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1/21/2009 You just released The 24 Hour mixtape. How did you put this project together?  This is just an MC’s mind, man. It’s just the mind of an MC and always being creative. I mean, the people know by now I’m real creative. It was just one day I’m sitting there and I’m talking to my peoples and I’m like, ‘Something just popped in my head.’ I told my man Tekneek that I wanted to do this mixtape in 24 hours, lay the tracks down and whatever comes, comes. We just knocked it out. Tek was like, ‘Hey, let’s do it.’ I started making some phone calls and putting shit together and hitting the lab and putting the pen to the pad and the next thing you know, we’re still up doing this shit at 4 or 5 in the morning, trying to knock this shit out. I wanted to challenge myself to record everything and just challenge myself that we could really do this and we did it.  Did you record everything for the project in 24 hours?  Whatever you heard on that mixtape, that’s what we recorded. We took it and we knocked it all out with the exception of probably two or three tracks. I actually eliminated some joints though. I eliminated two or three joints. With the exception of two or three joints that were recorded, I had to go and touch them up and everything else was fresh.  What song are you most proud of off the mixtape?  I got a couple of them but I think “Family,” the third track, is probably one of the tracks that I feel the most because there’s some shit going on with the family and you know I always talk about real life situations in my music. Family motivated me on a personal level, dealing with shiesty-ass family members that did me dirty, people that you never think would do you dirty but they did me dirty. And “Paradise.” I like the mood on “Paradise.” There’s some dope ones in there. You know, we got a radio joint. We got the “I’m So Hood” joint produced by Schrute Beats and that’s one of the ones that we’re thinking of shooting the video too because that caught the attention of a lot of people. We got a couple of classical joints on there. There’s a lot of hot shit. My man Statik Selektah came through. You know, I like the whole shit, man, for real.  “I’m So Hood” is the first track that leaked off the project. How did you put that song together?  Oh, man. The beat was sent to me by Schrute Beats and as soon as I heard the beat, I knew I wanted to do something catchy as hell with it because the beat took me there. I actually had two other dudes that were going to do the hook and they actually laid their hooks and shit but I just wasn’t feeling it. I wanted to get Tek to do something. Tek is a creative motherfucker. I asked Tek to do something to the hook and Tek went in there and he blessed it, man. That was the hook that I felt the most and we just went with that one and it came out to be a banger.  You just started working with Statik Selektah. What do you think you two will do together?  Statik’s busy right now and I reached out to him about doing something. He’s down with hosting a mixtape for me. All he can do right now is host the joint right now but in the future we’re definitely going to get together. I think Statik Selektah is one of the best producers out there right now, hands down. He’s a legend in the game. It was an honor to get something from him. It was a good look, man, working with him and getting a hot joint for the mixtape.  Chino XL left you a drop for the mixtape. Does that mean you guys are working together?  Man, me and Chino got a couple of joints, man. He’s got something with us for his project. I can only say it’s going to be crazy, man. We got a joint that me and him did together called “Word for Word” that people are going to have to step their game up. It’s ridiculous. Fuck the stereotype of Latin hip-hop artists. You got the future and the legend on one track. Chino XL is like my big brother. I was talking to him about the decisions I’m making in my life as an artist and he dropped knowledge on the boy. That’s my brother and it was just an honor doing a track with him and having him call in and show respect to me.  I got love for Chino XL and everybody that called in is legends to me, like Crooked I and Statik Selektah. These guys know that I’m grinding hard and I’m going hard. They know that I’m relevant in this game. You gotta know I’m relevant in this game and it’s all in the eyes of the niggas I fuck with. I’m letting the whole Streetsweepers camp know what’s going on. You gotta give me my shine also. I’m a loyal motherfucker and I've been with Streetsweepers. Let the boy get his shine. I’m here and I’m doing damage. Let’s get it popping. That’s it.  