Author Topic: Lunatic 63 Interview (Yes, I was Interviewed) My Album "Unity" Jan.11 Details...  (Read 1040 times)

Lunatic

shouts out to I2G for reaching out
http://www.illuminati2g.webs.com/lunatic63interview.htm

Illuminati 2G kicked it with I2G and Raptalk staff member Lunatic 63 for a exclusive interview. We discuss his upcoming compilation album, Unity, dropping in January for free download, his management company, his thoughts on the state of hip hop and much more. Very informative interview so check it out.

Illuminati 2G is here with Lunatic 63, how's it going man?

I'm doing well, how are you D?

Good, doing good. Tell me a little bit first, some history on how you got involved in hip hop journalism?

Man that is a absolutely crazy story right there. I am going to keep it 100 with this answer to start you off man. I was pretty much bored as hell one night and was just on myspace messing around, was on one of my artists favorite myspace page, a dude by the name of Knocturnal, I am sure most of the readers will be familiar with. I had seen a comment left by a artist by the name of Big Tyme, who comes from Fort Worth, Texas. He just had a new track with Knoc that I was unaware of, on his myspace page, I checked it out, liked what I heard, started doing some research, as I always do with stuff that I am interested in. One thing alot of people don't know about me is that I am a information geek, anything I love sports, hip hop, I feel like I need to know everything and I will take the time to learn it. I started doing some research and found out about a hip hop group Knocturnal was pushing by the name of Mathmadix. I then started hitting them up via myspace, just messaging them and getting to know them. I put together some information on the group and some audio and kind of just wrote a mock article just actually for a message board. I was not really planning anything with it, just to have some fun with it and just to let everyone know what is the latest with Knoc and the whole Mathmadix group, because I knew most people just like myself before that night were probably unaware of. A good friend of mine, Tim "Styles" Sanchez, who works for Raptalk.net, AllHipHop, Complex Magazine and a couple of other networks, he saw the article on the message board. He already was a friend of mine, we could hit each other up from time to time, just emailing, chopping game up, just discussing stuff. He saw the article and decided to take it upon himself to actually post it on Raptalk. I was not even aware of it that it was posted until he sent me a link. Kind of took me a back I was surprised and I am definitely very grateful for him doing that still to this day. It pretty much moved from there man. Styles presented the idea for me to do what I am currently doing now, which is the hip hop journalism gig and I ran with it man. Here we are today, not even a year later I have knocked out over 100 interviews in this game.

That leads right into my next question. I am not saying this because you are a friend of mine or the homie, but you have been doing this for almost a year and the amount and the quality of interviews you have done this year, in my opinion is pretty much unprecedented and unmatched. If there is a rookie of the year award, you got it hands down. What would you say out of ALL the interviews you have done is your personal favorite and why?

Woah that is a tough one. My personal favorite? Thank you by the way on the rookie of the year comment.

No problem

I would probably have to go with Chamillionaire because that was that was probably the first....., not to downgrade any of the other artists that I interviewed because they are all fantastic but I think Chamillionaire was the first "big" artist that I interviewed. It was amazing to me and I could not believe it to be honest with you when I got on the phone with him. It was a fantastic interview. If anyone gets a chance to read it that has not yet, check it out on WordOfSouth.com. He just kept it so real with me and he did not give me any time limits or constraints, no topics that we could not talk about, we just chopped it up for about a half hour and he just kept it real, it was a hell of a interview. I am going to go with Chamillionaire, good question.

Let's get into your new album that you have been working on, entitled Unity. What inspired you to do a compilation album?

