MYKESTRO  (July 2007) | Interview By: Nima

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Interview was done in July 2007

Questions Asked By: Nima

Mykestro Gave Dubcnn A Shoutout! Check That Here

Full Audio Interview Here

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Dubcnn: Whatup Mykestro, you're right here on DUBCNN.com right now, it's about time we got you back on here. What you got going on right now?

A little bit of everything man, I've been working on a tape that I'm trying to put out by August... I wasn't going to do one, but I said fuck it, I got a bunch of records sitting that I've been working on, and I don't have no deal, so stacking for an album is kind of pointless. So I'm probably going
to throw another tape out, I don't feel like I'm running out of ammo in no time, so shit, why now? I'm working on the record with Glasses [Malone] and Bishop [Lamont] still, we still doing that. I'm still doing the project with Bad Lucc, we still doing that, we cutting for that at the same time. Just trying to stay busy!


Dubcnn: Over the past year, your buzz has built up tremendously, and I noticed a lot of rappers I interviewed calling you the next up from the West. How do you feel about that support?

Shit I'm flattered man! What can I say? I'm just glad people fuckin with me, I work hard at what I do, and skills mean everything to me. I couldn't be more satisfied, but about who's next man, you never know, I don't know how music is evolving right now, and I don't want to see anybody losing, so I
want for everybody to win. I couldn't tell you I'll be next, I thought I'd be next five years ago! *laughs* But everything don't fall in order like you might think. So if I'm next, cool, so be it. If not, it's all good, I'ma keep doing my thang, my time is coming, slowly but surely.


Dubcnn: What angle are you trying to come at the game through? Even with a major backing it seems hard to push major numbers right now. How are you going to try to stand out?

I think numbers is hard to push with all the bullshit they're trying to push. If you look at all dudes that just dropped over the last few months, and literally dropped! 60,000 records, 70,000 records, and then you got T.I. that goes Gold in a day! [Editor's note: T.I. went Gold in a little over a week] As far as angles though, it's hard to tell cause music is a little weird right now, you don't know what the fuck these labels is looking for! Everything appears to be a ringtone, just the gimmicky shit man. I ain't
into that stuff, so it's going to be difficult for me to get over that side of it.

So hopefully music takes a turn in my favor and I get to do what I do on the music side. My approach is the same approach as it's always been, with me and the records I bring to the table. It ain't no gimmicky shit! Yeah I might pick a different style of music, a little more steer serviced for the
public, versus what I might personally wanna pick for myself, but it won't be to where I'm compromising what I wanna do as an artist. It's not gonna be different shit that I don't fuck with at all, just because other people might like it. If I get over any kind of beat I don't like, I'm still going
to do me, so if I take the 808 shit and run with it, I'll still get on there and do what I do.


Dubcnn: Was the title of your mixtape "Quality over Quantity" representative for the way you look at your music?

Absolutely! During that time I was seeing everybody doing tapes, a whole bunch of tapes with like 40 songs! I didn't even know that many fuckin' songs could fit on a CD! Everybody is like stock piling songs, flooding the market, everybody got like 10 mixtapes out. I'd rather put out 1 solid mixtape, rather than 10 that just come and go. I'd rather hit 1 bad bitch than a hundred busted ones.


Dubcnn: Yup!

That's how it goes! It's an analogy few can relate to, but niggas really need to take their time and do something right, instead of rushing it, and having songs to skip through. I don't want nobody to skip through none of my shit. When my album comes out, I plan on doing 14-15 songs, I'm not planning
on going 19 songs, 20 songs, unless it just goes. That's always the hardest part, eliminating songs to put on a playlist. It's a lot of shit I couldn't put on my tapes for business purposes, records that I wanted to use, but I think it's pretty nice, my first tape around. People still only catching wind of it, that shit was over two years ago!


Dubcnn: Yeah I still see people talking about it right now like they just heard about it.

