Vinnie Paz: Yeah, it feels good man.  It was hard because every time we wanted to make it everyone else was working on their own projects.  When Apathy first got signed to Atlantic it was a big deal, so we finally had to sit down and say, “Either we are going to do this, or we’re not.”  So it feels really good because its been eight years in the making.

Esoteric:  Its feels good man.  It came to fruition and its an exciting thing.  It’s a different record than what was going to materialize in the late 90′s and early 2000.  The crew has expanded, as some members have left, but it feels great to finally get this album completed.  Its been a long time coming.

HipHopSite.com:  The group has undergone a lot of changes since its conception.  So who was the original crew comprised of for those who may not be up on the Pharaoh’s history?

Vinnie Paz: Initially it was Jedi Mind, Bahamedia, Chief Kamachi, 7L & Esoteric and Virtuoso. That was the crew on the original 12-inch.

HipHopSite.com:  What happened to Virtuoso and Bahamedia?

Vinnie Paz:  The core of the group has remained the same.  Baham is just doing her thing and its still mad love.  The same with Virtuoso.  As you get older you start to focus on your own project, so the by the time we were really ready to record this album things had changed.  Everyone who is in the crew now is a personal friend.  Even back then, Apathy was always involved but he wasn’t on that 12-inch, and the same with Celph Titled.  It was just a natural evolution, that’s how the group progressed over the years.

HipHopSite.com:  Eso, with you being in the original crew, was there ever a point when you believed this album would never happen?

Esoteric:  Oh, definitely.  Its crazy because there would be records like Jedi Mind’s “Animal Rap” and our “Watch Me” song,  and those beats were intended for our Pharaohes album.  So as we kept wrapping up our albums and JMT was wrapping up theirs, it kept looking like the Pharaohes album was getting less and less attention.  Because its so hard to round everybody up since we all have our own careers.  Finally, once Babygrande made an offer, we were able to buckle down and make a good record.

HipHopSite.com:  With so many members, what are some of the struggles you faced in putting this record together?

Vinnie Paz:  It’s been real difficult.  Celph is in Florida, a bunch of us are in Philly, 7L & Eso are in Boston, Apathy is back and forth between Connecticut and New York – so its been real chaotic.  A lot of the producers on this record are from Europe as well.  We have a kid who’s of Korea and he did the lead single, so its been real crazy.  The distance wasn’t the only problem, as there was language problems with the producers as well.  My man Shuko from Germany did beats, this kid Rain from Austria, White Shadow of Norway, so its been a fucking headache man.  We just wanted to get it done because we felt the fans have been waiting for so long.  So yeah, its was fucked up. (Chuckles)  But it came out real good and we are all proud of it.

Esoteric:  Vinnie was pretty much in charge of stuff in Philly and I was in charge of stuff elsewhere.  Tracks that were produced by 7L, DC or Beyonder, those were the tracks that I oversaw.  Stuff that was produced by other dudes like Shuko were put together in Philly with Vinnie overseeing things.  There had to be a couple people planning stuff out since its such a big project.  It wasn’t like it was back in the late 90′s where we were all in the same basement.

HipHopSite.com:  Were there any creative clashes while putting this record together?

Esoteric:  I think everybody put their egos to the side and a strong portion of the record is dedicated to the stuff that all of us can come to an agreement.  The raw battle lyrics is something we are all good at.  Nobody is going to want to hear a song about a girl on an AOTP record, so we kept it hardcore lyrically with lots of creative 16′s.

HipHopSite.com:  I haven’t seen the production credits yet, so what American based producers do you have on the album?  Is Stoupe doing anything?

Vinnie Paz:  Na, Stoupe didn’t do anything, he’s been working on his producer record.  That was the plan from the beginning, when I went off to do this Pharaoh’s record he would work on that.  But 7L did a bunch of beats, Celph and Apathy did a beat each and I think that’s it from the states.  Because we had been touring in Europe so much this year – we were there two or three times – and people were always giving us beats.  And people always do that but a lot of these kids had heat.  So we didn’t really care if they had a big name, we just wanted good beats.

HipHopSite.com:  Yeah, cause the lead single has that Stoupe vibe, so you can’t really tell.

Vinnie Paz:  Yeah, yeah, we were just really looking for grimy shit.

HipHopSite.com:  When I talked to you for the site when the last Jedi Mind album came out you were telling me about Stoupe’s side projects.  You said he was working on that producer project you mentioned, as well as an album with some singer.  Is he still working on that other album as well?

Vinnie Paz:  Yeah, he’s still working on that. (Laughter) His process is a lot different than mine.  He is a perfectionist.  We will record a bunch of stuff or do a bunch of beats and he’ll decide he hates them and throws them all out.  But he’s been doing those projects and now we started to record some stuff for the new Jedi record, so his albums are probably going to be on hold again until we finish this new album.

HipHopSite.com:  What was the recording process like for this Pharaohes album?  Did everyone just send their verses in or was their material being created in the studio together?

Vinnie Paz:  Pretty much half and half.  If we happened to be in the same city together then it worked out that way.  Some songs were recorded together but the verses were redone and sent through computer.  I’m a computer retard, so I was taken out of that process.  But my man Yan, who is our manager, he really helped us with that.  So some of the songs we did together and others were just pieced together.

HipHopSite.com:  What is the vibe of this album?  Is it heavy on the battle tip?

Vinnie Paz:  Yeah, there is really only a couple concept joints.  We were concentrating on making it sound like an early or mid 90′s record – a throwback album. This album is heavily influenced on other crew albums like the Juice Crew and The Wu.

HipHopSite.com:  What are some of those few concepts on the album?

Vinnie Paz:  There is a song called “In The Arms of Angels,” and its me, Crypt (Outerspace) & Faez One, and we are telling three different stories about struggle.  Faez is talking about the struggle of raising his child, Crypt is talking about the struggle of having a family and trying to do this rap shit, and my verse is about me loosing my father in the late 80′s.  Its some deep shit.  We didn’t go there a lot of times because we didn’t want to hit people over the head with too many concept records because this is a crew record.  We just wanted to give them the raw shit.  There is some other political and anti-Bush shit on there as well.

HipHopSite.com:  Since not everybody was in the studio together its kind of impossible to make a lot of concept tracks anyway – right?

Vinnie Paz:  Yeah, absolutely.  With that track in particular, we are all from Philly so it was easy to do that.  We all chill outside of this music thing.  But you are right, if this was a concept heavy record it would have been a lot harder to do.

HipHopSite.com:  How is the distribution of emcees featured on the album?  Is anyone featured more heavily than others?

Vinnie Paz:  In terms of all of us, everyone is on the record a lot.  Off the top of my head, its evenly distributed.  We tried to let everyone get their equal shine.

Esoteric:  Yeah, I think I’m on about six tracks – but honestly I don’t know.  So its definitely a balanced situation.  I think Vinnie its on it the most, whether is a hook or a verse.  He’s definitely the most iconic member of the group who sells the most records.

HipHopSite.com:  Yeah, because sometimes on crew records you’ll have one emcee only featured on like two tracks, so that’s why I was asking.

Vinnie Paz:  Right, right – we tried to stay away from that  Everyone is on at least four tracks.

HipHipSite.com:  Overall, this seems like an album geared toward your hardcore fans.

Vinnie Paz:  Yeah, that is the best way to describe it.  We just made a group record like the Juice Crew or Wu-Tang for our hardcore fans.

Esoteric:  I would definitely say that is true.  Anyone who is getting this album is going to be excited with the final product.  Everybody put forth an A-plus effort and I’m really happy with it.  We don’t compromise our music so people know what to expect.

HipHopSite.com: What’s the current status on the next Jedi Mind Tricks album?

Vinnie Paz:  We have been working on it and we have some joints done already.  I just did a song with my man R.A. The Rugged Man and its about Vietnam.  It came out crazy.  I did a bunch of solo tracks as well.  You are actually the first person to know the title of the album – its called Servants In Heaven, Kings In Hell.

HipHopSite.com:  I know its early, but how’s the vibe of these tracks in comparison to your pervious albums?

Vinnie Paz:  Its real real dark.  Literally, every song we have done is real dark.  I don’t know if that is going to change or not, but everything Stoupe has made is real dark.

HipHopSite.com:  When should we expect to see the album?

Vinnie Paz:  Probably in the fall of this year – probably September.

HipHopSite.com:  I know you and Jus Allah squashed everything.  So is he going to be on the album?

Vinnie Paz:  I don’t know yet but I would like for him to be on it.  As far as any beef or anything, that is dead.  We talked and squashed everything – as far as personal shit.  Creatively, I would love for him to be on the record.  So we’ll see what happens.

HipHopSite.com:  What brought about the sit down to squash everything?

Vinnie Paz:  I think just growing up.  Its not really a complicated story and no one thing really happened to bring about the sit down.  We were friends before the music shit so when we squashed it, I was more concerned with squashing it from a personal level.  We just felt like we had to dead it and go on.

HipHopSite.com:  I remember 3 or 4 years ago the underground scene was really booming.  I’m not gonna name any names, but you had tons of groups and artists releasing amazing material.  And maybe its just me, but it seems as if that movement has really died down the past year and the quality of underground releases isn’t the same.  Do you think this is true and if so, why?

Vinnie Paz: I guess I’m not sure because I really don’t follow it as much as I should.  There was definitely like a boom about four or five years back. So there was a boom with a lot of quality stuff and after that everyone started thinking they could be an emcee.  So after all them good records, a lot of bad ones were released.  After that, the fans started to become a little leery on purchasing things.  When we were younger you knew what you were buying was dope, but now there is so much garbage.  Also, now everyone feels they should be a rapper.  When I was in Cali someone asked me what was wrong with rap and I told them that there are no fans anymore.  Everyone is something nowadays.  Everyone comes up to you after the show and they are either a rapper, a DJ, a producer or a promoter.  There are no fans anymore who just listen to the music.  Everyone feels they should be doing something and it wasn’t like that when I was coming up.

Esoteric:  Yeah, I definitely think that is true.  It sounds conceited, but I’m just not excited with the Hip-Hop that I hear nowadays.  I guess a lot of people say that though.  But at this point, I feel like I’ve heard and seen it all.  I’ve heard every way to flip this type of a punch line or this type of a sample.  You hear it over and over and it gets old.  Its like when 50′s album first dropped everyone loved it.  But if I hear any more 50 now I’m gonna blow my brains out.  I just can’t stand it anymore.  The entire industry is oversaturated.  And just using him as an example right there, I should be using somebody better but he’s the first person that comes to mind because of his impact.

HipHopSite.com:  Do you think a lot of people are afraid to be fans nowadays because they might get labeled as being a groupie?

Vinnie Paz:  Absolutely!  Everything you just said is how I feel now. Everybody misinterprets showing love as some groupie shit.  But when I was a kid it wasn’t like that.  You told someone you feel their shit, gave them a pound and kept it moving.  But now everyone thinks they can rap and make beats so they don’t want to come off as a fan.

HipHopSite.com:  I saw you had a concert with Krs-One recently, how was it rocking with him?

Vinnie Paz:  It was crazy man!  It was sold out. It was obviously an honor to do a concert with Krs, as he was one of my heroes.  We both did really good shows and of course, he’s the “teacha” so he ripped it.

HipHopSite.com:  What’s going on with the next 7L & Eso album?

Esoteric:  Actually, as you called, I was just putting on the finishing touches for our promo copies.  So the album is all finished – we finished it yesterday – and we are very very happy with it.  It is in a different direction than DC2.  We feel like our prior records were one stream of consciousness and this is going in a different direction.  Its exciting for us to be putting something out that people haven’t heard before.  And the album is called A New Dope and is coming out on May 23rd.

HipHopSite.com:  How is the album going to be different?

Esoteric:  I think that is something that each individual listener will have to determine on their own.  I tried to put it into words for the label and to other friends, but I really can’t.  Its not so much on the battle tip, because I got a lot of that stuff out of my system on the AOTP record and my solo album which I’m working on.  But this 7L & Eso album has a lot of conceptual joints and the beats definitely vary in tempo.  Its just stuff that people wouldn’t really expect from us.  There are no guest appearances, except for Kool Keith, which is a rare situation for us.

HipHopSite.com: Overall, tell us your vision for the future?

Vinnie Paz:  I don’t know man; I don’t want to be one of these people who falls off, so me and Stoupe try to keep our swords sharp.  I’m still relatively young, so I would like to keep making records for a long time.  This is all I really know and this is our lively hood.  So in terms of my vision, I really don’t want anything to change.  I want to keep recording music, putting out records and go on tour.  Whether it remains on this level of doing sixty or seventy thousand records or going gold, its all a blessing.  We don’t have to work real jobs and are blessed to do this as a living.  So as long as I can continue to do that I’m happy.

Esoteric:  The main thing right now is the AOTP record and A New Dope.  I also have a solo record coming out after that, but its very tentative, as far as when its going to drop. We also have the Demigodz album in the works as well.

HipHopSite.com:  I heard you guys got about six songs or something like that for the Demigodz album already done – correct?

Esoteric:  Yeah, I’m pretty sure. I know we have a few done.  That is another project that could be looked at like the AOTP one.  It could get banged out as quickly as this AOTP album though.  Because once we got down to it the AOTP album got done quickly.  Its not like you have to write three 16′s just to get one song done.  It just took awhile to get everybody on the same page.

