A fixture on the Central New Jersey rap scene, YZ first made his name known in the early 90s with records like “Thinking Of A Masterplan” and “In Control Of Things.” His latest album, Muad’Dib is out now digitally on his own Blackworld imprint and features Slug, Brother Ali, 2Mex and Bobbie Fine. We recently sat down to talk about the early days of NJ hip hop, the legacy of deceased Trenton producer Tony D and his beef with Naughty By Nature. Hit the jump for the first part of the Q&A.

Noz: What was your first introduction to hip hop?
YZ: The first thing that introduced me to hip hop [was] in East orange new jersey. i was probably about 8 years old and two of my cousins who were younger than me were they were singing this song and they knew every word of the song. I’m like “yo what’s that?” And they looked at me like I was a foreigner or something like “how could you not know what that is?” It turned out that the song was Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” and I was so taken by my cousins doing this record that I went home right away to see if that song was coming on the radio and sure enough it was real popular. I must have been spacing because I wasn’t listening to the radio.

Where did you go from there?
At the time I was living in Paterson and I hung out with a crew of kids called the Zodiac Crew and they were pretty popular back then for being just a bunch of kids doing stupid shit in the neighborhood. In our spare time we would bang on stop signs and just come up with [music] off our heads. A lot of it sounded like Doo Wop because it was sing songy stuff, but it incorporated hip hop in it. That’s when I started writing. I was probably like 9 or 10 years old, writing songs and just becoming good at that and becoming a decent writer of poetry. My parents ended up having to move, my mother got a transfer and we ended up moving out to Hightstown, New Jersey. And when I got to Hightstown it was a bit of a culture shock because Paterson was all Spanish and Black. In Hightstown it was all Jewish people, for the most part. [There was just] a small percentage of Blacks, Asians and Latinos. But Trenton was very close and we used to go to Quakerbridge Mall and battle. Breaking was real big, I found that I wasn’t really good at that but I was good at coming up with [rhymes] so what was once breaking battles became emcee battles in the mall. I got pretty good at it and pretty well known for doing just that.

And there was a place called the Lawrence Center that used to throw these big parties. I met this dude named Tony D there, he used to DJ there. We became fast friends. I was just a kid and I had formed a group called Too Def, which was a dancer of mine, a guy named G-Rock and Tink. In between dancing I would write rhymes for us. Run DMC was around and I was thinking I needed somebody that I could go back and forth with. So I was writing rhymes for [G-Rock]. So Tony D invited me to come to his crib and in the basement of his mom’s house he had a studio there, he had beats and shit. And I remember he took “Trans Europe Express” and just had the shell of a beat and I just rhymed for seven or eight minutes straight. That demo that we made started circulating around New Jersey a little bit and this dude named DJ Woody Wood got a hold of it. DJ Woody Wood used to mix at Power 99 with this other dude Jeff Mills. Jeff Mills was Lady B’s DJ. Somehow he got this demo to him and Jeff was like “we need to meet that dude.” And I’m just teenager. So Jeff told Woody Wood to set up a meeting for me to meet that dude. So I told my parents that there’s a dude coming from a Philadelphia radio station, coming to talk to me about putting a record out. “Can you take me to Dunkin Donuts to meet him?” So, my mother was very adamantly against me doing music and was reluctant to have my mother to take me to the Dunkin Donuts, but he took me. And I got out of the car, I actually had an extra demo on me but when I got in Jeff’s car he had it! I’m thinking “this is dope!” I’m not saying that to him, but I’m thinking in the back of my mind. So he’s like “look I like this song, I really would like to get you in the studio to do a record.” And it didn’t really dawn on me until that night thinking “somebody just asked me to make a record! man!”

So we put out this record on a small label out of Trenton called Rockin’ Hard Records. And the only other record they had put out on this label was, oddly enough, by this group called Simply Deft and our group was called Too Def. I became really good friends with Simply Deft, but the difference between Simply Deft and us was we had Jeff Mills. When we had our test pressings made, the day they were printed he was playing our records. And it was odd because he didn’t play the A-Side, a song called “I’m Bad,” he played the song called “I Am Who I Am” which had a Beverly Hillbillies sample in it. And it became pretty popular in Philadelphia because Jeff was spinning it. And I knew right then that I was in the right place. I don’t know how I was gonna continue to do music, but I knew that I wanted to be in the business of music right then.