I know, some people have just heard about it, and sometimes shit be so ahead of time, it takes people time to catch on, or I might have been a mystery to them till now, and now they hearing of me and wanna go back for my old material. It is what it is, I don't display [the mixtape] like that, because I don't feel like that's my best. Right now, in July 2007, that might have been the dopest shit I had to offer in 2005. I've grown a lot in the last two years, musically, or how I get down over records.

So I don't wanna say like "Yeah, check out my mixtape, it's crazy!" It's cool, but records get old to me fast, I get over them, a few months after it, I wasn't into that CD anymore, I had already did a whole batch of new shit. But I understand that you gotta work a project, you gotta take your time to work it and work it, but it's so old and outdated, I'm ready to move on and mash to something new.


Dubcnn: The first time I spoke to you in 2004, Battlecat told me that you're like a mixture of Jay-Z and Common Sense. Does that comparison still fit?

I'll let you tell that, man! Listen to my records and see what it is!


Dubcnn: I had never heard a song from you when I spoke to you the first time, I remember you did a little freestyle over the phone, and 'Cat was always telling me about you.

Yeah, I'll probably let the public decide. I guess you gotta compare me to somebody, I gotta fit in in somebody's record or category. Shit I'm flattered to be mentioned in that company, those two are the dopest dudes in the game, period hands down! So being in the midst of that conversation,
that's always flattering.


Dubcnn: Back then you wanted to call your album "Just Due", is that still the plan?

Nah, nah, that's out of the plan. That's an ongoing thing man, that feeling, I still don't feel like I'm at my just due, although I'm a lot more popular than I was in 2004, yet and still, when I talked to you earlier, I was at work. So I'm doing the everyday, day to day thing, trying to stay afloat, when I feel like this shouldn't be as hard for me, with the caliber of music I have. But then look at where music is at, so that says it all. Music is fucked up! I don't know what that says for skills in the next few years, I thought shit would change in November, when Game, Jay-Z, Nas & Snoop came out, I was like "Aight, cool, all this shit in one month? That shit finna flood all this other shit off the water!"

But nobody's shit did nothing, everybody shit just kind of came and went. It's hard to look at from the outside... You got dudes like Crooked I still on ice, shit don't make sense! It is what it is... We still got cats coming, and hopefully these projects coming out with these upcoming cats will get pushed a lot faster... It's going to take more than me. I can't do it by myself, it will take more than Game or Snoop or anybody else, it ain't going to happen with just one person. It's a flurry, and that's why we lose the way we lose on the Coast, cause everybody just wants to be the single dude, and it's all about me and nobody else. We can't like that.

It ain't about faking the unity either though, you don't wanna act like you're happy when you see people win, when you really aren't. You gotta question that person and his insecurity with his own skills and what he brings to the table, to be worrying about another man taking your shine, or
taking some food off your plate, or being the popular one. It's just going to happen, people are going to have favorites, it is what it is.


Dubcnn: Right now it seems like everybody wants to rap, even though rapping might not be what they're best at, everybody wants to be a rapper.

Everybody, man, you ain't never lied! That's probably the most frustrating shit ever, because all of the garbage records that you hear, actually gives people that would never even think about trying to rap, the courage to be like "Damn it's that easy? If they on the radio, I can do it too!" Which is
I guess a gift and a curse. It's inspiring people, but inspiring for the wrong reasons. It's just giving people a leap of faith to try and do anything, which ain't necessarily the key. At one point in time, you couldn't just walk in a office and play some bullshit record and they go crazy over it.

But I feel exactly what you're saying, everybody is rapping. That's why I didn't even wanna do another tape, because of that. Everywhere you turn, it's fuckin' 25 tapes of everybody. You get on the forums, and people label your success by having a mixtape! "Oh he's popular? Well does he even have a mixtape?" What the fuck is that about? I didn't know a mixtape makes you an artist these days... Apparently it does! In the eyes of the internet world...


Dubcnn: It's a different world though.

