Diplomats
Interview with Juelz Santana by Charlie Braxton

You came up in the 80s. That was a golden time period for Hip Hop.

That was a golden time for everything—for hustlin, for Hip Hop, for everything. That was the time that you should have been in. Everything was changing. In the 70s, you had coke, you had a lotta different things going on at different times. In 80s everything was going on at one time. Then everything sorta coincided. You had the hustlers getting into the music. The music was into the hustlers…everything was just coinciding.

That’s when the music really started to reflect the grimy side of the street. That was the transition from the party Rap to hardcore reality Rap.

That’s what was going on during those day so you couldn’t really knock the party Rappers for what they were doing. That was their reality. In the 70s all that there was to do was party. Everything was a party. But in the 80s things got tight economically and everybody started taking everything real seriously.

Being from Harlem where there is a deep Hip Hop tradition dating all the way back to Kurtis Blow, I imagine that you listened to a lotta of the classic coming up?

Man, I listened to all of the classic Hip Hop legends: Kurtis Blow, LL Cool J, Afrika Bambaattaa, Kool Moe Dee. I listened to a lotta old school rappers because I grew up around a lotta older brothers and they was like putting me on to the classics. Like when you’re young and there’s a new rapper and you think he’s the shit and your older brother tells you to listen to this. I remember when we used to put on old school R & B. My parents used to play it a lot. That’s why you hear it in a lotta our music. We’re so used to hearing it that when we hear a beat with an old school sample we go hey that’s hot.

I like the way you used those old R & B samples in your music.

Our album isn’t just a put together album. When we talk about our music we call it powerful music because we talk about how we feel. When we get into the studio it’s gonna be real and it gonna be family. Everything all comes together and it comes together real well. It’s not like we’re in there playin, Oh let’s make a hit for the radio. The things that happened in our lives we want everybody to feel so when we rap we try to come across real strong, we just express things with emotions.

How did the name Diplomats come about?

Juelz Santana: Actually Cam and them already had it set up before I came along. They had they thing set up before I came along. They were older than me, so the Diplomat thing was already there. From what I know about the name it came about because we feel like we’re untouchable. We felt like we’re Harlem’s untouchables. Diplomats are people who are untouchables. You can’t do nothing to. You can’t arrest us. So that’s how we felt we were, we’re gonna be untouchable. We’re gonna be diplomats.

The first time that we heard from Juelz Santana was on Cam’s album Now you are in the forefront as a both as a member of the Diplomats and as a solo artist. Has it been difficult to make transition?

Naw, not really because I don’t really look at it like I’m the man. I’m just trying to be me. I look at other people as the man. I’m never happy—I’m never really satisfied. I don’t look at that as a bad thing because it’s what keeps me moving forward and never settle for what’s there.

Were you surprised that the album went over so well in the streets?

I loved the response that we got from the album. Everybody comes up to us and tells us that we loved the album, and that’s what we wanted. The sales weren’t what we wanted them to be, but that’s nothing to us as long as we have our credibility. The way we carry ourselves in the street you’d think that we were a double platinum group. That’s because we come across so strong that it’s like we’re household name.

Is your solo album different from the Diplomats’ album?

The Diplomats’ album is like us working together as a family. My album is Juelz Santana. It’s all of me. It’s my life. You’re going through the whole journey which is me now. It’s not me just coming through giving you a piece of me.

The thing that stands out about your work is that there seems to be a sense of catharsis. In other words you Rap with the intention of showing people your trials and tribulation as a means of inspiring them to do better rather than sensationalizing your life in the streets. It’s almost like there’s a moral code in your music.

It is, but it just comes like that too because that’s just the way I feel. Nothing is meant to be glorified; it’s just meant to be brought to your attention. That’s all, I’m trying to bring my life to your attention. I’m not glorifying it because my life wasn’t good. How can I glorify something that was not good? I can’t glorify selling crack. I can’t glorify shooting off guns. I can’t glorify the streets period. But I can present you the streets. I present you the drugs. I can show what that life is like.

What was it like for you growing up?

Like I said in a lotta of my interviews, I’m from the street so I went through the average thing that a nigga on the street went through--hustling and shit. I don’t like to glorify that because I feel that we’re all from the hood and we all pretty much have the same story. You know, struggling to get out you did everything that you could possibly do to get out. I done sold the drugs, I done held the guns, but that’s the life, that’s the hood life. You know how some people get in their interviews and say, yeah I had the guns, I had the block on smash. That’s the hood life. You ain’t nothing special B. The regular hood life is hard, man. I was in the streets every day holding guns if I had to, just doing me. But everything that I did in the streets I did so that I could get out of the street. My goal wasn’t to stay in the hood and be in the hood forever. Don’t get me wrong, I love the hood for sure. That’s my place, that’s where I grew up, but it’s like man, I did everything that I could to get out the hood.

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