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interview FOESUM (April 2003) | Interview By: Nima

      
Dubcnn.com got the chance to speak with Long Beach, G-Funk pioneer's Foesum! They spoke to us about growing up, the "G-Funk Era," Independent Vs. Major deals, past and future releases - including details on the DVD, tour plans and much more! We have both the transcript and the audio for you to check and please feel free to send any feedback regarding the interview to: nima@dubcnn.com

Huge thanks to Foesum for taking time out to answer the questions fans wanted to know! (Interview was done by phone on April 6th 2003)

Visit The Official Foesum Site : Foesum

Questions Asked By : Nima

Foesum Gave Dubcnn.com A Shoutout! Check That Here

M&M From The Group Dropped A Verse During The Interview : Here

Full Interview In Audio : Here

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Nima : Ya'll been in the game for a long time. Does it make you mad that you ain't gettin the recognition you deserve?

M&M: Definitely, you know, definitely, cause it's like, basically everything that we bring to the table, we try to bring the A-Game to the table. Regardless. It's like, you keep doin' it and doin' it, and eventually someone is gonna recognize it. But, during the time that its not being recognized, yeah that definitely gets frustratin, cause you already know the kinda talent that you got, you know, but at the same time you just gotta keep goin, you just gotta keep movin regardless.

Nima : Tell us about growin' up in Long Beach.

M&M: Growin' up in Long Beach, you know, it was uhh, it was pretty straight, you know it was pretty much as far as like street life, you know what I'm sayin? And everything that comes with the street life, you know. But uhm, you know that’s pretty much the life that we're used to, that’s the kinda life you live. And uhm, you know during that you see a lot of things happen, you see a lot of things happen to different people, you know, you lose people, people get killed, people go to jail, you know, a lot of stuff happens, but at the same time you can also learn a lot from all that. And it can make you a stronger person also.

T-Dubb: Hey, this is T-Dubb I can add to that as well as far as growin up in Long Beach. Like M&M said, in certain areas it’s kinda hard cause you gotta deal with a lot of gang violence and all that stuff, but we had a lot of fun as well, because uhh.. The Twinz are my cousins, they used to rap with Warren G, so we grew up rapping, clownin’ around, me, DJ Glaze, M&M, Domino, you know! So when it was hard times we used to do stuff like that to make it good times.

Nima : How did ya'll get into the Rap Game?

DJ Glaze: Back in like 86, we used to DJ, we used to have a group called Perfection. We'd do a lot of house parties and stuff like that, and uhh, so we used to play a lot of old records like that old Fresh Prince, and The Bridge by MC Shan, Have A Nice Day by Roxanne Shante, and we were like "all these records is cool", but we wanted something that’s BUMPIN, you know what I'm sayin'`, something else that would make the party jump. So we just started to make our own records, and uhh we knew we were tight on the turntables, so we went out and bought a 808 drum machine and uh, one of the dudes from our group Travvy Trav who was kinda like our manager at the time, he went out and tried to find the dopest MC in Long Beach, and back then it was Domino. So what we did was we recruited him, we had M&M, we had Dubb, we picked up The Twinz too, they were cousins of T-Dubb, you know we came together and we made a group called Perfection, and we were doing demos and stuff.

T-Dubb, your brother Travvy Trav who passed away, used to be a part of the group too. Do you think anything would be different if he was still around?

T-Dubb: I think so, because his influence on us is, you know was great! See him, it worked for me.. See when I was rappin', I hadn't a lot of a guys in the group, cause Domino basically wrote my rhymes, and my brother was still there and I know how hard he was on me cause he wanted me to strive to be the best that I could be. He was being' on me like "nah you need to write your own", so even though he wasn't here, he would talk to me in my sleep so I knew I had to become a dope MC and so I start writin' my own rhymes, and he's real close to M&M and Glaze so.. We would probably be millionaires cause he used to push so many buttons, and talked to so many people that we knew we were gonna do it one way or another!


Nima : You came up as a part of the G-Funk Era, with Warren G, The Twinz, The Dove Shack and more. Is the click still together?

T-Dubb: Well it's hard for me to really touch on that, Warren G, I believe he's workin' on a new album, and The Twinz are workin' on a solo project, but uhh, I'm pretty sure that they still cool wit the G-Funk clique!

Nima : Would ya'll work with Warren G again?

T-Dubb: Yeah I'd work with him! I think he one of the dopest producers! He makes excellent tracks, I mean I'd work with him again!