So by the time I was 17 years old and I wanted to put another record out, I didn’t want to put this record out on Rockin’ Hard Records. I was thinking, shit, they’re just a small label, why can’t I just do it myself? So I was thinking how am I gonna do this? How am I gonna get to the point where I can put out my own music. I just so happened to meet this guy named Tim Baylor who just started a label out of Trenton called Diversity, but they hadn’t put out any product. So I’m thinking here’s my chance. I’m gonna negotiate this deal here. I was like “look, we get music put on the radio and I would really like to do this with you, but I can’t produce music and not have any stake in this.” So he was like “well what do you want?” I said “half your label.” He couldn’t believe that I said it, but I acquired half the label and we put out my second single which was “In Control Of Things” and “Thinking Of A Master Plan” was on the b-side, which oddly enough became the theme song for Marley Marl’s In Control rap show. And I didn’t even know there was an In Control rap show. I was big on Mr. Magic back in the day but I didn’t even know that Marley Marl was doing his own thing. But people would say “yo! I heard your shit on the radio” and I was like “who’s playing it? is it coming out of Philadelphia?” and it was like “nah they playing it in New York.” So sure enough Marley Marl was giving us a lot of spins. And Red Alert wouldn’t play “In Control Of Things,” but every now and again he would play “Master Plan.” And I was like “how is this happening?!” I guess there just wasn’t a lot of music back then.

Well, they’re good records!
I mean, you never know what’s good. We know what’s good to us, but we never know what the public is gonna think. Anyway, that’s how I got in the game.

Were you touring a lot back then?
To be honest with you, I would do some [shows]. In comparison to what would come later, no. I would do shows around Jersey, I would do shows in Philadelphia, I would do shows in New York. That was about it. Little did I know that 900 miles away in Texas “Master Plan” was taking off. Aaron Fuchs from Tuff City did know, and he was like “I wanna pick you up. I wanna sign you to Tuff City.” And I was thinking I know Tuff City, because I know Lakim Shabazz and Mark The 45 King but I told Aaron when we came into the door that we [were] gonna change the label. I guess he just thought I was some arrogant kid. But sure enough I signed into a production agreement with them. And Houston… people like Greg Street were breaking my record in Texas. So that’s when I started going outside the East Coast and realized that there was a world outside the Tri-State area that was big on hip hop. At the time I was thinking I got a label, I gotta look for artists, so early on in my career I was looking at groups like Hieroglyphics before they were signed, Wu-Tang before they were signed.

After that deal went sour because I didn’t like how Aaron was handling his business, I was gonna move to New York, mostly because I was a part of Blackwatch. What ended up happening was I went into Music Factory one day, because I like to shop for records, and while I was in there Manny, the owner of Music Factory had heard the clerk talking to me like “YZ we sell a lot of your records in here!” So I get this little tap like “come with me to the back.” So I’m in a closet talking to Manny. And I’m so used to being around Jewish cats that I felt right at home. He was like, “kid, I like you, we’re gonna make some money together, me and you.” So he invited me to go meet this guy named Lenny Fisherberg over at Cold Chillin’. It just so happened that they were starting this new label with Tommy Boy and Warner Brothers called Livin’ Large and I needed to have a single and I didn’t know what it was gonna be. But at the time I was starting to have little beefs in the industry and one of those was with Naughty By Nature because Treach had the gall to say fuck me on a record. He didn’t even know me. So I did “Return Of The Holy One.”

How did the whole Naughty altercation start?
It started because Tony decided that he wanted to do this record called “Get Off My Rhythm” that he put out on his own label. He asked me if I wanted to do it with him, I’m like “cool, what you wanna do?” “You know I’m just sick of people stealing my beats.” I’m like “Tone, this is hip hop!” So I said cool, let’s do it. I come from the battle era, so why not? We did this record and at the end of the record he said something like “fuck your puny little unit” talking about Flavor Unit. And I was thinking “wow Tone, you really got personal on this thing.” See I knew Flavor Unit. Lakim and I were label mates! Plus I used to go to East Orange all the time, I would run into Latifah now and again, we would do shows. So anyway, Lakim didn’t want to step to me about it, so they had this little dude that was coming into Flavor Unit, I guess he figured “I’mma get my stars and stripes on” and he decided that he was gonna diss me.

