YOUNG HOGGS (November 2006) | Interview By: Nima

       Dubcnn once again took time out to speak with a talented group from the West called The Young Hoggs. We first spoke to them back in 2004 and again last year in an exclusive video feature. This time around we spoke to group members T-Mac and TJ Santana to discuss their long awaited debut album "Album Fulla Singles." We delve into the signing with Jazzy D and Jazzy Management, recent mixtapes they have worked on, the New West movement, the much talked about "All In The Same Gang" project and so much more in this exclusive dubcnn interview.

As always we have the transcript and the audio for you to check and please feel free to send any feedback regarding the interview to: nima@dubcnn.com


Interview was done by phone in October 2006


Questions Asked By : Nima


The Young Hoggs Gave Dubcnn.com A Shoutout! Check That Here (Audio)

Full Young Hoggs Interview : Here

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Dubcnn: We're with the Young Hoggs right now. It's been a while since we caught up with ya'll, so how about you just let everybody know what's been going on with you?

T-Mac: Wassup wassup!

TJ Santana: Right now we're just gearing up and getting ready for the  release of the album, "Album Fulla Singles", right now we're looking at a late January release, so that's what it is right now!


Dubcnn: You hooked up with Jazzy D, how did that happen and what role does he play?

T-Mac: Actually, it's more like a relationship that we had a couple of years back, and we just finally hooked up a year ago, last summer, and we made it official after a few sit downs, and we felt like he would be a good asset to the team, and to what we got going on with the whole group. He was with it
100%, so we made it official! It turned out to be a good thing, the dude is real knowledgeable when it comes to the game, and he's experienced, so...

TJ Santana: My personal opinion is, I like the way dude got at us. He expressed that he wanted to manage us, but not trippin' off paperwork or nothing like that, he wanted to prove hisself to us, for us to even consider it. He was like, "Just give me the OK to trying to make a few things happen" before we even thought about working something out between both of us. I respected that.


Dubcnn: Tell us about "The Wire" mixtape that you recently released.

TJ Santana: Well "The Wire", it was scheduled to come out earlier this year with DJ Warrior, but in the meantime we got into a little label situation and it got caught up in that. As of right now, we released the "Collectors Edition", and we're about to have the DJ Rafiki from Power 106 edition. So
it's actually two releases of "The Wire". They both have most of the same songs in there, but in the DJ Rafiki one, there are a few that ain't on the collector's edition.

T-Mac: The "Collector's Edition" is just straight straight music, no DJ on it, no none of that, just music. The Rafiki one, he blessed us, from Power 106, doing his thing for all the mixtape heads that wanna cop CD's, that like original records, that's for them.


Dubcnn: You hooked up with Young Jeezy on "The Wire", are there any plans for future collaborations?

TJ Santana: We hope so! We got positive from the song, so hopefully. You never know what will happen!


Dubcnn: What's up with the Young Hoggs & Dre'sta? We haven't seen you work together lately.

TJ Santana: Dre'sta, that's my big brother! You might not see us together for 20 years and that ain't going to change nothing! While I'm sitting here doing this interview with you, I'm sitting here with B.G. Knocc Out right now! We can not see each other for 50 years! That ain't gonna change
nothing!

T-Mac: We all working and shit, so you definitely are going to see a lot of work being done between both sides, both camps, cause we're really like one unit, us, B.G. and Dre'sta. When they get to working and they get busy, and we get to working, getting busy, but we all keep in touch, we're all family, and it ain't nothing but a phone call away to get to the studio and drop 16's! It's all love with them.


Dubcnn: You also rolled with The Game for a while, what's the status on that?

TJ Santana: It ain't no status.. I mean we knew each other since childhood, that's pretty much what it is right now. It ain't no problems, ain't no nothing. It is what it is.


Dubcnn: So what's up with the "Album Fulla Singles" album? When can we expect that?

TJ Santana: Right now, we're looking at January 29th, like I said before, but that shit don't mean nothing to me. It ain't out till it's out, but we're looking right now at late January, first quarter '07.


