features from a few other artists in the past like Boosie, 8Ball, Young Buck, and OJ da Juiceman. We’ve worked with a lot of people, but I want to brand my own label and my own movement. I wanted to show how we are in the Midwest. I didn’t wanna put a whole bunch of features on my album and nobody gets a feel for me. What’s the title of your upcoming album? I’m not putting out an album yet, but the mixtape is called iHustle. We’re dropping the mixtape and we’re just gonna see what happens from there. We’re gonna drop my second single and then we’re shooting for a [distribution] situation. If everything goes right from there, we’ll have an album out by the summer. How has your background as a CEO helped you as an artist? I’ve done other things before rap. I own franchises. I own businesses. So I was already ready. Becoming an artist was just a transition. Now, like any business, once you do it you’ve gotta get serious about it. Business is all the same [no matter what industry]. You just have to keep it real and watch who you deal with. Like any business, you could get taken. You’ve gotta have checks and balances at the end of the day. Do you think it’s overdue for the Midwest to have a big movement? Of course. There’s been a lot of good people to come from the Midwest. Michael Jackson came from the Midwest. Vivica Fox, Mike Epps – I think even when Nelly came out, it was a new sound at the time, but Nelly’s music doesn’t quite represent the Midwest. If you’re closer to Chicago, they’re more East Coast. But at the end of the day, the Midwest is all the same. Everybody’s real hardcore. So I think it’s time for it to happen. Would you say part of the reason that Munki Boi has been able to be successful is the fact that you have a lot of in-house facilities? Yeah, we do a lot of stuff in-house. That’s what got me going independently, before I started working with Zaytoven or anybody like that. The city is pushing for something like this to happen. I basically put the city on my back to make a situation. It was no big production. It was all in-house production, the beats and the music. We have a studio, a camera crew, [a film crew] Glitch Films, you know, the whole nine. We all work together so everybody can eat. A lot of indie labels have had the same concept, but not everybody is able to pull it off properly. How are you able to be that organized and have everything inhouse? What would you say is the secret? I don’t think there’s one way. I just think everybody was working towards the same goal. A lot of times people are working together but everybody is trying to do their own thing and everybody has a different vision of how it’s supposed to go, and it gets messed up. Everybody [in our camp] was just trying to get a good product and have a good situation. That’s how we were able to get on MTV2 and VH1 – I ended up going back to all the DJs at home, and all the people have supported us. Do you see any other artists in the Indianapolis area aside from your camp who are generating a similar buzz to help out the Midwest movement? Yeah, I think we’re setting a trend for it, though. The ones that are out there have been doing the music and doing their thing for a while. I think we’re kinda setting our own pace, like a Roc-A-Fella or No Limit or Cash Money. We’re that group that’s setting the bar for Indianapolis. There’s a lot of talent in Indianapolis, period, but in the Midwest nobody really rode behind each other’s music or supported each other’s music. In this situation, with my music coming out, the fact that everybody’s behind the music – the West Side, the East Side, the South Side, and the North Side – that’s real big in Indiana because that doesn’t happen. And it’s not just Indianapolis, but it’s also Fort Wayne, Terra Haute, and all the surrounding cities as well that are backing the whole movement. That doesn’t happen all the time. In Chicago, you’ve got somebody like R Kelly from the West Side, but because his music was what it was and he had such a 48 // OZONE MAG
movement, everybody supported. But how often does that happen? There’s millions of people in Chicago, you know? Do you ultimately hope to see yourself in a position like a Nelly or Kanye West, as an internationally-known star out of the Midwest? Or do you see yourself more as an underground representative? Whatever situation comes out of this, I want it to be my own situation. I don’t want to be “like” anybody else. But of course I see myself becoming a star. The thing about it is, everybody wants to hear somebody’s story that they can relate to. I’m sure there’s some people out here that wanna hear the same story you tell them. If you tell them where you come from and how you came out of it, they wanna know how to do the same. There’s a lot of people who have never been to Indiana that think it’s just [fields of] corn. But shit, we’ve got hoods here just like everybody else, you know? All of the “On My Momma” record was done in-house: the beat, the production, the video, everything. I don’t sound like nobody. That doesn’t sound like a down South beat. My record with OJ da Juiceman [“iHustle”] was a good song, but this one [“On My Momma”] is the one that really picked up. This is the one everybody selected. The city was behind it from the jump. I thought the OJ record was gonna be the one [to take off], and this is when OJ’s buzz was really at its peak, so I was thinking it was gonna work. People were feeling the record, don’t get me wrong. But they really loved “On My Momma.” It was the best thing that could happen, though, because now you get a feel for G Fresh and the Midwest, Indianapolis, instead of just me on an OJ song. And a few of your artists are featured on “On My Momma” also, right? Riddles, one of my artists, is the producer on this record. Young Tone, who’s featured on the song with me, is my artist, as well as Gold E. Patron who’s singing the hook. We shot the video ourselves. Do you feel pressure being at the forefront of this Indianapolis movement, like the city is kinda depending on you? Nah, I don’t feel no pressure. I’m used to the pressure. It’s just business. I took it, I embraced it, and put the city on my back. If I do it, I do it. If I don’t, I don’t. Thanks to everybody for supporting the movement. //