TQ (August 2004) | Interview By:  Nima

      Dubcnn.com caught up with TQ earlier in the summer in the bay area on his tourbus. We conducted a 20 minute video interview where he discusses his new album, upcoming projects, his lable Hub Music, Why he left Cash money records and much much more. We have both the transcript and video for you to check and feel free to send any feedback regarding the interview to: nima@dubcnn.com




Huge thanks to TQ for taking time out to answer the questions fans wanted to know! (Interview was done by camera in August of 2004)

Questions Asked By : Nima

Filmed By: Yash

Full Interview In Video : Here

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dubcnn.com: A singer from Compton. You don’t see that often. How did you get into singing at first surrounded by all the rappers?

TQ: I hung out with the rappers during the week and on Sunday I went to church, basically. Singing in choir, that’s where I started at. In choir at church. There’s a lot of little young musicians that was my age, but they were kinda square. So I ain’t really hanged out with them outside of church, but when we was at church we would jam. I used to sing all the little lead songs in the choir, so that’s where I started it at.

dubcnn.com: Did you listen to more rap or R&B when you were growing up as a kid?

TQ: Outside of the house I listened to all rap, but when I was at home my mom wouldn’t let no N.W.A. blastin out of the house, so I listened to her records and she is a big Motown fan. She had all the old 45s, like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and Curtis Mayfield. So that’s where I kinda get my balance from. At home I listened to old skool R&B, when I was out in the neighbourhood I listened to N.W.A.

dubcnn.com: Your first release was a huge success. How much time did you spend recording on that project?

TQ: We spent about 6 or 7 months all together, the whole process. I guess the actual record process went pretty fast, but we did a lot of extra songs.

dubcnn.com: How many units did you sell with the first one?

TQ: About 700.000 all together.

dubcnn.com: Was the song Bye Bye Baby based on a true story?

TQ: Yeah, I wrote that about one of my big homeboys when I was growing up. It’s really about him and his girlfriend. It’s a story about how they went down.

dubcnn.com: What about the song The Comeback?

TQ: Yeah, that was the same story basically. Just telling the other side of it.

dubcnn.com: A lot of problems surrounded your second record, like distribution problems and it was only released in Europe or something like that. What’s the deal with that? What happened there?

TQ: I had a label that was basically on 2 sides of the fence. The label in the US really didn’t understand where I was coming from. When I signed to Sony it was to one regime, then that regime got fired. Then new people came in with their own ideas. They really didn’t understand the project. They wasn’t really into the project, but the international section of Sony was really into the project. They really wanted to take the project further, so they really wanted to press the issue to get the album out, whereas the label in the US just wasn’t really into it no more. So I think what happened was between all of the songs that we was doing and all of the back and forth bickering about the project, the incomplete project got leaked to the record company overseas and they just pressed it and put it out. Regardless of the American company. The sad part about it is that I didn’t even know that it came out till I was actually over there doing what I thought was prepromotion on it. And people were actually coming to interviews asking about specific songs. Some of the songs on The Second Coming wasn’t even made for The Second Coming, they was made for some other artists or just songs that I made. It’s all about control for me right now. It’s all about ownership and control so that I can prevent that type of shit from happening.

dubcnn.com: You had a song with Warren G called Our Life. I think it was never released. Will that ever see the light of day?

TQ: Naw, cause Prince didn’t clear it. It’s a remake of Pop Life. It’s kinda flipped, it’s not a remake, but we interpolated Pop Life. We just sampled the song, so that’s what it is. But I performed it live, that’s one of my favourite songs to do live. And a lot of people know it, it’s surprising how many people know it.

dubcnn.com: You signed to Cash Money. How would you sum up your deal and time with them?