Oh yeah. It's pro's and con's man. It's definitely a tool to get worldwide, but it just leaves everybody the room to be critics.


Dubcnn: Exactly. Fans turn into critics.

Absolutely. You can't just like something for what it is, it better have his own lane or whatever... It's gotta be "it sounds too much like this" or some shit. Didn't your momma teach you if you don't have nothing cool to say, don't say nothing at all? But that's a different story... I'm not gonna get
on these forums and run up at the mouth... All this shit people be saying, I be reading it, I read it, trust me. I might not react to it, I might not respond to it, but I read it, and it's cool. You gotta learn to separate and remember what you're dealing with, but it's hard not to take heat to what's being said, because this is the so-called public, which you have to remember. On the internet it's people behind these screen names, most of the time it probably be fuckin' rappers.

It's crazy though, I don't figure how you can win with that. You can go on iTunes and buy a new song for 99cents, but it's ringtones that's like 4 dollars! A produced record is a dollar, but they give you a 8 to 12 second clip of the song sent to you fo 3 or 4 dollars a pop.


Dubcnn: It's crazy.

Yeah man, music is fucked up.


Dubcnn: Also, they're telling everybody that they can be musicians themselves. When you buy a Mac, it comes with a program to make music, so you already got the initial idea that "I can do it too". Why go spend money on somebody else's music, when I can make my own music?

Oh man... You couldn't have said it better. Musicmatch and all the other bullshit that goes on, everybody knowing how to run Pro Tools, everybody is a rapper. I don't know what to say man. And me being from L.A. don't make this shit no better. It's a fucking million rappers out here. I know you
know, you've been here. Everybody is an artist, but ain't nobody policing this shit. Ain't nobody saying "No! This wack shit is not flying!" Look at how skill-based New York is man. I never would have thought twice that Mims came from New York. Not ever. That was a shocker. I was like "Huh?


Dubcnn: I've heard older Mims shit where it sounded real NY-ish... but it's just like he said on the song, "I could sell a million saying nothing on a track".

I mean that's crazy that you would feel like you need to say that! That's
not cool! I can't fly with that shit man.


Dubcnn: At the end of the day, this shit is on the radio all the time, but it doesn't end up selling a lot of records.

So then, you compromised everything you believe in, and all those songs you did before that, all that to say that dumb shit in your song, and you still not selling no records. It's a catch 22! You just lost all your respect on the artist side, and then niggas gone say "We trying to respect the nigga's
hustle, he's doing his thang." But this is rap! People be forgetting that at the end of the day! I've been hearing dudes talking about I rap too much and so forth. Last time I checked, this shit was rap. That's what you're supposed to do.

Everybody talking about "I'm not a rapper, I'm a hustler." It's like, alright then, hustle! Cut this shit out, and go hustle! Because this is rap! This is rap. If you can find a way to hustle your way through rap, I guess that's what that is in a nutshell. It's not hustling to me, because it's fucking a craft up. Jay-Z talked all the hustla shit, but he didn't let off the pedal on the art side either! I can't get into all that shit... Everybody sells dope, everybody is a fuckin' dope dealer. If crack was that popular, it wouldn't be no need to rap! I don't know man, I'm out here everyday, I'm moving around, I don't be seeing no smokers out there like that. But you know, it is what it is.

Why compromise what you're saying if you're not gonna win anyway? Nobody's gonna get up and go buy that shit, so you might as well say what you wanna say! My management and a couple of other people be getting on me about certain shit that I say on songs. It's like "Dude! I'm from L.A., being out here you ain't gonna get no radio action like that! You hear Game and Snoop barely! These niggas is on top on the game out here right now, and you barely hear they shit! All you hear is the same 4-5 songs, and it ain't theirs. You got Glasses that's signed, Bishop got signed, Jay Rock got
signed, Bangloose got a record out, Problem got a record out, Western Union got a record out, but you don't hear none of this shit playing!

