, well, we don’t like to predict the future, but we kinda had a trilogy in mind. First is Wake The Neighbors. Then we wanted to go with There Goes The Neighborhood, and finally The Eviction Notice. Wake The Neighbors is like, we’re moving into the neighborhood and doing something different, and the world needs to wake up. Y’all need to see what’s going on around you and change it. The album is a collective of Hip Hop, reggae, R&B, pop, alternative, everything; it’s just big melody. We rap American, we rap in our accent, the way we naturally talk. We do some reggae shit, we do huge pop records. Then we do some urban type of R&B. So, I can honestly say it does have something for everybody. I’m not gonna say everybody’s gonna like it. We’re all entitled to our own opinions, and that’s something that we stress. We just want people to fuck with us. How much influence did Akon have on your album? Theron: To be honest, Akon signed us because he was so busy and so much going on, he needed somebody that he didn’t have to cater to. We’ve never been in the studio with Akon, not once. He signed us basically knowing that we could do our own thing, and he’s excited about it. He was like, “Man, I love y’all niggas.” Working with Akon is a blessing because he’s the first person we’ve ever been around that let us do us. He don’t jump. He’s like, “Yo, I believe in what y’all do and I wouldn’t sign y’all if I didn’t.” He’s excited like we are. How’d you decide to go with “Losin’ It” as your first single. It’s more R&B? Theron: Man, you’ve gotta blame our A&R Erica Grayson. We wrote the song for Trey Songz, and she said, “No, you can’t give him that song, that song’s a fuckin’ smash.” We didn’t wanna make a song like that, but she was like, “Trust me. Just do it.” Timothy: We’re some compromising dudes, so we decided to try it. Theron: If it’s good, what would it hurt? And if it’s whack, okay, we didn’t want to do it anyway. Every time we played that record for [somebody], it stood out. When you hear it from a lot of people, we just said, “Okay, I guess this is the record.” Konvict Muzik has a lot of artists: Akon, T-Pain, Ray Lavender, Colby O’Donis. Were you ever wondering when you were going to get your turn? Theron: I ain’t gonna lie to you, not really. The songwriting thing was moving so well. We always had another outlet to express ourselves through music. I was just proud to say, “God, if I could wake up every morning and let music be my living, I’ll be happy.” And at that time, Rock City the artists weren’t big, but Rock City the writers were getting work everywhere. We were never mad. I was actually happy for ‘Kon, cause we knew Kon when he was just as broke as we were. To see that brother succeed was a blessing to us. When Akon put out Konvicted, I don’t think he even knew it was gonna be that big. Nobody knew. He was like “Oh, shit.” Cause we got signed before [Akon’s] album came out and [the label] had a lot of plans, and then the nigga became the biggest thing on the planet and we were like, “Wow.” We always knew we would get our turn, and after the past few years, we’ve just learned to be patient. The main focus was to take care of our family; my daughter, my brother’s niece, my mom and dad, and we were able to do that. We ain’t never had too many complaints. I can’t even lie. Did you ever consider just keeping your careers as songwriters and not pursuing the artist thing any further? Theron: No, the artist thing was always #1. But at least we were able to feed our families. I mean, we were dirt broke, damn near homeless. They didn’t have nothing to eat. We’d have to eat a slice of cheese. So when we were able to feed our families, we weren’t able to complain too much. Don’t get me wrong, we wanna win as artists so bad, man. I pray about it every night, and my brother does too. We talk about it all the time. We sit in the car and talk about it. We wanna win. We’ve been blessed, so I can’t sit here and try to complain, but we’ve been waiting patiently for our turn. We see it coming and we hope it works out. You were featured in OZONE’s Patiently Waiting years ago. Was that your first interview? Theron: That was one of our first interviews. That was our first big magazine. That was a blessing, because in our minds we appreciate everything. In our mind, OZONE is as big as it [gets]. We were like, “What are they doing interviewing us? We ain’t nobody.” Our manager and people around us are always try to remind us, “Yo, y’all are talented.” We be like, “For real?” We’re just excited that people actually like our shit. //
OZONE MAG // 51