The fans who have been following you for years on HipHopGame know that you’re nice but can you take your talent and make fans on a much larger scale this year?  I can definitely do that. That’s why I’m thinking of relocating. I’m trying to touch as many people as I can. I was talking to one of my boys that’s working with me and he told me about a scripture that God said. He said that sometimes you have to move out of your hometown to really get the love there. I get a lot of Jersey love. I’ve had Camden on lockdown for years. People respect me on the street level and the music level in Camden. My thing is moving on to other places and being heard and really being relevant. My whole thing is I’m really going to get that respect, B, because I work hard. I do it like I’m ‘Pac. The Spanish 2Pac. I’m trying to get it popping form Jersey to Miami and I’m on a mission. If I gotta go to New York or Cali or I gotta do it down South, I’m on a mission right now. People have to respect me and I’m basically getting the ball rolling myself.  I understand that I'm going through the lawsuit but if Kay Slay gives me 20-50% of the energy that he puts into Papoose, I think I would be a platinum selling artist but I understand where he’s coming from with the lawsuit. But at the same time understand where I’m coming from. If my lawyer tells Kay Slay that he’s handling the case, let’s just focus on my music then. All I need is 20-50% and I can be a platinum selling artist. Regardless I can’t dwell on how I’m being treated at Streetsweepers but I’m not going to let anybody dictate my future. I’m going hard and it’s still all good but I have to go 100% harder and I don’t mind going hard.  Any motherfucking label and any motherfucker in his right mind would want to invest anything in me because they see that I don’t fuck around when it comes to putting my shit down. I can be relevant on a bigger scale, honestly, because I’m a workhorse, man.  Was anything in your relationship with Kay Slay damaged when you talked about how he didn’t give you a lot of support in our September 2008 interview?  No. I don’t think anything was damaged but the fans, they spoke up. They wanted him to bring out Lou. I’m a dude that’s relevant in the game and he needed to show people that I was relevant. My point was for him to play me on the radio and I would never disrespect him. My whole point was do for me. People are even calling me now and asking me why my songs aren’t on his mixtapes. I don’t take that personally. If he didn’t put me on his mixtapes, he did that for a reason. It’s not like he’s trying to shit on me. Honestly. I’m on DJ Rhude’s mixtapes and I’m on other mixtapes.  I stay relevant, regardless of if I’m on a Kay Slay mixtape or not. I don’t take it like he’s trying to shit on me or whatever. I don’t take it personally. I just keep on calling him and keeping in tune with Kay Slay. Me and him talk and we try to put shit together the best way we could put shit together and it is what it is, B. My thing is, like I said before, man, I don’t know how he took it but after I talked to him there were things he said and there were things I said and we came to the forefront and we fixed our problems and we’re going ahead. I definitely don’t think nothing was damaged. You just have two dudes that go hard. He goes hard at what he do and I go hard and what I do. That’s all that is.  When we did the interview back in September, you never mentioned that your lawsuit could be the reason Kay Slay was not supporting you. How come you didn’t mention that?  I did mention the lawsuit shit, I just didn’t want to talk too much about it. To me, at that point, I already knew that we were in a good position. I didn’t want to talk too much about the lawsuit. I’m the dude that pushes ahead. I knew about the lawsuit and Kay Slay knew about the lawsuit. We all knew about the lawsuit. We were grinding before that. He talked about it and I talked about it and I thought that it wasn’t going to be that big of an issue and it wasn’t really an issue with me and him.  It was more about me getting that same shine that he’s giving to Papoose. He plays him on the radio. He gets his shit played on the radio. That was just my point. It was nothing about me trying to come at him in any type of way. Me and him talked about it. Me and him, we cleared the air on a lot of shit. I think a lot of people might have took it in the wrong way and it might have bothered him. He might have got sensitive to some of the things I was doing and he might not have. I don’t know. Whatever the case may be, we have our audiences and whatever it may be, I think it got taken out of context and shit. But you know, me and him are cool.  