Halftime: How’s Chi Ali doing have ya’ll visited him?

Dres: I went to see him when he was on the island. He’s upstate now. I spoke to his mom the other day. I speak to him every once in a while but not often at all. He’s aiight. He’s holding his head and definitely maintaining. He’ll be a relatively young man when he comes home and the world is still there. He made a mistake and he’s definitely paying for it.

Halftime: How did you guys initially hook up with him?

Lawnge: Chi Ali was Chris Lighty’s lil man back in the days. Chris Lighty wanted a kid rapper and he put Chi on. Chi didn’t write or anything. He was just a little pretty boy. So Chris decided to get some producers and writers to put together an album. So it ended up that the Beatnuts did the album and I did the one single “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number.” Then everybody said he looked like Dres so that was the association. Everyone kinda really forced that relationship like is that Dres’ little brother? It was like no but we know him. That’s how we really connected.

Dres: There’s a lot of love though.

Halftime: I saw a turntable the other day hooked to a computer where you could scratch what’s on the radio with it but you can’t play records. As a DJ what do you think about them coming out with new equipment like that? Is it a shortcut?

Lawnge: As long as technology can be used in a positive way I’m not mad because today’s generation doesn’t even know what a record is. I’ve been in record stores where teenagers are selling vinyl and don’t have a clue what it is. So that might be there only link to what hip hop is. The bigger companies are trying to phase [vinyl] out and some people are holding on to it. For me I look at it either way. Technology could be good or bad. I keep a turntable because that’s what I want. We perform from CDJs because that’s clean, loud and dependable but at the crib I got turntables.

Halftime: What is your definition of an artist?

Dres: I would say soulful, harmonic and just capable.

Halftime: Nowadays the labels are really stifling creativity. What advice would you have for a young artist who is going to a label but wants to be able to express themselves?

Dres: I think every road is different. It’s more about who you know and how you know them. It’s about relationships so don’t be afraid to get out there and bump elbows with the world and make viable music. The music has to be viable and something the world needs. At the same time that’s not enough. You have to get out and make those relationships. That’s what it is.

Halftime: After you guys released Non Fiction the group split. What was the catalyst to the breakup and how did you guys get back together?

Dres: I think we were kind of disillusioned with the industry itself especially when we found out what an artist makes and with the second album we just weren’t feeling it. I think amongst each other we just got to a point where we had spent a lot of years together and we were establishing families and the music wasn’t necessarily validating us. We were making money but not the money cats are making now. It was cool but not enough to validate us to go through all of the bullshit we were going through. So we just stepped away from it. It was just that simple. Coming back I definitely grew to miss him. As far as hearing everything that kinda goes on now in music I kinda feel like I should create an option. I’m hungry to do something right now and that’s where my head is at. We have a lot of mutual friends and wound up being in the same circle a couple of times and we were just like this is a good time to come back.

Lawnge: I came into the game straight out of high school. When I graduated high school I moved back to NY and that’s when everything started. Like he said we were pretty much kids. I looked at it like I never had a chance to be a regular person and I didn’t live music. Some people live music but I didn’t want to live music I wanted a life as well. So that was the perfect opportunity for me to just live outside of music. Then I just developed a passion to get back into music. The music aspect is what I wanted to do not the whole anticipation of what ya doin or the in your business aspect. That causes stress and confusion and that’s the part I didn’t like.

Halftime: How was it when ya’ll came back to work on the new album? Were there any problems with chemistry or was it immediate once you got back into the studio?

Dres: As far as the new project we just reached out to a lot of new cats. We felt like we did what we did but the sound out there now is different. It’s a much more progressive and much cleaner sound. So we felt like we should just ease our way into the game so to speak with something that’s familiar. Let’s definitely use our ears and come up with something creative but we felt we should work with different cats we felt were talented and create other projects. From there we felt it would be much easier for us to do what we do as far as a group.

Halftime: What really had you take a step back from doing the production Lawnge?

Lawnge: Well….

Dres: I just told you that’s what we decided to do. We decided to reach out to different cats. Lawnge does beautiful tracks and we have a project to come out right after this that will be a reintroduction.

Halftime: We rounded up a bunch of questions from fans so we’re gonna shoot those at you. The first is even though you guys were with Native Tongues you didn’t do too many collabs and were never featured on any Tribe or De La albums. Why was that?

Dres: I don’t know. When we stepped away from music we stepped away from the whole scene.

Halftime: What was up with the Van Damme and how did that become your trademark?

Lawnge: Rest in peace to the dude from X-Clan. He was always screaming that Van Glorious and to me I was like that’s enough of that. I was tired of hearing it and was pretty much just having fun.

Halftime: What had you be like I’m really gonna call myself the Sugar Dick Daddy Mista Lawnge and have people sing it?

Lawnge: A comedian cat that I met back in the days told me a joke about a pimp. Back in those days everybody had a title. This cat was named G. George and he was on the train telling crazy jokes and the pimp’s name was Sugar Dick Daddy. I was like oh that shit is kinda slick so I just took that and ran with it.

Halftime: Compared to back in the days what are some things in the industry you’re not feeling right now?

Dres: Just the camaraderie. Brothers have to learn to share what they’re fortunate to have. There’s room regardless of whose making what. There’s room for us all to make something. And let a cat know yo I dig that. Brothers aren’t giving it up to each other either which creates this bullshit tension. If we really evaluate what we have today we can make some real moves together. We really got it good but it seems like we won’t see that until after the fact.

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Posted by Jbutters on Monday, December 18th, 2006 and is filed under HIP HOP ICON SERIES.