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7/10/2006 What's up? I'm good. I'm just working hard, handling my business out here. The big question right now is what label is going to win the Papoose sweepstakes? We got to the point where we had deals offered to us over a two-year period of time. They were disrespectful numbers. We're at the point where now we have record-breaking performances and the BET Awards. We can't take any less than what we're supposed to get and we need a machine behind him that fully understands his situation. We're down to two labels, and with one label, our lawyers are with them now. The deal should be done no longer than two weeks from now. Can you tell us the labels? I don't want to really jinx things, but one is a powerhouse and one hasn't had nobody there in hip-hop from the east coast in awhile. One's a clear lane and we might have to put more work in, and one's a big machine, but they have a lot of superstars there. That's all I can really say. Putting in work doesn't seem to be a problem for you or Papoose. With all your experience in the game, have you ever seen another artist with Papoose's work ethic? No. I really haven't. I know there may be some that exist, but being that I'm not right there with them, I don't know. From day one, the first time we went in the studio, Papoose recorded five joints. It wasn't a twelve-hour session, it was only four or five hours. I knew then he was going to be a problem. I'm seeing this first-hand. Nobody else is seeing this. I know how intelligent he is. The first time he did "Alphabetical Slaughter" and he spit that non-stop and that was a five-and-a-half or six-minute joint and he didn't skip a letter or a beat in each segment and the words he was using, I knew he could do anything and flow anyway and he could adopt to any style or concept. I can give you the four points of every rapper coming up. One is how much time I've been in jail. The second is how much I bust my gun. The third is how much drugs I sell. The fourth is how dangerous the hood I come from is. If you tell a rapper, "Look, I'll give you $500,000 if you can rhyme without using any of those elements," they'd be lost. If you can do records without touching any of those elements, that's a gift from God. You guys have been grinding it out for the past couple of years together. Looking back, did your plan work exactly how you wanted it to? It worked a little better, actually. There was a time when we were going to take a certain deal, and it was only $600,000. The "Charades" record had just hit the radio. That was just a freestyle. It was getting crazy spins and Flex was bombing it, I'm hitting it, and other DJ's are hitting it. I said, "We're not going to take this. It's going to get bigger than this." We just kept grinding and grinding. The only thing that's funny to me is when I signed the kid, I signed him because he was so dope, and nobody saw the big picture. Not one person affiliated with me. They were all like, "What are you doing? That's a baby Canibus or some shit." Now they understand. How has Papoose grown working with you the past two years? The thing about Papoose is he doesn't talk a lot. If he doesn't know you, he won't talk to you. He'll just observe you. He's a real observant person. The great thing about him is he put his trust in me. I told him there were going to be things he didn't want to do. I told him all I needed him to do was rap and he was going to make it. He didn't want to get on the "Hip-Hop Police" record. I told him to just do it. He took a classic and flipped it, and boom. He was rebelling against me, and I was telling him, "Don't worry about it. Just do it." There are some artists who may not want to do something and they do it just because and because they trust you so much. It makes it so much easier than when you have some asshole who thinks he knows the whole game. If they know the whole game, why do they need you? Papoose is a good person to work with. The most amazing thing about him that a lot of people don't know is that Papoose doesn't write anything down. He does not write notes. Everything he does is straight out of his mind. I just heard a story on the TV and they were talking about some of the greatest writers. Papoose said, "I'm a writer in my mind. If I have to write it on paper, then I have to memorize it. If I write it in my mind, then it's always there." Where else do you hear shit like that? Is Papoose's debut album The Nacirema Dream done? We have so much material. We're on mixtape number fifteen. That's about to come out next week. That's called The 1.5 Million-Dollar Man. You're getting it first right here. 1.5 is Supreme Mathematics. This is mixtape number-fifteen. The number 15 is also Supreme Mathematics for Knowledge Power. We just have so much material and