Murder Dog Archives


	David Banner Your last album, Them Firewater Boys Vol. 1 did really well for you. According to one local chain store you outsold major acts like R. Kelly and Cash Money in the Jackson Market, were you surprised? I was really surprised. When I originally did Them Firewater Boys Vol. 1 I did it with the hopes of it really putting me out there as a producer. It was more than just a solo album. It was me putting out the type of music I wanted hear. When I was doing the Crooked Lettaz album it was more of a movement. It wasn’t always what my boys liked. I hung around with thug ass niggas that wasn’t necessarily concerned about the movement. Even though I talked about those things on record, and did another. To some people it seemed like a conflict, but even though I would walk outside and see a murder that’s not necessarily what I wanted to talk about. So with Crooked Lettaz it was more of a movement of trying to change what my reality was. The Firewater Boys was more [of me] giving back to those who I grew up with, to Mississippi, to Jackson. This the type of music we listen to. This is how we do it. A lotta people thought that I was getting all of these artists to more or less sell my album. Yeah, that was part of it, but I was more or less trying to show people that, hey, I got beats. Listen to so-and-so rhyme over this type of beat. Listen to Noreaga rhyme over one of my beats. So initially, the album was also a showcase for your production? Well, it was two-fold. It was me really doing what I wanted to do for me and my niggas. What’s going on down here in Mississippi ain’t a hypothetical like I was talking about on Grey Skys. Usually when you’re talking about a movement, you want to move to something or it is the end result of something. It was a certain world that I wanted Black people to be in. I wanted Black people to be liberated so I rapped about it. On this album, I realized that, naw, we’re not liberated, we’re fucked up. So the Firewater Boys was more of what’s going on with us now. But it was still conscious…. Yeah, it’s just I wasn’t preaching at you like I was on the Crooked Lettaz album. I realize that I had to start where the majority of my people are at and that’s in the streets. When you first started you were an MC, how did you get started doing production? Man, I’ve been waiting to say this for so long, bruh. I never planned on being a producer. What happened was back in the day I used to do hip hop music. At the time nobody could make those type of beats down here. You gotta think, this was the late 80s, early 90s; it wasn’t hardly no rap being played on the radio so know it wasn’t nobody producing like that. So that was God forcing me to learn how to produce. So I met this guy who produced gospel music. He had a studio and some equipment and he wanted to do rap music, only he didn’t know anything about rap music. I did. So I made a deal with him. I said, I’ll teach you about rap music if you teach me how to be a producer. When I first started I didn’t wanna do nothing but rap. Initially, I was only producing for myself, outta necessity, not because I wanted to. I ain’t want to do nothing but rap. It’s sorta funny because now some people think of me as a producer first. How’d did that happen? Well, when I formed Crooked Lettaz, after that deal went so bad. I was so fed up with the rap game. Producing I could control. In rap everybody trying to manage ya, be ya lawyer beat ya or fuck you out ya money in some kinda way. I got tired of that. I didn’t wanna deal with that. So I just started producing. And at the time I wasn’t making no money rapping. I wasn’t never gonna see no royalties off the Crooked Lettaz records. The production was bringing in money. So it became about eating. And it didn’t wanna get back out in the streets, bruh. You know I use to do a lotta stuff that my family don’t know nothing about. Really? Like what? I’m not gonna tell you because one: I have too much respect for you as a person; and two: I ain’t stupid enough to talk about my shady past to the press; and three: I was ashamed of it. I was never proud of some of the stuff I had to do to survive. I was never proud of it. Some of it is so bad that I will never talk about it. Never! But I had to what I had to do because I was alone. I was never no high-capper. If I was doing dirt, if I was doing stuff illegally, if I’m a killer, I ain’t gonna talk about it. What I’m gonna tell ya about that for? How is your first solo album different from your work with Crooked Lettaz? And, most importantly, what brought about this change? Well, you have to realize that when I did the Crooked Lettaz album I was in college. A lotta rappers are scared to say that but, I’m gone be real with ya. I was in college. So my life was more protected than it was when I was in junior high and high school. Now I’m in the muthafucking streets. A lotta stuff that I talked about on