Author Topic: Another New WC Interview (Read 215 times)

Laconic · « **on:** August 20, 2007, 11:57:01 AM »

http://www.cocaineblunts.com/blunts/?p=615 Part 1

http://www.cocaineblunts.com/blunts/?p=619 Part2

WC Interview (Pt. 1)

Period, point blank, WC is an LA legend. I’m not here to editorialize or give you his biography, if you don’t know Low Profile, the Maad Circle or Westside Connection the only advice I can give you is to read up on your read ups. His third solo album Guilty By Affiliation is in stores tomorrow on Lench Mob records. Cop that and let’s get into the Q&A.

N: So how did you Aladdin first hook up?
WC: Me and Aladdin hooked up through this cat named [original Low Profile member] Zero who I went to school with. We used to be out, always just rhymin, lookin at magazines, battling. That was the stage back then where everybody always wanted to showcase all the raps that they had and be the best they can be. And Zero, who went to high school with me. He told me that he had this young cat who could scratch by the name of Aladdin that was crazy with it, ’cause we was looking for a DJ. At the time it was all about the DJ. It was Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, Run DMC [& Jam Master Jay], Mantronix. It was a lot of DJs and we just wanted to make sure that we had somebody who could get out on the wheels. And [Zero] introduced me to Aladdin who was from Compton and me and Aladdin had the same swagger. Aladdin was, like, incredible so that’s how we formed Low Profile. That was 1987.

N: What was the hip hop scene like in LA at the time?
WC: Hip hop was still fresh in the mouth over here. Of course it was Run DMC, Boogie Down Productions, everybody was stepping on the scene on a worldwide scale. And it was something that we just always enjoyed watching on the side, we never really got a chance to give the world our view, the way things were going down from our side of town because it was so dominated by the east coast.

N: Yeah, I always thought the Low Profile tape had a real east coast vibe to it.
WC: Oh yeah, because most artists on this side of town was influenced by a lot of cats from the East Coast. Even NWA, when they came out, when they was talking about what was going on over here, but you could hear the Public Enemy influence shining over their production with all the chaotic noises going on in the background.

N: How’d you guys feel about the electro rap, the old school LA sound that came before you?
WC: Aw we was jamming, we didn’t give a fuck, the LA Dream Team, we weren’t tripping off that shit. If it was a jam it was a jam. That’s the way we always been on the West Coast. We weren’t tripping off who could really rap or who couldn’t rap or who uses samples or whatever. We didn’t give a shit, we just wanted to jam. At that time whatever was a hit was a hit to us. We came up off of the Egyptian Lovers.

N: So, back to Low Profile, how did you guys eventually link up with Rhyme Syndicate?
WC: Well DJ Aladdin was winning all these DJ battles and a lot of [labels] would see that and want him to get on records. Aladdin he was one of them techno DJs that could [also] do a record like Mantronix - you know, program drums and put some scratchin’ over it. And Aladdin was like “you know I got a cat to get down with.” Because Zero had left and went to school up north. It was just me and Aladdin. So he was like “I got an MC.” They heard the demo, and they didn’t hear like nine or ten flows. They heard twenty five, thirty songs. And they really were eating it up [because] we wasn’t soundin’ like the typical west coast group. A lot of cats were offering us different situations. We got offered a situation with Ice-T to get on over with the [Rhyme] Syndicate compilation. We got an offer from Warner to get picked up [through] that label, along with Everlast, but we passed on it because we didn’t want to be over there. We thought the situation would benefit us if we [signed to] an independent label that had the power of a major. Which was Priority Records. And that’s where we put out We’re In This Together.

And it was a street classic. Like you said, it had an East Coast feel to it. And I didn’t try to come off dishing off an East Coast feel, it was West Coast, everybody over here they loved it, but at the same time too we was one of them groups that was fortunate enough to get out and get embraced by other markets. At the time hip hop was fairly new on a worldwide scale and we had a lot of so called true heads fucking with us. They was respecting a nigga from the streets out here that could actually rhyme. And with DJ Aladdin back there murderin’ motherfuckers on the turntables we couldn’t go wrong.

N: Yeah Aladdin was crazy. His cuts back then might be better than anything I’ve heard since.
WC: Aww man tell me about it. Still to this day.

