|
6/18/2010
 @PackFM
 So Pack…
Hang on a second. I’m in the street. (car horn honking) Hello?
Are you sure that’s not Tonedeff making a beat?
If it is, I don’t want it. (laughs)
How did you come up with the concept for I F*cking Hate Rappers?
The original concept came from a conversation I had with a photographer friend of mine. Basically we were talking and I forgot what we were talking about but I just came out and said I F*cking Hate Rappers. From that point I decided to put it on a t-shirt and a year later, I decided that I really had a lot to say about that and I was working on an album with Domingo and it was the perfect platform for me to get those thoughts out so I named the album I F*cking Hate Rappers. The idea behind that was to make great music and to say whatever I want but to be as skillful as I can with it because that’s what I feel a rapper’s main responsibility is. The concept was to make some really dope concepts where the MC actually rhymes. The thing I hate is that everybody fucking raps but nobody wants to rhyme anymore. I was trying to focus on that and then thoughts would come into my head when I was rhyming, like when I was sitting on the train with these little rapper kids and their tight ‘80s clothes back then. They weren’t alive back then in the ‘80s and they would be scared to be on a train in those clothes in 1988. I wrote that song on the subway then. It wasn’t me saying I had to have songs about this and that. They came to me as I was making the album and that’s how it all came together.
Was there a specific incident when you realized you really did hate rappers?
I don’t think I could pinpoint it down to a moment but it was definitely a gradual build to where it made me become pretty antisocial in a way. I would be out in the street and going to shows because I love the culture but there are so many things you can listen to and just hate about a fucking rapper. They’re all so full of shit for the most part. If you’re out in a show at New York City where everybody raps, it’s the same shit where people tell you to holla at them and we have to build. It’s the same thing, almost like they’re all clones of each other. I couldn’t take this anymore and I had to get it out.
Do you get hit a lot for collabs and up-and-coming producers wanting to send you beats?
Yeah. There’s over 4 million rappers registered on MySpace. Literally. Every day I go on there and I check my fucking email and people say we have to collab. Why do we have to collab? I don’t even fucking know you. And then it’s “how much for a 16?” My rap is an art. It’s not something that I’m whoring myself to a stranger for. If you walk down the street and ask Hey, how much for a blow job? that’s the same thing to me. I’m not a whore. I don’t do shit like that. If I’m going to work with someone, it’s going to be someone that I know and someone that I feel is going to add something to the song. I’m not going to work with someone because they think I have a hot name or something like that. I feel like if we’re going to make music then we’re going to make music with a purpose. I don’t even answer them. I think maybe I’ve done one collab for money and it was just because I knew them and it happened to be in the budget. I don’t rap with people I don’t know like that. There’s people that I’ve been down with for 15-20 years that I haven’t even done songs with yet. I’m not going to just jump on the first thing with a paycheck attached to it.
It’s the same thing with beats. Some cat will send you 500 megabytes full of beats and they’re all $2 beats. $2 beats will give you $2 songs. Who wants shit like that? I try not to fuck with people like that. I have a team of MCs and producers that I’m tight with and they’re all extremely dope. That’s all I really need. I don’t need to work with flavor of the month rappers. I don’t need to holla at flavor of the month MCs. If they holla and they’re dope, then yeah, we’ll make some good music. But I’m not going to do a Google search and see who’s hot and then try to work with them. That’s bullshit to me.
There’s people that I really tell, yeah, we’re going to get up. It’s all about building a relationship with me and letting me get a vibe of how you operate and then if I feel you, then yeah, we’re going to do a fucking song. If we were kicking it for awhile and there was a song you wanted to get down on, then yeah, we would do a song.
What’s the strangest request you ever got on MySpace?
You get some strange requests to perform at things like children’s birthday parties. Those are kind of odd, like do you know what the fuck I rap about? I get those occasionally. The whole thing I’ve gotten lately is producers with their $2 beats. This one cat said I could lease a beat for $1.99. Not even $2. And any breach of the usage will result in legal action. How the fuck are you going to afford a lawyer with $2 beats? People are really bugging right now. There’s gotta be some integrity in the music and some seriousness on the music side. It’s gotten way out of control because everybody feels like they can be a part of it and to be a part of it, they’re willing to do any and everything to be a part of it, including whoring themselves. All of this shit’s gotta stop. I hate to sound preachy but you gotta understand what we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with the most influential culture in history. Hip-hop has changed the world. It’s everywhere. Right now we’re dealing with something that can change the world but if people aren’t taking it seriously, we’re going to have OJ Da Juiceman be at the forefront of this shit and nobody’s going to take it seriously. We need to get people back on the right track where people can be proud of this and say this is what I’m into. But right now it’s a fucking joke. I mean, $2 beats? (laughs) Come on now. That’s just where I’m at right now. I’m trying to make sure I get my music out and my message out in an artistic way and let other people know that they can also have integrity with what they’re doing.
Are you saying you like OJ Da Juiceman better than Waka Flocka Flame?
