Who have you built beyond me? You should be asking yourself who have you built beyond me? What record has come out after Pete Rock and CL Smooth in this town? And this is what they call ‘Money Earnin’ Mount Vernon. You got Yonkers eating like it’s going out of style. How are you not breaking other artists? I would respect him and the industry would respect him 100% if he broke a brand new artist, broke him a new Eminem and said fuck you CL Smooth. I don’t got to do those Snoop and Dre records anymore I got Eminem and I got 50 after that but that’s not happening. He’s not allowing himself to be there so I was very disappointed. I speak on it when it’s presented to me and I feel like I need to speak on it. I feel like people need to know it’s not selfishness on my part. I demand excellence and when you demand excellence you will not take shit. You work hard and give it 100% and a nigga think he can just throw you some SP 1200 shit. Niggas ain’t even working on that motherfucking shit no more B. You think you can come with that regular take it to the next level shit and everything has the same motherfucking drum pattern in it. All you’re doing is speeding it up and slowing it down, what is that? You’re being fucking lazy. If you can’t get a fucking orchestra in here, some horn players or your own Soul Brother band in here by now you ain’t fucking doing it. You ain’t being Pete Rock. If we gotta pay for all of these samples you’re not Pete Rock no more, you’re whoever you sample. That’s my whole shit. We gotta grow dawg. You can’t be on your own dick in this game. You gotta be humble and be like if you still got it and you’re connected to the streets what do you want? If I walk into his house with a mink coat on he’ll make me a beat and I’ll be like that shit is crazy. He’ll be like yea I was looking at your mink coat and it just made me make a beat. So I’m figuring oh this nigga is coming back. We’re really doing our thing right now and that shit will last for a hot minute and then it just got disappointing and aggravating. I didn’t hide what I felt. I’m like yo what the fuck are you doing? I didn’t come back here to be playing no kid games. This is not what I want to do talking to your woman about my business. I want to talk to you. Now you want my woman to talk to you and your woman to talk to me like what the fuck is this. My woman is just supposed to be over there and be happy and make the sandwiches and shit and serve the kool-aid.

Halftime: Haha, oh shit

CL: How is she gonna relate to pause button and sample clearing? If you ask her who Tom Scott is she is gonna say who someone up the block? She don’t know nothing so why are you gonna have my woman come up in there and say we need to be doing this. Fuck outta here. You need to be making sandwiches and kool-aid that’s what you need to be doing, going to make it with extra sugar in it. None of that my woman is running our business. We don’t fuck around like that B. We gonna get some professional motherfuckers that know what they are doing and we ain’t gotta fuck them to get answers. A nigga like Pete Rock all he had to do was one thing to shut me the fuck up listen to your own records. Listen to your own records. I recently had a problem with my management. I had to relinquish my management cuz my joint was coming out September 19th and he’s acting like a Pete Rock nigga. I said yo all you gotta do is listen to “Straighten It Out” where I said ‘Let the management work for me because I don’t need the unnecessary hostility.’ That means you ain’t listening either. I’m telling you what I don’t want. If I’m telling you I don’t want no problem with you but you’re still fucking with me then you’re not listening and you’re not focused. So what do you want me to do if I’m striving for perfection? It’s only right that I move on and get with people that want to work with me. It’s different when you gotta dude who’s forced to work with rather than wants to work with you. The music sounds different. The approach and creativity is different. The things that you lack they fill in with their motivation and enthusiasm and when you don’t that…

I used to come into a session and he don’t want me in the session when he’s laying it down. He wants to leave first have me lay it down and then he come back. What? Who the fuck do you think you are? You really think that this is gonna work? Come on man that’s why your woman doesn’t need to be running shit cuz she thinks that shit will work. She wants you to be a fucking model what is that? She telling you you’re pretty and you’re the ugliest motherfucker I ever seen! Your ass needs to be behind the track board instead of taking pictures of your ugly ass. That’s why every record got his big ass face in front of the joint. You think that’s gonna sell, nigga are you crazy? You’re better off painting your face and letting it sell. You ain’t hiding nothing from me I know what it is. When you figure people out they hate that shit. I could figure it out in five minutes I don’t need to take five weeks or eight sessions. I can figure it out in five minutes if I want to hang with you. That’s why I got a little tiny circle so there is no room for mistakes. You go within this circle and fuck around you look isolated and you feel funny because you’re in this circle fucking up. You thought you could come in here without getting your ass bit. That’s what happened. You still want to play games like I’m the mighty Pete Rock well then feed your fucking family.