N: Do you keep in touch with him?
WC: Nah, we went our own ways. We wasn’t seeing eye to eye in the studio but I ran across Aladdin like three or four years ago and we hugged and chopped it up and everything. He’s still doing pretty good. I know he’s lost interest in music, but he’s still got it on the wheels. It’s just unfortunate that nowadays we’ve strayed away from giving the DJs props. Instead it’s all about the MC bragging about what he got, what he doing, how many bottles he got in the club.

N: Why do you think that’s the case?
WC: I don’t know. I think that we lost. We lost the true essence of hip hop in general. I think that once the majors stepped in and started making a lot of money off of this art form it became a necessity to do whatever it takes to get over and once a motherfucker came through with a club record that’s what the record labels is pushing. “We don’t wanna hear nothing about your DJ, we don’t wanna hear nothing about hip hop, we don’t wanna hear about what’s really going on in the streets.” So we got lost in the sauce with all that shit, but on my new album I got a throwback track called “Crazy Toones for President,” like “Eric B. for President.” It’s an intermission where we just let [DJ] Crazy Toones go off for about two and a half minutes, getting down on some beats.

N: I guess being on an indie now gives you the freedom to do shit like that.
WC: There you go. We can do what the fuck we want to do and how we wanna do it.

N: That must be a good feeling after being in the major label system.
WC: Damn, it’s beautiful. You don’t even know, it’s the best feeling in the world. It used to be when you was on a major you had to be concerned with numbers. And you still should be, but [now] I don’t have to do a hundred [thousand] out the gate. I don’t have to sell crazy amount of records to make money. I can come out and slowly make more money off an indie than an artist on a major can going gold. They gotta recoup a lot more.

It’s Cube’s label and [Laugh Now, Cry Later] was the jump off and a statement as well. You know, put your money where your mouth is. And I wish a lot of other artists that been in the game for a while, or a lot of other artists that’s trying to get in the game would take time to learn the game and understand that you can let these majors come at you, and you can write your own ticket. Look at Roc-a-Fella and Cash Money. There’s so many different artists out there that took that approach and they had a pretty good run with it.

N: Do you see more established artists taking their built in fan bases and going back to the indie route?
WC: A lot of artists is doing it now because they got to. They have to do because the majors is not giving them that deal that they want, but I just want to see more artists out the gate like, “fuck that this is what we doing.” Not just having [an independent] record company because they want to floss with the bitches, but really because you can get out here and you can beat these streets up. To sell records you gotta have certain tools, you need some exposure and there are different ways you can go about grabbing that exposure. You can utilize radio, you can utilize the video shows, you can utilize the internet, such as what we’re doing right now. But understand if you don’t have [all of these], the game is not over with. You can not have radio and still get out here and beat these streets up if you budgeting the money right. You can say “OK this is how much money I’m gonna spend and if I don’t have radio I know I can do these numbers right here because I have a fan base of at least this amount of people here. And at the end of the day I’m gonna be sittin fat on my money. And I can turn around and reinvest it, put it back inside my project, come back with another one, or I can now pay you for some radio promo or whatever.”

A lot of people feel that you gotta go in and have the mentality of a major label to work that record and if it don’t jump in the first three months or that’s a wrap. That’s bullshit. ‘Cause you nothing but a tax write off to them. It’s the record business. It’s only business, they don’t give a fuck about the music like that, they care about the numbers. But you look at certain groups or labels that’s successful and understand. If you look at the independent labels that blew up a lot of them was working records for longer than three months. A lot of them was working records for up to a year. Like the Nelly, “Country Grammar,” that shit had been getting played out there [in St. Louis], when we got it was months and months, maybe a year late. Before Cash Money did a deal with Universal, they was crushin the streets out there in New Orleans. You can’t just go in with that mentality that if this shit don’t blow within the first few months then it’s a wrap. You can’t think like that. If you truly cater to the streets you gotta get out there and play these streets. You gotta let em get a taste of it, let em see that this shit is real. Don’t nobody wanna go and drop twenty bucks on one record, when they can just download that shit on the internet.

WC Interview (Pt. 2)

N: So after you split from Aladdin why did you go and form the Maad Circle?
WC: I formed the Maad Circle ’cause I had a hype man from Compton named Coolio. I figured that it was time to move and to keep it going. I got caught up in a contract over there at Priority records to where if [Low Profile] broke up they had a right to keep me on the label. So I formed the Maad Circle, which was me, Coolio, my brother DJ Crazy Toones and my homeboy Big Gee. And we came out with Ain’t a Damn Thang Changed in 1991.

