A-WAX
Interview by Deyu Ntebya
What brought your recent collaboration with Gonzoe together?
A mutual friend from out on the East Coast was a big fan of both me and Gonzoe’s music. He’s the one who pitched the idea to us. When we heard about it we felt that it would be a positive project to work on, seeing as Gonzoe is from a certain gang and I’m from the opposite side of the tracks. We tried it out and it just worked out. It took us only a few months
to knock it out. A close friend of mine had the vision and he really executed it.
How does your style and his style work together? Does working together let your styles compliment each other or change the way you rap?
Gonzoe is a real LA rapper, he’s got a certain way of going about it. And I’ve got an unorthodox style myself. I think our styles do compliment each other. We got to play off of each other’s ideas and anytime you’re working with another rapper it inspires you to outdo the last verse. If his verse comes first, then when my verse comes I’m going to try and top it, and vice versa. With every song, as the album progressed, it became a good friendly competition. Just a “who gets the better of who” on each song. Not no animosity, only competition.
How did you being a rapper from the north and a Blood, and Gonzoe being a Crip from the south affect the collaboration?
It wasn’t a issue at all. It was all on a musical level, so all that situation didn’t come in at all. It was a positive experience, recording the album and traveling together. We did some videos for the record, and throughout we got along pretty good. We liked to smoke weed together and meshed on different things. The gangs and where we’re from never became an issue. We are grown up so it’s not like we were out there head tripping. We’re both in the music industry, and there is no real reason we shouldn’t get along.
How did you work out the distance and make an album while you lived on opposite sides of the state?
We caught a lot of flights, a lot of rental cars, just a lot of moving back and forth really. But all of that’s part of the Rap life anyway so it wasn’t like it was a big deal. I stayed out in LA for a while, had a little place out in Hollywood.
When you wrote the songs did you write together or separately and then put it together in the studio? What about the hooks?
As far as the choruses we took turns. He did the chorus on the first song, I did it on the second. We just went back and forth like that. Some of the songs were recorded in person and some of them were emailed. We just put ideas over the tracks and emailed back and forth what we liked until we finished it. In the end we had a whole bunch of extra leftover songs. We had recorded about ten, fifteen extra songs that couldn’t fit on the album, ideas that didn’t make it or we didn’t feel like it was good enough for the album. So we took all those songs and put them on a prerelease sampler and put it out for free as a promotion. We let that go for free so people could see how we’re doing and as a behind the scenes insight to how we made the album. Usually whenever I make an album, a fifteen song album, I make about twenty to twenty-five songs and choose the best ones for the album. We just tried to make the album as well rounded and tight as possible.
I know that this was a collaboration album, but usually when you make an album do you have an idea of how you want it to come out? Do you have a concept in mind when you start working on the album?
Of course, I always have a vision of where I want to take the album when I’m working on it. For this one we had two different visions, where I was moving toward more of a street album and Gonzoe had more of a mainstream album in mind. They were two visions, which contradicted each other. But I feel like in the end we balanced it out pretty well.
You are happy with the way the album turned out?
I think it came out perfect. I couldn’t have put it together better. Because it was a collaboration it didn’t turn out exactly like I wanted it and he couldn’t have exactly like he wanted it, but in the end it turned out better than what both of us could have envisioned on our own. Aside from a couple songs, I’m totally satisfied with the way it turned out.
You’re originally from Pittsburg in the Bay Area? Did you grow up there?
I grew up in the Pittsburg area until about 6th grade then I got into trouble, and moved out to Washington State. Got into some more trouble out there and spent a little time in prison and whatnot. From there I had to make a decision in my life: I was either going to pursue Rap and try and do something legitimate that wasn’t going to get me back into jail, or I was going to continue on the path I was on and be in there for the rest of my life. Thank God I found Rap music, it really changed my life and for the past eight years I’ve never had things better for me.
What made you really start getting seriously into Rap?
