where the cover art is a burning Confederate flag? You spoke about a few things that were political but the rest was just straight up real life shit. What were you going through at that time that resulted in that kind of music? At the time, it was pretty much the same ol’ young nigga shit. I wasn’t really political or nothing like that. We were having a debate about the flags in Georgia. I probably was looking at it in the news, you know I’m a news head, I stay up on the Headline News and CNN. It was a lot of politics on that stuff. It was just one of those things that crossed my mind; it really wasn’t nothing. That said, do you think that music should be expected to reflect what’s going on right now, especially in times like these? I know a lot of people say that music is supposed to be entertaining and they don’t have to talk about what’s going on, but... I think that it always will. Because it’s so many people doing music, I don’t think it should be anybody’s obligation to make sure that their music reflects [politics]. I don’t think most musicians pick up an instrument to change what’s going on in the world. I just don’t believe it. It might [become] that, but it’s not generally the reason that you would start playing music. Everybody makes a collective effort to at least do something like that. Sometimes that’s enough, but I don’t think any artist or musician should even be pressured or feel like that because that’s not their skill; that’s not their job. That’s not what music is for. Music is a part of life. You got music at funerals, music at weddings, music when you fight, music when you cry, there is music for all things. I don’t think I should pressure any other artist or look down on any other artist because they’re just doing music for music and if that music happens to have a message in it, cool. I think that by the number of people doing music, overall, music will always reflect the times because you have those type of people that will always make those type of songs. But I don’t think it should a obligation because it’s just not fair. There are people that have careers and jobs where that really is their obligation. They get paid to do stuff like that. Let a recording artist be a recording artist. Can you tell us some details about your album, like some of the producers you worked with, and some of the content? Our production was done by me and my production team, EH Beats. We’re going to be doing a lot of stuff on my up and coming projects, the 8Ball & MJG project, and hopefully working with a lot of other artists in the near future. I’ve got one song called “You Can’t Get Rid of Me.” You can try all you want, but you can’t count me out. You can say I ain’t good enough or you can say, “He’s been here too long,” but you can’t get rid of me. I got a joint with 8Ball called “What Would You Do” that’s basically talking about what would happen if you busted in and your girl was with another dude. I’ve got another one called “Gangster, Gangster” that’s real hot. It’s on some gangster, gangster shit. I got one with Slim from 112; man, it’s hot. It’s like one of those summer joints that everybody’s gonna be rolling to. Like I said, I can go on and on, man. I got you from the summer joints to the gangster, gangster to the shit about the bitches. It’s all on there, man. I’m not saying I’m the greatest, I’m just saying I’m one of them. In the last interview you had with us, we asked you about the Bad Boy situation and if you were satisfied with the music coming out. You said you still had creative control but you just had to work
with different producers and what not and I noticed you’re working with different people on this one as well. Does it ever bother you when your fans still expect everything to be like a T-Mix beat from the Suave days? From a fan’s perspective, I would like all my favorite groups to still be together and use the same beats. But in reality and especially from the industry side, you know that doesn’t happen because different people choose different paths at different times. This producer or this artist go different ways or try something different or maybe they feel they can make more money. It’s just impossible. Yeah, you get those rare groups sometimes that’s all the way down through time, even back in the Temptations days. You get those rare groups sometimes who were lucky enough to work with the same producer for their whole career, but it’s different reasons for that type of stuff. You understand that people bond like that. Me and 8Ball have been together for so long because we’re friends. We’re real genuine friends; we was friends first. A lot of these cats [in groups] were born and raised different places. They lived different type of lives; they got different types of personalities and they don’t know each other until they get with each other [as a rap group]. You can’t expect for that to work forever. Some might work and that’s just the reality of it. You don’t have bonds like Run DMC and Jam Master Jay because you know it ain’t like that no more. You have to have this bond and something genuine to really make it and stick together. As an artist, how was it adjusting to working with new producers even dating back to the Space Age Forever album? For most of our career, overall we still have been in control of