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9/12/2005 What's good man? I've been good man, just been working, trying to stay busy. You have "Confessions of a Ghostwriter," what's good with that? Everytime I go out, people ask me "where the fuck is your album?" So this is stuff I've been doing for the past two years since Rawkus folded. This is for people that are going to appreciate the music. I'm just making sure I stay focused. What have you been doing since "From Where???" dropped? Doing a lot of writing. Making a lot of business moves, I've been out in L.A. a lot, trying to get things cracking. I can't just do regular artist shit and get regular artist money. I have to get some C.E.O. money. Can you talk about your other business ventures? I just started a film company called Big Kidz Films, that's part of my label Big Kidz Entertainment that's distributed through Koch. I'm working on two scripts right now. We're going to shoot a short film, and then a feature. Dealing with some of the people that I've been dealing with in the past couple years have definitely changed my mindset on certain things. Things won't happen, you have to make them happen. I spent some time with Will seeing how he operates, and it just shows you that it's possible. How would you say that your whole approach and style has changed over the years? It's definitely changed over the times. I'm not the same I was in 2000 or '98. I still have to keep the element of what people have come to know and like me for. I'm not going to do a lot of crazy talk because that's the cool thing to do. I'm not a killer, I'm not a thug. If you put me into the wrong situation, I might turn into one, but I'm not known for that. That's not what my fans have come to know me for. I'm from the school of cleverness where you take a little more time and thought process into something before you go and say it. That's where I'm at, and I've always been that way, and I don't think it's ever going to change. I'm an MC's MC. Is that cleverness lacking in today's music? I definitely think it is. It doesn't have a stay in Hip Hop right now. Hip Hop right now…I don't even know what it is. I can't even say what it is because I don't really know. Do you get frustrated that it's been so long since you put out an album? No, I don't' get frustrated with it because I've been constantly eating off of my craft. It's not like I'm sitting in the corner crying about shortcomings and what happened in the game. I love the game, but that doesn't mean it'll love me. A lot of opportunities won't fall in your lap, you have to go out and get them, and I've always been that type of guy. Even when I didn't have an album out, I was on tour constantly. I'm getting money for a show and then you have cats that have albums out that can't get shows. And if I don't have an album out, I'll put my all into a show. Whoever I'm opening up for, I'm trying to smash them and put on a better show than they give. My whole mindset is that I've always had to work ten times harder than the next man, so it's never been a big deal to me that I've had to work hard. Are you still ghost-writing? Yeah, definitely. It's definitely been something that's kept money in my pocket and allowed me to live the lifestyle I live. It's a business. I don't look at it as anything else other than a business. A lot of people ask me if I get pissed because a record I write might do better than any record that I ever put out. I don't get mad, because I sold that work. That body of work was made to do what it would do. I get mad when a song I write doesn't do well. I get mad when a song I write doesn't come out. But that's the game. I got what I got out of it. And it's a business. Some people don't have the time to sit down and craft a record and put a thought process into a hook or building a song, and that's where I come in. I assume you can't tell us who you've been working with lately can you? I can't really tell. I don't have no problems with people and I don't want to ruin those relationships. I have been down in Miami working a lot. You have written for some high-profile artists though? Definitely. I have a relationship with them. It's not like I write a song for you, you take it, and we never talk. We hang out, they see me places, and they ask "why's he there?" But once you connect me with certain people, then it starts to make more sense. I'm not down there just to be hanging and blowing money. I ain't in that in-crowd where I'll get a Ferrari and throw away cake. I'm down there to work. Do artists lose credibility if they use ghost-writers? It depends how you look at it. Some of the greatest songs have been written by other people, and no one ever cared. Not everyone can stand in front of the camera and knock that song down. We as Hip Hop fans and artists, we're more fickle because we feel that if it came out of your mouth, you should have wrote it. But you have to remember, this is a business. This has evolved to where it's not just something that you do on your block or the corner anymore. If someone wants to pay you for your work, and you can make a living off of it, why not do it? You would be stupid to work doing something that you love to do, and I love Hip Hop. Have you ever had any experiences from ghost-writing that have made you mad? I can't say that I wasn't ever pissed from back in the day, that's how the whole "Ghost-Writer" thing came about. Some of it was just fun, but some of it, I was really trying to get a couple of people's attention. It worked out for the best. How important will all of your connections that you've gained over the years be to the album you're dropping in February? Very much so man. Even though I don't want to rely on my allies and the people that I've done business with, and the people that I've become friends with over the years…it's not going to be littered by a bunch of guest appearances. If it feels good we'll go with it. People have definitely waited around for me and to still be relevant in today's game, I'm very appreciative of that. I know how things are in this game. I don't have a problem with creating a buzz. I can always get my name popping in the streets, because in VA, my name never stops popping. When you say "Virginia Hip Hop," it's impossible to not name Mad Skillz. I'm happy with that, and I'm content with that. But at the same time, there's a lot of other things that I want to do, like film-making, writing, and working with young talent giving other artists a chance. But none of that shit will be possible until I get my shit up and running the way I want to, so right now I'm just in the lab, knocking them down. What young artists are you working with? I got a crew, but I don't want to put it on blast yet. I just started a crew with two other MC's called "Two