we've worked so much, that even when we're doing mixtapes, we do album cuts and we say, "We're holding this. This is for the album." We've been recording records for over two years. This is number fifteen. In that period of time, we've technically released fifteen albums. That's how much material we've got. When you hear these album cuts, wow. I listen to them every day. I wake up to them sometimes. I believe people are really going to be impressed with the album. Do you ever worry Papoose is going to run out of material? No. That's exactly what I'm talking about. He is so intelligent. He never stops. He's been doing shows for a year and a half and getting paid for them. All he had was mixtapes out, so all his shows were like a mixtape tour. Did you ever have a conflict between playing Papoose because he's dope but also playing him because he's your artist and people will say he's only getting play because of his affiliation with you? No, I never really had that conflict. There are always a couple of people looking out for him. I never oversaturated it. I'd hit his joint and then seven or eight other joints. You wouldn't hear me playing ten of his joints back-to-back. I did it in a way where I wanted people to know why I was playing him instead of force-feeding them. When I first started playing him on my mixtapes, I put him at the bottom. Every tape, I would start inching him up so people would respect him for who he is. I've never heard that he's big because he's my artist. I let him show and prove. I never really had those problems. How instrumental have you been in setting up his collaborations with MC's and producers? That's all been me politicking, just making sure that he gets to work with everybody. After awhile, people said they like what we're doing and they want to give us a beat or they want to jump on a joint with him. That's how it happened with Busta Rhymes, Talib Kweli was like that...a lot of people wanted to do things with him. Some of the top artists were feeling like they needed to rap with him and he was on their level. Nas isn't going to just rap with anybody. Busta's not just going to rap with anybody. Lloyd Banks isn't going to just get on a track with anybody. What's the ideal drop date for his debut album? Right now, we don't have an ideal date, but we definitely want to have him out by October. Right now, the album is done. We have a couple of Dr. Dre beats. Premier gave us a track. We have five more records that we want to do. Then we're going to start playing process of elimination because we have so many records. We just have to pick the best ones, and that's going to be hard. Did Papoose's "Get Right" do what you needed it to? Let me be totally honest with you. Those ain't our kinds of records. You have to understand that with the audience, you have to satisfy every angle. That's not his first single. His album isn't done and we haven't signed a deal yet .That was his first club-type record where females can shake their ass to him and have fun too. We make a lot of conscious records and talk about what's going on in the world and we jump on other people's beats too. We never had a record where girls could shake their ass to it and it could play in the club. That's all it was to me. It was just a record. Everybody seemed to have it out for me. I was looking at the comments and they're saying it's not Papoose's style. Papoose has all styles. We're not catering to an all-male audience. We're trying to rap to the ladies too. That's all that's about, is being versatile. You have an album coming with Greg Street. How was it working with him? He's great. It was a piece of cake. He had his strings and I had mine. We have a lot of genuinely good records. I just leaked a record the other day with Mike Jones, Papoose, and Paul Wall so Papoose can show his talent and show how he works with brothers from other regions. The first single has the world champion Shaquille O'Neal with Papoose and Bun-B. There's Busta Rhymes, Ghostface, Raekwon, Kool G. Rap, and Big Daddy Kane. There's a huge variety on there from those guys to southern rappers to Dipset and Lloyd Banks from G-Unit. We have Yung Joc on there, Remy Martin on there, and that's the possible next single. It's something for the ladies. We have nineteen records and two skits. I heard you're working on a mixtape with Saigon. I had done that for Saigon a minute ago, but I guess he's been working on his album so he's probably just getting around to putting it together. From the material I heard, it was hot. Now that he's in his situation with Just Blaze, I know there's a lot of crazy joints I haven't heard. Didn't you try to sign Saigon in the past? Yeah. What it was was that he was in a situation with Mark Ronson and it was too crazy of a situation. They wanted me to still do it, but