DON'T MISS TODAY:

Back to Artist Profiles

12/18/2008 You recently released a diss track to the RZA in “The Secret Weapon.” What motivated that?  I released that track because the whole thing that caused me to release that track is you got a situation in music where they got distribution through Koch. We all know that RZA released a project through Koch. There was a word said from the people that handled his project to the people that handled my project.  Did you lose your deal?  No. I didn’t lose my deal. It was just the principle of even saying something negative towards what I’m doing as an artist. I guess it’s a business strategy or whatever but I’m not mad at that point. This is things that they have done over the years, period. They stopped it from anybody else from Staten Island getting in with those same tactics. So right now I’m just speaking out on it. I’m just letting it be known that we’re not really having that shit. Like, you can’t even stop us if you wanted to but at the same time I’m going to speak out on it, you dig?  Why would RZA want to stop you from having a successful album?  I mean, have you ever heard any artists from Staten Island be successful out of Staten Island? Has any artist ever broken from Staten Island and had a legitimate shot? I’m not talking about underground buzzes. I’m talking about an artist going mainstream besides an artist that was associated with Wu-Tang. Do you think that’s because every other artist on Staten Island was wack? Do you think that Killarmy and Sunz of Man are the best that we have to offer on Staten Island? I’m asking this to the people.  You asked and I’m trying to explain why. If you look at it, there are tons of talent out here on Staten Island and a lot of people are making moves and a lot of people on Staten Island have little buzzes and shit and they’re doing their thing, but at the same time, when you present your project to any company, it’s like when you go to a job and you have to give references. Even if you don’t give references, there have to be people that know you. The only people they ask on Staten Island are Wu-Tang and are they going to say something positive about another artist on Staten Island? No, because we’re competition.  Even though you’re affiliated with Inspectah Deck you’re still considered competition?  I’m affiliated with Deck. Deck is my dude but I’m not a Wu-Tang artist. I’m not a Wu-Tang affiliate. I’ve never been that. We’re all from the same place and we’re all cool. I fuck with Deck. Deck is cool. I ride with Deck and Deck rides with me but I’m not Wu-Tang affiliated and I’m not a Wu-Tang artist.  Do you know what RZA said to mess with your project?  Over the years there’s been more than just this one little incident. Over the years we’ve known that these types of things have been going on but now we have a situation going at Koch and we feel like this is the situation that’s going to push us towards the mainstream. With the RZA saying something, it’s not necessarily messing it up and what he exactly said, I don’t know, but I heard enough from the people that are handling my project. They let me know that there was some negative shit said from him and that circle over there, not meaning the rest of the Wu-Tang dudes. This shit is not aimed at all of the Wu-Tang dudes. Obviously I fuck with Deck so I’m not Wu-Tang bashing. I’m speaking out on one man and his business tactics.  Did you talk to Inspectah Deck before you released "The Secret Weapon"?  We spoke about it but I don’t know if he actually heard it. We had a conversation and we spoke about the situation. I told him how I felt and at the end of the day, I’m a man and I have to stand up for what I believe, you dig? I can’t just sit back and allow fucked up shit to go on and me not even say nothing or react upon it. And if somebody is my peoples, they’re not going to be my peoples if they keep on telling me to keep on letting somebody do some fucked up shit to you and don’t do nothing.  Has RZA reached out to you since you released “The Secret Weapon"?  We never had no contact before this so I doubt we will. Nah. I haven’t had any contact.  Do you feel like you’re blackballed from the industry today?  It’s already going on. I’ve already been blackballed throughout my whole career so that’s why I’m saying this. That’s why I’m telling you – this shit’s been going on. Now I’m fed up with this shit and it’s not even stopping me because to be honest, the dude, he made a strong impact in the game and he did his thing and nobody can take that away from him, but right now, are they really relevant like that to the industry?  