face. Why do you feel you’re not recognized along with them? Just the labels and the deals. I sold 300,000 records before I wanted to be a rapper. I did this when it was just a popularity contest. I never did a demo. I’ve never been in a talent show. I never turned a CD over to an A&R. When we shot the “Southside” video we paid $70,000 to do the video just to say we did it. We didn’t know anything about taking a video to BET. We weren’t thinking about going to BET. When more people started noticing the talent I wanted to get more in the game. Most of the time if people don’t respect me as an artist it’s just because they don’t know me. They just don’t know. If they had any idea or clue it wouldn’t be like that.
and sold millions. Alan [Grunblatt] over at Koch apologized to me about that one as well. When I went to Koch, in 2000, they gave me $200,000. I’m 24 years old. I wasn’t worried about no career. I was just doing what I wanted to do.
There are some fans in this city right now that will argue from here to Jay-Z about how talented I am. As the budgets get bigger I’m going to show people the talent that is here in Houston. You just need the money to get out there. For instance, I feel like Jadakiss got the toughest mouth coming from [New York] that I have ever heard. When you hear all the rumors about everyone trying to sign him, like Jay-Z, you believe it because he’s cold. I tell people I’m the Jadakiss of Texas. If Jadakiss had a 50 Cent budget, [he’d be bigger]. To be honest, look at Jay-Z. We didn’t get that talent until Big and Pac left and he started making more noise. The talent was always there but it just has to get out to the people. It doesn’t matter that he took it from 27 – 37 to get his money because when he stops he will be considered one of the top people in the game. When I leave the game I want to be in that position and I don’t care if it takes 15 years.
You say a lot of Houston artists got popular off of your rap. Houston artists are often considered to have limited subject matter. What top-
What was the big difference between the S.U.C. (Screwed Up Clique) and Swishahouse, and how are things now with the S.U.C? Right now I just want to do bigger things with the S.U.C. No more small mixtapes, because we’ve done enough of those. It’s time to get some deals so we can bring them to a national level. That legacy will always be there, but the originals need to come out. There are so many people that are watering down what we created.
ics are you talking about on your album? It’s like this. Jeezy talks all the crack shit that you can hear. But man, that new album got some new crack shit that he be saying and I just love it. (laughs) I can hear about four other people rap about crack but none of them do it like Jeezy. All his bird talk makes me want some Popeyes! I’m gonna touch on a lot of areas on my album but at the end of the day nobody can talk this talk like me. When I rap I paint pictures of the ghetto. You feel what I’m rapping about. I don’t care what I’m rapping about because I’m always going to say it so that I stand out from anyone else out there. I can’t [rap about] dancing and going to parties with tight pants because that’s not my lane. At this point I feel like we have heard everything. Everybody’s got money. Everybody’s got cars. We’ve heard everything. It’s my job to say it in a new way. I’m about to go to work. //
Just imagine what it will be like when the rest of the world gets overwhelmed by Keke the way my own city does. These people are not anticipating this album behind some nursery rhymes. They’re not waiting for this album behind some ringtones. This is talent. This is my job. Right now I can’t walk down the street without getting asked about my album. How many people still get waited on for two or three years? On an old nigga like me? Shit, I got the OG’s in the street so right now I’m just trying to get my new fans, the 15 and 16 year olds that are just discovering Keke. I want my fans to look at this album as a career that’s starting and not one that’s ending. Now that you have to market yourself to a whole new generation are you learning anything from the new school of artists? I’m learning. I’ve learned so much from Paul. How to shake every hand. How to kiss every baby. How to be on time. Paul doesn’t have to write another major rhyme in his life and he’ll still sell records off of his personality alone. Do you feel that you should accept part of the blame for not being as big of a star as you could? Yeah. I took this game as a hustle instead of a career for so long. DJ Screw’s house was just fun. We paid to do those CDs. We wasn’t getting money. The new generation came in getting money, but not us. I had to convince Fat Pat to write his whole album because he wanted to just go in the booth and freestyle the thing. I used to just do a CD for $40,000 cash. I got CDs and verses all over the place. Until I saw my raps selling millions I didn’t think about a career. When I first signed with Koch they said, “Don’t rap like that.” No “coming down” and “swangin.” Then two years later Paul and them came out with my rap OZONE MAG // 47