HipHopSite.com:  Say a major label came hollering, would you take that chance on the next level?  Especially seeing what’s going on with Apathy at Atlantic or Little Brother not selling any units?  Would you welcome that challenge or stay underground?

Vinnie Paz:  Well, that’s the thing, the operative word is challenge.  If you get that opportunity you have to challenge yourself and analyze whether you think you can successfully do this.  It hasn’t been done in a long time.  Cypress and Wu-Tang – the early 90′s – was the last time some legitimate grimy shit was selling. Everything goes in cycles in music.  So I think some people are waiting for that grimy music to come back and maybe we are the ones to do it.

HipHopSite.com:  Any last words?

Vinnie Paz:  I just appreciate you guys always letting me speak my mind, its always love.  The AOTP record comes out March 21st – Torture Papers.  New Jedi Mind tricks album – Servants In Heaven, Kings In Hell – Fall ’06.  We will be touring everywhere after that.

Esoteric:  Na, that’s about it.  I’m just looking forward to people enjoying these records that we got coming down the pipeline.

DJ Hi-Tek:  I could say I’ve had a good life, so far.  Cincinnati is a soulful city which birthed a lot of talent, such as Bootsy Collins and Roger Troutman.  And me coming up, I was born in ’76, so that was during the break dancing era.  So I came up in music and Hip-Hop through break dancing.  I was introduced to that when I was seven or eight years old and ever since then its been in me.  The music scene has died down a little, but Cincinnati is a good city.

HipHopSite.com:  How do you think your surroundings or environment helped shape you to be the man you are today?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Cincinnati is one of the realest cities you can ever come to.  You have the corporate level of the city, but when you come to the hood, its one of the realest places.  Growing up in the ghetto made me a real person.  It made me who I am.  Cincinnati has its own way of doing things and I think that rubbed off.

HipHopSite.com: I know you said break dancing is your first memory of Hip-Hop, but was there a specific group or artist you first remember hearing?

DJ Hi-Tek:  I remember the day – I was living in downtown Cincinnati, in the projects, and I remember walking outside one day – I think I was seven years old – and somebody was playing “Planet Rock.”  It just hit me in the soul and that was when the song first came out.  I’m 29 now, but I remember that exact day, believe it or not.  That really inspired me.

HipHopSite.com: What was the one album you always listened to growing up?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Run DMC’s first album – definitely.

HipHopSite.com:  Fans know your story about how you came up and rose to fame, but after you dropped your Hi-Teknology album, it seemed like you took a break and disappeared for a moment.  What happened?

DJ Hi-Tek:  It got real hectic.  Things were going pretty good, but after Hi-Teknology, I went through some things with Rawkus.  They were pretty much my outlet during that time and while I was recording Hi-Teknology, I was also touring for the Reflection Eternal album. I actually took a break from the tour to finish my album, but after that, I went through some crazy stuff with Rawkus.  Some crazy stuff happened where I wasn’t actually signed to Rawkus and my record was doing well – so we went through a lot of feuding.  Like I said, they were my only outlet for people to hear my music at the time.  They were promoting me and putting out my songs, but they were never treating me fair on the business side.  So I had to really break out and do other business moves.  The Hi-Teknology album eventually helped me get a deal with Def Jam Records for one of my artists – Jonell – for her song off Hi-Teknology.  Really, in reality, there was never a single off my album, but that was just the song a lot of DJ’s picked up and started playing.  “Round And Round” by Jonell – who is from Cincinnati – she got a deal with Def Jam from that song.  But at the time, I brought her to Rawkus, so I was going through so much stuff with them and they were really trying to shit on me.  They were never treating me fair on the business side of things.  After that, I broke out, because I thought signing to a major record label would be better.  But in turn, it was actually a little worse, because she got a deal with Def Jam, but I don’t think as a new artist, that she was really ready for that major label push.  I think Rawkus would have been a great place for her if they were willing to do business with me.  The money was good, don’t get me wrong, because I got her a deal with Def Jam and at the same time, I had a major deal with MCA for myself and Hi-Teknology Vol. 2.  So during that time I was recording two albums -hers and mine.  I took her album as more of a priority, but it eventually fell apart because she wasn’t ready for the success and the fast pace of the industry.  So the whole time I wasted doing that album, I missed out on recording Hi-Teknology Vol. 2.  And by the time I got really back into my album, MCA was going out of business.  So everything fell apart.  The Def Jam situation fell apart and Kevin Lyles was leaving – so they dropped a lot of his projects he signed.  MCA then folded in Geffen records and I fell into limbo.  Because nobody knew what to do with a Hi-Tek record at Geffen.  That was basically two years gone down the drain.  I had three albums that I recorded that never came out, all because the business side fell apart.

HipHopSite.com:  Are you still planning on dropping Vol. 2 of Hi-Teknology?

DJ Hi-Tek: Yeah, definitely.  Right now, I’m a free agent and I got off my deal with Geffen.  Thankfully, they let me keep my masters.  So I still got some songs I’m using for Vol. 2.  The album is 75% done, but I just put out a single featuring me, Slim Thug, Talib Kweli and Snoop Dogg.

HipHopSite.com:  So you are just searching for a label deal at the moment?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Yeah, I’m pretty much trying to play the game. I’m glad things happened the way they did, but at the same time, it was kind of bad because people’s perception is, “Where you at?”  They don’t know the behind the scenes stuff going down.  But I’m really feeling Vol. 2 and I’m doing the rest of the record from out of my pocket.

HipHopSite.com:  So far, who’s on Vol. 2?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Right now I have Kweli, Snoop Dogg, Common, Nas, Bun B, Slim Thug, Raphael Saadiq, Mos Def, as well as my artist Deon, Big D, Young Buck…that’s pretty much it right now.

HipHopSite.com:  Nas, huh?  That seems interesting and long overdue, how did you hook up with him?

DJ Hi-Tek:  I first hooked up with Nas when “Round & Round” was out.  That was really a ground breaking R&B record and it hit the New York streets real hard.  That record actually made it to the top without a video or single push.  So when people heard that, it really gave Hi-Tek a second wind after the Reflection Eternal album.  I finally got in touch with Nas one day when that record was hot because he actually just wanted to meet me.  I think musically, it was a mutual respect thing.  So he reached out to me one day in New York while I was staying at the Hudson Hotel. He came threw one day and he wanted to meet me and hear some beats. So we chopped it up and since then I’ve had a relationship with him. I never made none of the Nas albums after that, but he fucks with Hi-Tek.  He always reaches out.  But there was this track that we did called “Music For Life,” and he was going to use it for his album (Streets Disciple) but he never got to finish it so he gave it to me for my record.

HipHopSite.com:  So you were sending beats to him for his last couple of albums and he didn’t pick any of them???

DJ Hi-Tek:  Yeah, he did pick some, but Nas is real picky with the tracks.  The track that he really loved is the one that he gave me back.  Recently, I just gave him some more tracks, but he is really picky man.

HipHopSite.com:  Yeah I’ve heard that,  Alchemist told me the same exact thing.  But one more Hi-Teknology question.  What would you say is the biggest difference between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2?

DJ Hi-Tek:  The biggest difference is musically and lyrically I stepped it up.  I’m rhyming a lot more on this record and the collaborations are bigger.  Its just a bigger record.  Its definitely still Hi-Tek, but its like Vol. 1 to the second power.  Its pretty much a bigger record creatively and my production has stepped up.

HipHopSite.com:  Talking about stepping up your production, from when you first started out with the Blackstar album to now, how would you say your production has evolved?  Is there anything specific you would say you have gotten better at?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Actually, I think I have gotten better technically.  I actually miss a lot of the patience I used to have.  The technology actually makes you move faster.  You have people who are making records on straight computer based programs, so it makes the entire industry move faster now.  But I’m a sampling person.  I used to sample all my drums!  I had to go through tons of records to finds snares and kicks and come up with these certain sounds.  I guess I consider myself old school, but now these producers get CD’s of nice sounding drum kits – they give away drum kits.  So I just miss the patience I had.  Now you have Pro-Tools and you get spoiled on how fast it moves.  When I was recording Hi-Teknology and Reflection Eternal, we were using two inch and a lot of patience was involved.  There was a lot of creativity involved and you really had to think about it and put your foot into it.  Now I put my foot into it, don’t get me wrong; but I just miss the whole creative patience of making music.

HipHopSite.com: When you guys were first working on the Blackstar album, did you know that you guys were onto something big and that this may start a new underground movement?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Man, I actually didn’t.  This was stuff we were doing in our sleep.  I think we knew we were really dope, because when we were doing shows, we were killing it.  I knew when Mos and Talib collaborated it was going to be ground breaking. They started out doing their solo thing, but when they came together, it was special.  And they let me do my thing as well, because I was a starving producer at the time.  I had all this shit built up that I needed to get it out to the people.  I knew it was going to hit the people, but I didn’t know it was going to hit them like it did.

HipHopSite.com: Do you think in the beginning fans only got to see one aspect of your production skills and now through working with artists like G-Unit and that whole camp, you have shown them another side?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Yeah, I think so.  I think the game has gotten so separated to when die hard fans take things the wrong way sometimes.  Its all music at the end of the day.  So its like another side of me, but its also a challenge for me.  It was really a challenge for me to break out of that whole, “Tek only produces for the Kweli, Mos and Common type of people.”  I like G-Unit, Dre, Eminem and D-12, because they are not only selling records, but they are still creative.  Its still Hip-Hop, but people perceive it as a different brand of Hip-Hop.  When you listen to the tracks, its still the same Hi-Tek beats, its just a different person rapping on it.

HipHopSite.com: You touched on fans having to adjust, because in the beginning, some feel that you were a symbol for underground Hip-Hop and every backpackers favorite producer.  What did you think of that?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Man, I loved it!  I love it still to this day.  They call it underground because its before you surface.  I was making hit records that sounded better than the stuff on the radio, but I didn’t have a name yet.  That’s what made me underground and allowed me to work with a G-Unit or Dr. Dre.

HipHopSite.com: I heard that you and Kweli are going to do another Reflection Eternal album, is that true?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Yeah, definitely.  We are starting right now.

HipHopSite.com:  How is that coming along so far?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Its going good.  Kweli just helped me put together this mixtape actually.  We also came to an agreement that he is going to help me finish Hi-Teknology Vol. 2, then after that, we are going to really get into this Reflection Eternal album. But we have already started to record a couple songs.  We are trying to build our relationship back up and make it stronger again.

HipHopSite.com:  Why wasn’t the relationship as strong the past couple of years?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Truthfully, it was me being me.  I’m a real person and I’m not a sucker – at all.  I think a lot of times, this whole industry is built on kissing ass.  I’m not good at that and Rawkus Records was pretty much at its end when they started fucking over artists like me, Mos and the people who helped create them.  Rawkus helped tear us apart.  Rawkus added fuel to the fire between the disagreements that me and Talib already had.  So I had to make my decision on what I wanted to do.  It started when Hi-Teknology came about and we were on tour for Reflection Eternal.  We were on our third tour, which was with Erykah Badu.  But it all started three or four years before Reflection Eternal when I was doing a beat compilation for Rawkus.  That was supposed to be our instrumentals and a couple songs.  But they put that on the backburner and we moved on to the Reflection Eternal album. As you know, the album was well received – ground breaking – and it really took off.  But Rawkus wanted to make more money off the Hi-Tek name, so they wanted to put out that compilation that I previously mentioned.  But with me having integrity, I was like, ‘I’m on tour.  Why would you guys put something out of lesser quality than what people are hearing now?  Why are your dumbing down Hi-Tek?’ I always felt like they were trying to kill my success.  I know how people perceive my music, so I wanted to polish the album up, but I was also on tour at the same time.  So I explained to Kweli the situation and told him, ‘Rawkus is about to put this album out that is not Hi-Tek.  So I am going to set aside on this tour so I can finish this record.  I want it to sound good.’  And once I did that and left the tour, a lot of things went haywire.  Rawkus was trying to ruin my name, so I felt that I had to take time out to fix the album so I could keep my name in the game.  Which it did, because the record was well received.  But I had to make some tough decisions.  Because if I would have stayed on the road and just been a Kweli DJ without really expressing my production….because on the road I always told Rawkus, ‘I need a bus with equipment.  How am I going to create this next album without producing these beats.’  Because I don’t make beats over night and I put a lot of time in them.  Therefore, I felt I had to be in creative mode all the time.  And in order for me to be who I am today, I needed to take time out to do the production on the album and polish it up.  So I went through so much just to get Hi-Teknology Vol. 1 done.  And that is how me and Kweli’s relationship turned, because he kind of took it the wrong way and Rawkus explained the situation to him the wrong way.  Rawkus didn’t really support Hi-Tek in the fashion that I was a stand alone producer who needs to work.  Therefore, I took it upon myself to make things better myself.  In the end, it worked out for all of us, because if I didn’t take the initiative, I would have just been a road DJ.  But at the time, a lot of people didn’t see it that way.

HipHopSite.com:  How has the vibe been while recording these new songs with Kweli?  Is it similar to the last Reflection Eternal album, or is it a new level?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Its definitely a new level man.  We are just in the studio doing what we do and I think our chemistry alone has created a new vibe.

HipHopSite.com:  Do you feel any pressure, since the first was a classic and anything less fans are going to end up feeling disappointed?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Man, not at all.  I am so Hi-Tek its crazy.  This is going to be the next level of Reflection Eternal – bottom line.  I am confident in what we can do.  I know its going to take me and Kweli to really sit down and do this record to make it just as good as the first one.