That’s how that started. How it ended was, we got into a lot of fights, arguments and actual physical fights between the two of us and his crews. And I ended up moving to New York. When Manny and I became partners I ended up becoming the youngest rap artist have his own office on Broadway, the same building as The Source. I’m only 20 years old, living! And one day I was leaving my office and this Benz passes by with this arm hanging out. This big black ass arm hanging out the damn car window. And I’m thinking “I wonder if that’s Treach.” Not two seconds after I thought it, he pulls over and gets out the car. And when I was in New York there were two things I never left [home] without. One was a pistol. Two, I had this dagger that went from here to here [shows length of right forearm]. I had a fatigue jacket on. So when I saw him I started to run towards him, digging in my arm. And I guess he must have thought I had a gun or something, but really I was pulling a knife out of my jacket. So he’s like “Yo! Wait a minute! I’m coming to peace this shit out.” And I’m thinking hold up money, we done got into too many altercations for this. But I backed up. Mind you, my piece is in my car. So I get in my car, and so he’s leaning [over the window] trying to see what I’m putting down, like “yo man, I really think we should squash this beef shit.” I’m like “yo man I’m not gonna be getting jumped in clubs” because we done had other altercations, one at the “Ill Street Blues” video, one at a club called Mars when I’m hanging out with John Singleton and Ice Cube right before Boyz In The Hood. So when he said it, I’m thinking cool. He put his hand out to shake my hand and I shook it, thinking that was it.

But Jack The Rapper comes up in Atlanta. We in Atlanta, chillin and I got Daniel Hastings. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that name, but Daniel Hastings is a Latino [photographer] who shot the Wu-Tang cover, he shot my cover for The Ghetto’s Been Good To Me Album, he shot Diary Of A Mad Band, Return Of The Boom Bap. So he, this guy named Chris who designed the Wu [logo], my attorney and my accountant were all in Atlanta, eating at, I think it was the Hyatt. So we just there chillin and somebody says “yo Treach just walked in.” So I look to the back of me and I could see this orange, like, a prison jumpsuit and he had this huge ass bike chain around his neck. A bicycle chain, literally, with a lock. And so I said, don’t worry about it, I just saw him in New York, everythings cool, we’re good. So I’m in the middle of spooning some food and talking and next thing you know there’s this bright ass orange suit right next to me, with this lock. I can see it out the corner of my eye and I don’t want to turn. I don’t even want to look at this shit because I’ve got my attorney here, I got my accountant here, it’s all business, we’re talking business. And this dude, who does he have with him? Treach never went anywhere without a gang of folks. I look up and I see Apache, I see Shakim. Shakim and Apache and have always been cool. And over here I notice a huge person standing over here [to my left] and I look over and it’s Freddie Foxxx. And he just so happened to be standing right behind my attorney, so I’m thinking it’s about to be really fucked up around here. Mind you, I got a bag under my table with a .32 in it. In the Hyatt! And so, I scoot the bag over. I’m talking to Treach and he don’t know but I’m unzipping this bag. And after it’s unzipped I look up like “I thought we squashed this.” He wanted to be like Mr. Tough Dude on some “yeah I just wanted you to remember.” And I said “well I remember” and he left. I got up from the table and went to talk to Shakim and Apache like “yo, I’ve known you too long to come around my business table with this shit.” And he was like “I don’t got no problems with you, but that dude is how I eat.” But to end a funny story, Redman was smoking herb upstairs, so we go upstairs and De La Soul and I have always been cool, so I see Dave and Mase and Mase is like “yo Treach is downstairs really bugging right now, walking around like a shark, talking about ‘where YZ at?!’ And I’m thinking, family, this dude was just standing at my table, if he was gonna do some shit, it could’ve been right there. Now all of the sudden I’m gone and he wants to be Mr. Tough Guy. So I went back downstairs, but when I get down there there’s no orange suit. And that was the end of that. At the end of the day, I guess years kinda cleared that up. I’m glad nobody really got killed because in that beef I honestly was thinking that somebody was gonna get shot. And since they carried bats I figured it wasn’t gonna be me.

Check back tomorrow for part 2. YZ talks about more static with Poor Righteous Teachers, the influence of the late Tony D and his new label Blackworld Entertainment.

Tags: Naughty By Nature, Tony D, Treach, Trenton, Tuff City, YZ

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 10:39 am and is filed under Interviews, New Jersey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.