A PER // PHOTO: JULI WORDS: RANDY RO
BEVERLY
bum Death Befostre ping his debut al ho ’s 2 Pi ols he d an ts ar er ch up the a teenag , but now, ng as bi w im he cl ce is sin It” il t ja Go he -out of his life. His hit single “S ’s been in-andan art a new chapter in st d do the same. He nd hi be st Dishonor will le pa s troubled is looking to ave hi The first time I interviewed you, you were just getting started with the Justice League. And now “She Got It” is a hit. How is success treating you? It feels good just to have a record the people accept. I love all the success I’m having. I feel very fortunate. I don’t want nobody to think I take my situation for granted. I love my situation. What was your reaction when “She Got It” started to break? It was cool, but a lot of people had mixed feelings because [T-Pain] was on so many records at the time. [People were like], “Dude looks like Plies,” or, “He came out just like Plies with a T-Pain record.” The comparison started to get crazy for me. That’s the number one thing I hated the most out of the situation. People still didn’t give me my credit yet but I think they might second guess that now that I got this second single with Ray J called “You Know Me.” Hopefully people will be like, “Okay, dude got another record,” although I do have another R&B singer on there. We just wanted that feature on there to give it that look. But I don’t feel like cats are giving me my credit that I should be getting. My success is cool but at the same time, I still hear 62 // OZONE MAG
the comments like, “Without T-Pain it wouldn’t be this way, without Ray J it wouldn’t be that way.” I just want my people to understand that I’m here and it’s a lot of other artists that collaborated on records with other people and they give them their credit. I just want my credit, that’s all. If you keep coming with these R&B singles, they’re going to give you credit for being LL Cool J. What do you want people to see your image as? If they wanna look at me like LL, that’s cool. He’s ten years strong in the game. My situation is well-rounded. I can talk about anything when it comes to a song. Cause I’ve been through some of everything. I got my own relationship issues that I don’t care too much about speaking openly about. And I got my situation where I’m in the streets heavy, and I can talk about that. I write [my lyrics] well-rounded and I don’t want you to look at 2 Pistols and think he only talks about females, or he only talks about goons or street shit. I want cats to understand that I’m an artist. I can speak on any topic and it’s going to be a good song. Speaking of the streets, can you speak on your street life and being in and