Dubcnn: What's the concept of the record?

TJ Santana: Shit the title! Album full of singles! Ain't no fuckin' album fillers in there! Ain't no songs on that muthafucka that you just gonna throw on there just to throw on there. Every one can be a potential single, and that's what we wanted to do. When 50 did his thang and he put his album
out with all videos, that's what we wanted to do. We can do every song on the album just like that. It's an album full of singles. Niggas is coming with 1-2 singles on their album and the rest is bullshit, but not the Young Hoggs!

T-Mac: We definitely wanted an album for the people that just love music, man, and that can really relate to every song, 1 through 17, from the interludes, to the skits, to the introduction. It's not watered down records, it's all concept records, every song on there is a straight single. Our intention was to go in the studio, and every record that we do, would be a potential single. And at the end we put the album together and it's like "Oh shit, this is what we are going to call it!" It wasn't no other names for the album, but that.


Dubcnn: Have you picked the first single out of all the singles yet?

TJ Santana: I was just about to tell you that! That's hard! We got an album full of singles! Now we got a problem, which one are we going to use? On some real shit! I was just about to say it right before you asked me that!

T-Mac: Yeah that's our issue right now, out of 17 records we gotta pick. We're trying to line them up. Right now the "Get Loose" record is our street single that we came out with, with Dynamic Certified, and we're just trying to work off that. But we haven't yet officially put out the radio single, we just dropped the street single for the Young Hoggs fans that have been checking for us.

TJ Santana: Dynamic Certified! Shoutout to the whole L.B.C.! They doing their thang out there with that whole C.O.B., that circle of bosses. What up Long Beach? What up Crooked I?

T-Mac: So like TJ said, we're pretty much just gearing up, gettin ready for this first quarter man, and we're ready to put it out! We got our own label situation going on, Young Hoggs Entertainment, that's really official and established, and that's what we are releasing our album under. So just to let people know, we're not just artists, we're also business men, and that's a big part of that.


Dubcnn: So is this going to be an independent record?

TJ Santana: It's an independent joint venture, through Young Hoggs Entertainment, Blu Division, but we have major distribution through Fontana/Universal.

T-Mac: Fontana/Universal is going to distribute the record worldwide.


Dubcnn: What's your relationship with Glasses Malone?

TJ Santana: Shit, we went to Junior High together! So, it's all love!

T-Mac: Childhood friend.

TJ Santana: He got his own situation over there, and he extended his hand and put us in our situation that we're in right now! So everything is all love!


Dubcnn: Which producers are you planning to collaborate with on there, or have you collaborated with, since you said it's done?

TJ Santana: Yeah I mean the album is done already! We got THX on there, T-Mac did two beats on there for those who don't know, Binky Womack did something on there, Rick Rude...

T-Mac: Everybody that's on the album, are people that we really have a strong relationship with, so we're all trying to see each other grow. They all got talent, and they definitely blessed us with some good music, good production.

TJ Santana: THX, he got most of the songs on the album, he probably got about 5 songs on the album.


Dubcnn: Is it all going to be Young Hoggs, or can we expect any guest appearances on there?

TJ Santana: We got some folks on there, just check it out. Our whole family is on there, we got a few surprises. Come check it out.

T-Mac: We don't wanna release everything yet, you feel me? *laughs*

TJ Santana: We gotta have some type of shock factor!


Dubcnn: You're part of the New West Movement, tell us a couple cats that you're feeling right now.

TJ Santana: Me, personally, Remy Ranthoven, he ain't came out yet, but he's the little brother of Rick Rude. He got a CD and DVD out independently now, and me personally I'm on Remy Ranthoven right now.

T-Mac: My favourite right now... It's so many, dogg, out here on the West, so you really don't wanna put nobody out like that. But I love Mykestro, Bad Lucc, they're definitely doing their thang. I like a lot of people on this New West Movement, just the West general. R&B dudes too, that's out here.
All it is right now, time will tell, a lot of cats are waiting in the cut, grinding, that you probably haven't heard of yet, but they got a couple of cats over here in L.A. that's dope. I like to pick up a lot of independent shit, more than mainstream.


