THA CHILL  (June 2008) | Interview By:

      

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

Interview was done by phone in June 2008

Questions Asked By: Chad Kiser

Tha Chill Gave Dubcnn.com A Shoutout! Check That Here
 

..........................................................................................
Related Media

Tha Chill - Knocc’em Out (Feat. Jayo Felony) (Produced by Tha Chill) (STREAM)
Tha Chill - Hood Court (MC Eiht Diss)
 Young Ace - We Murda Dem (Produced by Tha Chill) (STREAM)
..........................................................................................

Dubcnn: What’s up, Chill? People want to know where you’ve been and what’s been up with you?

Well I was locked up for a minute, you know, guns and shit. I did 32 months in solitary prison. Before I went in I was doing a lot of tracks, producing for artists like Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and Nate Dogg. I did the two tracks on the 213 project: "Run On Up" and "Ups and Downs". I did a track for Redman's album, which is out right now, but I did it before I left. Then me and Eiht were working on a bunch of stuff before I left, but all that ceased while I was in there. Now I am back on the grind producing, you know what I am saying? I did some stuff for Snoop, working on my album, I got an artist named Young Ace, he’s out of Compton, been working on his album and trying to keep my head above water.


Dubcnn: How did you manage to hook up with Snoop and the 213 click?

Well me, Snoop and Warren all went to school together for a long time in Long Beach. We knew each other from a long time ago and they respected my craft and as an artist, you know I respected them and gave them blessings when the came out, so we hooked up on some old school shit. Some people that went to school together, you know, are in the same business as men. They were digging the beats that I had and I was digging what they were working with and wanted to be a part of it; so I went up there chilled with them, we blew some blunts, I played some tracks and landed two on there. I gave him like 40 beats and he spread them out over the Snoop Dogg: Welcome to the Church CDs vol 1-10, so I am all through out them. That’s how I hooked up with them on the 213 project; that’s how that went down, just old buddies chopping up on old times and all that, and the vibe was just correct so we did that.


Dubcnn: What was it like working in the studio with Snoop, Warren, and Nate, kind of explain how the process went?

It was cool, it was a regular kick it session, chilling. Nate Dogg and Warren was sipping’ on their drinks, we’re smoking blunts with Snoop in there passing blunts back and forth. I had some Compton dudes with me and they had their Long Beach core with them and we were just in there playing the music, and like I said the vibe was just right. It was real cool getting down with Snoop because he is a real serious dude like I am; he hears something he likes and would just attack it right then and there and then move on. Warren G sat there, did his thing, put his together. Nate Dogg, singing put his together, so it just all came together like a Rubik’s cube. Those were good songs, I don’t know the deal, how good the album went, but a lot of people heard it and a lot of people still talk about them to this day, so they are classic west coast records.


Dubcnn: Tell me a little bit on how you hooked up with DJ Crazy Tunes for the CT experience?

Once again old friends of mine with the business me, WC, and Eiht all came out around the same time Compton's Most Wanted and Low Profile. Crazy Tunes is his brother, that’s my boy! We used to all run around with Cube and the Lench Mob back in the day and Crazy Tunes was working on his CD/DVD he had. I was working on a cat named Gangster, from The Comrads, and he got down with Mack 10. Crazy Tunes was doing his DVD while I was locked up and he felt it was ok to put it on there, which I thought was a good look.


Dubcnn: Let’s kind of go back to the beginning a little bit, talk about how you got started doing what you do.

Well like I said, I started off rapping and freestyling in school, but professionally I started getting down in ‘88 on Compton’s Most Wanted was born with the hit of Compton’s record but I give all the props to dudes like MC Ren, Unknown, Alonzo, my man DJ Smith for producing it, ya know? Me and Eiht were young cats and Ren stayed across the street from me in Compton. We used to sit on the porch and write raps all day! He took me around the corner and introduced me to Eazy. I was too little to be walking around that far, so he asked my mom if it was cool, put me in the car and then we went and scooped up Eiht off of Alameter. We shot over the neighborhood, and Eazy, Dre, Cube and everybody was there! We played our tape, our little demo we had, you know what I am saying? Eazy was feeling it, but he really had so much to do. He really wanted to fuck with us really bad, but he had DOC, Above the Law, his album, NWA, and J.J. Fad. I was like ‘we’re gonna be old when we come out!’.