I really started getting into it when I went to prison. I got sentenced 78 months. A lot of people are lifting weights when they go in, I just lifted my pen and really started exercising. Studied a lot of different types of music from different areas, opened my mind up, really started listening. When I was in the streets as a kid all I listened to was Bay Area music, but I started listening to the Down South, Midwest, East Coast as well. I really studied the art itself and just tried to perfect it. I experimented with pulling things from other artists, things I liked, and incorporated them with my own style until I found my real own sound. It’s not so much that I would copy exactly what the other artists did. It’s more that I would appreciate the storytelling in the raps that certain artists would do, and that would inspire me to develop the storytelling side of my music. The way of telling a story descriptively or taking the obvious and showing it from your own perspective that nobody else has, and reach the listeners. When they hear something they relate with they become part of the music, just the way I would when I listened to Rap. When you keep writing you just go deeper and deeper into constructing the song and balancing it. Sometimes writing is not done top to bottom, start to end. I would find a line for the middle of the song, then go to the end and write upward. If I start with a real catchy line and the next line is just mediocre then it overshadows what I started with, which might be really powerful. And listening to Rap it really intrigued me, how talented some writers really are. It taught me, it really pushed me and drove me. Early on when I first started rapping in prison I felt like I couldn’t actually word what I was trying to say. I had been though a lot of experiences but I couldn’t put on the paper the way I saw it. It was kind of like Kobe Brant and the jump shot. He had to spend a lot of time in the gym to perfect that stroke. But now that he’s put in the work it’s easy for him, it comes naturally. With music I feel like it’s something that comes to anyone that really loves it and keeps on doing it.
And how long have you been rapping?
I started serious writing in 1996 but really didn’t put anything out until 2001. Before all that I was just a bang on the walls, bang on the table, rap with the homies in the yard. Wasn’t too much of a career or anything.
As you keep rapping do you see your style growing and going in directions that you didn’t expect?
When I first came in I was just aspiring to be like a Spice-1 rapper and even on the scale of Spice 1. I just enjoyed a certain type of music growing up, and I aspired to be that kind of rapper. As I grew as a musician and I started to experience things in life, now I try to bring a message in my music because I started seeing the affect that music could have on lives. It’s really something that can’t be ignored. When you are a musician then there is a sort of power you have that you can’t just abuse it. I’m trying to grow as an artist in that regard constantly.
What kind of messages are you trying to bring with your music?
About not getting stuck going to jail all the time and getting your freedom taken away from you. When you can go wherever you want or live life the way you choose you take it all for granted, and when you end up doing time all that’s gone. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to so you can feed your family, but in the whole scheme of things when you end up behind bars you are helpless and your family is out there with no help at all. Some people have no other options than to sell dope, they can’t see anything else. In their mind that’s their only option. But it’s not the solution. And sometimes you might just be doing it for a really stupid reason, to look like the guy you saw on TV or some shit like that. I try bring those messages in my music, things that I wasn’t thinking about when I was young but can see when I look back. When you’re young and from lower income housing and living in the inner city, you only see people around you in the same situation. When do see people who are not from that background their life seems unreachable and not similar to yours at all. And the person you see that is like you but successful is doing something like selling drugs. It’s not like we have a lot of ideas, and that looks like the only way out of the tunnel. Even now it’s not like I see a lot of job opportunities. A lot of people don’t have options.
When you do art, like you’re doing now being a musician, you bring a lot into your community. That’s good way to get out of the cycle of going to jail, or of working a job you don’t care about for very little money. You can make some money and do something that’s meaningful to you.
Yeah, but it’s not for everybody. A lot of people rap but that doesn’t make you into a rapper. I lost a lot of money on it and I had to learn the ins and outs of how to get your CD distributed and how to promote and how not to promote. Who is going to do good business with you or who’s going to steal your money. The practices going on in the independent music industry alone is enough to leave a sour taste in someone’s mouth. But like anything you have to learn it, you can’t just step into anything and expect to prosper off luck. You have to do a lot of footwork. Just me being in the music says a lot about my determination to put out my albums and get my music out there. I never had no big label coming up to me saying, here’s a whole lot of money with a record contract. My whole career’s been on my dime. I put everything into this. I had people that looked out for me and people I built relationships with, but with them I still would have been putting out my music. I’m not afraid to invest in myself because I believe in myself wholeheartedly.
Being an independent artist meant that you didn’t take anything for granted and you also probably have a lot more control over what you wanted your music to sound like.
I’m grateful for that too. Sky’s the limit with my content and what I want to say. Even with my artists I’ve really got it going, I’ve got about seven or eight artists on my label Pie-Rx. I’m involved with all their music and how it comes out. I’m interested in a certain overall feel for the label. That’s my vision for it and I’m going to stick to it. We all get together, all my artists, and it’s not like everyone writes and goes into the booths and then you hear what happens, I want everyone to be on the same page and to be in the same groove when they are making a song. I want everyone to share input and insight. How else are we going to grow if we can’t even communicate with each other as artists? When I work with another artist like with this current project with Gonzoe I like to keep it that way where we feed off each other and make each other grow as artists.