the Crooked Lettaz album, I had a lot more time to think. On these solo projects I’m reacting. Nigga you bust at me, I’ma shoot back at ya ass. So you’re saying that the David Banner that was on the Crooked Lettaz album and the David Banner that on your solo projects are two different people, personality wise? The difference is that the David Banner before was more of a visionary. I think before I had an outsider’s view of what the world should be. Now this is what I’m really going through. This is what I really see. I’m not just talking from my perspective. Some things I say on this album I may not necessarily agree with them, but they are the reality regardless. You know a lotta people wanna deal with bullshit, but the truth is if you’re hungry, you gotta eat! Regardless to how you eat, you gotta eat. You may not agree with the means at the time, but you gotta put food on the table for them kids. And that’s what my new album Mississippi: the Album is about, this album is not all about David Banner, it’s about Mississippi. If you notice, I try to push more Mississippi. You don’t see David Banner on my T-shirts, you see Mississippi. That’s one of the major differences between me and a thousand other muthafuckas out there rapping, I’m speaking from the perspective of a young Black male from Mississippi. Not just David Banner, Not just the poor, not just the rich, not just the Ballas, but everybody, from poor to rich. But I can say that it’s from a Black perspective. I can say that. Speaking of Crooked Lattaz, what’s up with them? Right now, unless I can see how it gonna benefit me financially. I can’t see me doing another Crooked Lettaz album. So you’re saying Crooked Lettaz is dead. No, I’m not say that Crooked Lettaz is dead, because Crooked Lettaz is my creation. It’s a part of me so if I did another Crooked Lettaz album it wouldn’t be same because I’m not in that same creative space that I was when I did that album. And the people that supported Crooked Lettaz supported us with a passion and I take that to heart, but that’s not me anymore. I back in the streets now. Crooked Lettaz is a movement. It’s a vibe that I get. I don’t feel that right now. But if you sit down and really listen to my solo album you’ll notice that I’m still talkin’ ‘bout the same things. I still talk a bout Mississippi, which is what I did on the Crooked Lettaz record. Remember, it’s the M-I-crooked letter-crooked letter. I’m still talkin’ ‘bout God on my record. My label Bigface Entertainment….the Bigface stands for Believe In God For All Comes Eventually. And God has shown me that nobody in my crew is gonna rep Mississippi like I do. Nobody is going to care about what’s really going on down here in Mississippi until you make it cool for them to care. And that’s just what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna have the whole world screaming Mississippi. Speaking of the State of Mississippi, there’s a lot of talent down here, yet it goes largely ignored by the rest music industry? Well, I think that God works in his own time. If you really think about [Black] music in its relationship to America [historically] this where the greatest music of all time was born so why not let it be the last to shine before it goes back into that cycle of rebirth. That’s what I like…..Everybody else got they chance to shine. I didn’t do nothing but study. I’m not mad at ‘em. I’m grateful. It just fueled my fire. Fueled my pain. It was even better because people are not expecting me. Ya’ know, they got they Ja Rules, they got they Jay-Zs….no one would ever suspect Mississippi to do well. That’s why I love and respect Nelly so much because regardless of what anybody say about that man, he rep St. Louis. He put them on the map! He turned the music world on they back. Nobody ever expected him to do that. And that’s how I wanna be. Let ‘em sleep on me. Why is Mississippi so important to you? Ya see Mississippi is like a symbol for every small town. It’s all of the brothers and sisters who are in the pen and the world is counting them out and feeling like they ain’t gonna make it. That’s what Mississippi is to me. Mississippi is my state, yeah, but it is also a synonym for the people that’s down and out. It’s the people that already have two strikes and everybody else is waiting on them to get that third strike. You’re from Jackson, Mississippi, which seems to be the hub of most of the State’s musical activity. Most of the State’s most well-known rap groups come from Jacktown. Why is that? I think why a lotta groups come outta Jackson is the same reason why a lotta groups come from other major cities in other states. Jackson is the biggest city in the state. It’s the one that gets the most shine because it’s the most urban city in the state. But there’s actually groups in the smallest parts of Mississippi that bringing heat. You got your P-Boy Stones, you got your Billy Badasses, you got your Akus