Halftime: It sounds like until you feel he comes off his ego this is never gonna happen.

CL: What are you gonna wait until a nigga is 48 years old?

Halftime: This is over.

CL: What are you gonna do? I am gonna be in the movies. I’m trying to be Denzel. You’re not gonna get a 40 year old CL coming back five years later with a Pete Rock. Pete Rock already got gray hair from his bullshit. The least he could do is make my beats and shut the fuck up.

Halftime: Haha

CL: That’s the least he could do. A nigga want to be heard well play them fucking tracks. That’s all you have to do. I don’t have to talk to you or none of that shit just two or three hours sitting in the studio doing my shit. It ain’t no we gotta sit down and talk? Talk about what? Talk about that next record and if you ain’t talking about that next record then Arsonist will, Kay Gee will, Mike Lowe will and the Italian nigga who can’t speak no English will.

Halftime: Speaking of the new situation how did you link up with Shaman Works?

CL: Shaman Works was like a joint venture. It’s not even like I’m an artist on there. I’m taking home the lion’s share of the profit and I get to keep my masters and my publishing. It’s just a deal I felt I couldn’t refuse. It allowed me to get right into the studio and work, have the creative freedom to do what I want to do and finally create a solo album. It just worked out. The independence and freedom of it allowed me to see the intricacies of how you run your business. You don’t take for granted that you have this big machine of a major label creating this net for you that really ain’t there. Independently it gives you an opportunity to see that you can build your own net. You don’t have to create a false image that there is a net behind this machine when you fall and crack your head open. You create your own net so if you fall you know your net is there waiting to catch you. It gave me the opportunity to really know my business, appreciate from the bottom up the creativity, the business, the marketing and promotion and make the best possible project. I know that the more successful I am the more these major labels are gonna want to interrupt everything and get a piece of that. Ultimately, as long as the music is not suffering it doesn’t matter if I’m on Timbuktu Records I’m gonna eat.

Halftime: I read one of your interviews and you said you were a mainstream artist and that you don’t fit in the underground. Did you look at some of the major labels and see what they were offering or did you already develop the area you wanted to be in?

CL: Nah, what I said was I’m gonna do numbers first and let the numbers speak. I can always come up into the office with all of the great records and wait weeks at a time to hear we’re gonna have this big meeting and you have 15 minutes to display this whole project and what it’s about. Realistically, as men we know numbers speak higher than pitching an idea or hearing the potentials of an idea. When you see the numbers and you have nothing to do with that then you are gonna try harder to get yourself into that meeting. I’d rather do the numbers than say ok I didn’t know on the independent level we were gonna make this big album so let’s go to a major. Nah, let’s do some numbers and the majors will court us. Right now we gotta do numbers and find out how we can get this black hawk shit off the ground with Shaman Works.

Halftime: I don’t know how deep you want to get into it but ten years is a long time to not be making money off of rap so what was going on at that time that you were doing to maintain?

CL: I was just creating my life beyond the music. When the music stops what are you, who are you and what are you about? What I was doing was creating that. With my finances I like to live a certain lifestyle. So in order for me to live a certain lifestyle I have to find out how can I maintain this lifestyle and at the same time if I decide to come back to music can I come back and not affect my way of living. I had to go to other avenues like real estate and dumping my money. Instead of buying 3 or 4 cars, buy 1 car, buy a house, rent it out and do what you gotta do. Get with your woman and she’s buying houses and renting them out. You partner with her and do what you gotta do to make it happen. You got friends over here and they got an office and you’re helping them do the books, put in your wages and bet against the gamblers and then you got another income. Then you take your loans and take money from that and loan people money and you take a percentage every week like a loan shark. That’s how you survive. That was my hustle. It seasoned my hustle. Everything I’m doing is a legitimate hustle other than bookmaking or some crazy shit like that. My Italian homie really motivated me knowing that we the hustlers. [He’d say] we got that hustle game down pat man. We can do this without hurting ourselves and we had all the help from the elder statesman. All the Italians would help us and help our store. Originally we weren’t allowed to do that but we got the help of the boss and we did our thing. It was a blessing man to go and invest your money. You know what it taught me, how to respect a dollar.

