both: the streets mixed with being in the industry.
I really fuck with the TV show Power because I get the logic behind it.
You got this guy, he’s suave, he’s smart, he’s a street guy; he can put on
the black tee, but he wants to wear the suit. He wants to be a businessman.
But everybody from his past keeps pulling him back; he’s dealing
with that on a daily basis. Even when I first watched the show, I was like,
“Damn. That’s a lot like my life.”
That’s what The Legend of the Snowman is about: a guy who’s always
striving. I’ve always been a forward thinker, but everybody ain’t always
gonna like that. Sometimes people just want you to stay where you’re
at, at a comfortable level. When things become uncomfortable, people
don’t want to stand beside you anymore. Because it’s not fun. We gotta
work now. (laughs) When we were just winning, everybody was there.
But now, it could go either way – we could lose, we could win – and
nobody wants to deal with that.
When you talk about “trimming the fat” are you referring to anyone
specifically?
It’s a little bit of everything. Personal life, business life. When you hit a
certain level of success you start to accumulate a lot of people that normally
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wouldn’t be around. Then you’ve already got people who were
around and saw the vision in the beginning, but at some point they got
tired of like, fighting the fight. They just got tired and didn’t want to fight
anymore, but you still have the fight in you, so they started kinda falling
to the wayside.
Time is a muthafucker. Over time, when you’ve got that distance – you
know, it’s like a marriage. If you’re not seeing your wife for six, seven,
eight months at a time, and your life is changing for the better, but she
doesn’t like the changes, you start to question if the love is really real.
You had a high-profile lawsuit and falling-out with your former business
partner, Kinky B.
I actually won that Kinky B lawsuit, but I can’t lie, it hurt me that somebody
that I raised and brought up from nothing would sue me. But I
also understand how this business turns us young black men against
each other. At the end of the day, I’ll always have love for him, but I don’t
think our business relationship was healthy anymore. We went through
a lot of real shit before the business, and before the fame, but to be in a
courtroom and to see my man sitting on the stand pointing at me testifying
as to what I did or didn’t do – that was like a knife in the heart.
But I walked out of there with my head high and my chest out. I guess
that’s how life is. And I still got love for him. I never did anything but want
to see him win. I wanted to see him rich, healthy, and happy. But fame
and money is a muthafucker. That shit will turn your mama against you.
(pauses) Not my mama, but yo’ mama. (laughs)
What about the artists who were signed to CTE? Did you find it difficult
being on the executive side putting out artists of your own?
I only formed CTE so my people could eat. I never got into the record
label game to be the biggest label head. I was just trying to maintain my
freedom and stay out of the ghetto; I wasn’t trying to be fuckin’ Quincy
Jones. I was just a kid from the ghetto who understood that music was
a way out. As far as my artists, it wasn’t just about talent. I tried to put
on people who didn’t have a shot, maybe signed them just because of
something I saw in them. Maybe that was my mistake, because I wasn’t
selecting artists based on their talent and ambition.
But you’ve gotta understand, as far as the business, all this shit was
new to everybody. It wasn’t like we were fuckin’ coming from business
school and understood how all this shit worked. A lot of people didn’t
know about business and taxes and they fucked up their money. Then,
once their money’s gone, they’re looking at your money. And you’re like,
“Damn, bro. I got family too.” So it was just a learning lesson for me.
When I say “cut the fat,” anybody who wasn’t willing to get out here with
me and get their hands dirty and continue to work like it’s day one, they
gotta go. Because I was still working like it was day one, but a lot of
people were ready to kick their feet up and relax. I was like, “It ain’t time
yet.” That was both in my personal life and my business life; with the
new friends I acquired and people I was just running around with. Some
people just want to be out in the clubs and be on the scene but aren’t
contributing to the cause. It was a real learning lesson for me. It cost me a
lot, you know what I’m sayin’? It wasn’t worth my peace of mind.
Is your group USDA still active?
You gotta understand, these are my friends before rap, especially Slick
Pulla, that’s my guy. I love Slick but as we started getting older, a lot of
the shit he was still doing, I was like, “Slick, a lot of this shit ain’t adding
up.” I had to realize that was his real life. A lot of times he was just getting
in trouble and getting incarcerated and there was so much disconnect
as far as the business was concerned. But Slick is always gonna be good,
he’s got mad talent.
BloodRaw was somebody we put in the group, but it just went left.
I wrote the USDA album Cold Summer in two weeks and I told them
where to rap and put the whole project together. The shit went gold, it
sold half a million units, so I’m thinking they would be motivated to get
right back in the studio and write another album. In my mind that made
business sense, but that didn’t happen. I couldn’t make them get in the
studio, so once things got off track, I had to focus on my own career.
But at the end of the day, just like when I was in the group Boyz N Da
Hood, we should be proud of what we did. We sold 500,000 records just
doing what we did and making music.
You brought Boyz N Da Hood out at your anniversary concert a few
years back. Do you plan on doing any other projects with them?
I can’t front, I haven’t thought about it. I think that was just a phase in
our lives. I was happy to be a part of that era, but I think everybody’s in
different spaces now. My mind is on so much other shit that I don’t think
I would even have the time or the energy to try to recreate something
that was already a classic. To me, that’ll always be a classic group. You got
fuckin’ N.W.A, Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, 8Ball & MJG, the list goes on
and on, but you gotta include Boyz N Da Hood in there.
I’ve heard it said that our generation of rap were the “drug sellers”
and the newer generation of rap are the “drug users.” What’s your
take on that? Do you feel like you have any responsibility towards
this new generation of artists?
I came from the era of the hustlers and the gangsters. We had tough skin.
We had morals; we had integrity. We were held accountable. I think this
generation isn’t being held accountable; they can pretty much get away
with whatever. They’re trying to numb a lot of pain.
It’s no different from the hippies in the 70s or the Scarface era when
everybody was on coke. Their generation is on pills and syrup just trying
to numb what they’re going through. The music makes it sound fun,
but they’re going through pain. They were raised by women; the men
were locked up because of drug dealing; being gangsters. They were
raised in a lot of single parent homes and went through a lot of things,
so they’re just numbing pain, if you ask me.
You’ve always been active in the community with back to school
drives and Toyz N Da Hood. Have you had any specific situations
where you took someone younger under your wing?