Yes, yes the project. Unity the album. First of all I want to say that it is dropping for free download on January 11th, 2009. Free download anybody can get it. It is going to be up on Illuminati2g.net if anyone is checking out this interview right now, you can get it here for free. As for the inspiration for it, man to keep it real with you ever since I got into hip hop as a big fan and as a listener, I always had a diversified taste in my music. I see so many people that I meet online and in person that are a fan of 1, maybe 2 coasts at the most, and pretty much bash all of the other coasts. I never understood it simply because it was my nature just to enjoy all types of hip hop from all different coasts and different regions. My favorite artists range from Ice Cube, who of course is from the west coast, to Scarface from the south to Nas to the east, back to Knocturnal and just I mean I have always enjoyed all types of music. I never understood why some people just don't get that. With this Unity compilation what made me want to do it, was mainly I wanted to help diversify the playlists that hip hop fans roll with. If you get a chance to hear the album and I hope everyone who reads this interview will, it's got something for everyone and I really mean that. You hear alot of artists saying that but on the real some of them are just bullshitting and it is not true. I got some west coast shit on Unity that you are going to be able to cruise and vibe to, after that we can get into a old school east coast sounding banger, we get into some south stuff, I got some dope southern artists on there, Spark Dawg who is a Scarface protege. Rain who I don't really want to let the cat out of the bag, but is making some real big moves right now in terms of what he is doing and who he is rolling with. As a mentioned, Spark Dawg from the group Green City, they released a album a couple of months ago called Brand New Money. Yung O, who is a SRC recording artist, who is dropping his album soon. His single Shawty is making alot of noise. We get into as a mentioned some west coast stuff, Bad Lucc is on there from Dubb Union, I got my homie Trick Trick from the D and got the midwest involved in the project. I am from Toronto, Canada and I got some artists from my city on the album so that takes care of the north, and I even went all the way to Montreal and grabbed a track out from there, so all coasts are equally represented on the album and that was what I wanted to do basically. I want 1 body of work out there with hip hop from all different regions and coasts and I want people to realize you can appreciate music from all different coasts and that is exactly what I want people to see with my project.

And you said January 11th, 2009 is when that is dropping right?

Yes and I promise everyone that it will not be a day late. The album is done, the artwork is completed, I have had the entire thing mastered. Free download or not I do not want to put out a bad project with my name associated. With a compilation album, I got tracks from all different artists from all different studios and the sound levels did not exactly match the next song so I had to go out of my way to get it professionally mastered. Everything is done, I got it right here, I'm looking at it right now and it is ready to go, January 11th, not a day late.

How was the response from the artists that appear on the album once you told them that you were going to do this project? What was the feedback?

I'm glad you asked that question because the feedback that I got was absolutely phenomenal. I did not imagine it was going to be as good as it was myself. You think alot of people get the misconception that hip hop artists are greedy or stuff like that, but I am going on record to say that I did not pay for a single track on this album and I got many exclusives. I got 27 tracks on the album and I think only 7 or 8 tracks are floating around the net on mixtapes. To my account, not one of the tracks appear on any albums but some as I said have made mixtapes. The response was just phenomenal, the level of willingness from the artists that wanted to be part of this project was great. I remember when I got the idea I was just chillin, and it came to me and I like to tackle things right away, that is the type of person that I am. I hit up some artists as soon as the idea came to me and by the end of the night I already had 2 or 3 tracks in my inbox. It was unbelievable, every artists that submitted something was very excited to be on the project. Got something for everyone, got exclusive records, some tracks on mixtapes and I even got some artists to record exclusive shoutouts for myself and Raptalk.net. Pete Spray is also a part of the project. He is a hip hop manager and he is just a great and fantastic businessman. He is part of the project as well. The feedback was just phenomenal.

I know also you are putting in motion the Unity Part 2 album. You are working to have that as a retail purchase and digital download right?

