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oughly two years ago OZONE SAT DOWN with Lil Keke and the rest of Swishahouse to talk about their plans for the future. The city of Houston was excited, and a little skeptical, about the southside artist signing with the northside imprint. All skepticism disappeared when the single “Chunk Up The Deuce” came out and started moving units. Using a sample of his own voice as the hook, Lil Keke displayed his freestyle flow over Michael “5000” Watts
by DeVaughn Douglas screwed & chopped beat proving that the north and southside could work well together.
records so I’ve always been in the situation where I could just drop whenever I want to. I could drop 2 – 3 times a year and be good. You can go look at my history and see that I’ve got 15 or 20 albums.
That single was followed by a feature on Paul Wall’s song “Break ‘Em Off”where Keke showed off his signature flow. Then came the single “I’m A G” featuring Baby, which quickly debuted and charted on 106 & Park. With all the singles and videos coming out of the Swishahouse camp it was expected that Loved By Few, Hated By Many, Lil Keke’s new album, would be out for the summertime. Instead, nothing happened and it looked like the album was going to wind up in the Hip Hop vault where Dr. Dre and Raekwon are keeping Detox and Only Built for Cuban Linx II. Lil Keke didn’t disappear, however, and has been steadily doing shows and releasing mixtapes to appease his fans’ appetites. Lil Keke once again sits down with OZONE to talk about the new album, his place in Hip Hop, and the future of the Houston rap scene.
I think the count on Wikipedia is 18. Yeah. I do albums like mixtapes. You can go pick up my new mixape and it will sound like an album. I mean, albums are so political. I can have $50,000 ready for someone and still won’t be able to get them cleared on a song. I’m the godfather of Paul Wall’s daughter and “Chunk Up the Deuce” is not even on the album because we couldn’t get him cleared.
The obvious question is, what’s going on with the album? It’s in stores now. First off, there was a lot of controversy because I’m not signed with Swishahouse. Me and T. Farris have a deal. We took the deal to Universal, and what people don’t understand is that when “Chunk Up The Deuce” came out I didn’t even have a deal. That was just for buzz. We didn’t get a deal with Universal until maybe about a year ago. At first Universal was not interested in getting behind a street record. The didn’t necessarily want to get behind “I’m A G.” It’s just gotten to the point now where I just want to get it to the fans. This situation is just so different to me. I’ve sold 800,000 independent
Chamillionaire was recently saying he wasn’t able to get a lot of people cleared for one of his songs. Why is that such a problem with Houston artists being that you all are a small tight knit group? It’s the record companies. Paul Wall and I are brothers....and I couldn’t get this man cleared. Asylum, at one point, thought I was signed to Swishahouse and that we somehow had something funny going on. Plus, they felt as though Swishahouse was promoting me through them. I never had a deal with Swishahouse, it was more like an affiliation. When you pick up my record and flip it over it’s going to say TF Records/Universal. Having a major label deal is just different. Even right now I am not Universal’s priority, but can you name anyone from my era that has a deal, puts out videos, still drops albums, and has consistently dropped hits? I feel like the only reason I’m here is because of talent. Talent outweighs everything. I always bring up the Vanilla Ices and MC Hammers to show that there are artists that were here and are now gone. But when you look at a Jay-Z or a Tupac, talent shines
OZONE MAG // 45