N: Now that album seemed to be more explicit with the social commentary, where you had just touched on it with the Low Profile album. Was that a conscious move?
I’m always trying to be different with anything I do. It was a time where we had rappers that was out that was chastising the way we was living, you had the Tim Dogs with the “Fuck Comptons” and I just wanted people to see that it was real over here. We was going through a lot of different shit too - the police brutality, all kinds of shit that the world wasn’t realizing that we was going through. So in order for us to get up there and get on the mic and rap, it wasn’t just that we was trying to mimic New York or be down with people who was doing it before us. It took a lot for a nigga to get out there and do it because we was dealing with so much: with the crack era that was going on over here in the 80s, with the gang violence that was at an all time high back then. We had a story to tell and I just wanted motherfuckers to see that ain’t a damn thang changed, that it was modern day slavery. They went from whips to billy clubs.

N: But after that Curb Servin’ was a real shift in tone, it was a happier album.
WC: Oh yeah I was out of the fuckin’ contract with Priority records! It was time for us to stand up and let everybody know we was still here. Curb Servin was a popular drug statement out here, like I said everything I do is pertaining to the streets. Curb servin is when you [sell] dope from the curb, and we we figured that we was dope, that we was the sack, our music was catering to the streets.

That record was on London/Payday. And how I got on London/Payday was me and DJ Premier we always had a line on each other since back in the early 90s, we met at a DJ conference with Aladdin. [So I used to go] out there and spend a couple of days just relaxing to get away from LA and vise versa he’d come out here. And he’d get off the plane, jump in a rent a car and by himself drive straight to the hood, amidst all the gang banging and all the shit that was going on. He’d go straight to the burger stand and grab him a chili cheese fries or some shit he ain’t never had out there in New York and then come straight to my mama’s house and eat on her front table. Smokin’ a joint and then get back out there and go do whatever he had to do. So we always had a line on each other and his manager, by the name of Patrick Moxy he was the owner of Payday records. And Payday had a distribution deal with London Records. They had Salt N’ Pepper, they had Group Home, they had Jeru Da Damaja and it’s was crazy because it was an east coast label. And when I got out of Priority records, they said “we get it, even though we on the east coast we get the picture. we can’t give you no way out crazy money but we’ll make sure you’re alright.” And by them believing in me and riding with me I rolled with them.

N: But getting back to the Maad CIrcle, before Curb Servin’ came out Coolio had blown up on a mainstream level
WC: Man me and Coolio had a big argument [after Ain’t a Damn Thang Changed]. It would’ve been a fist fight if it was face to face. I was on the phone and I was outta town with Cube. Coolio called me like “when you come home we gotta do another Maad Circle album” and I was like “Coolio, it’s over with. I’d rather wait this contract out than do a record with Priority records at the time.” [And I explained to him that] I signed a contract where all the money that we make, they gonna snatch and it put it back [towards] the money that we lost on Low Profile. Low Profile was a big record on the streets, but when it came out it only sold a certain number of units. And he was like “What do you mean?” and I said “Man, welcome to the record business.” And he said “anything that we do?” And I said “no, anything I do.” So I said, “Coolio, you a dope artist, a lot of people believe in you, you believe in yourself and make it happen [as a solo artist].” And he was upset, but he went [solo] and Coolio got a chance to live.

N: His music was far removed from the Maad Circle sound
WC: Of course. Now that was real happy. But I was happy for Coolio, he got a chance to get out there and make a lot of money. I know where he came from.