there were too many heads around. It was crazy. His situation was just too crazy. I had done the first mixtape with him with Whoo Kid, then I hosted another one for him. I said I would still support dude, but his situation was just too crazy. I remember getting Saigon's first Yardfather tape. You knew about him before all of us. He had a street image but he had the intelligence to go along with it. He can talk street things, but be knowledgeable and have a good message about it. It was really getting to a point where I wanted to get my own artist because a lot of these artists were pissing me off with their bullshit. At first, they're calling me trying to get on my tapes. They're calling me all day. Then when you reach out back, they're saying they'll do something next week. When they get to a certain level, they don't want to do shit anymore. They just want to run around and front and floss. I knew I had to create my own artist so I wouldn't have to deal with the bullshit. The first person was going to be Saigon but he had too much going on with his other situation. There was another cat I ran into but he ended up getting locked up. Then there was Papoose. That's the gist of it. How many artists are trying to get on your tapes now? It's crazy because now everybody wants to be the next Papoose. They see what I did with him and they want it done for them. I'm not saying it's that easy because everybody is different and everybody doesn't possess the same qualities, but everyone can come off at their own angle. Papoose is a different artist across the board. When it came to rapping, there were no flaws, and I knew I had someone who could do what I needed to be done. He executed it. I have another artist I'm working with. Her name is Vein and she's from VA but she resides in New York. She's a real versatile artist as well. I just got a call from XXL wanting to interview her. She's been around for a second. I observed her grind and most importantly, her personality. You have to have somebody calm who you're not going to be bailing out of jail. She's focused on life in general. I have some heat coming from her as well, too. She's on the album with Greg Street on the song "The Introduction." She has a mixtape out. She collaborated with Remy Martin, Papoose, Busta Rhymes, Jae Millz, Chamillionaire, and Stat Quo. I'm going to let her handle herself and let people see how creative she is. You're also one of the first DJ's to show Joell Ortiz love. Pardon me, I tried to sign that dude too. Let me tell you, the world is lucky. If I would have had Papoose and him, I don't think the world was ready for that anyway. That's too much ammo. Joell Ortiz is a great rapper. All he needs is the right structure behind him and someone to show him how to format his records. He'll make some nice records. He's going to be all right. I see it in him too. I had also heard rumors you were going to work with Jojo Pellegrino. Nah. Jojo Pellegrino, everything's cool and we go way back. I haven't spoken to him in a minute. If he needed my assistance, I'm there. I think he just caught a bad break, but he's good people. The key thing is I don't count anybody out and I give everybody a fair shot. What you do with that shot is entirely up to you. One thing you won't be able to say is, "Slay never gave me that opportunity." How important is that to you? The key thing is me being an OG in the game and being a part of hip-hop from day one when it evolved from disco, I know what it takes to maintain and stay around in the game. I've seen LL Cool J and how he adjusted to the sounds and the times. Now he has to take his shirt off and do what the women who buy records want him to do. The ones who are established are going to the executive side, and the gentlemen coming up now will be the next generation. Who do I work with? The brothers who are established or the brothers who are next? I decided to work with the artists coming from the ground up. Who are they going to say gave them their start five years from now? "Kay Slay." My name will never die. I stay grounded. Everybody's worried about Jay-Z and Cam'ron, but they're going to get love regardless. I'm more concerned with the artists coming up. Whether people recognize it or give credit, I can say I was strong in the south movement getting to where it's at, not DJ Drama. If you want to be real with it, TI, when he was Tip, when he first got his record deal with Arista. When he first got that deal, Kevin Cooper was bringing him to my house so he could create a buzz in New York City. That was in 1999-2000. He would freestyle on my old mixtapes. When he had the record with Beenie Man that was his first single, he asked me to go to BET with him to the basement and DJ for him off my New York credibility. Ludacris used to come to my house before he blew