(Be sure to read the first and second parts of this interview…)

N: So you left Big Tyme to go to Jive…
C: Well, actually, the first album on Jive was Big Tyme/Jive. [Russell] went and signed a deal with Jive and Jive, being true to their name, [had] a clause in their contract that said that if you don’t want to deliver for your original label no more you can take the option to cut out the middle man. So that’s how Big Tyme Records got cut up out of the deal. ‘Cause we exercised our option and got him up out of there. ‘Cause there was a lot of money that wasn’t being accounted for. And goddammit we wanted some of it. We felt like we should’ve had ownership in Big Tyme. Which is water under the bridge now. If you’re gonna print that then you gotta print that we alright with Russell, we cool. I see him from time to time, he alright. He was young, he didn’t know.

N: About the first album, you guys changed up a lot of the beats and the lyrics from the original Southern Way tape on Big Tyme. Was that the label’s decision?
C: The Southern Way was an EP. When it finally came out on Jive it was a full length album called Too Hard To Swallow. I didn’t have nothing to do with them changes that they made to them songs. In fact I wasn’t even in the studio when they was fucking with them records. They took samples out, some of them because they felt like they was too expensive, some of them because shit didn’t clear. It all got fucked up, and in my opinion, that shit is garbage. I don’t even listen to that shit. You remove the sample, man, especially back then, each song was based heavily on samples. You remove the sample, you remove the essence of the song. When they took them samples out and they let them other people touch that shit and fuck with my music when I wasn’t there it got watered down. With lyrics if you’re talking about “Tell Me Something Good,” it’s possible that the lyrics didn’t clear. That song got tore the fuck up. When we lost the Isley Brothers sample that song fell apart. Let me tell you what they did man, they let the motherfuckers at the studio we was recording at, they went and cut a side deal with them motherfuckers and they thought they was some motherfuckin producers. They let them motherfuckers change our music and paid them under the table to do it. And they gave ‘em production credit on the shit. Ain’t that a bitch? But that’s how the game was going back then, it’ll go down like that now. Let a record label have some of your lyrics and that shit ain’t right, they’ll send somebody in there to produce around your shit. At the end of the day it’s just record company business, but they end up fucking up the project doing that shit.

But it was six new songs that was added to [Too Hard To Swallow] and one of those songs was “Pocket Full of Stones.” And in my opinion that’s the savior of that album.

N: Nowadays what’s the process behind making a UGK song?
C: We not stuck to no style, we not stuck to one way of doing things. We go with the flow. Songs happen different ways. Sometimes I might have the hook first, sometimes Bun might have the hook first. Sometimes I have the beat and the beat is sitting around for two or three years before we even get to it. It’s a couple of songs on this new album that we’ve been fucking with since ’96. Our thing is this, if it ain’t ready we don’t put it out, we put it on the side and come back to it. Some songs come together real fast, in one or two nights. Some songs take two years. Some take six years. It depends on the song and what’s going on.

N: I noticed that there’s a lot of outside production on the new album. Why did you go outside the core UGK production team for this?
C: Ain’t no UGK production team, it’s me and it was NO Joe that came in on Ridin’ Dirty. It ain’t like it’s a whole bunch of mystery motherfuckers. Back then we was doing our own records because we didn’t have no budget to go out and get reputable producers. That’s a luxury that we never got to experience as rappers. We never got to work with the Swizz Beats and the Jazze Phas. I’ve been down with Jazze for years and years, but we never had money to go deal with real producers. That’s something that we never got to taste in our career. I think that every artist should have the opportunity to work with some people that they respect. That’s the whole reason I did the Pimpiilation record, because I had never done a record that I didn’t produce myself. I wanted to do some songs with other people. If you listen to it, you’ll know I didn’t produce none of it. Only song I produced was “Havin’ Thangs” and that’s because it was a remake from Big Mike’s shit. We’ve never been able to fuck with other producers, that’s something we wanted to do with ourselves. Call that a selfish move, but that’s something that we wanted to do. And I think that it’s a mistake when one producer or two producers dominate a whole album and be greedy and not try to go out and work with other people, because you never gonna see what’s gonna happen. Yeah sure, we make mistakes sometimes when we go outside of our comfort zone, but sometimes we make beautiful music that wouldn’t have gotten made if I would’ve just hogged all the production time. As artists we wanted to do that. As men we wanted to experience that.

N: On that note, how’d the joint with G Rap and Kane come about?
C: I used to want to be Big Daddy Kane. We used to idolize Kool G rap and the Juice Crew All Stars. We were raised up on original East Coast rap music, just like everybody else was. They were people that we respect and look up to as OGs in the game. I felt like I wanted to make a song with them people before my career was over and this is the time to do it. Marley Marl is the original motherfucker that put the 808 in a record and made it go boom. He’s the original dun dada with this beat making shit. Make no mistake, he’s the truth. It just so happens that my manager was real close with him and I got the opportunity to meet Marley Marl and he sent me some beats. I was sitting around listening to ‘em and he had a couple of remakes of some old shit on there and it just all came together. It’s one of the last songs of the album that came together. That’s just paying homage to the foundation of this shit. When I see Kool DJ Red Alert in New York, I bow down to him. I never got a chance to meet Kool Herc, but when I do meet him I want an autograph. These motherfuckers is the real OGs of this shit. And I got a lot of respect for them. It was a pleasure and an honor to do a song with those guys. We reaching back and bringing some history up so these youngsters gonna see what’s going on. If you don’t know where you came from how the fuck you gonna know where you going?

