DON'T MISS TODAY:

Back to Artist Profiles

2/13/2006 What's up Shiest? I'm chilling, smoking a thousand blunts. What have you been up to lately? Right now, I've just been finishing up this new Purple City album, "The Purple Album." We're just finishing up the mixes. I'm also working on two mixtapes that are going to drop before the album. How's it sounding? It's sounding like we stepped our game up. Do you feel that after the next album drops people will see you as Purple City and not so much as a Dip Set affiliate? To be honest with you, this album is showing you that the love is still there with Dip Set. A lot of people know that we're affiliated with Dip Set, but people say, "Why aren't they promoted that hard by Dip Set?" This album is showing that the love is still there at the end of the day and we're making better music right now. We're growing into our success. How's your solo material coming? I'm the C.E.O. of Purple City at the end of the day. I'm not a signed rapper. I get to rap because I'm the C.E.O. It's just my movement and vision. My first album is me testing the waters of the rap world. I wrote 95% of my rhymes for my first album and I am not a rapper. This is something that I'm growing into it. Someday, I want to be able to say, "I'm a rapper." I let a couple of ghostwriters help me with my rhymes. On the Purple City album, I wrote 60% of my rhymes. These ghostwriters are helping me to become a dope-ass lyricist instead of just being satisfactory. No rappers ever admit they get help, why would you admit it? First of all, any rhymes that I have ever spit, if they don't apply to me, I don't spit them. I live what I say, true story. Of course some things are exaggerated to a certain extent, but only on floss-mode. At the end of the day, we all have to make moves and my shit is reality. Most musicians have people write their songs. I get help with my rhymes. They don't do everything for me, they help me. At the end of the day, I need help. I'm in school for this shit. Why not admit it? It is what it is. All the best have done it. Sorry to say it, but that's what it is. What are your day-to-day responsibilities with Purple City? My day-to-day responsibilities are crazy! It's every job in the industry boiled down to one. At the end of the day, we're independent. A lot of people in the streets got it fucked up that we got a deal and we're paid for the rest of our careers. You still have to get that work in. My daily routine is I wake up in the morning, I smoke about three blunts just to be on that same page every day, that laid-back, creative side of life. I don't really dwell on the money too much because I'm living right now. I make about two hours of phone calls before I even step out into the streets, and then I run and handle my little errands. At the end of the day I'm going to the studio or just trying to chill to get my mind right for the next day. How's the Babygrande situation working out for you? I had to understand what this whole independent shit is about. We're not automatically on. There's a lot of work that I have to do. I use the record label for what it is: distribution. Any other marketing tactics or schemes, I basically do on my own. I do the mixtapes on my own. I go to the label for some support that can help them as a label grow and help me grow, and we keep it moving. My whole thing is that I'm trying to just deal with the positive shit. There were rumors that there were problems brewing in Purple City? The vision of Purple City got demented by the media. Purple City is my movement and vision which is entouraged by Agallah and Un Kasa. They have been rhyming for 10 years. I've only been rhyming for two years. When I put Agallah in, he was in a dry spell in his career. People think that you get a deal and you're automatically set, but that's not the case. We did 50,000 on the last album without an official co-sign. It was from love and respect for me and what I have done as a part of Dip Set. That's why this album is executive produced by Jim Jones. That's how I got into the game and how I'm going to pop off, and at the end of the day this is my label. I don't like to deal with artists. I only like to deal with emperors and kings. If you're not a leader, I can't deal with you. How would you define the Purple City movement? When I started the mixtape, my whole outlook was to give people doing their thing a chance to do it. I felt like, "Listen, I'm going to give you a chance to do it the right way." There are a thousand CD's out there, and I look at all of them. If the artwork is up-to-par, I might give it a listen. I don't like DJ mixtapes. I like movement mixtapes. Going back a little bit, how did you get Agallah and Un Kasa to buy into your movement? I met Un Kasa after he was on the "Diplomatic Immunity" intro. Un Kasa is the