Talk about your new compilation, Young, Fly & Flashy, Vol. I. It’s just letting everybody know that we are continuing what So So Def has always been. We live off young, new niggas that’s flashy and fly. TYoung, fly and flashy is just the motto of So So Def. From day one, that’s how I came in. “Money Ain’t A Thing.” The whole overall thing was to put people in that mentality. So So Def is going to continue no matter what home we’re in. So to start off our new relationship with Virgin and as our new home, why not put this out, let everybody see the new artists? So the Afroman continues to shine. That’s the mindset of it, but it got more indepth as I started looking at it, because at first I was coming with new artists off the gate like my man Young Capone. But if I come out with a new artist that nobody knows, it’s going to be a little harder to do than to come with an established artist. And I was looking around for the established artist and I couldn’t find one, and then I looked in the mirror and the established artist happened to be me. So I took out a record, “Gotta Getcha,” that I did for my album The Green Light that was supposed to come out through Arista. I said, This record is smoking. It should have been came out. I made this the first single of Young, Fly & Flashy Vol. I and I put myself back on the block as an artist. You’ve got several new artists, like Young Capone, T. Waters, Slim. What was it about these artists that made you sign them? Everybody came to me individually, as me looking for my gang. What can you bring to the gang? You never have enough guns. T. Waters was an artist whose cousin was pushing him heavy at Magic City. I’d see his cousin and he’d say I should listen. I never listened. I never listen to CDs that people give me at strip clubs because nine times out of ten it ain’t no shit that you want to hear anyway. I would take the CD but never put it in. But if you persistent like that, eventually I’m going to check you out. He went over the top. He was really persistent. Every week. I finally put the CD in and I heard this kid’s voice, and I’m like, where he from? I couldn’t imagine he was from Atlanta the way he sounded. Then I started hearing a lot of country slang as well as a lot of up-top slang. Right now, to me 50 Cent sound like a New York country dude. I felt like, this is what the industry’s missing. That’s what Biggie had. He had the connection between the South and New York. He had that down pat. He spoke the same words that MJG & Eightball was talking but he was still from Brooklyn. I signed T. Waters. Young Capone is a little more lyrical than the average crunk artist. Most crunk artists just yell and scream at you. Capone is the epitome of young, fly and flashy. He doesn’t have a record deal and he’s popping shit about how fly he was and how he’d take your girl. I liked it. It spoke to me as young, fly and flashy. He fit that gang. Slim was a young artist from Queens that I brought to Atlanta. He got the flair of the South with the dialect of New York. Do you have a lot more responsibility as head of Urban Music at Virgin? A lot of new responsibility. You got to watch everybody. You got to watch your whole staff and make sure they doing they job. You got to stay on top of them. You got to watch your numbers, the money you’re spending. As an en-
trepreneur, I just rolled reckless. Now I got a job and I got to make sure I keep everybody in line as well as myself. How did you get the position at Virgin? It came from shopping around a deal for me, looking for places to go. I wanted a position like this. I wanted to be the President or CEO of one of these companies. That was my goal. I was looking to be more in control. I feel like I bring a lot more to the table than just making records and giving some advice. I never got a shot to show people. What are some of the lessons you’ve learned over the years in this business? Business is business. That’s the biggest one. That’s a lesson that you got to really understand. That’s like shooting someone in cold blood. I had a friend named Mohammed Bell, Kool’s son from Kool & The Gang. Me and his son were best of friends and he had an artist named ROCC that was signed to So So Def before. ROCC was a great artist but we hit a snag in the business side. We weren’t on the same page with his records. When I left Columbia, I left that artist with them. It was all business. I can’t snag my life for something that don’t work for us. It wasn’t like I cutthroat him. Business is business. I don’t make money unless I put out product that sells. A lot of people want you to put out records just to put them out. “That’s my man, put him out. You my man.” There’s guilt when you have to drop somebody, but it’s business. Hopefully, you can get past it. Anybody that’s young, trying to be an executive, you have to understand that. How do you keep your business and personal lives separate? I’m learning how to leave my pagers off, and turn my phones off. In life, every room has a door. I look at it like the Matrix going down the hallway. If you open the door and bring your phone in there, you’re bringing all the other shit that goes along with the phone in there, into your house. And the next thing you know, it’s all going to be in your house. And it’s going to turn your private
life into, it’s all going to be meshed together. You got to turn your cell off. You got to learn to break it down. A lot of people look at me strange, but you have to. At this point, my girlfriend is from the most famous black family in music and people are always trying to be in her business as much as possible whether because of her brother or brothers. And you can never tell who’s there for the right reasons. When it comes to my private life, I just shut everything down. What do you say to people who say that Southern hip-hop is a fad? I don’t know what that means. What’s the definition of a fad? A fad is only 2-3 years, to me. I made Kris Kross records in ’92. It’s 2005 right now. That’s 13 years. That’s no fad. This is here to stay. The kids in the South, they don’t care. This is good music. This is what they want to hear. If you go to the South, they don’t care about 50 Cent being #1. They want to hear some of that country music. They don’t care if Usher sold eight million records. So what? The Loretta Twins sold 20 million. Country music has its own world. That’s how Atlanta’s going to be in a minute. You go to Nashville and they got their own publishing companies. I feel we should have our own publishing companies in Atlanta. This city is musical. I’m not going to stop until I see that it’s like that. Until everyone in the world understands that Southern music is a non-stopping movement and Atlanta is the new Motown. You have a three-year contract with Virgin, so what’s your three-year plan? My plan is to make Virgin become hot as far as culture and music. Now, people want to work for Virgin. Artists want to sign to Virgin. That’s something that wasn’t going on before I came. People was telling me, “You gonna ruin your career [going with Virgin].” Now I’m sitting in my office, niggas trying to get jobs. Sending me demos. So Virgin is a place that people want to be because of me. Now I just got to sell some records. OZONE JUNE 2005
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