N: I feel like a lot of the New York heads aren’t even putting the legends on their records these days.
C: It’s ironic that some boys from Texas had to be the ones to reach back and grab Marley Marl and grab Big Daddy Kane and Kool G Rap and put them on in ’07. Ain’t that some shit? Seems kind of odd that some motherfuckers from Texas had done that. But back then, nobody was trippin’ on where a motherfucker was from. Remember Rakim said “it ain’t where you from, it’s where you at?” That’s the era I come from. I’m an 80’s baby. All these new young motherfuckers is the ones tripping on where a motherfucker from or what coast the music come from or all this little ho ass shit. Niggas say they got beef but it look like pork to me.

N: What do you think causes that divide in hip hop?
C: What causes a motherfucker to just straight up be a hater on these streets? What causes a motherfucker that you went to school with your whole life to want to shoot you and rob you? Jealous, envy, greed, wicked men, deceitful hearts, females with penises. Bitch ass niggas is what causes this shit. I remember a time when being a rapper was the thing to be, a rapper was an upstanding citizen, a cool cat. You had to be a cool motherfucker to rap. You had to be a cool motherfucker to wear that dookie rope chain and come around. You remember the pictures of Eric B & Rakim? Them niggas was cool motherfuckers. You had to be to get on a record. Just to touch the microphone you had to be a cold motherfucker. Now a person say “rapper” they think of a fugazi motherfucker, a fraud. A motherfucker that lies and talks about shit he ain’t never done. We done let so many fake motherfuckers come into this game and have embraced so much fraud shit and have gave awards and put crowns on so many pussy motherfuckers that to be a rapper now it ain’t even the thing to be. A rapper ain’t no upstanding citizen, a nigga gotta check your credibility. Back then, by the time you saw a rapper on a record, he already had paid his dues in the street. That motherfucker had already been tested or he wouldn’t even bubble to the top. Now it seems like the buster niggas get on earlier than the real niggas do. And that’s why there’s so much hate and envy in the game. Any time you put pussy into the equation you gonna have a pussy ass environment and a fucked up system of doing things. That’s why I see there’s so much division. Let me tell you something man, I don’t hear certain motherfuckers tripping off coasts man. If niggas having money I don’t hear them dissing the south. I was just on the phone with Cam’ron. Cam’ron ain’t trippin on the south. Cam’ron’s opening up a record company in the south. I don’t hear him complaining. I don’t hear Jay-Z on his record dissing the south. I don’t hear Fat Joe dissing the south, in fact I see Fat Joe embracing our sound. I don’t hear Scarface on records talking shit about the west coast. I don’t hear real niggas on the west coast like WC or Ice Cube dissing the east or the south. It be pussy motherfuckers with this bullshit. They keep saying “You niggas fucking up hip hop.” Man let me tell you something, everytime a man spit a rap, don’t make them records hip hop records, we making country rap tunes down here. And everybody want to be mad at D4L and Dem Franchize Boys. Guess what man? What’s the difference between them records and [Rappin’ Duke's] “Da Ha Da Ha”?

N: It’s just party music.
C: Exactly. What’s the difference man? What you so mad about? We need different genres of this music so that it can keep expanding and so that it can stay at the forefront and we can keep eating. It’s got to change. Everything can’t be ice water and cool, everything can’t be hardcore all the time, everything can’t be one tempo. We need different genres of this thing called rap. Mary J. Blige is just as much hip hop as Notorious BIG as King Tee was as Rodney O and Joe Cooley.

N: Is there anything else you want add?
C: That I’m just happy to still be in this game that we call rap. After so many years I’m glad to still have a position in this shit. I want to use my influence to bring some positive things to this game. We’ve done enough tearing down on our own, let’s bring something positive to this shit. Let’s get back to the music instead of all the bickering and arguing about where a motherfucker is from. Just represent your hood to the fullest and everything gonna be alright. I’m down here, I’m gonna represent mine. If you mad about something, say you mad, we can’t keep guessing who you talking about. And goddammit we can either sit down and talk it out or do whatever it is you feel like you wanna do. We oughta be able to sit down and talk about anything as men. You can’t make up with no dead man. If people got problems out there reach out to that man and talk to him.

And to all the producers out there – you all kinda stuck in the style, you need to get up off the hand clap and the snare drum and the double time hi hats. That’s my motherfuckin formula, get up on your own shit. Bring some originality to the game and we can all ride on.

Tags: UGK

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Interviews, Texas. 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.