Although his voice has been heard on all but the very first of Lil Jon & the Eastside Boyz’ albums, most of us wouldn’t recognize Bohagon if we bumped into him on the street. So, much to this photographer’s delight, no antsy, picture-phone wielding, autographdemanding fans interrupted Bo’s photo shoot in downtown Atlanta by the Underground mall. In fact, the only person who did recognize him was a Hispanic teenager working at Johnny Rockets who just happened to glance at Bohagon’s mixtape Gatekeeper to the Other World that was sitting next to his turkey burger. But with his flow catching attention on mixtapes throughout the South, Bohagon is about to be as recognizable as Jon’s pimp cup. It would be safe to assume that you are from Atlanta, but we’re going to ask anyway. Where are you from? Naw, I’m from Talbotton, Georgia. It’s a small town between Macon and Columbus, with about 1500 people. I’m an only child and I moved with mama a lot growing up. But I chose to stay in the country for familiarity. I came to Atlanta in 1997 to stay and hooked up with Lil Jon. How did you end up hooking up with Lil Jon? This guy named Gerald Hall let Jon hear my stuff when Jon was A&R at So So Def at the time and he put me on the So So Def Bass All Stars Volume 2 compilation. The song that I did (“Uh Uhh”) was horrible (laughing). What they would do is record the vocals to a normal beat and then they’d switch it and put a fast beat to it. I hated the song, but that was my introduction to the game. I was 16 or 17 years old. I’m very thankful for it, though. Then Jon put me on the So So Def Bass All Stars Volume 3 (“Drop Dem Bows”). He let me do me on that one, I guess he felt bad from the song I did before. What’s it like working with Lil Jon? It’s been great, man. Jon works hard. A lot of people don’t get to see that because they just see him with the pimp cup on TV. That man had a vision and stuck to it. I remember the days when he first started that crunk shit with “Who You Wit’” and everybody, even me, was like, “I don’t know about this, Jon, this might not work.” But he kept doing it and now look at him. You’ve been in the game for a minute then, so why are we just now hearing you on your own? Me being from the country, I had to learn certain things that other people may have known already. I was a bright-eyed country boy at first. Where I’m from there was no hip-hop scene, so I had to create one. I had to learn by being a fly on the wall. I’m a late bloomer, I’m 25 years old. Some people are early bloomers, some people are late bloomers, but the main thing is that I get to bloom. Now that you are finally blooming, what is your agenda in the rap game? I ain’t no country bumpkin. A lot of people have this perception of the country that I’m trying to erase. People see
videos of the country where niggas playing with pigs. I’m just trying to show people that even though I’m from the country, I know everything that you know. In the country the whole town is poor. You might have projects in the city, but the niggas in the broke down houses are just as poor. My town is the type where the white folks run it but their kids to don’t live or go to school in the town. I feel loyal to the country to the point where I gotta shed some light on it and show the people in my town how to come up and navigate throughout the world. Have you seen any differences in artist loyalty in the county versus the city? In small towns we’re more loyal to our favorite rapper, in the city they’re loyal to the radio. We don’t listen to the radio that much. Like, the new 8ball & MJG album. It may have took three years to come out, but we gonna get it because the last one jammed so hard. In the city the radio make people go with the new flavor of the month, the radio kinda dilutes the game a little bit. Are you prepared for when your songs become “diluted” from getting played on the radio 24/7? Yeah. It’s a double-edged sword. It can help you. But being that I’m so deep rooted in the streets and all that shit ain’t gonna affect me since I put in my groundwork in the streets. And you still are doing your groundwork in the streets. Yeah, I just got back from doing a show in Panama City with Lil Jon. I’ve been in Cancun, California for the Grammys, Denver for the All-Star game, South Padre Island in Texas. I ain’t trying to sleep right now, because once the phone stops ringing, something is wrong. It’s not a whole lot of time for me to kick it with my old lady but she’ll have to understand. Even though you haven’t released a solo album yet, you’ve been around long enough to see a lot of what goes on behind the scenes. What’s
one thing you don’t like about the game right now? One thing I hate about the game, is the labels treat rappers like their on an assembly line. It’s like they are saying, “We got the next rapper coming down the line, we gonna put him with this producer, we gonna get a guest appearance from him, this and that.” I hate the assembly line in rap. I think everybody should be an individual. People should do their own thing. If you don’t mess with that producer, don’t mess with them just to try to get some record sales. If you don’t know that artist, why you gonna let them on your album just to generate some record sales? That’s actually the bad part of the game, that it makes so much money. Sometimes niggas are more concerned about the money than they are about making good music. You have your own label too, right? Yeah, Georgia Durt is a label me and my boy Playboy Tre came up with. People know Tre from the Attic Crew. He’s a CEO and he’s also an artist. We’ve got Mr. Ward and Loony T, who is going to be the first solo artists off the label. Anything else you want to say? I’m just working on getting my album finished. I done knocked out a couple more songs this week, and Jon gave me a whole bunch of beats so I’m tryin’ to decide which ones I’m gonna fuck with. If you’re still wondering where you’ve heard Bohagon, check out his attention-grabbing guest appearance on the intro to Lil Jon & the Eastside Boyz’ recent album Crunk Juice: “Get Crunk,” or the hilarious phone call skit. Bohagon, who is currently working on his debut album, is still undecided when it comes to the name of his project. He’s flirting with the titles A Day Late, A Dollar Short or The Country Superhero. The album features 8Ball, Bun B, and several members of the BME camp. - Interview and photo by Maurice G. Garland OZONE MAY 2005
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