Let me remind you, I was only 15 years old back then, when I was saying old I was talking about 25, that ain't nowhere near old! I am 37 years old now, and back then I was like ‘we ain’t ever gonna come out with no records!’. So he introduced us to the people they come up through, which is the Wrecking Cru cat, Alonzo. We met up with Alonzo we was rapping, had that young fire in us, and a cat by the name of DJ Smith was doing beats working on the Compton Compilation. We landed a song on there and it just so happened that Unknown was feeling our song out of all of them on there and wanted to do a single with us and that is how "This Is Compton", "Give It Up", and "I Give Up Nothing" came about; we had the Hits of Compton record. It was so much heat out on the streets there wasn't too many west coast acts out there cracking. I mean you had Ice-T, King T and a couple of cats, but there wasn't a lot going on over here, so it was the timing that was correct, plus we were on that raw street shit. You only had cats like N.W.A and Ice-T doing that, King T, and my boy Mix Master Spade, rest in peace.

So we landed the song on the Compton Compilation, Unknown digged it so he got us a deal with Capital BMI, and then "It’s a Compton Thing" came out. After that record came out I went to jail, that’s why I am only on one cut on the second album called "Straight Checkin Em" growing up in the hood for the Boys in the Hood soundtrack. You heard me rapping on the song, but I wasn’t in the video. Eiht did my part in the video because I was locked up. Everybody think that it is just Eiht on song, but there are two cats on there: me and Eiht. When I got out, we went straight on tour getting ready to drop our album. I formed a new group called NOTR (N-ggas on the Run), and we pushed that record, but had some mishappenings. Everybody got to falling out, mainly Eiht and Slip, and me and Bam caught up in the middle of it. The NOTR did come out, but we pushed the Compton's Most Wanted thing, touring all over the world doing it as big as we can do it.


Dubcnn: You mentioned hanging out with Eazy, Dre, and Cube and all them you have and story or moments that stand out

*laughs* Yeah, I have a few! We were real young dudes, like I said 15 or 16 years old, and Eazy used to have to ask my mom can I come kick it. My mom trusted him so I jump off in the van with E and we would go to the video shoots, I got cameos in the "Eazy-er Said Than Done" and "We Want Eazy". One thing that happened that was real funny, we had went to the Wet and Wild Eazy party for Eazy and Dre's birthday party or something like that. They had these broads out there shaking their ass, we weren’t used to that but once again we were young cats. We’re there with khaki suits and plastic coats on with Compton's Most Wanted wrote all over’em, and we at a pool party, its hotter than motherfucker out there! We’re sweating and shit, bitches out there busting open there pussy's and shit. Dre and them over there shoving bottles up them bitches’ pussy and shit and we’re just amazed. Eric looked at me and told me "I’m gonna tell your mom you out here looking at these girls pussies". It was just real funny how he said it, that’s one of my memories about my dude. I really, really miss him and really respect him a lot. The world would be a whole lot different if he was here.


Dubcnn: Being with Eazy and stuff a lot of people say how the world would be different if Pac was still here, how do you think the game or the west coast scene would be different if Eazy was here?

I think that it would be more realer on this end if Eazy was still here no disrespect to nobody on this end but it would be more business like, he did start the business of it nobody crakin, cussing on records, nobody doing the gangster thing if it wasn’t for the Godfather of Rap. Right now I think groups like Compton's Most Wanted, DJ Quik, King T those groups need to be at they all time peak right now you know what I'm saying. We all need to be in a mansion pushing Bentleys and all of that shit. I think if Eric was still here we would all be doing that. If he was alive we would all be doing that including the Snoop Doggs and the Dogg Pound ya know I know they would have squashed their differences because E was a business man. I think NWA would have came out with numerous number of records, I think Bone Thugs would still be cracking’; he loved them dudes. I just think it would be different as far as the music we hearing and the business we get on this game especially with the music done changed and everything. I think Eric would have kept the west coast real solid because he was a leader and a lot of people followed his movement because he was a smart dude.


Dubcnn: You mentioned Eiht a little bit earlier. What’s your relationship with him these days?

Well, when I touched down I spoke to him about the stuff that was going on, you know what I’m saying, and he was kind of nervous. He didn’t want to do nothing, but I was ready to fight! That muthafucka didn’t want to do nothing! But, I ended up going to a show that he had, I ended up on stage with him and all of that, and everything was cool. I’m thinking everything’s straight, and I hadn’t heard nothing disrespectful coming from his corner. I’ve just been doing me. But my boy just called me up the other day and told me that Eiht’s got a song out that’s dissing me. I’m like ‘ain’t that a bitch’! I heard the song, and that muthaf-cka is super wack! He’s trying to clown and talk some dumb shit that he doesn’t know anything about. I’m like, ‘ok, you can’t f-ck with me in these streets or the studio’. There’s going to come a time when we see each other and we’re gonna holla face to face and see what it really do.

