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7/24/2006 What's up? I'm chilling like a villain. It's a beautiful day, and I don't just mean the weather. How's the Boot Camp tour going so far? It's good. I like tour buses basically. It's all good. I heard the bus is dope. The back part is hotter than a motherfucker. Other than that, this shit is high-tech, state-of-the-art. This is the freshest shit you could ever want to be on. You would think we were rappers. How's the response at the shows been so far? Honestly, the crowd feeling the Boot Camp goes without saying. As long as the people get to the spot, then they like what we do. We usually rock it. That's usually a given, as long as whoever's job it is to get them there does that, then we're good. You still have your fans from back in the day, but do you also see a lot of younger fans coming out to the shows? I see all kinds of people coming out to our shows. I'm surprised that some of these motherfuckers even know who we are because they're kids. I'm not an old-ass man, but I'm a grown-ass man. Sometimes when I see a 20 year-old nigga and he knows my shit and he says he grew up on my shit, he really means that because he was young when my shit was popping. It's the same way I knew Rakim's and G. Rap's shit when I was young. How does that feel? Usually that makes me feel old. It makes me feel like I'm getting older and I'm a little bit over the hill. Once you get past that it's a beautiful thing that somebody's appreciating what you do. I always told my niggas that if it ain't rapping or DJ'ing or whatever, but if you really love what you're doing, people will pay you for your services. You'll find a way to get it done. You just need to find a way to apply yourself. Your other half of The Incredible Rap Team made a dope comeback last year and you were pretty quiet. What were you doing? When I first walked away from the Duck Down situation, I had a deal with Priority. That lasted for all of a year and a half. They weren't doing what they said they were going to do so I stepped away from that. I got the fuck out of that. Then I was fucking with DJ Lethal from Limp Bizkit and House of Pain fame, but that shit wasn't materializing like it was supposed to so I got the fuck up out of there too. I was really in the truest sense of the word formulating plans. I have a couple of other groups and a management company called Magnum PI. I have a clothing line called Ichiban with my boy. It's fire. I'm rocking it right now. We make customized shit and we got it popping. The t-shirt Ruck had on in the "Timbz Do Work" video was one of our shirts. We've been doing a lot of things and I was out on the west coast. The time just came and family called, and family is family and when they call, you show up. Do you regret what happened at Priority or DJ Lethal? No, I don't. I think that was the best thing that I did for all of us. The fact that I walked back in the circle, in my opinion, for anybody who may have stopped paying attention, they started paying attention again. That's not to say that niggas weren't paying attention. I stepped away and niggas held it down. When I stepped away, a bunch of motherfuckers wished I didn't. Me stepping back is like, "Oh, shit!" It's an excellent marketing and promotions tool. It makes you turn your head again. Honestly I feel that if I didn't do all that shit right there, there never would have been a Heltah Skeltah controversy. Heltah Skeltah never broke up. I was just doing my solo shit. Niggas thought that Heltah Skeltah broke up which is good because it makes you pay attention now. Niggas would be used to us right now if they weren't talking. I don't want niggas to be used to us yet. I want to shock you motherfuckers. Did you feel like a new Rock working on this Last Stand album? This shit was easy for me to be honest with you. The only hard part for me was narrowing down the songs and looking at certain songs I might have wanted that might not have made it. It is what it is. I can think of at least three songs that I loved and I was in love with and they didn't make it. It doesn't mean you're not going to hear it. It's like having a sleepover at your aunt's crib where all the grown-ups are partying and all the kids are having a good time. That's honestly what it felt like. It felt like it was a sleepover with the fam. I had a blast making it. Did The Last Stand come out how you wanted it to? The album is a beautiful thing. I'm not mad at the album at all. In my generous nature, I wanted to give y'all two more songs. Other than that it's a beautiful thing. Have you started working on your solo album? Every day since '99 I've always had an album done. I record all the time and I just update and upgrade. I don't go for long periods of time without recording. From three months after I signed the Priority solo deal I had the album done. When I signed with Interscope we just did five new songs. If you go to my MySpace page, I have a song up there called "Let's Rock." Everybody has opinions, but the common opinion is that I should put that out right now. That's from 2000. I have loads and loads and loads more. All that shit on the MySpace is old. I'm just waiting for the right moment. I have a real big personality and I'm a big dude. I'm 6'5". I'm not doing anything to lose. I'm part of a supergroup. Heltah Skeltah is The Incredible Rap Team. Who's better? Ain't nobody better than me and my boy. There's no weak link here. There's no tag-team out here without a weak link running around. Everything I do, I want to do my shit big. I still got shit I want out of life and out of this game and