Author Topic: New Styles P Interview (Read 91 times)

Mr. Humonculous · « **on:** May 18, 2005, 03:56:30 PM »

After finishing his 8-month prison bid in 2003, Styles P kept a low profile while letting fellow Lox members Jadakiss and Sheek Louch keep the crew's name ringing. However, in 2004 he shot back to the spotlight with his gritty verse about life behind bars on Akon's "Locked Up." This year, he really turned heads with the single "I'm Black," revealing a political consciousness that few expected from such a hard-nosed emcee.

This summer the Ghost is ready to rise again with his sophomore album Time is Money and he promises more lyrical surprises are in store. This time around, his new LP drops just as his crew finds itself in a lyrical beef with the G-Unit. While, Styles has never been one to shy away from a battle, as his album title suggests, he's isn't wasting time to getting down to grown man business.

SOHH: You've been close to some of the biggest Hip-Hop beefs of the past and now that you're coming back it seems beef is everywhere again. What's your take on all the latest drama?

Styles P: The beef is what it is; as long as there's no violence, it's cool. I think Hip-Hop has become so big, such a part of society and everyone's life, that the media blows everything out of proportion. Hip-Hop has been the art of battling ever since I started listening to it. Now it just gets escalated differently. You say one thing about somebody and it gets blown into this whole different thing. The media turns something into beef when it didn't really start out as real beef in the first place.

SOHH: Between your camp and 50 Cent, is it just publicity and marketing for the media or is it real personal beef?

Styles P: If you ask me about 50 Cent and them, they're definitely doing that for publicity and marketing because we've never seen them a day in our life. I mean we've seen them once back in the days, but we don't bump into them; they don't know us. 50 Cent don't know us from a can of paint. The ones before, we knew our previous beefs, we had interactions with them. We knew them, met them, seen them, did songs with them and everything. But this one is just like some clown living off his ego, feeding his ego or whatever he's doing.

The song that he had a problem with, with Jadakiss and Fat Joe, that song had been out. So why didn't he drop his song as soon as that came out? Instead he dropped his song a week before his album dropped. If he was really that emotional about it and felt a certain way, why didn't he handle it as soon as it happened? So obviously he did it for marketing and promotion. He's a smart man, he's a businessman. He could've did something better than that, but, you know. That's how the game goes.

SOHH: Some people say even with the shooting incident outside Hot 97, that 50's camp might have paid somebody off to take a bullet for publicity. Do you think it's really WWF like that?

Styles P: I would hope not, but it just might be with them guys. Nah though, from me hearing Tony Yayo talk about Game how he was talking the other day --I don't think that's only about publicity because there's only so much a man can say that another man can tolerate.

SOHH: Yayo has been saying things about D-Block as well. Do you address this whole situation on your album? Rumor has it there's a track about them named "Shots Fired."

Styles P: Oh yeah that's on there, we're definitely gonna dis them. If they wanna make music, that's what we do, we can't wait! They wanna spar lyrically, we're good with that. Everybody over here is better than everybody over there.

SOHH: But as for as your side goes, it's strictly lyrical?

Styles P: Of course, I mean are you trying to get us to go to jail? People already went to jail behind 50 Cent; we ain't trying to get on that list with them. That's why as far as that being a beef, that's not a beef because we wouldn't be ignorant enough to do something with them, knowing how the police would be involved. We would get locked up behind that; we would be fools because the man keeps at least 50 police with him. What do we look like, idiots?

SOHH: Alchemist has done a lot of work with y'all, and now he's hooking up with Aftermath. Do you see any possible conflict there?

Styles P: Nah, I don't care who Alchemist works with. We ain't mad at nobody who works with nobody else. It's for a check, it's business. Anybody who we know can go work with 50, as long as they don't make no disrespectful music towards us. What do we care? Get your check, man! We're businessmen, we ain't little girls.

SOHH: So moving on to your current business, you've said the new album, Time Is Money, is more of a "grown man album." What does that mean for you?

Styles P: Well I've been a grown man in Hip-Hop ever since I first came in the game. I was a grown man as a child, because my come-up forced me to be a grown man. But right now, I am getting older and a little more mature. And then I'm also trying to be a family man, so I try to stay conscious of what I say and do. You have to think about that, especially if you've spent some time in jail; that makes it hit you a little harder. So it's family first where I'm from. That's the most important thing in my life.

SOHH: As a father, what have you learned from seeing how music influences your own kids?

Styles P: I've seen that the influence is gonna be there no matter what. Just like I was influenced by music, my pops was influenced by his music. Music is always a part of your life. So, I got Hip-Hop children, but I don't let them hear every song because they jump on everything they hear. They sing along with everything that comes on the radio. So, when the wrong things come on we have to turn it; even with some of my songs. They don't get to hear all my songs, they can hear "My Life" or "I'm Black," but they're not gonna hear a lot of my other songs until they reach a certain age or I can explain things to them.

SOHH: You feel a responsibility to do songs like "I'm Black," because of that influence you can have on young people?

Styles P: Yeah and that was just something I felt I had to do as a man. Just from being in the situation I'd been in and the position I'm in as an artist with such street credibility, you've gotta do your part to let the youth know about their culture and who they are. So I did that on their behalf.

SOHH: It's big for someone like you to step up because the industry doesn't allow most "conscious" artists to really reach the streets.

Styles P: I know that's true from seeing it with my own eyes. It's hard for them to get any message out because the industry doesn't respect lyrics anymore. That's why I had to do that because I'm not considered part of that group; that conscious group. I felt it was necessary, me not being one of those, to take advantage of my position and get that message out there.

SOHH: You feel like Hip-Hop needs your help right now?

Styles P: Well like I said, right now, the industry doesn't respect lyrics. That's why I think Hip-Hop in general is very watered down right now and hard guys like myself need to step in and take over the game. It just ain't like it used to be; there ain't a lot of nice emcees anymore. Like before you had your Biggie, your Jay-Z, Nas, Mobb Deep, us, Rae, Ghost, Redman; so it was much heavier competition. It's not an emcee's game no more, right now all that really counts is the beat and the hook, for clubs and radio. The streets still respect lyrics but not the industry.

SOHH: So how do you beat the system and get the industry to recognize real lyrics again?

Styles P: It's hard work, but that's what I'm trying to do with this album. On my first album I catered mostly to the street, so it was strictly a hard album. I didn't feel like I could do other things because I had to stay true to that side. But this time, I'm branching out and showing different sides of my artistry; going in different directions. I still have the street side, but I also have songs like "Testify" with Talib Kweli, "Fire and Pain" with Sizzla. I'm still remaining true to who I am, but with every track on this album you'll hear me going in directions I never went before. I feel like I have a point to prove as an artist because if you don't expand what you can represent as an artist you get placed in a certain basket. I feel like after this album comes out, I'm in everybody's basket.

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