HipHopSite.com: When I spoke to Kweli after the release of his last album (Beautiful Struggle,) he was talking about the mixed responses he got from it.  Do you think its fair that no matter what he does, he is going to be compared to the Reflection Eternal and Blackstar albums?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Whether its fair or not, that is just the reality of it.  It’s the same thing with me.  Until I actually get a couple of singles on 50′s record or another artist, they are always going to associate me with Talib.  I think you really have to give the people what they want and if you don’t do that, then you are basically creating new fans and leaving your old owns behind.  That in itself is a whole other road.

HipHopSite.com:  Speaking of 50, the track you did for him “Ryder Music” sounded very similar to Game’s “Running.”  Was that intentional?

DJ Hi-Tek:  It wasn’t really intentional, but it was just the mode I was in at the time.  I’m working with this artist Deon and he helped me create both of those tracks.  Those are two vocal tracks, which is kind of like my new ingredient.  I guess I can put it out there right now before someone bites my shit.  That is one of my chambers or styles, to create a vocal based track that has continuous vocals or melodies – not actually saying words – but melody vocals with drums and keys over it.  So both of those are vocal driven tracks, which is a new idea and style I came up with.

HipHopSite.com:  I know you get this question all the time, so let’s just touch on it briefly.  Fans are pretty much convinced there is never going to be another Blackstar album again, so is there any chance it will happen?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Man, there is definitely a chance, its just a matter of somebody like me to try and get it done.  Try to.  I think its really up to Mos right now.  Its up to him, because I think me and Kweli are ready.  Mos is real busy doing movies right now.

HipHopSite.com:  Who else have your recently worked with?  Which albums can we expect to see your beats on?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Right now, I got something coming out with Styles P called “Testify,” which features Kweli.  I got a couple tracks on Busta’s new album as well.

HipHopSite.com:  I was also reading in another interview that you were working with Dre on Detox.  Is that true?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Right now, Dre is giving me a slot to do a track for the Detox album.  I haven’t really came up with it yet, I’m still working on the tracks.  I’m pretty much a young Dre, so I know what he’s thinking.  He’s real patient with his album and that’s how I am with my Hi-Teknology albums.  Everything has to be right and Dre is just taking his time.  But he is definitely giving me a slot and I have been part of his production team for about two years now.

HipHopSite.com:  Is it easy for you to go into West Coast mode like that?  Because I know Game’s “Running” felt like one the best West Coast beats on the album.

DJ Hi-Tek:  Truthfully, Hi-Tek is a Midwest sound, so I don’t go into it like, ‘I’m gonna make me a West Coast track.’  I just be in that mode and sometimes it comes out sounding like West or East Coast, or dirty South. That is just the way I grew up and I’m inspired by all genres of music.  I consider the Midwest all in one and that is what Hi-Tek is all about.

HipHopSite.com:  Overall, what is your vision for the future?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Man, right now my vision is to start a record label and keep putting music out.  I just want to create a label where everybody has a similar sound as mine – sort of like a Mo-Town.  I’m gonna have other producers and artists under my wing that I’m grooming.  So that is my vision – to have a record label with my sound.

HipHopSite.com: Any last words?

DJ Hi-Tek:  Definitely be on the look out for the Hi-Teknology Vol. 2 – it’s a great album that is musical medicine.

     Win, Lose Or Draw falters by attempting to manufacture sappy R&B crossover hits.  On “Haven’t Found,” Pras unsuccessfully lifts the hook from U2′s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” while proclaiming to be a “freedom fighter” for the people.  “Dreamin’” finds Mr. Ghetto Superstar yearning for a love long gone, as Pras stumbles with lines like, “If you are trying to have a future, I suggest you should trust me/You know me, I’m going to give you the best advice.” 

     In addition, Pras calls on a lot of familiar faces from his Universal Record family to help him strike it rich with a hit.  Akon is unable to provide such success on “Mr. Martin,” as Pras’ nonsensical rhymes take center stage with lines like, “My wordplay is like arts and crafts.”  For the reggae fans out there, Sean Paul drops by on the predictable “Dance Hall.”  While the production provides an authentic reggae feel, Pras sounds misplaced over the track’s thunderous drums and blazing sirens. 

    Win, Lose Or Draw is a hard pill to swallow for any Fugees fan.  Pras has not aged gracefully on the mic and his sophomore album is proof.  Luckily, for Pras, all of his mistakes will be forgotten if The Fugees can produce a stellar reunion album. 

HipHopSite: I just want to go back and talk about your history in this game, especially for people reading this interview who may be too young to remember Poor Righteous Teachers. I know you have repped Trenton, New Jersey, to the death over the years.  So what was it like growing up in that environment?

Wise: Have you ever seen that movie City Of God? Well, Trenton is like that.  Its like a little box, and poverty is at an all time high out here.  Fifty percent of the youth around here are living below the poverty line.  The government has been cutting the programs, so there is no social assistance down here for the youth.  There is really nothing for them to do, so they are joining gangs now.  Bloods and Crips are real big over here now.  So the youth is wildin’ out now, but it used to be aight.  It’s a typical ghetto, the same story across America.  It’s a bunch of poor kids trying to find a way out, and that frustration and hopeless is internalized.  So it spills out in the form of black on black crime.

HipHopSite:  So when you were growing up there it was a little better than what its like now?

Wise:  No doubt.  It was all good until crack came.  Once that came it destroyed everything.  But I remember before that, things were good.  I was young at the time, like 11 years old, and I was able to walk all over Trenton without encountering any beef or violence of any sort.  I didn’t risk my life walking from one side of the street to the other.  But now you can’t even walk to the corner store to get some ice cream its so bad.  But when I was growing up there wasn’t a lot of crack or guns in the streets.  You could have a fair fight with somebody, knuckle it up, and get it over with.  But nowadays, you will loose your life because you looked at somebody wrong, or you wore the wrong outfit in the wrong neighborhood.

HipHopSite: What is your first memory of Hip Hop?

Wise: Wow!  I wanna say the Sugar Hill Gang with “Rappers Delight”.  That whole movement was it.  That was the first rap record I heard on so called “mainstream radio”.

HipHopSite: How did you first get into rhyming?

Wise:  I was always into Hip Hop, because Hip Hop is who I was.  I was into break dancing and graffiti.  I was tagging, burning walls up, dancing, the whole nine.  So going into rhyme was inevitable for me, because I wanted to learn all the elements of Hip Hop.  The only thing I didn’t get into was DJing, because it seemed a little too complicated.  Plus, turntables were a little too expensive for me. (Laughter).

HipHopSite: How did Poor Righteous Teachers form?

Wise: I knew Culture all my life, and he was DJing and producing at the time.  So we just started to make songs and the chemistry was there.  But I knew Culture long before we started the group, so we were real tight, and our families were close.  And Shaheed, he lived on the other side of town.  So he just fell into place when things started to materialize.

HipHopSite:  How did you guys start to make a name for yourself, and get your foot in the Hip Hop door?

Wise:  It all started in our neighborhood.  We started on the street level and were making tapes out of Culture’s apartment in the projects.  We all lived in the same project buildings – Divine Land, Red Brick City.  We were just bangin’ out tapes and heads started to take notice. So we became the hottest group in Trenton, which lead us to hook up with this kid, Eric “I.Q.” Gray.  He has his own record company, North Side Records, and he lived in the projects as well.  So we put out a 12 inch on his label and it popped off.  DJ Red Alert eventually heard it and he spinned it relentlessly.  So Red Alert helped us get that break into the mainstream of Hip Hop.  But it all started on the street level.  You need to have that foundation, because that is where your story is at.  And every rapper without a story eventually falls off.  You will never be in the people’s memory if you don’t have a story or solid foundation.

HipHopSite: For those younger fans reading this, can you explain what Poor Righteous Teachers stood for and your message.

Wise: Our message was to combat poverty and ignorance!  We figured that all of the problems facing our people was based upon poverty and ignorance.  So once we could accommodate the people’s immediate necessitates – food, clothing, shelter, and things of that nature – then that will erase the poverty aspects of their lives and in turn give them some type of political orientation.  Then that would dissolve the ignorance.  Our whole thing was to disseminate as much positive information as we could, in order to build our people up on an economical and spiritual level.  And we are still about that to this day.  Its about killing poverty and ignorance because that is what’s killing the people right now.

HipHopSite:  What was the personal meaning or significance behind the name Poor Righteous Teachers.

Wise: Poor Righteous Teachers represent that small percentage of the population who don’t believe in the teachings of the ten percent.  That ten percent are those who control the mainstream and the large majority of the people, and in turn, enslave them.  We don’t follow the teachings of the ten percent.  We don’t follow the Bush administration.  They who represent the ten percent desire to spread propaganda to control the public mind and enslave the poor people of the planet.  And that’s what’s happening, we see this.  The Poor Righteous Teachers are those who see this going down, and they exhaust their man power, wealth, and resources to try and combat it.

HipHopSite: Do you feel Poor Righteous Teachers were overlooked by other political artists such as Public Enemy, Ice Cube, and Brand Nubian?

Wise: I don’t think we were overlooked, because I feel we were definitely recognized by other rappers.  Our peers took notice, because you can hear some of our jargon in their manifestations.  But as far the industry goes and things of that nature, you have to understand how it was back then.  New York and LA were very big and powerful cities with large bases to launch from.  Trenton, for example, we have to go to someone else’s turf just to get radio play.  We had to go to a whole different market, because there is no mainstream radio in New Jersey.  So the Jersey artist is forced to deal with other heads and markets all the time.  And all the artists you named were from very big markets that had radio, and could develop artists to that degree and extent.

HipHopSite: Do you feel you guys set the blueprint or foundation for other Jersey groups, such as the Fugees?

Wise: Wow!  I don’t know if Wyclef is Jersey or Brooklyn, because he says Brooklyn a little more than Jersey.  So I don’t know where he is from yet.  But we definitely contributed to what a lot of those artists became, which is a good thing.  But the point is, whether I believe it or not doesn’t matter.  Its when they get on BET and act like they have created some type of original bean pie. (Laughter)  And they know they got the receipt from a Poor Righteous Teachers cook book.

HipHopSite: What is the status of Poor Righteous Teachers right now?

Wise:  We build everyday!  Right now Shaheed is in Brooklyn, and he has his own production crew called The Fugitives.  Its Father Sheed, Peter Panic, and a bunch of other heads.  They are doing some big things over there.  Culture, he is in Tennessee right now running a youth group.  He is trying to recruit the youth out of the streets and teach them something different.  But we are about to get together and work on a new record, so its all good with Poor Righteous Teachers.

HipHopSite: I remember Ice Cube saying as Hip Hop progressed in the mid 90′s, fans really did not want to hear political Hip Hop anymore.  Did you see that?

Wise:  I don’t know if they didn’t want to hear political Hip Hop, but I saw the mainstream media, record labels, and radio stations pushing in the direction of the gangsta rhyme.  It wasn’t that they didn’t want to hear it, because think about it, the Fugees sold some 10 million records in the same era, when the gangsta rap was starting to pop off.  And Lauryn Hill sold some seven million records.  Even today, Kanye West sold a couple of million. So its not that they don’t want to hear it, its that their opinion is being controlled by the propaganda matrix.  You have to pay attention to that!  Opinions are being bought, and souls are being sold.  That is what is controlling the market, in terms of where its going.  I was there, I was on Profile when the gangsta rappers started to come into play.  I was there when the companies attention, drive, and focus was being shifted from the conscious emcee to the gangsta emcee.  DJ Quik was signed, and a lot of money was put into him.  So I saw this gangsta rap thing coming.  So what you have to understand is, the ten percent who control the masses and get rich off of their enslavement, they need the masses to be as ignorant as possible.  They need them to be out here gun clapping and gang banging.  And just as you see all the kids mobilizing into gangs today, back then you saw all the kids mobilizing into revolutionary groups based on Black Nationalism, or whatever it was.  You had A LOT of kids out here wearing African medallions, who were politically conscious.  That is something that they didn’t want to happen, so they had to change the game.   It happens all the time!

HipHopSite: Music wise, what is the biggest difference between Hip Hop now, and the Hip Hop you were involved in during the early 90′s.

Wise: It was more balanced!  You would get a larger variety of music and ideas as a consumer or fan.  With today, you are getting one message all the time – clap a nigga, shoot a nigga, get rich or die trying.  That is all you get over the radio!  “Dammit girl, get down and get your eagle on.  Shake your ass, move that thing”.  That’s all you get!  All day, one message.  But back then, you had a variety of songs.  You had your songs about getting some ass, but you also had ones about being radical, being a Black revolutionary, or being a member of Islam.  There was a wide variety and balance, as you had rappers representing the entire spectrum of opinions. But now there is only one opinion on the radio.  So that is a big problem.

HipHopSite: I read a quote of yours and you said “Our basic premise is, you don’t have to sin to be successful”.  Do you think that is all but gone nowadays, considering artists are using beef, marketing ploys, and gimmicks to sell records.