We ain't got no local support. I might as well say what the fuck I feel like saying!" Why hold my tongue if it's not gonna get played either way? You can do it their way, they can customize your record to their liking and tell you "We want you to do XYZ" But if dudes at the radio station don't have your back like that, or if they didn't produce your record, they won't fuck with it. Hot Dollar had a record, came and went. It's like you don't stand a chance to win!


Dubcnn: Real talk.

How are you supposed to win when the label says "Ah, you ain't shit with no radio spins." Or the public say "He ain't popular, I don't hear him on the radio." But how do you get to radio? Well in L.A., you don't. If you go to New York, you're not going to get their radio either.


Dubcnn: Cause you're not on your own radio station!

Yeah! You can't get your own shit, how you gonna go get somebody elses? It's weird, that's the one thing I hate about home, that's the frustration of every artist out here. Nobody wanna get on these interviews and say it, I heard Techniec speak on it lately, and I've been feeling like that. It's like "Damn! Finally good to hear somebody saying something, cause everybody else keep playing the radio game, but ain't realized the radio game ain't working, cause ain't nobody policing the bullshit. Our radio people out here are fuckin' superstars. As long as they get their out of town connects and
so forth, spinning everybody elses shit from out of town, then that's what it's gonna be.

We've been making these dudes platinum. All the big ass markets, we're one of them. If shit don't crack out here, it don't crack. They can have New York, might get a little popular in Miami maybe, but if it don't crack out here, it's over, it's one of the biggest markets there is. But the only problem with that, if it cracks somewhere else, L.A. is gonna follow suit! They're gonna do it cause everybody else doing it. "Fuck DJ Quik and AMG having a record out there, we're gonna spin that a little bit, but we're
gonna play the shit out this Rich Boy."


Dubcnn: It's crazy.

In all honesty, I don't see a way of winning, coming from out here. As I get older and the more music I do, and the worse the state of music gets, I'm looking for some direction on how I'm gonna approach it. Cause I don't really feel like there's a win-win situation out here for anybody. It's
like, what do you do? My nigga Glasses is on his second deal! It don't make no sense! Like if you do get to a radio station, they tell you come back with a 12". What I do, I come back with a 12". When I got there with the 12" it's like "Oh yeah we ain't spinning 12"'s no more, we need Serato, every is
spinning Seratos'. So I just spent all my bread getting 12"'s, I got boxes of vinyl in my room, ABB records looked out. I got boxes of vinyl that literally mean nothing, because the game 360'd to Serato, but when I was there it was like "You need 12"'s." It's like what do you do?

How can you convince somebody else when you don't have home? In Germany, how is Mykestro going to be the biggest thing around, when Mykestro can't even lock L.A. down? Niggas can talk all that shit they want in these songs or in interviews, don't nobody got this muthafucka on lock, nobody. Atlanta got L.A. on lock. That's all. They can say all they want. Snoop got some weight, Game got some weight, Dre and so forth, but other people? No, not happening. And I'm just talking about the established rappers, I'm not even talking about the 5,500 rappers that nobody knows!

But everybody's New West! Because they ain't on. They might not even know a nigga associated with the New West. Nobody sat down and said "Hey, you're New West, and you're New West." But because nobody is policing it, everybody is New West! So what do you do? It's a catch 22! You can't win in that scenario! Then you get the dudes that's saying "Yeah, this is dubcnn.com, yup!" And they out here robbing banks, with dubcnn.com shirts on. But you ain't got no idea, cause you ain't policing your company! So everybody can just join in. It's like you ain't trying to shut nobody out, but it's gotta be a quality level at some point! Somebody has gotta stand up and say "Okay what you guys are doing is not ready yet." You can't just jump in the NBA! The same way they started policing that straight out of High School shit, that shit don't even exist no more! Every now and again, you get a Kobe or a Kevin Garnett, them dudes that just came straight out of high school and go crazy in the league. But you got dudes that don't even make the team, and once you declare yourself, you can't go back to college. That's a wrap. But somebody had to say "This is not happening. You guys are not going to fuck up the league doing this."

