AFTER DROPPING 100+ POUNDS WITH THE HELP OF A GASTRIC SLEEVE, NEWLY SVELTE PAUL WALL AND HIS WIFE CRYSTAL HAVE EMBARKED ON A HEALTH AND FITNESS JOURNEY. OZONE CHATS WITH THE PEOPLE’S CHAMP ABOUT ENTERTAINING THE TROOPS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND HOW HIP HOP CAN TAKE OVER THE GRAMMYS. You’re dropping a Gangsta Grillz today with DJ Drama, right? Do you want to tell us about that? Yeah, it’s all produced by GL Productions which is G Luck and B Don. They did most of Slim Thug’s mixtape and they do a lot of production. I’ve got a lot of Houston artists on there, like Slim Thug, Bun B, and Z-Ro, and new artists like Marcus Manchild, Propain, and Kirko Bangz. Every week we’ve been putting out a new track for Paul Wall Wednesdays; we just give em away, so this is a collection of all those tracks plus a lot of new ones we didn’t release yet. People have different opinions about mixtapes. Some established artists feel like they shouldn’t put out free music because it will damage their album sales. Why did you decide to go that route? Well, we’ve always done mixtapes. Michael Watts always taught me that the sole purpose of a mixtape is for promotion. Even though sometimes you might make some money off it, at the end of the day, the purpose of a mixtape is for promotion. That’s just what he taught me. When we were putting out mixtapes before, we were selling them to make money. Times have changed now; no one sells mixtapes anymore, they just give ‘em away free. So it is kinda hard for me to get used to giving it away; it’s hard to adapt to the new avenues that you use to put out mixtapes. You don’t buy ‘em from stores anymore, the websites are the stores. I’m used to sending them out to stores, so I had to adapt to that. But it’s no pressure involved with a mixtape, you just get in the studio and have fun and give it away to the fans. It’s really for the fans, because I don’t wanna keep them waiting and waiting and before you know it three years has gone by since you put out an album. It’s like a restaurant. If you stop feeding the fans they’re gonna go to another restaurant. People are hungry; 23 // OZONE MAG
they wanna hear your music. And if you feed ‘em too much, they’re gonna get full. You’ve just gotta balance it out. That’s a good analogy. Speaking of Swishahouse, I heard there’s been some internal drama lately. I don’t really know what has been going on at the label, but I know Michael Watts is still putting out mixtapes. As far as Swishahouse as a record label I don’t know, I think it’s back to being what it was traditionally - putting out mixtapes and Michael Watts DJing. But as far as the execs I really don’t know the answer to that. I’m gonna be doing a screwed and chopped version of the mixtape with Michael Watts and hopefully dropping that during SXSW. Speaking of screwed and chopped, the University of Houston has put together a DJ Screw exhibit that runs March through August. That’s pretty major that a major university is acknowledging Screw Music as an art form. Have you been able to check out the exhibit or contribute anything? It’s amazing the type of respect they’re giving to DJ Screw and his contributions to society and music. It’s incredible. Hats off to the University of Houston for doing that. They have 1,000 of his original [vinyl] from his record collection. Some of my favorite freestyles that I grew up listening to, they have the original, exact same vinyl that he was scratching on. There are a lot of things that people donated. I think DJ Chill donated [the vinyl] but a lot of people donated other things. They’ve got old rhyme books, there’s a [drycleaning] hangar with a mixtape tracklisting on it, there’s a notepad with people’s numbers - like Z-Ro’s and Lil Keke’s numbers - it just takes you back to how it was back in the day before cell phones and Blackberries and iPhones and all that. This is how it was. I’m donating the grill that I wore on the cover of The People’s Champ to the exhibit. The exhibit definitely deserves