Vice President of Purple City, which means at the end of the day, I'm going to holler at him before I sign somebody. If he says someone isn't hot, I'll ask him for three reasons why they're not hot. We'll weigh it out. He has a good opinion and his opinion holds a lot of weight with me. He didn't have to buy into it. I don't manage Un Kasa. He's the only artist signed to Purple City as an artist. I knew Agallah from the streets. He left a beat-CD in my house one day. I didn't even know it was his beat-CD. I called him and told him I'm doing this Purple City shit and it would be a great chance to get his music popping. That was that. There's a lot of different directions, and at the end of the day, everybody has to do them because I only respect the grind and hustle. If you don't hustle, then we can't do anything collectively. You might see an Un Kasa or Agallah CD that they put out on their own. That's them hustling, trying to get their own shit up. I respect it. That's why, at the end of the day, we're able to come together and make a dope-ass album and be on the same page. There's always rumors that we broke up. Un Kasa is a rapper, Agallah is a producer/rapper, and I'm an entertainer. I'm not a rapper. I rap for the entertainment purpose of it. What's next for you? I'm about to drop this album in April. We're about to shoot the video for it. We're about to flood the streets with a lot of purple shirts. To keep it real with you, my buzz is crazy right now. My buzz is exclusive. I don't want to be commercialized like that. I'd rather have my shit be hard to get, like the "Candyland" mixtape. I went light and only pressed 10,000. That's it. It's a collector's item. It's not for everybody. Go download that shit if you're not up on it. If you didn't get a copy in the streets, then you're not up on it. I trend-set a lot of shit. At the end of the day, I put this shit together. My whole motto is "do what you do." I don't put limitations or expectations on my artists. If it's not hot, we're not going to use it. And I don't care how good a motherfucker raps. If I said I love rap music, I'd be lying. I respect artists that go rap and that can do their shit well. That's what I respect and love. I like old school shit and R&B right now. I'm not even listening to what these niggas are saying. At the end of the day, I'm living my life and I'm good. I don't need the influence of rappers to help me live my life. I just want to give the image that I'm from the streets and I turned my life into something positive, but you have to work hard at your shit. I have to focus on this shit, and that's the hardest part. You get into different realms and you have to play by the rules. There's always going to be some herb-ass motherfucker that's never been in the streets a day in his life and he'll violate you more than anyone that's been in the streets or any broad, and you'll want to break him but you can't. It's crazy. You just really have to be about your business and have your business game tight. What do you want to say to everyone? This is our lifestyle. Understand that. This is not us trying to be rappers. This is what we do and all we know. Making music, making money, and smoking weed, that's what we do. We have responsibilities and you have to handle your responsibilities and stay focused. You have to respect us for what we're doing. We put shit out and we keep it consistent. Our shit is getting hard to fuck with because we consistently do it. I'm ahead of the time. I'm making the times change on some trend-setting in my own world. I don't put drugs, guns, or cars on my covers. I try to keep it creative on some artistic shit. Accept it for what it is. Don't you get tired of seeing all these tough faces on the mixtapes? That shit is wack. It's really corny. That's why Kanye West is able to blow. I respect Kanye's music but I don't respect his image. His shit is wack. He overdoes it. I feel like he could be so much more poised with the shit instead of being so arrogant. Get the fuck out here man. 2006 is going to be the beginning of Bub. Un Kasa's album is about to drop right after the Purple City album. His album is stupid-bonkers. It's to let everybody know that he is not a battle rapper. He was on the Smack DVD's, but that was just him. He doesn't walk around looking for battles. That was some lifestyle shit, that wasn't some premeditated shit. That's not how it was for T-Rex. He prepared, got some chains from niggas, and Un just woke up and did it and then was going to Shiest's house and chill and laugh at these niggas. You have to love it. This is what motherfuckers want to do without having those fucking pigs on your back. At the end of the day, you have to be loyal to the people that love you, not the people that say they love you.

By Brian Kayser

[51] REACT TO THIS INTERVIEW