HUSTLE MADE

Hustlemade Bugz
Interview by Black Dog Bone

I heard you have a lot of albums out?

I got two singles that’s on the radio right now. I got albums out. I got groups out. My new album is coming out. I’m the only cat in my town with artists on my album, Young Buck, Lil’ Flip. I got a double disk coming out in a month, me and my team. It’s the first album that’s going to break a record.

What was your first album?

The first album of the Hustlamade Bugz was Heart, Street & Hustle. That was the very first album that Fam-le Tree ever put out. But we had sixteen mix CD’s out. We do mix CD’s every three weeks. We print up a thousand new CD’s every three weeks. We’re upstairs working on the seventeenth right now.

How do you sell them?

We get it out in the streets and we get it out in the internet. We don’t never put them in the stores because we don’t put mixes in the stores. You put them on the streets or on the internet. We put our barcode albums in the store.

Who is Fam-le Tree?

Hustlamade Bugz is a solo, but Fam-le Tree is a group and it’s a label. Fam-le Tree is four people: Hustlamade Bugzy, Gangsta Grim, Birdman and Young Locstar. Now it’s a whole lot of new artists, but that’s what it was built on for the last four years. I’m also a solo artist.

What was the second product you put out?

The second product we put out was an album called Impregnable. The third album was called Mouth Pieces. The fourth album was called Ren Da Birdman. The fifth album was called Hustlamade Bugzy: 108% Persistant. The second one was Hustlamade Bugz: Volume 2 of 108. The sixth one was Mouth Pieces Volume 2. The seventh one was Fam-le Tree All Stars. The eighth one was Mr. So Heavy.com. That paid a lot of bills. "Mr. So Heavy" was the summer anthem last year.

Who’s distributing your record right now?

Urban Life and Select-O-Hits. Them two for right now, and then the owner of Seventh Heaven is mainly going to be pushing it. He’s helping us out with the first ten thousand. We’re putting them in his hands. He’s going to be mainly the person putting them in the other distributors because he’s got access. That’s how we’re really starting it off with our distribution.

Is this new album Hustlamade Bugz or Fam-le Tree?

This album is Fam-le Tree, Real Talk, Real Street. That’s what’s coming out in the next three weeks. We just did sixteen mixes and we haven’t had a full length album out in nine to eleven months. We’ve been doing so many mixes that we had to let our fans know that this is the real talk, the real street and the real album. It’s a Fam-le Tree thing. Of course Hustlamade Bugz and everybody’s on it. It’s a twenty-four track album, double disk.

Have you mainly been hot in the CD’s through the mix CD’s?

We got hotter. What happens was, we was selling barcode albums like they was mixes. At the time we didn’t know to put them in stores and use the mixes to build up a buzz, so we was already hot in the streets. When we started doing the mixes, we got hotter. We got so spoiled with the mixes that we didn’t put nothing in the stores. And now it’s the demand. Now we’re on the radio and our albums not even out yet so it’s even more demand. We got the mixes, we got the radio, we got the number two song in the club. Our album isn’t even out yet so when it comes it sure gonna sell because we done locked down the radio, the club and the we got the streets.

Are DJ’s playing you in the clubs also?

Most definitely. We got the number two and number three songs in the club and we got two songs. And the deejays is playing it.

Are you working on a solo album?

As we speak. We’re working on it right now. That’s why I was saying let us call you back so I can go downstairs and talk to you. I got big bucks and cheese behind that. I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about the Hustlamade Bugz album is going to be on the Fam-le Tree and another label because I did another deal with a label down in Dallas. They’re about to put out the next Hustlamade Bugz album. They got a lot of other revenues for Bugz because you know Hustlamade Bugz is part of Screwed Up Click.

Is your music more club type, crunk type stuff or is it more like the Midwest stuff we heard before?

Honestly, the "So Heavy" song is number one in the street and the club. We do street material. We didn’t do what we had to do to get in, like we know we had to do a club song. You might have three club songs and twenty songs on the album that’s all street. We love this street music period. The underground is really where it’s at with us. We do a couple mainstream songs but the underground songs are professionally done. We just use the mainstream songs for the club and the radio. But we’re like Murder Dog, man. We love the underground. I’m telling you, I’m Murder Dogged out over here. We love the underground. We do what we have to do to get on the radio but our radio songs and our club songs still got the grimy edge to it. The "So Heavy" was already a street song, but the public and the fans made it cross over to the club and the radio. We didn’t. We did it straight for the streets and we put it on the album and the streets. The club made it crossover. We didn’t. We just did it straight for the streets and we put it on the album. The streets and the club made it crossover. We didn’t. But that’s the type of songs we’re trying to do. It’s still street, it’s still gutter, it’s still ghetto.

