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2/9/2007 What’s up?    I’m doing good. Another day, another dollar.  Group member Larro was just murdered. How have you been doing since that tragedy?    Personally, I’ve been dealing with the loss of a loved one. It’s not the same, but I’m doing it up and grinding it out. That’s what we’re here to do and that’s what he’d want me to do. We’re banging it out. We got some bangers.  How has LEP’s chemistry changed since the loss of Larro?    We all have our personalities and our roles. His flavor that he added is not there no more. It’s still good soup, though, but it’s missing that one little flavor. Everybody else has their own little ways. He’s not around and we miss that.  Your single “Gettin’ Money” features Jim Jones. How’s that song doing for you?    We’re getting love from the radio stations and the people like it. I’m happy with the response to it. Chicago likes it and that’s what’s up. That’s who we did it for.  How’s the LEP album coming?    We pushed it back to September because we had to make some adjustments. Plus the more we push it back, the older the music sounds. We had to freshen it up and I had to do some stuff on my own. We can’t keep it sitting for too long. That’s all we’re doing now, making sure it’s fresh. Rick Ross, Bun-B and Twista are on the album. We had a song with Young Dro before the Jim Jones one.  Are fans ready for an LEP album?    To tell you the truth, I want to hold off and put some more work into it. When we drop it, I want it to be solid.  Why did LEP sign with Sony?  Anton, he’s an A&R over there. He’s Foxy Brown’s brother. He’s cool and he looked out for us. That’s how that came about. Anton is cool with us. He looked out for us. He said he would look out for us when he came into a position and that’s what he did.  How important is it to grind on your own with or without the label’s support?    You’re a liability if you’re sitting around asking for stuff all of the time. We don’t ask for nothing. Our Remy Martin sponsorship is on our own. We got the radio play and features on our own. We’re taking care of business. We know how to handle money and we know how to take care of business.  Are you confident that Sony will know what to do with your project?  I don’t know how to answer that one. I can’t tell the future. I don’t know how things are going to go because there are a lot of things in the making right now. I can’t talk about that one.  How did LEP come together?  Me and my man, E, we got down in the streets. When he came home, I told him I wanted to still rap. I know he knows how to handle business. He does real estate and all that type of something. I needed someone to handle my business while I did my craft. Then everyone else came around. We were already doing it and my man told me, “You take care of your business and I’ll take care of my business.”  Were there any growing pains at first?  There was some knucklehead shit. Larro was a knucklehead and him and E got into it. You’re going to have your fallouts but you have to find your common ground. Our shit is tightknit as hell. If the train comes in over here, we follow our protocol. We don’t have issues. We don’t have no pride issues. You have your bosses and generals and you have your positions. Our shit moves smooth. I wouldn’t do this without anyone else.  Your bio states that you don’t advocate gangs, but you represent them in your music. How do you do that without sounding like you’re promoting it?  We call it gangbang music because that’s the era we came up in, in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s. That’s just how it was. We do it in a positive way. A lot of black men needed instruction because they weren’t getting it at home. There’s the different organizations, but we came together still.  What was it like coming up in Chicago in the ‘90’s?  It was hard and it was organized. There was a chain of command and people knew what their positions were and people respected those positions. You couldn’t just do what you wanted to do. We were organized. You couldn’t just sell drugs where you wanted to. You knew not to be somewhere with your hat turned a certain way or to go certain places. Then the Feds got involved and they changed all of it. They got a lot of political prisoners and they’re trying to make them out to be monsters. They don’t want to see black people come together. Back then, you didn’t just shoot people up. It was organized. You knew what to do.  Hip-hop-wise, is this a good time to be coming from Chicago?    I’m going to say it is because there ain’t no time like the present. Chicago is 99.9% gangster. It’s gang-related. You see Kanye and whatever. That’s a small percentage of preppiness. We’re representing for what it is. There’s nothing wrong with Kanye and much respect to him, but that’s a small percentage of what goes on over here.   What are you going to be doing from here on out to make sure LEP gets noticed?    We’re just going to stay in your face. We’re always going to be in your face. We got money to do it and that’s where we’re getting our money from. We’re businessmen and we’re just going to stay in your face and stay in your ears. We’re going to be one with it. This isn’t just a rap group. This is a movement. We’re trying to pull all these organizations together. You can’t just get money like that. You have to plug in and open your doors so we can all get money up here. There’s a lot of talent up here and there’s a lot of businessmen who want to get into the business. There’s also a lot of artists and we just have to make sure everybody gets their shot.    What’s next for LEP?    We’re dropping the next mixtape and we got a DVD. We have some stuff in the making. I don’t want to talk about it ahead of time. We drop a mixtape every two months. We try to keep something hot on the radio and stay in your face.  What do you want to say to everybody?    I just want to thank everybody who’s been promoting us. Tune in and be a part of the movement. Let’s get it cracking and let’s get money.

By Brian Kayser

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