Nima : You guys have had a few Record Label troubles with Big Beat and Penalty Records... Tell us about it!

DJ Glaze: Well I mean, those labels are uhh, actually Penalty was a pretty decent label, they were just a new label at the time, so you know they didn't have as much pull as the other labels. But like Big Beat for example has been around for a long time and uhm, they're theory is to, kinda like to put out a record like a single, and see if it goes, you know, if it picks up a little bit or picks interest, and then after that, if they see it take off, then they'll put a little push behind it, you know what I'm sayin. But see that's not the kind of group we are! See we're a group to has longevity, you know? And if someone can, just push us hard to get us out there to the masses, then we should be able to hold our own, you know, it will eventually pick up. We're just not like some fluke, you know that you throw out there with a single and see if it works you know? And we're not really like a one hit wonder, we're like no, fad or something like that. So that’s the kinda way that they dealt with our record you know, so we were kinda upset, you know, after we signed our contract and recorded our record, we kinda saw how they went about handlin' our group, we were already kinda pissed off and calling up there and cussin people out. So yeah at the beginning, we had the choice to go with Ruthless Records with Eazy-E, Tommy Boy Records you know, instead of signing with Penalty/Tommy Boy it woulda been directly with Tommy Boy, and then with Big Beat/Atlantic, maybe we shoulda went with Tommy Boy, because they're known for developing artists, we might've said wow! See it was kind of a mistake on our side, we went for the big dollars you know, they could've brought us a lot of money up front, Tommy Boy threw us a little bit of money up front but, you know they probably would've had more to offer as far as staff and bein' able to blow us up. I mean if you look at their track record, they've had Digital Underground, Naughty By Nature, Queen Latifah, and they had alot of groups that you know they didn't do just one record! You would see albums, you know what I'm sayin, more than three albums on people, so that was kinda our bad, and we were kinda new to the game, so that would've put alot of money in our pocket. And the Eazy-E thang, we could of went that route too, and his situation was a little bit different, he wasn’t gonna give us a big budget, he was gone throw us a little bit of money, but at the same time, you know the game, you know that all that stuff is recoupable, you know, I’m a throw you $200,000 and before you see any money they gotta make that $200,000 back! So I mean that woulda actually been a good choice too because if they would have gave us an advance like 50 Gz on to record it, we would see money after the first 100,000 records. But you know, it was kind of a learning process, now its kinda different cause you know like we tryin' to do the independent thing, we're makin' a lot more money than we were making when we had a deal with Atlantic! And we’re not even on the same level. And you don't even see us on magazines right now, you don't see videos or something like that, but I'm doin' better than I was doin' back then! We're just tryin’ to make our money like we should be and you know, get out to the masses.

Nima : Do ya'll feel the independent game is safer than goin' with a major?

DJ Glaze: Yeah, because you know, when you go with a major, you pretty much put your career in their hands! They listen to your music and they think "this is what I think ....., this is what I think our cover should be!" And yeah you can sit there and argue, and you know what I'm sayin say "nah nah i don't like that", but there are deadlines they gotta meet, and you can't come up with something that’s doper than what they got, on the same kinda level, they gonna go with their idea! They don't care if you got a homebody that’s a graphic artist, that he's tight on the computer, he can draw and shit like that. They got some dude that’s brandy and he can take it to press, and get it to the peoples so that they can go ahead and start runnin’ copies, that’s what they gonna go with, cause they want somebody that’s professional. So you know, if you don't have a contact like that, you always gonna loose, so the artists is dependin' on that! Nowadays we do our own thing, know what I'm sayin, do it a lil slower, but you know the shit comes out the way we want it to! It's like, we had to learn it the hard way, they played with our music! We would go to the studio, we would depend on the engineers and producers to make us sound the way that we sound, so if you listen to our early stuff, it doesn't even compare to the shit that we're doin' now, because now we do all our own stuff, we produce our own stuff, engineer the whole shit, do all the mastering, put the album together and everything. We release our own stuff.

Nima : Ya'll came back with FoeFathers, years later. But you were one of the few to stay true to the G-Funk sound. How come?

M&M: You know what I’m saying, that’s pretty much because that's the stuff that we like! And we know just too well that the stuff we like, there’s alot of people out there that like that, that like that same kinda style, so we pretty much kept it the same, you know? There's no need to change up nuttin’ you know what I'm sayin? If it ain't broke don't fix it!

Nima : And why do you think so many people are turning away from that and doin' different stuff?

