Young Buck interview from allhiphop.com

[Darksider]

Streets is Talking: Young Buck Part One
By Martin A. Berrios




Whether sales are through the roof or below average, one thing that remains constant at all times with G-Unit is drama. Minus the infamous awards show melee, Young Buck usually plays it cool, staying below the gossip radar.

Now with recent allegations of members of the crew assaulting a minor, unsanctioned truces with enemies, and spicy hotel shootouts, the Cashville wildcard sits a top the rap headlines right where his boss, 50 Cent proudly held for so long. AllHipHop’s Streets is Talking interview series gets the story behind the story, beginning with one of 2007’s stars.

AllHipHop.com: So let’s bring it back to when you first got down with G-Unit. What was your first impression of 50 when you met dude?

Young Buck: The same impression I got right now, [he’s] a real n***a. The s**t in life that you go through makes you who you are; he’s been through a lot of s**t and it’s reflected through his swagger. You know [that] I have always respected 50 as an individual who came from what I came from, and made it out. He put me in the position to win.

AllHipHop.com: The G-Unit Beg For Mercy album came out while Yayo was serving his bid. Did you ever feel like they just let you slide in the crew for that album because Yayo got booked? Did you ever feel it wasn’t genuine?

Young Buck: Nah, I never felt like that. A lot of the world felt like that. My career came right around Tony Yayo’s incarceration. So in reality, I have been around 50 and Yayo way before Yayo’s incarceration came. The world never knew that. When I was on stage, people had me mixed up with Yayo. N***as would be like, “Yayo!” and I would be like “Nah, n***a, it’s Buck!” I dealt with all that. At the end of the day, my talent established Young Buck.

AllHipHop.com: What was it like when Yayo got home? Did he show any hate on you?

Young Buck: Nah, me and Yayo were good from the beginning, before he had his incarceration. In fact, Yayo was one of the first muthaf**kers telling 50, “Yo, you better make that things happen for Buck.” My s**t got sped up because of Yayo.

AllHipHop.com: You were rocking 50’s G-Unit spinner at the time, you lent it to your boy D-Tay and he got stuck for the chain in Chicago. There were some rumblings that 50 made you distance yourself from D-Tay ever since then.

Young Buck: Nah, not at all. D-Tay signed to my label [Ca$hville Records]; he's on my tour bus right now. That’s been my homeboy before rap. D-Tay is not a muthaf**ker that just came around me. He’s been put in situations where my life was on the line and he showed up and protected my life in real n***a situations. His situation was just one incident, something that happened. I have never experienced anything being taken from me. My chain got returned to me in a matter of a week. So shout out to Chicago, they really respected Young Buck.

AllHipHop.com: Did that incident put you in an awkward situation with 50?

Young Buck: That didn’t put me in no awkward position with 50, because I never have had anything taken from me, but I felt f**ked up about going to 50 and letting know about the situation that happened. The chain got taken, but at the end of the day, material s**t don’t really matter to 50. The fact of why it went down and how it went down is what means the most. And when the situation went down how it went down, I put the weight of the problem on him [D-Tay]. You know there’s certain rules just being from the streets that you can’t do. Like walking around other n***as’ surroundings with a gang of ice like that and not really knowing who’s with you and s**t, don’t make you in a good position. I really weighed it out on both ends, but at the end of the day, I had nothing taken from me. So I put forth a real street effort on getting it back and whenever you're a real n***a, you get real results for anything you do, and my s**t came back.

AllHipHop.com: Okay around, this time Game joins G-Unit, what your first impression of dude?

Young Buck: Well honestly, I never met Game before I spoke on Game, so that’s a lesson I learned as handling myself with individuals for the future. I mean Game was brought to my knowledge through 50 and he was like “Dre got an artist he’s excited about,” and wanted 50 to work on his project. 50 was saying he was probably going to make him a part of what we had going, which is G-Unit - like it would pop a little bit quicker if 50 got behind it. So just on that strength, and all the momentum we had, I showed some love without meeting Game. I threw out that line, “You ain’t a Crip like Snoop, you ain’t a Blood like Game.” I never even met Game when I said that.

AllHipHop.com: So when you met Game face to face did you feel you spoke too soon?

Young Buck: I mean everything seemed real, like any other n***a. He seemed cool, so you couldn’t really get what you see right now. None of that stuff Game portrays right now, there wasn’t really none of that when he first came to G-Unit. He never carried that swagger of being this bad ass Blood or no s**t like that. He was just a n***a who claimed his affiliation. You never really seen him throwing up any gang signs and no s**t like that, but he kept his rag on. So out of my respect for California, a lot of people can’t just wear that red or blue rag, so just off of that and just seeing him keep swanging it like he was, that pretty much solidified to me that homeboy was a Blood. And it wasn’t a whole lot of respect from the streets, it was a lot of questions, really. Like “Why you say that about Game? This n***a ain’t no Blood.”

