Ozone Mag #41 - Jan 2006

Page 55

The Diplomats are all spread out right now on different labels. How is it structured? I’m on Def Jam, Cam is on Asylum, and Jim Jones is on Koch. Jim also has an executive position over at Atlantic. We definitely got a lot going on. I feel like it’s better like that. We’re all powerful artists individually, so we kinda needed that. When you’ve got all of us on one label, it’s like, who’s the star? Who’s the main focus? We’re all stars. We’re not really just a group, we’re a group of stars. With Def Jam focusing on me and Asylum focusing on Cam and Koch focusing on Jim, we can get together and make all three of these labels get together. They got to, cause we together and we ain’t breaking up. We’ve seen a lot of groups come and go and breakup because of egos. What’s the key to sticking together in a rap group? Communication, man. You’ve gotta communicate. But even if there’s ten people, there has to be a leader. I don’t care what nobody says. Like, you could be your own boss, but there has to be a leader. I’m my own boss. Cam allows me to do whatever I want to do, but Cam is the boss when it comes to the structure and the way our situation is run. People get caught up in the “oh-he’s-bigger-than-me” thing, but it’s never that with us. I feel like communication is definitely one part of that. People tend to let situations get out of hand. I got my own career and Cam got his own career, but even when me and Cam get on the road, we never really get away from each other too much. Some crews get away from each other too much and you got this nigga talkin’ in your ear. If you don’t see each other for a minute, you don’t want to believe what you’re hearing, but that shit becomes what it is. You may not even have said nothing, but the shit just escalates. Seriously, a lot of beef starts from real dumb shit like that. I be watching. I’ve seen it. so we try not to let shit like that come in between our crew. We try to keep a tight circle and always communicate. If it’s ever a situation where he don’t agree or I don’t agree, we’re all gonna come to a decision. Everybody wasn’t with me going to Def Jam, but Cam made his own decision and that’s just a decision I had to make. Like I said, Cam is the leader, so if he had said, “We all leaving Def Jam,” that’s what it woulda been. We all our own bosses. Even though Cam is the leader, he gives us our own options. So when the Rocafella situation happened, you basically had the option to stick with Dame or go with Jay? Nah, it’s not really a Dame vs. Jay thing. I never even knew Jay was gonna end up at Def Jam, so it’s so funny that it happened like that. I just wanted to get that machine behind me. Then, Jay happened to become President. So I was like, damn, it’s gonna look OZONE

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