I'm just scheming on how to get it and I'm going to strike at the opportune moment because I'm a monster and you never know what time I'm going to get you. Is your album overdue? I don't think it's overdue. Not really. Everything happens for a reason. I've watched the way the game goes and I've watched the different cycles in the game. When I had the Priority and Interscope deals, I knew in my heart of hearts that it wasn't time yet. I was just knowing. I could just feel it in my motherfucking Rocky senses. You have the Boot Camp album and Sean P's Jesus Price coming in September. Monster Music (Rock's solo album) is coming and y'all are going to know. Monster Music could come out tomorrow if the situation is right. I just have to do two more skits. When the situation is right, y'all are going to get it. Monsters don't come just to scare. They come to rear their ugly head and eat food. You said you never felt you were ready to drop. How come? I didn't feel it was the right time based on the way I'm planning on doing to the game. None of the niggas did what I want to do to the game on their first coming. When they finally did it, they had their mind right, their game-plan right and their money right. It took them a period of five to seven years. I haven't been going that long yet. It was true with Jay-Z, the Wu, remember RZA was out first…A lot of niggas who put the game up under their wing and own it, that's how they do it. Look at Snoop and Dre. They made a good first impression, but the game dealt them some bumps and scars so they fell back and when they came back they came back right. I'm just watching the patterns and according to those patterns, it wasn't time yet. Is the game ready for a Heltah Skeltah album? The game is ready to be rocked right now. The game is ready for a new owner. You can't just force-feed people. People are scared of new shit and shit they're not used to. Do you feel a Heltah Skeltah album is necessary? It is what it is. It is what it is. Right now this Boot Camp album is necessary. My presence is necessary and you're going to get it. That's what it is. What kind of impact will The Last Stand have? I don't know. You'll have to wait and see. I can only tell you what I want it to have. Buckshot has said he doesn't feel the Boot Camp has ever gotten the respect they deserve. How do you feel about that? Do you feel that way? I feel like you guys got some props, but not all the props you deserved. Then you feel that way. That seems to be the common opinion, but I'm not going to cry. I'm going to make you respect me. That's all. How do you feel about the way Brooklyn is being represented? I have to do what I have to do. I understand how niggas feel about all of that and all of that and it is what it is and I love where I'm from, but I don't own no land. I don't own no land. I'm a child of the motherfucking universe. If niggas can't rap, they can't rap. That's why it's up to me to do to that. I don't give a fuck about where the good music is coming from. I never did. While the east coast and west coast were supposedly beefing, I was on the west coast falling in love with that shit. I'm one of the most unknown. I don't fuck with niggas. I don't give a fuck about these niggas really. How many people really know a monster? I only fuck with who I know. I don't give a fuck about what nobody's doing unless it involves me and my niggas. I'm a real New York nigga. What people don't realize about New Yorkers is we're perpetual haters. Fuck you! I'm not fucking with y'all, you're not my brother! Fuck y'all. Everybody's got their own brothers they're worrying about and their own cases. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It makes us who we are. Fuck that! How do you feel about certain Brooklyn rappers pulling guns on DVD's? I don't know what those niggas are doing because I don't know those niggas. I just know that those niggas are stupid for pulling out hammers. We did that on the Magnum Force album. We were stupid too, but the album was called Magnum Force so it was relative. These niggas are fucking retards. What's going to happen when the feds go to the maker of the DVD and say, "You're going to take me there to those brothers or you're going to jail"? Those niggas are stupid. Whether they're busting their hammers or not, I don't know them. I don't know them and I don't care as long as they don't come around Boot Camp with that shit. As someone who's been through a lot of different things in the industry, what advice do you have for the young guys coming up? Learn how to rhyme, niggas. Make fucking music. Learn how to fucking rhyme and be yourself. A lot of niggas get record deals and can't rhyme. Let me tell you what that does for you: They may be able to mold you and get you a hit, but once niggas figure out you can't rhyme, your sales are going down. The grapevine is a motherfucker. What do you want to say to everyone? Support the movement. Check me out on MySpace.com. My link is on my website, rockness.net. Also check out for my niggas The Rock Brothers. We all represent the same shit. We're unbreakable. That's one of the groups I'm working on. I'm also working with a group called the Evil Sweethearts. They're fire. I also have another artist named Verbal Kent. I'm trying to get a label situation. All of this shit depends on me and the buzz I create. When the shit jumps, it's going to jump. I have the whole new New York movement right here in my back pocket, so why should I give a fuck about another rapper? That's a real New York nigga. http://rockness.net

By Brian Kayser

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