Wise: Oh, definitely!  But its not really the artist’s fault.  The artists has some responsibility, but you have to understand who the artist is. They represent that fifty-percent of the American Black youth who come from nothing!  The same youth who markets himself in a derogatory way, or in a violent way to sell records, is the same youth who was selling crack a minute ago because he has nothing!  So to what degree can you blame a victim?  So it’s a catch 22 for a young black man coming from Trenton, or any other ghetto in America.  If you are coming from a situation where you have nothing, its hard to turn down two hundred and fifty thousand dollars because you don’t want to market yourself as a gangsta.  Give me a break!  Anybody will act like a gangsta in a minute for that money.  So if these labels would put as much money and backing behind a conscious idea, then you would see all these rappers doing something positive, like in the era we grew up in.  You had labels actually putting money and support behind conscious ideas.  So you had more artists writing in that framework.  But since the labels shifted their focus to gang bangin’, now all the emcees coming up think they have to be gang bangers to sell records.  That is what’s dominating the large majority of the airwaves. So the poor kid is controlled by the wealthy land owner, lets put it that way.  The slave is always controlled by the land owner, so he is always going to do whatever he wants him to do to sell records.

HipHopSite: Ok, lets move onto your new album.  Tell us about The Talented Timothy Taylor.

Wise: The title speaks for itself!  This album is going back to the days when the best artists were determined by their level of talent, as opposed to your marketing value.  These days you have a lot of artists who are heavily marketed, but lightly talented.  If we were basing who the best rapper was on sales, then MC Hammer would be the greatest of all time.

HipHopSite:  And Vanilla Ice.

Wise:  Exactly!  They would be in the top 5 emcees of all time if it was based on how many records you sell.  So we have to be very mindful of that.  Its not about records sales, its about talent.  Now you have DJ’s getting on the tables doing things nobody thought could ever be done.  Everybody can’t be a DJ, it takes talent.  The same thing with being an emcee, not everyone can do it.

HipHopSite: Why types of concepts, issues and topics are you going to be dealing with on this album?

Wise: I’m touching on a lot of stuff.  But message wise, I wanted to put myself in the shoes of the young black male in America’s ghetto, who has a sense of hopelessness.  And that hopelessness being internalized and spilling out in the form of self destruction.  So what I did was, I kind of became that 19 year old kid, Hip Hop fan, or emcee.  And being that individual, their only option out the hood is this Hip Hop game.  So fuck everything else!  And I broke it down through that perspective so people can understand where he is coming from.  Because that 19 year old kid has to overcome insurmountable odds to make it.  So this album shows both sides of the story.  It’s a real clever album, and its well crafted.  I’m touching on a lot of issues from poverty, ignorance, monogamous relationships, Bush’s administration, population control, to all types of things.

HipHopSite:  When is the release date for the album?

Wise:  It will be out this summer.  Right now we are trying for a June release, but worst case scenario it will be out in August.

HipHopSite: What label is it coming out on?

Wise:  Intelligent Music, which is through independent distribution.  Right now are we talking with a couple distributors.  We are talking to Mega Media, Navarre, and some other big ones.

HipHopSite: Who is doing the production?

Wise: We have everybody!  We got Madlib’s brother Oh No, from out in Cali, he is a beast!  Also, Jamal Pierre, Trackzilla, Daddy Ice, and P.J., who gave me some big records.  And besides Oh No, everyone else represents the Have Nots Crew, which is a production team that works closely with us.

HipHopSite: Any guest appearances?

Wise: There will be absolutely no guest appearances from Puffy Combs, MC Hammer, or anybody else.  That is another thing I wanted to get back to, I didn’t want to make a compilation record.  I’m not having any guest appearances on this album.  I want to take this album back to when it was about the artist.  How are you going to find out who the Talented Timothy Taylor is if you have a million other dudes on the records.  So this album is a journey through my life, and a walk in my shoes only.  Besides, I can’t afford to pay them fifty g’s to spit 16 bars on my shit.  I can’t afford to pay the Neptune’s.  (Laughter)  But if they let a nigga hold something, I would greatly appreciate it.  I’m from the hood man, I can’t afford to pay Snoop Dogg to get on my album.  I’m in a situation where I have to sell crack in order to make records.  Because I have to pay the DJ, program director, street team, everybody.  All of that just so my record will get noticed.  I can’t afford to pay all of that, plus the drum machines, studio time, and all of that.  Man, I barely got enough to pay for ink and loose leaf paper.

HipHopSite:  What do you think about the current state of New Jersey Hip Hop?

Wise:  Jersey is the same as its always been.  Jersey is the dirty orphan of Hip Hop, the red headed step child who always has to force the issue.  Us in Jersey, we have to get out and force the issue.  We can’t expect things to come to us.  We have to got to your party forty deep, raising hell, starting fights, and kicking over turntables for niggas to recognize that we exist. We have to do things that like sometimes.  When Poor Righteous Teachers first started, we came with forty heads on our way to Brooklyn.  We were Dirty Jersey!  Cats were telling us all the time that they wanted to book us for a show, but could we please leave our crew home because we were tearing up shit.

HipHopSite: Are there any artists out there right now that you feel carry the touch or represent what Poor Righteous Teachers stood for?

Wise:  There are a lot of cats, but they aren’t getting no burn.  Cats like Immortal Technique, Saigon, and Quan, who runs with Nas.  Of course, Talib Kweli and Common, they are still doing their thing.  I just think that there is nobody out there that is saying, ‘Look, this ain’t no flower movement.  This is a movement we are willing to die for and kill for at the same time’.  Because it is bigger than just a rap song.  There is more at stake than a nigga moving outside of the ghetto.  Its about collective responsibility, cooperative economics, and things of that nature.  And if that is not being projected in your message, than eradication is inevitable for you.  That is why the conscious emcee or the ghetto political rapper, they have to be a unit.  I’m from the same ghetto that everybody else is from.  Everybody is yelling their projects out, like ‘Marcy this, Watts that’, but we are all from the same ghetto.  Just because I am on something positive doesn’t mean you should take me lightly.  So sometimes you have to crack a nigga over his head to make him understand that the penalty for your actions is swift.  Sometimes you have to get like that, and roll out like a gang.  It has to be a movement, like the Black Panthers.  They were a movement!  They weren’t running around putting roses in a nigga’s lapels.  Black Panthers were running with 12 gauge shotguns like what!  Do not cross this line, you do not want it with us!  And that is what I’m saying, because there are no conscious or political rappers out there drawing their line in the sand.  That is why a lot of these conscious emcees are not respected, and they need to be.  Ain’t nobody respecting a soft ass movement.  Even Jesus Christ told his disciples, ‘Any of you guys who have valuable merchandise that are rolling with me, sell it and get yourself a sword’.  That was a revolutionary movement going on right there.  Their whole goal was to overthrow Roman imperialism in Judea.  They weren’t flower boys running around throwing petals on the ground.  And if you have a whole nation of niggas running around today ready to die for what’s wrong, than where are the positive cats willing to die for what’s right?  That’s the problem, dudes be looking soft!

HipHopSite: What else do you have going on in the future?

Wise: I’m working on a couple of community programs right now.  One of them is called Intelligent Kids, which I’m trying to get off the ground as we speak.  Basically, we are going to try and take youth from the hood and bring them into the music industry as owners of their copyrights, masters, and give them a full enrollment into the music industry from an owners perspective.  We wanna help them avoid the traps that a lot of us fell into during our early years in this music industry.  So that movement is going to be really strong.  I’m also trying to start this society of young black leaders, sort of like the boy scouts, and teach them how to survive.  Teach them how to shoot a rifle, how to raise their families, and how to do real things.  A lot of these kids out here have never even been fishing.  Some have never taken a step outside of Trenton, so we want to change that.  I really wanna take a group of kids and take them to Africa, let them see something different.  Take them to South America, and let them sit down with some kids in an orphanage down there.  So they can get some political orientation instead of all this gang bangin’.  And that’s real!

        The Purple City Byrd Gang, consisting of underground veteran Agallah, Shiest Bub and Un Kasa, is an offshoot of Harlem’s super group The Diplomats.  For the past two years, Purple City has flooded the scene with eight mixtapes, selling close to 80,000 copies.  Road To Riches is a culmination of their hard work over the years, as the album features the best material from their eight mixtapes.  However, unlike their counterparts, The Diplomats, Purple City lacks the charisma and catchy song making that has made Dipset a nationwide street movement. 

       Going into a Diplomats or Purple City album and expecting to hear great lyricism is foolish.  Even though the Diplomats lack lyrical dexterity, their unique flare, style, and charisma ooze out of every track.  Not to mention their outstanding beat selection, which always helps their cause.  However, Purple City lacks any of those traits.  Road To Riches is a generic gathering of various mixtape joints that fail to be entertaining.  The production aspect also disappoints, as Agallah and other in house producers handle most of the album’s beats. 

       These shortcomings are seen throughout Road To Riches, as the majority of the mixtape is plagued by mistakes.  With his amateur rhyme scheme, the irritating and squeaky voiced Shiest Bub sounds misplaced over the Latin influenced horns of “Broadway”.  Un Kasa does not fare any better with “Copz Iz Coming”, a simplistic synthesizer production effort that suffers from a case of the lame hooks disease.  The generic ladies anthem of “Late Night” by Un Kasa is another forced effort that sounds completely contrived.  In addition, the group collaborations of “Real Niggaz”, “Roll It Up, Light It Up” and “Come 2 Get Ya” all fail to offer any replay value and are simply dull street efforts.

      Mistakes and all, Road To Riches does manage to sneak in a few vintage cuts that succeed due to spectacular production.  The edgy guitar riffs and hypnotizing vocal sample of “It Ain’t Easy” takes a bite out of the Diplomats style, as the production elevates each emcee to a bearable level.  Not surprisingly, the album’s best songs come from similar production efforts.  “Winning” is a prime example, as Un Kasa and Bathgate blend well over the combination of a melodic vocal sample and light piano keys.  The mixtape classic “Purple City Byrd Gang” also makes its way onto Road To Riches, as the track’s hard-hitting drums and creepy chanting ends up as Purple City’s best track to date. 

      Even for diehard Dipset fans, Road To Riches is a below average release that does little to prove the trio’s worth.  The group lacks the necessary chemistry and charisma needed to make them stand apart from their Diplomat counterparts.  Purple City can be entertaining when they are on the receiving end of some great production.  However, those attempts are far and few in between, making Road To Riches just another mixtape.

    While The Testament may not rival The True Meaning and The Realness, it is an intriguing look at the early days of a rising emcee.  It is evident how much Cormega has grown since The Testament, as his delivery and song making has improved.  Even though The Testament is proof that Cormega has matured as an emcee, the album still provides that gritty and uncompromising edge. 

      The Sha Money XL produced “Angel Dust” personifies the Queens Bridge sound perfectly with its haunting piano loop and murderous lyrics.  Mega comes out swinging on the track, with lines such as, “The crime-matic mind, my rhyme status shines, like a nine matic.  Yo, I’m Scarface for real, I wanna die blasting.”  Mega’s over the top Mafioso storytelling on “Dead Man Walking” continues to display his raw hunger, as does the mixtape classic “Montana Diary”.  Mega then smoothes things out with the thug love of “Coco Butter”, and the introspective “Love Is Love”, which utilizes the same sample of Killah Priest’s “B.I.B.L.E.”.  However, The Testament’s true hit of nostalgia comes from Mega’s response to Nas’ Illmatic letter on “One Love”. 

     The Testament is Cormega’s way of closing one chapter in his life and moving onto the next.  The album displays Mega’s young and energetic hunger and is a welcomed edition in Queens Bridge history.  While the album lacks the depth of The Realness and The True Meaning, it gives the listener a portal into Cormega’s past and some closure after all these years. 

The passing of ODB is a tragic lose.  ODB’s death just showed us how mortal we all are.  It can happen to anybody.  But ODB’s death also left me feeling repulsed at some of the radio stations in New York, because I don’t feel he got the attention he deserved.  I turned on the radio the day he died expecting to hear a lot of his songs but they were playing the same old bullshit.  Its just a tragic thing.

HipHopSite: That was going to be my next question, because it seems that even the Hip Hop media doesn’t care.  They gave him a little coverage, but now its like old news.

Yeah, exactly!  I wanna see what magazine puts him on the cover.  It’s just so fucked up right now because everybody is so busy chasing the dollar, instead of dignity.  That is why New York rap is suffering right now.  If you look at all the top superstars in the rap, there really isn’t any from New York.  The people who are really dominating rap right now is from out of state, except for G-Unit.  But New York, its like we turn our back.  And the New York radio is dick rider capital and the media is also fucked up.  The exploitation of the dollar is one of the things that has desecrated Hip Hop as we know it.  I’ll give you a perfect example, nobody major as been going to get beats from Primo or hollering at people like Rakim.  They would all rather go with the obvious artist’s that is going to help them sell their song.  People are trying to do what will sell records, as opposed to being themselves, and looking back years from now and being proud of it.

HipHopSite: I don’t know if you heard about ODB’s autopsy report.  They found a bag full of a white substance in his stomach.  So I bet you now the media starts to take notice.

I would hope not, but yeah, they will probably will, that is the media for you.  They always focus on things of that nature, no matter what genre of music or type of entertainment you are in.   Like in the NBA right now, all you have been hearing about is the situation with Ron Artest and all of that.  But you have people like Grant Hill coming back from a miraculous surgery, which nobody thought was possible, and now he is one of the league leaders again.  They could be talking about that.  And in baseball, they wanna about the situation with Gary Sheffield and his wife, or the Giambi shit, when there is other things we can talk about.  So the media is definitely out to crucify people.