Smiths, you got your Deen Town Villains, whew! You got boys from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, you got boys from the Delta. You just got so many people all over that actually got quality music. Because with stuff like Protools, now you got people coming out the sticks that’s got music as good as anybody out here. It’s just that they don’t have the means to get it exposed to the world But Jackson also has a thriving music industry and a history of producing hit records on a national scale dating all the way back to the early days of Malaco, with Freedom, Dorothy Moore, Johnny Taylor, Bobby Rush and Booby Blue Bland all recording hit records right here in this city. Exactly. You can’t say that it didn’t play a part….and then from another perspective Malaco Records, which is located right here, is doing some of the top gospel albums in the nation, like the Mississippi Mass Choir. It’s a lotta reasons why people expect us to do well with rap. Then another reason is that a lotta groups don’t come to a lotta of the cities down here, but they do come to Jackson because it has remnants of a big city. I really think that it has a lot to do with it. One other thing that sets Mississippi behind was our technology. We didn’t have the same technology that everybody else had. And nobody was coming back and sharing that technology with us. When everybody left in the great Southern Migration, the goal was for people to leave and one day come back or take somebody with them. Nobody ever came back to teach us. Nobody ever told us about the MPCs, nobody ever told us about the Triton, nobody ever told us about the Neve boards, the SSL to record on. That’s one thing that I did when I traveled to different studios in New York and LA. I came back and told folk about that shit. But even then you had a lotta stores around here that was over-charging folk for equipment. There were a lotta instances where a certain keyboard may cost $1200 in New York or Atlanta they were charging $4000 dollars down here so we couldn’t afford to buy it. Now that you can get on the Internet and see it, search all over the world for equipment, now we got the same thing everybody else got. Now that we know about that shit, it’s on Muthafucka! It’s on! A lotta people say that Jackson looks a lot like Atlanta used to before it started booming. Hopefully, with this new wave of groups that’s coming outta Jackson, it’s phenomenal boy. I honestly think that I’m probably one of the less talented ones here, it’s just that I’m one of the ones that really getting the opportunity to really get out there. I was just blessed to be out there. You got some phenomenal groups that coming outta Jackson, who are probably some of the best in the nation. It’s probably good because God works in his own time. Okay, let’s talk a little bit about Jackson. I know that you grew up in the 90s when the FBI declared the City one of it top ten capitals for murder. It was a murder capital, that’s for sure. Niggas was dying like flies out here back then, When I was growing up Jackson was always in the top three. One year when I was in High School it was actually the Murder Capital of the United States. What was it like growing up during those times? I’m not gone lie and paint no picture. It wasn’t the worst, but it wasn’t the greatest either. It was wild because what would happen is since Chicago was right above us, when the cats would get in trouble in Chicago they would send them home to their grandmamma. And a lotta times they Grandmamma would be down here. So it was on in Jackson. But it was strange because Jackson had a façade about it. It would go from the most peaceful place that you would ever want to see to bullets flying everywhere. Then they would wipe the blood up and it would go back to being peaceful again. So a lotta people would come down and go man this ain’t no damn murder capital and would turn around and have a slug in they ass. Then they would pick their body up, wipe the blood off the street and Jackson would go back to being peaceful again. So it was some of the greatest times and it was some of the worst times. I remember a friend of mines named Chuck, he was the first one to ever get killed in Jackson through gang violence. I never forget that. He used to play video games with me at the Stop n’ Go in the Queens across the street from Westwick Apartments. That was the guy that got killed in the old Jackson Mall. Exactly. He was always one of the ones in the hood. I remember that change our neighborhood. That’s when it was on. That’s when it went from dance groups to gangs. It was on. It went from having fun to collecting guns. Then you got to understand that this was the same time crack hit the streets real hard. So that affected our hood so much, it affected everybody’s hood so much because the hood went from a place where you could get money. Like I said before, it’s about eating, not how you