Oh that is a big thing right there man. This is pretty much what I am doing. I am giving you Unity 1 for free. Here take it, I put alot of work into it, you can have it for free. I hope everyone who downloads it enjoys it, likes it, loves it. Pass it around to everyone you know, take it for free, do what you want with it. Unity 2, yeah I am kind of in the early stages of working on that right now. It's going to be another compilation style album. I definitely have got some things on the table in terms of 2 avenues. One is to take it digital and two to press up hard copies. I know there is alot of old hip hop heads who prefer hard copies and really aren't down with digital downloads. So if you are a new cat, you can get it digitally, if you are a old school cat, we are going to have hard copies available, we will ship it to it. I don't want to talk about it too much right now in terms of what artists I am going to get on it but it's looking to be even bigger than Unity 1 even though it is in its early stages. I'm in contact with some great artists and shouts out to Pete Spray who is going to be part of Unity 2. Raptalk Records definitely, Junior hollered at me. Pete Spray with what he is doing with the project, he is doing some really big things for Unity 2, again stuff I really do not want to get into at this time, but again shouts out to Pete and all the artists I have already had talks with about doing it and who are going to submit something I appreciate that a whole lot. Hopefully it is going to be a successful project. But first take Unity 1 for free download. If you like it, support me and pick up Unity 2. Spend a little money on it, and we are not going to price it that expensive. It is going to be very affordable. If you like Unity 1, cop part 2. If you don't like Unity 1, first of all you deserve a slap in the face if you don't like Unity 1, but if you don't like it, I promise you Unity 2 is going to be bigger and better.

So what is next for you as far as the different sites you have been working on? I also know you manage a couple producers and artists. Any big interviews or features you want to promote or get out there right now?

Well first of all I have a managing gig that alot of people do not know about. Lunatic Management, I am managing 3 producers right now. One by the name of Smoke and another by the name of MTL Beats, Michael "The Most" Holmes. He is doing his thing really big out in Montreal. Just a fantastic producer. We are in the works right now of doing some big things with him, getting some artists over his beats which is going to get him recognized. The other producer is Mista Chill out of Long Beach, CA. Young up and coming dude who as only made a handful of beats so far but the potential is absolutely fantastic. The fact that he has created 5 or 6 beats only so far, and he caught the attention of 2 pretty big west coast artists, Kam and Glasses Malone, so we are working on big things for both MTL Beats and Mista Chill. As far as the website gig, it started with Raptalk.net and I will never leave just because I am a very grateful person and the fact that they presented me with this blessed opportunity. I appreciate it so much and I can't say enough about Styles and how he has mentored me and Junior as well, the owner of Raptalk. Even Latina Beatz and Dub MD who have also put up some great material on the website. I have also branched out and have been working for a couple other websites. Of course this site, Illuminati 2G being one of them, because I love what you are doing with it. 2 other websites, WordOfSouth.com, who is owned by Leon Bailey, a great person down south who has landed me some interviews I never even dreamed of getting. He has made it possible for me to interview Young Jeezy, Plies, Chamillionaire and many more. The other site is ChronicVacation.com which is being ran by Eddie Gurrola, fantastic hip hop journalist. He is doing some big things with that website, I enjoy that website because I seen the vision he saw and I really saw all the strength that ChronicVacation has behind it. I mean the west coast artists are really supporting ChronicVacation in a major way. If you visit the site at all you will see that.  The site has only been out a couple of months and already they have a bunch of exclusives. The other day they put up a exclusive Butch Cassidy track that they put up before everyone else. West coast artists are behind ChronicVacation and that is why I joined it. Eddie Gurrola is a great person and I want to help him get ChronicVacation where he wants to get it.

What are your thoughts right now on the state of hip hop? You happy with the music that is coming out? You kind of touched on it earlier alot of people are picking sides, down south, west coast. It's funny you have a album called Unity and it does not seem like there is alot of Unity in hip hop in some instances. What is your thoughts on the music right now.