HipHopSite: Ok, let’s get into The Testament.  When you sit down and listen to this album, which is almost seven years old, what do you see?

The Testament reminds of that pair of Nike’s you loved in high school, and now they are back out.  The Testament is the first real retro album, there has never been an album like this where people wanted it but it never came out.  So when I hear it, it brings back memories, because every song is a moment.  When I hear “Angel Dust”, because that was the first song I did when I got out of jail, I remember having Havoc help me with it.  So he came by and did the chorus for me.  Like I said, every song is a moment in time, and the album also reminds me of a time when Hip Hop was so much better in New York.  Hip Hop was better in general, but that album was being worked on when New York was the epicenter.  I was working on The Testament in the wake of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, a couple years after Illmatic, and during Hell On Earth, albums of that nature.  That was a good era right there!  So it just reminds me of better days.

HipHopSite: In what ways have you grown since The Testament?

I don’t use as much profanity and I am more comfortable on the mic now.  My presence is more felt and my flow is more mature, as opposed to then.  I used to just spit raw back then.  There is actually some pros and cons to the changes.  But overall, I have elevated as an artist and as a man.  I don’t use the word bitch in my songs, well, I do, but in reference to a dude I don’t like.  Also, now I try to put substance in my music, because every song doesn’t have to be about selling drugs.  Not every song has to be negative, or based around the ills of the world.  I try to diversify everything now.

HipHopSite: So this is the complete album you intended to release on Def Jam, every song?

Pretty much every song.  The only song is “Glory Days”, which was put on The Realness.  That was originally supposed to be on The Testament, but I’m debating right now whether I should put it on the album since fans already have it on The Realness.  I asked my fans on my website and some people said I shouldn’t, but other than that rest of the album is complete.  There are going to be some songs you are going to be familiar with and some you aren’t.  Then there are things I just touched up a little bit.

HipHopSite: Def Jam didn’t have any controls over the tracks or anything like that?

Nope

HipHopSite:  That’s good, since in this day and age the record companies usually control everything.

Yeah, but the people who have followed my career know that I have always been in control of everything.  I do everything on my own, and the only situation I had no control over is the last album I put out on Koch, Legal Hustle.  I didn’t like the way they worked that project.  So that is the only time I let someone control my fate, but I will not let that happen anymore.

HipHopSite: If The Testament actually dropped on Def Jam all those years ago, how different do you think your career would be right now?

Hmm, that is a good question.  I can’t call it, because Def Jam, well I can’t speak on them now because they have a whole new regime, but Def Jam back then, they had the tendency to gimmick you out.  If you look at their roster, and I don’t have to say any names, you can look at them yourself.  Some of the dudes used to be some of the grimiest guys in the world, and now they are like comedians.  Literally, everything is a joke or a gimmicky, so my thing is, would I have let them gimmicked me out?  That is a question I have to ask myself.  I don’t think I would have, because I have always been stubborn in situations like that, so I don’t know what my career would be like right now.  That is an excellent question!  But I’ll say this, I think everything happens for a reason, and I couldn’t ask for a better situation right now.  I’m glad things happened the way they did, because I learned everything myself and I learned about my fans and the industry.

HipHopSite: Where does The Testament rank in comparison to The Realness and The True Meaning?

I don’t know, that is really hard.  That is hard because I know as far as rawness, The Testament is rawer than The Realness and True Meaning.  But, man, I can’t call it, that is a good question as well.  You would have to ask the fans that because I can’t even answer that.  But the only album I can speak on is my next solo album, which is a follow up to everything.  I know my next album I can compare that to everything.  But The Testament, I don’t know where to put it in regards to The Realness and True Meaning.  I think The Testament is a part of both of those albums.  Without The Testament there would be no True Meaning and The Realness.  So they all fit in there somewhere.

HipHopSite: So Urban Legend is going to be your best album?

Yeah, definitely.

HipHopSite: What’s the status of your next album, is it still going to be Urban Legend even though T.I. used the title recently?

Yup.  But I just might call it The Urban Legend.  I’m not going to let someone change my footprint in the sand because they came on the beach first.  In my heart and mind, I know I had the title first.  Because Mobb Deep’s Murda Mixtape, which came out through Landspeed in 2003, what did it say in the insert?  Cormega – Urban Legend.  On my Legal Hustle album that came out in May, what did it say?  And me and Jacki-o, my publicist, have been promoting Urban Legend for the past two years.  So all my fans are familiar with the title and I’m just going to keep it the same.

HipHopSite: Since you brought up the Legal Hustle album, let me just go back to that for a second.  Were you disappointed that some people took it as your album and not a compilation?

I think some people are just dicks, because anybody who reads the internet or anything like that knows it was a compilation.  If I say I have done 30 interviews in which I told people it wasn’t a Cormega album, I am short changing myself.  I did at least 40 to 50 interviews in which I said I was doing a feature album.  I even called it a mixtape sometimes.  The only reason I didn’t publicly call it a mixtape, because the stores take that the wrong way.  When you are an artist and a company owner, there is two different frames of thought.  Anybody who owns a company, you don’t want to put out an album and call it a mixtape, because retail does not want to buy them.  Or retail won’t buy compilation albums.  So it was a feature album, and I think certain people are just looking for any kind of flaw in my game.  They are looking for a chink in my armor, when in turn they don’t judge other artists for similar types of albums.  I have never done a Cormega album with my name not on the cover.  Legal Hustle didn’t even say Cormega, it said Cormega in little letters inside of the design.  Other than that it just said Legal Hustle.  And there was only four solo Mega songs on the album.  So anybody who said that is a Cormega album is obviously a dick.  To compare that album to my previous solo ones is a disrespect.  And to compare that album to another rapper, I take that as a compliment.  Because I noticed people are always looking for a flaw in me.  To compare Legal Hustle to another artists solo album is a compliment, but at the same time a disrespect.  But I’ll say this, compare my real solo albums to others, or judge me by Urban Legend.  But Legal Hustle was what it was.  And there is going to be a volume two, and the title is going to be Legal Hustle Vol. 2 – This Is Not A Solo Album!  That is going to be the title.

HipHopSite: Going back to Urban Legend, tell us about the album and what fans can expect out of it.

I think it is the best album I have ever done.  I have a song with Krs-One, Big Daddy Kane, Grand Puba and PMD.  Also, I am going to put another rapper on it, even though I originally didn’t want to add any more names because radio only wants their songs to be like three minutes.  But I said, “Why am I doing that, fuck radio, they don’t play my songs anyway”.  So I am going to add another rap legend to that, so that song is done.  The intro to Urban Legend alone is one of my best songs ever.  People in my camp have told me that, and I’m not talking about yes men.  I’m talking about people who would tell me if its wack, and they have been saying it’s the best intro I have ever done.  My dude Biz been with me since The Testament and he told me that is the hungriest I have ever sounded.  So my intro alone is crazy.  Then I got songs where I am really trying to showcase my flow and artist growth.  But an artist like myself, it’s a doubled edged sword.  Because there are some fans who like street shit and there are some who like underground and lyrical shit, like back pack music.  So an artist like me, I have a bunch of back pack fans and a ton of street fans.  So a lot of my street fans wanted me to make harder songs, because I have been so busy trying to grow as an artist on my last album that I really didn’t go hard.  So with this album I am going back gutter but I am also growing.  And that is what is going to make this album different.  Plus, I feel I have a lot to prove, because this is my first solo album in two years.  I don’t even count The Testament, because it is what it is.  That album is just closer for me, its giving the fans what they want.  So after we close that chapter, we are going to move on to the next one.

HipHopSite:  Who is doing the production on the album?

As of now, I went back and got the producers from my two solo albums.  I got J-Love, he did the intro on The Realness.  I got J. Supreme, he did “R U My Nigga”, he is back on the album.  I also got Emile, Nottz, D.R. Period and I’m supposed to be doing something with Pete Rock.  Most likely Large Professor as well.  But there are a lot of producers on there, I can’t even think of everybody right now.

HipHopSite: What about Alchemist?

I don’t know what my standings are like with Alchemist at the present moment.  Because I think he is not really fucking with Queens Bridge artists anymore, well that is the rumor at least.  But, I wasn’t really respecting Alchemist anyway.  I respect him as a producer, but when I was making The True Meaning, he did the song called “The Legacy”.  So he did the song but he didn’t get to mix it.  So when The Source did the review, they said they didn’t like “The Legacy”.  So then, he calls me crying and complaining, talking about, “Yo, this is my name”, but mean while, if you have something that you know is good, then nobody can tell you otherwise.  Nobody is always going to like everything you do.  And meanwhile, if you go to any Cormega fan, that is one of their favorite records on the album.  But he was crying over nothing, so I lost respect for him over that.  I’m like, “Your crying”?  “They gave me three and half mics dog”.  I got three and a half, and the lady from The Source didn’t give me an excellent review, so I should be more mad than you.  And I told him, “The song is dope, and I wouldn’t even disrespect you like that”.  So when that situation came, it made me not really want to work with him.  But I’ll holler at him, but if we never really do anything again it doesn’t really matter to me at this present time.

HipHopSite: Have you ever tried to reach out to DJ Premier for a track, because I know everybody is waiting for that to happen?

Me doing something with Premier, is like…you know that girl that you always liked and you kept chasing and chasing her, but its like she’s just fronting?  That is kind of how I feel with Primo.  I have trying to do something with him since I was on Def Jam.  And I got signed in ’96, its ’05 next month, so come on, how long does it really take?  I don’t think I’ll ever get a beat from Primo, because if he really wanted to give me one, it would have happened already.  He says he wants to get me a beat, and told me he has me, but meanwhile I see artists like Non-Phixion and other artists who came on the scene after me, get beats from him already.  Not to discredit any of those artists though.   But I would love to get a beat from him, but It’s not one of my main ambitions anymore.  I would love to be in the NBA, but its not going to happen.  So life goes on.

HipHopSite: Whatever happened with the album between you and Ayatollah?

Oh shit, Ayatollah is on the Urban Legend album as well, I don’t know how I forgot him.  Me and Ayatollah were working together, but at one point he wasn’t focusing on the album, so I just said fuck it, and started working on the Legal Hustle album.  But we have been in the studio recently, we knocked out joints and we have fire.  So most likely we’ll drop that album as well.  What I’m thinking about doing is, I am dropping a documentary called Who Am I, and I might let Ayatollah get the soundtrack.

HipHopSite: What’s going on with the album you and Tragedy Khadafi were going to do?

(Laughter)  I won’t even comment on that one, that dude is incredible.

HipHopSite: Why?  You guys fell out or something and its not going to happen anymore?

Na, I didn’t fall out with Tragedy, I love him.  But if we call Ayatollah right now on a three way he’ll tell you, or if you speak with Jacki-o or anybody who works with me, they will tell you how my work ethic is.  Right now I’m in Atlanta, I’m not working, I’m chilling.  This is my vacation, but I still wanted to do all the interviews I could.  So I always try to work hard.  But with Tragedy, one day we were in the studio and everything was good, and then the next thing you know, a week goes past, a month goes past, a season goes past, and nothing happened.  So when he gets focused we can do it, but I don’t need to do an album with Tragedy Khadafi, put it like that.  That was something I was gonna do, but I don’t need it.  Tragedy has been in the game way longer than me, so I think a grown man should take his business and his craft seriously.  Tragedy is my man though, we don’t have any beef, we didn’t fall out or anything like that.  Its just like if your on a team with somebody and you go to practice everyday, and you end up getting more playing time than them, you can’t worry about why they are not on the floor.

HipHopSite:  I see you have your website and forum running, but you stopped posting because of all the bullshit associated with the internet.  Why is that?

Na, its not that.  I don’t post their as much, because my site turned into a daily interview.  People started to notice that I post their, and that is very rare for an artist to actually talk to his fans.  So I started posting back to questions on the site and the next thing you know, every day there is questions for Cormega.  And it shouldn’t be like that.  Its like everyday is an interview for me.  And the people would be asking me stupid question, so I was let me fall back, because every time you give someone something good they always fuck up.  So I’m posting on the forums, answering back, which is something artists don’t do, and they are still asking me stupid questions.  And someone will ask me one stupid question, and then come back with another seven, and it just got to be too much for me.  So now I answer which questions I want to until people learn respect.  Because I want my site to be popular, because if you look at other artists site, you don’t see people asking “Uhh, do you smoke weed?  What did you eat today?  What do you drive”?  You know what I’m saying?  So I want my site to be a place for people to come together and talk, not, “Yo Mega, what are you doing today”?  “Yo Mega, what do you think about this person”?

HipHopSite: You also give your fans the chance to shop their beats to you as well, which is very unique.  So out of all the tapes you get were any of them actually good?