eat. It’s about survival. You can’t look down on that. If you tell a kid go to college and maybe you might get a job and live the American dream. Then again you might not. More than likely you won’t. Or here get this double up and go sell this bitch. What you gone do? How can you tell kid not to get his money. And that’s what I realize. How can you tell a kid not to make his money. And I watch that happen in my community. But one thing I always respected about the Queens is didn’t too many people come to our neighborhood fucking with us. A lotta neighborhood had to worry about that too much. We usually were the people who went to other neighborhoods and started shit and come back to the Queens [where] it was cool. The Queens was really violent, bruh, but it was a beautiful place to grow up. I can’t deny that. I enjoyed it there. I wouldn’t want to live no other place because we were still cool with our neighbors, but we still had urban life too. Like I said I’m not going to sit up here and paint this picture like it was the worst gang-infested area in the country. Naw, it wasn’t that, but it definitely wasn’t a bed of roses either. Okay, tell me about what was Jackson hip hop like? To be honest with you, Jackson hip hop was like a microcosm of the world. You had some really tight hip hop. You had some tight gangsta rappers. You had people like the Renegades. You had people like ya boy Ox Lover who was doing stuff. Then you had the Stewpot Stowaways. The you had this the group called….ah, what’s the name of Exit and nem click? You mean the one that US from DIRRT was down with? Yeah. What’s their name….Mental State of Mind. You had rival gangsta rappers and you had rival hip hop crews so you had to have a scene to have rivals. You had Wildliffe Society. You had Raggabumpkins, who was getting critical acclaim all over the nation. You had Mississippi Mafia. It was a group called US from DIRRT. Yeah, they were on the Crooked Lettaz album….. I had to put them on the Crooked Lettaz album. Back when these cats first started bruh, it was so abstract, it was like music that should’ve been out in 2005. Them young boys could hit. And they all were younger than me! They were amazing, bruh. And to see all of this stuff come outta Mississippi outta all of this pain! And that’s just what it is. It’s pain. That’s why our music is so dark. It’s painful living down here. But you were a part of the Jackson old school too. Yeah, the really old school… I started rapping when I was twelve. It was around 86, 87. I was in the Stewpot Stowaways. I was always the youngest. They recruited me because they had never heard nobody that could rap like that. But the thing was that the Stewpot Stowaways was actually based on Jackson State’s campus. I never went to Jackson State. I didn’t go up to Jackson State campus until I went to Southern (University of Southern Louisiana) because that was never a part of my life. I lived the Jackson life. I was in the streets so there wasn’t never a real need to go up there where the pretty boys at, ya know what I’m saying. How did you get involved with hip hop? I was deeply involved in hip hop at the time because I wanted to get away from the streets. I just got tired of watching niggas get killed. I wanted to get away from that for a minute. It was depressing to me. I’m watching my friends get killed, that’s serious! A lotta people laugh about death, naw, death ain’t nothing to laugh about. It’s something that’s serious. When did the Stewpot form? To be honest with you man, I really don’t k now when they were formed. From my understanding I came along at the ending years. I know that I started with them around 92. I had started with them in 92, but I had a lil’ local group and a DJ in junior high school. How would you describe Mississippi’s sound. In order to do that it’s gonna take a little bit of history. What people are gonna have to understand about the old Mississippi and the new Mississippi —and it’s almost a contrasting statement to say the old and new Mississippi, ya know what I’m sayin’. The music of the old Mississippi was the forerunner because all the musicians down here use to travel up the Mississippi River and take all kinds of music with them: jazz, blues, gospel, etc. They used to be the forerunners of the music, because everybody wanted to hear the blues, everybody wanted to hear that Southern shit. Ya know that Memphis sound, that Louisiana sound, that Mississippi sound. Hell, we Look at New York, them niggas run everything. Especially now that Viacom has taken over BET, every major media entity that deals with music is in New York. Your 106 & Park on BET, MTV, VH-1 all the magazines are located in New York. So what happens now Mississippi is right in the middle, right on the bottom so we get everything. If you look at our clubs we’re one of the few states where they still play house music. They even play house music in Mississippi. We