But me knowing Eiht, all he wants to do is keep it on this record, and do all this little kiddie shit. So I’m like ‘f-ck him’ because I’m too busy to be dealing with these kids. He’s a grown man with a kid mind, and I ain’t got time to dealing with it. I’m on my grind, and anybody or anything trying to stop my grind I got to roll over them. So he’s one of the cats I got roll over. There’s going to be a whole bunch coming from me directed towards Eiht, so stay tuned!


Dubcnn: So I guess there’s no chance of seeing you on the Warzone project?

Well, Goldie & Kam, they’re my boys! Eiht don’t run sh-t over there. Snoop is a good friend of mine. Me and Snoop went to school in all our years together, you know, in high school, he went to Poly, I went to Jordan; He went to Lindhberg, I went to Hamilton. I went to school in Long Beach because moms didn’t want me at school in Compton. So, we still boys because of that. I still work with them cats, and at the end of the day it’s Compton business. They ain’t got nothing to do with it. It’s just me and Eiht at the end of the day. It ain’t got nothing to do with me and my homies, or Eiht and his homies. I spoke with Goldie and he can’t believe it, just like I can’t believe it. Kam was actually trying to be a mediator because of him being Muslim and all that, he was trying to be a mediator when the situation first jumped off. I’m thankful for him because he made me see something different. With me getting out the pen, I was still living with that pen mentality. They’re good friends of mine. Snoop hit me up for a couple tracks, Goldie and Kam hit me up for a couple of tracks, but I’ve been so tied up I haven’t been able to get to them dudes to do it. So I may be on there, or I may not.


Dubcnn: With Warzone coming out, and Westurn Union coming, as a producer, if you could put 3 artists together and make a group, who would you put in there?

Me, personally, I would go get MC Ren, I would go get Boss Hogg and a muthafucka like RBX! Or on the flipside I’d get a nigga like Jay-O Felony, Spider Loc and me. There’s dudes that talented on this end, but just haven’t been found, or been part of a real situation where muthaf-ckaz is paying attention to them. People like Kam, Threatt, Boss Hogg, you know CPO/Boss Hogg, they’re good rappers and good people, but just haven’t been able to be in the right position, or fortunate enough to be blessed with people to really pay attention to our shit. I mean, we got fanbases and all of that, but as for this mainstream, I think I speak for everybody saying we’re comfortable just being gutter and keeping it California. We’re just trying to get people to hear what we got going on, and feel what we got going on because we still got that hardcore fan base that got love for us. But companies ain’t fucking with us like that, so we got to make our own niche to get to our fan base.


Dubcnn: From where you and Eiht are standing, is that part of what cripples the west coast, the fact that a lot of West Coast artists don’t support each other, with the beefs and what not?

Yea, but I guess that’s just our mentality on the west. It wouldn’t be the west without beef. I ain’t going to say that a lot of people capitalize on our shit, but just our culture and the way we live is based on beef. It’s the shit that happens out here and there’s nothing really anybody can do about it. A lot of shit is territorial, a lot of people just don’t fuck with other people, but I wish it was different, real different. I’m only one man and one voice. All I can do is play my part, and protect my neck. I’m not off into dissing muthaf-ckaz, or rap beef and all of that shit. But I’m not going to let a dude like Eiht just diss me and not say nothing about it. Where I come from, if I man do something to you, it’s a must that you do something about it. That’s just our culture. Like when Eiht and Quik was getting into it, it was basically not them as much as it was their homeboys that kept that shit going. It’s just the mentality of the inner city, and we all still fuck with inner-city people. Eiht’s out of bounds because he’s out in Marietta where it’s predominantly white folks, Mexicans and Indians out there where he live at. I’m still in Compton everyday, dealing with that mentality and fire that brought you ‘It’s A Compton Thang’, “Straight Checkin’em’, and ‘Music To Driveby’ and shit like that. That vibe is what brought us that type of music and sound.


Dubcnn: What’s the foundation of the beef between you and Eiht?

Basically, the lifetime story of every great group from the west, or anywhere else for that matter: money & politics! Where one person ventures off and does their thing, and feels like they ain’t got to pay the next man, when the next man is doing all the work. It’s not paying homage to what’s real and what’s fake. What’s real is I’m Compton’s Most Wanted, more than anybody would ever think. At the end of the day, me and Eiht is Compton’s Most Wanted. I just don’t like what he’s doing with the group, and not to get off into any details, he went and did some un-manly shit. Shit that people get killed over. But I know him and being knowing since we was teenagers, so I wouldn’t dare step that close, but we can take a fade and go ahead and get it over with, then smoke a blunt afterwards and be the best of friends.


Dubcnn: What’s it going to take for that to happen?

