Tarek & Luss Interview (Audio With Ca$his & Rikanatti Inside)

[Lunatic]

http://raptalk.net/website/content/view/1443/54/

Raptalk.Net hooked up with duo group and blood brothers Tarek and Luss for an exclusive interview session. Tarek and Luss talk about their brotherly relationship and which kind of effects it's had on their performing careers (positive and negative).

It hasn't been all fun and games for these brothers, a dive into their deep-rooted history tells tales of homelessness and run-ins with the law at the worst possible time.

The trials and tribulations for both Tarek and Luss made it that much sweeter when the duo hooked up with Shady Records in-house producer Rikanatti for an entire album titled "The Suicide Note" which is currently available now. With an entire album under their belt produced by one of the most anticipated up and coming producers, packaged along with a guest appearance from Ca$his, it's quite clear that both Tarek and Luss are onto some big things.

At the end of the interview, be sure to download a Tarek and Luss track straight from "The Suicide Note" album, "Life Of a Rider" which features Ca$his and is of course, produced by Rikanatti.

 

Raptalk.Net: We’re here with Hip-Hop group and blood brothers, Tarek & Luss; start us off by letting everybody know how you two are doing at this time.

 
Luss: We’re doing good man; we just finished up our album, “The Suicide Note” with Rikanatti. We have Ca$his on there. We’re booming that all over and getting it out to everybody. There’s certainly a lot of interest in it so we’re doing really well.

 
Raptalk.Net: We’re definitely going to get into all of that shortly, but firstly we want to talk about each of your pasts because it’s quite interesting. You guys have an interesting and deep-rooted history; first off, when did you two fall in love with Hip-Hop and decide to form the duo you perform as today?

 
Tarek: We’ve been into this shit as far back as I can remember. The first album I ever bought was “The Chronic” by Dr. Dre and ever since I heard that, it’s just inspired me – people like Eminem, 2Pac, Biggie, Nas and Jay-Z; it just makes me wanna’ go hard and bring something like they brought back to the game and hopefully that’s what me and Luss can do with our music once we get it popping.

 
Raptalk.Net: As blood brothers, everyone who has siblings knows that there are ups and downs to a brotherly relationship. How do you think that making music together has affected that relationship, both positive and negative?

 
Luss: Like every duo, we have our ups and downs. With Tarek and I being brothers, it’s more of a competitive thing. When we’re both in the studio, he’s trying to do his best and I’m trying to do my best. We both try and out do each other. It always works out for the best. Being that we’re trying to outshine each other, we come up with the best material we can and with Tarek and I, we always have our ups and downs here and there, but we get along for the most part and we’re pretty good partners.

 
Tarek: We take it mostly as friendly competition. We always want to outdo one another on a track. I think Luss is dope as fuck and it’s hard to do sometimes, but I get him every now and then (laughs).

 
Raptalk.Net: Have you guys ever argued on a particular song regarding which one of you came doper?

 
Luss: It just depends. There are certain tracks where I feel I came in and absolutely killed it and then Tarek will come in and just set the bar even higher. It just depends with every track. On the album you’ll be able to tell there are certain tracks where he gets me and there are some songs where I get him. I think that’s good because we’re both shining in our own way.

 
Tarek: I think Luss gets me on a track we did called “Me Against the World.” He snaps on that. Luss got me on that one (Laughs).

 
Raptalk.Net: It’s all good. We’re talking about some deep struggles here; fill us in on the homelessness experience you two went through.

 
Tarek: Well growing up and shit, I had a lot of problems with my mom. We never really got along so I was always getting kicked out and I bounced around from friends’ house to my grandparents house; living all over with friends and family. That was kind of rough but I got through that and ended up moving in with my grandparents. I kept grinding that way. I caught some court cases and it was kind of hard. At the end of the day, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It put some more gas in my tank to come out harder and keep grinding on everybody.

 
Luss: Pretty much like he just said, growing up we didn’t have our Dad around. We had a single mom who was trying to do the best she could but wasn’t always around. We got into our fair share of trouble and that will always result in a sour relationship with your mom. It’s like Tarek said, whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. Everything we’ve been through so far got us to this point so I don’t really regret or take back anything.