Nobody is policing music. If some of the big record execs are reading this shit, "Somebody start policing this shit please!" I know Puff don't need no money or Jay-Z or Dre and them don't need no money! So start policing this shit! Somebody gotta do something about it. Somebody gotta say "No, this shit is not flying!" Snoop, somebody gotta say something. Niggas can't keep funding and keep jumping on all this bullshit to stay relevant and try to eat. I don't care how niggas look at me because I won't get on XYZ. If you don't understand what I'm about and what I do music wise, then you'll
understand why I'm not going to jump on any old record for the sake of me being heard. I'm not just going to do any old mixtape just so I can be heard.

I ain't gonna call Nima and be like "Man interview me every three weeks if you can" just so I can stay on top. I'd rather have something to say! We ain't talked in so long, to where it's like we got some catching up to do. If you hear from me everytime you turn around, you get tired of hearing from me. Like "Damn, this nigga again?!" Everything is oversaturated man, everybody got YouTube, MySpace pages, everything is leveraged by count, by MySpace plays, by YouTube views, and radio spins, when all of them can be fabricated.


Dubcnn: Exactly, you got programs that give you plays on MySpace!

And everybody trying to scare you saying "If you get one of those they automatically delete your page." That's bullshit. I be seeing all kinds of outrageous shit on MySpace, that shit ain't deleted, Tom likes his money, they're not even thinking about deleting that shit. And you got dudes that might not even be using the adjusters to make your plays or friends look bigger, but people leave their fucking songs on there for two years! Yeah the muthafucka better have 50 000 plays, that muthafucka been on there for two years!

So when a label go to your page it look like your shit popping, but that shit's been getting played for a long time. That shit is for the fans, I change my songs often, when they get up to a thousand, 2,500 plays, I'll change them, just so you keep peoples attention! You don't wanna go back to hear the same songs everytime, you go back to hear something new. They don't wanna keep hearing the interview with me and you and I keep saying the same shit, and I keep giving you the same 5 songs to download! That ain't how it go! Service the public!

MySpace is to display your music, stop worrying about what these labels think cause they ain't fucking with your MySpace, if you big, you big! They can find out if you added all that shit to your MySpace page, just like they find out everything else that goes on under wraps. They got people on the payroll that they can call and find out who added what, when it was added and how many times the songs really get played, if it's that big of a deal. I'd rather not have that attention, it's cool, I'm going the long route but it's working out for me.


Dubcnn: Definitely. You recently leaked a track called "California Love" produced by Amplify Ent, that was a great track.

Oh thanks man, that's my dude! Shouts out to my boy Amp, that's my dogg, Arizona! Out of all the producers around that dudes be saying sound like Battlecat, Amp is the only one with a pass, so kill that. That's family, so that's the only one with a pass. If it ain't Terrace or Amp or 1500 or Chordz or somebody in the immediate circle, all you other niggas in violation!


Dubcnn: I expect Battlecat to produce a majority of songs on your record...

Could be, could be. Maybe not! It depends. I like a lot of producers man, it's a lot of fresh dudes around! I guess I won't do too much name dropping, but you gonna hear some Chordz, some Terrace Martin, some 1500 Or Nothin', some more Amplified, some Khrysis from N.C. aside from my brother. You're gonna hear some Jelly Roll on my record, some THX. Like I said, I don't know
how the record deal will go to where I can administrate who producers what on my record, but if it's up to me, those are my picks. I don't feel like I have to step outside my box.