It’s time for a change anyway. Back then, yeah, there was so much power that he held that yeah, he could hold me out. But right now nobody can’t hold me back. It’s going to happen. The ball is already rolling. I’m associated with so many people that are even higher than they are. You can do whatever you want to do and blackball and try but that’s not going to work. That’s why I’m beefing. I’m not mad. It’s just the principle of it and me as an artist. If the shit is going to go on, fuck it, we’re going to bring it out to the light and we’re going to let it be known that this is going on.  Do fans understand what you’re saying or do you think they’re going to automatically side with RZA?   A lot of fans took it like I was the Mad Rapper and I was upset and that’s not even the case. People respond that I’m one of RZA’s artists and I’m mad that he never did anything for me. No, I was never one of RZA’s artists. Throughout my career I have never had any major help up until now. We have the Koch situation on the table. But before that, my whole career and being on Hot 97 and touring from here to Atlanta all the way up the East Coast, we took it independently on our own before we was associated with ChamberMuzik. Before that we were moving units on the street without any of that distribution. We’ve been doing what we’re doing. It’s not like a nigga ain’t never been here through this whole shit. I’ve been relevant to the game.  In “The Secret Weapon" you said that Wu-Tang has been wack for a long time…  (interrupts) I didn’t say “Wu-Tang” has been wack. I said “y’all niggas.” If you want to be specific, when I say “y’all niggas” everybody don’t rap like the RZA. Everybody don’t rap like that. I know a lot of other dudes might feel like that. They don’t want to hear…I don’t know what kind of style it is, but that shit isn’t really popping right now. I’m a true hip-hop fan and I respect hip-hop music but sometimes it’s time to let it go and I don’t know. I don’t see it being that shit no more. To be honest, that was never really one of my favorites from the jump, The homie INS, to me, he’s like the greatest and he gets slept on. People rate him on the under and I think he should be way above a lot of other people that get the credit, you dig?  I also said, “Y’all niggas won’t do me like the Ruthless Bastards.” I’m pretty sure a lot of people know who the Ruthless Bastards is. They was making moves and they had a song that was on Hot 97 before they started fucking with the Wu. They got signed to the Wu or whoever they was signed to was associated with the Wu. All of their radio play stopped that was going on. They was getting more radio play before they fucked with them niggas than after. They released their project, right? The same beat that they was getting the play on the radio without any help from anybody was also used for a Wu-Tang project that was released right after that so they basically stripped them niggas of the beat. They were in bad contracts for years and they couldn’t make any kind of moves.  That’s why I said that they wouldn’t do me like the Ruthless Bastards. I fuck with them. Those are my dudes. I just wanted to clear that up. We’re not all rapping like Killarmy and I’m not saying that like it’s a diss to them. A lot of niggas on Staten Island don’t rap like that. When you think of Staten Island you just think that everyone raps like Wu-Tang and that's just not the case. There’s a lot of other things going on in Staten Island and that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to bring that other side of Staten Island to the people. It ain’t me versus everybody in the Wu. I fucks with them niggas. Some of them in there is my peoples like Deck, Capp, Meth and Street and so on. You feel me?  So we’re just saying that it’s president versus president and we’re going to handle this like two presidents would handle this. It doesn’t have nothing to do with anybody else. That’s how it is and it ain’t no personal shit like a nigga hates them. I don’t even know that man like that. It’s just the principle of a nigga trying to stop what I’m doing. If we were in the streets and he was getting money and another nigga was getting money and one of them tells the other that they can’t get no money, you’re either going to stay in your neighborhood or you’re going to move on.  That’s what this whole shit is about. It ain’t nothing personal or no Madd Rapper shit. We’re making great music over here and the people are loving it and things are looking real bright for us for our future and a lot of doors and opportunities are opening. It ain’t no Madd Rapper shit. And HipHopGame, if y’all feel like I’m lying, I feel like a lot of people from Staten Island are on your site. Ask them what they feel and how they feel about the state of hip-hop on Staten Island and see what their responses are. That will tell you how they feel. And it’s beyond music.  