 
Raptalk.Net: That plays perfectly into my next question. When you two caught some felony cases over a violent incident, did that change the way you thought or acted at all?

 
Tarek: The first one we got; we got two actually. In 2004 I was charged and ended up being convicted of felony assault. I just got probation and all that for that. Over the summer while were recording “The Suicide Note” with Rikanatti, I was out partying with some of my homeboys and shit went down. Long story short, we all ended up getting charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon to create great bodily harm so I ended up copping a plea deal for fucking felony assault with a deadly weapon so I had to do a little time in county. That kind of pushed back our album that we were working on. When I came back out of jail, Rikanatti was right there to get it popping. He hit us with some fire ass beats and I think we did our best work after I got out of jail.

 
Luss: Also back in 2004 I got into the same situation when some shit popped off. I ended up getting charged with two assault and batteries and did my little probation time. Going back to what you were asking if it changed the way I think, I feel like you go through certain things and a situation like that just makes you want to go harder with my music and get my message out there; keep doing our thing. I feel like I’m a lot more positive these days and I try to stay out of situations as much as possible. I definitely think it helped me get back on track and made me realize that I was fucking around too much and it got us more serious with our music. Ultimately, it ended up helping is out. Obviously a situation like that is not good or whatever, but it brought us to do our thing and we’ve been going hard ever since.

 
Raptalk.Net: We appreciate the background information. Let’s get into the music side of things. You have the debut album titled “The Suicide Note” which was entirely produced by Rikanatti. How did you two meet Rikanatti?

 
Tarek: We were in a situation with another independent label at the time; this was a few years back. Rik(anatti) reached out to us through Myspace and sent us over some beats. Rikanatti is kind of like a mentor to us. He’ll have us do tracks a bunch of times if he doesn’t like it. We kick ideas back and forth. He just comes with the most dopest beats I’ve heard in a long time. I think he’s very under-rated. Everything he sends us is fire to the point where it’s hard to choose beats.

 
Raptalk.Net: What was it like doing this entire album with one producer? That doesn’t really happen in Hip-Hop anymore like it was in the early 90s.

 
Tarek: You pretty much just said it right there. That’s exactly the feel we wanted to go for. When Rikanatti first reached out to us, he had sent us a big package of beats and when we first started with this project and were talking about the direction we wanted to go in as far as production; once we started listening to Rik’s beats, the more we started working with him, the more it was in our direction. When you listen to the album, you’ll be able to tell from front to back, being all Rikanatti beats, the whole things flows. It’s kind of like a whole story concept album type thing, from track to track, it all flows together. I personally feel with one producer and having Rik do the entire project, it’s real smooth and it flows together the way that we wanted it.

 
Luss: I felt it was important to have one producer and why we wanted Rikanatti besides the fact that he’s talented as fuck was, when you listen to somebody’s album now. The majority of people coming out now, there shit sounds like a mixtape. You have a billion fucking producers on there and it jumps around. It doesn’t have that flow like a Biggie album had back in the day; or a 2Pac album, Nas, Jay-Z – anyone like that. It jumps around too much and we didn’t want any skits; we just wanted straight to the point and we wanted to paint a picture with our shit.

 
Raptalk.Net: Ok. You’ve been quoted as saying the album has a “darker feel” to it – what exactly do you mean by that?

 
Luss: When we first started this project, we had titled the album “The Book of Rhymes.” The direction we were going in was a little bit different…once Tarek went through his court shit and did his little time, at that time and moment, it was a completely different situation. We decided to incorporate all of our life situations and stuff that Tarek was going through and the shit that I was going through; we wanted to keep it real. When we say it’s a little bit darker, it’s more just life situations that people can understand. It’s the average struggle for the everyday dude.