DJ Glaze: Uhmm, shit, I mean you see, the music business changes with the people that run the business, you know what I mean? They decide on whats tight and what’s not. It doesn't mean what's dope on the streets, it doesn't work like that. They hear what they think is dope and they put money into it, they blow them up, you see them on videos, radio and magazines and shit like that, and then uhm, when they play the record 20-30 times a day, and the shit is half way decent, then you gonna like it, you know what I mean? Cause what else there to listen to? If you're not buyin' CD's and lookin' for the hot shit, then you just gonna play whatever’s on the radio, and whatever’s on the radio is kinda cool and you gone listen to it, is it necessarily the dopest shit that’s out, hell nah! Not, cause you know alot of underground groups right now that got way doper shit than somebody who maybe just put a album out! If you listen to that album you'll only hear one or two songs, but there's alot of groups out there you put the album on and you listen to all of em, all twelve of 'em, but they may not have a record deal or promotion like maybe another guy. Know what I'm sayin, if you go out there and listen on the internet, cause the internet is BIG right now, if you go there you'll find all kind of dope artists. I mean I don't even listen to the radio no more! I go out there and look for what’s dope! I go with the affiliations, I look at the producers, I look for artists, and got off that. I go off those trees, you know what I'm sayin. If somebody is involved wit somethin' then I'll go wit that. I don't go and listen to Billboard and figure out he got a new album out, it must be dope, know what I'm sayin.

Nima : If I'm not mistaken, E-White is related to one of ya'll. How does it feel to see him with Dogghouse now as a member of the all-stars?

T-Dubb: Yo this is T-Dubb again, yeah E-White is related to me, as well as The Twinz like I said before. I'm proud to see another one of my family members makin' it in the rap game, know what I'm sayin. E-White is one of my younger cousins, so like I said, I'm proud of him doin' his thang wit Snoop. And you know he was on a song on our album too.

Nima : Yeah, "Hello".

T-Dubb: Yeah Hello, so you know, I'm proud of him doin' his thang!


Nima : Were you satisfied with the way FoeFathers did? How many units did it sell?

T-Dubb: Uhmm, I liked the way it came out, know what I'm sayin? I think its tight because we hit it off with uhh, basically we hit it off with a variety of stuff. With a variety of different styles, and different type of thangs on it, you know, oh and as far as sales go, that’s still in motion right now, it's still sellin' now! We're still sellin' them as we speak actually!

Nima : But how much have you sold until now?

T-Dubb: Uhhm, we could say about 50 (G’s) right now.

Nima : You had some big names on your second record, such as Tray Dee. How did ya'll hook up with him?

T-Dubb: Uhhmm, I been knowin' Tray Dee for a little while, for a long time he grew up in the neighborhood, in Long Beach on the Eastside, so I went to Snoops house one day, and I ran into Tray Dee and I said "Homie I need you to do a favor for me and the Foesum clique" and he's like "What's that"? And I asked him to do a song with us, so bein' the homie that he is, he came and laced a nice track, a nice song and we put it out!

Nima : And it came out tight!

T-Dubb: Yeah he's one of the hardest lyricist, he got some good lyrics!


Nima : Are there any plans to work with him again in future?

T-Dubb: I'm sure there is, yeah, we'll do something again with him!


Nima : Glaze, how come you weren't rappin' on the second album?

DJ Glaze: Why I wasn't rapping on the second album? Uhm, because, uhh you know on the first record, I don't know I'm a critic man, I'm a hard critic, and uhm, when I listen to the first record alot of people said it was tight, but I felt like it was just cool, you know what I'm sayin'? And uh, I wanted to kinda take a backseat and just focus on my production, work more on the music, cause that's kinda like more of what I'm interested, you know. But uhm on the next album actually I’m a probably get back in, cause I feel a little bit better now about my rhymes and my delivery and stuff. I mean I'll probably won’t be on every song.


Nima : You are releasing a DVD in near future. What can we expect from that?

T-Dubb: Well what we gonna do is, it's basically gonna be the life of Foesum, us growin' up. We're gonna have alot of different thangs goin' on in the DVD. For example, we'll do a couple videos for the Foe Fathers album, maybe Hello with E-White, Doin' It On The Coast wit Kam, and we'll put that on the DVD, for the mass of fans that really don't have the chance to see those type of videos. We gone do that and then, uhm we'll be in the studio doin' songs and we'll record them at the same time as we doin' them, while Glaze is playin the beat, while M&M is on the mic with whatever guest is in there, so we'll give it to the people live and direct. And we'll probably have some live shows, video session shows...