TQ: I’d call it boot camp. It was a real learning experience. You always go to boot camp before you go to battle cause you have to go and really learn how to be a soldier. That’s really what I did there: I was a R&B cat that was dropped in the middle in a gang of rappers at a rap label and it was basically on me to hold my own and to bring that element by myself to the work that we was doing. I think for the last 3 years I really did a good job at it. Cause a lot of people know my voice and recognize my voice because of Cash Money, on top of the people that knew me before. I sat there watch Baby and Slim how they worked and more so than anybody I watched Mannie, how he worked. I think I use a lot of those twos when I watched them and when I learned there, for my new label. It was a learning experience; it got me ready for what I’m doing right now.

dubcnn.com: Your record was never released on the label. Is the album that’s coming out now all new material or is it the old material from Cash Money?

TQ: Pretty much new. Mannie did 2 joints, the rest of em I did myself.

dubcnn.com: So you really got into producing on this record. How would you describe yourself as a producer? What’s your sound?

TQ: I’m really into live instrumentation. The most recognizable part of hip hop is the beat. That’s what separates hip hop from every other kind of music. The beats I’m really into are really rough, hard hip hop beats, but on top of it I like melody… I like texture in the tracks. That’s really what I tried to do with this record on the production tip.

dubcnn.com: You don’t really see TQ feature on other artist’s albums too much outside of the Cash Money camp while you were signed there. Like you see Butch Cassidy, Kokane, Nate Dogg and those type of cats that are on the hooks a lot. Why is that? Why don’t you see TQ singing on other people’s albums?

TQ: When I was with Cash Money you’re just not open to do that kind of things. It’s not really how they get down. Before that I was just so… I don’t know, I’m just always in the studio doing my own thing. I just don’t get out that much to link up with people, but this time around with this album and everything I’m definitely gonna get out there and do some collabos with a lot of people. I’m pretty much open to work with everybody, so I’ma get out there a little bit. I feel like it’s a lot of people that wanna hear my voice right now. So I will get out there and give it to em as much as I can.

dubcnn.com: Who are the top 5 artists you would like to work with right now?

TQ: 5? How the fuck can I come up with 5? Above all it’s still the same person that it has been from the beginning, Dr. Dre. Dr. Dre is my favourite producer of all time, so I just feel like if I could do a record with him it would be a beautiful thing. Before it’s over that’s something I’d like to do. That’s something I always wanted to do. But like I said I’m open at this point, especially for West Coast artists. I’m open to get down with whoever I hear. I feel like it’s power and unity. If we could just link up together maybe we could kinda change the scope of radio a little bit. We could each start lending our best shots to each other, maybe we could get our equal share to this thing.

dubcnn.com: Tell us about your current label situation. You went independent; you have your own label.

TQ: It’s called the HUB Muzic. It’s distributed by Lightyear/WEA. It’s my new situation. I’m keeping it small, I’m keeping it manageable. I got a good deal with the partners that I’m in it with. It’s all about ownership and control. I own my masters, I handle my own marketing and promotions. It’s a real deal. It’s not the stuff that we used to. It’s a real deal. I just feel like after doing it this long I should receive the learning share of the returns of my product. That’s really what it’s about. At this point I’m not new to this. If you look at basketball and football somebody 10 years in the game is a veteran. You can only pay them a certain amount of price. It can’t be under this amount, so I’ve set that amount for myself and said ok from here on out I’m not gonna take less than such and such per unit, period. Whatever it is that I’m selling. That’s the way I’m looking at the rest of my career and that’s the way I’ma roll with.

dubcnn.com: Do you feel the new album will be able to come close to the success of your first record?

TQ: Hopefully. I feel like I have grown a lot since my first record. My first record was raw. It is extremely raw and I feel like it was just genuine in it’s nature. It is what it is. I feel like I captured that with that album. With this one it’s much of the same thing, I think we just got an older cat speaking on the issues from a different like… I’m not as angry on this album, but I am as forced for thinking what I’m trying to say. It’s just a little easier to your ears. It’s more musical this time around and I think it’s more actual singing going on this record.

dubcnn.com: And there are no guest appearances on there. Why did you decide to do this?