Just as you mentioned the Unity album is definitely about that. It is a bit of a problem in hip hop right now, but it seems to me the general consensus that many people hold is that hip hop is in a bad state and I don't really get it. I understand there is alot of bullshit commerical music out there that gets supported by the major networks like BET and MTV and it has been difficult for artists to deliver music to their audience that has great content and realistic subject matter. It is getting harder for those kind of arists to hit the masses. I definitely see where the problem lies, but in terms of up and coming artists, there are just so many dope up and coming artists that I know think people realize they are really helping improve the state of hip hop. I mean you can go to any coast. This site is a predominately a west coast website so I am sure most that read this interview know what I am talking about as far as the west coast goes. Bishop Lamont, Crooked I, Jay Rock, Omar Cruz, Glasses Malone and so many more. I don't want to forget anybody but yall know what it is. The east coast, Saigon is absolutely bananas, Papoose is doing it real big, Tru Life is another great artist on the east coast. Down south you got B.O.B, who is just absolutely phenomenal, who just like many others think also reminds me alot of Andre 3000 and that is enough said right there, Rain from North Carolina, who is fantastic and as I said earlier he is making some major moves right now and God bless him because he deserves it and is great in his own right. The Product, who is a group that is put out by the legendary Scarface. Young Malice and Will Hen, they are a fantastic duo, they put own a album a couple years back, One Hunid, that if you have not heard it, go get it right now! Go to Amazon or go to Itunes and get it because it is some of the most fantastic hip hop that has been released in the past couple years. Detroit is making alot of advancements right now. They are not all particularly new artists but they are making alot of noise like Guilty Simpson, Elzhi, Black Milk and those kind of people so it really does not matter where you go. We got some dope up and coming rappers here in Toronto. Robbie Khan, Kriptonite. In Montreal we got the producer MTL Beats, I mean the future generation is in a very good state in my opinion.

What is the best way a A&R or a artist, manager anyone that is looking to get a interview or feature, get a song up on one of the sites that you work with, what's the best way they can get a hold of you?

They can hit me up on my email, my personal email that I check daily, fridayafternext30@hotmail.com. Get at me. I am pretty much willing to with anyone and anybody because I get hit with alot of stuff so it definitely gets hard for me to check everything, but I do and I am willing to work with almost anybody. Feel free to get at me, I know what it is like to try and get recognized so I will definitely do my part to help people out. Hit me up and we will take it from there.

Well that is all the questions that I have for you, appreciate the interview. We speak all the time on the phone and email and messenger and like I said, good friend of mine, it was no problem doing the interview and we always promote each other so I definitely support and love what you are doing out there man. Is there any last words or shoutouts you want to get out there to the people?

Appreciate the compliment and I definitely want everybody to know Illuminati2G.net is doing it real big people. Yes the interviewer is a good friend of mine, I have been able to pretty much sit back and watch the website grow. Everyone take notice of this website, it went from predominately dealing with underground hip hop artists, which is fine because you have brought so many dope up and coming artists to the forefront of the site like Mu Dills, Rain, K. Sparks, Robbie Khan and a couple others. But in the last couple of months Illuminati 2G is definitely doing it even bigger in terms of some more mainstream and popular acts which readers are more familiar with like Trick Trick, DJ Unk, Jon B and Young De and so many others. So I definitely want to shout out Illuminati 2G for doing it big. Shout out to Raptalk.net, everybody over there at ChronicVacation.com, WordOfSouth. Last words? Unity, January 11th, 2009. Download it, it will be available for free download at Raptalk.net, ChronicVacation.com, Illuminati2G.net, SoPrupRadio.com, and a gang of message boards. Download it, listen to it, hear it, love it spread it around, all I want to do is let this album let recognized because I put alot of hard work into it. More importantly there are a bunch of fantastic artists on there. Good mix of up and comers and veterans on this album so I definitely want everyone to hear it and thank you for your time.

Appreciate the interview

Thank you man.
Co-Director of Site Content For Raptalk.Net
Staff Writer For WordOfSouth.Com
Staff Writer For Illuminati2G.Net
Staff Writer For SoPrupRadio.com
 

MontrealCity's Most

  • Muthafuckin' Don!
  • *****
  • Posts: 8074
  • Karma: 585
Congradulations on all the succes my friend!!! This is only the begining tho, 2008 set things up for a big, huge 2009!!!!!

Much love and continued succes this year.
 