Well, what I do now is I have a council.  Because I don’t have time to listen to all those beat tapes.  So now I have a council, and they all have a good ear.  Plus, its an uneven number, there are five people.  So basically, the beats go straight to them, and if they think a beat is fire, and everybody else agrees, then they will holler at me about it.  So we are going to keep getting more beats and eventually narrow it dope to the dopest ones and I might end up using them.  So this is a way of giving a fan a shot, but at the same time, I have been doing that my whole career.  If you look at my albums, especially my intros, there is always a new producer.  So I use my intros to introduce somebody new to the world.  On my first album,  J-Love did the intro, which was the first cut he ever did.  On my second album it was Emile, and on Urban Legend I did the same.  So I always give people chances, because that is one of the things I don’t respect about rap now.  People aren’t giving anybody a chance, and that is going to be our downfall.  Rap has become segregated because of it.  If you listen to the radio, they play what they wanna play, but in reality they only play what they are compensated for.  So a lot of people aren’t getting their shot.  I’ll give you a perfect example, when I was on the shelf at Def Jam, one of the things that enabled me to thrive and survive as an artist was the mixtapes.  But nowadays, I get a lot of new artists coming to me and complaining that they have to pay to get on these mixtapes.   That is fucked up!  I used to sell drugs, but I came out of the drug game so I could rap.  I wanted to escape that so I could rap.  But nowadays, you gotta sell drugs to rap!  Cause who the fuck has ten thousand dollars or five thousand dollars just to get on a DJ’s mixtape?  What up and coming artist has that type of money?  So that is one of the things that is killing us as well.  Because what if someone told Biggie, you gotta pay to get on this mixtape?  What if somebody told Rakim, you gotta pay to spit?  How many future stars or legends are we segregating from entering our Hip Hop community?

HipHopSite: What else do you have going on in the future?

We got The Testament coming out, then the DVD called Who Am I? is dropping.  We also got Urban Legend and Donna’s album, and that is what is on my table right now.

HipHopSite: What was your childhood like growing up in Long Island?

Truth:  I had a set family, but it was really just my mom, sister and grandmother.  I was born in Far Rockaway, Queens, then we moved out to Long Beach, Long Island.  From there we moved to Freeport, and since then I have spent most of my time in Freeport.  I had a lot of situations that you would have with any childhood, such as fights and things like that. But I also had to witness my uncles and people around me being on drugs, so a lot of crazy stuff.  But like anybody that has a good foundation, you persevere.  So that is basically how my childhood went.  To me it was a normal childhood, being that everybody in the community had a dysfunctional family.

HipHopSite:  How did you start getting into music?

I started listening to James Brown, and that music just started to make me move and dance.  So I started doing the dances, little house parties, talent shows and things like that.  That is when the DJ and everything really started to pop off, around that time.  So I would go up into the parties when I was about 15 or 16 and would grab the microphone while my man was DJing.  I would just going off on the mic, and do my thing.  But as I got older I started doing some things I shouldn’t have been doing.  So that got me caught up in a little garbage, but eventually I focused my mind and got some money and put a little demo together.  I gathered all the money I made and started going out to Trung King studios in Brooklyn.  So I created this little demo, I had brought a bunch of beats from records, and took the beat and looped it, all of that stuff.  I then took it to the studio and I’m chilling and all of that, and that is when I met my man Row.  He heard it and liked it and said that he knew De La Soul.  So he took it over to De La, actually he took it to Mase, and Mase was just like, “Yo, this is garbage”.  But Dave heard it and he was like, “It has potential”.  So Dave gave me a beat, which was titled “Mayday”.  And when Dave heard that, he called up everyone else and we all met up in the studio for the first time.  That was about 1993, and from that moment on Dave kept giving me more beats and every song I did they loved.

So eventually they were like, “You gotta come on tour with us”.  So we went on tour and that is how everything really started with me getting my hands and my feet wet with this music scene.  But I think there was always a mutual respect between me and De La, which made the whole thing possible to happen in the first place.  I learned a lot from De La!  I think people need to be more opened minded about situations, because I had to tell a lot of people about De La Soul back in the day.  I was always telling people we got a nice show, its hot and what have you.  And they would be like, “Ehhh, I’m not feeling De La like that”.  But then I would get them to come to the show and after that they would be like, “Yo, that was hot!”.  So these are the things you have to be more open minded about.  But that’s how the whole thing popped off, but after awhile I wanted to make an album because I had been on the road for so long.  I was doing a lot of songs, but it wasn’t the atom.  You have to set the foundation and build off of that.  So I destroyed a couple of things and started building.  One of my things I started building was “6 O’clock Straight”, and here were are today.

HipHopSite: What are some of your first memories of Hip Hop?

Truth:  Ultramagnetic, I remember them dudes.  Public Enemy, being that they were from my town and area.  My ’98 Oldsmobile, because we had a lot of them in the hood.  I also remember the beef between Juice Crew and BDP, which made me notice that there is different ways to go about this music.  Honestly, De La and Tribe, they put everything in the truest perspective for me.  Because you didn’t have to speak about one set thing, you could speak about many things.  They showed that there is more than one part of a person.  Because to me back then, my fondest memory was that music was balanced.  No disrespect to the music that is popping off now, but it’s not balanced enough.  I think there is a lot of artists that are trying to balance it out though, like myself, Dead Prez and Talib Kweli.

HipHopSite:  After “Stakes Is High” dropped and you got a name for yourself, what happened next?   What have you been up to since then?

Truth:  After “Stakes Is High” I started doing singles for Up Above Records and Blindside Records.  I started jumping off with my people the Jigmasters, with my man DJ Spinna.  I did a joint with my man Rubix called “Imagine”.  I did a bunch of different type of songs with Geology, Dabo, who was off of Def Jam Japan.  So I have been trying to stay in the mix somehow, someway, so that people are still hearing me.

HipHopSite:  How frustrating has it been for you to have to wait all this time to drop your debut album?

Truth:  You know what it’s been, it has been a learning experience.  So I didn’t get really too frustrated with it because in the process I learned a lot more and I was able to get more material.  I was also able to make my material alot tighter.  With this album right now, “6 O’clock Straight”, we have a lot of joints, but we also have like three other albums.  We got three other albums and I’m already starting another album right now.  But I really didn’t get too frustrated because I take life in stride.  It takes a lot to really get me stressed.

HipHopSite:  What would you say has been the biggest headache you have had to deal with in this Hip Hop game?

Truth:  I guess it reverts back to the last question about not getting out sooner.  Another headache would be to see where music went, and what level it went to.  When it started it went hard and just to see where it is now and to know that I wasn’t there at the moment of time enough to fight for it bothers me.

HipHopSite:  Let’s get into the album a little bit, can you tell us the meaning behind the title, “6 O’clock Straight”.

Truth:  Straight up and down, we don’t kiss no ass, we don’t bend over.  What you see is what you get, it is how it is.  So if you close the door, we are going to break through it.  We are not stopping now, and we are going to bring it.

HipHopSite:  For those who haven’t heard the album, what can they expect out of it?

Truth:  They can expect a versatile album with many different sides.  One thing I learned over the years is that you are not one dimensional.  You can be, but you have many different sides to you.  You know about family, about being persecuted against, you know about the hustling, females, life problems, etc.  There are so many different things, and being that knowledge is infinite, I think people limit themselves with knowledge.  So you can expect an album with many different things in it, and I think there is something on it for everyone.  Whether its for my man’s playing chess in the park, or my man hustling on the corner, I got something for everybody.

HipHopSite: Who do you have on the album as far as producers and guest appearances go?

Truth:  I got a lot of my Mad Man Moss family on the album, like Dragon.  But I also got Phife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, DJ Spinna, Da Beatminerz, Geology, The Are, T The Beat Specialist and Celph Titled.  So those are some of the producers on the album as well as some of the guests.  One thing that I found is that there are a lot of producers out there that have a good niche on things and have good music, but they are not getting heard.  So as long as me and a producer blend, I’ll go with it.

HipHopSite:  I gotta say, I’m feeling the album.  I think you did a good job on it.

Truth:  Thank you!  You are one of the people that are coming with us to kick down that door, you know what I’m saying?  And that is what’s going to happen, we are going to start kicking down these doors.  Because my thing is, there is so much music out there to listen to, and people don’t get a chance to listen to it because you are being blacklisted.  And that is the real deal, a lot of producers and artists are getting blacklisted.  Because other people and forces are sitting up there with the door closed.  But within numbers is strength, and I’m bringing a team with me.

HipHopSite: Like you said, it is real hard to get fans to hear something new, so what do you and Solid Records have to do to get people to hear this album?

Truth:  You have to stay hard on it. Like I said, you have to go to that door and knock it in.  You have to promote it as much as possible, and you have to go in the streets and tell people, “Look, this is what’s going on, and this is what’s happening”.  You have to tell people that because otherwise they aren’t getting to hear it or see it.  So you have to get on these radio stations and do all of these things, and people have to stand together.  Don’t get side tracked by anything, don’t get sidetracked by the money.  One thing that I have learned from being on tour and getting some money from it is that I know I didn’t change.  From me having a little bit of money in my pockets and me having grands in my pockets, I know it didn’t change me but with a lot of other people it does.  So that didn’t change me or my team.  And that made it even easier and better for us to work with each other and make it strong.  Because if you have one bad link in the chain, it is hard to peddle that bike.

HipHopSite:  You have a knack for making insanely catching hooks, which has drawn a lot of comparison to 50 Cent.  So what do you think about the comparison?

Truth:  It’s crazy!  I take it as a compliment though.  I take it as a compliment from the people who are ultimately listening to it and liking it.  But for the people who don’t understand the history of it all, I have been doing these types of hooks since 1987!  I was on De La’s “Stakes Is High”, the song “Pony Ride”, doing it just like that!  With that voice and that tone, going just that hard.  I did “Ill Love” in 1994, so I have been doing this for a very very long time.  And no disrespect to 50 Cent, but he’s a little younger than me.  So I’m not gonna stop doing what I’m doing because this is who I am, I create hooks, that’s what I love to do.  I love the hooks, I love the lyrics and I love the music.  When I hear the music, it paints a picture for me, and when I put that vision down, that is what I ultimately love.  See the big difference between me and other people is, they are out there to get what they want by any means necessary.  And don’t get me wrong, I’m out to get what I want by any means necessary, but I’m gonna do that without selling myself out or selling my soul.  But as far as the hooks go, I have been doing this for a very long time, before I even heard of a 50 Cent.  But I do like 50′s music, I like all types of music, from Jazz to Blues to Rock.  I listen to it all.

HipHopSite:  Overall, what do you want to accomplish with this album?

Truth:  A stairway to step up.  A stairway to step up to the next level and put my group on, the Mad Man Moss.  To get some new blood out there and to introduce something new.  You gotta a lot of people sounding the same, and I’m not trying to play anyone, but its true.  You got people dressing the same and wearing their clothes too.  I just believe in being an individual.  You being an individual makes you unique and you need to take that part of yourself and be real about it.  Be honest about who you are.  Because in the long run if you are carbon copying somebody, you are gonna be a paranoid motherfucker.  You are going to be looking over your shoulder and wondering, “Who am I?”.

HipHopSite:  Besides the album, what else do you have going on in the future?

Truth:  Right now I have Red Diamond Entertainment, which is me and a couple of other people, and what we do is we throw theme parties.  Whether it be you coming dressed up like you are back in the ’70′s, a toga party, or whatever.  It is always a theme party and there are gifts given away and shows are performed by local artists.  So I am doing that as well as finishing up the next album for myself.  Also we got the Mad Man Moss album, which is called “The Links Of Time”.  And besides that just trying to get out on some tours.

HipHopSite: Any time period for the new albums?

Truth:  No, not yet, right now we are just trying to perfect the material.  But two of the albums will be released on the website, www.TruthEnola.com.  They will be sold there for a two for one type of thing.

HipHopSite: Any last words?

Truth:  Stay strong, hold your head and get prepared.

     The main problem plaguing Guerilla City is the album’s contrived commercial attempts.  Guerilla Black tries hard to duplicate the usual mold of hot club bangers and radio friendly singles, but fails to posses the creative flare needed.  The Rodney Jerkins and Rick Rude produced “Trixx”, is a lame stripper anthem that suffers from watered down lyrics and a lame hook.  Jazze Pha’s repetitive and simplistic keyboard beats on “Guerilla Nasty” and “Girlfriend” are prime examples of forced radio efforts that fail to blend with Guerilla Black’s husky delivery.  “You’re The One” takes a page out of the Bad Boy’s formula for making hits, as Mario Winans provides a perfect hook and beat.  However, Guerilla Black continually sounds uncomfortable and misplaced over his commercial attempts.  Lyrically, Black tends to dumb down his lyrics as well, which is never more evident than on the aforementioned track.  “Late night eating Haagen-Dazs, watching Un-Cut, and me sitting there playing with your butt.”  

      While Guerilla Black never finds his feet on his radio friendly attempts, Black does slightly redeem himself with his hardcore street anthems.  The Carlos Broady produced “Hearts Of Fire” ironically utilizes the same Bob Marley sample as Shyne did on “Quasi O.G.”, but remains impressive nonetheless.  The track is one of Black’s better lyrical performances, as he delves into the difficulties of the Hip Hop industry.  To no one’s surprise, Guerilla Black’s finest efforts on his debut album are the ones that mirror Big’s sound the best.  The title track “Guerilla City” sounds like a vintage East Coast track, as Red Spyda laces Black with one of his best beats in recent memory.  Similarly, Fredwreck does the same on “What We Gonna Do, the album’s best track.  While Fredwreck has always been the West Coast’s most underrated producer, he proves his worth with his haunting production.  With Nate Dogg doing his usual work on the hook, Guerilla Black’s Biggie influenced rhyme style comes through full effect with his cadence on lines like, “I’m just gonna play my position, like a gen-er-al, and do dirt down to the min-er-al”.  

      Even though Guerilla Black shows flashes of greatness, his debut release suffers from formulaic radio attempts, weak hooks, and watered down lyrics.  While Guerilla Black goes hard on a couple of tracks, for the most part he concerns himself with producing that one big hit he needs to boost his career.  In the end, Guerilla Black may sound like Big, but he certainly does not know how to make an album like him. 