TQ: My whole standpoint right now is really I had to kinda get into myself. I had to make sure that this time around I’m understood. A lot of people didn’t understand me last time around. People can listen to my album and still consider me a rapper. I feel like they didn’t really listen to it, they didn’t understand me. So on this one I did some things where I feel like there’s no denying that I’m here to sing. I’m not trying to be nothing further than that. I just want to get that point across. I purposely didn’t put no rap on the record, I didn’t do no features with nobody, I just laid myself out there so that everybody can check out what it is I’m singing on Listen.

dubcnn.com: Did you already have a tour planned for the new record?

TQ: We’re just doing promo right now. We’re getting out here and grinding. This is an independent situation, so I’m handling every neighbourhood independently. We’re just hitting the neighbourhoods, we’re hitting the retail stores, we’re hitting the hot spots all over the nation. We’re on the road till October. We in the Bay right now, we started in L.A. After this we’re gonna go up to Portland and Seattle and we’re gonna head down south from there. We just keep it rolling.

dubcnn.com: You have a website ThugPoetry.com and you discovered it and you made it the official TQ site. Tell us the story about that.

TQ: ThugPoetry.com was started by some fans of mine a couple of years back. Somebody just alerted me to it one day and I started checking it out. It was thorough. They had so much information about me: about my records, about everything that I’ve done in this since I started, they had all these pictures, videos and just news on me and… I went to the message board and I got hooked. It’s so many people that my music touched and I didn’t even know that it had the span that it did. After just going to it for so long just checking it out somebody finally told me how to post on there. I started getting on there and made some relationships with some of the fans. It was just an ongoing relationship throughout the whole Cash Money situation. It’s like I would go there and listen to the things they were saying and a lot of times it would affect the way I thought about my situation at the time. Even when I opted out of my contract, more so than anything what persuaded me to do this new situation was the fans of my website. The opinions that they had and the things that they told me on the message board, how they felt about my music, how they felt about the situation while I couldn’t get new music out to them. It just goes to show how much power the fans have. A couple of months ago I adopted ThugPoetry.com as the official TQ website, the official HUB Muzic website, so everything is gonna be ran out of there. The fan club is gonna be ran out of there, you’re gonna be able to buy the cd’s out of there, you’re gonna be able to buy new music that you can’t get anywhere else but on Thug Poetry. We’re gonna start up a DVD series and we’re gonna start up a mixtape series that’s going hand in hand, called Street Music. Me and my DJ, Invisible Man, putting that together. We’re out her just hands on. Shooting it on the road. We’re putting it together on the road. Ya’ll been here watching this, we’re messing around with the beats all day, so we’re working on that right now. We got some new artists that we’re working with. My man AtWill, Mikkey. We got a lot of stuff going on and exclusive stuff that people on ThugPoetry.com are the ones that are ?? to. It’s a real interesting website. That’s really what it comes down to. You take a couple of people that have something in common, the fact that they really digging one artist and they sit there and spending they time on putting together something like that and then actually that artist ended up adopting that, that’s just a beautiful thing. It just shows you the power of the fan.

dubcnn.com: Yeah it just good to see an artist actually caring about the opinion of the fans.

TQ: Yeah, for real. I mean, I really do cause… let alone putting a website together to people that actually came on and joined… it’s like they didn’t have to spend the time sitting there writing all the stuff that they wrote, but they did.

dubcnn.com: As a last question. If somebody has enough money to cop one record, why should he pick yours?

TQ: That’s a good question. Why should he pick mine? When you’re talking about music, in the middle of going to party, in the middle of wanting to get with your girl and do the damn thing, in the middle of all that there’s gotta be some point you need something for your soul. There’s certain songs that come on and kinda do something to you on the inside. They don’t make you dance, they don’t make you get up and jam, they don’t make you wanna make love, but they just do something to you. They make you think. They make you think about maybe something that you’ve been through, maybe something that you wanna do right now, maybe something you saw somebody else go through. The records that I make, those are the records that are for that. Like if you look at Marvin Gaye, he made Let’s Get It On and Distant Loving, but he also made Mercy Mercy Me, he also made What’s Going On. That’s me. That’s the point that I hope for the day. I’m not the one that one that gonna make you rara in the club, but I’ma make you think.