Nothing but for him to man-up! He had called me the other day, and I asked him if that’s where we’re going with it. After all that time to get off your chest whatever you wanted to get off your chest when I was at Boom Bam’s house and you was standing in that kitchen shaking in your boots like a dog with mange. But you want to put on records that you doing this and doing that; that you laid up with my broad while I was in prison and all of that type of shit. The next muthafucka would be ready to off your muthafuckin’ head for that shit! But the bitch he was f-cking was a blow-up doll, she wasn’t nothing. It was just a regular-ass bitch, but don’t use me to get the pussy! Besides that, he had my hard-drive from some previous work that we was doing.

That ‘Affiliated’ album that he came out with? I produced the whole joint, but I didn’t get a dime for that muthafucka because I was in prison. I didn’t sign-off on none of that shit, or give him rights to use none of that shit, or nothing! But I ain’t the type of dude that’s going to be running suing muthaf-ckaz and doing some crazy shit, I’m just going to man-up and ask him, ‘what’s happening, count a little bread’. If you ain’t got my bread, then we just going to do business like this then. That’s basically what it was, he put out that record and didn’t count my bread. I ain’t working for free! Give me a $100 or something! You got my hard-drive and jacking-off with it. You just giving away my music, some of that shit I sold to other muthaf-ckaz and placed in other places. He didn’t know what was happening with it. So, I get out and explain to these other folks what’s going on and why Eiht’s rapping on these beats.


Dubcnn: Everything cool between the rest of the homies?

Yeah, we straight, I mean we never all fell out really to where we just stopped fucking with each other I mean we family, we all know each other moms and dads uncle kids and all that so when we run into each other its love. The whole camp is doing their thing but we all segregated. But I feel like when the time is needed or when the time is right we gonna mash and do it one more time, even as older cats. I mean it’s gonna be that much more serious that much better because we grown-ass men now and know what to expect. We know what we want and we ain’t on no bullshit.


Dubcnn: A lot of people want to know what’s up with Windchill Factor. Is that still something you got cooking up?

Yeah, that was an album I did, went on promo tour for it and got really good reviews for it. It’s a really good record, and I’m still sitting on it debating on if I want to do it or not, but I got so much shit going on right now that I haven't really even tripped on it. I basically gave it away, but I had a deal with a cat from Arizona named Johnny Two Guns, we had a deal through Universal. This is when I got locked up. We finished the record, we did the promo tour the record and was fixing to come out. He and some of the people at the company had some differences and I didn’t want to get my album caught up in the middle of that shit so I held it.

I still have it though. They squashed their differences, but they are not doing business no more so I kept my shit. I felt it was a classic record and I wanted to treat it like some Dr. Dre shit because I really produced the shit out of that muthafucka! I got cats on there like Jayo Felony, Tha real Eastsidaz, with my boy Tray Deee and Goldie Loc. I got RBX on there, I got Cold 187 from Above The Law on there, Kokane, I had Yo-Yo on there, and it was a real west coast record. The world would've have grabbed on to it, but at the time it was fucked up. I was going through a lot of shit going on at the time with the courts. The Compton’s Most Wanted beef and all that shit so I just held the record and didn’t put it out.


Dubcnn: What can you tell us about the new album you’re working on?

The name of my new album is called Hot Ice. I got Goldie on there, Jayo Felony; I f-cked with Redman to keep my east coast connect straight because I got love for them cats. Then I head down south to fuck with them cats. Bone Crusher real good friend of mine ya know, 8 Ball & MJG, they’re my boys. I am trying to do a worldly record, but keep that west coast gutter, gangster feel. I ain’t really into that new swagg of things. I ain’t hating on it, it just ain’t for me you know what I am saying? So this Hot Ice record is gonna be real grown and all my fans from Compton's Most Wanted they gonna love it.


Dubcnn: What else you working on? I know you got this cat named Young Ace

Yea, I’m working with Young Ace, he’s from Compton and he’s dope! We’re doing his record and it’s fire man. I got a dude that rap & sing out of Watts named Bam. Just trying to stay focused on my craft and work on my album. I’m trying to be a part of anything that’s relevant, and stay away from the bullshit. I’m not really going to put too much into that Eiht situation. He can’t fuck with me on these mics or these streets, so I will answer to him. If he’s going to diss me, then he needs to put it all the way out there, not just on his myspace page! *laughs*


Dubcnn: Any last words?

It’s Tha Chill! Hot Ice is coming this summer. My boy Jayo is on there, and he’s about to crack’em over the head too! My boy Spice-1, Brotha Lynch Hung, Yukmouth, and of course my cats Young Ace & bam is on there! We going to do it as big as we can. Compton’s Most Wanted original, Tha Chill.