Me and my homie used to put all of our change together and buy a nickel bag. Now to see where we’re at now and to see him where he’s at. I mean he used to live in his mother’s garage living out of Poland Spring bottles. This was a dude who easily had $300,000 or 400,000 thousand in cash so we both fell down. The whole point is how you get back up. Once we got back up and started rolling I’m telling you I didn’t miss a beat and that’s what gave me the opportunity to run into Pete Rock and for Pete Rock to say yo we need to do it for the people. So when you’re talking like that I’m figuring ok maybe we can do it. We went through the whole gamut of me and my homie owning a car wash and all that shit. All of that groundwork to get to this point. I felt myself heading for the wrong path, heading for a doom. You gotta be able to fight that temptation cuz when you’re on your way down you know you’re being kicked, spit on and stomped cuz not everybody likes you the way you think they do. They might envy you so you’re gonna get kicked. [People are like] I see you sitting in the car wash all day and you’re helping the workers you shouldn’t be doing that. What should I be doing then? I can do this in Attica. I see niggas getting ten cent a day doing license plates and you’re worried about me making sure this nigga’s rims is shiny? You’re crazy this is my joint. This is me and my white boy’s joint and this is how we roll until we find a better way. I remember sitting there in the car wash and the white boy is so upset. I came to him like what’s wrong? He was like I’m so upset man cuz this nigga Pete Rock is on the radio talking shit about you. He’s talking about how he don’t need you and that you’ll never be back and that ya’ll are never getting back together again and how you keep calling him. I said what? He said yea and the reason why I’m upset is because I watch him call here. I watch him page you and call here and tell you to do something on his album and then he get on the radio and do that dumb shit. I said yea that’s how it is but we’ll have our time. All of that was lessons and look where I’m at now and look where he’s at. He’s got his own garage, a big house, 2 or three cars, a new baby and he just bought a condo by the water. He’s doing his thing. I’m like come on man this is dudes who worked from nothing. So here’s Pete Rock I was successful with him, here’s Nicky Dawgs I’m successful with him and now here’s Shaman Works and I’m gonna be successful with them. Even with my woman and I’m successful with her so me and every one of my partners were successful. So how are you coming to me like you’re doing me a favor? I’m fixing the paneling on your house buddy. That’s my whole thing so if we’re not getting any credit over here then we’re gonna take it. Sometimes power is not given it’s taken. Sometimes you have to crawl before you walk and we suffered to get to this. So Pete Rock and the public should give us a lot more respect. The industry should give us more respect and we’re not asking for it we’re demanding it because we earned it.

Halftime: Last question what are some of your favorite moments in hip hop?

CL: Aww man I think my favorite thing was us going on Arsenio Hall. That was one and another one was really just being able to travel the world. When you can get to travel the world and have fans and be an artist people really like and respect was a great stepping stone to really build on. I’m always embarrassed when things don’t go right and you’re misunderstood when the people you think know you don’t really know you. When you have to defend yourself it doesn’t really make sense. This is a game of ups and downs and pain and glory. To be successful people have to sacrifice and people have to suffer. My family has suffered because I haven’t been able to be that father that I needed to be. I wasn’t there because I was too busy chasing the goals and the aspirations. So my whole thing is I want to make something out of all of these adventures and ups and downs. I want to be able to make something for my kids. They’re getting big and I have to create that whole image of this is what you should do and these are the mistakes I made and this is what you don’t have to do. All you have to do is maintain and focus on the goals that you need and everything will be ok. Even to this day little CL says Uncle Pete. I can’t tell him that ain’t your fucking uncle but he loves him. I don’t take that love away. I’m disappointed but he don’t have to be. All you had to do was think about him and do the right thing but that motivation wasn’t good enough. That’s where I’m at with the music right now. I’m totally happy. I do some interviews and they make me recognize what my mistakes are but I’m able to talk about it like therapy. I’m able to get the expression out and not make those mistakes again. I feel like everything I talk about deserves to be painted.

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Posted by Jbutters on Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 and is filed under HIP HOP ICON SERIES.