N: Do you think that was always the direction he wanted to go in?
WC: Nah, I think he wanted to do more of the hardcore street shit. But a lot of times, us as artists… when a record jumps you gonna ride that wave. We’re in it to get national exposure and also to make money. So I don’t think he thought that “Fantastic Voyage” was gonna be the one to blow up. I don’t think he had any idea. Because he had songs on there like “County Line” and stuff like that that was hard, where he was talking about shit that goes on in the hood and dealing with social issues. And even “Fantastic Voyage” was some real shit, it was a nigga in the hood imagining that he could just have a good time. It was a fortunate, but unfortunate thing that MTV grabbed a hold of it and made it as big as it was because… you know how the MTV curse is a lot of times…

N: So from with that in mind it’s almost a good thing that you’ve only had moderate success as a solo artist but never been as huge as your rep.
WC: No I never had no real big commercial success or got grammmies or anything like that. I always do it consistent, consistent ghetto gold on my own. And I never had a problem with that. I can always go out and tour, I got a built in fan base, as well as I stayed relevant. I’m still poppin’ in and lettin the kids see my face. So I wasn’t really trippin’ off no commercial success. As well as I always have publishing checks coming in ’cause I played my hand right on that.

N: Which brings us to Westside Connection. What made you think that it was the right point in time to put that project together?
WC: ‘Because it never been done before. It never been three artists came together from different hoods, three artists that wasn’t in a group from different crews. Cube from NWA, I had Low Profile and Mack 10 was just new in the game. And by him being from a city where our gangs was rivals we finna be perfect. Everybody from the Westside Connected. And it wasn’t to say fuck the East Coast or fuck the South or nothin like that, we was just liberating the west. We proud to be from where we from, and of course that shit just caught fire around here.

N: Now I know you guys sparked some high profile beefs off that project, too.
WC: Oh yeah, but you gotta realize this - in order for peace it’s gonna take war. In any given sitituation. It is what it is.

N: So how did the situation with Cypress Hill go down?
WC: That was some shit that took place… they had a problem with Cube coming in, they said that Cube took a lyric of theirs. But I wasn’t around. By me knowing Cypress Hill before hand, livin with Cypress Hill. It was me, Aladdin, Muggs and a couple of cats from Cypress Hill and we all used to live together, when we was both trying to get put on before Low Profile and before Cypress Hill. So B-Real took a shot at Cube and he was like “Fuck that I’m getting back at ‘em.” I was trying to squash it, but B-Real took the first blow and Cube went and did what he did. I was against it, of course, because I knew both of them. And of course, I was gonna ride with Cube, because he’s like family to me. But I couldn’t see myself getting in there, getting on that record and hollering “fuck B-Real” and everything. But Cube went and did what he did and eventually it got squashed. And I’m glad it got squashed at the time it did.

N: And then you guys also got into it with Common Sense around that time.
WC: Yeah, yeah, but that shit got squashed as well, and I didn’t know Common Sense from shit so… When I heard that I was heated, but we didn’t even really respond to that, Cube just shot a line out on the Westside Connect album and Common came out with “The Bitch In Yoo.” And, I mean, it was a meeting called by Minister Louis Farrakahn and a lot of rappers was there and there was a cease fire.

My mentality, the way I’m looking at it now is when you say “Fuck [WC]” you’re really saying fuck my livelihood. And it’s unfortunate because rap was founded on chest pounding and rappers battling. But nowadays it’s a way of life for us. There is so much money involved, whether you’re doing it for the money or not. If a nigga can convince enough people that you ain’t shit then he’s taking food out your mouth, he’s taking money out your pocket. So my approach is, if niggas is talking shit, just to get it out and ask them really what it is. Fuck hiding behind your neighborhood, fuck hiding behind security. Really what it is? What’s going on? What’s happening? And I feel that most artists that get into it with each other need to have some shit set up live on youtube where niggas can get down live. I’m talking about taking it to the streets, get your squab on. Where everybody can see the high definition ass kicking. But of course, a lot of these niggas is super heroes and they be off that liquid courage and they’d rather get up in the booth and talk shit.

And I’m a nigga that’s really not a fan of the internet. I love that people have access to listen to a lot of new music that’s out, see interviews such as this interview right here and be up on what’s happening. But also I hate the motherfuckers that be hiding behind all them computers, all them computer soldiers, i hate that shit. Niggas be hating. And the cold thing about it is it could be that nigga next door to you, sitting in some draws and some fuckin house shoes, sittin there just fucking with you.

N: So getting into the new joint, what artists are you working with on the new album?
WC: I ain’t working with too many artists. It’s a west coast album, I’m an artist from the west coast. I’m truly independent which means that I’m securing my fan base, I’m locking the coast down. So what I did was I went and got the West Coast big three, which is Game, Snoop and Ice Cube. That’s all I need.

Peace!!!