HHS:  Let’s start by talking about the album, “1st Infantry”.  I see you have a real diverse lineup on the album, so was that something you set out to do, or did it just fall into place like that?

Alchemist:  It kind of fell into place like that.  I really didn’t map out the diversity; I just wanted to mess with my people.  And I definitely have a long string of people who I am down with, just through my travels in this music business, coming from L.A. and being in New York.  So it was more or less just me working with people I have relationships with, and then it kind of developed into what it became.  It was just a blessing, because we covered a lot of different angles and still had an opportunity to work with people who have mutual respect for each other and are friends.

HHS:  You have some guests on the album that may surprise some people out there, such as Nappy Roots.  So how did you hook up with them?

Alchemist:  Actually, that track didn’t make the album.

HHS: I must have seen an old track listing then.

Alchemist:  Yeah, I definitely have to get you the new one.  But I connected with Nappy Roots out in Puerto Rico at the Mixshow Summit.  And we showed a mutual respect for each other’s work, and I was working on the album at the time, so they were like, “let’s get down”.  So they came out to New York and we knocked out a song, maybe a week after that.  It was a cool vibe man; we had a lot of fun doing it.  But I think towards the end of the album, as I was shaping it, there was a lot of other stuff we had and we ended up not using that joint for one reason or another.  The song is hot!  But there were a lot of hot songs that we ended up cutting.  Just because I wanted to make a good circle, and I don’t know if it fit perfectly in this one.  But we may use it down the line for something, but for the record, the song is dope.  So shout out to them, those are my peoples, and they definitely came through for me.  I didn’t want to shock nobody on this album anyways, so it was a double-edged sword, and it worked well.  Cause a lot of people, when they heard about it, they were like “Nappy Roots & Alchemist”?  So they were one of the few people that I was going to have on the album that weren’t my friends before we did the song.

HHS:  I see you have been working with D-Block a lot lately, so is that sort of a new friendship/family for you?

Alchemist:  I think it started when I did Jada’s stuff, then I did joints for Styles, and then Sheek got at me.  Those dudes are mad humble, they are just a good click of people.  Their whole camp, not just the rappers, everybody they keep around them, are real dudes who have always showed me love.  But I guess that started with Jada and “We Gon Make It”.  But I’m definitely a people person, so if I can’t click with people, it probably won’t work musically.  And they have always showed me mad love, and it was mutual.  So anything they need, I am there for them.  Plus, they really don’t have an in house producer.  They got Swizz, Shok and a couple other heads, but they don’t really have a producer that is right there doing all their stuff.  So its always good for me to come through and do stuff for them, cause I know they appreciate it.

HHS: Overall, what do you want to accomplish with this new album?

Alchemist:  I just want to put a product out there that will stand the test of time, and when you look back you can say, “Damn, that was crazy”.  So I really want to bring everything full circle from what I have been doing for the last six and seven years, as far as dropping beats on cats albums and doing my little production thing with people.  But its always been two beats here, three beats there.  So you can’t get a taste of what Alchemist really is.  But I think that is what made it special over the years, that it was a couple of joints here and there, but they were always solid.  So it was always like, “Yo, he is the truth”.  But now it is like, “Can he make a whole album”?  And I was always telling myself that, because I realized that the new era of producers just come out and start making beats for cats before they even did anything.  A lot of producers who made their names, including me, did it by just doing beats for cat’s albums.  And I was raised off of Pete Rock, Large Professor, Diamond, Showbiz, Premier; and these cats did album’s first.  And that’s how they made their names as producers, instead of just selling beats.  After that they would sell their beats, and spread their production all over the world.  So I think I am doing it a little backwards, and that is what puts more pressure on me to really put out a quality project.  I would be playing myself if I put all these hot beats on everybody else’s album, but when I do my album its so so.

HHS:  I gotta give you props for the work you did on the new Mobb album.  You killed it on “Win Or Lose”, “Got It Twisted” and “When You Hear The”.  Those are definitely the best three tracks on the album.

Alchemist:  Thanks man!  Its like breathing, working with Mobb Deep.  Its so natural working with them because I damn near live with them.  They are at my crib; I’m at their crib, we on the road together, so they are like fucking family to me.  So you make music the best with your friends.  I think Evidence put me onto that a long time ago, he said you always make the best music with your friends.  So me and the Mobb know each other well.  We don’t even think about it when we work, its like I got a beat, they got an idea, and we just put it together.  Its all natural, we be laughing, doing stuff, etc.  Music is just an extension of our relationship, versus if you were like “Yo, this could be a hit; I need you to write about this”.  So we just organically do our music, and I think that’s how all our hot stuff comes out.  And for all those joints, we got 20 more on the computer that didn’t make the album.  So we definitely had our good ones to pick from.

HHS:  Just from reading a lot of stuff on the internet and what not, people are saying that you really outshined Havoc on this album.  What are your thoughts on that?

Alchemist:  I don’t really agree with that, I get my strength from Havoc, and P as well.  Those two dudes are the most creative people I have ever been around.  I learned a lot from them, not technically, but just watching how things come together creatively without premeditation.  Its not like they are, “We gotta make a hit”; they just make some crazy shit.  They start pushing their pen, one follows the other, maybe one dude comes up with a concept or style, and the other caters to it.  But its just so natural.  I get a lot of my strength from Havoc, so its crazy when people say that.  I owe a lot to them, and I think Havoc is so underrated.  I mean the “Why” beat he did for Jada was crazy.  And I think if people could go into the files and hear all the beats he does, they would be blown away at the stuff that doesn’t make the album.  I think I know more than everybody else, so my opinion is jaded, but I guess according to what comes out, people would have that opinion.  But “Dump” with Nate Dogg, “We Up”,  “Neva Change” and “On The Run”, are all stupid beats on the new album.  He did his thing, so I was in good company.  And I always say, Hav lets me come in and pinch hit.  So the pressure is on me to make that home run.

HHS:  I was reading an interview you did awhile back, and you were saying how Jigga came up to you and told you that a lot of your beats go to waste, or something to that extent.  So do you feel that way?

Alchemist:  Na, man.  I knew what he meant though.  That was during the time when there was a lot of beef between him, Mobb and Nas.  But I think he was just trying to give me a message like, “Yo, come mess with us”.  But I put him on the spot that day too, and I was like “Let’s do it”.  I bumped into him recently, so we may end up doing some stuff.  I love Jay-z, and I am a big fan.  And I think that is one of the missing pieces of the puzzle for me, not for him.  Cause he already proved himself, but one of my goals is to still do some stuff with him.  I always respected him, and I knew what he meant. But that is just him being the head strong and creative genius that he is.  His ego is there but its for a good reason, everybody who is successful as a degree of an ego.  So I respect that, but na, I don’t think stuff went to waste, cause Mobb Deep and Nas is the shit to me.

HHS:  So when people talk bad about the Mobb, how does that affect your business relationship with them. For example, I know you have worked with Saigon before, and recently in Murder Dog Magazine he came out and said some harsh stuff about Mobb Deep.

Alchemist:  I deal with everybody on a personal level, as long as they ain’t saying anything crazy about me.  But its definitely like someone talking shit about your brother.  Like, how would you feel if somebody was dissing your big brother?  So I definitely take some offense to it, but at the same time Mobb Deep was an entity before Alchemist, ya know what I’m saying?  But my loyalty is with my friends, cause I’m an extremely loyal person.  Its definitely an issue, but I would really have to be dragged into it for it to affect what I am going to do as a producer.  Like when Mobb was having their beef with Jay, if Jay needed a beat, they wouldn’t have been mad at me doing it.  But I love them, they are my family, and I don’t want anybody coming sideways at my family.  I’ll do whatever I can do to calm the situation, especially if I’m in the middle, cause I have a relationship with Saigon as well.  He’s extremely talent, and he feels a certain way, but I don’t know if its always best to be shouting it out in interviews and stuff.  Cause then it makes people think it’s a publicity stunt, when he may really have a valid opinion and reason for saying what he’s saying.  But people take it the wrong way, and then it escalates.  But for the record, I roll with Mobb Deep, you know that.

HHS:  I know you used to rap, and the last time I heard you on “Fourth Of July”.  So are we going to see you rhyme more in the future?

Alchemist:  Yeah, there are two joints on the album were I do my one two thing, filling up my 16 bars.  But its basically just to let people know something about me.  And I’m real hard on myself, if it wasn’t decent to the level I can deal with it, I wouldn’t do it.  I mean, I got Nas, Mobb Deep and the Lox on my album.  I got heavyweight artists, so I wouldn’t try to disrespect them by trying to rap on a song just so I can be shoulder to shoulder with them.  But I push my pen more and more every year.  Just being around Mobb Deep is influential.  Its always in me, but I focus on the beats.  But on the first single I rhyme, cause I wanted it to be clear who’s song it is.  The first single is called “Hold You Down”, and its featuring me, Prodigy, Illa Gee and Nina Sky.

HHS:  There was talk that you were going to produce the next Big Daddy Kane album, so was that ever true?

Alchemist:  Yeah, we were talking about doing it.  We actually started doing a couple of joints, and they came out pretty good.  But there was issues with the label, Landspeed, who ended up folding.  So there was a lot of nonsense, but I maintained my relationship with Kane, so anything he needs from me, I’m only one call away. That’s one of my idols, so that could still happen, if everything is right.

HHS:  Overall, what do you want out of this Hip Hop game?  Are you looking to be the next big mainstream producer with the money and fame?  Or do you just want the respect and love?

Alchemist:  I want the respect and love, and I wanna be a big named producer!  I think respect comes first, then love, but you can’t survive off of that.  And being a starving artist was never my thing, so I want the world to appreciate what I do, without changing what I do. If I can do that, I will be happy.  Because I am not going to try and jump through fiery hula-hoops to do what people tell me, like “If you do this, you will get more fans”.  Because that is how you ruin your career, and how you ruin Hip Hop.  Everybody has to play their position, so I am definitely going to continue to do what I have been doing.  I’m not afraid to branch out, cause music changes, but its always going to be credible.   Its going to be derivative of that classic era of Hip Hop we were raised off of.  And that’s where I come from, so I will always be a product of that.

HHS: Who are you going to be working with in the near future?

Alchemist:  The Mobb album just dropped, so I got a bunch of stuff on there.  We are working on Noyd’s new album right now.  I did some stuff for Styles P’s new album.  I did a BANGER for Pharoahe Monch.  I love that song, it has to come out!  I think its going to be a big record, its called “My Desire”.  So if he can just situate with labels, as he’s going through some things, but the song is crazy.  I did a joint, believe it or not, on Nelly’s album.  It’s a song with Mobb and Ashanti on it.  Its hard, its banging, I’m excited to see that when it drops.  I did that, and I just gave a joint to Snoop as well.  I’m working on getting some stuff over to 50, and I just did a bunch of joints for Tony Yayo’s album.  I’m just keeping the ball rolling man.

HHS:  What about Nas’ new album, are you going to be on that?

Alchemist:  I don’t think they used the ones we did.  Those didn’t make the cut.

HHS:  Ah, Nas and his beat selection. (Laughter)

Alchemist:  I was like “ahhhh”, (states a disappointed Alchemist) cause I love doing stuff with him.  I gotta a lot of props when I did the “God’s Son” album.  Everywhere I went to people were like, “Yo, you were the kid who did stuff for Nas”.  I didn’t know how big his fan base was until then.  But much respect to him, he gave me a hot joint for my album.

HHS: Anything you want to add?

Alchemist: The album is called “1st Infantry”,  and I promise for anybody that has been a fan of me, or anybody who doesn’t know who I am, nobody will be let down.  If you like real rap and Hip Hop, brace yourself cause its on.

     “The Age Of Sacred Terror” is a prime example of JMT being able to blend such a combination.  Stoupe’s vicious production breaths life into the track, while Vinnie engulfs the mic in flames with his verbal tantrums.  While Vinnie’s lyrical content has taken a nosedive over the years, his energy and flare is still enough to provide an entertaining experience.  Similarly, there is not an abundant amount of depth or variety to “Legacy Of Blood”, however, you will be hard pressed to find a better hardcore street album this year.  JMT sticks to their guns throughout the album, making for an experience you will either love or hate. The only real conceptual effort on the album is Vinnie Paz’s noteworthy performance on “Before The Great Collapse”.  The track acts as Vinnie’s suicide note to his mother, explaining the pain and hardships he has gone through over the years.  “Mommy I don’t want to live no more, I don’t think I got nothing else to give no more.  Its like I lost my passion for life, it’s like all of my actions are trife”.  Just as Biggie did with “Suicidal Thoughts”, Vinnie paints a chilling picture of a life that is too hard to fight through.  

      As with any Jedi Mind Tricks release, there are also some standout collaborations scattered throughout the album.  “Verses Of The Bleeding (feat. Des Devious)”  finds Stoupe stealing the show with his lush piano keys, while Paz and Des provide intense electricity on the mic.  “Beyond The Gates Of Pain” is one of the better efforts on the album due to Sean Paul’s show stealing verse.  Similarly, Killah Priest amazes with his performance over Stoupe’s beautiful Spanish guitars on “Saviorself”.  But not to be outdone is the GZA/Genius himself, who proves he still has some gas left in the tank with “On The Eve Of War”. Even though “Legacy Of Blood” may not be the group’s most creative effort, it does succeed in providing that early 90′s boom bap feel that Vinnie Paz longs to bring.  And with Stoupe providing some amazing production, the album is certainly one of the better underground releases of the year. 