Community-wise, look at Jay-Z and all of these other artists. They give back crazy to their community and I’m not saying that Wu never gave back to their community but Staten Island niggas are fucked up and we’re hungry. We don’t have the same opportunities that the rest of the boroughs in the city got. It’s a lot harder getting out of Staten Island. That’s why we call our borough The Forgotten Borough. We’re the last place to get a shout out. They’ll shout out Jersey and Connecticut before they’ll shout us out. So that’s what this whole shit is about. I’m standing up for Staten Island. This is bigger than me. This is for Staten Island, you dig?  I mean, I didn’t do it for attention. That record was never actually even supposed to be on The Fresh Air Fund. I was damn-near done with The Fresh Air Fund and I got the word for that and I wrote that on the same day. We got the studio now so I went right in the studio and I did the shit on the same day. I had gave the shit out to my peoples to flood it to all the internet people along with other songs. That’s just the songs that they picked to release. That’s not the song that I specifically picked to be the first song. That’s just the song that everybody ran with because of what it was.  The last time we spoke we talked about your album T2-Fly, which has been changed to Flight 10304. How’s the album coming?  The project, we’re looking at ’09. The situation, everything is great. I just feel that this project is a project that can really make a major buzz. I just want everything to be right before it’s released. We were supposed to release it in the summertime but if we were going to release it in the summer, I don’t feel that it would have had the proper promotion and it wouldn’t have had everything that it needed to take off.  I put a whole lot into this. I have other mixtapes and we have our studio set up and we’re working every day and I’ll keep on throwing out mixtapes. I’ve been chilling this whole year because of this Flight 10304 shit. Everybody knows me for dropping one to three joints per year. This year I haven't really hit them with nothing and I’m hitting them now because I have mad shit that’s backed up because there’s shit that they wanted to use for Flight 10304 and now I’m sitting on a whole bunch of shit that they want to throw out. I’m sitting on albums and mixtapes to throw out to the fans so they can go pick them up. We’re going to keep them happy. We’re not putting Flight 10304 out until Flight 10304 is going to get a good shot like everybody else should get a good shot.  How much is Deck helping you on Flight 10304?  I mean, as far as the project, we do it on our own. All creativeness, that shit comes from us. Deck has been schooling me on what needs to be done and business strategies. He’s helping me take my shit from an underground level to being an artist that’s major and shit like that. He’s there for personal shit and business shit. That’s my dude.  How’s your most recent mixtape The Fresh Air Fund doing now?  It’s great. It’s doing great. We’re on the streets grinding with it now. It’s an incredible project. It’s like a mixtape but at the same time it’s like an album. There’s crazy hooks on there. It’s crazy shit that we wanted to put an original beat behind it but fuck it we’re going to get more shit. It’s nothing for us to come up with some amazing shit. Fresh Air is 24 amazing songs on there with hot joints, hot hooks and amazing feature. Capp is on there and Inspectah Deck is on there. All my peoples from the team is on there.  Why did you scrap your album T2-Fly?  I fucks with the fans and I was seeing that the fans weren’t getting what it was supposed to be and I think Flight 10304 captures it more. T2-Fly was supposed to be part two to my last solo album but being that this is going to be a somewhat major release and we’re going to have major opportunities and a lot of people, my true loyal fans, it’s going to be an opportunity for people to pick up this Flight 10304 project for people who never heard the Taylor Made project. They might not know what it is. We’re going to go with Flight 10304 and we’re going to rock with that right now.  What’s the next move for Fes Taylor?  I got more mix CDs coming and The Legend of Taylor is coming. I’m going to throw some other things out, I don’t know what yet. We’re going to keep on throwing them out until we have the Flight 10304 out. We got some incredible music. We got some things that we’re working on. We’re working with the homie and you know me. I always speak to y’all and I don’t really like to speak on things until they’re finalized. Shout out to my peoples at G-Unit/Dumout. Keep your eyes and your ears open for us touring. Besides that we’re just working. We’re in the studio.  http://myspace.com/getmoney240

By Brian Kayser

[43] REACT TO THIS INTERVIEW