get bounce music from New Orleans. We get Screw music from Texas. We get crunk music from Atlanta, and then they push the New York on us because we don’t have no choice. They ain’t got to go through no mix shows, New York music come straight on our radio stations, we ain’t got no choice but to listen to it down here. If you hear something a million times, you can’t help but learn to like it. Back in the day, they used to lump our music with the West Coast. They couldn’t see the difference between the two styles. We have a respect for all kinds of music down here so our music is almost a gumbo down here. Everything has been dumped on us. We didn’t have a chance to kick what we feel until now. So the Mississippi sound is a synthesis of all of the sounds we’ve been raised on. That’s why I think that they saved the best for last, because we’re gonna be sort of summery of what goes down in America period. We’ve been shitted on, we’ve been pissed on, we’ve been dissed. We’ve even been dissed by other states in the South! We’re the last state. So it’s time for us to stand up and gets some nuts. Yeah, we got a music sound, but what’s so great about it is that it’s undefined. It’s yet to be formed. It’s like a woman being pregnant right now. But when this kid is spit out, it’s gonna be the dirtiest, nastiest, dopest muthafucka that ever walked this fucking earth! David, when you went to New York to finish the Grey Skys album you had a lotta respect for hip hop in general, but when you came back you said, and I quote: "fuck hip hop, I don’t hip hop no more." Yep, fuck hip hop, I sure did say it. I’ll say it now, fuck hip hop. What happened to you in that period of time while you were in New York that made you say that? First off let me repeat myself and say fuck hip hop. The reason why I said that because hip hop was preaching: "keep it real." Hip hop was saying that it’s a culture. Okay, but we riding Cadillac’s on D’s and Vogues down here. We speak with a different slang, ya know what I’m sayin’. When Juvenile was saying ha on his record, he wasn’t saying that because it was a gimmick. That’s how they talk in New Orleans. That’s how we talk. So basically we by you not acknowledging my music that means you telling me fuck me and my people. I realized that. And these hip hop cats in New York would always say, "Yo, keep it real son! Keep it real." Remember when they used to say fuck R & b and the next month you’d see them New York cats on TV doing duets with Mariah Carey. Bu the month before that they was telling you to keep it real, be true to hip hop. Basically by them telling you that they was telling you to stay broke while they make money off your shit. Some of them same groups was dissing [Master] P because P was making money. He was making money. He was selling records. And turn around and said damn, gangsta niggas…the type of people that I hang around have been telling me that for the longest. Nigga get yo’ money. They weren’t painting facades like a lotta these hip hop cats were. I’ll never forget. I used to be a battle rapper. I would go around rapping against anybody that wanted it. I rap with some of the top cats in country and I waxed they ass. I mean I waxed they ass good. I murdered them. I’m talking platinum rappers. And after I’d finished they’d be like, yo kid where you from? You from Brooklyn? You from the Bronx? Where? And when I’d tell them that I was from Mississippi they whole persona would change toward me. They’d be like: Oh. But I thought it was about skills. That’s what I realize when went to New York that they didn’t care about nobody but them. And I realize that I could never be number one in their eyes even if I had the skills to be number one. Look at Common Sense, look at the Souls of Mischief, look at the Roots, look at Scarface and the Ghetto Boyz. Hell, look at how long it took Outkast to get the cover of a magazine! Look at how many platinum albums they had before they finally got a cover. Two. And they had been selling more records than a lotta those cats who get covers. I realized that I could never be equal. They get they stuff played on the radio down here everyday. Our stuff don’t get played down here on the radio unless we go quad-triple platinum. If you ain’t Cash Money…if you ain’t 3-6 mafia or if you ain’t No Limit or somebody that done sold platinum then you stuff ain’t gone get played on the radio in New York. But any of their little local cats can get radio play down here. I noticed that when they couldn’t sell their dope up there or wanted expand their operation, they’d come to some little small ass country town and sell they dope. It’s the same way with their music. The same damn way. People up there don’t buy music the way we do down here. They buy mix tapes. Them niggas don’t buy no records. They sell a lot of their record in our town. Then they gonna disrespect us. They gonna sell all of these units in Mississippi then