AllHipHop.com: So there weren’t people in Compton cosigning him?

Young Buck: Nah, there weren’t a lot of n***as cosigning him during time of me speaking on him.

AllHipHop.com: What really went down from your point of view when Game was kicked out of the Unit? How did you feel about how everything went down?

Young Buck: Honestly, I don’t know his full situation on what and how it went down. I just know his situation was voiced from a media standpoint. Whatever problems he had, he voiced them through radio and just that alone right there, I think was the beginning of the problem. Whatever problem dealing with 50 [he had], you could have had the conversation that you had on radio with 50. So I think his plans were already made before he got in the middle of that and pushing for his own thing and moving towards Black Wallstreet.

But even that was stolen from JT The Bigga Figga. The whole name Black Wall Street, that’s been something of JT’s for years. I’m 26 years old, I’ve recorded records with JT back when I was 16, 17 and that was his company's name. I think that was some cold-hearted s**t. At the end of the day, it’s a lot of different things that reflect Game that real street n***as don’t do. Not even to get the money, there’s certain moves you can’t justify at the end. A street n***a’s going to make the right moves to get his bread so he’ll leave cool in the streets, once he gets to the money.

AllHipHop.com: Like blood money?

Young Buck: Straight up.

AllHipHop.com: Let’s fast forward a little, you were attending the Vibe Awards where they were honoring Dr. Dre. Allegedly Suge Knight paid someone to attack Dre causing a brawl were you poked someone up. Did you ever fear on retaliation from Suge after that incident?

Young Buck: Man, at this point, the thought of that doesn’t really matter. The thought is always in your mind that someone may approach me, with that on his mind, just in general.

This is the first time I even heard it was one of Suge’s homies. There’s a lot of different things coming from you that are just different from what I’ve heard. At the end of the day, Suge knows me and how I get down, period. In a situation like that, I’ll just sum it up and tell you: put a n***a like me in anywhere where I feel like my life or my loved ones are in danger, and I’ll do whatever it takes to protect them.

AllHipHop.com: What were Dre’s feelings in regards to what you did to the dude?

Young Buck: Dre was pretty much focused on his money, he don’t really give a f**k about none of this s**t. At the end of the day, I don’t think he appreciated what went down. He was being presented an award and his wife was there. So I think Dre been through realer things in his life, so it was nothing that affected Dre. It was a brush off the shoulder thing for him.

AllHipHop.com: Around that time everyone is questioning 50’s street credibility. A lot of people were calling him a snitch. Do you think what he did with that song “Ghetto Quaran” was a form of dry snitching? He was putting all these OG’s from Queens business on wax without any consent.

Young Buck: I don’t classify it as dry-snitching, especially [when these issues were] already known in the city. I just think it’s just pretty much 50 bringing those situations to light, using a talent that was God-given, which is rap. I mean, if it was situations that n***as didn’t know about it and a n***a talk on, then that’s what you consider dry-snitching, but the situations he spoke on are New York legendry street s**t. So n***as getting this dry-snitching s**t all twisted up. 50’s situation is already wrote, my n***a.

AllHipHop.com: So the second round of the G-Unit artist albums come around. Mobb and Banks didn’t sell as much as everyone expected. How was the vibe then knowing you were coming up next?

Young Buck: Man, I never really thought about a record sale in my life, so I’m not going to start to now because that’s how everyone in the media looks at the game. I’ve always been in this music for the classic material that’s going to live on for years. If you follow Young Buck, my first album Straight Out Of Cashville was a classic, and this one, Buck The World is getting considered pretty much as another one.

If you’re smart enough to budget your albums and stay under that one word that all of these rappers forget about which is “recoup,”…you’ll be able to succeed through any type of record sales that you may have. I’m the type of n***a that recouped from the first project where I didn’t owe Interscope or G-Unit a dime. So going into this project, I was fresh not owing nobody nothing. It’s about the knowledge the artist has to feel in order that I feel. It’s about making classic material period, the whole low record sales are due to n***as making un-classic material. If you don’t make an album that’s worth someone buying your CD for 15 dollars, then that’s on you.

My first week was 140,000, somewhere around there. It was enough to make me have the number one rap album in the country. I came out amongst MIMS, and Lil’ Flip and all these other dudes. Speaking of MIMS, he had 14,000 spins at radio and I had 1,400 and I was able to come out and double his sales. From his sales to mine, I doubled up on MIMS, I should say. So I know in this industry, it ain’t about how many spins you got at radio or all that s**t; it’s about delivering classic material. So holla at me six months later when I’m at a million sold, n***a. [Laughs]

[Raphael]

nice interview and how many records has he sold so far?

[KURUPTION-81]

To me, most of the interview allhiphop were trying to get buck to say something derogatory about 50.