Up, Two Down." I work with everybody in this region, OK Kid, the Clipse, D.M.P., I'm allies with everybody. I show love man. If you holler at me in the streets and you want me to do something with you and it makes sense, I'm with it. This movement is bigger than me or the label. We need soldiers so we can take over. What do you represent to Virginia Hip Hop? I'm the dude that kicked in the door that made it possible for the rest of these acts. I was the first one. The first one on a national scale. It definitely would have been a lot harder for any other artist to come through the door. Somebody had to do it. I'm hoping that if it ever slows down or comes to a halt, somebody else will come through and kick in the door. We definitely have a lot more artists on a main level than when I came out. There was no Neptune's, no Timbaland's, no Missy's, no Clipse, no Trey Songz, no D'Angelo's. We make our music differently. We have a different type of approach. We have all kinds of shit being in the middle of the East Coast, from the Down South, New York, we're right under the Gogo Capitol, it all influences us. Sometimes you get a lot of cats that just want to emulate and they don't have an identity so they just want to copy what's coming out of New York or the West Coast or Down South, but that shit never flies. The only shit that flies is what's original, like Missy, Timbaland, the Neptunes, and D.M.P. What's it going to take to push VA over the top and make it hot on a national level? I think a lot of the DJ's and the radio programmers here might want to start supporting the music. I remember sitting down talking to Pharell when "Superthug" came out, and nobody here would play that record. I remember him walking up to DJ's asking "can you play my joint?" And they'd say no. And now, that motherfucker probably gets tired of hearing his records in the club now. The DJ's and program directors need to break records, not just play records. Don't get me wrong, I go a lot of places, and what I'm looking at in Virginia, it looks like niggas from other cities are running this. But I go to Houston and there's still some stations that aren't playing Paul Wall or Mike Jones like I thought they would be. Paul Wall said they'd play his shit in Dallas but not in Houston. And in my eyes, he is Houston right now. It's not really like you think it is. DJ's and the radio programmers need to start realizing their power. Especially the DJ, because a radio station can't survive without a DJ. How have you seen Pharell and Timbaland grow over the years? I've watched them turn into producers. These cats are producers. They craft records from the beginning to the end. They make the beat and construct everything with that record to make it sound sonically bigger than anything bigger in this world. And they're not scared to try new things. That's why they're ahead. Sometimes you have to try. I can accept trying and failing, but I can not accept not trying. You could throw a cat up against the wall and they'll sample that, they'll try to make that hot, and that's why they're trend-setters. You were one of the first people to find out about the death of E-Skummy, what can you tell us about him? Aw man. Skummy, Rest in Peace, God Bless the Dead. Skummy was a hustler, and when I say that I mean it in a good way. When he wanted something, he would not stop until it got finished. I admired that in him. I told him I was going to do something for him, and he never let me forget it. He'd always be like "dog what's up, I need that, I'm trying to make it pop." Skummy was a cool dude and it was sad to see him go the way he went. He definitely won't be forgotten. He's definitely one of the ones that slipped through the cracks too early, but we won't let the people forget him. Is the whole beef situation with Shaq and Cory Gunz dead? I'm not even thinking about that guy. I got bigger fish to fry. I mean, Shaq's a big fish, but I fried him. The crazy thing is, to this day, I don't know why it happened. I don't know what his problem was with me, I still don't know. There were rumors out there that it was a set-up, can you clear that up? I mean, first of all, that would be one of the dumbest things in the world for me to do. Trust me, I'm not Jay-Z, I'm not 50 Cent, but I'm not doing that bad where I have to make up beef to sell records. Shit, I was on tour when that record came out. If I'm going to battle someone, I at least want it to be a good battle. Quote me on this, I don't want any props and I didn't' get no stripes for beating the shit lyrically out of Shaq. Anybody could have done that. I could have done that with my eyes closed, with my hands tied behind my back, with an interpreter. That wasn't a battle, that was fun. That shit was something to laugh at for a good 20 minutes. But I never took him seriously. Will we ever see Skillz down at the Mixshow Power Summit battle? They have to raise it up a bit (higher than 20G's). Is there anyone out there that you want to battle? I'm like KRS, I got battle-raps for everyone in the game right now. The top-10 rappers in the game, I got at least 10 battle-raps for them dudes, just for kicks. I'm not one of those heavy-ass battle rappers where I get so heavy into it where I can't make songs. I was like that in '95, but now, I concentrate more on song-writing and making sure my songs are good, because that wasn't really a strongpoint back then. My first album was really a bunch of battle raps in between some songs. I still keep it there though, because I still want to be able to grab the listener. I can battle, but I can also take the listener somewhere else and keep your attention while you're riding in the car. I want to hold your attention with my songs the same way I can with when I battle. What's up with the Supafriendz now? There isn't no Supafriendz. The Supafriendz are over. Is there any beefs? No, everybody's fine. Me and Lonnie B are cool. We did a mixtape not too long ago. I run into some of the other cats too, but we just went our separate ways. What do you want to say to everybody out there reading this? The album's out September 13th, I got the new mixtape coming, "The Best of Timbaland Collection," where it's me all over Timbaland beats. I got a DVD coming out called "My Life, Your Entertainment" in October or November. And I'm a C.E.O. now, so I can't tell you not to give me your CD's, because I might be able to help. Anybody that wants to send your CD's, send it to: Big Kidz Entertainment 1030 Delaware Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19125 And also check the new website, skillzmusic.com. I'm also a new artist on okayplayer.com, so I'm going to rep that too. It is what it is.

By Brian Kayser

Both Photos By Jati Lindsay

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