You see things a certain way and you have experiences that shape the person that you are. It’s the same with the rappers you’re working with. So when you work together it opens both of your minds to see what you wouldn’t see. The music gets better because of that.
With my artists it’s like being a father and not wanting my kids to make mistakes. When they get in the studio I don’t let them make the same mistakes I made when I was coming up on my own. I’m going to teach them to become entrepreneurs on their own. The same as I’ve helped them and set them up, they can take that knowledge and set up their own record label and help new artists come up. I’m not concerned with the money or getting them into long contracts. I more concerned with giving them a door to walk through. But everybody is not going to be able to do the whole running of your own label. You can give someone a formula of exactly what you did but everybody doesn’t work the same. Everybody does their thing differently, and some people don’t make it at all. Maybe they are better at something completely different that I can’t do at all. Maybe they are in the wrong place. Some people are really good at making relationships and keeping together a record label, some people aren’t. That doesn’t make them a bad musician, but it’s harder to get your music out there. I just try to open the door for the people on my label.
As an independent how does the way the music industry is changing affect you? Which direction do you see Rap going?
Rap is Rap. I think it’s doing great. Sales are down and downloading is a dilemma, but with merchandising and touring there’s money enough for any artist. It our responsibility to get our buzz out there, and if we don’t have enough buzz to make our record sell it falls on our lap. You can’t point fingers at anybody, that’s how I feel. There are good aspects to online downloading as well if you step up your game. Like you can’t buy records from an independent artist if they aren’t in your area. Right now I have people all over the country or in Europe and overseas who bump my stuff. They send me messages on myspace sometimes saying, “Hey, I had to download your music cause I can’t find nowhere to buy it.” And I can understand that. I would rather they listen to my music than not. And then I got a lot of old albums that I only pressed a certain amount of and I’ve never reprinted. If it wasn’t for bootlegging it wouldn’t even be accessible. For an artist it’s much better if people are listening to your shit rather than it being some exclusive collectors item. It’s a double-edged sword. The sales are down, but I can be everywhere. It can be as bad as I want.
You grew up in the Bay Area and then you moved up to Seattle. Was that a whole different scene up there?
Up there a lot of LA gang members have migrated. In California everybody is fighting for a position, everybody is cutting each other’s prices and lowballing. It started trickling out of California. I got into it in the Northwest. All the gang members that came up and settled in, their way of life settled in up there too. Going to parts of Seattle can be pretty much like going to Compton or wherever. The gangs are in control, and that was the way of life up there. That’s where I got into all that. You start losing friends, and you just get deeper into it all and have strong opinions on different gangs.
You weren’t doing music at that time?
No, I was just a kid. I went to prison at sixteen. I was tried as an adult so I didn’t go to juvenile hall; I went straight to prison. At that point I had been into the gangs for about two years since about age fourteen. The world was black and white to me, in a Blue and Red pattern. When I went to jail it really opened my eyes. Some of my friends weren’t my friends no more, and it turned out that I would be getting along with some of the Crips. It made me see the world for what it was. I learned a lot in jail, but I ain’t going back. There’s a lot of people expecting me to go back, to continue the cycle. I have a lot of friends in there that I still keep in contact with. But now that I’ve been in there and got out I really appreciate my freedom and I don’t take it for granted. I don’t want it taken away from me again.
What are you working on right now?
I’m working on my next solo album. I have mixtape that is coming out soon. I’m working on a whole lot of songs for my album. Production wise I’m going to be working with Jake One, Rick Rock. I’m going be working with The Game, Lil Wayne and Akon. It’s going to be an album with a major sound.
Interview with Gonzoe
“Recession Proof”, your album with A-WAX turned out to be a classic. How did the project come together?
Actually the album is already debuted at #46 on billboard. A-WAX is nigga that a lot of cats I was fucking with at the town had a problem with because he was really speaking his mind. He spoke what’s really right for the streets, about snitches, what we should be abiding by. I’m from the Regime, and some of them and A-WAX didn’t see eye to eye on that issue. As far as I’m concerned, if a nigga’s got talent I fuck with ‘em. This is a nigga that even before we even said hello to each other, we was on the business level, let’s do this album. Once I got to know him and got to know what his gripes was about these guys that I knew, I was able to make my own observations. I’m a street nigga too, I don’t fuck with snitches, I don’t fuck with cats who ain’t one hundred street. So it was a perfect fit for us to do the album. Someone came to us with the offer to do the album, I didn’t know A-WAX before. It was supposed to be that I was mad at him because the guys I was associated with and guys he was associated with didn’t get along. I didn’t see a joint project to be feasible or to be a problem either, because I had never even been in the same room with him. Once I met him and got to know him, that’s my nigga.