Dubcnn: Is there anything else from the Young Hoggs fans should watch out for in future?

TJ Santana: Just be looking out for that Young Hoggs, B.G. Knocc Out and Gangsta Dre'sta!

T-Mac: Young Hoggs, B.G. Knocc Out, Dre'sta, our label situation Young Hogg Ent, and I don't wanna scare none of the record labels off, but we got a few labels that's interested in taking up our second album, major shit. But we're constantly grinding, and we definitely have labels knocking on our
door. We're not signed to no one, we're no ones group, we're signed to ourselves, Young Hogg Ent.

TJ Santana: That's a good thing about our deal, because we ain't signed to nobody. It clearly says in the situation that we're in right now, we have album distribution through our company, but at the same time we can still go elsewhere and get us an artist situation if that's what we choose to do.

T-Mac: A lot of people ain't in that situation right now. Be looking out for the "Rated G" mixtape dropping right after the Rafiki tape, we're killing the tape game out here, we killed them with the Dirty West Vol. 1-4, with Dre'sta and Six Mill, free Six Mill! Then we had "The Wire" and we got the
"Rated G" mixtape dropping soon, so be looking out for that. Then our individual projects, we kind of started on them right now, so you got Killa Cane and Young Shame, and me and T.J. So we definitely still grinding man, it don't stop. Plus all the other projects that we've been on. But we give it up, this first quarter, the independent record for the West Coast, and the people that love to support independent music and new music, we're definitely a hot item!


Dubcnn: Can we expect anything else from that whole "All In The Same Gang"? Cause you were talking about doing a whole project?

TJ Santana: Right now, if it comes to it, after the "Album Fulla Singles", that's going to be the next thing you see coming out of Young Hoggs Ent, or if we find a bigger situation for it, then that's what it's going to do.

T-Mac: I know a few people have been asking about the "All In The Same Gang" project, and why did it stop. It never stopped, it was just that politics got involved in it. All the artists that came out and supported it, was with it 100%. Basically, we got recognized for that.

TJ Santana: And the way we went about it is... It's a lot of artists on that song that's signed to labels. But we didn't deal with the labels. I got on the phone and got straight to the artists, it was all love.

T-Mac: It was just the politics... Cause a lot of people weren't expecting something that big to happen, people couldn't believe that it could happen, and it happens quick! Real people recognize real people as they say. That's why it was easy for us to collab with so many artists on that day, on that project. It was wonderful thing for the West Coast, for the New West artists, the Old West artists, if that's what you wanna call them, but just the West in general. The Crips, the Bloods, came out and supported it!

TJ Santana: And it's all captured on film, thanks to Pop Gates! He came through and captured the whole event, of 20 different artists in the studio at the same time. It was a beautiful thang.

T-Mac: So just to let the people know, it's not as easy as it seems, it's not like a walk in the park. Once you put certain things together, you never know what's going to happen. So we're still fighting for putting out an album like that, the whole "All In The Same Gang" type project, with a DVD and all that. So if the fans can be patient with us, we're working on it. That wasn't just some shit that we put together and said we ain't going to fuck with it no more. We made a statement with that.


Dubcnn: I think that's about it, is there anything else that you'd like to let everybody know?

T-Mac: Just be looking out for your boys man, the Young Hoggs, and really support the whole music industry right now man. As you know, they just shut down a big chain, Tower Records, because of the high prices and shit like that. The industry is trying to work its things out too, so support the
independent market man, cause the West Coast is a major market man, that's why you have so many artists out here struggling to get their money, and their records played on the radio, cause it's not for us out here. So you gotta really grind to get your name out there, to get your buzz up. So
everybody that's listening to this interview right now, support the independent market man! The Young Hoggs, B.G. Knocc Out and Dre'sta! Support the whole camp! And we're going to give ya'll good music, and pour our heart and souls in it during the studio time. Go out there and support it!

TJ Santana: Shoutout to you and Yash, the whole dubcnn staff that's been looking out for us!


 

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