I think they’re both extremely horrific rappers. Really, they have no business rapping. If they were just having fun when they were selling drugs and they were kicking raps to each other, I think that would be fucking great. But to go out there and press up fucking CDs and fucking pollute the earth with your plastic. Come on now. You’re doing the planet a disservice. And there’s a lot of horrible rappers and not just mainstream, commercial rappers. There’s wack underground rappers too. Wack doesn’t know any boundaries when it comes to the music. There could be a wack rapper who sells a million records and a wack rapper at open mics.
Who are the worst five rappers in the game right now?
I don’t know. I don’t listen to too many wack rappers to know how to rank them. I could tell you a lot of great rappers. I don’t listen to enough like that to list wack rappers. You ask me to list five dope rappers I could do that in about three seconds.
That’s because you love everything.
Yeah. I love everything. That’s the end result of it all. Once you get it off your chest, you can love everything.
Was recording this album a cathartic process for you?
Yeah, definitely. It was really cathartic. Before I was doing this, it took me to this antisocial state and I really did not like going out and talking to rappers. I was like, I can’t deal with this shit. I didn’t even want to rhyme. Just getting the shit off my chest was really, really therapeutic. Now, after I finished the album, I went on a crazy writing spree because I didn’t have to think about that shit anymore. I could write about whatever I wanted. But it definitely served a big cathartic purpose.
Do you ever feel stereotyped when people find out you’re a rapper?
Well, I don’t even like to tell people I’m a rapper most of the time. Yesterday I was walking down the street and this guy said he’d seen me before and asked if I had worked at Def Jam. He said he had seen me before and he kept asking. I was like, Fuck, I have to tell this motherfucker. I don’t even want to tell people I rap because I don’t want to be associated with that label because then they’ll ask me what kind of rap do I do and then I’m in with that bullshit. They’ll ask me if I’m on the radio and if I make a certain kind of music. They never automatically assume the good shit, like this dude could be the next Nas. They think, This dude could be the next Plies. (laughs) That’s the image they have with rappers now so when I run into people and they ask me what I do, I’ll tell them I make remote controls and shit. I’ll make something up.
You and Poison Pen have a dope skit and then the song “Tough Talk” about fighting for no real reason. Have you ever stepped on Pen’s kicks before?
Hell fucking no! You crazy! (laughs) Pen is very mindful of his kicks. I would never come near them with my foot or anything like that. You want to stay on his good side at all times. Here’s a funny thing. When we were doing the track, Tone has a recording booth in the studio but it’s the size of a decent closet. Pen was in there and Tone wanted me in there and we would just interact and he would record the dialog. Dude, we get in there and Pen is really getting into it and I’m in this little six square foot room with nowhere to do and this dude is getting really Brolic. I’m like, Fuck this shit. I’m not standing in this little box with Poison Pen. I don’t want him having a blackout and getting too into character. But he’s one of my closest friends. I’ve known him since high school. Before we were thinking of making songs together, we were friends in high school and kicking it. That’s my dude right there.
Did the insults you guys threw at each other come from years of experience?
Yeah. We just wrote those on the spot. We’re always snapping on each other. All day long, that’s all me and him do and it’s all love. The idea of the song is that he’s not supposed to be taking me seriously. He’s supposed to think I’m a little motherfucker and he’ll beat me up in 30 seconds and I’m on some shit like, Don’t underestimate me. You don’t know what I can do. I had to be more the aggressor and he was getting his jokes off and I couldn’t really go there because it would kind of change the vibe of the song. But yeah, me and Pen always go at each other.
I’m also guessing he never offered one of his girls to “top you off.”
Yeah, nah. That’s never happened. No.
I’m guessing he keeps his girls to himself.
Yes, yes he does. We’re not the sharing kind of friends.
You know how Pen is. He doesn’t want them to pop.
(laughs) Yeah, man. Shout out to that dude. He’s also my security on the road.
On “I Wanna Know” you mentioned “2 Girls, 1 Cup.” I’m assuming you’ve watched it multiple times.
No. I only got to see it once, to tell you the truth. I heard about it and somebody sent me the link and I was trying to cheek it and the second I checked it, somebody walks up behind me and I don’t want them thinking I’m some sick fuck watching the shit so I turned it off right away. I had heard about it and watched it and by the time I actually watched it, it had been six to seven months later. There was no shock in it because I knew what to expect. I watched it with a straight face because I knew what they were talking about. I didn’t get it with the initial shock value that everybody else got. But when you see it six months later, it’s like, no big deal.
On a scale of 1-10, how unacceptable were those two girls’ behavior?
Oh, 14.
Since you caught on so late, did you ever get to show it to Tonedeff or Domingo?
I think Tone is the one who sent it to me.
What a sick fuck.
Yeah, he’s a really sick fuck. His porn collection is extensive.
He just gets a pound at Rocksteady. No handshakes.
(laughs) Word, man! You gotta give him the elbow dap!
With a long sleeved shirt.
And a bottle of Jorel! Don’t touch his hands. His hands are extremely soft, man! (laughs)
This is what happens when you mention poop in a song.