Nima : And that's gonna be distributed independently too right?

Yes.

Nima : Why don't ya'll hook up a distribution deal to get nationwide or even international distribution?

T-Dubb: Uhm right now we do have international distribution out in Japan. So we been movin' alot of stuff over there in Japan. Right now we're lookin' for somebody like in Europe. The company that we're dealin' with is called Cisco Records. That's distributed in Japan. We're tryin’ to find somebody in Europe so we can get a lot more stuff out there to you guys.


Nima : What about solo projects?

T-Dubb: Yeah that's in the works right now, M&M has a solo project comin' and we're basically tryin to get it together and see when we’re gone release it. I'm doin' a solo record too!

DJ Glaze: I'll probably be doin' Ultimate Collaborations Part 2. M&M's new album is probably gonna be called "Walk In My Shoes".

Nima : And is gone be produced by DJ Glaze fully?

M&M: Yeah of course! Keep it in-house homie! *laughs* And we got a Greatest Hits album comin'! And we got another Foesum album comin' too!


Nima : Now something that most people are waiting on is the collabo album wit The Twinz. When is it coming out?

M&M: Yeah that's in the works right now! We're just puttin' all the tracks together, Glaze is puttin the tracks together we been real busy right now, we doin' alot of thangs at once, so once we get that in motion we gone get it rollin' real quick. Yes, that's also in the works.

Nima : Have ya'll got a tentative release date for the Twinz Foesum album yet?

T-Dubb: No, not really, cause right now, like I said we doin' another Foesum album and we gotta release that by the summer time, we got M&M to do, and we also gotta release the Greatest Hits, so we got alot of stuff to release before the summer.

Nima : But all of the records are gonna have the G-Funk sound, right?

T-Dubb: Hell yeah, all of 'em, definitely!


Nima : Speaking of The Twinz, what happened to that album they had that was supposed to come out in 1998 on Warren G's label?

DJ Glaze: That I don't know about. It was a rumor man! Cause everybody be askin' me about that album that they had called "Ringers", and I don't know what the hell they talkin' bout.

Nima : Aw that sucks!

DJ Glaze: *laughs* For real that’s true, because I asked The Twinz, and they didn't know anything bout no album.

Nima : What have the Dove Shack been up to lately?

M&M: I don't really know, I thought C-Knight released a solo project.. But basically I don't really know what they're doin' at this moment..

Nima : Would ya'll hookup with them again and work on something?

M&M: Would we work with them again? Oh yeah definitely!

T-Dubb: We wanna work with Bo-Roc!


Nima : Are you gonna do some more collaborations with ALT, O Genius or Tony G?

T-Dubb: If we get around to it, we'd probably do something with O Genius and ALT again, right now we've kinda been like on our own, doin' our own thing, but we may get back together.


Nima : Now you guys are a good example of artists using the internet as a way of promotion. Do you think these days the net is important?

M&M: Definitely important, cause you can reach around the world! Whereas if you're on a record label, there's places they're not gonna be able to get to! Yeah cause they can reach us now, 24 hours a day, on our website. 24/7, you can get at us! And we can also reach people we would've never reached before!


Nima : What about bootleggin, what’s your view on that?

M&M: Down with it! I'm serious. Really, I heard different things like from different artists, you know and some say its cool cause when your stuff gets bootlegged, people are hearin' it. But at the same time it's takin' outta the artist’s pocket! So it's like uhh, yeah it's like it can go either way.


Nima : What do you think of Mixtapes? Do you think the WestCoast should start doin' the mixtape thing like the East Coast has been doin' for years?

M&M: Uhm, I think mostly what's goin' on out here on the West Coast, what most people have been doin' is release stuff independently. That's what our artists out here have been doin'.

Nima : Why does most of the rap you see on TV these days SUCK?

T-Dubb: *laughs* Politics! These groups you hear from now you won't hear from in the next two years! They just gonna come and go like the weather.

Nima : How do you see West Coast Rap these days?

T-Dubb: It's a tough situation, due to the fact that most of the big record companies on the East Coast are really not dealin' wit the West Coast. We have all the talent out here! We have all the rappers out here on the West Coast, so we don't really sell, cause the East Coast ain't behind the West Coast! That's why we're basically goin' independent, to make some money!

Nima : Are you plannin' to go on a tour anytime soon?

T-Dubb: Yeah we're plannin' on goin' to Japan this summer!


Nima : What about Europe?