You’re doing it for the streets, but some got hot in the clubs?

That’s what happened. The Fam-le Tree, we’ve been having this plan for the past seven months. This whole program that we’re going through right now as I’m sitting is a plan. I already knew what the radio and the clubs was expecting when we was working on this album from having other albums out and from traveling. We knew what type of songs we had to work. It was kind of like going to a basketball game for the first time and then going to the playoffs knowing what to expect this time. We already knew what kind of album to make. I made a radio edit song on purpose. I did a gutter, street radio edit song on purpose and then made it clubbish on purpose and didn’t have anything to worry about taking the cussing out. We made a hard street song without cussing on it. Just made one. We made it so bad that it was the one that took off in the club and the radio because we was prepared for it. We already had the right producers and the songs we need. We had scouts in all the clubs and the streets. We’ve been working. No disrespect for the stores. That’s why the stores buy our music C.O.D. now. When they don’t want to buy our music C.O.D. we just go right outside and sell two thousand in front of them. And they see we’re selling it. We already been prepared for the radio and the streets. That’s why out of the twenty-four songs, twenty are for the street and the other four is for the clubs and for the radio. You can’t lose because it’s double disk.

Do you put other artists on your mix CD’s or only your artists?

We do Fam-le Tree and whoever else comes through the city. We got Killa Tay on something. We got Lil Flip on something. We got a lot of people on our mix CD’s but some of the stuff we put on the mix CD’s we know we could never sell in the stores. We know we got so much clout on the streets and the internet, we’re going to sell three thousand here and such and such there. The mixes are crazy. You know how the mixes work. You’re Murder Dog.

You are doing a lot of records.

We got our own studio. We keep recording stuff. We just put it out there. Like this Real Talk, Real Street album, the public picked every song. That’s how we do an album. We put out all these mixes with thirty songs on them. And I get a hundred emails telling me what songs they like. And if a hundred people say they like a song, that song gets on the album. We got so much material.

Who produced all your material?

Right now, we just two in-house producers because we just lost one. Our in-house production is already set. Our got a production deal with Jermaine Dupree and he used to do all of our tracks. But we still have the same producers and sometimes we deal with Don Juan.

Do you have your own studio?

We don’t master here but we have a full fledged studio. If we don’t record here, we record at S to the B’s. Then we take that and we go get the master.

What have been the key to selling your record? What made your name so hot in the streets?

What made Hustlamade Bugz so hot in the street is that everything backfired on everyone else in the city. People here record an album and they run it up to Seventh Heaven and they expect it to sell. Whereas when I come in, every day you see me and four cats in our trucks and our cars passing out flyers and selling CD’s everyday. What happen is people got to start seeing it so much and that they started seeing our music everywhere. Between us and other cats here, we really grind out our music. Some people don’t do that. They think they go to the studio and take it to the store but don’t sell it. They don’t promote here. They think that because they got somebody’s name on an album that it’s going to sell. But they don’t go test the streets, go test the clubs, go shake other people’s hands. They don’t do a lot of that here. That’s how I got the name Hustlamade. I was out in the street hustling this music. That’s why we got mixes out every three weeks. It just be selling. That’s how we got hot in the streets because we’re always in these streets.

You got a name from the mix CD’s, hustling in the streets and putting out posters and flyers.

It’s everyday grinding. In the studio everyday and out here selling. Seriously, I sell a thousand disks. We have five units, and in these units we have four people, and well send all four units to different areas. I’m in Unit A. We sell music. That’s our thing. That’s how we got our name and our whole clout. Our whole vibe came from the street hustling the music. Now I got the stores wanting us. That comes from work. Being on the streets and selling all that product.

Are the rest of the people in Fam-le Tree your family or outsiders?