And if that doesn't work out, I'll do a street record with just them dudes. I'm into working with the dudes that helped me at home. But I mean of course I got my favorites, like yeah I'd love to fuck with Pharrell on some records, yeah I'd love to work with Kanye and Just Blaze cause that's my
kind of shit, Rest In Peace Dilla, I can't get no records from him, but that's another fan-favorite of mine. I've done some shit with Babu from Dilated, I'm fuckin' with him. It's a couple of dudes I've been fuckin' with, I just don't usually talk much, as far as what I'm doing. Niggas look up, boom I might have some DJ Quik on my record. I love the musical side of Quik, I love the Rhythmalism, all them records is the shit, the Balance & Options got some dope beats on it. I'd love to have Quik there. My ears is open. Dae One is on my album, I'm sure ya'll have heard of him, if you
haven't, dude is real fresh.


Dubcnn: So what label situation do you want to be in before you release your album?

Right now I couldn't even honestly tell you. I don't know what labels are thinking. I don't know who's doing what. So it's really hard to for me to pin point and say I wanna be on a certain label. I wanna be in a situation where my music can be heard and pushed. I can have an album out, but if it's
nothing behind it to push it, it means nothing, because nobody is going to get it without a push. I need to be in a situation where I'm not sitting for a hell of a long time, and I can go. Where they're not going to hinder me, or put a muzzle on me as far as what I want to do music wise, and just turn
me loose!


Dubcnn: So I guess it wouldn't make sense to ask you for a release date or nothing like that...

Oh no, no release dates from me! I couldn't tell you, it could be tomorrow, it could be two years from now. I don't have the slightest release date in mind, I'm entertaining deals right now, but aside from that, I'm trying to do this tape in August. I have all the records, I'll probably do about two or three more records, and go and take a couple of peoples beats that's out right now, and do what I do. But record wise, I'm stock piling, I got enough to go right now. If you called me with a deal tomorrow, I'ma have to put an album out in a month, I'm ready to go, ready to just go mix and fuck around.
I got enough records right now to blow any of this shit that's going on right now out!


Dubcnn: Do you have a concept in your mind right now for an album?

Nope, I just can't wait to get out of these scenarios, with L.A. being the way it is and all of the music politics, and be in a more positive scenario for me, so that shit can get out of my songs. Cause that's a lot of my content cause it's what I go through on the daily. So it's really hard, I'm not into faking songs, it's hard for me to have fun when shit really ain't fun. I go to work and bust my ass all day to come home and hear the fuckin' Shop Boys on the radio all goddamn day. I don't wanna hear that shit! It's niggas out here that's really with this craft, that's not on no gimmick shit.

And just because I say that you're about your craft don't mean that you gotta be Hip-Hop'd out the game, or you don't like no maintsream shit, or you don't like no gangsta shit, or nothing like that. Please don't get it twisted. I can rap with the Hip-Hop niggas, with the "backpack" niggas, and the street niggas. I like Ice Cube and Glasses and Roccett and all the other niggas around that's on that shit. That's what they do. I chose my own lane, cause I need to stick to my own roots. Yeah I'm from that background, but that ain't my walk, so I don't get on wax and talk that shit, cause that ain't me. I got love for that, everything I talk about in these songs, and the demeanour of these songs, is me. That's one thing nobody will ever be able to take from me, and four years down the line, from the first interview you heard on me, to the first piece of material you heard on me, to now, I'll always be me. You ain't gonna be able to go flip the deck and pull my card out and say he was XYZ during this time or whatever. I've always been me, I've been Mykestro and I'm content with that.


Dubcnn: I hear you man, that was a lot of real talk.

Right on.


Dubcnn: Is there anything else you'd like to let everybody know?

Yeah, ya'll stop condoning all these bullshit record, period. That's that. Everybody feeding into this shit, don't compromise what you do. There is a lane for you at what you do. If ya'll niggas ain't serious about being the best at shit, and niggas is cool with being a honourable mention and all
that, ya'll can kill that man, ya'll might as well stop. Ya'll just fucking the game up man, ya'll making hard for niggas that really work hard at what they do. Ya'll encouraging a bunch of nonsense. Whoever takes offence to it, I don't give a fuck.