 
Tarek: The reason we also call it “darker” is I mean, look at us – we’re in a recession right now and it’s fucked up; we still don’t have a deal right now and we’re broke as fuck. Our music is what the average person is going through right now. It’s not like all we fucking talk about is jewellery and cars; people can’t relate to that right now. Everybody is hurting right now. These are the stories from Tarek and Luss. We just hope it connects and a lot of people right now are saying it’s hitting them and that was our point in doing it.

 
Raptalk.Net: “The Book of Rhymes” is certainly a more friendly title. Were the dark situations you guys were going through the reasoning to the album title becoming “The Suicide Note?”

 
Tarek: When I was in jail actually, pissed off about the situation and I was worried about what was going to happen with our music; I didn’t know if that was in jeopardy. I got to thinking and I was fucked up; I was talking to Luss every chance I got about music and how we were going to keep progressing our careers and shit. The idea just kind of popped in our heads and we scrapped everything we had for “The Book of Rhymes” and started from scratch and wanted a dark and grimier tip. We told Rikanatti what we wanted to do and he just hit us with some bangers and we got it popping.

 
Raptalk.Net: Ok. The cover art is really dark and prominent; does it hold any specific significance?

 
Tarek: We just wanted to give a dark feel overall. I figured having that cemetery feel or something like that on the cover would get more to the point than Luss and me on the actual cover. We tried to really hit people when they first looked at it to intrigue them.

 
Raptalk.Net: Which type of guest appearances is on the project?

 
Tarek: We have Ca$his on a track called “Life of a Rider.” This girl Jewels is on two tracks that are on the album; she was also on a couple of songs that made the mixtape.  We have just Ca$his and Jewels; the rest is just Tarek and Luss.

 
Raptalk.Net: How can the fans get a copy of the album?

 
Luss: Right now we’re just banging them out around the area. People can holla’ at us through Myspace at www.myspace.com/tarekluss and will ship them out to all of our fans that hit us up and people around here. That’s probably the best way right now to get at us about it.

 
Raptalk.Net: What’s the label situation like right now? I know you guys are unsigned, but are you two in any negotiations at this time?

 
Luss: We have some labels that are interested in us. Right now, we’re just making sure we keep grinding out there and generating our buzz. We’re building up really big lately. We just want to keep grinding and putting out quality music. Whoever comes with the right offer, something that we can take care of our families with, that’s the route we’re going to go with. Right now, we’re going to be patient and whoever comes right with it, that’s what’s up.

 
Raptalk.Net: Now that “The Suicide Note” album is done and you’re currently passing around copies, are you continuing to work with Rikanatti today?

 
Tarek: As a matter of fact, we just talked to him yesterday. Since we’ve been fucking with Rik on this entire project, even with the album being out and what not; he’s passing them out and doing his thing. We sent him a shipment of albums and he’s sending those out to his connects. We still continue to talk to Rik and he’s actually about to send us another beat package and we’re going to continue to hit the studio and put music out there. You’ll definitely be hearing some Tarek and Luss over some Rikanatti beats soon.

 
Raptalk.Net: I like to ask independent artists this next question. If we could grant Tarek & Luss one music related wish right now, what would you guys pick?

 
Luss: That’s a tough one to ask. I guess I would have to say if I had one wish, I‘d have to ask for the absolute perfect deal we’re looking for. As we said, we’re trying to be patient and shop it out there for the right deal. It would be that perfect deal to come through.

 
Raptalk.Net: We appreciate your time. Do you two have any last words or statements for Raptalk.Net before we let you go?

 
Luss: Shout out to Raptalk.Net. We appreciate you guys hollering at us. I just want everybody to check for Tarek and Luss because we’re going to make some major moves in 2009; just keep checking for us and we really appreciate it homie. Good looking out.

 
Tarek: We really appreciate it. Shouts out to y’all for sure first and foremost. We appreciate all the love and support. Shouts out to Rikanatti and Ca$his. Shouts out to all our fans out there and everybody holding us down in the creek. We’re going to keep definitely doing our thing. We appreciate all the love and support.

As promised, here is a link for the "Life Of a Rider" track which features Ca$his and is produced by Rikanatti, straight from "The Suicide Note" album.

Download "Life Of a Rider" Here:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/57940508f56b90e3/