T-Dubb: The only thing bro is this, we don't really have no connection in Europe, you know what I mean? We get alot of fan mail in Europe, Germany and uhh France, they want CD's and they want us to come out there, but we don't have any connection, so if you can find someone to get in contact with us, cause people want alot of product out there, but we don't have a connection in Europe.

Nima : We gotta work on that!

T-Dubb: People are always sayin' "When are you comin' out here", but like I said, we don't have a legitimate connection or anything, as we do in Japan! Hopefully somebody lookin' at the website notices this, and gets in contact with us!


Nima : Who are the REALEST rappers out there?

T-Dubb: Uhm, DJ Glaze likes a gentleman by the name of Kam, he’s from Watts. You can also hear him on our album.


Nima : Speakin' of Kam, when is his album comin'?

T-Dubb: Uhm, we're not quite sure on that.. not quite sure.

Nima : Will you be on it?

T-Dubb: Uhm, if we get in contact, or cross paths with him you know, probably yeah, if he isn't finished with his stuff already he might already be done! But uhm, I'm more than sure we'll be doin' more stuff together anyway.


Nima : Dr. Dre has been signing mostly East Coast acts lately.. why doesn't he try to represent his own coast more?

DJ Glaze: On the East Coast niggaz got different mentalities. They down for like pumpin' each other, and they not trippin, like how they are out here. Out here its different, everybody is pretty much for themselves, there’s a lot of player haters out here!

Nima : But I'm sure there's a lot of talent that Dr. Dre could sign to Aftermath, instead of goin' to the East Coast and signing Eve, he just signed Eve. He should try to find some fresh talent out on the West Coast.

DJ Glaze: Yeah, he did that though, so you gotta imagine, when he did The Chronic, he pulled everybody that was tight out on the West Coast! You know, he went to South Central and got Kurupt, went to Long Beach and grabbed Snoop, got Nate Dogg from Long Beach, I mean he went out and grabbed alot of people out on the West, Ice Cube, and uhm so he's kinda done that already, all the dopest that’s out here right now you know what I'm sayin.. He wants to play it safe. When he did the Death Row thing, that went to the shit! So now he's prolly goin' there cause everything that's comin' out is coming from the East Coast. So he's just hoppin' on the bandwagon just like everyone else, you know. You know Dre, it don't matter where you come from, uh, Africa and he'll blow you up and make you sound tight, it ain't even about where you from. He'll make you dope, you know this is his choice I guess! I can't really speak for him, but he knows exactly what he doin', know what I'm sayin. I can't knock him cause he's signin anybody you know. He could sign one of my cousins in the Philippines and he would be tight..

Nima : And speakin' of blowin' up, what you think of the 50 Cent-Mania goin' on right now?

T-Dubb: "In Da Club" was amazing. Dre's beat speaks for itself.

DJ Glaze: Yeah that's a good example of Dr. Dre. Whatever he takes, it'll blow up, so you can go wrong when you with him on your team!


Nima : You got any words on Death Row Records?

M&M: Actually, I know that they got some stuff comin' out.

Nima : Yeah the Dysfunktional Family soundtrack.

M&M: Yeah yeah exactly, Dysfunktional Family! I think that's droppin' in a week or sometin'...

Nima : It's pretty good actually!

M&M: Yeah? Crooked I is tight! He's tight as fuck.. And Kurupt's over there so..


Nima : Speakin' of Kurupt, what you think of him goin' to Tha Row?

M&M: As far as that, I don't have a answer for that man! A man will do what a man wanna do know what I'm sayin'? He's a grown person, so if that was his choice, that's his choice! That's Dogg Pound though man, that's nothing to do with us. It has nuttin to do wit Foesum, so to each his own!


Nima : Is there any other shit ya'll wanna do in future?

M&M: Yeah, we told you earlier, we got another Foesum album comin' out, uhh Greatest Hits, M&M Solo project, T-Dubb solo project, and then the collaboration album wit the Twinz. We got our plate it pretty cool.

Nima : And would ya'll get into acting too, do movies?

M&M: Yeah cause I'm a hell of an actor!!
*everybody laughs*
T-Dubb: Oliver Stone wants to put be down on a script. DJ Glaze is gonna be the backup to Jackie Chan!!!
*everybody laughs*


Nima : Aight, thanks a lot for takin' the time to do this, I appreciate it!

No problem! Alright homie. Aight, Nima! Peace..

 

..........................................................................................

Foesum Gave Dubcnn.com A Shoutout! Check That Here

M&M From The Group Dropped A Verse During The Interview : Here

Full Interview In Audio : Here

 

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