Paz:   We did “Violent By Design” in our home studio, and basically recorded it and mixed it ourselves.  Then with “Visions Of Gandhi” we recorded it in New York for six months, just basically living up there and doing that album in one of the biggest studio’s in the country.  A lot of classic rap records were made there; Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, LL.  So it was our first time working with real expensive equipment and an engineer.  We worked with Chris Conaway, who did the Marshall Mathers LP, and he won a Grammy for that.  Basically with this new album, we stayed in Philly the whole time.  So I think the biggest difference is we recorded with our man Scott Stallone at a studio in the heart of Philly.  So when we came up with an idea we could go right to the studio.  I think saying in your environment where you grew up influences your record.  New York influenced the record last time because that’s where we were during the creative process.  All the creative process this time around is in Philly, so that is the biggest difference.

HipHopSite:  I heard that this album is going to have you rocking solo more than your previous efforts, is that true?

Paz:  Yeah.  Sean Price, Killah Priest and Gza are on the album, but other than that its just me solo.  We just figured we would make a more back to basics, simple record.  Keep it a little more in house this time.  So we did three collab joints and the rest is just me and Stoupe.

HipHopSite:  Is the reason you are going more solo on this album is because you feel you don’t get the credit for being a crazy emcee in your own right?

Paz:  Yeah, possibly.  I don’t know if it was a conscious decision, but I think somewhere in the back of my head I felt as if I had to prove myself.  I didn’t really think of it while we were recording anything, but now that its done maybe I was thinking, “Look, I’m gonna hold down the bulk of this and show and prove”.

HipHopSite:  You got the first single with Gza, “On The Eve Of War”, so how did that come about?

Paz:  We actually did a show together in Brooklyn for “Music For America”.  They are basically an organization that is trying to get young people to vote and are trying to get Bush out of office and what not.  So we met there, exchanged numbers and planned on doing a joint together.  But he ended up going to Europe for a few months, so I didn’t know if it was going to happen.  But he got back in town and we sent him the beat and he liked it, and that’s how it happened.

HipHopSite:  So did Gza just mail in his verse or did he come to the studio with you guys?

Paz:  No, for that particular joint I wasn’t there.  We were there for the other joints with Sean Price and Killah Priest, but the Gza joint he recorded in New York.

HipHopSite:  The b-side to that joint is crazy, “Before The Great Collapse”.  So for people who haven’t heard it, can you tell us the concept behind it and what inspired you to write it?

Paz:  The concept is basically a suicide note to my mother.  It has been something I have been fooling around with for the past couple of albums but I never did it.  But Stoupe gave me the beat and I thought it would be the perfect beat to do it to.  I guess the science behind it was, there has been a lot of joints made about peoples pain and whatnot, so I was trying to find an original way to do that.  Because its not like no one has ever poured their heart out on a record, it has happened before.  But I was just trying to find a different way to do it.  So that is just the way it came out.

HipHopSite:  Have you ever felt that way, like life is too hard and it would be better off just to end it all?

Paz:  I think at some point everyone has been there, whether they want to admit it or not.  I guess you could say its semi autobiographical, because everyone I am talking about in the song is real, and a lot of the specific incidents I am bringing up are real.  Sometimes people think that if you have a good job you are happy, or if you are a musician you are happy.  But its not always about that.  I think everyone comes to a point in their life where they feel like they have a void to fill.

HipHopSite:  I haven’t seen the track listing for the album yet, so can you tell us about some of the other songs you have on the album?

Paz:  The song with Sean Price is called “Beyond The Gates Of Pain”, the song with Killah Priest is called “Savoir Self”.  Its actually savior, like how they say Jesus was a savoir, so it’s a play on words.  So those are the other two joints I did with other people.  There are a bunch of solo joints I did, one of them is called “The Age Of Sacred Terror”, another one is “Scars Of The Crucifix”.  There is a bunch of joints, but I don’t even have the real copy right now so I’m forgetting some of the songs.

HipHopSite:  Going back to “Visions Of Gandhi”, how did you feel when you heard critics or fans say they weren’t feeling some of the Latin influenced beats on the album?

Paz:  Well, to be honest with you, it was sort of surprising because if people ever heard our other stuff, they would know there has always been Latin influences in our music.  On “Violent By Design” there was “Muerte”, which was like a straight Spanish song.  The b-side to my solo record “Raw Is War” was “Language Is Fatal”, which was a complete Spanish song.  So I was kind of shocked that people were surprised by that, especially since Stoupe is Puerto Rican.  Its weird with critics, the more you sell or the bigger you get, the more criticism you get.  It would appear to the average person that “Visions Of Gandhi” was our most criticized album, but its also the one that sold the most.  Obviously some people liked it, but there is always going to be critics and haters, that is just the nature of the game.

HipHopSite:  Do you think it is fair that every Jedi Mind Tricks album is going to be compared to the classic “Violent By Design”?

Paz:  I guess that is the nature of the beast man.  Everything Nas does for the rest of his career is going to be compared to “Illmatic”.  Everything Jay-z does is going to be compared to “Reasonable Doubt”.  I don’t think you can really expect someone to make the same record twice.  Our newest record, “Legacy Of Blood”, is probably the closest to giving those “Violent By Design” fans what they want.  Its more of a return to early 90′s boom bap.  Just me and Stoupe with real raw dirty beats.  So yeah, I think its unfair, but it’s the nature of the beast.  But I think people are going to be real happy with this record, so I try not to think about that.

HipHopSite:  Speaking of Stoupe, he is a real mysterious and quiet guy, so why is he rarely heard from?

Paz:  Its just his personality, its not by design.  He’s been like that since the day I met him.  He would rather have his music do the talking and he is definitely more inclined to speak through his music because that is his outlet.  I have always been the more vocal one, so there has always been an understanding between the both of us for the past 12 years that anything that has to do with the media or journalism I am going to handle.  And technical things, like buying the equipment and getting the tours ready is sort of his responsibility.  So we sort of divide the weight of responsibility and just split them to fit our personalities.

HipHopSite:  Do you know if he has any plans to do some outside production, or start working with more artists?

Paz:  Actually, I am going to be working on the Army Of The Pharaohs record, so he is working on this record, which is sort of going to be a Portishead/Sade type record with this female singer from San Diego.  So yeah, he has some outside work coming up.  But besides that, the other stuff is still in the air, so I don’t want to blow his spot up yet.  But he is definitely doing that singer record and he is also going to put together an instrumental album of just original and new beats.

HipHopSite:  And the Army Of The Pharaohs album, is that going to come out next year?

Paz:  Yeah, early 2005.  We actually have about six or seven beats right now.  We are about to go on the road in about 10 days, on the 25th, so a lot of us in the group will be on the road together, so we are going to formulate some of the songs and as soon as we get back we will record.  We already got beats from Choco, this cat from Germany, Celph Titled, 7L and Panik from the Molemen is going to be doing some beats.  So we will have that out in early 2005.

HipHopSite:  What’s going on with you and Jus Allah, are you guys ever gonna work together again?

Paz:  I don’t know man, I haven’t talked to him in mad long.  The way I see it, he was responsible for everything that happened.  I’m basically at the point now where I’m too old to hold grudges, but he definitely owes Stoupe and I an apology.  If he is man enough to do that, then we can talk.  Because we were friends for along time outside of this music shit, so it wasn’t just a business thing, it was a personal thing.  So he has to holla at me and apologize, then we can talk about working together.

HipHopSite:  On a lighter note, would you rather drink or smoke?

Paz:  Drink

HipHopSite:  Why is that?

Paz:  Weed makes me paranoid man.  And I’m already paranoid as it is, so I would rather drink a 40.

HipHopSite:  What is your favorite type of drink?

Paz:  St. Ides dog, 13 years I been drinking that.

HipHopSite:  If you could fight any one celebrity who would it be?

Paz:  Usher!  But it wouldn’t be a fight, it would be a beat down.  It is just something about that motherfucker, I hate him!  I hate that dude.  (laughter)

HipHopSite:  Who is the worst rapper in the game right now?

Paz:  Damn, your killing me.  I don’t know the exact name of them, but whenever I am in the barbershop there is this song about white tees.

HipHopSite:  Oh, the Franchise Boyz (Laughter)

Paz:  That is like the worst shit I have ever heard in my life.

HipHopSite:  Yo, that song is stupid.

Paz:  On my word, that is the worst song ever.  And Philly is the home of white tees, so all me and my crew rock is white tees, but that shit is terrible dog!

HipHopSite:  They talk about you can have a circle or a v neck.

Paz:  Yeah (emphatic laughter).

HipHopSite:  Outside of your crew, who would you say is the best rapper right now?

Paz:  I would say Jay, but he is retired, so I am going to say Jadakiss.

HipHopSite:  How proud are you of Outerspace and their new album, as its definitely one of the best underground releases of the year?

Paz:  That is basically asking someone how proud they are of their brother.  First and foremost, we are all family.  I treat their kids like mine, the same thing with our moms.  Our moms treat us like one big family.  Their kids call me tio, which is Spanish for uncle, so that is just my family.  Anything they do as men I am proud of, and the fact that we got to work on that record together, and got a bunch of talented producers, and made a real solid album, I couldn’t be more proud.  I am as proud as them doing a good record as I would be proud of myself doing a good record.  They are my people and they will always be my people, and first and foremost, friendship comes first.  And we have done a really good job at separating business from friendship, and being successful with what we are doing.

HipHopSite:  Are you going to be voting this November in the Presidential Election?

Paz:  Absolutely!

HipHopSite:  Who do you think is going to win?

Paz:  Ahhh man, I do not want to say this, but I think Bush is going to win.  I’m just being realistic, because I am seeing the polls and it looks like they are leaning towards Bush.  I don’t know how that is possible.  I don’t know how people in this country cannot see the things that this man has done to this country and other countries, because he is basically a tyrant. But I am going to vote on November 2nd, and vote for Kerry and hope that enough young people have an understanding on what is going around them and do the same.  And that is why we are going on the Legacy Of Blood tour on the 25th, and we are going to have representatives from Music For America at every show registering young people to vote.  Because we want people to get out there and get Bush out of the White House.

HipHopSite:  What do you think is going to happen to this country is Bush wins again?

Paz:  You know what, I don’t know what will happen, but I know that anyone with intelligence will just have that feeling of always being frightened.  He is basically a war monger, and he is admittedly a war President.  There were no weapons of mass destruction, and he basically had a chip on his shoulder from the whole situation between Sadaam and his father.  So we are dealing with a President who’s whole presidency has been based on grudges, and I think that is a scary thing and I think more of that is going to happen if he wins.

HipHopSite:  A lot of people feel helpless right now in regards to what the Bush administration is doing.  So do you feel that way, like the system will never change, or do you feel like a change can happen?

Paz:  The thing with the system is, especially with Kerry, because its not like Kerry is a saint or anything.  Because with any Presidential debate you are picking the lesser of two evils.  If I had my say I would put Nader in there.  I like his policies and I like a lot of his ideas, but the Green Party isn’t established enough.  So essentially you are right, I do feel like we are fucked either way.  But I don’t want to come off as that much of a pessimist.  I would like to think that if we got Kerry in he would at least make the attempt to make some legitimate changes.

HipHopSite:  Say they reinstated the draft, would you go or say “Fuck it, I’m going to jail”?

Paz:  Fuck that!  Fuck that, I’ll go to jail, Canada, Italy, wherever.  I have no interest in going to another country and killing other poor people.

HipHopSite:  Yeah, definitely.  I say we all just go to Canada.

Paz:  That’s what I’m talking about dog.  I mean you watch “Bowling For Columbine” and you see the way they run their government; they never have beef with no one, they have health care for everyone, etc.  People talk about that all the time, about this being the greatest country in the world.  But people don’t really understand that there is plenty of other countries with freedom and plenty of other countries that take care of their own, that don’t’ send their children to a fucking war.

HipHopSite:  Overall, what do you want to accomplish with the “Legacy Of Blood” album.

Paz:  Basically, everything we have done since we have started in the game has been bigger than the last thing.  So every time we set out to do a record we want it to be better and sell more and make more people happy than the last time around.  So I just want people to appreciate it and understand that we try to uphold the core fundamentals of the original boom bap music.  We just want to make boom bap, throwback music.  We are going to be on tour and we want everyone to come out and have a good time.  But accomplishment wise, I just want the record to do well enough for us to keep making records.

HipHopSite:  What else do you have going on in the future that we haven’t already talked about?

Paz:  Well, I’m repeating myself, but we are going on tour, then in the new year we are going to Europe to tour for a couple of months.  We are already working on the new Outerspace album.  I am going to executive produce the King Syze album, that is my right hand man right there.  And as I said, we got The Pharaoh’s record and Stoupe’s side project, so we are going to be pretty busy.  And we are putting out a full length DVD film, but its not your typical music DVD.  It is more of a documentary of the struggles of an independent artist.  We are going to try and take that to film festivals and things like that, but its definitely come out on DVD in 2005.

HipHopSite:  Any last words?

Paz:  Shout out to all my family, check out www.jedi-mind-tricks.com.  And shout out to you for giving me the opportunity to speak my mind.