Lunatic

Congradulations on all the succes my friend!!! This is only the begining tho, 2008 set things up for a big, huge 2009!!!!!

Much love and continued succes this year.
Thank you!
2009 is looking real big!
we are going to have a great year
 8)
Co-Director of Site Content For Raptalk.Net
Staff Writer For WordOfSouth.Com
Staff Writer For Illuminati2G.Net
Staff Writer For SoPrupRadio.com
 

penenstamp

  • Guest
lol
 

Lunatic

last 2 posters: did u read it? probably not :P
Co-Director of Site Content For Raptalk.Net
Staff Writer For WordOfSouth.Com
Staff Writer For Illuminati2G.Net
Staff Writer For SoPrupRadio.com
 

D-Nice

  • Muthafuckin' Don!
  • *****
  • Posts: 5399
  • Thanked: 41 times
  • Karma: 1402
  • I Made Jesus Walks/So I Ain't Never Going To Hell
 

G-Funk

  • Guest
Great read.
I might peep that Unity compilation ;D
Have much success in 2009
Keep doin wat you're doin
 

penenstamp

  • Guest
last 2 posters: did u read it? probably not :P

parts of it... the interview misses paragraphs.

but you (are and) sound so young in that interview. now that's not a negative thing, but it makes me laugh.
 

D-Nice

  • Muthafuckin' Don!
  • *****
  • Posts: 5399
  • Thanked: 41 times
  • Karma: 1402
  • I Made Jesus Walks/So I Ain't Never Going To Hell
Nice read. Man it seems so much longer since you started doing the journalism gig. Much success, keep doing ya thing. Bump what the haters and critics say, it comes with the territory and keep hustling.
 

soopadoopaflykid

  • Muthafuckin' Don!
  • *****
  • Posts: 1112
  • Karma: -9
  • Iguess
Nice read. Man it seems so much longer since you started doing the journalism gig. Much success, keep doing ya thing. Bump what the haters and critics say, it comes with the territory and keep hustling.
ditto
 

Lunatic

Nice read. Man it seems so much longer since you started doing the journalism gig. Much success, keep doing ya thing. Bump what the haters and critics say, it comes with the territory and keep hustling.
ditto
much love to the both of ya!
Co-Director of Site Content For Raptalk.Net
Staff Writer For WordOfSouth.Com
Staff Writer For Illuminati2G.Net
Staff Writer For SoPrupRadio.com
 

Blood$

that's wassup... I'll be checking for that Unity album  8)
 

Lunatic

that's wassup... I'll be checking for that Unity album  8)
Thanks! u won't be disappointed..
Co-Director of Site Content For Raptalk.Net
Staff Writer For WordOfSouth.Com
Staff Writer For Illuminati2G.Net
Staff Writer For SoPrupRadio.com
 

El the Self Image

  • Muthafuckin' OG
  • ***
  • Posts: 402
  • Karma: -43
  • It's 10:30 somewhere!
Good shit pimp juice!!!

oh and I'll be honest, I skimmed through the interview..... but you've accomplished a lot and got a lot goin, so it was a bit much for me to read while at work.... :)

Much success,
Namaste
Peace and Blessings,
-Él the Self Image
Parkin Lot Drunks!
eltheself@gmail.com
http://www.myspace.com/eltheself
http://www.myspace.com/imapld

FREE MIXTAPE, OUT NOW, GET IT!
 

Lunatic

Good shit pimp juice!!!

oh and I'll be honest, I skimmed through the interview..... but you've accomplished a lot and got a lot goin, so it was a bit much for me to read while at work.... :)

Much success,
Namaste
Thank you!

Not to be cocky, but I do feel like I've done a lot in a short period of time and at only 18 years old, I got more than I can imagine in front of me.

Thanks for checking it out! Peep the "Unity" compilation style street album Jan 11..
Co-Director of Site Content For Raptalk.Net
Staff Writer For WordOfSouth.Com
Staff Writer For Illuminati2G.Net
Staff Writer For SoPrupRadio.com