When did you actually meet A-WAX?
I was on the phone with John Ferrlido who owns the label I’m on, he’s a big A-WAX fan. He had signed me a couple months earlier. And he’s trying to build his label, so of course, everyone on his label, he’s going to want them to get along. He was like, “Hey what do you think about doing a project with A-WAX?” He asked both me and A-WAX and it was like why not? We didn’t have a problem with it because we stand for the same things. If muthafuckas is snitching, molestin’ babies or doing shit that’s not accepted in the hip hop community, I’m not going with it. And even if it is accepted in the hip hop community, I’m from the Crenshaw district and I gotta go home. So I can’t just associate with anybody or go along with anybody’s beliefs. So me and A-WAX stand for the same things and we just made it happen.
Being part of The Regime, was it an issue that you did a project with A-WAX?
Some of the niggas in The Regime reached out to me. We talked about shit. But once again I don’t give a shit about anything, I’m from the Crenshaw district and niggas gotta come down and see me. You gotta come to Los Angles. If it’s not right, I’m not riding with it. Fuck rapping. So in the situation with A-WAX, he was right and they was wrong, no matter who’s more popular or whatever. The streets is going to love who’s right and this man was right. I mean, if one of your brothers was got with fourteen kicks and the nigga that got caught with him got three years and your nigga get washed up, there’s going to be some animosity about it.
To you the streets are more important than the music and being famous. The streets are what you’re about, is that what you are saying?
No, my family is what I’m about. My mother is the first lady that was on “American Gangster”. And my dad, do your research. I gotta go home. All that rap shit, I didn’t graduate from school and happened to become a rapper with Ice Cube and Tupac. But that was never my destiny to the streets. My folks hold the street morals. So if a muthafucka is snitching, they don’t give a shit how cool they name is. I gotta go home and I don’t associate with people that deal with the police, period. And I don’t hang with people that backstab their friend. That’s it, and that shit goes along with all street morals and all street ethics. As far as I’m concerned, as Gonzoe from Tupac’s group the Outlaws, this nigga die for this shit. So if niggas is going to act like shit didn’t happen I’m not going to go along with it. I can’t, I’m sorry.
Was it different to get the album done as both of you are from different parts?
Me and A-WAX handled working out the album and not being in the studio together perfectly. It gets done. He’s married, I’m married, he has kids and I have kids. Our whole thing is that music is second.
To us family comes first. I’m in Oakland at the moment, I live in Arizona now, but I’m from Los Angles. So we compromise, if it’s shorter for me to fly to him and B-12 because they’re in one spot then that’s what I’m going to do. It’s a family: Blockwise, Clarex, my cousin Jason, B-12, A-WAX, Bandana, Dirty Red.
Why did you and A-WAX decide to call the album “Recession Proof”?
If we were signed to Atlantic or Def Jam or Interscope we probably wouldn’t of named our album “Recession Proof”, hell no! Cause the nigga’s on them labels is like slaves. They names is big, but they not as big as us, cause we’re getting paid every month. Our families are reaping the benefits. Opposed to being a big star on BET or MTV and you still gotta go home to the ghetto. Me and A-WAX, we don’t live in the ghetto. Big houses, big cars, big diamonds—we’re happy. We associated with the right people and don’t have to sell out. These days that’s what hip hop is all about. They make a lot of noise but they ain’t making any money. So we are Recession Proof. We are untouchable right now. Fuck all that shit. Me and A-WAX we’re burning money. We’re fucking burning it. Because we handle business. We get a song they get it back the same day. A-WAX didn’t use the Bay to fucking build his name in being a household name. Certain people did. They will not leave the Bay, they are not interested in fans outside the Bay. Once he made that move with Akon, niggas didn’t wanna believe it. It’s just a whole big ass thing of shellfish in a bucket. Ya’ll want to call it crabs in a bucket, but I’m a Crip so I’m goin to call it shellfish in a bucket. We’re not here to pull each other down.
Are you touring right now to promote the album?
Actually we’re about to start touring. We’re just booking the dates. We’re going everywhere and anywhere. The independent game is where the money is. All these cats who have major deals, they starving. They are on BET and still living in the projects. It’s just crazy. If you are really an artist and are really in control of your situation then join the independent movement. The major movement is only here to rape you.