our production. Our first two or three projects I pretty much produced all of that myself and then from that point we worked with another producer; it was only through me. So still, it was just only me and him coming up with beats and concepts and stuff and after that point, after Suave, we did the independent thing and I produced half of the Space Age Forever album. When we went to Bad Boy, I didn’t really get no production on that. I got on my writing craft because the more I produced, I made hits. But I’m known as a writer and rapper so I can’t get into a pool of producers and start fighting with them. I had to focus on my writing because I know in the end I still have creative control. There’s no use in me bucking the system like, “Naw, I can produce too, man,” and throwing my ego around. It was already umpteen producers trying to get their work in. We went that route but it was cool because we were basically kicking and pulling what we wanted and still coming up with our own concepts. On this new solo joint, I tried to go back hands-on with the production as far as me and my team and just do it like that, because overall most of our albums are produced in-house. In making this solo CD, did you ever imagine yourself not only being around for this long but also being a solo artist? Yeah, I could kind of imagine. Really, that’s all a nigga could do back then. (laughs) That was a part of a nigga making it this far. A nigga could imagine it, a nigga could see it, a nigga was trying to bring that shit to life. The type of energy we were putting into this thing is what got us here. Because we could see this day then and we didn’t let nothing in between deter us. When do you think you started to emerge more
as a solo lyricist? Because early on, when a 8Ball & MJG project would drop, people would just say, “That new 8Ball is tight.” It seems like people didn’t start saying the whole group’s name until On Top Of the World came out. I say around 2000. Even if it might have been before then, I’m just saying that’s how I felt. Really? What was going on in 2000 that makes you really think you started coming into more of your own? I really summed up everything I did through the 90’s. I really calculated everything that I had done through production, to writing, to how I record and everything. I tried to take what I had learned and polish it to make it even better. You know I had to go back and reevaluate who I had become and how I could take this image and sound and the way I speak and flow to another level. That was evaluation time. I looked back on the stuff that I made and tried to analyze them. On each one, I had to be like, “What did I do on this one? How did I improve on this one? What did I learn by doing this?” I tried to add it all up. Since then until now it’s been a whole new mission, straight ahead, Space Age. I know there’s still more mistakes to be made but I feel like the ones as far as my rapping and my creativity that I already made, I believe that I learned from those and helped me create my shit better. Most of your fans only know you through you music since you came out at a time when fans weren’t all up in their favorite rapper’s business. In a time when artist virtually sell their lives, real or fake, do you appreciate the fact that not a lot of people know anything about your personal life? I appreciate that shit and at the same time it’s about how you deal with it when people try to get in your business. People love you, but they have respect you too. A lot fans don’t understand, but it might be a time or a period or whatever that I just want to live my regular life. I might not want to be a superstar like that. Sometimes, how the superstar comes off to people determines how they will treat him back. Some people want to be the superstar that’s in the spotlight all the time, or you can be the superstar that’s not in the spotlight all the time. It’s really up to the superstar on which life he wants to pick or when he chooses to walk that road. I believe the cameras are appropriate for some things but not your whole life. As a grown man in this business do you sometimes sit back and either laugh or just nod your head when you see artists, young and old, fighting for face time? Putting more focus on being known for what they do and not being good at what they do? Yeah, because it’s like, what do you want to do? Do you want to be an actor or a musician? Do you want the music to put you in a position to be able to act sometimes because you’ve got these skills, or do you want to be a musician who started out to be a musician and the acting pays so good that now you only act? Me, I want to be a musician who’s known for being a musician, or an artist or rapper or whatever you want to call it. If I do a movie or two or three or four, I just want to be known for being the musician who’s doing the movie, not the actor who used to be a musician who’s doing a movie. If I’m acting or playing ball or doing whatever, I’m still a musician and a writer. That’s what got me in a position to be able to do any of that other stuff and that’s what it’s still all about. I’m not trying to take over another man’s profession. Other cats out there are gifted in their field just like I’m gifted at what I do. //
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