We really are family. We got my brother, we got my nephews and we got my cousins. We really are family. That’s another reason why we call ourselves Fam-le Tree. It use to be a problem that we never looked at it like it was a label because we was family. But what happened was we had to start looking at it like it was a business. And take care of family shit like it was a business. It’s a family thing. That’s the reason why it’s called Fam-le Tree. There’s no outsiders. There’s probably two outsiders. We just signed two new artists but outside of that, it’s just family. Even my sister who’s an artist on the label, is really my sister. It’s Fam-le Tree.

Which side of Kansas City are you from?

I got love for Kansas but I’m from Missouri. 816. We are Missouri. And we’re not Nelly’s side either. We’re in Kansas City, Missouri. The grimy part.

What neighborhood did you grow up in?

I’m from the Fo’ Block. That’s just the Forties. The Forties stretch from the Eastside all the way to the Westside of Missouri. The Forties are where I’m from. The other side of my family is from the Southside.

Would you say you have a real Kansas sound or do you have more of a Bay sound?

No disrespect, I don’t want to say we sound like the Bay. I don’t want to say we sound crunk. I don’t want to say we got lyrics like the East Coast. I’m gonna say, we got the Bay, we got the crunk, we got the lyrics, we got the screw, all in one package. You got to understand something too: we’re screwed up over here. We’re so versatile. We bang Screw. We bang the Bay. We bang the South. The crunk. That’s what’s on our CD. The last four songs on our CD is Chopped & Screwed. Then we got some stuff on the Bay. We love the Bay. We love Arkansas. We love Texas. We’re into all of that. We’re a package in one. You can drop us off in any of them areas and we’re going to be able to relate. That’s how I would describe our music. We will get crunk. And we’ll slow it down and be screwed up.

What did music did you listen to when you were growing up?

I was listening to West Coast, East Coast drama when I was growing up. What I listen to now is West Coast music, Down South music, and anything that’s underground and is hard as hell. I listened to Messy Marv, Rich the Factor, Killa Tay, DJ Michael Watts, Mike Jones, Paul Wall, Fam-le Tree, Hustlamade Bugz, I love Gangsta Grim’s music. I just love South and West Coast music period. Brother Lynch. I just love music. They can drop us off in Texas. They can drop us off in the West Coast. We’re the only cats in Missouri that’s banging Screw.

I heard that Screw music was getting pretty good out there. Is that true?

That’s true but that’s because of us. We’re twenty minutes from Kansas. There’s a bridge right there between Missouri and Kansas. Kansas is all screwed up. Missouri is mostly from the West Coast area. We’re the only cats that bang that.

Do you do a lot of shows out there?

We just got back this last weekend and did a show in Nebraska. We got a show in St. Joe, we got one in Des Moines, and this weekend coming up too. We do shows but we do shows in big states lately. The last show we did big was in Atlanta but that was like four months ago. But we do shows in all the small towns around us about three times a week regularly. We’re trying to expand the show game and that’s why we got new management. That’s their job to expand us to get more shows and exposure. If they’re not good at their job, they’re going to get fired too.

You always travel and play the towns around you.

There’s like six college area towns around us. We go do all those shows. We’re in good with some of the colleges too. Even if it’s not a show, if there’s an event then we get to come and perform. Our hustle strategy is different from everybody else. Even though we’re starting to get more money than we ever had, we still be in those streets. That’s what made us. I’m not going to lie and say if I get a million dollars would I still go in the streets and do my thing. I’m not going to say that. We got a different hustle than everybody else. The internet and the streets been saving us. We haven’t been in the store for almost twelve months. This will be the first time around in twelve months, but we got sixteen mixes out. And I’ve sold two thousand for each mix. This albums about to sell like crack.

What college towns have you played?

Nebraska, Columbia, Topeka, St. Louis, Lawrence, St. Joe, Des Moines. We perform in these seven areas on the regular. We’re trying to get outside of that. We’re trying to go over to the Bay and perform. We’re trying to be up in Texas and perform. We want to go up in Minnesota and perform. We got a new management team we’re working with and they’re pushing some buttons for us. We did this show in Nebraska that was kind of big. And we sold a whole lot of CD’s. I was cool with that. We got paid for that, sold CD’s and had a good show. If they keep doing it like that, I think we’re going to get a whole lot more shows.

Hustlamadebugz@blackplanet.com/816-405-7588