up. The first radio show Mike Jones was on was Hot97. Paul Wall, Lil' Flip, and my first single on my last album was 3-6 Mafia. The first time 3-6 Mafia ever got on MTV was from my single. That was their first time. That's Kay Slay. 8Ball back in the day. I supported these artists from day one when their whole movement was coming about. Dem Franchize Boyz were on my show when they got no airplay and were getting no love, I was giving them airtime. Lil' Jon before he blew up, I was playing his records like crazy. Bryan Leach from TVT will tell you. I was very influential in southern rap getting up; it was not a southern DJ because in order for a region to pop, it has to pop in New York. Once it pops in New York, that's when everyone else gravitates towards it. I was the first DJ up here to support that. I had Cee-lo Green hosting my tapes. Ask those artists. They're not going to say it's not true. They're going to say Slay was the first person to do this or that. It is what it is. Does it bother you that other DJ's like Drama get more credit? Not really. This is in no disrespect to Drama. His name is partially from mine. It partially comes from my name. Two, he comes from Philly. He's not from the south. He's from up north. Three, he took the method I started down south and that's how he blew up. I was the first person to put hosts on mixtapes. I put street hustlers and gangsters on my tapes and I was doing quadruple-CD's and triple-CD's. He took the method I was doing and started blowing up. I think it was real smart for him to do that. If you can't make it in the region you're at, sometimes you have to find another region. It's all love whenever I see him, but they need to pay homage. I'm the Drama King, his name is DJ Drama. Two, he took my method of hosting and crated his own music. That's cool. Three, he was saying in an interview that he's known for his hosting and talking shit on mixtapes. Who started talking shit on mixtapes? Me! The Drama King. It's funny to me. I do a lot of reading and I observe. As long as niggas know in their hearts that they didn't master their situation by themselves, then they'll be all right. I remember TI when he had his first big record with Beenie Man, he didn't have DJ Drama to go in the basement with Big Tigger. He had Kay Slay. I've done that and niggas need to recognize what it is. Ghostface recently said New York hip-hop is bad because of the DJ's. How did you feel about that statement? I think Ghostface might have been a little frustrated when he said that. Ghostface is my brother. When he said that, I'm going to let that one bounce off me. I'm water-repellant. I know he was frustrated at the time. You can't blame the DJ's. His "Back Like That" still plays on the radio. That was on one of the biggest rotations. A lot of DJ's play songs off his albums. He's one of the best rappers of all time. When he hasn't had a record out, I've reached out to him for freestyles. He's been in my crib before and we've been wyling out. We have fallen solders in common like Chip Banks. He's my brother. I didn't take that in no way. He's not talking about me. He was frustrated to even make that statement because his record was in rotation. What else can you do from that? If anything, you need to point the finger at the audience and your fans and say they're confused about where they're from. You can't blame the DJ's who are playing your records. There's been a lot of debate about the recent strength of New York hip-hop. What's your take on that issue? New York will never fall off. We're the makers and the owners. We started it and we'll finish it. A lot of the artists in the south do money deals. A lot of them have bullshit deals and all they needed was distribution and they got it popping. A lot of them have gone gold, sold 800,000, or gone platinum. You can take 50 Cent and sell five-million copies and take five big artists from the south and they won't sell as much as 50 Cent. The biggest seller in rap right now is 50 Cent and he's in New York. I don't understand. The south is getting more airplay in the clubs and the radio, but how can you say New York fell off? Jay-Z is a mogul in the industry and Rick Ross and Young Jeezy are on Def Jam. He assists southern rap. How did we fall off? Young Buck went platinum and he's signed to 50 Cent. When they say New York fell off, it kind of confuses me. There aren't many hip-hop artists in New York who have released albums. Busta Rhymes is the only one to release an album recently and that's the biggest album in the country right now. Maybe people are looking for too much from us. When you come to New York, unless you're listening to a mixshow, you're not hearing too many new artists because the A&R's are looking for the quick buck. They want that hot hook. If you have a hot hook, you're getting