they not gonna call Mississippi name out in they music. I got tired of that shit. I do shit for my niggas. And if anybody else out there like it then it’s cool, but it’s more of us than it is them. It’s more people in these country ass towns combined than it is them. It’s more people in the South and the rest of the United States than it is in New York. But, until just recently, over 90% of the hip hop music that you heard on the radio or saw on TV was them. If you notice that they didn’t respect the West Coast until Cube and them told those busters to bow down. Right now we got kids wanna be like them because that’s all they see on TV, that’s all they hear on the radio. I got tired of seeing our kids wanting to be like them, knowing they didn’t give a damn about our kids. Once I realized that they don’t give a damn about me, fuck yall. I don’t do hip hop. I do black music. Let’s talk a bit about Mississippi: the album. First off why did you decide to name it that? It would force people to say Mississippi. It honestly started out really no deeper than that. A lotta people expect me to put all type of deep philosophical meaning behind it. Nope. I just want people to say it. If you in a magazine and you writing about my album then you gotta write Mississippi because that’s the name of my album. If I’m on 106 & Park they gotta say David Banner and his new album Mississippi: the Album. You gotta say it. Mississippi. Everywhere I go. Cause I feel like God has blessed me with some of best music in the nation right now. So therefore if I got good music they got to talk about my album. If they talk about my album they gotta talk about Mississippi. If they put me on television I’m gone have Mississippi T-shirt so they gonna have to say Mississippi and they gonna see Mississippi. But as the I got into recording the album it took on a more deeper meaning. Then I started thinking I’m gonna make this thing more reflective of what Mississippi is really about, even some of the things that people don’t want me to touch on like Renard over in Kokomo Mississippi and Andre Jones in Simpson County, that got hung. I’m gone talk about that. Who did the production on the album? Well I did a lot of it. But I also reach out to other producer whom I like. What I did was I looked at all the music that I like and got some of the cats who produced the songs. I always loved Tela’s first album so I got Jazze Pha to produced a track for me. I loved a lotta that No Limit stuff. I liked Mac and Fiend. I especially loved Fiend so I went and got KLC of the Medicine Men formerly Beats by the Pound. I really like that song "Fighting" by the Goodie Mob so I went and got Mixso who did that track. I got DJ Low, he’s from right here in Jackson. I wanted to show that there were other people in Jackson doing something. I got Craig Love who played a lotta guitar on the first two Outkast albums and the Goodie Mob albums. I love Lil Jon. I love Jon’s music. He makes very emotional music like I do. He’s the king of crunk music. I gotta give him that. I got him doing a song. I feel like I got some of the tightest producers in the game. How does this album differ from your last solo album? Man, I never noticed this until I mad this album. On the last album I had so many thoughts in my head that I couldn’t wait to get out that it was almost like busting a nut. It was like a bunch of confusion. Don’t get me wrong the last album was dope to me. But with this album, I move in a direction like I finally found me. I know where I wanna go and I know where I wanna take people. It’s like I’m driving in a car and I’m controlling it now. I’m not just riding in a car. I’m driving it now. I know where I wanna take people. With this album from start to finish it like you’re walking down a road with me….you walking down a road to Mississippi. I’m rapping now like I did when I was back busting niggas ass in freestyle battle only this time I’m not just rhyming for the sake of rhyming. I’m rhyming, trying to put my state on the map. I really feel like this is my first real solo album. Why? As much as I hated to say it, the last album was more of a compilation album. Even though I still have a lotta people featured on this album, on last album I would just put people on songs, but, now, I’m a better producer so I know how to produce whole songs. I’m a real producer, not a beat-maker. There’s a difference between a producer and a beat-maker. I produce songs now. I know where I wanna go. I knew that there different aspects of Mississippi that I wanted to touch on and I know how to create music that fits each topic. I know how to create music that evokes the necessary emotion that the songs call for. So now it’s not just about putting out dope songs, it’s about putting out hit album with some solid directions. I got that now. I didn’t have that before. But I definitely got that now.
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