Hey, man, I can hang. Whatever I say, I stand behind. Any single word that I ever say on a record, I stand behind it 100%.
No doubt. On “I Fucking Like Everything” you talk about being a fan of 24. What’d you think of the ending this year?
I liked everything this year until the last 15 minutes of it. I thought that Logan took it way out and it’s whatever. I kind of understand how they ended it with Jack walking off into the sunset, but I wanted to see how he got away. That’s the beauty of watching 24, like how the dude thinks of shit and how he gets out of situations. I still want to know how he got out of that shit. It kind of left me a little unsatisfied but as a whole, the whole season I could say was crazy, especially how we got a look at Jack’s dark side. You never saw a dude get that gutter over a SIM card in your life! (laughs) I really enjoyed that season. Now I need Season 8 for my DVD collection.
Can you watch 24 on DVD after seeing it on TV?
I don’t watch the newer ones. I’ll watch the older ones because you kind of forget how everything went down and how he got out of things. It’s still a little tense and there’s still a little bit of anticipation in it. I’ll go back and watch them and they take awhile to watch them because it’s not like you have 24 hours to watch it. You’ll have to watch it for a couple nights in a row and then do the same thing the next week.
Did you ever get into Lost?
I tried. I was with it for the first two seasons. I was there. And then it got weird. I think I might have been on tour or something and I had missed a couple of episodes and from that point on, I was lost with Lost and people had tried to get me back into it and I could not figure that shit out. It was cool in the first couple of seasons ‘cause it seemed very realistic and something that could really happen and I blink and there’s fucking monsters on the album and it didn’t even feel like the same show. What the fuck happened? Maybe one day I’ll try to get back into it. I tried to get into Heroes. The only show that ever held my full attention was 24.
What did you want in the production on I F*cking Hate Rappers and using some classic samples like on “Sire”?
It had nothing to do with the classics. We weren’t trying to remake anything. A lot of people will take old samples and try to remake the song. They don’t think outside the box. Me and Domingo just wanted to keep making hardcore hip-hop music. He would just find the hardest shit and we took it from there. He wasn’t trying to redo any songs because to me, that’s kind of corny, whether the song has been done by you or someone else. I don’t see anything wrong with taking a sample and using it in a different way. I was happy with it because it was all hardcore beats. Every beat on that album is some shit that’s going to snap your neck. I was at the radio station and the desk was shaking and people’s cell phones were shaking across the table. These are hard beats and I feel like that’s what a lot of rappers are scared of nowadays. They want the same shit and they want to be kind of mellow. You have to bring the hard shit back up to the forefront and let people know that there’s all different sides to this rap shit.
I can honestly say there’s not a song I skip on the album, and that doesn’t happen too often.
Thank you. Thank you very much. And that’s another goal we had. When I make music, I want to make music that I want to hear. I don’t want to hear wack shit. If I make a song I don’t like, it’s not going to go anywhere. Every song that I put out is going to be one of my favorite songs and it’s going to be someone else’s favorite songs. There’s no other way to do it. If you’re going to put an album out, you have to put your best foot forward on every song. That’s why I don’t do filler tracks with 23-24 songs. We’re going to get to the point and make a cohesive record either about something or going somewhere. We don’t just make songs just to say, Hey, I made another song. I’m going to put this on the album. Every song we do has a point and I’m glad you enjoyed it and didn’t skip over anything. A lot of people will skip over skits but these were all put together as part of the album. The skits tie together the songs. If I had my way, it would be one long, 40 minute mp3. That’s how it would be if I had my way.
Are you going to be dropping albums on a more consistent basis from here on out?
I would love to drop albums on a more consistent basis but I don’t want to rush it. No. I’m going to put the album out when it’s finished. If I don’t come up with shit for another four years, that’s just how it’s going to be. I’m not the type of person who likes to rush or force anything. I’m just going to keep making music as it comes to me. I have an idea for music and how I want it to be and who I want to work on the beats. I have it all mapped out. I am working towards the next project but whenever it comes out is when it will come out.
What are the odds of another E F@mm album happening in this millennium?
(laughs) The odds are very, very high. Right now it’s down to just myself, Substantial and Tonedeff. Session makes an appearance. We have our ideas for songs and we have our ideas for songs. Everybody wants to get their solo shit out the way and we will all make it happen. All the group projects will be coming together. The Plague shit is going to come together. We haven’t forgotten about our family but we have to get our solo shit out because we have egos. I F*cking Hate Rappers! (laughs)
Do fans know what FM stands for today?
They better. And if they don’t, there’s an easy way to find out. Go online and wherever you cop CDs, you can still go and get the album. It still exists. If you’re first hearing my shit now and you want to know what I’m about, there’s still other albums that you can check like WhutDuzFMStand4 and Happy Fuck You Songs and all the mixtapes, the Featured Material joints. All that shit is catalogued on iTunes. They can get it all. That’s what cats need to do. They need to do their research and their homework. |
05/13 - 
All
the News 
Home
HHG
on Myspace