Are you and Kay Slay working on a new mixtape?  We’re working on one now. We’re working on one now. It’s basically done. We’re just waiting on him to do what he do and shit like that. I put it together. He finished all his drops and he let me know what he was doing. He gave me some joints and I blessed the joints. I put shit together and we’re just waiting on that but in the meantime while you’re waiting on that, I’m going to hit you with six or seven mixtapes. I don’t just limit myself to one thing. I got a lot of shit popping.  I’m not going to let Big Lou not be relevant. Big Lou’s going to be relevant. Big Lou’s going to be in your face every time you turn around and that’s just how I’m doing things. I got a mixtape coming out with DJ Rhude and a mixtape coming out with DJ Camilo. That’s very, very crazy and that’s going to be everywhere. And I got a mixtape coming with DJ On Point. I got some shit coming. It’s great. I got some shit coming. Trust me. And I got some videos that we’re about to release. I’m going to keep on moving from there and keeping my name relevant until one of these dumb motherfucking labels don’t be so dumb and they’re going to be like, ‘Yo, we need that nigga.’  Do you think you’ll work with Papoose in the near future?   I mean, if we do we do but my thing right now is pushing ahead. If we work with each other again and we do another track, then good. There’s no love lost with me and Papoose. Me and Papoose never had no problems but I’m trying to do tracks with a bunch of other niggas too. If we get together and we knock out tracks then that’s great but Big Lou is going to keep on doing what Big Lou does.  Do you feel like you get the respect you deserve from hip-hop’s best lyricists like Chino XL?  Oh yeah. I appreciate the love they give. They appreciate that I’m going hard and they appreciate the fact that I’m a lyricist. There are barely any lyricists out there today. They know that I should be getting way more love than I’m getting. I’m just thankful that there are real MCs out there that appreciate a real MC. I appreciate that they reach out to a nigga like me that’s still on the come up and they show me love and they give me words of encouragement to stay doing what I’m doing because I am relevant in the game. That’s just what it is.  You also recently were featured on UnLearn’s “Emcees You Wanna Be” also featuring Stimuli. What made you want to get down on that?  Unlearn is nice, man. I respect real MCs and when that was proposed to me of course I accepted. He’s a real MC and he’s somebody I look forward to hearing. I like getting on tracks with MCs. If niggas are wack and they don’t got style or lyrics or substance I don’t do tracks with them. UnLearn is a dude coming up. It was a blessing and the joint got a crazy response to it and they put the homie Sha Stimuli on it which made it right and we went in. We did what we had to do.  What do you think of Saigon and Joe Budden going back and forth?  Man, you know what, man? I just think that they need to stop that fucking bullshit. I fuck with Saigon and I don’t know Joe Budden that good but I fuck with him. He fucks with my peoples. He fucks with my man Nino Bless. He just needs to stop the bullshitting, man. Prove your point with your music. Saigon is an unbelievable artist. He’s a great artist. He should just be worrying about his craft because he’s just a good artist. Joe Budden is the same way. Leave that bullshit alone. You know, a lot of that shit is getting old now and niggas just need to get back on their grind and just do them. Fuck what anybody say. Fuck what you thought. Just do you, man. Joe Budden and Saigon need to be relevant in a good way. That’s why hip-hop is fucked up right now. We don’t need good artists to be caught up in that bullshit right now. They just need to do what they do and make the fans happy.  What’s coming up for Big Lou?  A bunch of mixtapes. I don’t want people to think of me as the mixtape king so I do mixtape albums. My mixtapes are literally better than your fucking album. I have a lot of videos coming your way too. The streets are going to get hit up. I got a documentary coming up that my man Tekneek is editing. The documentary has everybody on there. Anybody with a name is on that documentary. It’s got a lot of insight and it shows how we grind every day in the streets. I got that shit coming, man. I got a lot of shit coming and that’s always going to be there. I’m always going to have shit in your fucking face. You can respect a real MC.

By Brian Kayser

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