signed. They don't care about skills anymore. Are people looking for hip-hop where it's something you live, or rap, which is something you do. Hip-hop is something you live, rap is something you do. These niggas are fucking with rap and that's something you can do or I can do. But can you really write records that can change people's lives? Up north, we have records that change peoples' lives. We're lyricists. Down south, you have Scarface, TI, Ludacris, 8Ball and MJG, Bun-B, and most of the other brothers are really entertainers. There's different angles to this music but what if you gave a lot of these rappers a mic on Freestyle Friday. The truth will come out. "Oh, you're not really a rapper, you're an entertainer." And that's cool, I just don't want people to get it confused. We have the top lyricists in the world in New York. If I wanted to be disrespectful, I could grab Kool G. Rap and Rakim and take on rappers from anywhere. Let's not get into the Papoose's and the Saigon's and the Jae Millz' and the Joell Ortiz'. Pardon me, Chamillionaire is a lyricist too. Mike Jones is new. Yung Joc is new. Young Jeezy is a new artist. Rick Ross is a new artist. They get 10,000 times more airplay than new artists from New York. It looks like we're not there, but we're standing strong. Sooner or later, they're going to see we didn't go nowhere and it's the way the industry is pushing these artists that make it seem that way. How do you feel about the mixtape game today? There's too many mixtape DJ's now. There's too many of them. We used to put the tapes out where everything was exclusive and you didn't have records other DJ's were using. Now you don't have that. There's no originality now. It's fucked up. Shit is fucked up. Everybody wants to be a mixtape DJ. I don't consider myself a mixtape DJ. I'm a businessman. If you really want the truth, anybody who knows my history knows I've been DJ'ing for over thirty years. Case in point, when I came back to the DJ'ing, I didn't want to be the Mixtape Game. No disrespect, but they have this title called "intern" which is really code for "flunky." If the boss needs coffee, who goes to get it? The intern. I could not see myself getting down to doing that when I wanted to get back into the mixshow. That's why I started doing the tapes. I wanted to build a brand so I could do what I wanted to do in the game. It just so happened that I was coming so strong and coming so hard and having street cats hosting tapes and cats like Larry Davis calling and doing drops, real gangsters in the street, that really caught people's attention. I was putting people's personalities on tapes. I had Shyne host a tape before he went to jail. Then I realized I needed to do radio, get some sponsorships, and get an artist. It just so happened that I did the mixtapes so well and it took me to the next level. 90% of these guys making mixtapes have no plan. They're just saying, "This is me and this is hot." They have no plans to try to take it to a radio show, manage artists, or be an entrepreneur. They're doing one of the things right. That's not what I got into it for, but I can see what they're doing just by looking at their tracklisting. Seeing them emulating people's styles is nothing new to me, but why are you doing it? Are you going to focus on producing more? Definitely. I'm just the type of person where I like to do things when I want to do it and I do it to death. I do it to the fullest extent. There are only so many hours in the day and if you're going to be the best at what you do, you have to put the time in. Beat-making takes time like DJ'ing and doing shows, so I can't really put all my focus into it right now so I'm not into it like that. You must have been happy seeing Shaq win the title. Yeah. We work together with his label Deja34 Records. The first release from that label was my album through Koch. It couldn't be better timing for this new album, which is titled "The Champions," plus Shaq is on the single. That worked beautifully. What do you want to say to everyone? Never judge a book by its cover. I know a lot of people say a lot of things about me and they don't really know me. There's nothing I can do about that. I'm not going out of my way to show them. I handle my business and I respect people the way they respect me. If you have a passion to do something, do it. Don't be what other people want you to be. You need to get what you need to get and get there. Nobody can stop destiny. If somebody puts a gun to your head and you're not supposed to die, that clip is going to jam. Just take your time and do what you need to do. You see how you just paged me and we're doing this interview. That's the type of person I am. I'm a grinder. I ain't no procrastinator.

By Brian Kayser

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